Hasta La Gadget!

Admittedly, Finland’s seen better days in the mobile industry, but that hasn’t stopped the townspeople in Savonlinna from hosting the 13th annual Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships to brighten things up. In fact, the recycling awareness event went so well that 18-year-old Ere Karjalainen set a new championship record of 101.46 meters. The secret? Just an old Nokia device (obviously) plus a bit of preparation the day before — “mainly by drinking.”

While Finnish organizer Christine Lund claims this is a new world record, a little digging revealed that Britain’s Chris Hughff threw — as a guest participant — a 102.68 meter distance at JIM Mobile’s Belgium Championships earlier this year. Despite the utilization of a laser rangefinder plus video proof after the break, Lund dismissed the “unofficial” event’s record, according to the AAP. Regardless, Karjalainen is no doubt the latest sweetheart amongst Finnish geeks.

Continue reading Finland sets new mobile phone record… by throwing one

Filed under: Cellphones

Finland sets new mobile phone record… by throwing one originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Aug 2012 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  The Telegraph, The Australian, ITN News  | Email this | Comments

Nokia’s sale of the century hour continues, selling off a small intellectual property portfolio to Vringo. The little-known app maker has snapped up a bundle of 500 patents and applications from the Finnish phone maker, including 109 issued US Patents. The collection mostly concerns backbone tech, including communication management, signal transmission and cellular infrastructure. Neither company mentioned a figure, but Vringo revealed that Nokia’s getting a chunk of any future profits made. There’s PR after the break if you’re curious enough to wonder if Stephen Elop’s planning the mobile phone equivalent of a yard sale.

Continue reading Vringo buys small Nokia patent portfolio as asset sell-off continues

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Vringo buys small Nokia patent portfolio as asset sell-off continues originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

The past three months haven’t been the best for Finland’s former world number one. It hasn’t been helped by the three biggest credit agencies lowering the company’s bond rating to “junk,” and the Lumia 900’s violently slashed price. Unfortunately the latest results reveal continuing gloom: the manufacturer made an operating loss of $1.01 billion dollars for the quarter. The company managed to make €7.5 billion in sales ($9.2 billion, down .5 billion since the last quarter), shifting four million Lumia handsets in the process. In fact, the only cause for optimism is that sales of the Lumia range have roughly doubled each quarter.

The number of handsets pushed out the door increased (thanks to the Asha range of budget phones) with the company selling 73 million phones. That said, the company has clearly failed to crack America, selling a paltry 600,000 handsets in the States. The cash pile has also continued to dwindle, with the piggybank currently standing at €4.1 billion ($5.1 billion), down from $6.3 billion in Q1, despite getting a further $250 million in kickbacks from Microsoft. Unsurprisingly, the prediction for the third quarter of the year was similarly dour, summed up rather euphemistically as “difficult.”

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia’s Q2 2012 financials: 4 million Lumias sold, $1.01 billion dollar loss originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jul 2012 06:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Nokia (PDF)  | Email this | Comments