Back when buying an MP3 player was cool, the only worthy competitor to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) was Creative. Their devices were sexy, price competitive, and to this day they offer better sound quality. We’re heading into the start of a new decade however, and no one with an ounce of common sense purchases dedicated music players. Creative knew this was going to happen, and like Apple they’ve decided to transition from making music players to making mobile handsets. Unlike Apple however, who controls both the hardware and the software, Creative will be creating a reference hardware platform powered by Android that anyone can use to create their own mobile phone. They’re basically going to offer all the guts necessary to build a mobile phone, and let other people design the body and tweak the UI. The first version of this hardware platform will be shown off next month in China at the “Zii Summit“. More details as they come.

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Google Planning to Take Over the World… One Android-Powered Device at a Time
• Qualcomm throwing down with no less than 5 Android handsets
• Palm says “NO” to Android
• Confirmed: T-Mobile unveiling HTC Magic as myTouch 3G next week
• SPB TV now available for Android smartphones

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is looking to hire a “Game/Media Software Engineer” with “3-4 years of video game development experience” that has “shipped at least one AAA title” according to a job listing discovered by AppleInsider. Is this a sign that Apple is looking at becoming a first party developer? Maybe, maybe not. In all likelihood the fruity west coast company is simple looking to bundle a decent game with their device so customers will be more willing to check out the App Store for more titles. That or the company is looking for someone who understands that game development is all about providing an immersive experience for the user and people who possess that talent can use that ability to create a richer user interface. Whatever the answer is, we’ll find out soon enough. In a little over 7 months the new iPhone is coming!

Full text from the job listing below:

The interactive media group is looking for a skilled software engineer who wants to work as part of a small highly motivated team to work on interactive multimedia experiences on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The position on the team is to help design and implement interactive multimedia experiences on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The position also requires a creative thinker who can contribute and comment on the design process as well as being flexible enough to aid in all aspects of production such as asset management and able to work to a deadline.

Looking for skilled engineer with the following background:

• Strong C / C++ / Objective-C / iPhone background preferred
• 3-4 years of video game development experience, shipped at least one AAA title
• Passionate gamer
• Skills in audio systems, graphics pipeline, and network programming a plus
• Ability to work in small dynamic team

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Apple working on own search engine or just a new search portal for iPhone?
• Apple posts employment listing for iPhone Visual designer
• RIM looking to hire Apple iPhone software developer?
• Quake 3 Arena ported to iPhone/iPod Touch!
• Apple files patent application for multi-tasking multi-touch gaming interface

DVB-H, the technology that provides television broadcasts for mobile phones, has reached a new price point today with the launch of the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 5330 TV Edition. For 155 EUR ($230) you get a 114 gram slider that measures 101.2 mm x 48.5 mm x 14.25 mm, has a 3.2 megapixel camera, 3G, and a 1000 mAh battery good for about 6 hours or soul crushing, mind numbing, corporate sponsored programming. The screen measures only 2.4 inches across and has a resolution of 320 x 240, so try not to stare at it for too long, or else your eyes will go bad and you’ll wish you actually did something more meaningful with your life than attempt to sit through an entire “My Super Sweet 16″ marathon on MTV.

Erik Sylvestersson, Vice President Sales & Marketing at DNA Finland said: “Live digital TV broadcasts over DVB-H networks is becoming more accessible to more people. In Finland, we have found that sport and news are the key drivers for broadcast mobile TV consumption among consumers. People want to be able to watch the action as it happens – rather than settle for highlight shows once they get home. Consumers expect an exceptional on-the-move TV experience at an affordable price, something the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition is fully equipped to deliver.”

Erik has obviously never been to a sports bar during a Formula 1 race, or saw a Finland vs. Sweden hockey match. The people of Finland watch sports outside of their home as an excuse to get away from their wives, meet their friends, and pound back some beers while staring at a 60 inch HDTV and stuffing their faces with hot wings.

Before purchasing this device, make sure the country you’re in provides DVB-H service.

[Via: Nokia Press Release]

Update: This is the 5330, not 5530. Thanks to @Not_Al for noticing the typo.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Mobile TV set to be very popular
• Australia does DVB-H trial
• More of the same: Mobile TV facing tough times ahead
• EU supports DVB-H mobile broadcasting standard
• MiTV and Nokia announce live DVB-H mobile TV service for Malaysia

Dell’s long awaited entrance into the smartphone game has finally become a reality with an official press release on their site. We’ve been tracking this device for a little over 2.5 years now. It was one of the industry’s worst kept secrets.The Mini 3 will be sold in Brazil and China by the end of this year, but no price points have been given. In related news, Chinese publication PC Online got their hands on a retail unit and have posted several unboxing photos. The Chinese Mini 3 may lack 3G and WiFi, but it comes with a stylus that works on capacitive screens and a miniUSB to 3.5 mm headphone jack cable to rock out to whatever state propaganda is à la mode. Expect this device to be available in the USA and Europe some time in the first quarter of 2010. Why did Brazil and China get the first model is up for debate; maybe Dell is saving the higher end models for wealthier nations?

