If there’s one strategy that’s quite clear, it’s Nokia’s. After announcing the arrival of the N96 and N78, the Finish firm gives us two new handphones with a navigation system, the 6210 Navigator and the 6220. Thus, the highest four phones in Nokia’s catalogue offer an integrated GPS system.

Nokia Maps 2.0: A Good First Impression

The 6210 Navigator runs Symbian S60. It’s a slider, without touchscreen, that can still boast impressive features. The 6210 gets a HSDPA (3G+) connexion, a micro SD slot (with a 1 GB SD Card containing the maps), but also a 3.2 Megapixel camera, an FM Tuner and an MP3 player. What really distinguishes this 6210 from any other phone of the brand is the fact that it integrates then new Nokia Maps 2.0.

After a quick tryout, we can already say that the new software is quite impressive, especially the pedestrian navigation system, based on technologies from Navteq. It includes many options (POI, information sharing with the Nokia Community, like the TomTom’s Map Share).

The other good news is the price. The 6210 Navigator will be available in Q3, for about €300.

Nokia 6220

The Nokia 6220 isn’t an upgrade of the model presented above. Also coming with Nokia Maps 2.0, it’s more multimedia oriented.

An impressive level of features

After looking at its technical specifications, we can assume that Q3 2008 will see the launch of one of the mobile phones of the year, one reason being its performance-price ration. For about €325, the owner of the 6220 will be able to profit from HSDPA, A-GPS, a 5 Megapixel sensor and a platform optimized for proprietary services like OVI or Flickr for images that are geo-tagged.

Also add internet features, mail and an FM Tuner with RDS and 8 GB of Flash Memory. Only slider lovers will regret the switch from the 6210 form factor to a simpler design. The next step is now to confirm all those good feelings with a review from our labs.

The MWC is an opportunity to meet up with people that shape the decisions of manufacturers. Thus our interview with Jonas Geust, Nokia Europe Vice President for navigation, was an interesting one.

Tom’s Guide: With those four new models navigation oriented, is Nokia attacking head on the GPS market?

Jonas Geust: Nokia is already a leader in the mobile phone industry. We’re aiming at not only comforting that with always better models, but also widen it by offering more thorough services. That’s what Nokia Maps 2.0 is all about. It includes new features like a compass or optimized pedestrian navigation. The Nokia experience is all about this.

TG: Has the Nokia experience decided to omit touchscreens?

JG: Absolutely not! We already have a tablet that runs Linux and that met its public. I also can tell you that we’ll launch a completely touch sensitive phone during the second half of 2008.

TG: With the Nokia 6210 and 6220, we have two products that have interesting features for a price that’s very interesting. Has the mobile phone leader decided to go for a more aggressive price war?

JG: This isn’t really a change of strategy. In a nutshell, let’s say that what made the high end mobiles in 2007 is now finding its way in the mainstream segment. Hence, we’re able to offer products integrating a 5 Megapixel sensor, a GPS and many multimedia features for a price slightly higher than €300. That’s also the evolution of the mobile phone industry.

It’s amazing how Yahoo! seems to be constantly under the spotlights lately. After resisting Microsoft’s offer, the guys from Sunnyvale decided to counter attack with an announcement that should the very core of the Mobile World Congress.

One platform for all communities

Marco Boerries, Vice President of the firm’s Connected Life division, was in charge of presenting the new service called One Connect. Easily installed on a large majority of phones being sold today, it centralizes all your communities under one platform. Starting with your contacts, whether they are in a webmail, or in MSN, AIM, Facebook or Myspace, they will all be grouped within one superset. It’ll then be possible to know who’s online and who isn’t, what is the status of your communication and even archive past communications.

Beyond Facebook

Keeping the same idea, One Connect will manage all kinds of message from SMS to MMS, including mail and instant messaging and the user will be able to choose what method of communication he wants to use based on the recipient’s status. Similarly, the user will be able to be alerted of anything happening on a community, since the Yahoo! platform sends an alert in case of a change of status in Facebook or when one of your contact uploads a picture on his Flickr account.

Geo tagging your contacts in real time

Based on mobile widgets, One Connect allows you to search your contacts according the distance that separates you and them. Finally, Marco Boerries was happy to announce that a version made for the iPhone (his favorite phone), with a specific interface for Apple, will be available. The new service from Yahoo! is expected for spring 2008.

