Posts Tagged “samsung”

The Register Mobile News

Samsung’s iPhone pitch comes to life

Samsung has been showing its first Bada phone, able to download applications from Samsung’s version of iTunes and nowhere else. But will Bada really challenge Apple and the iPhone?…

The power of collaboration within unified communications

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Mobile News CWP

Samsung reassures all staff within its UK mobile and IT divisions their jobs are safe under any restructure of its business units

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Yahoo Mobile News

Electronics giants LG, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba and Hitachi, along with several
of their subsidiaries, have been accused of price fixing in the US optical disc
drive space.

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Guardian Mobile News

Mobile phone sales fell by almost 1% last year, according to Gartner researchers. However, sales of smartphones grew, thanks to the success of the BlackBerry, iPhone and Google Android phones

Mobile phone sales declined by 0.9% to 1.211 billion units in 2009, but grew by 8.3% in the final quarter, according to Gartner. “The mobile devices market finished on a very positive note, driven by growth in smartphones and low-end devices,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner.

Over the full year, Nokia remained the market leader, shipping 441m phones. However, it lost 2.2 percentage points of market share, falling to 36.4%. Nokia was followed by Samsung (19.5%) and LG (10.1%) from South Korea. In fourth and fifth places, both Motorola (4.8%) and Sony Ericsson (4.5%) saw big declines in market share.

In the smartphone market, Nokia’s high-volume sales kept Symbian in first place with 81m units shipped for a market share of 46.9%, down from 52.4%. Research In Motion — known for its BlackBerry smartphones — came second with 19.9%, an increase of 3 percentage points on 2008. Apple’s iPhone more than doubled its unit sales to take the third spot with 14.4%, an increase of 6.2 percentage points,

iPhone overtook Microsoft Windows Mobile, which dropped 3.2% percentage points to take 8.7% of the market, with only 15m units shipped.

Google’s Linux-based Android software did well, shipping 6.8m units for a market share of 3.9%. However, sales of other Linux smartphones fell. Adding Linux and Android together, Linux only gained half a percentage point (from 8.1% to 8.6%).

Gartner principal research analyst Roberta Cozza said Android’s fourth-quarter growth should continue, but some suppliers had “expressed growing concern about Google’s intentions in the mobile market”. If this led them to change their product strategies, “this might hinder Android’s growth in 2010.”

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Yahoo Mobile News

Samsung is seeking to cement its position in the corporate market with a
range of enterprise mobility offerings launched in conjunction with several
major channel partners.

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Guardian Mobile News

Microsoft made a splash by pre-announcing the Windows Phone 7 Series phone yesterday, but it might all be forgotten by the time phones appear for the (Christmas) holiday sales season

Microsoft’s launch of its Windows Phone 7 Series phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday was a huge success if you judge it by the amount of press and blog coverage. But it also provided very few details, including when phones would go on sale. Microsoft says they’ll be out before Christmas, but so will a lot of other new phones.

Microsoft’s list of Windows Phone 7 partners includes Asus, Dell, HP, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba, and it expects to have phones on most networks, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone. In other words, Windows Phone 7 is still a platform. Microsoft hasn’t followed Apple’s proprietary route, though whether phone makers will still have access to the phone’s source code and the right to change it remains to be seen.

The demos showed the Windows Phone 7’s roots in the attractive user interface developed for Windows Media Center PCs and reworked for the Zune HD and the free Zune 4.0 software for Windows*. They also showed the phone’s extensive integration with Windows Live and Facebook, though at the moment, it looks as though Twitter is supported via Windows Live.

Email support includes Microsoft Exchange synchronisation, Live Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and other services.

But it’s not clear where Microsoft stands on supporting Silverlight, Adobe Flash, or the still-emerging HTML5 standard.

Silverlight support would be welcomed by companies who want to put their business applications on the phone, and it would answer the objection that — apart from Microsoft Office — Windows Phone 7 phones are aimed much more at consumers than at businesses.