[Via: Engadget]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Dell Mini 3iX hits the FCC with WiFi and US 3G
• Android powered Dell Mini 3iX: Like the Chinese version, but with WiFi, 3G and a fistfull of mushrooms
• Photos: Dell’s first smartphone, the Mini 3i for the Chinese market, spotted in the wild
• HTC wants to make a stylus for capacitive touchscreens
• ABI Research: Capacitive touchscreens not the wave of the future for most mobile phones

Law.com posted something that probably very few IntoMobile readers care about, but I’ll share it none the less:

In Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s big patent showdown with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) over iPhone technology, it will be Alston & Bird versus Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. Wilmer’s co-managing partner Bill Lee made an appearance for Apple on Tuesday in a stipulation filed in Delaware federal district court.

There may be no lawyer in America more familiar with the technology behind smart phones than Lee. For years, he represented Broadcom (NSDQ: BRCM) in its battles with Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) over phone patents. That litigation ended in April when Qualcomm agreed to pay Broadcom $891 million.

When Nokia filed its suit alleging infringement of ten patents, we noted the conspicuous absence of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges. The firm had been inseparable from Nokia through its global war against Qualcomm, which ended on the steps of Delaware Chancery Court last year. As we reported, Alston & Bird has done quite a bit of litigating for Nokia as well.

The same is true of Wilmer for Apple, though this appears to be the highest-profile case Bill Lee & Co. have taken on for Apple. According to the stipulation both parties agreed to, Apple has until December 14 to respond to Nokia’s complaint. Some observers are expecting that answer will include a countersuit.

For those who are not aware of what’s going on, Nokia sued Apple for violating 10 wireless patents. Nilay Patel from Engadget did a fantastic job at covering the details of the case, it’s consequences, and likely results. Expect to be reading about Apple vs. Nokia for at least a year, probably two. Things like this never end as fast as you’d like them to, and the results are never what you expect. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. You’ll keep on buying the latest iPhones or Nokia smartphones.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Broadcom wins appeal for 2005 anti-trust lawsuit against Qualcomm
• Nokia files another counter-suit against Qualcomm
• Dutch court dismisses Nokia patent case against Qualcomm
• US Appeals Court upholds Broadcom patent win against Qualcomm,
• Broadcom takes Qualcomm to court again – claims continued patent infringement

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) recently spent an excessive amount of money to produce a 4 minute video showcasing what they think the connected world of 2015 will look like. The first narrative focuses on a French businessman who recently relocated to San Francisco. Apparently he is antisocial because the “closest thing to a boy’s night out” is sitting in front of a television screen, watching a football match, while having a video call with 3 of his friends across the pond. After 2 bottles of wine at home, alone, I bet one of them drops their pants and moons everyone in the room. The next character in this cell shaded investor relations pornography feature film is Maria, a student with an obvious lisp attending her final year at the University of Barcelona, and she is in a club with her friends … but she can’t remember their names. What the hell kind of friend are you Maria? Her boyfriend is based in London, so they have to resort to cyber sex in their “online apartment” using a projected keyboard and display to feel connected.

Finally we have some Indian guy who downloads films to his device, projects them onto a wall so he and his family can watch them, and he sends reports of his fishing trip to a University in America who then deposits money in his Nokia bank account. The video ends with a whole bunch of buzz words flashing on the screen in a seemingly random way that resembles what we all saw in 1999’s hit film “The Matrix”. We can only hope that by 2015 Nokia finally manages to get kinetic scrolling to work without looking jerky, and the Ovi Store to resemble the iPhone App Store of today.

