Nokia’s Ovi Store will be re-branded as Nokia Services starting in July and August. The Finnish handset maker, however, promises that there will be no change in its store services.

“We have made the decision to change our service branding from Ovi to Nokia. By centralising our services under one brand, not two, we will reinforce the powerful master brand of Nokia and unify our brand architecture &#151 while continuing to deliver compelling opportunities and experiences for partners and consumers alike,” said Nokia in an official communiqu&#233.

Commenting on the development, the executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Nokia, Jerri DeVard, said, “The reasons for this decision include the fact that Nokia is a well-known and highly-loved brand the world over. Our mobile experiences are tightly integrated with our devices &#151 there is no longer any differentiation.”

The transition road map as laid down by the company, however, seems to be on the longer side as Nokia predicts that the makeover will be complete by the end of 2012. The rebranding exercise would see the handset maker replacing the word Ovi with Nokia not only on device softwares, but also in other places such as printed material or online media and advertisements.

Nokia has assured its users that the transition will be as smooth as possible.

With the rebranding exercise going on, it is highly unlikely that Nokia will be interested in launching its Windows based smartphones.

Sony Ericsson, which had dumped the Symbian platform, is not likely to come out with a Windows phone anytime soon, according to the company’s chief technology officer Jan Uddenfeldt.

However, Uddenfeldt’s words can also be interpreted to mean that Sony Ericsson’s doors are still open for Windows Phone 7, though the company will start making products only if the platform picks up pace.

Sony Ericsson is looking to triple its smartphone market share in the USA, which currently stands at 5 per cent.

After Symbian, it was widely speculated that the company would go for Windows Phone 7. However, it went for Google’s Android operating system and has seen reasonable success with the decision.

The feature phones of the company are being phased out gradually. The new Xperia series of smartphones are likely to lead growth for the brand.

Uddenfeldt’s statement, when read in conjunction with the Pyramid Research report that Windows Phone would go on to become the top mobile operating system of the world within four years, suddenly begins to look pragmatic and prophetic at the same time.

The research firm said that Windows Phone may, in fact, lead the mobile operating system market in 2013 itself.

The report makes the assumption that the tie up between Nokia and Microsoft will be a powerful force that will determine the smartphone operating system’s future.

Samsung Electronics has officially announced that its Galaxy Tab and other Galaxy smartphones will soon start getting Android Gingerbread upgrades. The devices chosen for the upgrade are not few and include Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy Tab, and Galaxy Ace, Gio, Fit and mini smartphones.

The upgrade, from Android Froyo (Frozen Yoghurt) 2.2 to Android Gingerbread 2.3, will offer users faster performance with a low CPU consumption rate, while supporting powerful 3D Graphics for enhanced mobile gaming.

The user interface has also been improved, enabling faster access and control. Along with that, the new update is expected to bring better battery power utilisation and all round enhancements over the current Android 2.2 Froyo.

Samsung will roll out the updates in different stages starting with the Galaxy S in the UK and Nordic countries from mid May, which is an indication that the updates might start rolling out from tomorrow onward.

It will be followed by the updates for both smartphones and tablets in European markets, North America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East Asia, Africa and the rest of the world in that order.

Indian users, hence, may get the update around the end of June or early in July this year.

The upgrade will be available via Kies, Samsung’s device management software. Kies can be downloaded from Samsung’s corporate website.

The first update of Windows Phone 7 (WP7) will bring a host of features to the operating system including Windows Live Messenger, Facebook Chat, AOL IM, Office 365 support, group messaging, artist-on lock screen, Wifi hotspot support, and visual voicemail.

This has been revealed by a website called Windows Phone Dev Podcastshows.
Microsoft is going to update its Windows Phone 7 in the coming months. After the Mango update, the platform will likely be renamed WP7.5 or WP8.

Support for Office 365, a cloud based Office application, will make the device more enterprise friendly, while added Messaging features will make it better for social networking.

The hotspot feature, which is already available in Android 2.2 and newer devices, will mean that you can share your 3G connection with Wifi enabled devices around you.

Apart from these new features, multitasking, a hardware-accelerated mobile version of Internet Explorer 9, Twitter in the People hub, better support for Office documents in SkyDrive (Microsoft’s free cloud-based storage service) and more has already been announced.

The motion sensor library will also be accessible to developers so that users can expect better augmented reality apps in future.

The upgrade will support music players irrespective of whether they are apps or in the browser. This means that music will play in the background even as users do other things on their phone.

Microsoft’s upgraded Bing search engine is also likely to come with the Mango update. The updated search engine will have several additional features including Bing Audio. It will display the name of the title, artist etc. and will provide a link to the Zune store (Windows phone 7 applications market) for purchasing music.

Microsoft has already got Nokia on its side and with these additional features being brought in through the Mango update, the operating system might be able to emerge as a big challenger to Android and iOS (Apple iPhone OS).

