nokia

Mobile carriers' message: In SMS spam, users pay

My father's Motorola E815 from Verizon is suffering chronic SMS, or text message, spam. At first, the unwanted messages trickled in--religious messages with pictures of saints one time, pharmaceutical marketing another. Then the spam rate escalated. After one spammy text message yesterday and two this morning, Dad decided he wanted out.

"Out" in his case, and in the case of most North American mobile phone users, is as much about the phone bill as it is receiving unwanted texts. Service providers like Verizon and T-Mobile charge for inbound and outbound SMS activity, either per message, generally 10 cents to 15 cents per outgoing text message, or as part of a larger service, usually between $5 and $10 more per month depending on the plan. Data downloads cost extra too, so spam texts with image attachments ratchet up the bill. "This was becoming an expensive habit," says Dad.

The kicker, of course, is that it's not his habit.… Read more

Nokia buys media-sharing site Twango

Media-sharing site Twango updated its Web site on Monday to announce that it's been chomped up by cell phone manufacturer Nokia. With its cool new toy, Nokia hopes to make it easier for handset owners to share multimedia content among desktop, Web, and mobile platforms.

"The Twango acquisition is a concrete step towards our consumer Internet services vision of providing seamless access to information, entertainment, and social networks--at any time, anywhere, from any connected device, in any way that you choose," said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive vice president and general manager of multimedia at Nokia, in … Read more

Beware: Jealous Computers

Beware of JEALOUS COMPUTERS! Apparently they have started to attack (particularly N95 owners)... here you see a few poor victims of a laptop bite and a keyboard to the face. Not pretty. Well Nokia has really gone all out on this viral N95 site... I just wrote up a big piece on this over at NOTCOT, and it was too hilarious, bizarre, and nicely designed not to share with you CNET readers too. Basically they have created a whole series of PSAs, posters, tshirts, and even a mug (well, half mug, and well they have a cool pic, but it … Read more

What could you make from an iPhone?

Since the iPhone's June 29 launch, we've seen several teardown reports--some from professionals, some demonstrating more enthusiasm than skill, and some that are just awful (but funny).

What's inside? Well, you can read the details in reports from various analyst firms, but it breaks down like this:

A microprocessor A 3D graphics controller DRAM Flash memory An LCD A touch sensor A cell phone module Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controllers An audio chip A microphone and a speaker An accelerometer A camera module A SIM card Assorted other interfaces, connectors and buttons A lithium-ion battery Power-supply circuitry

All … Read more

Sneak Peaks: Nokia's Phone Widgets, FreeWebs' New page builder

At the WidgetCon conference in New York today, Nokia marketing executive Craig Cumberland privately showed us some not-yet-released widgets for Series 60 mobile phones.

Nokia announced in April that this phone was "widget-ready," and this fall the company plans to release fully functional widgets that will reside directly on the phone. With a little work, you can get widgets for your phone today, but you need the for-pay version of the Opera browser. You can also get some applications that are lighter versions of widgets, without all the functionality, at Widsets.

The widgets that Nokia promises are true … Read more

Nokia fights touch screens with geometry

So here's the deal: If there's going to be any meaningful backlash against touch screens, it may require some innovative thinking on the part of button proponents. But we hope that it won't depend on the likes of Vertu and their $310,000 phones.

Nokia, at least, appears to be doing its part with a new design for the "7500 Prism" handset destined for the Chinese market for about $290, according to Gizmodiva. Its contribution to the cause? Triangular buttons that form a diamond pattern on the keypad.

We were just relieved to find that … Read more

What's the mobile video hold up?

BOSTON--Device and network technology is not holding back mobile video, it's the money makers who can't agree on what to do with it.

At least that was the consensus among several mobile video leaders, including Nokia and MobiTV, at Red Herring East's Wednesday panel on mobile video.

"From a network and device perspective we are ready," said Ray Derenzo, vice president of business development for MobiTV, one of the leading mobile video distributors.

Proprietary nuisances, on the other hand, are an issue.

"It's all about the open platform," said Nokia research director … Read more

Making open source work at Nokia: forget the middle man(agement)

Mikko Puhakka (Open Tuesday) sent me a painfully funny link to Ari Jaaksi's blog posting about the process of open source adoption at Nokia.

Ari's basic premise? You can count on executives or developers to get the open source religion and push for adoption...but don't expect middle management (Ari is a middle manager at Nokia) to push for the change:… Read more

Nokia announces U.S. availability of Nokia E61i and Nokia E65

Back in February at the 3GSM World Congress, Nokia introduced three new models to its E series of business-centric smart phones: the Nokia E65, the Nokia E61i, and the Nokia E90. We oohed and we ahhed, and went through our usual pangs of defeat as we resigned ourselves to fact that we probably wouldn't see these devices in the United States. Well, lift up your heads and break those piggy banks, my friends, because today the Finnish cell phone manufacturer announced the U.S. availability of the Nokia E65 and Nokia E61i (the E90 is expected to ship in … Read more