Motorola reveals Droid RAZR, world's "thinnest" smartphone

As rumored, Motorola introduced the Droid RAZR phone today, calling it an "impossibly thin" phone with a stainless-steel core, a Gorilla Glass screen and a nanotechnology Splash-guard that protects even the electrical boards inside.

Motorola Mobility president Sanjay Jha declared the 7.1mm-thick mobile device the world's thinnest smartphone. Not only is it thinner than other 3G phones, it will run on Verizon Wireless's 4G LTE network. In other countries, the phone will be called the Motorola RAZR; details on international carriers and network compatibility will come soon.

The 4.3-inch screen has qHD resolution and is not LCD but Super AMOLED, like Samsung's Galaxy phones. This means it has higher contrast and richer color than iPhone 4S, says Jha. Not only will it have an incredibly high-res screen and a powerful 1.2GHz dual-core processor, but it will be the "first device to download HD movies from Netflix."

On the software front, it runs Android 2.3.5, aka Gingerbread. It will not launch with Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of the Android OS, which isset to be announced in the next day. The Droid RAZR supports the webtop interface, like the Droid Bionic, Atrix, Photon and others, so you can dock it to one of Motorola's lapdocks, in order to run full Firefox browser.

Internally, Smart Actions let it save up to 30 percent of the battery life by doing things like turning off Bluetooth and GPS when you get to work, and can make your life easier by automatically switching from ring to vibrate when going to church or some high-powered conference.

The RAZR also has MotoCast, a syncing system that Jha is calling the phone's most important feature. "You can stream content from your computer straight to your pocket (or purse) so your personal content is always within reach," says the press release. "And, because you don’t have to upload to a third-party site, you’re saving time while gaining peace of mind. That’s right — your files stay safe because they stay with you."

It will be available in on Verizon early November for $299.99, with a 2-year contract. Check out more pics and info on Motorola's site, and also at Verizon's.

Net permit for Qualcomm

The government has allowed Qualcomm to offer wireless broadband services after rejecting an earlier proposal of the US chip maker.

Telecom secretary R. Chandrashekhar today said the government would grant an Internet service licence. Though Qualcomm had won spectrum to offer the service, it did not have the licence.

Qualcomm last year paid about $1 billion for wireless spectrum for four of India’s 22 telecom circles. The company needs to get an Internet service provider licence (ISP) to launch broadband.

The telecom ministry had rejected Qualcomm’s earlier application, saying that it had missed the submission deadline. The ministry had also said that Qualcomm applied for four separate licences, whereas it should have applied for one.

“A decision has already been taken on their application for an ISP licence for one subsidiary that has been designated as a nominee,” Chandrashekhar said.

The department of telecom (DoT) has asked the company to submit a bank guarantee and a non-conditional acceptance of the offer.

Qualcomm won broadband spectrum in the Mumbai, Delhi, Kerala and Haryana circles on June 12, 2010, paying more than Rs 4,900 crore.

The company then floated four firms with local partners for each the service areas and approached the DoT for licences in each circle. However, the DoT said the licence would be given to a single Qualcomm unit that would be the nominee for all the four zones.

In September, when the DoT rejected its applications, Qualcomm offered a compromise formula of merging all its four ventures into one and taking only one licence.

Separately, the company filed an appeal with the telecom tribunal. On September 28, the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal passed an interim order, restraining the DoT from allotting the BWA spectrum earmarked for Qualcomm to any other operator.

The TDSAT also stopped the government from forfeiting the bid amount of Rs 4,900 crore paid by Qualcomm. The DoT has been asked to file a reply to Qualcomm’s plea within two weeks.

The company had previously said it fully complied with the application process and would work with the authorities to resolve the matter.

Last year, it sold a 26 per cent stake in its India broadband venture to Global Holdings and Tulip Telecom to comply with Indian rules, which allow a maximum 74 per cent foreign holding in local telecom companies.

Other firms that have broadband spectrum for select circles are Bharti Airtel, Aircel and privately held Augere and Tikona. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries owned-Infotel has wireless broadband spectrum for all the 22 circles of the country.

