Facebook shelled out $550 million dollars to Microsoft, and why you ask? They are working on keeping their company out of the courtroom as much as possible. With that money Facebook has gained access to 600 patents. Facebook was previously sued by Yahoo for patent infringement, and apparently they want to steer clear of these possibilities in the future.

Interesting enough, Microsoft paid AOL $1 billion dollars earlier this month, for access to their patents and some of these are included in the Facebook deal. Facebook has been after certain AOL patents recently and this deal definitely helped them gain access to some.

(via All Things D)

The Nokia Lumia 900 is one of the most important phone launches this year. It marks the return of a Nokia flagship device to the US was well as representing the tight knit relationship with Microsoft and Windows Phone . This is the “it” device for both companies. Microsoft, Nokia, and AT&T have big marketing plans for the Lumia 900, as well as a lot riding on it’s launch. This device marks the first relevant step away from the iPhone and Android for carriers and consumers alike. Does the Lumia 900 live up to all the importance that rests on it’s shoulders? Hit the read more link to find out in this Guru Inspection.

Hardware

The word that popped in my head when I picked up the Lumia 900 for the first time was “solid”. It’s made from polycarbonate (fancy plastic) and sports a unibody design making it easily one of the sexiest devices on the market. There’s no removable battery lending more to the 900′s solid design and creating a creak free shell. The top and bottom are both squared flatly while the sides are tapered toward the round back. It feels great in the hand and is a truly unique design. The screen is a 4.3″ AMOLED panel coined “ClearBlack” by Nokia. This display is a mixed bag for me. While it’s nearly gapless and the pixels sit right under the glass, the 800 X 480 resolution just doesn’t cut it. Making this even more apparent is the Windows Phone tiles. They all look jagged and don’t have that crispness of the iPhone’s retina display icons or the Galaxy Nexus’ HD display. The resolution would be great if this were 2010, but in a world of 720p displays, the Nokia falls flat.

The top of the phone holds the 3.5mm headset port, micro USB charging port, and the micro sim card. The right side of the Lumia 900 is littered with buttons for power, volume, and camera. It’s really nice having everything on one side alleviating the need to hunt for the button you’re looking for. The left side is completely devoid of buttons and the bottom is where you’ll find the loud speaker, rounding off the beautiful piece of hardware the Lumia 900 is.

Nokia Lumia 900 Hardware

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Software

Microsoft has as much, if not more, riding on the success of the Lumia 900 as Nokia. This is the device that is supposed to take Windows Phone to the next level and break out of the 3-4% market share arena. I wish I could say that Nokia and Microsoft’s relationship produced a unique and refreshing experience, but I can’t. What you get on the Lumia 900 is the same Windows Phone 7.5 experience you would have on any Windows Phone released in the last year. All the fluidity, smooth animations, and elegance are all there. There isn’t a hint of lag or slow down, the OS is ultra responsive but largely unchanged from its 2010 launch. Sure, you now have copy/paste and “multitasking” but you know what else you get? Bored. After the initial excitement wears off, there is nothing the Lumia 900 provides to reignite the fire.

All my original gripes with Windows Phone still stand today and are even more glaring. The abyssal selection of 3rd party apps is still an issue but even more so is the fact that the apps themselves are so limited. Apps can’t truly run in the background and the multitasking system is just a glorified app switcher giving you access to the last six apps. Often times the app you leave closes and you have to reload it where there is nothing quick about it. Add on the fact that developers look at Windows Phone as an up hill battle and you have a recipe for “Meh Soup”. Hell, even the official Twitter client hasn’t been updated since October 2010. What does that tell you about the platform’s app situation?

Performance and Battery Life

Even with last year’s lower spec processor, the Lumia 900 is an extremely well performer. Flicking between screens is butter smooth, pinch to zoom works flawlessly, and overall navigation is fantastic. App load times are still long and atrocious which has more to do with the apps than the phone, but I have to mention it because it is a problem.

The Lumia 900 is also the first Windows Phone to sport AT&T’s 4G LTE network capabilities. My speeds ranged from 5-8mbs on download and 2-3mbs on the upload side of things. Internet Explorer pages load very quickly and render great. I hate to admit it, but it is a fantastic web browser.
Keeping the Lumia 900 juiced up is a 1830mAh battery with a promise of 7 hours of talk time on 3G. In daily use, the Lumia easily made it through a full day yielding around 12-14 hours with text, streaming music, Twitter, and some short phone calls.

Camera

The 8 megapixel camera on the Lumia 900 takes decent photos in bright natural light but everywhere else it’s pretty embarrassing coming from a company known for their camera phones. In doors they are either too dark, or the flash washes everything out. The photos are no where near as good as what comes out of the iPhone 4s or Samsung Galaxy S II, but are on par with the iPhone 4 and most other Android phones. If you were looking for the best in class camera Nokia is known for, this is not it.

