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Sling Media officially confirmed it would soon launch a software client for the 82 million smartphones running the Symbian operating system (OS) today. The company revealed the news at the Symbian Smartphone Show taking place in London, England this week.

With SlingPlayer Mobile installed on the their S60 (usually Nokia) or UIQ (usually Sony Ericsson) handset, those with a Slingbox device attached to their television will be able view 'placeshifted' cable, satellite, or digital video recorder (DVR) content remotedly anywhere in the world through a wireless broadband - 3G cellular or Wi-Fi - Internet connection on their smartphone. In the case of a DVR, for example, users can not only watch recorded shows, but pause and rewind live TV or queue new recordings from their smartphone as well.

Sling Media intends to release the Sling Mobile for Symbian OS client in select European and Asian countries during the fourth quarter first, before making it available in the U.S. soon afterwards. This makes sense: Although the Symbian OS is the most used smartphone platform by far, accounting for about 71 percent of worldwide smartphone shipments in the second quarter, according to Gartner, it is much more popular outside this country.

This may changes soon, according to Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford at a press conference today. He said the U.S. market could be at the tipping point regarding Symbian adoption. At CTIA last spring, Clifford said he went through the platforms astounding growth outside of the U.S. with American carrier executives: "There was a mood of, 'Are we missing something here?' There was some real interest," he said, according to PC Magazine . "I think we're now beginning to see major players major decision makers, looking very seriously at this."

Notably, Cingular Wireless, the U.S. market's largest wireless carrier recently released the Nokia E62, a S60 Symbian OS communicator with a QWERTY thumb-keyboard, to some acclaim.

Mobile SlingPlayer clients are already available for Windows Mobile Smartphones and Pocket PCs. Rumor has it a version is in the works for the Palm OS. A sticker on the packaging of one of three new Slingboxes recently introduced—the Slingbox PRO ($250), Slingbox AV ($180), and Slingbox Tuner ($180)—actually covers a Palm platform logo. Ultimately, Sling Media has said in the past it would like to develop wireless clients for RIM's BlackBerry devices, in addition to BREW and J2ME-based cell phones.