Mobiles

Finnish handset-maker Nokia has pull out of the Japanese market, forfeiting its tiny slice of a dwindling market as it refocuses efforts during the global financial crisis.

Nokia will stop selling phones and end marketing activities in Japan but will continue to sell its ultra-high-end Vertu phones.

Nokia started selling mobiles in Japan in 1994, but its market share is about 1 percent.

The Japanese market is mature, dominated by local manufacturers and carriers led by Sharp, the consumer electronics company. Customers also have little desire to upgrade and replace their devices.

Mobile sales in Japan have been falling since last year, when network operators led by NTT DoCoMo cut their subsidies on certain handsets, making consumers pay more for new handsets.

Nokia suffered from consumers buying fewer phones in the global economic downturn, and earlier this month issued a profit warning and said it expected handset sales worldwide to fall in 2009 compared with 2008.

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Yeah, it’s not easy to understand Japan’s mobile market habit. Even the big boy like Nokia should give-up and decided to cease sales there, due to very tiny part amount of their market share. The only Finn company’s product that will stay in the Rising Sun country is the luxurious Vertu.

Japan is the fourth largest market in the world, after United States, China, and India. With over 109 million subscribers, that’s count 85% of total population, there is little room to grow for “outsider” like Nokia.

[via 3Gweek]

Got these fresh pictures from Justamp, enjoy new live pics of the cancelled Sony Ericsson Paris (P200).

Governments in the European Union are set to regulate the costs on roaming charges of data usage and text messages. According to Mobile Industry Review, by citing Reuters, the EU Telecoms Commissioner has outlined the cost should be at 11 Euros cents for a roaming text message, compared with the existing average rate of 29.

This all new regulations will effective on July 1, 2009, when the joint legislation takes effect in the European Parliament. And it’s aso just in time for the summer holidays. Wahoo.

Just woke up in my hotel’s room, I found this fantastic news! Finally, Linux ported to the iPhone! Yeah, now Linux operating system can be ported to the iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, and first-generation iPod touch platforms. You rock, man!

I’m pleased to announce that the Linux 2.6 kernel has been ported to Apple’s iPhone platform, with support for the first and second generation iPhones as well as the first generation iPod touch. This is a rough first draft of the port, and many drivers are still missing, but it’s enough that a real alternative operating system is running on the iPhone.

What we have:

• Framebuffer driver
• Serial driver
• Serial over USB driver
• Interrupts, MMU, clock, etc.

What we have in openiboot (but hasn’t been ported yet):

• Read-only support for the NAND

What we don’t have (yet!):

• Write support for the NAND
• Wireless networking
• Touchscreen
• Sound
• Accelerometer
• Baseband support

You can see a short narrated video demonstrating iPhone Linux below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

[image credit]

Dialogue Communications launches its mobile billing services in Norway and Sweden, two of the most highly saturated mobile markets in the world, to allow consumers enjoying their mobile transactions.

Norway and Sweden have a combined mobile penetration is predicted to reach an estimated 122.5% by 2010. The international mobile payments specialist has designed its mobile payment framework, which can be integrated into its Mobile Site Builder tool in both countries.

The company currently provides similar services in the UK, Spain and in Australia where mobile payment solutions are rapidly developing.

Wow. You can be a director of mobile movie now - and then share it into YouTube or Vimeo. HighAndes introduces trakAxMobile, the real-time multimedia editing and mixing suite for mobile devices. With prices starting at just $8, trakAxMobile offers a new way to optimise your camera and video functionality.

trakAxMobile for Smartphones, QVGA and VGA devices are available immediately through www.trakax.com and is also available for over 400 Windows Mobile devices.

This product enables users to transform captured and downloaded media (video, audio, or images) into polished and sophisticated productions.  It allows users to put mobile video clips and photos into a context; combining credits and text overlay, transitions, photo and video effects, cropping tools, boarders and themes, soundtracks and narrations.

Online retailer Amazon.com has updated its pre-order listing for the Nokia N85 for North America, which supports AT&T's high-speed 3G network. The listing now lists a ship date of December 6th.
Read the full story here.

Nokia has announced that it has start selling the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in select markets globally, including Russia, Spain, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Finland, among others. Aiming to put music into the hands of millions, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic offers all the music essentials including a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks, support for all main digital music formats, and a 3.5mm jack.

Taking advantage of touch screen technology, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic introduces the ‘Media Bar’, a handy drop down menu that provides direct access to music and entertainment, including favourite tracks, videos and photos. The Media Bar also offers a direct link to the web and to online sharing. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and, with a single touch, images or videos can be shared via a favorite online community, such as Share on Ovi, Flickr, or Facebook.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports 60 languages worldwide and offers a variety of input methods including a virtual alphanumeric keypad, a virtual computer-style QWERTY keyboard, a pen stylus — and for true music enthusiasts, a plectrum — are all available.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Specifications:

• WCDMA 2100/900,GSM 850/900/1800/1900,HSDPA, WLAN
• or GSM 850/900/1800/1900
• or WCDMA 850/1900, HSDPA, WLAN, GSM 850/900/1800/1900
• User Interface:S60 5th Edition
• Dimensions:111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm (L x W x T)
• Weight:109 g
• Display:3.2 inch nHD(640 x 360 pixels) with up to 16 million colors
• Battery: Nokia Battery BL-5J,1320mAh Lion
• Memory:81 MB internal memory, support for up to 16GB microSD memory card
• CameraLens:Carl ZeissTessar
• Image capture:Up to 3.2 megapixels(2048 x 1536)
• Video capture:nHD(640 x 360) at up to 30 fps
• Flash:Dual-LED camera flash
• Talk time: Up to 9 hours (GSM),5 hours (WCDMA)
• Standby time: Up to 17 days (GSM),17 days (WCDMA)
• Music playback:Up to 35 hours
• Video playback:Up to 5 hours (Mpeg4) 3 hours (nHD)
• WLAN (IEEE 802.11 b/g)
• MicroUSB, 3.5 mm AV connector
• Bluetooth wireless technology 2.0 with A2DP stereo audio, AVRCP

On Thursday Nokia began shipping its 5800 XpressMusic smartphone, its first product to use the new S60 5th Edition touch-enabled user interface. The 5800 XpressMusic is now shipping in Spain, Finland, Russia, India, and other select countries.
Read the full story here.