Telecom Italia (NYSE: TI) has joined the race to become the first operator in Europe to sell LTE data services. In a recent test run performed in Turin, 14 LTE enabled cell towers built by Huawei were setup around town and the results were downright amazing. Each device connected to the network was able to get 140 megabits/second (17.5 megabytes/second) and handle 3 simultaneous voice/data connections. Telecom Italia didn’t say when they plan on launching their commercial LTE network, but they’re going to be competing with TeliaSonera who is attempting to make Sweden the first country in the world with LTE service.

[Via: Press Release]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Real world LTE tests done in Austria with 20 cell towers: 4.4 megabytes/sec down, 21 ms ping
• Telecom Italia to drive advanced mobile market growth with S60
• Telecom Italia to get 28 Mbps mobile broadband powered by Ericsson
• Telecom Italia launches 28Mbps mobile broadband service in Milan
• Verizon: LTE trials start in Seattle and Boston this year, full deployment complete in 2013, offer 8-12 Mbps

Well said. Very well said.

[Via: oneplusinfinity]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Apple Will NOT Sell iPhone Tech To Competitors
• LiMo Foundation and LiPS Forum combine to battle open-source competitors
• Nokia to its competitors in India: Bring it, you have no chance
• O2’s Bubbles can be used by competitors to compare them, Euro court rules
• Nokia’s message to the Apple iPhone: Eat me

Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Northeast Securities, is now the butt of all my “people who work in this industry who have no clue what they’re talking about” jokes. This time last month he told The Street that Google will be releasing their own Android device, only to be burned a few days later by the head of Android Porject, Andy Rubin, who said “we’re not making hardware, we’re enabling others to build hardware”. Kumar now has new information, and I’m being a total idiot for linking to it, but here it goes:

• Google (NSDQ: GOOG) will be releasing a Google branded handset that has unlimited free calls powered by Google Voice and the recent Gizmo5 acquisition
• This handset will have a “large touchscreen display” and will have a processor “nearly twice as fast as the iPhone 3GS”
• It will “probably” run a new version of Android called Flan
• The device will “probably” be built by HTC and have a Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) processor inside

At this point in time you may proceed to slap your forehead.

If Google ever released their own mobile device, which they’re not going to, they would be alienating handset makers.

If Google ever released their own mobile device with unlimited free calls, which they’re not going to, they would be alienating handset makers and operators.

Will there be a version of Android called Flan? Absolutely, Andy Rubin already talked about, and he confirmed it will support advanced 3D graphics.

Will there be an Android device, built by HTC, with a processor from Qualcomm that is nearly twice as fast as the iPhone 3GS? Yes. Just take the HTC HD2, which has a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor inside, compared to the 600 MHz processor inside the iPhone 3GS, slap the latest version of Android on it, and there is your mythical Google Phone.

What next Ashok Kumar? Are you going to tell people that the next version of Android, the one after Flan, will be called Gelato and it is going to power the new Google Phone? It’s going to be 4 times faster than the iPhone 3GS, has the ability to tell you where the nearest café serving a hot steaming cup of decaffeinated “shut the fuck up” is, and best of all adds the ability to purchase said cup of coffee with Google Checkout!

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Google’s Android 2.0 to support OMAP 3430? Motorola Sholes to be first OMAP 3430 Android device?
• Qualcomm throwing down with no less than 5 Android handsets
• Do not believe TechCrunch, there is no Google phone
• HKC Pearl steals name from RIM, look from HTC; Runs Android!
• Android in the wild: hacked and running on ARM-based devices, Sharp handhelds

Just last week we reported that Nokia will be cutting 330 jobs in Finland and Denmark, jobs in the company’s R&D department. Today Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has announced that they’re letting go of 220 more R&D employees, this time in Japan:

Nokia reduces R&D operations in Japan

Tokyo, Japan – As part of its global efforts to align its research and development (R&D) operations to be in line with its focused portfolio of future products, Nokia will be reducing its R&D activities in Japan. As previously announced last week, Nokia plans to reduce some of its R&D activities in Finland and Denmark.

Today’s announcement will impact approximately 220 employees in Japan. The total number would represent slightly more than 1% of Nokia’s R&D personnel globally.

Nokia will continue its significant sourcing activities in Japan. Japanese manufacturers are important partners who play a critical role in Nokia’s global supply-chain strategy and with whom Nokia continues to develop its world-class logistics operations.

The Japanese operation of Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia’s network infrastructure business, is not affected by this announcement and continues uninterrupted.