Photos Taken by the Lumia 900

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Conclusion and Final Score

When all is said and done the Lumia 900 can’t compete head to head with the iPhone 4s or most high end Android phones like the Galaxy Nexus and Smasung Galaxy S II. It’s design is fantastic and the hardware is some of the best I have ever seen, however the Lumia 900′s beauty is only skin deep. Once you get into the meat of the device, you find the same underwhelming Windows Phone experience. Nokia can’t compete on awesome hardware alone. They need an ecosystem with robust apps and being shacked up with Microsoft exclusively is holding the Lumia 900 back.
The $99 price point does make for a compelling argument until you realize you can get an iPhone 4 or Samsung Galaxy S II for the same price. I couldn’t recommend any current iOS or Android users this phone as it’s a step backwards in ecosystem and software in general. I’m happy to see Nokia back in the US, just wished it was with different circumstances as I really want to love this phone. But I don’t.

Guru Inspection
Hardware
Unique design and solid feel makes the Lumia 900 look and feel better than almost any phone out there.
Cameras
The camera takes decent shots, but fails to impress compared to the competition.
Software
Windows Phone is feeling very dated, lacks a good selection of apps and multitasking is a joke.
Battery and Performance
The Lumia 900 is no slouch, flying through every task I I put it through and lasting a whole day on one battery charge.

Overall
Amazing in some areas, terrible in others. At the end of the day the Lumia 900 just can't compete with today's top smartphones.

In other exciting (sarcasm) patent news, Apple, Microsoft and RIM were also granted the purchase of 6,000 Nortel patents by the DoJ. The three companies, along with others, teamed up to create “Rock Star Bidco” and collectively bid $4.5 Billion for these patents.

Now that every one is all “patented up”, things might get more interesting since all sides will have all kinds of BS to throw at one another. Hopefully they can just work out license agreements and everyone can go back to innovating instead of dragging this stuff to court.

via [Engadget and Ars Technica]

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The tech industry has been waiting for the official announcement of a Nokia Windows Phone device, ever since Microsoft announced they would be pairing with them. That day has officially come today. The Nokia Lumia 800 is the flagship device, out of the phones announced, so let’s go over some of the specs.

Before we get into the exact specs, over-all the device looks almost identical to the Nokia N9. With that said, it is a 16GB phone that has a single core 1.4GHz processor. Up front, it has a 3.7 (800X480) AMOLED display and comes in 3 colors black, cyan or magenta. Around back, the 8MP camera has the famous Carl Zeiss optics, and is capable of taking 720P video at 30 frames per second.

Nokia has added some specific apps like Nokia Drive (that is their own turn-by-turn GPS), ESPN Sports Hub, and Nokia Music. Lumia is a quad-band GSM device capable of 14.4Mbps HSDPA speeds and keeping it alive is a 1450mAh battery. The Lumia 800 is an intriguing device and we are very excited to see it. The bad news is, we are not hearing any talk about a US release at the moment. What do you think, you think this device is good enough to compete with the top devices in today’s market? We think so, but only time will tell that.

(via This is my Next)

Microsoft has plenty of money and it sure isn’t making a killing on Windows Phone, so they take all the licensing fees they can get from Android. Microsoft has landed another patent agreement with the Android manufacturer Compal. Lenovo is one of the companies that Compal is involved with and now they have to give a fair share of their 28 billion annual income to Microsoft.

Microsoft now cashes in on licensing fees from 55 percent of Android manufacturers. They make a lot more money off of Android than they do their own Mobile OS. It seems like in all the patents wars with the companies these days, every one has their own way of protecting their patents. Microsoft just chooses to sit back and let the money tree grow.

(via Android and Me)

Microsoft makes royalty money on a ton of Android devices that violate it’s patents, and the Kindle Fire will probably not be any different. Microsoft and Amazon signed a licensing agreement last year but the Kindle Fire does not fall into the agreement. Almost every Android device sold infringes one of Microsofts patents.

Microsoft has signed cross-licensing agreements with other Android vendors and in 2012 they are estimated to bring home around 444 million dollars in royalty fees. Microsoft has set themselves in a great position to make money off of the patents they own, and this could be very well, while it could be worth Amazon to purchase webOS and own their own software, for their mobile devices. The bottom line would be cut down quite a bit.

(via BGR)

We have been hearing that the official release date of Mango was going to be on September 27th and today confirmed that all to well. Seems they did it right in the wind of the news about Apple holding an iPhone event. How clever. Either way Microsoft is getting the update process down and rolling them out very smooth and quick.

Microsoft said “Today we’re starting the roll out of Windows Phone 7.5 to more than 98 percent of existing Windows Phone customers. This is a simultaneous, coordinated, global update that cuts across carriers, phone models, and countries. This time, almost everybody is going first.”

So plug up your phone, fire up your Zune Software, and see if your update is available because you have a better chance of it being available than not. We could only wish that Google could get their update process down like this, but it is a lot harder with open source software. So all you Windows Phone 7 owners, get your update and tell us how you like it, if you want to read about some of the newer additions, check out our Guru Inspection of Mango. Enjoy.

“For months, we and dozens of our partner companies have been laying the groundwork for the Windows Phone 7.5 update—and making solid progress. As a result, we now expect to start rolling it out in the next week or two. At that time, we’ll also refresh the Where’s My Phone Update? table to reflect the worldwide rollout status.”

For a sneak peak at some Mango features, head on over to our run down on some of the new additions!

via [Windows Phone Blog]

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