Adobe Flash would be welcomed by many users and web developers, and would give Microsoft a selling point against Apple, which refuses to support Flash. However, the question is still open. The Seattle Times managed to get a quote from Karen Wong Duncan, a Microsoft product manager: “We do not support Flash. We are partnering closely with Adobe. As Steve Ballmer said earlier, we are not opposed to having Flash on the platform.”

HTML5 support would be welcomed by everybody, especially if Microsoft included an expensive H.264 video codec for playing YouTube and other videos without using Flash. But we don’t know what sort of browser will be included in Windows Phone 7 phones, or what its capabilities might be.

Windows Phone 7 also has an Xbox Live connection, and users will be able to score points in multi-player games, but Microsoft didn’t provide details. Apparently we’ll learn more at the Mix 2010 conference in March.

Finally, there has been no mention of what has sometimes been called Pink: the code-name for putative next generation versions of the old Sidekick device. (Microsoft bought the company.)

The lack of detail makes it look as though Microsoft has announced too early. Presumably it couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a splash at WMC, and there’s only one a year. Next year’s congress would be too late….

* This is worth a download if you want something to manage an MP3 player: it’s much nicer than Windows Media Player. However, you won’t be able to use the Zune Marketplace outside the US.

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Guardian Mobile News

• Phones with the new software will appear at the end of the year
• Nokia joins forces with Intel to create a free software platform

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer is hoping that 7 will turn out to be a lucky number again. With Windows 7 helping to bury the ghosts of the poorly received Windows Vista in its core PC market, the software group is hoping to repeat the trick with a new version of its software for mobile phones, a device that has refused to yield to the firm’s attentions despite almost a decade of trying.

Windows Phone Series 7 is the result of a complete overhaul of Microsoft’s vision of the mobile phone. It has abandoned its attempts to turn mobile phones into mini-PCs, focusing instead on giving users easy access to social networking, music, video and mobile phone applications. Coincidentally Ballmer’s presentation, at the mobile industry’s annual trade show in Barcelona came hours after the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia revealed a tie-up with chipmaker Intel that is headed in the opposite direction.

The two companies have pooled their software development resources to create MeeGo, a free software platform which they reckon will pave the way for the next generation of wireless communications devices.

Both companies have Apple, Blackberry and Google, with its Android mobile phone platform, firmly in their sights. Fierce competition has eroded Nokia’s share of the market over the past year, and Microsoft fears that if it cannot get back in the game now, it may never manage it.

Ballmer admitted that Microsoft, which has failed to gain any significant share of the mobile phone market, had been forced to “retool and reform” its mobile phone software two years ago. “There is no doubt that the phone market is highly competitive, highly dynamic, super-exciting,” he said. “There was no question in our minds… that we needed and wanted to do something that was out of the box, clearly differentiated from our past and clearly differentiated from other things that are going on in the market.” “We’re taking a big step,” he added. “I hope seven’s our lucky number.”

The first phones using the new software will not appear until the end of the year and Microsoft is being very prescriptive about what they should look like, which has raised questions about whether handset manufacturers will be willing to make Windows Phone devices that they will be unable to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack.

Manufacturers including HTC, LG and Samsung have, however, signed up, while Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange are all likely to sell the devices in the UK. The proliferation of so-called open source software platforms – such as Android – has raised the question of whether Microsoft, which still charges hardware manufacturers a licence fee to use its Windows Phone software, should adopt the same model.

Refusing, as ever, to actually name Apple, Ballmer spoke about “vertical competitors” – companies that make devices as well as the software that sits on them, such as Apple – saying “their model is really clear, it’s sell devices. We sell software to companies that make devices” and that is not going to change. “My mother used to say to me, if something is free, you should take a look and find out what the real cost is.”

Nokia, however, has become a convert to the idea of open source platforms. Having bought out its partners in smartphone software developer Symbian and made that available free to all developers and hardware manufacturers, it announced a tie-up with Intel under which it plans to do the same for the next generation of mobile devices. Nokia was already working on an open source platform for so-called internet tablets, called Maemo, which it used in its recently launched N900 phone. Now it is merging it with a similar programme which Intel ran for laptops, called Moblin, into a new platform called MeeGo.