After the launch of new models last week (Portege G450, G710 and G910), the Japanese manufacturer took advantage of the Mobile World Congress to announce the launch of the G810, its first HSUPA PDA.

HSUPA - what’s that?

Although HSDPA is just coming out under the marketing term of 3G+, the HSUPA is just an upgrade. It simply allows to increase the bandwidth, thus going from 384 Kbit/s to 5.8 Mbit/s. It thus become the dream standard for all those who send heavy files from their phones, like a photo to a picture gallery for instance.

Hyper connected, hyper equipped

Without a doubt, the G810 is a true Windows Mobile PDA: 3 Megapixel sensor, A-GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM Radio. According to Denis Germain, Country Manager for France that toured us around the booth, the G810 is absolutely “prosumer” oriented. It is targeting professionals and adds entertaining and multimedia features.

In regard to the GPS software that’ll be installed, Denis Germain assured us that Toshiba was in talk with the biggest editors of the day and would privilege the most popular one.

It should be sold at $728 USD.

Motorola hasn’t been doing too well lately. The manufacturer is even thinking of abandoning its mobile division. Another significant sign: among the major mobile phone industry companies, it’s the only one that didn’t hold a press conference for the Mobile World Congress, relying only on its booth.

Quiet launches

The absence of press conference doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of new products. Far from giving up without a fight, the firm from Schaumburg presented, among other things, the ROKR E8 and MOTO Z10. The first one is a music phone limited by an EDGE connectivity. It includes a 2” QVGA (240 x 320) screen and 2 GB of upgradable memory by a Micro SD slot. It also integrates a 2 Megapixel and 8x digital zoom camera. We noticed the presence of a phone jack and an option to disable the numerical pad when the music mode is on.

A Z10 instead of a Z12

For some time now, Motorola launched a huge teasing operation around one its future product: the Z12. It was reasonable to think Motorola would show it during the MWC, but that didn’t happen. Instead, we have the Z10, a slider, nicely designed.

The Z10 uses a 3.2 Megapixel camera and a UMTS or HSDPA connection. Running Symbian, it’s been optimized to run social websites like Facebook, Myspace, YouTube or Flickr. With this model, Motorola aims at the multimedia market. To help it reach its goal, Motorola added a video editing application allowing the user to create its own movies, add music or subtitles.

Rebirth?

The question one may ask is whether those phones will be enough to give Motorola a second breath. In a time when competitors focus on touchscreen or GPS, it doesn’t look too good.

IBM introduced a stunning application during this year’s Mobile World Congress. It allows citizens of the virtual world to send and receive text messages and even place phone calls. Zygmunt Lozinski from IBM gave us a demonstration of the whole thing.

From the IBM Island

It’s from the IBM Island that Mr Lozinski sent an SMS to one of its colleagues. He just had to choose the name of an avatar to make it the message’s recipient. The colleague’s answer was then displayed in Second Life’s message zone.

Simplified conference calls

Mr Lozinski also showed us how one could initiate a conference call between mobile phones in the real world. Simply gather all the participants’ avatars in one specific place in Second Life. Once everyone is here, the phones just get called simultaneously and the conference can start.

Those applications aren’t available to the public yet. They are still being developed by IBM’s R&D team.

Cupertino (CA) - Apple’s new image editing and management software made its debut today with a new image processing engine at its core and a redesigned user interface on top.

Apple claims that Aperture includes more than 100 new features that include tools for highlight recovery, color vibrancy, local contrast definition, soft-edged retouching, vignetting as well as the possibility to directly post albums on the .Mac Web Gallery. There is also a new "streamlined" user interface, which Apple says is more intuitive by letting the user switch between Viewer and Browser
modes with a single key command.

Professional photographers may be more interested in the new engine in Aperture, which, according to Apple, can import, browse and search large volumes of pictures faster than its predecessor. Users can work on their images even while data is imported and exported. Apple said that RAW pictures can be browsed in "rapid succession" in a "Quick Preview" mode without forcing the user to wait for the files to load. The library now can handle databases with hundreds of thousands of images and still deliver "near instantaneous search results."

The full version of Aperture 2 sells for $199 MSRP, the upgrade is priced at $99.

Boston (MA) - Spam originating from Russian computers have seen a dramatic rise in recent months, according to Sophos.

The security software firm found that the number of spam messages sent from compromised Russian computers nearly doubled from the third to the fourth quarter of last year. The country now is the world’s second largest spam distributor, accounting for 8.3% for global spam. Back in June 2007, Russia was ranked 8th with a share of 3.7% in Sophos’ list.