Vertu, Nokia’s exclusive line of handcrafted mobile phones for the luxury market, will also continue operations in Japan unaffected by today’s announcement.

That’s 550 research and development people gone in one week. What the hell is going on?! Oh yea, that’s right, Nokia reported their first loss in a decade last quarter.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Nokia to cut 2% of their R&D staff, that’s 330 people
• Nokia feels the pain of market slowdown, hands out 600 pink slips
• Happy birthday to Nokia Research Center
• Nokia looking to blitz Japan with its own wireless cell network
• Teenagers are putting Sony Ericsson and Samsung ahead of Nokia

Denmark. Beautiful country, filled with beautiful people, and one of the leaders in green thinking. Like many countries in Europe, Denmark’s public toilets are not free. This explains why no one goes out for a nice walk on Sunday morning, those are not rain puddles if you catch my drift. The capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, is looking to make paying to pee a bit easier by enabling SMS payments on several toilets in Gråbrødre Torv, Hans Knudsens Plads and Borgergade. This luxury will not cost you anything extra. The fee is still 2 Danish Krone ($0.40), plus whatever it is you pay your operator to send an SMS. UNWIRE and Låsepartner City are the two companies responsible for deploying these new fangled pieces of technology, and they’re going to collect some data over the next 6 months to decide whether or not they should deploy more text to piss public toilets. I’m a little ashamed of you Denmark. Urine has been proven to be a fantastic fertilizer. Why not simply put trees next to taxi queues, liquor stores, and night clubs?

[Via: Textually and The Copenhagen Post]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Finns can now open public toilets with SMS
• AT&T hooks up Riverside, CA with free municipal wifi
• MizPee helps you find a clean toilet in the city
• Austrian city bans mobile phones on public transport
• Motorola and Nokia to work together on Mobile TV

Finland has just finished their auction for the 2600 MHz frequency spectrum that will be used in deploying future high speed LTE networks. Earlier this year Finland held an auction for the 1800 MHz frequency band to be used for LTE, since a lower frequency would do a better job at penetrating walls and give longer range. This move was viewed as strange, and elicited the same kind of WTF reactions people made when T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) announced that their 3G would be built on the 1700 MHz band.

Anyway, back to 2600 MHz, there were four winners. Three won the FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) spectrum, with all getting 50 MHz chunks, except DNA who got only 40 MHz. Elisa, my operator, also known as the operator with the most 3G coverage, paid 834,700 EUR. TeliaSonera, who is the equivalent of AT&T in Finland, and by that I mean they’re the only people who offer the iPhone in the country and they rape you with their monthly fees, paid 810,200. DNA, who is known as the new kid on the block, I literally know no one who uses them, paid 675,700 EUR. Pirkanmaan Verkko won 50 MHz of TDD (Time Division Duplex) spectrum for 1.47 million EUR.

Total purchase price: surprisingly only 3.8 million EUR (5.7 million USD)! The same frequency auction in Norway brought in 25 million EUR, and in Sweden they made 230 million EUR. Is this Finland’s way of making sure that they are the first to get LTE up and running, and are charging practically nothing so that operators have enough money left over to buy networking equipment? I certainly hope so.

[Via: Cellular News, Rethink Wireless]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Indonesia and Chile to auction 3G licenses in the next few months
• AT&T: 4G LTE network in 2012
• UK: Ofcom announces it’s plan to release spectrum (via auction) for Mobile TV
• FCC releases details, rules for upcoming 700Mhz frequency spectrum auction – $10 billion reserve price
• FCC Approves Auction of 700Mhz Wireless Spectrum

Along with the Nokia 6700 Slide that was announced today, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) also unveiled the 7230. This 100 EUR ($150) dumb phone has a 2.4 inch screen with 240 x 320 pixels of resolution and 262,000 colours, a 3.2 megapixel camera, 860 mAh battery, quadband GSM/EDGE, and triband WCDMA. There will be a WCDMA 850/1900/2100 MHz version for North America, and a WCDMA 900/1900/2100 MHz version for the rest of the world. You also get a 3.5 mm headphone jack, perfect for listening to your music on the go. Other than that … nothing else is really exciting about this device. Expect it to hit the market in the first quarter of 2010.

