Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia’s quarterly results have just been made public and the company’s devices plus services sector has actually improved its income relative to last year: €7.2b of revenue was collected over the past three months versus €6.9b in the same period a year ago. Operating profit has also pepped up, going from the previous €785m to €807m. You’d think this would augur well for Stephen Elop‘s beginning at the helm, but the new man in charge is also presiding over a fundamental restructuring of operations at Nokia, which is expected to result in the redundancy of up to 1,800 employees globally. There are no specifics to tell us who’ll be losing out, but the aims are the boilerplate tasks of increasing efficiency, simplifying operations, and reducing time to market. Anyway, we doubt the great people of Finland will be pleased.

Continue reading Nokia reports improved earnings for Q3 2010, will still ‘streamline’ up to 1,800 employees out of a job

Nokia reports improved earnings for Q3 2010, will still ‘streamline’ up to 1,800 employees out of a job originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Citing “personal reasons,” the Symbian Foundation has just announced that executive director Lee Williams has left the company — yes, “left,” as in he’s not going to stick around for a while to manage a transition. Williams has been steeped in Symbian for some time, having previously led Nokia’s S60 business — but the dude’s been floating around the upper ranks of the entire mobile industry for ages, doing time with Motorola (through its Symbol acquisition) and Palm / PalmSource by way of Be. He’s been replaced by the organization’s reigning CFO, Tim Holbrow, and it appears that the appointment is permanent; what this means for Symbian’s roadmap (if anything) is unclear, but we’d love to hear the backstory on what led to this power shift. More on the situation as we get it.

Symbian boss steps down effective immediately originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The first time Nokia’s N8-00 popped up on our radar was way back in early February of this year. On that chilly, misty morning, we learned of a mythical being capable of shooting 12 megapixel stills, recording 720p video, outputting via HDMI, and — most importantly — ushering in the promised Symbian^3 touch revolution. It’s been a long road of leaks, teasers, hands-ons, and previews since then, but at long last, the legend of the N8 has become a purchasable commodity. All the early specs have survived, including the 3.5-inch AMOLED display, but the key question today, as it was at the beginning, relates to that all-new software within: does Symbian^3 succeed in elevating Nokia’s touchscreen experience or does it drag down an otherwise stellar combination of high-end parts? For that verdict and much, much more, join us after the break.

Continue reading Nokia N8 review

Nokia N8 review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.

In case you missed it yesterday, the big green tech news of the week rolled in last night with the announcement of Google’s top-secret robot car project, which has been deploying and testing self-driving robot cars on the streets of California over the past several months! (Engadget covered it here). It’s also been a big week in general for green transportation announcements, as several supercharged electric vehicles hit the streets last week: the Delorean EV took us back to the future and SiGNa Chemistry unveiled an electric bike that runs on water. Finally, from the realm of tomorrow we brought you the future of moving house: strapping your home to an enormous balloon and lifting off for the skies.

This week solar power also lit up the newswires as President Obama announced plans to deck out the White House with photovoltaics this coming spring and scientists proclaimed that interstellar solar winds could provide 100 billion times the Earth’s energy needs. We were also wowed by a dog park powered by poo in Cambridge, and we can’t wait to get our hands on this new copper-covered Nokia phone that recharges its battery using body heat.

Speaking of eco gadgetry, we also showcased a set of gorgeous wooden wristwatches, and the world’s first iPhone 4 cover made of plants. Green lighting was also a hot topic this week as scientists created a new type of glowing nano LED and we spotted an array of luminous lamps made from salt at the London Design Festival. We also learned how a wireless router scored a date for one lucky Inhabitat writer, and how Inhabitat editor Jill’s solar-powered backpack has been a real conversation starter. See, green gadgets can help you make friends and influence people!

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: robot cars, solar winds and the DeLorean EV originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Surprise, surprise. The iFixit team have cornered themselves a dark grey Nokia N8 and have proceeded to do the one thing that comes naturally to them: disassembled it. It’s mostly good news all around with this teardown, which found the BL-4D battery cell was only two Torx screws away from being user-replaceable, while the overall N8 construction was praised as being the “beefiest” of any phone this year. There are plenty of bodacious highlights within, including the massive Xenon flash and the pair of camera modules — which are regrettably not removable from the main board. The touchscreen controller in the N8 is the same as has previously been used on the Kin Two and BlackBerry Torch. Perhaps that’s not the best pedigree in the world, but the (complete in one case, and relative in the other) lack of success of those phones was never really about the screen’s responsiveness. Hit the source link for a full gallery of images and the complete deconstruction guide.

Nokia N8 teardown reveals easily replaceable battery, ‘beefy’ construction originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 08:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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