Microsoft whips Apple with global Xbox TV deals

If the Xbox Live network was a cable operator it would be the largest such operator in the world, with 35 million customers, which is why Microsoft is turning the Xbox into an over-the-top TV delivery device – something it has dreamed of ever since it first made the Xbox one of its IPTV Mediaroom set-tops.
Redmond announced the venture this week. The global breadth of the venture, as well as the maturity of the video, is such that it may appear as if Microsoft has succeeded where Apple failed: creating a rival for cable TV over the internet. However if we look more deeply at the announcement we see that this is far from the case.

This is because Xbox is in fact partnering with cable and using those partnerships to continue its war with Sony and its PlayStation. There will be some subscription revenue here for Microsoft, but mostly it simply makes the device and the Live network more appealing than the Sony alternatives.

Microsoft has announced deals around the world with 40 more major TV and entertainment providers, and lists its partners in the US as: Bravo, Comcast, HBO GO, Verizon FiOS and Syfy. It has a deal with the BBC in the UK, Telefónica in Spain, Rogers in Canada, Televisa in Mexico, ZDF in Germany and MediaSet in Italy. Microsoft said it would begin rolling out entertainment services in more than 20 countries over the holiday season.
The truth is that this announcement is not that revolutionary. Most of these players are forced to work with Microsoft products to deliver to the PC anyway, and in many cases will be using Microsoft-originated or Microsoft-approved video formats and its PlayReady DRM – perhaps with additional software fortification. What Microsoft has done is to partner with a broadcaster in each country to allow the Xbox to be a terminal for its OTT offering, directing it through the Live network.
What Apple and others have tried to do is work with content creators, but against existing content operators: going up against them rather than act as a conduit for their rapidly developing TV Everywhere strategies, designed as they are to support the status quo and support every one of these partners in their existing business, rather, than set itself up as a rival. This is the Xbox becoming an even cheaper TV streaming box than the Roku, by dint of the fact that you‘ve already paid for it, as opposed to it becoming another Netflix class company.
Microsoft points out that Xbox Live has 35 million members worldwide who spend in total 2.1 billion hours a month on the service. Video consumption is the fastest area of growth for the network.
"Today‘s announcement is a major step toward realising our vision to bring you all the entertainment you want, shared with the people you care about, made easy," said Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "Combining the world‘s leading TV and entertainment providers with the power of Kinect for Xbox 360 and the intelligence of Bing voice search will make TV and entertainment more personal, social and effortless."
Comcast had already referred to the service in a letter sent this week to the US regulator the FCC, uncovering the fact that it was partnering with Microsoft‘s Xbox.
In a number of cases Microsoft is seen here as partnering on its current hot technology Kinect: in particular it plans this with Comcast, and with Verizon FiOS TV. Kinect can detect hand movements and turn them into remote control commands and can also work alongside Bing voice commands.
Eric Bruno, veep of consumer and mass business product management for Verizon, said: "FiOS TV on the Xbox 360 is an excellent example of how we‘re working with market leaders to erase old technology borders to expand the FiOS TV experience and taking advantage of unique new features including voice- and gesture-control of live TV entertainment via Kinect. This holiday, Verizon will bring a selection of popular live TV channels to Xbox 360 and will be a leader in delivering live, multichannel streaming HD TV, integrated with Kinect, via Xbox."
Each case will be different, but it doesn‘t look like much money is going to change hands here in terms of adding new subscribers. Instead, Xbox Live becomes part of the TV Everywhere experience for each of these major Pay TV operators. We expect that Netflix and Hulu Plus customers will be able to sign up to the service via Live, but for others they will have to be subscribers already.
Deals had already been struck in the past with AT&T, Netflix and Hulu Plus in the US, Telus in Canada, BSkyB in the UK, Canal+ in France, Vodafone Portugal, VimpelCom in Russia and Foxtel in Australia and these services will continue as well as the 40 new deals.
Jeff Weber, vice president of video services at AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, said in a press release: "Nearly a year ago, AT&T U-verse became the first TV provider in the US to launch live TV on Xbox 360. Now we look forward to working with Microsoft to deliver even more innovative features that will allow U-verse TV customers to use voice and gesture controls to manage their TV experience.
"Through our Microsoft partnership, AT&T U-verse TV has been a leader in delivering a multiscreen and interactive TV experience that offers customers more personalization, more control and more integration across devices."
Live will also have on-demand sports content from ESPN in the US, GolTV in Spain and from Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment/Real Sports in Canada.

Trade-in prices for iPhone 4 falling fast

Not that we didn't expect this, but the amount of money you'll get for your old iphone4 is dropping quickly ahead of the launch of the iPhone 4S.