[Via: Press Release]

One more photo after the jump.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Nokia 6700 Slide: Aluminum, 5 megapixel camera, looks like a Microsoft Zune, Symbian, $240
• HTC gives Sprint HTC Touch Pro2 a proper 3.5mm headphone jack
• Brief: Nokia 5610 approved by the FCC
• AT&T: Nokia 6350: HSDPA, S40, GPS, pretty handsome
• CTIA: Plantronics Expands Bluetooth Lineup With Pulsar 260

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has just announced the 6700 Slide, a Symbian powered smartphone coming to market in the first quarter of 2010 for 160 EUR ($240) before taxes and subsidies. For that amount of money you get a 5 megapixel camera, 2.2 inch screen with 240 x 320 pixels of resolution, 860 mAh (tiny!) battery, quadband GSM/EDGE support, and triband WCDMA (3.5G) support. There will be a WCDMA 900/1900/2100 MHz version, presumably for Europe, and a 850/1900/2100 MHz version, perfect for the USA. There is no GPS, nor is there WiFi. Let me repeat that: no GPS, no WiFi. It’s only 110 grams, 15.9 mm thick, 95.2 mm long (in the closed position), and 46 mm wide. It has support for FM radio, 16 GB microSD cards, Bluetooth 2.1, and microUSB (unspecified whether or not this can be used to charge the device). There is no 3.5 mm headphone jack so forget about using this thing to replace your MP3 player.

And speaking about MP3 players, let’s be honest, doesn’t this thing look like a Microsoft Zune?

[Via: Press Release]

One more photo after the jump.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Nokia 7230: $150, 3G, 3.2 megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headphone jack
• Four Low-End Samsung Phones Revealed
• Samsung announces i550 with 3.2 megapixel camera – takes cues from Sony Ericsson
• Nokia launches the 1280, 1616, 1800, 2200 Slide, and 2690: Prices range from $30 to $80
• AT&T: Nokia 6350: HSDPA, S40, GPS, pretty handsome

Taptu has grown up quite a lot since I last played with their service. In my September 2007 review I said:

“If you’re adapt at Google (NSDQ: GOOG) (NSDQ: GOOG) than Taptu may or may not be useful to you. Simply adding words such as “wiki” or “lyrics” after a search query usually makes Google get an idea of what it is you’re trying to find.”

With the release of their Android application today, things are looking mighty different from the original, almost laughable, user interface. They’ve put a filter on web results so you only see content optimized for mobile devices. Whether or not that is a good thing is debatable. Would you prefer more search results or fewer search results optimized for your screen? They’ve also integrated the “OneRiot” service which aggregates what people are talking about at this very second on Twitter, Digg, and other social networking sites, and present those terms to you as queries you may want to plug into the Taptu service. Chances are you open a search application to find an answer to a question in your mind, not to see what the world is talking about. Then again, there may be a few of you out there who are concerned with appearing to be “in the loop” as Malcolm Tucker from “The Thick of It” would say. If you’re one of those people, then Taptu rocks.

Look, is it smart for a company like Taptu to compete with Google? Yes and No. Yes, it’s nice to see something different than the usual list of 10 links Google’s mobile optimized search engine provides. No, it’s stupid to pour resources into what is nothing more than a fancy front end, which Google can copy, to a search engine that crawls a very small subset of the internet.

Give the Taptu application a go on your Android device and let me know in the comments what you think about it.

They’ve also got an iPhone application.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Videos: Robert Scoble interviews and demos Taptu, a mobile search engine
• Taptu: Mobile search that might not actually suck
• Nokia looking to get into mobile search, meets with UK company Taptu
• Google Product Search brings barcode scanning to Android!
• Google Custom Search goes mobile

Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) is trying hard, really hard, to rid themselves of the reputation they have as a patent whore. When they reached an agreement with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) at the start of this year, and then patched things up with Samsung earlier this month to the tune of $1.3 billion, people began to notice that the tides are turning. This is a new Qualcomm. Well today their image just got a little bit shinier after the EU decided to drop a 4 year old investigation that started after Nokia, Broadcom (NSDQ: BRCM), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), Ericsson, and two other parties filed a complaint to the EU because of Qualcomm’s patent rates.

“All complainants have now withdrawn or indicated their intention to withdraw their complaints,” said the European Commission in a statement today. “In view of this, the commission doesn’t consider it appropriate to invest further resources in this case.”

The patents in question are mainly related to 3G standards. Getting these feuds over with help accelerate the deployment of 3G and 3.5G networks and help establish the relationships that will prove necessary once everyone sits down at the round table and start discussing 4G technology. In a recent report released by ABI Research, they say that Qualcomm owns roughly 1 in 4 patents relating to LTE technology. When those new high speed networks start going up at the end of next year, and en masse in 2011/2012, Qualcomm is going to see a lot of money.