While Sophos already calls Russia a "spam superpower", we have to be realistic and see that the country cannot threaten the spam dominance of the U.S. yet. Sophos estimates that the U.S. accounted for about 21.3% of spam in December, down from 28.4% in September and slightly up from the level measured in June 2007.

Click here to enlarge

There appears to be a trend of decreasing spam for at least two countries and one of them surely is a surprise: China has cut its share in half, from 8.4% in June to 4.2% in December. South Korea is also on a downward trend, dropping from 6.5% to 3.9% in the same time frame. All other countries on the list show only minor fluctuations over the second half of 2007.

From a continent perspective, overall Asia is also reducing its share: It remains the world’s leading spam distributor, but now accounts for "only" 32.1%, down from 35.2% in June. Europe stays in second place with a 27.1% share, down from 28.5% and the U.S. is still in third with 26.5%, up from 24.2%. South America is currently estimated at 12.5% and Africa at 1.1%.

Using spam to artificially inflate the price of stock is an ongoing spam trend, according to Sophos. But October 2007 saw a relatively new "MP3 pump and dump" campaign, which used supposed music files labeled from stars such as Elvis Presley, Fergie and Carrie Underwood. The files actually contained a monotone voice encouraging people to buy shares in a little-known company, Sophos said.

Washington, D.C. - Best Buy is yet again at the center of an unusual lawsuit: A customer sues the retailer for $54 million over her laptop that the company apparently lost during a repair process. A ridiculous amount? Sure. But this is actually one of the smarter lawsuits we hear about these days.

The story of Raelyn Campbell may sound like a familiar scenario to many of us. There is a technical problem, in this case with Campbell’s notebook, which results in a submitting the device to repair. Communication with the customer and repair service at Best Buy did not go exactly as you would expect. After purchasing her laptop at Best Buy in early 2006 for $1100, which included the price for the system itself as well as a $300 extended warranty, Campbell brought the computer back to the store for repair in May. The problem, however, is that the computer has not been returned since then.

Campbell says Best Buy has stalled communications throughout the summer, without providing reasonable information about the status of the repair, and was finally told in August that the laptop had been lost. Best Buy then offered a $900 gift card as compensation. She initially demanded $2100 in cash, claiming that she not only did she pay $1100 for the computer, but she would also have to replace the system, software and music stored on the system. Best Buy eventually raised its offer to a $1100 refund and a $500 gift card, but Campbell ran out of patience.

Without legal representation, she filed a $54 million lawsuit against Best Buy last November and actually admits that this is a ridiculous amount. But she hoped that this amount would attract plenty of media attention, which it actually does. While she knows that she will not get those $54 million, the strategy appears to be working: Best Buy’s last offer was $2500 in cash, in addition to the refund and the gift card. Campbell did not accept, saying that here expenses have risen since the time of her $2100 demand. She also said that she is still waiting for an explanation how her computer could have been stolen from a secure area."

Barcelona (Spain) - Yahoo today provided first details about oneConnect, a mobile communications service that combines messaging with social networking features. In a wave of announcements, the company also said that it has acquired video platform Maven Networks.

OneConnect extends Yahoo’s move to become more visible on cellphones and simplify the way friends stay in contact via data services. Scheduled for a Q2 launch, the platform aims to combine email, instant messaging (IM), text messaging (SMS), and social networks under one roof.

Yahoo said that the service will include a socially-connected address book, seamless integration of IM and SMS with threaded communications, status updates about contacts as well as a dynamic overview of the activities of friends, including recent photos, their status, profile updates, and recommendations based on their most recent actions on popular social networks. OneConnect will also offer a "favorites" feature, social contact cards to collect relevant information about people as well as a "location-sensing technology", which provides users with new ways to locate, chat, and exchange contact information with other oneConnect users, according to Yahoo.

Yahoo said that widgets will open the platform to a variety of email providers such as Yahoo Mail, MSN Hotmail, Gmail, and AOL Mail.

In separate news, Yahoo announced that it has acquired video platform provider Maven Networks for about $160 million. According to Yahoo, Maven’s platform is currently used to manage, distribute and monetize premium online video content for media companies, including Fox News, Sony BMG, CBS Sports, Hearst, Gannett, Scripps Networks, and the Financial Times.