A website called NextWorth, which allows consumers to sell their used electronics  for cash, was offering $250 for an iPhone 4 at the beginning of October. Now, the price is $200 for the 16 GB 

Another leader in this space, Gazelle, has posted the exact same drop from $250 to $200.

Trade-in sites like Gazelle reported spikes in iPhone 4 trade-ins over the last several weeks, but unfortunately many people who have an iPhone 4 can't trade it in until they get a replacement.

The iPhone 4s goes on sale on Friday, and by that time the iPhone 4 will be completely old news.

Nevertheless, there is sure to be an entirely brand new market for the iPhone 4 as soon as that day hits. Apple has found that budget-conscious consumers still long for an iPhone, which is why it continued to sell the iPhone 3GS long after the iPhone 4 was released.

AT&T also noted an advantage in the market of "cheap iPhones," since it was the only carrier authorized for use with the iPhone 3GS, thus it held a monopoly on the industry for those without a lot of money who still wanted an iPhone.

Apple iPhone 4S features Qualcomm chip

Apple Inc's fifth-generation iPhone uses a wireless chipset from Qualcomm Inc, according to repair and parts specialist iFixit, which cracked the device open on Thursday.

The new iPhone also features the Apple A5 chip with 1 GHz dual-core processor, according to iFixit, known in the technology industry for stripping down and revealing the innards of Apple devices.

The Qualcomm chipset is an upgrade from the one used in the previous version of the phone, iFixit said.

Apple is famous for designing sealed-up devices intended to discourage fans from poking around in them.

The iPhone 4S will hit store shelves around the globe on Friday after a 15-month hiatus, and is expected to draw the usual throngs eager to grab a piece of the final gadget unveiled during Steve Jobs' lifetime.

The fifth iteration of the iconic smartphone comes with a faster processor and a better and more light-sensitive camera, but otherwise is a spitting image of its predecessor. Tech experts say the real gems lie beneath the familiar sleek casing, especially in its "Siri" voice-activated digital assistant.

Apple Wins, Samsung Tablet Banned in Australia

Apple on Thursday won its legal bid to temporarily block the sale of Samsung's flagship tablet computer Down Under.

New South Wales Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett granted Apple an injunction against Samsung blocking the sale of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 device in Australia ahead of the final outcome of a lengthy patent battle between the two companies.

However, exact orders will not be released until Friday. This means Samsung could be allowed to sell a varied version of the tablet in Australia.

Still, the ruling comes as a major blow to Samsung. The company's lawyers have said that even a temporary ban would commercially kill the device Down Under as the company would not be able to take advantage of lucrative pre-Christmas sales.

Apple has repeatedly accused the Korean manufacturer of "blatant copying" of aspects of its mobile device technology.

The long-awaited judgment handed down at noon Thursday marked an important milestone in the tit-for-tat patent battle the between the two companies that now rages across Australia, the UK, the US, Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy.

At stake is Apple's dominance in the tablet computing market, which saw it ship 13.9 million iPads worldwide in the first half of the year.Samsung shipped two million of its Tab devices in the same period.

The legal battle between the two companies in Australia concerns two patents over touchscreen technology in its iPad devices.

Apple began legal proceedings against Samsung in Australia late July. It sought a legal injunction to block the sale of Galaxy Tab in Australia ahead of a final hearing over the two patents that could go on for many months.

Justice Bennett's ruling on Apple's application for a temporary injunction had been expected in the last weeks of September or early October however, owing to the complexity of the matter, it was not handed down until Thursday.

It is understood that the two patents in dispute are over detailed design of the touchscreens and their ability to enable vertical scrolling even when a person touching the screen does not move their finger in a precise vertical pattern.

GM planning to pilot next-gen EN-V in megacities

GM's autonomous pod could be coming to a megacity near you. The auto manufacturer announced that it has begun development of the next-generation EN-V, and is exploring pilot programs to test the concept in real-world scenarios.

The electric two-seater pod debuted at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, and is designed to provide a safe, congestion reducing, zero-emissions transportation solution for dense urban environments. Estimates predict that 60 percent of the world's population will live in megacities by 2030, according to GM.

