Nokia opens China Mainland’s first flagship store in Shanghai

Nokia announced the grand opening of the first Nokia Flagship Store in Mainland China, the only stand-alone Nokia Flagship Store and the largest in the world.

Symbian OS with SMP Technology

Future versions of the Symbian OS will support ARM’s symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) technology, which will make the system compatible with handsets using multi-core processors.

Such CPUs will use one core in standby mode or for executing simple asks, and both cores for more resource-intensive applications.

The first SMP-enabled smartphones will appear in 2010 or later.

Unlimited Music Download Service from Vodafone

Vodafone and Omnifone plan to launch a new music service in November, called MusicStation, which will allow customers to download any number of songs they want for just $4.02 weekly.

Howto: choose a smartphone

Smartphones are becoming more and more popular from day to day. They have already surpassed the sales of pocket PCs. Apparently, the smartphones will almost completely displace the conventional cellular phones in the near future. Perhaps – it’s rather likely that conventional cellular phones, in a broad manner, will be completely withdrawn from production as the junk. In order to keep up with the progress, it’s high time for us to give thought to choosing the Smartphone.

GSM 20th Anniversary

September 7th 1987 was the day when GMS network was born.

Wirefly Offers Cash for Used Handsets

Wirefly in a partnership with Flipswap has recently launched a cell phone recycling program.

Palm Treo 650 – $59.00

Motorola KRZR – $73.00

LG Chocolate – $75.00

AAA Battery Powered Cell Phone

How do you like that? The battery-looking device you see on the picture is actually a cell phone using AAA batteries, the first of its kind. The device is very low-tech, lacking even a screen, but in order to get it to work you’ll just need a rechargeable AAA battery. Expected battery life is up to 250h of standby or 5 hours of talk time.

Nokia to use Microsoft Windows on phones

Leading mobile phone maker Nokia said Wednesday it would bring Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Live suite of Web services, like e-mail and instant messaging, to many of its cell phones.

 Read More on cnn.com

New Music Service from Verizon

Verizon Wireless in a partnership with Rhapsody America (MTV’s and RealNetworks’ joint venture) came up with a new digital music service allowing V CAST users to have access to Rhapsody content, including album art, music, ringtone and videos, available directly from the mobile phone. Additionally, Verizon plans to release a bunch of 8GB and 16GB phone models in the coming months.

Pricing details and the official launch date haven’t been announced yet.

 [Digg]

Nokia 6555

Nokia today announced a new 3G handset Nokia 6555. The phone features the original smooth-back fold design, has the analog clock and gives great possibilities for users.

Nokia 6555 specification

 

Facebook and iPhone

After the iPhone’s release many websites were redesigned to become iPhone accessible.

Now Facebook is one of them. Just log on to the site via the iPhone’s Safari browser and you’ll see that most of the important features are fully available.

Although some of them, such as the ability to join groups, are lacking, but that’s a minor problem, you can be sure that the site works just fine.

 

USA TODAY

 

Verizon Wireless customers can now enjoy the renewed USA TODAY Mobile service thanks to the latest improvements in the Mobile Web 2.0. that give it a new look and feel.

The information available on USA TODAY

Kyocera or Sharp to buy Sanyo

According to reports, Sanyo is currently in negotiations with other phone manufacturers to sell its unprofitable handset business. The most likely buyers for now are Sharp and Kyocera.

Previously, Sanyo already tried to create a joint venture with Nokia’s CDMA division, but it didn’t work out because of financial losses.

Victoria and Veronica from Sony Ericsson

According to a reliable source, Sony Ericsson plans to make an announcement on August 14th.

 

The company will introduce two new handsets, one clamshell and one slider, both equipped with a cyber-shot camera. They will most likely be codenamed Victoria and Veronica. Sony Ericsson Victoria looks similar to T650. It measures 14mm thick and will be available in 5 colors. No info on the second phone. Some additional accessories will probably also be announced.

Anyway, let’s just wait a bit and see.

iPhone eBook Reader

As many of you have already noticed, iPhone doesn’t have an eBook reader, which is quite necessary and usefull for some people. To make things right, a third party group of programmers have released an unauthorized iPhone application for reading eBooks.

It supports text and HTML files stored in your Media / EBooks folder, and can enter subdirectories. More advanced versions are still to follow.

The application can be downloaded from here. But remember, this is an unofficial application, so use it on your own risk.

Verizon Buys Ramcell

Verizon Wireless has expanded its coverage area by purchasing Ramcell, a regional cellular operator providing coverage in Kentucky and Oregon. The company plans to upgrade Ramcell’s TDMA network to CDMA with EVDO Rev. A. Same goes to Ramcell’s CDMA network in Oregon.

Both upgrades are scheduled to be completed by the middle of 2008.

Nokia Expands Chip Manufacturers Base

Nokia is in the middle of internal reorganization process and plans to expand its chip supplier base in order to have a wider choice of producers and to refocus on other important issues.

The company will license STMicro to design and build 3G chips for its handsets. In addition, GSM, EDGE and WCDMA chips will be provided by manufacturers, such as Broadcom, Infineon and Texas Instruments.

T-Mobile UK Accepts Used Mobile Phones Offering Cash in Return

There are approximately 52 million unused mobile handsets in the UK. So T-Mobile UK decided to recycle a part of them, offering cash to their owners in return. Both working and non-working handsets are accepted.

Some of the phones could be worth as much as $160.00, and the owner can choose whether to keep the money for himself of to leave it for charity.

Nokia Basketball Fans Service

Nokia in association with International Basketball Federation (FIBA) is working on a new mobile service will allow basketball fans to access the latest news, scores and interviews on the go. The service will be accessible on any internet-enabled handset. The FIBA mobile content will also be available through the Nokia Video Center on the Nokia N95 .

In addition, Nokia plans to provide reporters with its N93i multimedia computers to record high quality video and capture photo, and upload it on the FIBA mobile websites.

Motorola MOTOMAGX! Linux Platform!

Motorola has developed a new open-source Mobile Linux platform, called MOTOMAGX. This new-gen platform offers more possibilities for the developers and supports 3rd party applications, including those created in J2ME, and later editions, native Linux apps. The first phones to use MOTOMAGX will be yet unavailable MOTOROKR Z6 and the RAZR2 V8.

The company has already sold over 9 million handsets based on Linux OS, and plans to expand its range of Linux-based mobile phones to 60% in the following years.

If you’re a developer, go to http://www.motorola.com/developer to get your hands on the MOTODEV Studio for Java ME. Later, in the end of the year you will also get Linux and WebUI plugins for the application.

Motorola MOTOMAGX