Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia is considering selling off its headquarters in Espoo, Finland, and then renting much of the facility back, in another attempt to cut costs as Windows Phone slowly tries to gain traction. Worth between €200-300m ($258-387m), according to Finnish paper Iltasanomat, the possibility has been confirmed by Nokia spokespeople but is, they insist, just one of a number of cash-saving possibilities the Finnish firm is looking at.

“We are evaluating different options for non-core parts, such as real estate holdings, and that includes the headquarters” Nokia spokesperson Maija Taimi said in a statement on the rumors. It’s unclear if any potential suitors for the building – and its guaranteed tenant – have been approached at this stage.

Nokia has struggled to build significant momentum with Windows Phone, and has seen several underwhelming financial quarters despite a regular tithe of around $250m from Microsoft in return for using the OS. The company’s new range of Windows Phone 8 devices, the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, are expected to launch imminently, though existing owners of first-gen Lumia devices have been left behind with Windows Phone 7.8 rather than getting a full upgrade to Microsoft’s very latest version.

Smartphone sales aren’t the only string to Nokia’s bow, however. The company recently announced a deal with Oracle to provide the enterprise services company with NAVTEQ-powered mapping systems, an agreement which follows a similar contract with Amazon to power the underlying map engine of the retailer’s Kindle system.

[via Reuters]

Nokia considering HQ sell-off in cost cut scramble is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The BBC is home to a massive archive of highly desirable music that, sadly, due to licensing reasons, remains gathering dust in is enormous vaults. The Telegraph is reporting that the corporation’s music head, Tim Davie, is trying to put some or all of that material online for users to enjoy without additional charges. He’s said to be in talks with Spotify, Deezer and Apple to help build a service called Playlister, using the trio’s bulk-deals with the record labels to get around the long-winded wrangling that would otherwise be required. If successful, it’ll launch in 2013 free to license-fee paying Brits in a similar fashion to the wildly successful iPlayer — although we’d pay a little extra if Fearne Cotton was excluded from the catalog.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio/Video, HD

BBC in talks to build Playlister, a streaming music service for its own music archive originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A new Nexus phone from Google is bound to happen anytime within the next month or two. Rumors have been swirling around and rightfully so. Last year saw the release of the Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in October. The latest rumor is that we’ll see a new Nexus phone within 30 days from now, as well as a rumored Android 4.2 update.

However, we still know absolutely nothing about an upcoming Nexus device, aside from a few rumors that we’ve already seen. Sources are saying that the new Nexus device has already been leaked onto different blogs, and that we should expect its official announcement sometime within the next 30 days.

However, knowing that it’s been leaked onto blogs already narrows down our options. It could be the LG Optimus Nexus (based off the Optimus G), the Samsung Galaxy Nexus 2 (for which we supposedly saw leaked photos from the phone’s camera), or even HTC’s rumored Incredible X 5-inch phablet, which is said to be called the Nexus 5.

Android 4.2 is also said to be making an appearance alongside a new Nexus device soon. However, it may stick with the Jelly Bean name and not the rumored Key Lime Pie. Whether it will be Android 4.2 or not (it could possibly be 4.1.X), it’s said that the update will come with a handful of new features like multi-user login, better camera software, and a new dialer.

[via Droid Life]

New Nexus phone and Android 4.2 rumored for this month is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

HP CEO Meg Whitman has already said that the company plans to release their own smartphone at some point, but details were pretty scarce. We even spotted a possible HP smartphone in some benchmark details that same day. So, it’s not too surprising that the company is reported to have said that they plan on getting back into the smartphone and tablet business.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said that he thinks HP will “aggressively attack” the smartphone and tablet markets in a research note to investors yesterday. Misek noted that it would be a risky investment for HP, though, which isn’t too surprising since the company only has a brief history of maintaining a smartphone and tablet lineup, thanks to their acquisition of Palm.

Misek noted that “to date almost all PC OEMs have failed to gain significant traction in consumer tablets/smartphones,” with exception to a few obvious companies of course. Then again, HP will most likely have to make a move like this at some point. With the world slowly moving toward a post-PC era, HP will eventually have to hop on the train and get going.

Whitman even said herself that the company will need to offer a smartphone and tablet, which can only point to signs that we’ll definitely see more mobile products from HP soon. And it’ll be interesting to see what the company comes with. Will they model their new devices after their previous webOS-based models, or will they completely start from the ground up?

[via ZDNet]

HP rumored to dive into smartphone and tablet market again is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 may face cable boxes edging in on their gaming turf if AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and others have their way, with the promise of cloud gaming delivered direct to TVs bypassing traditional consoles. Trials are set to begin later in 2012, insiders tell Bloomberg, with broad commercial launches in 2013 at the earliest; games would be more advanced than the simple casual titles currently offered by some smart TV platforms.

That would rely on the sort of cloud gaming technology already seen from startups like OnLive and Gaikai, where remote servers do the heavy lifting in terms of graphics crunching and powering environment-rich gameplay, and freeing up local devices to merely display the results of that processing. Rather than demanding that each subscriber have a $200-300 console, cable services could use internet-connected set-top boxes to display the streamed gameplay with minimal latency, navigated via simple controllers.

Unsurprisingly, none of the cable companies have been willing to admit they’re building up to an actual launch, though they’re making the right noises. AT&T says it is “exploring unique ways to offer cloud gaming services to our TV and broadband customers,” while Cox echoes that sentiment and claims it too is “exploring” cloud possibilities.

Although all are used to on-demand content delivery, they’re taking no chances getting cloud gaming right. Experts Playcast Media Systems, CiiNOW, and Agawi have all confirmed that they are in talks with US cable companies, though refuse to say which. Some of the cable firms are exploring using smartphones as controllers, further reducing the potential cost of entry to subscribers.

Meanwhile, console manufacturers aren’t standing still as smart TV solutions challenge their home turf. Microsoft already offers video content with Xbox LIVE, and will add SmartGlass to spread multimedia across multiple screens. More recently, Nintendo revealed Nintendo TVii, its new on-demand and TiVo-integrating home entertainment system based on the upcoming Wii U console, which will turn the GamePad tablet-styled controller into an advanced remote.

Cable cloud gaming to challenge Xbox, PS3 and Wii U in 2013 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.