[Via: Bloomberg]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Nokia makes peace with Qualcomm with a new agreement
• Dutch court dismisses Nokia patent case against Qualcomm
• Nokia: ITC starts Qualcomm investigation
• Qualcomm accuses Nokia of GSM patent infringement – U.S. International Trade Commission opens investigation
• Nokia files Patent Exhaustion Case against Qualcomm in Europe

Wondering whether you should pick up the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N97 Mini or the regular N97? Matthew Miller from Nokia Experts made a ~ 9 minute video demoing and comparing both devices; a must watch if you’re considering purchasing either of these puppies. The N97 Mini has a 3.2 inch screen versus the old brother who has a 3.5 inch screen. The camera lens on the Mini is not protected, the lens on the regular N97 is. The Mini has 1/4 the built in storage the N97 has. The N97 is made out of plastic, the Mini is made out of metal. All of these criteria, and more, should be taken into account before you drop a serious amount of money just to have the latest toys from Nokia. The Mini is only 50 pounds cheaper than the regular N97 on Expansys, so this isn’t going to be an easy choice to make.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Preview: Nokia N97 Mini: Like the N97, but with a smaller screen, less storage, and less d-pad
• Nokia goes live with the North American Nokia N95 8GB
• More Nokia N97 Mini photos leak; see junior next to his father too
• Nokia sells mobile phone charms too
• Nokia E71 – day 1: Loving it!

While the United States is still struggling to roll out 3G, Japan’s number one mobile operator NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) has said that they’re accelerating their plans to turn off their 2G network. What was supposed to take place during December 2012 has now been pushed forward to March 2011. For those of you counting, that’s only 16 months away. Japan’s third largest operator, Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF), is even more ambitious and plans on terminating their 2G network in 4 months. With Japanese consumers using 3G handsets exclusively, and the entire country of Japan being a little smaller than the state of California, it’s no surprise to see the nation with the most advanced wireless networks on the planet is eager to move forward and abandon legacy networks. What’s funny about all of this is what NTT DoCoMo and Softbank are calling “legacy”, AT&T is calling “the best network” America has to offer.

Makes you stop and think.

[Via: Communities Dominate Brands]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Apple looking to launch 3G iPhone in Korea and Japan
• Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo confirmed to be negotiating with Apple for iPhone
• iPhone 3GS 32GB is the no 1 best-selling handset in Japan for the month of July!
• NTT DoCoMo 3G FOMA subscribers exceed 40 million!
• Japan now has more than 100 million 3G subscribers

If you’re a network administrator then brace yourself for this video. What you’re about to see is the HTC HD2 running a modified version of the Remote Desktop application for Windows Mobile. This tweaked version takes advantage of the capacitive touch screen that the HD2 has to enable multi touch zooming. On the 4.3 inch, with 800 x 480 pixels of resolution, it looks absolutely stunning. Check out Will’s review of the Touch HD2 if you’re interested in more details about the device. It’s expected to launch in America during the first quarter of 2010.

For those of you unfamiliar with Remote Desktop, it allows you to take over another computer. On your display you see the screen of another machine, and whatever you type on your keyboard will be sent to that remote machine. As a former network administrator I can’t emphasize enough how important Remote Desktop is as a tool when troubleshooting computers and settings things up when deploying new machines.

[Via: Pocket Now]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• HTC Confirms Touch Pro2 Coming to Major Markets… via Twitter Updates
• Surf your Windows Phone with Remote Access
• Turn your HTC Touch Diamond or HTC Touch Pro into a wireless remote/mouse
• Apple looking to enable iPhone as iTunes wireless remote – iPhone as remote control for iTunes
• Apple gets real with iPhone “Remote” application

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Money, which was announced in August, and is expected to launch in Q1 2010, is being shown off in the video below by Waltteri Karhusari at the Nokia “Way We Live Next” conference in Finland. The UI is fairly basic, but that’s do to the demo being done on a fairly low end device. Nokia Money’s target audience is emerging economies after all. It’s safe to say that Visa’s stuff is much more impressive, but sadly their solutions are due to hit the market at an even later point in time. Mobile Payments will be the next killer application, much like GPS was the killer application for smartphones in 2007/2008, but the question on everyone’s mind is when will Mobile Payments take off? Juniper Research predicts that in 2012 there will be $30 billion worth of transactions taking place, while ABI Research predicts that by 2011, only 2 years from now, there will be 170 million people taking advantage of mobile payments.