[Via: Nokia Conversations]

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• The top three recent films for Mobile device product placement
• Nokia Friend View updated to include friend alerts
• Ovi Store client updated to enable re-downloads; Available on more phones
• Nokia Friend View gets optimized for S60 Touch
• Nine-Year Old Develops iPhone App: Doodle Kids

Samsung, who is a member of the Symbian Foundation, is supposedly going to stop producing Symbian devices by 2011 if a report from Digitimes is to be believed. Senior Vice President Don Joo Lee said the South Korean company will continue to focus on Android, Windows Mobile, and the yet to be revealed Bada, mobile operating systems. By 2012 Samsung will have only 20% of their smartphone portfolio running Windows Mobile, with the rest being split between Android and Bada. Considering most Samsung Symbian devices never really did all that well to begin with, mostly because finding them was not an easy task, they’re not going to be missed. This does bring up an important question however: except Nokia (NYSE: NOK), who else is going to be making Symbian devices in 3 years?

[Via: Unwired View]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Samsung announces new mobile OS, forgets to mention why anyone would like it
• Bada Bing? Leaked Shot of Samsung’s First Bada OS Handset?
• Symbian and Windows Mobile losing mobile browser war to iPhone, Android and webOS
• HTC TyTN II can run Android
• Nokia N95 running Android!

Speed Forge Extreme is an obvious clone of Sony Computer Entertainment’s Wipeout franchise, but we’ll let that slide for a second because what the developers at RatSquare have done is simply stunning. Thanks to the OpenGL ES 2.0 support in the iPhone 3GS, full screen motion blur effects are now possible. No word on pricing or availability other than “It is coming to iPhone and Android soon”.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Adrenaline Golf Online is touted as the first game that fully uses iPhone 3GS’ powerful graphics capabilities
• iLightr Now Available in the Android Market
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• HTC Dream G1 Pricing Details Emerge

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) makes close to 4 out of every 10 handsets sold on the planet and in Q3 2009 the Finnish firm made $1.1 in operating profit on the sale of 108.5 million units. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) sold “only” 7.4 million iPhones, yet they made $1.6 billion in profit. This is the first time in the history of mobile telecommunications that someone has made more money than Nokia on mobile phones. These figures were provided by Alex Spektor, Analyst at Strategy Analytics. His colleague Neil Mawston, Director of Wireless Device Strategies, had this piece of advice to offer:

“Nokia’s profit margin for its handset division has been shrinking during the 2009 global economic downturn. Strategy Analytics believes that the United States, where Nokia now trails Apple in marketshare, is the key to Nokia’s recovery in 2010. A successful fight on Apple’s high-profit home turf can simultaneously help to revitalize Nokia’s margins and to put a check on Apple’s surging growth.”

I’m not really surprised, and you should not be either. Just about every other market operates the same way. Porsche is the world’s most profitable auto maker, but they don’t sell nearly the amount of cars that Ford does. Porsche also doesn’t make a model that sells for $12,000, yet Ford has such a model, and plenty of them too. Ford’s highest end product, the Ford GT, is also pile of poop compared to anything the Germans have to offer. Different companies make different products for different people. Apple makes the best smartphone on the planet (my opinion, not universally shared, don’t complain, I don’t care) because the people working in the handset division concentrate on high end devices. Nokia is a huge company, but how many people do you think work on the 20 EUR devices that go to the emerging economies around the world, and the 100 EUR devices that go to people who are not that well off in West European countries, and how many people are left to work on the N97, N900, and other high end models?

Can Nokia make the best smartphone or are they in an environment where it simply isn’t possible?

[Via: TechCrunch]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Nokia could sock Apple with $1 billion in damages
• Nokia’s touchscreen Nokia 5800 XpressMusic misses 2008 for mature markets
• 400,000 Android Phones Sold Before End of 2008?
• Nokia looking to cheap smartphones to recapture market
• Samsung takes on Nokia’s Ovi

Trimming in Public is a series where I go through my list of 293 RSS feeds, 10 feeds at a time, give some detail as to why I subscribed to a particular feed, and then decide whether or not to keep on consuming that feed. In Episode 1, I explained what RSS is and how to use it. Please read that if you need a refresher on why RSS is awesome and why you should be using it if you take reading news on the internet seriously. The prefix to Trimming in Public is “Becoming a better blogger, reader and helping me take out the trash.” For the bloggers out there who read IntoMobile, I hope you get a better idea of what I do to keep on top of the news. For the readers who read IntoMobile, I know that this site isn’t the only mobile focused technology publication on the internet, and by sharing which sites I read I’m hoping that you’ll keep on coming back here. Taking out the trash has an obvious explanation, I can’t keep up with my RSS feeds and need to trim my list. For those who want to download my complete list of 293 RSS feeds, feel free to grab my OPML file.

