Rumors

Remember i-Mate from the Windows Mobile days? They made the rugged Windows Mobile hand-set that could survive just about anything. Now it appears that the company is working to produce a Windows 8 Phone.

No... not a Windows Phone 8 device, but a phone running Windows 8.

Rumors have the company introducing a 4.7" device running Windows 8 Pro at Mobile World Congress 2013. The device will be powered by an Atom processor, 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, and work with HSPA+ and LTE 4G wireless networks.

Today, Huawei announced the new Ascend P2 Android smartphone. We won’t go into too much detail, for that you have Android Central. But we will say that Huawei, in terms of hardware, are starting to do some impressive things.

That Android device features numerous “firsts” including the first Cat4 LTE phone, a 2422mAh battery, and some advanced power saving features that on paper sound exciting. Their new display also uses Super Sensitive Touch (probably licensed from Synaptics, Nokia didn’t invent it) making them the first Android phone with that technology.  Whether or not it is good as an actual phone remains to be seen.

Nokia is set to focus on Lumia smartphones at the soon approaching Mobile World Congress 2013. We're likely to see more advances in the same product line, or not depending on whether we see a new family of devices announced. But what about tablets? Nokia was rumoured to be heading into the tablet market, right? Correct. But slow down, ol' chap.

Reports that Nokia is dropping component maker Samsung from future orders have started circulating today. The rumor has two aspects two it: one, that Nokia is effectively moving away from Samsung for displays, memory chips and other internals and two, the move is inspired by unofficial allegations of design theft.

The story comes via Apple Insider who note that Apple is considering doing the same, especially since those two companies have been battling it out in court. During one of the trials, evidence that Samsung’s component manufacturing business (which is separate from the smartphone arm) was copying Apple’s designs came forth, shinning more bad light on the massive Korean manufacture. It’s with that same background that Nokia is evidently considering a similar move.

More details on the next generation Xbox has surfaced over on Kotaku. Microsoft's next product to succeed the popular Xbox 360 is set to be unveiled later this year. What the video game console will pack in terms of specifications and features is still unknown, but rumour and speculation (particularly on DRM) has taken place.

With Mobile World Congress 2013 just around the corner, it makes sense that we start hearing about some new phones from Nokia.  Up on the list are the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720, expected sequels to the current Lumia 510 and Lumia 710 series but with OS upgrades and more refined specifications.

The news come via recent filing with Indonesia's equivalent to the FCC, lending heavy credence to their existence (that and we are expecting a 710-follow up with Windows Phone 8). The Lumia 720 (RM-885), listed as manufactured in China, could be destined for many markets including T-Mobile US where the Flame was recently outed. Likewise, the Lumia 510 (RM-914) is also listed on the Indonesia filing.

We're seeing a gradual growth in speculation for Nokia's next Windows Phone, which is set to be unveiled (or at least touched on) at this month's Mobile World Congress. We've previously looked at and even produced an in-depth report on the mysterious device. One of the uncertain elements of this Windows Phone is what family of products would it belong to.

Now MobileGeeks.de have come across the above image, which reveals a Lumia 1000 in a China Mobile database. We're not quite over Lumia 9000 just yet, but were slowly getting there. So the question for the next Nokia Windows Phone is now: Lumia 1000 or kick off the EOS line of products? While it's entirely possible Nokia may look to continue its Lumia family of products, we doubt this finding is anything to go by for the rumoured EOS Windows Phone.

Good news for those looking to pick up the Nokia Lumia 620 (we swear, our review is coming up soon) as the phone is evidently not only heading to Rogers but also TELUS and Koodo Mobile.

The evidence for the 3.8” 1GHz dual-core CPU device reportedly lies on Nokia’s Navifirm servers where firmware for the device is labeled with the carrier’s names on board (we were unable to verify). Last we checked, we’ve never seen a firmware with carrier branding not come to market, so this is a pretty good sign.

According to Business Insider, Microsoft is interested in buying Appcelerator (www.appcelerator.com). Appcelerator is a mobile app cloud company that powers some 50,208 applications installed on over 111 million devices, which is roughly 10 percent of the world’s smartphone apps.

Appcelerator’s development product, Titanium, provides an impressive amount of tools for developers to create and manage mobile apps operating systems including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and HTML5. Compaies like eBay, PayPal and Wall Street Journal are just a few examples of who’s already on board with the program.