Compared to the launch of the KF600 and KF700, the arrival of the KF510 should be quite uneventful. Indeed, it’s hard to understand what LG had in mind with this announcement. The KF510 will have a hard time finding its place in the manufacturer’s catalog.

How to succeed to the Shine

We’d be wrong, however, if we buried it even before it en entered the market. The main reason is a design and a thinness that are breathtaking. As thin as 10.9 mm, it’s the thinnest slider in the market. Otherwise, LG remains classic with an MP3 player and a 3 Megapixel camera.

The KF510 will be sold between the end of the first quarter and the middle of the second one depending on the country. As for the other models introduced during this MWC, the Korean’s strategy aims at distributing this entry level phone in Asia and the US. Two colors will be available: red and black in remembrance of Stendhal.

The Nokia N78, the N73’s upgrade, took its time. Indeed, it’s rare to see a phone like the N73 reign supreme that long on a given market place. In fact, we find, with the N78, a copy of the N73 that draws inspiration from the new NSeries model. It’s also linked to the different Nokia online services (OVI, Nokia Music Store et Nokia Maps) thanks to its Wi-Fi connexion.

Geo-tagging your pictures

Given a GPS and a 3.2 Megapixel camera, the N78 will geo tag your pictures using GPS coordinates. This is quite useful if you use Flickr for instance. Among its features, we note the presence of Bluetooth A2DP (Stereo) and 3G. Like its predecessor, the N78 is a smartphone gifted in multimedia and we welcome a new feature: an FM transmitter allowing you to listen to the music present in the phone on a car radio or other Hi-Fi sets. Globally, this model leaves us with a mixed feeling of innovation and deja vu.

After its recent success (Chocolate, Shine, Prada and Viewty), LG has decided to take advantage of the trend associated with touch. Thus, it’s not surprising to see at the Mobile World Congress two new mobile that following this pattern.

The most astonishing of the two is, without a doubt, the KF600, which offers no less than a double touchscreen couples with a slider hiding a numerical pad. The concept goes like this: when the screen above displays different information, the screen below changes to offer the proper keys.

No 3G when there are two screens

We regret the absence of 3G and the limited 3 Megapixel camera. LG has already shown it could do better by offering 5 Megapixel models. Screens’ diagonals have been unveiled (2” (320 x 240) for the main one, 1.5 “ (240 x 176) for the second one. According to the manufacturer, you can count on 3 hours of battery life. Information regarding the launch and price are scare. It’ll be available during the first or second half of this year depending on the region, for a price that is still unknown.

KF700

The second model announced by LG is branded KF700. Yet, if logic would have us believe in an evolution of the mobile presented above, the Korean present a product that’s quite different. This multimedia phone is meant to occupy the high end range of the manufacturer.

The KF700 includes a 3” touchscreen slide up that covers a numerical pad. Here again, design is highlighted with a model tat strongly resembles the Prada. LG’s engineers mainly added a scroll button at the back of the phone to allow the user to switch from one application to the next.

Optimized for the web

Although LG hasn’t told all there is to know about its web browser, we know it’ll be optimized o run Google applications (search engines, Gmail, maps or even YouTube). On top of it all, add an MP3 and MPEG4 player and a 3 Megapixel camera and you have the Korean’s cream of the crop. Here again, launch varies between first and second half of 2008 depending on the countries.

LG has decided to bet on touchscreen and design, two elements that, when put into practice, allowed it to experience the strongest growth in sales in the market. We’ll note however, the sudden change of attitude during the conference when we pointed the lack of browsing, once again. It’s an admitted preoccupation, but it doesn’t seem that it’ll find an answer any time soon.

The new P3470 HTC Smartphone, known as Pharos, will be available at the end of the month. We find it at Orange for 449 €. With a more geometrical design than previous models (especially when considering the touchscreen), the HTC P3470 is slim, being only 16 mm thick.

A slow Smartphone/GPS

This phone houses a Texas Instrument OMAP 850 processor running at 200 MHz, with 128 MB of RAM and 256 MB of ROM. This model runs Windows Mobile 6 Professional and integrate a GPS. The phone and the GOS will be slowed down by an inadequate processor. It’s a flaw that already plagued the first HTC Touch. A processor would drastically slow the user’s experience, but the latter didn’t have a GOS.

