Nokia

It's hard to figure why anyone would do any prospecting in the stony terrain of digital-music subscriptions.

This week, Best Buy acquired the remade and beleaguered version of Napster for a song. The deal is likely bad news for RealNetwork's Rhapsody, the current engine behind Best Buy's digital music store and one of the pioneers in music subscriptions. (I wrote a sidebar about the troubles RealNetworks' Rhapsody may face if Best Buy walks.)

And don't forget, the Yahoo Unlimited subscription service was shuttered earlier this year.

The all-you-can-eat music services are the ones getting chewed up. … Read more

Mobile phone company Sony Ericsson is expected to launch a music service within the next week designed to compete with Nokia's "Comes with Music" offering, according to recording-industry sources.

The Sony Ericsson service is being launched in partnership with British firm Omnifone, which provides unlimited music downloads to mobile service providers, according to the sources, who added that all four major recording companies have signed on.

The sources said Omnifone's MusicStation is expected to power the service, which may include a music-subscription model. A representative from Omnifone was not immediately available. And a spokesman for Sony … Read more

Nokia has introduced automated kiosks across the central Klang Valley of Malaysia in a bid to encourage people to recycle their mobile phones.

In a recent study conducted by the mobile-phone maker, only 3 percent of respondents recycled their cell phones, and 50 percent were unaware that their devices could be reused.

Nokia is hoping to improve the statistics with the introduction of kiosks specially designed to ease the recycling process.

"We've been at the forefront of driving environmental initiatives in the mobile industry for over a decade, and Nokia Malaysia is the first to launch this automated … Read more

NEW YORK--In technology circles, Dean Kamen is probably best known as the guy who invented the Segway.

But Kamen, also the creator of an array of medical devices and the founder of a worldwide organization that encourages students to study science, is perhaps most passionate about solving third-world health problems as basic as getting access to drinkable water and electricity.

Now he thinks cell phone manufacturer Nokia may be able to help out.

Thursday morning, Nokia is expected to announce its "Calling All Innovators" competition, a global contest that will split up to $150,000 among several winners. … Read more

We've just come out of a Q&A session with some of the Nokia folks behind the application services platform Ovi, and here are some key takeaways about the Finnish phone maker's Internet service. The Ovi Suite will eventually replace the current PC Suite client, though it's unclear when exactly. Software support for Mac "will be released at some time in the future." Again, no mention of the time frame.

Right now, Ovi is able to sync Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Notes, but not e-mail, although the team is looking to (possibly) include that … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Nokia took aim at smartphone rival Research in Motion Tuesday with plans to expand the number of devices that will automatically be capable of accessing Microsoft corporate e-mail.

On the eve of the CTIA I.T. & Entertainment tradeshow here, Nokia announced it will embed Microsoft Exchange Activesync on all Nokia phones that use the S60 Symbian operating system. As a result, 43 different models of Nokia phones will have easy access to Microsoft corporate email. Nokia will also add the Microsoft Exchange support to all new N-Series and E-Series phones that hit the market in the future.

Until … Read more

Browser developer Opera Software has signed up with the Symbian Foundation, a Nokia-led consortium that was set up in June to turn the Symbian mobile operating system into an open-source platform.

The addition of Opera to the Symbian Foundation roster was announced on Tuesday, along with the involvement of companies such as Acrodea, Brycen, HI Corp., Ixonos, KTF, Sharp, and TapRoot Systems. UIQ is also listed as a new member, despite the fact that the open-source Symbian will effectively subsume the UIQ and Series 60 platforms--both of which are already based on Symbian.

"Symbian was one of the first … Read more

Smartphone sales slowed a bit in the second quarter amid a weak global economy, but Gartner thinks that's about to change.

The worldwide market for smartphones grew 15.7 percent in the second quarter, as vendors shipped a total of 32.2 million devices. That's pretty solid, but earlier this year the market was growing at a 60 percent clip. Blame a slowing economy around the world and the development of more sophisticated "enhanced phones" running Java or Qualcomm's BREW rather than true smartphone operating systems like Symbian, Windows Mobile, or Apple's OS X, … Read more

The mobile handset market is going from bad to worse as Nokia, the world's largest maker of cell phones, said Friday that it's lowering its third-quarter market share outlook due to the weakening global economy.

The Finnish company has dominated the mobile handset market over the past few years. Last quarter, it reported it had grabbed 40 percent of the entire worldwide market. At the time, executives were confident that the company would maintain this level. But now, as the worldwide economy worsens, executives say they expect Nokia's market share to slip slightly in the third quarter. … Read more