Check out Episode 25 after the jump, and all episodes by clicking on the Trimming in Public tag:

I am determined to finish this series off by the end of this week and start a new episodic series next week about the perfect mobile phone that will never exist. With that in mind, here we go:

1. Twitter / agpublic: Some people’s tweets you just don’t want to miss. This is the RSS feed that spits out Adam Greenfield’s public tweets. He used to share interesting stuff quite often, but lately he just lets people know he updated his blog. I wish I had access to  his private Twitter account, but that is reserved for his close group of friends in meat space. We live in the same city, but we don’t hang out in the same social circles. I should be more proactive at building a relationship with him, but I feel like I’m too short sighted and ignorant and frankly would be wasting his time. Self esteem issues? You bet! But there is another person who packs so much gold into all his tweets that I want to make sure I miss none of them: Tim O’Reilly. Decision: Unsubscribe, but replace with Tim O’Reilly’s Twitter account.
2. Uncov: Sadly, Uncov is dead. It was the brain child of Ted Dziuba and it made your cranky uncle who couldn’t stop talking about the Nazis he fought during WWII sound like a bloody angel. The guy riffed on everyone, everything, and it was Grade A fucking hysterical. You don’t make friends like that however, and Silicon Valley is one small clusterfuck of people. I don’t really know if he gave it up due to external pressure, or because he had a kid, or maybe he just became a nihilist and decided that at the end of the day none of this really matters. What I do know is that I’ll miss this great site. Decision: Dead site = unsubscribe, but will not be counted towards today’s list of 10.
3. Untitled: A photo blog from a young up and coming photographer from Australia. This girl had an eye for beauty that was profoundly magical. Somewhere down the line she became a pro, moved to America, and stopped posting her photos. Shame really. Decision: No new updates in a millennium = unsubscribe.
4. Unwired View: Started by Stasys Bielinis from Lithuania, Unwired View has a special talent no other tech site matches: they find all the leaks and rumours before anyone else does. Part of that is dude to Stasys’ ability to read Russian. All the major leaks happen in either Russia or China; don’t ask me why, I don’t know. I briefly met Stasys at Mobile World Congress 2007, but I didn’t have enough time to spend with him and chat, which makes me look like a dick since I remember how excited he was to meet me in person. Since making Unwired View a full time gig back in 2008, he added two more writers: Brad Molen and Ilinca Nita. The site gets enough traffic to call it “big”, but not many people know about it. Well now you do. Decision: Keep on reading.
5. VentureBeat: Like TechCrunch, but more professional reporting. The writing is tighter too, but it just isn’t fun to read. The main reason I subscribed to this blog was MG Siegler, who is a wonderful author. TechCrunch stole him from VentureBeat back in April of this year. MG writes well because he genuinely cares about what he is writing about. It’s hard to be a technology reporter without a heavy dose of cynicism, but MG pulls it off. Decision: My favorite writer left this blog, so I’m unsubscribing.
6. VisionMobile Forum: Andreas Constantinou is an analyst who founded his own firm: VisionMobile. They do fantastic work at providing a look at who is involved in a particular field of the mobile ecosystem, whether that be component suppliers, open source operating system vendors, and more. Not a lot of time is invested in the blog, it is used as a marketing tool for the professional services after all, but when a post does go up I always read it slowly from top to bottom. If you like to skim articles or have internet news ADD, this is not a website for you. For others who can read over 1000 words without a problem, subscribe to this. Decision: Keep on reading.
7. Visual Complexity: A blog that highlights various works of data visualization, a field I love to follow. Decision: Keep on reading.
8. VoIP Watch: Andy Abramson was once, and still might be, heading a word of mouth marketing project at Nokia (NYSE: NOK). This is his personal blog. As the name implies, he talks a lot about voice over IP, a subject that frankly I could care less about. The few times a year I use my mobile phone to make a phone call make me apathetic to the system driving the telephony features of my device. Decision: Unsubscribe.
9. Web Strategy by Jeremiah: I’ll never forget the first time I met Jeremiah Owyang. He was an independent blogger, and was responsible for being the door man, along with handing out name tags, at a hotel suite that PodTech rented out during CES 2006. A lot has changed since then. His professional and critical writing landed him a job at Forrester Research where he was responsible for telling his clients about what the future of social networking will be like, and what companies are worth watching. He documented his struggles, gave tips to would be analysts, and eventually left the company to join a startup analyst firm that I can’t remember the name of because they’re not really relevant today. There used to be a time when you could get far on your “personal brand”. Many people took advantage of the general masses’ ignorance towards the internet and blogs in general, I know I sure as hell did, but things are different as we head into 2010. People today are much more cynical and far less trusting. The people that have been in this game for a while tend to forget about this, and they’re hungrier for more attention today than they ever were before, but with unemployment in the USA in the double digits, people should remain humble and enjoy what they’ve got. Jeremiah may sound like he knows what companies should do to get ahead, but has he ever stepped inside the belly of a huge beast and tried to change everything from the inside? I tried, and many others have tried, and failed, to get social networking to work inside Nokia. Change doesn’t come with the purchase of software, it has to be driven by a shift in culture. People who are trying to change things don’t realize that, or they act like just throwing the tools out there will some how cause natural adoption. Decision: Unsubscribe.
10. Webmonkey: Toted as “the web developer’s resource”, Webmonkey keeps me up to date on what’s going on with the number one platform everyone seems to forget about: the internet. Fuck iPhone OS, Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile, Bada, and every other mobile operating system in the ass with a rusty fork lift. Giving internet services the ability to access the native capabilities of your device, such as GPS, compass, and camera, via the browser will win out in the long haul. The game large corporations are playing today involves building a vertical, sprinkling some magical brand value on top of a sub par service, and then praying for profit. That will change, eventually, and this blog helps me stay on top of HTML5, what Mozilla is trying to do with Firefox, what Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is trying to do with Chrome, and everything else related to that field. Decision: Keep on enthusiastically reading.
11. Wireless Watch Japan: Reading about the Japanese mobile phone industry while living anywhere else but Japan is like going to a strip club and telling yourself that you’re going to get laid, but sadly realizing that the farthest you’ll get with a lady is to have her tits so close to your face that you’ll easily be able to spot the scar on her nipple that some doctor made so he can shove some silicon inside her previously pathetic fun bags. Water proof mobile phones with 12 megapixel cameras, NFC, they Japanese are so far ahead it isn’t even funny. Reporting on what happens in Japan is sadistic as far as I’m concerned, since stuff like that is years away from landing in the EU, but it was William Gibson once said “the future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed”. That is why I read Wireless Watch Japan, to get an idea of what will eventually happen everywhere else. Decision: Keep on reading