GM North America President Mark Reuss has said that Detroit would be a good candidate for a pilot project because it could be installed alongside the proposed high-speed rail connection. Military bases and senior-living communities could also be used as testing grounds, Reuss added, but no locations or dates have been confirmed for any location. London Heathrow Airport is currently testing driverless pods to transport passengers between a terminal and parking lots.

The first version of the EN-V, which is short for Electric Networked-Vehicle, was based on the self-balancing Segway two-wheeled PUMA platform, but the second-generation autonomous vehicle is being redesigned. Changes will include climate control, personal storage space, and all-weather operation. The new model will also sport a Chevy badge.

GM brought the EN-V to the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show last year to give consumers a taste of what future mobility could look like. The current concept is powered by a lithium ion battery, has a 25-mile range, and can be recharged from a wall outlet. The EN-V is capable of communicating with other vehicles or transportation infrastructure, and can be driven either manually or automatically. However, GM needs GPS technology to become more precise before it can release the pod into the wild.

'iPad Mini' to take on Kindle Fire?

Rumors are starting to fly that Apple may be working on an iPad to take on Amazon's already popular Kindle Fire.

An industry source who speaks with the Asia-based tablet supply chain told CNET that chatter is picking up for a 7-inch Apple tablet. Maybe not coincidentally, that's the same size of Amazon's $199 tablet that's will ship on November 15.

Other reports, however, say that "Mini" doesn't necessarily refer to the size but simply the lower price point, possibly the mid-$200 range.

The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs summarily dismissed the notion of a 7-inch tablet during an earnings conference call in October of last year.

"Apple has done extensive user testing and we really understand this stuff...There are clear limits on how close you can place things on a touch screen, which is why we think 10 inch is the minimum screen size to create great tablet apps," Jobs said at the time.

"It's meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size," he added.

Jobs' protests notwithstanding, at the time more than a few analysts said Apple was close to bringing out a product.

And the tablet market is changing. Apple may have to change along with it. Smaller 7-inch and 8.9-inch tablets from Samsung, HTC, RIM and others are prevalent now. And if the Kindle Fire approaches the iPad in sales--which analysts say is possible--that would make smaller, cheaper tablets a category that rivals the 10-inch iPad in popularity.

Belle-powered Nokia 603 goes official with a 1GHz CPU and NFC

AMD debuts long-awaited Bulldozer desktop CPUs

If for no reason other than interest in reinvigorating competition in the CPU market, we wanted AMD to have a hit with its new Bulldozer CPU architecture. Sadly, the reviews from around the Web indicate that AMD's new Bulldozer-driven FX-8150 CPU won't challenge Intel's performance and value leadership.

Bulldozer is the code name for AMD's first new CPU design since the Phenom in 2007. In standalone product terms, the Bulldozer design is the core technology inside AMD's just-announced family of FX desktop chips. Technically speaking, Bulldozer brings some new architectural features, in particular a new way to handle branched data processing. You will find excellent, in-depth Bulldozer architecture coverage at Anandtech, Hot Hardware, and PC Perspective, among others.

Multi-flavored multicore

On shelves you'll find three different series in AMD's new FX line, as outlined in the AMD-provided image below. Note, too, that FX is now a standalone product line, as opposed to AMD's older, "FX"-designated Athlon and Phenom performance chips. And similar to the K variants of Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, all of the FX chips ship with the CPU multiplier unlocked, making them ripe for overclocking.

Broken down into four-, six-, and eight-core series, at least the FX's number-based naming conventions make sense. AMD has also priced these chips aggressively. The $245 FX-8150 falls in-between Intel's $315 Core i7 2600K and its $220 Core i5 2500K chips. If it competed well, it would be a steal.

Out of frequency

With those high core clock speeds, you might think the FX chips would give Intel robust competition. At its slowest, the FX-8150 operates at 3.6GHz per core, with the ability to ramp at least one core up to 4.2GHz when AMD's Turbo Core technology kicks in. Intel's Core i7 2600K operates from 3.4GHz to 3.8GHz.

That automatic speed scaling, by the way, is a now-common characteristic of modern CPUs. AMD's Turbo Core is different than Intel's Turbo Boost, but they offer the same capability, wherein the chips adjust the clock speed across the processing cores (and processing threads, in Intel's case) based on the thermal constraints of the chip and the demands of the current processing task.

Despite its higher clock speed range, across the various enthusiasts sites that tested the FX-8150, AMD's new chip fell flat compared with both the Core i7 2600K and the more affordable Core i5 2500K.