“It is the future of how we think people are going to use computing,” said ­Renee James, Intel’s head of software and services. “From Intel’s perspective, we see expansive growth which brings new users to computing and at the heart of that has always been software innovation and that happens when there is a stable platform that developers can bet on being there long-term. So I consider this critical to the long term growth initiatives of Intel.” The first MeeGo devices will start appearing in the second half of the year, but Intel already has hardware manufacturers such as Dell, Asus and Samsung making laptops for its existing open source platform and they will all be moved over to MeeGo.

“They have understood the only way to beat Microsoft, Google and Apple is to do it through scale – get the platform to more devices,” according to John Strand, owner and head of Strand Consult after the announcements at the Mobile World Congress fair.

Immediately dubbed MeeToo by some analysts, MeeGo will create an open source software platform which Nokia reckons will be used in a new generation of wireless devices. Both companies want to attract a wide range of operators, handset manufacturers and software developers.

“This is not a closed club,” said Kai Öistämö, Nokia’s head of devices. “We are inviting everyone into this. “MeeGo will create a new strong single platform that will drive the future of mobile computing.”

The announcement of MeeGo, however, immediately raised questions about the future of Symbian, but Öistämö stressed: “This is very consistent with Nokia’s software strategy. Symbian is the perfect environment for democratising the smartphone, what MeeGo allows is the future of mobile computing … well beyond what can be done with smartphones today.”

The deal may raise some eyebrows at Google, however, as Intel’s chief executive Paul Otellini has sat on the Google board since 2004.

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Guardian Mobile News

Two dozen of the world’s largest mobile-phone companies, including Verizon Wireless, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile and Vodafone, are teaming up to create an “open international applications platform,” which is obviously in direct response to Apple’s success with its own iPhone App Store. Release.

The announcement was made this morning at Mobile World Congress. In addition to the 24 carriers, the GSMA and three device manufacturers – LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson – are also supporting the initiative. All combined, the group reaches 3 billion subscribers worldwide, making it easily the largest app-store initiative. However, the task will also be exceedingly complicated because of the massive scope and technological barriers in uniting so many disparate platforms and operators.

Called the the “Wholesale Applications Community,” it aims to create a wholesale platform for mobile apps that provides a single point-of-entry for developers. In other words, it wants to solve the massive fragmentation problem. The group intends on using common open standards that will allow developers to create apps across multiple platforms. Those standards include JIL, which Verizon, Vodafone and China Mobile have been working on, and OMTP BONDI. Those two standards are expected to evolve into a common standard within the next year. Ultimately, they pledge to work with the W3C standards bodies to create one solution for developers to create apps and port them across mobile device platforms and operators.

The full list of operators are: America Movil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom Austria, MTN Group, NTT Docomo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, VimpelCom and WIND. The four operators in the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) mobile apps initiative – Vodafone, China Mobile, SoftBank and Verizon Wireless – are also included.

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The Register Mobile News

Wave first for Bada OS too

Samsung has taken the wraps off the first phone to be fitted out with its Bada operating system. It also has 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0.…

What is your recession sales strategy?

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Yahoo Mobile News

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson unveiled their new top smartphone models on Sunday, both hoping to improve their positions in the more lucrative part of the phone market.

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Guardian Mobile News

O2 and Orange are to join more than a dozen mobile groups in a project to pool resources and create ‘app’-style services across their range of handsets

More than a dozen of the world’s biggest mobile phone companies, including O2 and Orange, are hoping to strike back against the success of Apple in persuading people to download and use mobile applications – or “apps” – by building their own competing open platform which can be used by developers of games and other services.

The mobile networks hope that by pooling their resources, creating technology that would allow services to be developed that will work across a huge range of handsets, they can claw back some of the ground they have lost to companies such as Apple and Google and generate additional revenues from third-party developers.

