Posts with tag finland
Ok ok, we hear you tipsters, iPhone now official for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia "later this year" thanks to a deal between Apple and TeliaSonera. At this point, only The Netherlands seems to be out of the loop in Europe.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has ordered Nokia's Japan unit to "report by next Friday on details of a series of accidents" involving Matsushita's li-ion batteries that were recently found to have, shall we say, toasty tendencies. Reportedly, the ministry had phoned up Nokia Japan President Tyler McGee to hear his explanation, but apparently, it has deemed that more details are necessary. It seems the purpose here is to examine whether there were "any problems with Nokia Japan's handling of the overheating accidents," and considering that it purportedly took 16 days (6 more than the limit) for that unit to report initially on the problem, it may already be in a bit of hot water.
We've all seen those kid-friendly plastic stickers that the younger set tends to slap on their handsets in order to amp their ego, but Nokia's taking the decoration idea pretty seriously. Apparently, the firm is working with Finnish artist Björn Weckström to actually offer a "customized, limited edition Nokia N76" that will only be for sale at the Helsinki Nokia Flagship store. Additionally, there will be other pieces available to jazz up your already purchased Nokia mobile, but there's no word just yet on what exactly you can expect it to look like. We'd say the best jewelry is just an entirely new handset, eh?
Just when we thought we had this whole cellphones do / don't cause cancer bit was behind us, here comes another study to say that they in fact do. The study, which was put together by Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, suggests that people who used cellphones longer than 10 years were 40 percent more likely to develop gliomas (a nervous system tumor) on the side of the head where the cellphone's radiation would enter the head. While we are aware of several studies that go either way on the matter, Microwave News' editor Louis Slesin thinks it is "compelling evidence" because, "We now have two tumor types found among people who use mobiles for more than 10 years shown by two different research groups." Of course, a rebuttal from the Mobile Operators Association said otherwise: "The findings related to tumor location are difficult to interpret." It's hard to really form an opinion considering the amount of data that consistently contradicts itself, but you can decide for yourself when the findings are published in International Journal of Cancer later this year. For now, we will have faith in our mobiles and pray that later on down the line we're not on the wrong end of the impending "I told you so."
Matti Vanhanen is the current Prime Minister of Finland and was dubbed the "Sexiest Man" in the their country; however, being the sexiest man alive has nothing to do with having no backbone and not being able to breakup with another face-to-face." He had been dating Susan Kuronen, who he had met on the Internet, for several months before he decided to break up with her by sending a text message saying "that's it." We've never understood the cowardliness of people who can't break up with people face to face. Oh and by the way Jane, you and I are over!
After doing a little globetrotting through Moscow, Chicago, and Hong Kong, Nokia's finally ready to bring its flagship store concept to home turf. Their Helsinki location, which opens today, should offer Finns the same multimedia-in-your-face extravaganza that has blessed the three other locations opened thus far. For those keeping track, this marks flagship retail location number 4 of 18 for Nokia, with New York coming up next.
While some companies are keeping their UMA trials under wraps -- or at least they're trying to -- Nokia's keeping no secrets in launching a 50-family test in its native Finland. Participants in the town of Oulu will receive Nokia's 6136 UMA clamshell (we're guessing there's no room for whining about form factor or case color here), and thanks to Oulu's "Pan Oulu" project, free WiFi hotspots around town make UMA a particularly compelling sell. The trial is currently scheduled to last at least two months, during which Nokia will be keeping a close eye on handoffs, performance over WiFi, and presumably anything else that's managed to dog UMA thus far. We might be reaching here, but we're kinda hoping at least a couple of those trial families do us all a big favor whine about the 6136's lack of Bluetooth.
Big news in the wireless industry: the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nokia, the world's number one handset manufacturer, is planning on merging its phone equipment unit with that of Germany's Siemens AG to create a company worth an estimated $31.5 billion. Even though both parties will have equal ownership on paper, it is clear that Nokia will exert more influence on the new entity, as it will be based in Finland, led by Nokia executive Simon Beresford-Wylie, and have a board controlled by Nokia-picked members. Besides the $1.58 billion in annual savings that both companies will realize in eliminating duplicate R&D operations, the real benefit of the merger will be the stronger market position held by the combined units in the face of growing competition from Asian manufacturers. According to the Journal (subscription required, as usual), the two companies will formally announce their plans tomorrow.
In an otherwise run-of-the-mill profile on cellphone manufacturing giant Nokia, The Seattle Times reveals this funny little tidbit about corporate culture at the Finnish firm: employees are supposedly barred from referring to the company's products as "phones." Instead, according to Vice President of multimedia strategy and business development Harry Santamäki, all of the handsets are known around the company as "multimedia computers," which we're sure elicits more than a few snickers when they're discussing the no-frills, monochrome, um, computers of the 1000 series. And proving that his anti-phone rhetoric isn't just lip service, Santamäki swears that he'll take a swig from the bottle of cod liver oil on his desk if he himself should ever happen to utter the archaic, forbidden word. Unfortunately for Harry, Engadget Mobile will continue to refer to Nokia's products as phones, cellphones, or perhaps even telephones, but luckily a little program called Greasemonkey should enable him to continue reading the site while remaining blissfully phone-free.
You've heard of Nokia's DVB-H handsets (N92 to right) for months, but did you know they're also a major player behind the scenes? Nokia just inked a deal in their native Finland to supply Digita Oy with their MBS 3.0 service management platform for DVB-H mobile TV services. Nokia's MBS delivers consumer necessities such as an interface for searching services, an EPG, and the ability to set alerts for upcoming programs in addition to packing-in industry faves like OMA DRM 2.0 to protect content which can be offered within flexible pricing schemes. Digita, which already purchased those precious broadcast frequencies earlier this year, will operate the network and offer-up broadcast services to the likes of cellphone operators. Mobile TV services are expected launch later this year reaching 29% of the Finnish population by the end of 2006. So next time you hear Nokia slaggin' off DMB or Qualcomm's technically superior FLO mobile TV standards, well, now you know why. 
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