Jolla, a new company formed by ex-Nokia employees, have just announced on Twitter that:

Jolla is here. #MeeGo based smartphones will have a bright, new future. Stay tuned!

— Jolla (@JollaMobile) July 7, 2012

Jolla will develop the open source (Mer project) based MeeGo for new devices, rather than Nokia’s Harmattan Maemo variant. Follow @JollaMobile on twitter for updates!

Not too many details are known yet, other than a heavy emphasis on HTML5 (which unfortunately does not seem to bode well for the QT and QML efforts previously pushed by MeeGo and Nokia).

The Ovi Store app on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan just received an update. There are already a few apps, can’t wait to see more added!

The Nokia N9 has been filed with the FCC, which means we can take a peek at the user manual for this MeeGo Harmattan device.

I’ve noted some interesting snippets from a quick skim-read:

• On the lock screen, you can jump straight to the appropriate application for a notification by dragging its icon to the left or right edge of the screen.
• A quick launch bar allows easy access to the phone, camera, web browser, or messages by swiping up from the bottom of the screen when in portrait.
• There is mention of ‘remote security features’ which can be used to lock and erase data if you loose your phone.
• There is an option to close data connections when not in use, which should help with data costs/battery.
• The contact manager attempts to merge duplicate contacts obtained from different services automatically.
• Call divert options are supported.
• Custom contact ringtones are supported.
• Multimedia messages are supported.
• The camera app has face detection, and non-destructive editing capabilities.
• There is a special power-saving mode which reduces wlan scans, and automatically closes connections.
• A ‘trusted person’ can be set, and the phones lock code can be sent via SMS to that person from the lock screen.

See also: Engadget: Nokia N9 arrives at FCC, opened up to see where all the MeeGo comes from.

Lots of announcement hype and news:

• Nokia: N9 Swipe
• Engadget: Nokia’s N9 official – a luscious slab of MeeGo coming later this year
• Engadget: Nokia N9 first hands-on!
• The Nokia Blog: Nokia N9 Officially Announced
• cNet Australia: Nokia N9 hands on – three aMeeGos
• Wired Gadget Lab: Nokia’s MeeGo-Based N9 Is Sleek and Hot

By now many of you will have read the disappointing news that Nokia, the iconic provider of simple cell phones, has thrown in the towel, having announced a “strategic partnership” with Microsoft to ship new smartphones with Windows Phone 7.

Nokia CEO (and former Microsoft Exec) Stephen Elop made the announcement at the Nokia Strategy and Financial Briefing in London yesterday.

Nokia

Initial reactions from many directions seem mostly negative, commenters on Nokia’s official blog are slating the announcement, Nokia workers walked out in protest, Alberto Torres (head of MeeGo at Nokia) has quit, and Nokia’s share price plummeted by more than 13%.

The Symbian platform looks pretty much on-life support, and the use of MeeGo is described as a project for “experimental” devices, with Nokia’s R&D budget slashed. There are also rumours that the N9 MeeGo device has been killed.

The following quote is taken from the Nokia press release:

Under the new strategy, MeeGo becomes an open-source, mobile operating system project. MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences. Nokia still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product later this year.

Intel

Meanwhile, Intel is keen to reassure that it’s not “blinking on MeeGo”:

While we are disappointed with Nokia’s decision, Intel is not blinking on MeeGo. We remain committed and welcome Nokia’s continued contribution to MeeGo open source.

More opinions: Nokia’s towel has been thrown – sad but true, the bomb has hit…

Imad Sousou and Valtteri Halla of the MeeGo Technical Steering Group, have announced that MeeGo 1.1 has been released. We’ll have further analysis after the dust has settled, but in the meantime check out the handset screenshots and in-vehicle screenshots.

He also provides an interesting update on the progress of the MeeGo for N900 adaptation project (not officially supported by Nokia, although Nokia is committing resources to it). 3G audio call functionality is now available, but other hardware features won’t be available until MeeGo 1.2 (such as the camera).

A video of MeeGo running on the N900 was shown on the THP on Maemo blog earlier this month, and is available below:

Some interesting news from The Nokia Blog, which comments on the new theming screenshots on the MeeGo developer documentation pages of the MeeGo website.

At the beginning of August, qgil posted an overview of what’s required to get the currently unstable build of MeeGo 1.1 running on the Nokia N900. Exciting stuff – looks like I need to go and buy an SD card!

Nokia Prototype Photos Leaked

In mid-August, engadget ran a story on leaked photos from China of the rumored Nokia N9 MeeGo (Harmattan) phone. The qwerty-keyboard, tilt-sliding phone bears some similar looks to a Mac Book Pro. More over at ars technica.

MeeGo Powered Set-Top-Box

All About MeeGo comments on the Amino Freedom set-top-box, which has been confirmed to run “Amino MeeGo”. Looks very promising.