The mobile phone networks fear that at the moment they are in danger of becoming little more than “dumb pipes in the air”, with all the revenues created by applications going to software developers and the companies that operate the stores that supply them.

Apple has already seen over 3bn apps downloaded from its App Store by users of the iPhone and iPod touch. Google, meanwhile, has an application marketplace as part of its Android mobile phone platform, and several devices sporting the software will be unveiled at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the industry’s biggest trade show, which starts today.

But it is not just Google and Apple that are profiting from the “apps explosion”. Steve Ballmer will this afternoon use the Mobile World Congress to unveil Microsoft’s latest attempt to break into the mobile phone industry. Windows Mobile 7 – or Windows Phone, as Microsoft has dubbed it – includes an application store that allows users of Microsoft devices to download a host of games and other applications. Even phone manufacturers such as Samsung and RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, are getting in on the app act, while Nokia already has its Ovi store open for business.

Several of the world’s biggest operators are part of the Open API initiative, which allows application developers access to some of the core information contained within their networks, such as location and billing. Essentially an API (application programming interface) allows a developer to integrate its application with another piece of software. The Open API plan, for instance, allows software developers to create programmes that can be paid for by consumers on their mobile phone bills.

But the new consortium, which will be announced by industry trade body the GSM Association at the Mobile World Congress today, is designed to go even further. The recent explosion in mobile phone software – from Apple’s iPhone to Nokia’s Symbian platform, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone – means the “apps” market is becoming increasingly fragmented. Also, consumers who switch from one device to another will soon find themselves having to download – and pay again – for all the applications they had on their old phone just because their new phone uses different software. The operators fear that they will be at the receiving end of the subsequent consumer backlash.

Orange, Telefonica – which owns O2 in the UK – T-Mobile and several other operators are already signed up to the GSMA plan. Vodafone, however, is ambivalent as it is engaged in an open platform alliance called the Joint Innovation Lab with China Mobile, Japan’s Softbank and Verizon Wireless of the US.

In fact, applications are likely to be a highlight of this year’s Mobile World Congress, with developer workshops taking place throughout the show, helping programmers create for Android, BlackBerry and Vodafone’s recently announced Vodafone 360 platform.

Several companies will also announce their own app developments. Today, for instance, British digital music group Omnifone will announce that it has created a version of its mobile music service that runs on Android phones. Omnifone, which has access to a catalogue of more than 6.5m tracks, is looking for network or handset partners who want to launch an unlimited download or streaming music service on Android devices using its platform. It already, for instance, powers Vodafone’s unlimited music service in the UK and recently clinched a deal to have its MusicStation service pre-installed on Hewlett-Packard laptops and computers. Omnifone is currently developing apps for both the iPhone and Windows Mobile devices.

Skype, meanwhile, will today announce that it has created a version of its popular free internet telephony service for Nokia’s Symbian operating system, which is already used by more than 200m mobile phones worldwide. Skype is now available as a free iPhone app, which has been downloaded more than 12m times since its launch in April last year.

The Symbian version will initially be available as a download from the Skype website but will appear on Nokia’s Ovi store in the next few weeks. The company, which was sold by owner eBay last year, is planning an Android version for later in the year. Skype, which allows people to call other Skype users anywhere in the world for free, is also expected to announce a partnership with Verizon Wireless, which is likely to raise some eyebrows as in the past the American network’s joint owner, Vodafone, has blocked internet telephony services from its own networks.

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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!


Normally £139.95, save £55 using voucher code QWERTY55 at the checkout when you buy from e2save. Voucher code expires this Friday.

The Samsung Genio Qwerty B3210 is a fun and simple messaging phone in a lightweight BlackBerry-style handset. This entry level phone from Samsung’s Genio range is aimed at people who love to text. The QWERTY keyboard is great for super fast typing. The 2.2 inch screen is basic but practical with it’s landscape aspect. The Genio Qwerty is supplied with two back covers, one brightly coloured and one plain black one.