Literally 6 blogs left on my list. Excited to be near the end.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Becoming a better blogger, reader and helping me take out the trash: Trimming in Public: Episode 15
• Becoming a better blogger, reader and helping me take out the trash: Trimming in Public: Episode 16
• Becoming a better blogger, reader and helping me take out the trash: Trimming in Public: Episode 19
• Becoming a better blogger, reader and helping me take out the trash: Trimming in Public: Episode 10
• Becoming a better blogger, reader and helping me take out the trash: Trimming in Public: Episode 21

Samsung has just announced a brand spanking new mobile operating system named “Bada”, which is Korean for ocean. They didn’t mention a single feature that makes it stand out, nor did they include screenshots. Bada will be fully unveiled in December at an event in the UK. In a world where we have Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile available for handset manufactures to use, and to customize, to their heart’s content, Samsung has decided that neither of those three solutions is good enough. Don’t forget that Samsung already does make Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. This company is starting to feel like an unemployed degenerate who goes to clown college to learn how to juggle just so he can pay for his whiskey habit. It’s the fifth week of class, and he mastered juggling 3 balls, but now he wants to jump to 4 for some strange reason. Moral of the story: I hate clowns, and companies that launch press releases filled with fluff.

Update: And in case you’re wondering, Samsung expects the first Bada powered device to launch in 1H 2010, with more models expected in 2H10. Bada will have an application store, launching in 1H10, and will expand to over 30 countries by the end of 2010.

[Via: Bada]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Samsung Senior Vice President Don Joo Lee: We’re not making Symbian devices anymore
• Bada Bing? Leaked Shot of Samsung’s First Bada OS Handset?
• Samsung not dropping Symbian after all
• Nokia buys out Samsung’s Symbian shares on road to Symbian Foundation
• Android-Powered Omnia HD on the Way?

We’ve all been there. It’s 3 in the morning and you’re chatting up a beautiful university student who has had way too many shots. She grabs your arm and looks deep into your eyes, channeling a Freudian lust for the love that her father never gave her growing up. She asks to go home with you. Now, you can’t say yes since you’re married and have two beautiful children, but the allure of being balls deep inside a woman half your age is too resisting to pass. You may never have this opportunity again, your wife stopped performing fellatio last decade, and besides, you need the confidence boost by convincing yourself that doing this will make you a man again. Morally grounded men might pull out their iPhone and call the a taxi for this sweet young lady. Some will use the large, multitouch screen to zoom in on their children’s faces as a reminder of what’s waiting for them back home. You’re not one of those men. You’re going to use your iPhone to find the nearest Hilton Hotel, navigate to it, place it on the night stand, and then reach for it once again once when she is in the reverse cowgirl position so you can snap a quick video so you’ll never forget that one night you kicked ass.

