Hasta La Gadget!

Back in September last year Nokia announced that it is going to sell its devices and services business to Microsoft for north of $7 billion. A multinational deal of this scale requires regulatory approval, provided that the company’s shareholders don’t vote against it. Nokia’s shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of the deal, which then received the aforementioned approval. Microsoft previously said that it expected to close the deal this month and today it has confirmed that the deal closes on Friday, April 25th, 2014.

The announcement comes following revelation that Nokia’s phone business will be called Microsoft Mobile once the deal is closed. The original deal between Microsoft and Nokia didn’t address management of online assets. Both companies have agreed that Microsoft is going to manage Nokia.com doman as well as social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter for “up to a year.”

The deal has also been adjusted to bring 21 Nokia employees in China working on mobile phones to Microsoft, where they’ll continue their work. The biggest adjustment made in the deal is that Nokia’s Korean manufacturing facility, which would have gone to Microsoft, will now not be acquired by Redmond.

It is unclear right now if Microsoft will immediately stop using Nokia branding for smartphone after the deal closes. Presumably it may want to stick with the existing branding for some time to ensure that there’s a smooth transition.

Microsoft Nokia Deal Closes April 25th , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, Microsoft, Nokia,

It’s become official today that Microsoft and Nokia plan on finalizing their deal in transferring Nokia Devices and Services to the Windows Phone-toting company. The final date is set for … Continue reading

A few years ago, we were still interacting with our smartphones by pressing on keys and buttons in order to perform certain tasks. Nowadays we have phones that are able to do our bidding without us actually needing to press any buttons, just the screen itself. In fact there are even features which we can use that won’t even require us to touch the screen, although there aren’t that many phones like that at the moment.

So what’s next in smartphones? Could Project Ara be the future of smartphones? The idea of being able to swap out parts if and when we need sounds pretty cool, but in a patent filed by Microsoft, it seems that perhaps one day we might not even need to touch our phones. The patent, discovered by Patent Bolt, describes a device that will feature two cameras – a visible light camera and a depth camera.

When combined, it will allow the device to track the user or their finger and will then translate it into on-screen movement. It sounds a bit like the Kinect and it also reminds us of the Minority Report movie in which Tom Cruise’s character can interact with his computer simply by performing a set of gestures, as opposed to touching the screen directly. Of course we expect that this use could be applied to other products, such as Windows-based computers.

However it should be noted that this patent was filed for back in 2012 meaning that it’s been 2 years and we haven’t seen any products from Microsoft that uses this technology. The thing about patents is that there’s no guarantee that the companies will actually use them and turn them into actual products, but it’s still a pretty neat idea and one that we don’t mind seeing one day. What say you?

Microsoft Patents Kinect-like Feature For Future Smartphones/Tablets , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, Microsoft, Patent,

Back in September last year Nokia announced its intention to sell its devices and services business to Microsoft. Since then the deal has had to go through several regulatory hoops, and barring a couple of minor hiccups, it has sailed through federal regulators as well as Nokia’s shareholders. Microsoft expects to close the deal later this month. Nokia’s phone business will thus be renamed. While Redmond hasn’t made an official announcement as yet, an email sent by the company to suppliers reveals that Nokia’s phone division will be renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy. (Oy is Finland’s equivalent of Ltd.)

The division, Microsoft Mobile, will stay in Finland as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft. Official business address will be changed from Nokia HQ on Keilalahdentie to Keilaranta in Espoo. Apart from the change in legal address another change after close of the transaction would be the removal of Nokia’s logo from purchase orders.

Since Microsoft assumes all rights, benefits and obligations of Nokia’s devices and services business, including its agreements with suppliers and partners, Redmond will continue to do business with them. The company tells suppliers that they can also continue to do business with Nokia, for example on Advanced Technologies, NSN and HERE Maps, for which the Finnish company will communicate with them separately.

Nokia’s Phone Division Will Be Named Microsoft Mobile

, original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in General, Microsoft, Nokia,

Microsoft’s console ambitions continue to lag behind Sony’s PlayStation 4, with concerns that the gulf in sales between the Xbox One and its key rival could be a trend of … Continue reading