[Via: Nokia Conversations]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Juniper Research: People WILL adopt mobile payments, it just takes time
• Juniper Research: NFC mobile payments to exceed $30 billion by 2012
• Juniper Research: Mobile coupons to increase by 30% during the next two years
• Juniper Research: Smartphones to account for 23% of all new mobile phones by 2013
• Juniper Research: 700 million users to have NFC-enabled phones within 5 years

Spotify, the Swedish music service that many in Western and Northern Europe have been enjoying for a little over a year now, has finally released a Symbian application! Complementing their iPhone and Android application, this new Symbian application makes the Spotify service available to over half the smartphones recently sold in Europe. I’d give you a video demo, but I’m not a Spotify Premium member. I’d like to be a Spotify Premium member, but their billing system doesn’t take my Finnish credit card, nor my American credit card for some strange reason.

To download the client, simply visit http://m.spotify.com in your mobile browser and it will automatically detect the device you’re using and begin downloading.

[Via: Spotify Blog]

The video below was recorded on September 7, 2009 and is of is of a preview version of the S60 client:

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Brief: Another Spotify iPhone application review hits the intertubes
• Video: Rhapsody on the iPhone, over 8 million tracks in your pocket
• HD Video: Spotify for the iPhone!
• Evernote for BlackBerry now available as a direct download
• Brief update: Spotify on 3 handsets – tariffs now known

MediaTek makes chips for various devices including DVD players and televisions, but they’re most known for their mobile phone chips that go into the millions of Chinese made handsets that never leave the country. The Nokla clones we make fun of all the time, those are made with MediaTek chips inside. Those dual SIM, triple SIM, and other insanely unique devices, again, they all use MediaTek. Sure they’re not the fastest chips around, nor the most power efficient, but their purpose is to serve the needs of the people who are not satisfied with what the top 5 mobile phone vendors are putting out.

How much longer until the number one mobile phone maker in China is a local Chinese player instead of Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is too difficult to really say, but it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier now that MediaTek has access to some of Qualcomm’s WCDMA, known by most folks as 3G, patents. MediaTek has yet to release any chips that support 3G, which can be either be blamed on the Chinese operators taking too long to get 3G off the ground, or the fact that building a 3G chipset isn’t the easiest of things to do. Either way, expect to see the clones out of China get even more interesting, and you may even see some fresh handset designs you wish were available in your country.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Brief: Motorola: All the devices we sell for less than $150 are not made by us
• Nokia makes peace with Qualcomm with a new agreement
• Nokia: ITC starts Qualcomm investigation
• Qualcomm Gets $20 Million Payment From Nokia – Patent Battle Continues
• MediaTek to ship over 100 million mobile phone chips in Q3, over 350 million in 2009

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) just issued a press release announcing a 2% reduction in research and development staff located in Oulu, Finland and Copenhagen, Denmark:

Nokia continues to streamline its R&D operations

Espoo, Finland — Nokia plans to align its research and development (R&D) operations in Finland and Denmark to be in line with the company’s focused portfolio of future products. The planned changes are expected to affect up to 230 employees at Nokia’s Oulu site in Finland and approximately 100 employees at Nokia’s Copenhagen site. The total number would represent approximately 2 % of Nokia’s R&D personnel globally.

Nokia aims to support the employees with alternative solutions, such as finding new positions within the company for as many employees as possible. Nokia will begin consultations with employee representatives about these plans where voluntary severance packages among other topics will be discussed.

Nokia maintains a strong R&D presence in both sites; the company has over 2 000 employees in Oulu and over 1 000 employees in Copenhagen. Overall, Nokia has more than 17 000 people employed in its research and development activities.

That’s pretty sad considering that now more than ever Nokia needs to innovate. Then again as a former employee I think the actual problem is not the amount of research being done, but the difficulty of getting said research to market. Finding someone to fund your idea, and then bring it up to higher management, all before the next yearly reorganization, is not an easy thing to do.