Nothing new

The other features of the HTC Pharos are common among the manufacturer’s models. We find the 2 Megapixel camera without flash, a Micro SD memory card slot and EDGE technology. We can only be disappointed by the absence of faster standards such as 3G, HSDPA or Wi-Fi. Their absence may be justified by the intention to keep an honorable battery life. Indeed, to add those features on top of the GPS could be risky. The manufacturer announces a battery life of a little more than 5 hours in talk and 10 days in idle.

The rumor has finally come true. Nokia, leader of the mobile market, has taken the spotlight of this MWC with a breaking news. The longed for N96 is finally here.

A N95 that goes the extra mile

With a more welcoming design than its predecessor, the N96 continues to take advantage of the double slider keyboard/multimedia pad. Its screen goes up to 2.8” and its internal memory rises to 16 GB, as an answer to the recent iPhone update.

However, the N96 goes beyond Apple’s phone as it also integrates an A-GPS chip and manages Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and HSDPA. The N96 also adds a DVB-H tuner to profit from mobile digital TV.

Complete Internet experience

Nokia busts also the Internet open. The N96 will read Flash programs and thus videos on websites like YouTube or Dailymotion.

The only mobile devices that were able to do that were Archos multimedia player of the fifth generation. Here is again another assault to the iPhone which most likely owns, as of today, the best mobile browser but that lack Flash compatibility. The N96 will be available in Europe in Q3 2008 at 799 € naked.

Rumors had been spreading for a while and it’s now confirmed. Sony Ericsson will sell a Windows Mobile Smartphone. The XPERIA X1 will be the leading high end model.

Touchscreen and a real keyboard

The X1 does give in to the all touchscreen trend and integrates a 3” screen displaying a VGA resolution. Yet, Sony Ericsson still kept a real keyboard. The latter appears after sliding the screen in a rainbow like motion. The manufacturer presents it as more comfortable and practical to input text.

Technologically complete

Being the high end model of the Japanese-Swedish brand, this first XPERIA its features could only have been thorough. Sony Ericsson doesn’t disappoint with a Wi-Fi and HSUPA (the evolution of 3G+) and a A-GPS for navigation. It is thus a direct competitor to Nokia’s N95.

The Windows Mobile Turn

The most astonishing is still the installation of Windows Mobile operating system, which was set aside until now by Sony Ericsson, in favor of Symbian UIQ, which it recently acquired. The motivations behind this switch reflect, according to Steve Walker that led the conference, a desire to offer the best experience possible to consumers.

Is it an admission of failure in regards to the outrageous lags of the Symbian system? In part only because Steve Walker also assured that the P series destined to Professionals, will still be using it and that future XPERIA models could be displaying Symbian.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 will be out in the second half of 2008. Its price is unknown, but one can expect it to be heavy.

Cyber-shot: The K series’ dead! Long live the C series

The famous K series dedicated to photo phones makes way for the more logical C series (C as in Cyber-shot). The first two models are the C702 and C902.

The first one will most likely attract adventurers. On top of a 3.2 Megapixel sensor, it’s splash and dust resistant. However, the most interesting feature us its integrated A-GPS, which on top of being a Google Maps navigator, can localize photos.

The C902 is more photography oriented since it offers a 5 Megapixel sensor. If the GPS is absent, the C902 has other tricks up its sleeves, like a slider that makes the phone bigger or a real flash. Both phones will be HSDPA and will b available during the second half of 2008.

The G series or the common touchscreen

This new series offers a touchscreen on top of a regular numerical pad and gives more room to calendar management. On top of a 3.2 Megapixel sensor, the G700 can be controlled using a finger or the pen used to jot small notes.

The G900 keeps the same features but adds a 5 Megapixel sensor and a Wi-Fi connexion. When taking a picture, the touch screen will allow the user to point the spot that should be focused on. Quite ingenious. Both models are UMTS and will be available during the second half of 2008.

Z770: A clamshell to surf on the web

The Z770 was as interesting, mainly because of a peculiar conception. Targeting the Internet, the manufacturer offers a clamshell form factor, not very suited for this kind of usage, according to us. It’ll probably be best to use it for emails and RSS feeds than really surfing. One will also be able to use it as a modem on a PC through HSDPA.

Walkman W980: 8 GB in a clamshell

Finally, the Japanese-Swedish manufacturer had to come out with a new Walkman. It’ll be the W980 that also uses a clamshell form factor. As wit the W960, it offers 8 GB, which is quite comfortable. Sony Ericsson also promises an improvement in sound and an FM transmitter allowing to share music on any FM tuner. The W980 will be available in Q3 2008.