Here’s a surprise bombshell to liven up your day;  Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s consumer group has mentioned that they are actively looking at the possibility of buying out Nokia. Although they haven’t made an offer to Nokia nor approached them with the idea, he said:

We are considering these sorts of acquisitions; maybe the combination has some synergies but depends on the willingness of Nokia. We are open-minded,

Of course the acquisition of Nokia by anyone would be an insane increase in assets, in the patent field alone; let alone their mobile and imaging expertise.

Also commenting on the position of Windows Phone in the marketplace (keep in mind that Huawei have a few of their own):

Whether Windows Phone [will be] successful is difficult to say – it has a very small market share. [Windows Phones] are weak but still require a licence fee. That’s not good. Android is free.”

Immediately following these remarks Nokia’s stock shot up (currently 6%)

I don’t see the deal happening, for obvious reasons; mainly that Nokia are just getting their feet under them once again, they wouldn’t give up now, would they?

Thanks everyone who sent this in.

via

From Nokia Connects: We wanted to get in touch to let you know about an awesome competition Nokia and Burton are running as we’d love to get you and your community involved!

We’ve partnered with Talenthouse and Dazed & Confused Magazine to give three aspiring photographers the chance to join Nokia’s official AAA team at the 2013 Burton High Fives event in New Zealand. The final winners work will be featured in the September 2013 print issue of the UK’s most influential style magazine, Dazed & Confused.

We’re inviting aspiring photographers across the globe to share a new appreciation of their surroundings by submitting a photo inspired by ‘urban city and street style’, captured in ‘low light’ conditions. 50 finalists will then be chosen to receive the new Nokia Lumia 925 on trial and challenged to upload their low light photos, captured on the device, to their Talenthouse portfolios.

The closing date for entry to the competition is July 10^th 2013, so you still have plenty of time to get creative and take part - visit the website for full competition details and more information about how to enter.

These are the AKG-551 (White) ‘Reference Class’ headphones (by Harmann) that we received last week. Due to exams I’m only posting about it now. Cheers to the folks from Bite.

AKG Reference-Class Over-Ear Headphones (Silver)

• Over-Ear
• Passive noise cancellation (prevents sound leakage from headphones quite well)
• in line microphone (haven’t got it to work with my Lumia yet)
• control buttons (pause, volume. Volume I can’t seem to work with my lumia. Skip/Previous track by pressing pause button twice/thrice respectively)
• Cups rotate 90 degrees, so essentially the headphones fold in a ’2D’ axis
• 50mm drivers
• non-user replaceable cables (wired headset)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjPCl-2TXX0

Clearly marked what is what

Carefully adjust the headphones

Reference-class

Controls:

The cables feel a bit short for me. The control isn’t immediately obvious that you could also have next/previous track unless you’re already familiar with iOS controls.

Wearing them. They’re definitely big headphones, but I’m a fan of over ears so I like them.

When you put them around the neck, they might feel a little too large for some.

Otherwise, very comfortable on the ears.

The non-properly folding (i.e. collapsing like the purity pro) design and the huge size might mean that for some this isn’t one to wear outside or in public but as I said, I like these huge headphones so I wouldn’t mind wearing them outdoors.

Sound wise, they’re very neutral. No thumpy bass (which some might prefer and some might not). It’s very well received in reviews for its natural reproduction of sound.

The Snapdragon 800 series supports up to 55MP, “ultra HD capture” and displays up to 2560×2048 (nice for a future LumiaTab). We’re still waiting on MS to expand WP’s resolution support to 1080p.

Quite recently a quadcore Lumia was found, but quite interestingly with a 16:9 (720p vs Nokia’s 1280×768) which was hoped the ratio was in place as a filler in prototypes with 1080p displays but no support yet.

Let’s hope that battery life isn’t forgotten.

Source: techtastic.org

Via:  reddit

Nokia Smart Camera, the new feature filled camera UI that Nokia unveiled alongside the Lumia 925 in London has just hit the marketplace. This app allows for deeper customization & control of your shots, plus other features such as burst mode (in 5mp) as well as the implementation of the “smart shoot” features into it:

Nokia Smart Camera shoots a sequence of photos, making it easier to capture great moments.