[Photo above is of the Toripolliisi (English: The Bobby at the Market Place) statue located in Oulu]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Brief: Nokia getting rid of 220 employees in Japan working on R&D, brings total to 550
• Nokia and Siemens to begin sharing their product portfolios in February
• Nokia staff in Tampere and Oulu stage a walk out
• Nokia feels the pain of market slowdown, hands out 600 pink slips
• Starting a new segment: Understanding Nokia thru Finnish Proverbs

This week in Paris at the Cartes exhibition, Visa was showing off what they’re working on for mobile payments. They demos a native iPhone application, along with a Visa application that is embedded on a SIM card. The most exciting stuff, NFC, is shown off on a shipping Nokia (NYSE: NOK) device. Payments under 20 EUR are just tap and go, useful when you’re in a crowded bar and don’t want to fiddle with credit cards or hard currency, while payments over 20 EUR require a tap, a PIN code, and then another tap to confirm. The sad thing about all of this is that we’re unlikely to see it for at least another year or two. That’s just enough time for Nokia to start rolling out Nokia Money to customers and operators around the world. Here is hoping that rumour of the next iPhone having NFC is true. I’m tired of having to sign little pieces of paper.

[Via: Recombu]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Video: 6.5 minute Nokia Money demonstration
• Visa Launches NFC Service in Malaysia
• T-Mobile Hiking up Charges for Paper Billing, Starting September 12th
• Mobilkom Austria develops NFC Mobile ticketing service
• Cellfire – The New Way To Do Coupons

I just finished watching Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s live webcast announcement of Google Chrome OS and besides being let down that we, as in general consumers, are not going to be able to play with it for a year, I was stunned to hear Google admit that they’re going to be creating reference hardware. Google will not only be building the software for Google Chrome OS, but they’ll be handpicking, and optimizing software for, the hardware that will be under that thin Chinese plastic case we call an exterior. This is big stuff.

Why would Google want to do such a thing?

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s Windows operating system runs on over 90% of the computers on the market today. It wasn’t easy getting 90% market share, they had to make sure Windows ran on every type of hardware configuration known to man. Most people who experience Windows crashes are not actually experiencing Microsoft Windows crashing, they’re experiencing faulty drivers written by 3rd parties crashing and in turn bringing down the whole operating system. Google is going to hand pick which configurations they’re going to support and then tell the people in China and Taiwan who build netbooks to use said specified components. Doing this will let Google worry less about driver support, and pour more resources into optimizing their software.

What about Google’s Android operating system?

It would not be a stretch to say that Google could start doing the same thing for Andoird. As versatile as Android is today, supporting multiple processors, screen resolutions, and input methods, what is to stop Google from saying something along the lines of “we’re going to optimize Android 3.0 for the Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) Snapdragon, so if you want to be first to market with an Android 3.0 device we advise you to call Qualcomm.”

I’ve been teasing Michael Arrington from TechCrunch, telling him he is totally wrong about Google making a Google Android phone. Well maybe he is partially right. Google isn’t exactly making a phone, but they could be telling OEMs that they’ll be optimizing Android to run on a tightly knitted set of specifications.

[Image above via Flickr user "sammyfung"]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• The Google Phone – GPhone as handset or mobile OS?
• Google Announces Chrome OS for Netbooks, Android Supposedly Still in the Picture
• Google’s Chrome browser coming to Google Android
• Qualcomm throwing down with no less than 5 Android handsets
• Google Sued over Android Name

Bill Perry, Senior Services Marketing Manager for Forum Nokia (NYSE: NOK), posted some statistics from the Ovi Store which has now been open for 5 months. The Ovi Store is available on over 100 devices, with users from over 180 different countries, and developers from 65 countries. There are 8 countries that have an Ovi Store in their native language and support operator billing: UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Italy and Russia. By the end of Q1 2010, that number should rise to over 20 countries. The top 10 countries accessing the Ovi Store are Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Russia and the UK. In most of those countries the top 2 devices used to get to the Ovi Store are either the Nokia 5800 or N97. Each registered user downloads an average of 8 pieces of content, and the number of downloads in October compared to September is up by 70%.

Couple that data above with the information Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo gave during the Q3 2009 financial results conference call held on the 15th of October, where he said:

We grew our active users from 46 million to 61 million.

61 million users x average of 8 pieces of content per user = 488 million downloads?

Why isn’t Bill Perry providing any figures such as number of applications? The media would take that number and compare it to the massive 100,000+ applications in Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s App Store and claim Nokia is failing.

Why isn’t Bill Perry providing any figures for the number of downloads? Same reason as above.

[Via: All About Symbian]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Didmo to bring Mobile Game Ads to US and Europe
• Samsung Mobile Application Store Announced for September 14
• Mobango reaches five million members
• Nokia’s Ovi Store officially opened for business!
• Mobile social networking in June