[Via: Textually, USA Today, Official Press Release]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• TaxiFlasher iPhone app helps you get a cab without yelling
• Multitouch on the T-Mobile G1: Proof of Concept Video
• Nate True leaked iPhone v1.1.3 jailbreak, kicked off iPhone Dev Team
• AT&T prepping new iPhone color? Deep Red?
• Facebook 3.0 is submitted to the AppStore; Lacks push notifications, but will be worth downloading nonetheless!

The good news: Shazam, the popular music service that allows you to identify a song by holding your device up to a speaker for a few seconds, has released a premium version of their iPhone application called “Shazam Encore” [iTunes link]. For 5 USD (or 4 EUR or 3 GBP) you get: faster song recognition, the ability to see where you where when you identified a song, music recommendations based on the songs you looked up, find out which songs are being identified the most, and a car mode that helps you identify what’s playing on the radio.

“Since our launch on the App Store, Shazam has achieved a huge following with iPhone and iPod touch users and is now one of the most popular music apps in the world,” said Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam. “We have listened to our iPhone and iPod touch users and have created a new app which answers their requests to take them on an enhanced music journey that will change the way music lovers experience and learn about music.”

The bad news: New users of Shazam deciding to use the free verison will be limited to only 5 uses of the Shazam service per month.

[Via: Shazam Press Release]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Shazam Surpasses 50 Million User Mark… New Money Rolls in via KPCB
• Verizon Wireless launches Song ID service
• Shazam announces Facebook app
• Shazam Goes Live in Windows Marketplace for Mobile
• Shazam Now Available on the BlackBerry Storm

The boffins at Juniper Research have predicted that by 2014, 1 in 6 mobile phone subscribers will be using an NFC device. Whether or not they’ll be using NFC for something other than transmitting naughty pictures and business cards is another story all together. Juniper Research also thinks that in 2014, NFC enabled monetary transactions will exceed $110 billion. If we assume that there are 4 billion mobile subscribers now, and that number will hit 5 billion by 2014, then that would be roughly 833 million people (1 in 6) spending an average of $132 during a 12 month period. That’s roughly the population of the USA and the EU combined, buying a $5 meal at McDonald’s every other week.

Do you think they’re being a tad too optimistic? I am, but then again I tend to stay away from predicting what will happen more than 3 years into the future. At the rate the world is moving, 2014 may as well be a millennium away.

[Via: Business Wire]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Juniper Research: Mobile entertainment service market to increase threefold to $64bn by 2012
• China Mobile subscribers surpass total population of the United States
• Juniper Research: NFC mobile payments to exceed $30 billion by 2012
• India now has more than 200 million mobile phone users
• Juniper Research: Revenues from streamed mobile music services to approach $5.5 billion by 2013

Alex Albrecht, from the popular video podcast Diggnation, received a brand spanking new Nokia Booklet 3G and has posted an unboxing video. Notice how he immediately comments on Windows using “an old theme”. That’s called Windows 7 Starter baby, and it’s what Americans are going to get in order to make the cost as low as humanly possible. The dollar is weak. That $600 price tag is roughly 400 EUR, and here in Finland the Booklet 3G is twice that, as in 800 EUR.

Update: Correction, Finland is getting Windows 7 Starter Edition as well. Oh boy. That makes me mad.

[Hat tip to Ricky Cadden from Symbian-Guru for this tweet]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Brief: Best Buy to get exclusive retail rights on the Nokia Booklet 3G in the USA
• Video: Wall Street Journal reviews the Nokia Booklet 3G: 8 hours of battery with harsh use
• Nokia Booklet 3G: BestBuy exclusive for $599 unlocked or $299 on a 2 year, $60/month plan
• Windows Mobile 6 Theme Now Available for the BlackBerry Storm
• Free "special music edition" S60 3rd editon theme

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) just issued a press release asking you to replace your mobile fone’s charger if it is either the AC-3E and AC-3U models, manufactured between June 15, 2009 and August 9, 2009, or the AC-4U model, manufactured between April 13, 2009 and October 25, 2009. These defective chargers are an “electrical shock hazard”. Go to http://chargerexchange.nokia.com for more details.

One crucial figure, the number of chargers that are actually impacted by this recall, wasn’t mentioned. “Only a limited number of chargers of certain model types manufactured by a single third-party supplier during a specific time period are within the scope of the exchange program.” How many units are we looking at here?