Either choose your Best Shot or combine the photos into one picture using these amazing features:

• Motion Focus – add blur to emphasize motion

• Action Shot – add a strobe effect to show action

• Remove Moving Objects – remove unwanted objects

• Change Faces – choose the best faces for great group shots

However the app requires the upcoming Lumia Amber update, meaning the only people who can download it at the current time would be someone with that version on their Lumia device, and all Lumia 925 owners. Keep in mind that the Lumia Amber update was promised to be released sometime in July, so hopefully this is in preparation for the update and we won’t have to wait much longer (my gut says the update will be released at the EOS event on the 11th).

You can grab the app (just because) over at the link below:

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/nokia-smart-cam/73e1801b-916e-4db5-87ba-65fbc8dfd8fc

Previously we saw a demo of some work Microsoft were doing on the voice recognition/search for WP; where the search was carried out while you’re still speaking, as well as improved accuracy. According to the Bing Blog this update is now live (in the cloud, no need to update on your end), and you can start reaping the benefits of better voice dictation starting now.

Now if only we had universal voice dictation, or even offline for that matter…

via Source

RM-877 has just hit the US FCC quality check, the mandate for all devices who hope to shine from sea to shining sea. The device clocks in at 130.35mm tall and 71.4mm wide (1 mm taller than the 925 – technically it could still have a larger screen if they shed some of the bezzel). The device carries At&t’s 4G/LTE bands, as well as NFC, Bluetooth and Wifi. It’s a safe bet to assume that this device is the Nokia EOS; especially since according to the FCC document it was tested out with a “Camera Grip”, model PD-95G (possibly an accessory?) as well as a wireless charging snap on cover (like the 720′s and 925′s).

If this is indeed the EOS then all will be revealed come July 11th; although if the current rate of the leaks keeps up it could be much sooner.

Via

For the record the app itself allows you to record video messages and leave them to your offline friends to see once they log on (a feature I didn’t know existed until I borrowed my friends iPhone the other day).

Is it really that difficult to code for WP that even Microsoft don’t bother with it anymore? If so I really don’t blame the lack of apps; seeing how the people who own the damn OS don’t seem to want to bother with it. It seems whoever is in charge of the strategy thought it would be smart to follow BB’s plan of action with BBM releasing it for all other platforms, except Windows Phone; honestly this is beyond ridiculous!

I realize that Microsoft is a huge company with loads of different branches (software, hardware, OS development, games etc.); but how difficult can it be to give a tiny bit of priority to your own OS? Hell we don’t even want priority; just equal treatment! It seems that Windows Phone is the only incompetent branch of the whole MSFT division, getting the left-overs of resources, and always being an after thought. I imagine the birth of Windows Phone went something like this:

Belfiore: “Hey, Steve we got a couple guys here who just finished working on the latest useless Windows update and have nothing to do; should I give them the week off?”

Ballmer: “Nah, we’re paying them aren’t we? Let’s have a little fun, give them a $200 budget and ask them to make a phone OS”

Belfiore: “That’s evil!…… I love it”

So pretty much screw you Microsoft for not thinking things through…

Via

The GDR2  WP update for the Nokia Lumia 920 and 520 is coming to Telstra in July. Currently the status is “waiting for vendor submission”.

July is around about the expected time for GDR2 in general, plus there’s Amber specifically for Lumia.

‘Features’

• FM Radio support
• Data Sense
• Pin tunes in Xbox Music
• CalDav/CardDav support
• ‘hundreds of small quality improvments’ :/

Amber:

• Double tap to wake
• Glance screen clock
• ISO 3200
• Nokia Smart Camera

Thank goodness Microsoft works so slowly otherwise, you know, 8-9 months later, we could have had quite a meaningful update on our devices.

Source: WBI

Cheers Alexandre for the tip!

These pictures of Nokia Lumia adverts were found in Mall of Asia Philippines. Check out the large side banner on the escalator and on one of the columns below.

Mall of Asia is one of the largest malls in the world. 3rd in Asia, 4th in the world says Wikipedia.

It’s always good to have a presence in physical form, as well as ads on TV.

What other print ads have you seen where you are for Nokia?

Source: Reddit