Following, a sampling of comments from FX-8150 reviews of the leading hard core tech sites:

Anandtech's Anand Lal Shimpi: "in lightly threaded scenarios, Bulldozer simply does not perform. To make matters worse, in some heavily threaded applications the improvement over the previous generation Phenom II X6 simply isn't enough to justify an upgrade for existing AM3+ platform owners."

HotHardware's Marco Chiapetta: "In comparison to Intel's processors, the AMD FX-8150 performed right about on par with the quad-core Core i5-2500K...Versus higher-end Intel processors like the Core i7-2600K or i7-970, however, the FX generally couldn't compete.

PC Perspective's Ryan Shrout: "In applications that are very lightly threaded the FX-8150 does the poorest as you can see in our LAME MP3 encoding, Valve synthetic tests and more. Even with a clock rate as high as 4.2 GHz in those cases, the FX-8150 was unable to to keep up with the likes of the Core i7-2600k and even the Core i5-2500k."

We encourage you to read each of those reviews in full for in-depth technical coverage of the FX-8150 and the Bulldozer architecture.

If the price of the FX-8150 comes closer to the Core i5 2500K, it might be worth picking up now, but in the larger picture, Bulldozer does not appear to offer AMD a competitive resurgence. AMD has also suggested that Windows 8 may improve the outlook of the FX line due to its ability to take advantage of the new chips' architecture more effectively than Windows 7 does. Expect the Bulldozer architecture to last for a few years, and as AMD refines the design it may find a way to offer a more appealing FX chip. For the sake of driving competition, let's hope that possibility is enough to keep Intel honest.

Nokia gears up for new strike on U.S. market

 Nokia Windows Phones were well-hidden during a tour of the company's phone-testing facility in San Diego, but they loomed large over the conversation.

Nokia's new head of North America, a transplant from Microsoft who has been with the phone maker since February, said that organizational and mindset changes make Nokia poised to finally have an impact in the U.S. The number-one phone maker in the world has scant market share in the U.S. and has been trying to break into the market for years. With Windows Mobile, which Nokia announced last year it would start using, it hopes to finally do so.

Engineers at the San Diego facility are designing Windows Phones specifically for the North American market, said Chris Weber, president of North America for Nokia, during a tour offered to journalists attending the CTIA Enterprise and Applications conference on Tuesday.

"They're not taking world phones and retrofitting them, which I think was the strategy in the past," he said.

Nokia may also finally be ready to accommodate the unique mobile business model in the U.S., where operators exert control over the phone development process and can determine the success or failure of a phone, more so than their counterparts in other parts of the world. Nokia's unwillingness or inability to work with U.S. operators has been cited as one reason it has such small market share in the U.S.

But Weber said the company is working on unique variants of phone models for various operators, indicating it may finally be willing to accommodate their demands.

Weber declined to name which operators in the U.S. the company is working closely with, but when asked if they were national or regional, he said the company is working with a "broad set of operators."

His group has also been reorganized in ways he thinks gives it the autonomy to create products and cater to the business model in the U.S. In the past, the group responsible for North America was separate from the main smartphone development group at Nokia, limiting its influence, he said. Now his engineers are part of the overall smartphone group at the company where they can have more say in how the phones turn out, he said.

In addition to phone design, his group is working on accessories and unique content and apps for the market. "We'll play big in accessories. We have some cool and unique ones," he said.

Besides working with Microsoft to encourage development for the Windows Phone Marketplace, Nokia is developing its own apps and content, he said.

The company has not said exactly when its first Windows Phones will go on sale, but implied it would make an announcement at its upcoming Nokia World conference in London later this month.

At the San Diego facility, Weber said that Windows Phones are being subject to the same harsh treatment as Symbian phones, which were on display in the facility. Workers in the test labs in San Diego do their best to break phones, looking for weak spots. They put them in very high and very low temperatures, drop them, knock them around in tumblers and pour cooking oil, suntan lotion and cleaning supplies on them. Then they examine the results in a forensics lab that they compare to those used in the popular CSI television shows.

Sony Recalls 1.6 Million Bravia TV Sets Because of Fire Risk

Sony Corp. recalled 1.6 million Bravia flat-panel TVs sold worldwide since 2007 because a faulty component may cause them to melt or catch fire.