Update: IntoMobile reader “FT” left a comment that points to an article published by Reuters with more information. The defective chargers, which are estimated to be around 14 million units, were manufactured by Chinese company BYD. Thanks FT!

Related News from IntoMobile:

• First-run Nokia 5800 XpressMusic handsets have defective speakers!
• Nokia goes from first place to ninth place in Greenpeace Study
• 46 million Nokia BL-5C batteries manufactured by Matsushita are defective
• CCID: China to make 605 million mobile phones this year
• Pregnant Indian woman burned by Nokia – non-recalled Nokia battery explodes and catches fire

Read this Tech Crunch piece in its entirety.

I walked up the Verizon (NYSE: VZ) store no later than 6:20 AM, forty minutes before the 7:00 AM opening time (three hours earlier than usual in light of the big day). But no sooner had I arrived than I began to question my still-groggy mental state. The Verizon sign was directly above my head. There were five or six employees buzzing around the well-lit store, two of whom were decked out in bizarre Droid-branded outfits, complete with black leather vests. But the street could not have been more empty.

The door cracked open. One of the employees, perhaps concerned by my confused expression or excited that someone had actually shown up, had come to talk to me.

A few minutes later I was joined by two new Droid fans. Unfortunately, my excitement over my new friends was rather shortlived — the newcomers turned down my offer of free TechCrunch T-shirts, and informed me that they weren’t actually waiting in line, but had come to witness it for themselves too. As it turned out, they were members of the Android team, who were also apparently let down by the sad turn out.

Droid. Does. Fail.

Update: Some further clarification as to why I posted the above snippet from Tech Crunch. Remember the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre? Remember how everyone fell in love with it in January, and we all eagerly waited for it to come out? First in the USA on Sprint (NYSE: S), then in Germany and the UK on O2 (NYSE: TEF). Look where the Palm Pre is now in November. Hell, look where Palm is right now. The amount of attention the Palm Pre received was outstanding, yet how many Palm Pres do you see out in the wild?

There is no doubt that the Droid is an awesome device. Everyone who has reviewed one has said that it’s the best version of Android to date. The camera sucks, but the polished UI, and let us not forget Google Maps Navigation, are compelling enough reasons to say that the Droid is better than the iPhone. But what actually happened? All the press, from hyper enthusiast gadget sites like us, Engadget and Gizmodo, to main stream coverage from places such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, all amounted to nothing.

No big lines, no big parade, nada, zip. Think we’re going to be talking about the Droid in 6 months? No. We’ll be up to our eye balls in Android 2.0 devices, and in 6 months we may even see a new, better, more hyped up version of Android from either HTC or Motorola (NYSE: MOT).

The reason I posted the snippet above was to point out, and make fun of, people who said the Droid was going to change the status quo. Android is still not awesome enough to be accepted by the masses, but it’s getting there.

Update 2: One more thing, how long do you think it will take for Motorola, or Verizon, to issue a press release saying 1 million units have been sold? How many do you think will be sold over the weekend?

Update 3 (Monday morning): Looks like TechCrunch changed their mind, apparently the Droid is selling well. The CTO at Pandora said downloads for his application tripled.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Attack of the (Verizon) Droids?
• Android-powered Motorola Droid and Calgary found in Verizon’s systems
• Verizon to celebrate Motorola Droid launch with secret NYC concert by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Reminder: Verizon’s Motorola Droid event on Oct. 28th
• Motorola Droid sales reportedly hit 100,000 since launch

Vint Cerf, who many herald as the father of the internet, it was either him or Al Gore, neither you or I really care, is one hell of a forward thinking individual. He developed Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) in the late 1990s because he knew that one day men and women would be flying all around space, and the ping between Earth and Mars, which can have a round trip time of up to 40 minutes, is not well suited to looking at LOLcats and all the terrible remixes of that scene in Der Untergang where Hitler is in the bunker freaking the fuck out. The Internet Protocol Suite, more commonly known as TCP/IP, which was invented in the 1960s, and further evolved in the 1970s, is what drives the series of tubes that you and I use on a daily basis. DTN is essentially a replacement of TCP/IP developed to deal with space communication. Why is Vint Cerf bothering to bring this to Android then?

Wireless Networks today are not very reliable, especially AT&T’s network, therefore implementing DTN here on Earth would enhance the mobile web experience and also optimize for congestion. But if we’re going to be honest here for a second, the internet has taught us that no one throws away what works, instead little additions are made over time to achieve a certain goal. How successful will DTN be on the consumer internet is anyone’s guess, but if I was a betting man I’d say it isn’t going to take off.