Features of the Genio Qwerty include a 2 megapixel camera, an FM radio, multimedia player, 3.5mm audio jack and stereo Bluetooth. The phone has a funky cartoon-style interface, which is quite fun. The Genio Qwerty has 3G or Wi-Fi, there is however GPRS, HSCSD and EDGE, which makes it suitable for checking emails and occasional web browsing. This is a cool phone for keeping in touch with friends through texts, emails or instant messaging. This version of the phone has a black fascia with red detail and a white back cover.

Click here for the deal

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Yahoo Mobile News

Samsung and
Ricoh are the only two audiovisual and imaging vendors named on a list of the 100 most
sustainable corporations in the world, announced at the annual World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

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Guardian Mobile News

Mobile phone operating system can now be modified by anyone as Nokia’s platform struggles to compete with Apple and Google

Symbian, the operating system used in the majority of the world’s smartphones, is now available as an open source platform four months ahead of schedule as it looks to compete with Apple and Google’s Android.

In a move widely seen as a desperate attempt to prevent Google and Apple from grabbing an ever-larger slice of the smartphone pie, Nokia took control of the UK-based Symbian in the summer of 2008, announcing plans to make its mobile phone software free of charge.

Nokia helped create Symbian with the UK-based Psion more than a decade ago and it is installed in some 330m mobile phones across the world. But its share of the smartphone market has come under attack. Two years ago, Symbian devices accounted for almost 60% of the market, but now account for less than 50%. Industry experts Ovum reckon that figure will fall to below a third by 2015, in part because of the influence of Android, which is also open source.

The Symbian Foundation, which runs the platform, said the switch from a paid-for proprietary model, where developers had to pay a licence fee to create devices using the software, to a free open source model is the largest in software history.

Any individual or organization can now take, use and modify the code for any purpose, whether for a mobile device or another piece of kit.

Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, said: “The development community is now empowered to shape the future of the mobile industry, and rapid innovation on a global scale will be the result.

“When the Symbian Foundation was created, we set the target of completing the open source release of the platform by mid-2010 and it’s because of the extraordinary commitment and dedication from our staff and our member companies that we’ve reached it well ahead of schedule.”

The hope is that allowing any developer to use Symbian will speed up the development of new and innovative devices, which will help the platform to see off the threat of Apple and Android.

But it is competing in an increasingly crowded market. Handset manufacturers from LG and Samsung to Sony Ericsson have their own proprietary operating systems, as do RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, Palm and Apple. Microsoft is still trying to gain traction for its Windows phone operating system, while a slew of handsets with Android installed will be launched this year.

All 108 packages containing the source code of the Symbian platform can now be downloaded from Symbian’s developer website under a public licence. Also available for download are the complete development kits for creating applications and mobile devices.

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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!


Available now on Orange from £15 per month with almost £200 cash back. Or buy it on Orange PAYG and save an extra £10, just use voucher code 10BACK at the checkout.

The Samsung C3510 is an entry level touchscreen phone. It’s similar in looks to the Genio Touch but it has a downgraded specification with a 1.3 megapixel camera and no 3G.

The C3510 comes with a 2.8 screen and Samsung’s Cartoon user interface, which allows users to scroll through the colourful widgets and menus with ease. The large navigation keys beneath the screen make it easy to use and the phone has easy access to Facebook and Twitter.

Compare all Samsung C3510 deals

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Yahoo Mobile News

Samsung has become the latest vendor to announce a standalone e-reader that will let
users read a variety of texts on the go.

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The Register Mobile News

Delayed smartphone finally launched

A smartphone with augmented reality at its heart has been unveiled as Samsung’s latest addition to its growing UK portfolio of Android mobiles.…

Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn’t work

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Mobile News CWP

Samsung unveils the Galaxy Portal, which is exclusive to T-Mobile for the first month

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Guardian Mobile News

The world’s biggest phone maker takes fight to Apple and Google with free apps

Nokia is taking the dramatic step of making its satellite navigation software free to all current and future owners of its smartphones as the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer intensifies its fight against Apple’s iPhone and handsets using Google’s Android platform.