Sony recalled the liquid-crystal display TVs after a September incident in which a customer noticed a small fire and smoke, said Yuki Shima, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for the world’s No. 3 maker of televisions. Eleven incidents have been reported in Japan since 2008, according to a company statement, and no injuries have been reported.

A faulty component in the backlight systems may be the source of overheating that can melt the top of the TV set, Shima said. It’s the second recall involving Sony products in a month, with KDDI Corp., Japan’s second-largest mobile-phone operator, saying it would replace Sony-made batteries in as many as 2 million handsets because they may overheat and melt.

“Sony-related recalls are following one another and that may ruin the company’s brand image,” said Keita Wakabayashi, an analyst at Mito Securities Co. who rates the stock “neutral plus.” “Considering Sony’s overall business size, the TV recalls won’t shake the company’s grounding.”

The same transformer is used in the five Bravia models in Japan being recalled, according to a Sony statement.

The recalled sets will be repaired if a faulty part was found. Sony will dispatch a service crew to inspect the set and may offer a rental TV while repairs are being made, Shima said. Sony won’t offer refunds or replacement TVs, she said.

U.S., Europe Announcements

There haven’t been any reports of overheating incidents outside Japan, the statement said. The recalls also will be announced today in the U.S. and Europe, Shima said.

The recall was announced after Tokyo markets closed. Sony rose 1.4 percent to close at 1,517 yen. The stock has plummeted 48 percent this year, compared with a 16 percent decline for the broader Topix index.

“It could impact the stock negatively if the recall causes a significant amount of expense,” Wakabayashi said.

The repairs will have a negligible impact on Sony’s earnings, Shima said. The recall was voluntary, she said.

Sony shares declined to their lowest in 24 years earlier this month on speculation the yen’s strength and slumping demand for televisions will hurt earnings. The company, which forecast full-year operating profit of 200 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in July, loses about 6 billion yen of annual operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, for every 1 yen decline against the euro.

Samsung-Google Unpacked event allegedly rescheduled for 19th

After Steve Job's death, Samsung and Google decided to postpone their 'Unpacked' event, saying that 'it wasn't the right time to announce a new product'. However, no information was given as to which date the event was postponed to

But we are now hearing that it won't be far from now. According to Engadget, the event has been rescheduled to October 19 and the venue has been shifted to Hong Kong and will coincide with theAsiaD: All Things Digital event that will also be held in Hong Kong.

We are looking forward to an official announcement from Samsung/Google, which should be coming any time now, considering the proximity of the event.

Nokia C2-05 and Nokia X2-05 – looks and power, for less

The world over, a mobile phone is a status symbol, electronic jewellery. That’s especially true among younger, urban populations. And that means that, whatever their wage dictates, people want a mobile phone that looks modern and fashionable. And they’re equally demanding when it comes to features. People are well aware you can get the Internet and apps on a phone, and they want that too, even if their income makes a smartphone prohibitively expensive.

So both the Nokia C2-05 and Nokia X2-05 come with the new Nokia Browser, which uses Nokia’s own compression technology to deliver real mobile web pages quickly and at a fraction of the bandwidth, and cost, of other mobile phones. They also come with the Nokia Store for access to thousands of apps. These are actually the most affordable phones in the world to offer a built-in Store for apps and other content downloads. Both have dedicated social networking apps preinstalled, too.

The Nokia C2-05 has a slider form-factor, and it can slip easily into pockets and handbags the world over: this is a phone that’s geared towards style-conscious social networkers.

As well as the Nokia Browser and the Nokia Store, there are dedicated Facebook and Twitter apps for updates on the go – other social networking apps can be added later by the user, of course. In China, which is one of the main markets in which we’ll be shipping this phone, there’s an app for the social network QQ. There are already about 40 million Chinese people accessing QQ through Nokia Series 40 phones, so this is an important priority for that country.

On the hardware front, the Nokia C2-05 offers a VGA camera with digital zoom and a full-screen viewfinder. There’s also a media player for MP3 and MP4 files, as well as an FM radio with a recorder built in, so users can save songs to play later. The phone allows for up to 32GB of external memory on a MicroSD card, and features both Bluetooth and MicroUSB for easy sharing and transfer of media. There’s a stereo headset included in the box.