[Via: The Register]

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• Earthscape developing iPhone Earth – Google Earth-like app for iPhone
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• Obama’s Presidential Inauguration Ceremony wreaks havoc on wireless networks
• Afghan wireless providers give in to Taliban demands; shut down networks at night
• AT&T to trial 3G femtocells next year – In-home cell towers coming to AT&T

Chalk this one up as a highly suspicious piece of information, but Einar Rosenberg, who is in charge of the Near Field Communications group on LinkedIn, a social network no one really uses anymore except those trying to find a higher paying job and to show off which fancy schools or companies they’ve worked for, is saying that a highly reputable source has told him that there are 4th generation iPhone prototypes floating around with a built in RFID reader:

Had to share this news. A highly reliable source has informed me that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has built some prototypes of the next gen iPhone with an RFID reader built in and they have seen it in action. So its not full NFC but its a start for real service discovery and I’m told that the reaction was very positive that we can expect this in the next gen iPhone.

If Apple does it, expect every phone manufacturer and their sister to begin pumping out NFC enabled phones, at least for service discovery and sync.

This just reinforces what we knew based on the two separate patents Apple submitted that had the iPhone enabled to read RFID tags. I’m told that the touch project video and the BT SIG’s specs were all driving forces to push this forward as well as other factors.

Guess I’ll be touching my iPhone to my Mac to link them together to sync iTunes by next year.

This is ballsy, and if it does happen … well then you’re looking at the start of something big. Apple was the one who pushed the rest of the handset makers to start making touch screen devices en masse, so if the 4th generation iPhone due to come out some time in 2010 comes with RFID then you can expect everyone else to follow.

iPhone + RFID + all those devices connected to an iTunes account = wicked awesome.

[Via: Near Field Communications World]

[More information about the video]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Samsung develops RFID chip to read various RFID formats
• Apple warns Palm Pre about playing with iTunes
• Is this a glimpse of the next-generation 3G iPhone design?
• Apple iTunes will sync your existing data to the iPhone!
• iTunes WiFi music stores goes live today?

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Best Buy have announced a partnership whereby Best Buy employees will offer to install the Google Mobile Application for customers purchasing mobile phones from a retail Best Buy store. It wasn’t mentioned how much money Best Buy would receive from Google, but rumored estimates range from “I’m going to leave my job and order a trophy wife from Russia” to “I’m rich, bitch”.

Press Release, with massive amounts of bullshit press lingo stripped out, after the jump.

Best Buy Mobile announced a retail partnership with Google that will bring Google Mobile App to consumers. Best Buy is the first retailer in the U.S. to work with Google to distribute Google Mobile App on smartphones sold in-store.

“We know that consumers want smartphones and, increasingly, they want to use applications,” said Scott Moore, VP of Marketing for Best Buy Mobile. “The challenge is that people still need help understanding what is available to them and how they can bring it to life on their device. This partnership between Best Buy and Google serves that role and will go a long way in bringing applications to more consumers regardless of what device, carrier or platform they use.”

Google Mobile App features include:

• One-click access to Google – search Google without having to navigate to the internet
• Search by voice – speak your query in plain English
• My Location – search for local businesses without having to type your current location
• Google Suggest – search for suggested queries and businesses that appear as you type
• Links to other Google apps including Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube

“We are excited to offer users a new and more personalized way of getting Google on their smartphones,” said Marc Vanlerberghe, Director of Marketing at Google. “While Google Mobile App is available as a free download from m.google.com, often times users run into problems because they don’t have the right handset or data plan. Through this agreement, experts at Best Buy Mobile will be available to help users install Google Mobile App on their existing or new smartphone so that they can Walk Out Working.”

Best Buy Mobile associates will install Google Mobile App on all compatible smartphones through the Walk Out Working program which is a free in-store smartphone setup. Google will announce this additional method of getting Google Mobile App on its Mobile Blog (http://googlemobile.blogspot.com) and will provide more information on a new web site, (http://www.google.com/bestbuymobile), scheduled to launch November 9.

“This relationship is an opportunity for both Google and Best Buy Mobile to provide consumers with better access to innovative applications like Google Mobile App,” said Moore. “Going beyond simply selling mobile phones, working with ground-breaking companies like Google allows Best Buy Mobile to improve the buying experience and deliver against its customer promise of being there through the life of the phone.”

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Google LCB – new Google service for mobile searching sans typing
• Google Search on iPhone 3.0 Locates Position
• Sprint and Google to bring Google Search, Google Maps
• Google Product Search brings barcode scanning to Android!
• Life with Google Mobile Voice Search