There is no clarity on whether mobile phones and networks pose health risks, but if the report of the Council of Europe is to be believed, mobile phones have “potentially harmful” effects on humans.

The council has warned of “extremely high human and economic costs of inaction if early warnings are neglected”. Although it has not been able to PIN point the ill effects, it has claimed that the move is needed in view of “the precautionary principle should be applicable when scientific evaluation does not allow the risk to be determined with sufficient certainty.”

The council has also recommended that the threshold values of emissions of electromagnetic fields of all types and frequencies should meet the ALARA or “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (which is the amount of radiation prescribed for medical treatments that use electromagnetic radiation).

The committee said it is crucial to avoid repeating the mistakes made when public health officials were slow to recognise the dangers of asbestos, tobacco smoking and lead in petrol.

This report contradicts earlier reports of World Health Organisation and some other prominent agencies, which said that there is no proof of mobile phones adversely affecting humans.

The Council of Europe, which is a consortium of 47 European states, cannot impose its will on governments but is highly influential in policy-making and has often seen its decisions enacted through conventions and treaties.

A draft Resolution &#151 calling on governments to “take all reasonable measures to reduce exposure to electromagnetic fields” from mobile phones and similar devices, including the ban in schools &#151 was adopted unanimously by the organisation’s Committee of Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs.

The committee is composed of 84 MPs and politicians from member states. Its members reviewed the latest research on the effects of electromagnetic fields and took fresh evidence from experts before reaching its conclusions.

The draft resolution will now go before the council’s full Parliamentary Assembly for approval.

With smartphones getting sophisticated and gradually replacing PCs as the preferred mode of both personal and professional computing, cyber criminals have turned their attention to these mobile devices, reveals the Malicious Mobile Threats Report 2011 of Juniper research.

One of the key findings of the report is that the enterprise and consumer mobile devices are exposed to a record number of security threats, including a 400 per cent increase in Android Malware as well as highly targeted WiFi attacks.

“The single greatest distribution point for mobile Malware is through application downloads, yet the vast majority of smartphone users are not employing an anti-virus solution on their mobile device to scan for Malware,” said the report

In a nutshell, smartphone revolution is one of the key reasons for the increase in security threats that are taking place globally and a major percentage of that goes to Android.
Android is seeing a rise in the mobile Malware owing to the large number of third party applications the OS has.

“These findings reflect a perfect storm of users who are either uneducated on or disinterested in security, downloading readily available applications from unknown and unvetted (Untrusted) sources in the complete absence of mobile device security solutions,” said Dan Hoffman, chief mobile security evangelist at Juniper Networks

Considering the increase in the threats, users are advised to use better anti-virus solutions that protect them from attacks and Malwares. Along with that, use of a stronger Password is also recommended that might be a little harder to remember but goes a long way in saving the precious data on the smartphone or mobile phone.

Fly Mobile, the handset brand of UK based Meridian Group, has launched two touch screen mobile handsets, E-140 and E146. Both the devices are full-touch and has support for a wide range of social networks.

“We recognise the importance of social networks in the modern mobile industry,” said Prem Kumar, chief executive officer of FLY India.

“The design and functionality of the our touch phones meet the needs of a highly digitally connected and style conscious youth audience. This offering is specially targeted to Indian youth which likes to carry a phone to complement and enhance their lifestyle,” he added.

The E140 comes with vintage black coloured form-factor with red elements in design. Phone dimensions are very compact and weighs only 97g.

Fly E140 is equipped with a built-in Digital Zoom camera with video recording and Web-camera among other features. Content can be stored in phone memory or MicroSDHC card up to 8GB.

“Embedded audio player and FM-receiver can play music during nine hours continuously. Phone battery holds charge within nine hours in online mode and up to 300 hours in standby mode,” the company claimed in a press release.

For virtual communication, Fly E140 uses WAP and GPRS modem, the phone supports Java and embedded E-mail client. Fly E140 has embedded organiser with reminder and tasks features, currency converter, calendar, alarm clock, calculator, along with a 500-cell memory phone book with additional memory of two SIM cards.

The E146 is a sturdy handheld gadget where best social networking services are combined with enhanced multimedia capabilities in a compact form. FLY E146 is pre-installed with Opera Mini browser.

A 3-inch WQVGA display occupies most of the phone’s front panel. A silver bezel around the phone is a distinctive design feature which gives a futuristic touch to the model. The novelty enables mobile Internet, JAVA, GPRS and WAP. Pre-installed features include E-mail client and Opera Mini, a popular browser.

Fly E146 is a reliable assistant in daily tasks fitted with an organizer, reminder, memo manager, currency converter, calendar, Alarm Clock and calculator. Phone memory offers 500 cells with additional memory of two SIM cards.