The Finnish company, which makes roughly four out of every 10 phones sold worldwide, spent €6.5bn (£5.6bn) on map firm Navteq in 2007, but from today will let anyone with a GPS-enabled Nokia device – such as its N95 or N97 handsets – download its navigation service and maps for free from its Ovi mobile application store. To date, Nokia has sold more than 80m compatible handsets worldwide.

Full satnav direction services – for both road users and pedestrians – will be available across 70 countries from today, with extensive maps available in more than 100 others.

The move is likely to infuriate satnav companies such as Garmin and TomTom, which charge up to £100 for in-car satellite navigation systems and will see their market effectively undercut by Nokia. It will also threaten companies that currently charge for downloadable satnav mobile phone applications – such as US-based ALK Technologies, whose CoPilot UK product currently costs £26.99 for iPhone users.

Nokia executive vice president Anssi Vanjoki denied that the decision to give its satnav service away for free is a defensive move against companies such as Google, which are increasingly encroaching on the company’s turf.

“It is a very offensive move if you will,” he said. “We are not talking one product for one country, we are talking map coverage in 183 countries, launching simultaneously globally in 76 countries with 46 languages and with millions of devices already out there, plus with all of our new products being equipped with this. So it does not sound too much like defence to me.”

But giving away sophisticated turn-by-turn car and pedestrian satnav direction services to entice customers to choose one of its smartphones over devices such as the iPhone and Google’s Nexus One is symptomatic of Nokia’s desperation to get back into the high-end mobile phone market.

The company has seen its share of the lucrative smartphone market come under sustained attack. It was slow to create a viable touchscreen rival to the iPhone while bitter rival Rim has successfully moved its BlackBerry line of mobile devices from the boardroom to the classroom, enticing a new generation of younger users. There have also been successful touchscreen launches by Samsung, which has already overtaken Nokia in the UK market. After more than two years of development, Google’s Android platform is starting to become a major force in the mobile market.

Google recently unveiled its first own-branded Android device, the Nexus One, to rave reviews. The internet company already has an extensive maps business and offers turn-by-turn directions in the US.

Outside North America it relies upon mapping data from Tele Atlas, owned by TomTom, and is not able to give full satnav services. But it is rumoured to be building up its own maps database outside the US with a view to launching turn-by-turn direction services at some point.

Vanjoki also denied that the dramatic volte-face suggests that the company know things Navteq is worthless. “Quite the contrary,” he said. “Right now, what is happening is we are unleashing all this power based on the Navteq acquisition which will help Nokia in three different ways: first of all this becomes a tremendous average sales price defender for our products because it will be completely unique – there is nothing similar available from anyone else; secondly this will be a demonstration of the capabilities and precision of the Navteq maps, so their business will be improved; and thirdly, there are all these developers that are developing applications based on the quality of the maps and then we can distribute those through Ovi store which is another business opportunity for us.”

Nokia is also making its maps available to any third party developer that wishes to build applications on top of them. These applications will be sold through the Ovi store and already Nokia is offering its customers free Lonely Planet and Michelin Guide information on its maps.

“It becomes a giant environment for mash-ups,” Vanjoki said. “Where people can deliver new applications and immediately they will have a huge customer base available to them”.

Nokia’s maps service also allows people to share their location with friends on Facebook, adding pictures and status updates. Its maps also include information about local attractions and events within walking distance of a user’s location through a deal with San Francisco-based local information aggregator Wcities, which has data for over 350 cities worldwide.

Nokia will still allow other satnav companies to use Navteq’s data for their services. Navteq’s maps, for instance, are used by Garmin.

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Yahoo Mobile News

LONDON (Reuters) – Taiwanese component maker Hon Hai, Korean LCD screen maker LG Display and chipmaker Samsung are likely key suppliers for Apple’s eagerly awaited tablet computer, UBS said.

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