The Nokia C2-05 measures 99.43 x 47.77 x 16.28mm and weighs 98.5g. The display is a 2-inch QVGA resolution (320 x 240 pixels) LCD, offering up to 65K colors. The reception is GSM Dual Band 900/1800 and 850/1900. Battery life is up to 20 days in standby or four hours talktime.

As you’d expect from the emphasis on style, the Nokia C2-05 allows every user to express their personality: it comes in a range of colours including pink, peacock blue and dynamic grey. It also allows further personalisation through themes, wallpapers and ringtones from the Nokia Store.

The Nokia C2-05 will become available in Q4 and will cost around 50 Euros before any local taxes or operator subsidies.

The Nokia X2-05 is a candy-bar form factor phone that offers an emphasis on music and media. Like the Nokia C2-05, it comes with the new Nokia Browser and Nokia Store on-board. There are also preloaded Facebook and Twitter clients.

As with other phones in the Xseries, the media player is a central focus. Music is a big priority for the people these phones are aimed at – sometimes it will be the only music player they’ve got access to, and everyone wants music on the move, anyway.

It can play MP3 and MP4 files, either through the stereo headset provided or through the loud loudspeaker. The speaker operates at 106phons – you’ll recall that phons are a measure ofperceived loudness and that 106 of them are enough to entertain the whole room. There’s also an FM radio with a recording facility. On the back there’s a VGA camera so users can snap the world around them while they’re on the go – quite possibly for the first time.

This one measures 113 x 50 x 15 mm, but is a little lighter overall at just 87.8g. The screen is slightly larger, too, with a 2.2-inch QVGA display offering 65K colors at a 320 x 240 resolution. Storage is once again through an optional MicroSD card – cards with up to 32GB capacity can be fitted. The reception is GSM Dual Band 900/1800, while battery life is rated up to 25 days on standby or four hours talktime. Sharing and media transfer is once again offered through Bluetooth and the included MicroUSB cable.

Available in Black, Silver, White and Bright Red, the Nokia X2-05 will also ship in Q4 and is expected to cost around 46 Euros before any local taxes or operator subsidies.

Apple preps for iOS 5, iCloud with iTunes update

Apple today prepared iOS, Mac and Windows users for tomorrow's launch of iOS 5 and iCloud by shipping iTunes 10.5.

The update to Apple's music player and iOS App Store portal also included a massive number of security patches: iTunes 10.5 fixes 79 flaws in the Windows edition.

iTunes 10.5 will be required to synchronize an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch powered by iOS 5, the mobile operating system upgrade Apple will release Wednesday.

It also preps users' music and other media content for storage on iCloud, the follow-on to 2008's problem-plagued MobileMe service that will sync data between devices, Macs and Windows PCs, and store content and other files on Apple's servers.

"iTunes now stores your music and TV purchases in iCloud and makes them available on your devices anywhere, any time, at no additional cost," Apple said in the note accompanying iTunes 10.5.

Last June, then-CEO Steve Jobs dubbed that feature "iTunes in the Cloud," which includes an automatic download mechanism that deposits tracks bought via, say, an iPhone, onto a Mac or Windows system running iTunes.

Jobs' participation in the unveiling of iCloud and iOS 5 was his final new product presentation for Apple, and his second-to-last public appearance. Jobs, 56, died last week.

Other features bundled in the update include Wi-Fi synchronization of devices and computers, a complement to iOS 5's "PC Free" component.

iTunes 10.5 made no mention of "iTunes Match," the $25-a-year service that Apple intends to unveil later this month. Match will scan a customer's iTunes collection, match those tunes that were not bought through Apple's store against the 18 million tracks in Apple's library, then make the matches available for instant downloading to a maximum of 10 devices.

iCloud will be free to owners of iOS 5-powered mobile devices and Macs running OS X 10.7, aka Lion.

iTunes 10.5 also included 79 security patches, all of them affecting only the Windows Vista and Windows 7 version of the player and e-store.

The iTunes update was expected: Apple traditionally rolls out a new version prior to the availability of a major iOS upgrade.

Apple will also probably ship an update to Lion on Wednesday to add iCloud-connectivity features to the newest version of Mac OS X.

iTunes 10.5 can be downloaded from Apple's website, but Mac users can upgrade by selecting "Software Update" from the Apple menu. Windows users already running iTunes will be alerted by the Apple Software Update tool.

Apple also said it was unlinking QuickTime from iTunes on Windows, and no longer requiring PC owners to download the former alongside the latter.