Microsoft has delivered a blow to its partner Nokia that may slow down Nokia's fragile recovery and now takeover chatter is in the air.

Samsung Electronics' new CEO called for the company to redouble its focus on software, which could hint at a move away from Android and toward its own proprietary operating system.

Steve Jobs last war, the magazine argues, could do his company more harm than good.

According to seperate reports, both Panasonic and Samsung could be looking to use Android as the base operating system on digital cameras in the future.

Intel's latest effort to crack the smartphone market revolves around its new ultra low-power Atom chip code named Medfield and Google's Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" mobile operating system, both of which reportedly appear in a new handset from Motorola that's due to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress later this month.

The Finnish handset giant scooped up Smarterphone, a small Norwegian company that has an operating system designed for more basic cell phones known in the industry as feature phones. The acquisition was disclosed by Smarterphone's Nordic investor parent, Ferd Capital. A Nokia representative confirmed the acquisition but declined to comment further on what it means for the company.

Google is working out any bugs in the latest update to the Android mobile operating system before releasing it broadly, and that's good news for Samsung Nexus S users.

Once the best-selling phone in the world, the new Droid Razr will be a smartphone using the Android operating system and running on Verizon's 4G LTE network.

Cities could soon be looking after their citizens all by themselves thanks to an operating system designed for the metropolis.

Nokia, having abandoned its ambition to develop a high-end operating system, is shifting its programming efforts toward creating software for its low-end phones, according to people familiar with the matter. The project is a Linux-based operating system code-named Meltemi.

Dell plans to release a smartphone shopping application this week, a move that mimics the tactics of competitor Apple as the tech giant ramps up marketing toward consumers ahead of the holiday shopping season. Dell's application, which will run on phones powered by Google's Android operating system, will let customers choose and pay for a computer, as well as customize its features. The app will also include product reviews in order to help tech buyers make their decisions.

A lawsuit alleges the the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating system tracks users' location without permission.

Focusing on Bada may not be the answer, though. It seems as if the trend in the industry is to move from in-house proprietary platforms to more open models - look at Nokia's switch to the Windows Phone platform. With the struggles Nokia had in making Symbian a global success, I can't see how Samsung could do any better.

IDC expects Android, which passed Symbian as the leading operating system worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2010, to grow to more than 40% of the market in the second half of 2011.

NHN and Daum Communications, operators of South Korea's two largest Internet search sites, said in statements they filed complaints against Google with the country's Fair Trade Commission for blocking local phone carriers and manufacturers from embedding their search applications in devices using the Android operating system.

In the short term, this deal certainly favors Nokia. The company will still be spending money on Symbian development-the company is expecting to ship 150 million of the handsets in the next couple of years-but will be able to scale back this expenditure, as its operating system development costs are increasingly pushed onto Redmond. This, plus the cash infusion, gives the company instant savings.

Nokia may announce as soon as Friday a partnership with Microsoft or Google to adopt a new operating system.

it's being said that the first Facebook phones will be built by HTC, just like how the first Android phones were made by HTC...the HTC-sourced smartphones will "run a modified build of Google's Android operating system that will display information from a user's Facebook account on the home screen." So, it's like HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz... only with Walls, Pokes, and FarmVilles.

Nokia has said it will stick with Symbian as its main business-phone platform even when MeeGo, the handset-maker's new top-end operating system, is released.

Dell has announced that it will be replacing 25,000 BlackBerry smartphones and instead provide its employees with Dell devices running Microsoft's operating system.

The new operating system is a refreshing and complete break from the Windows Mobile OS of the past - Microsoft's failed attempt to transpose key elements of its PC operating system on to a smaller screen.

A new mobile device activation report from Good Technology shows that Apple's iPhone and iPad and smartphones based on Google's Android operating system are being adopted by consumers to help with their enterprise work.

On October 7, Microsoft licensed 74 patents for an undisclosed amount with Acacia Research Corp. and Access Co. Ltd, the Japanese company that acquired PalmSource, the maker of the Palm operating system

Yesterday, Huawei launched its first phone in Singapore, the Ideos U8150. The smartphone packs Google's latest Android 2.2 operating system

Microsoft this week reached the "release to manufacturing" step in the development of its new mobile phone operating system Phone 7.

Google's Android platform came on strong in August, notching a 25 percent smartphone operating system plot, said data firm Quantcast.

This reviewer has quite a low opinion on Dell's latest Android phone. "The Aero, you see, runs on Android 1.5 -- an early version of Google's mobile operating system that's 16 months out of date and a lifetime behind in functionality and performance. For a brand new phone to be shipping with a year-old version of Android is simply embarrassing, both to Dell and to the image of the Android brand."

Android isn't only about smartphones - not for long, anyway. Google's mobile operating system is set to make its way onto all sorts of high-tech stuff, ranging from the mundane and to the just plain strange.

This week RIM delivered on both these key requirements with the launch of the BlackBerry Torch 6800 - the first touchscreen "slider" BlackBerry and the first to run BlackBerry 6, the latest version of RIM's smartphone operating system.

Raytheon, which makes the Patriot missile defense system, is developing software which could enable a soldier to find enemies in his or her surrounding terrain using a mobile phone running Google's Android operating system.

Stepping up its rivalry with Apple and Nokia, Google outlines plans to court developers and put its operating system on lower-priced phones in China and India.

The Linux-based operating system will power Nokia's flagship smartphones, while lower-end phones will still run on Symbian.

Adobe on Tuesday will launch the long-awaited Flash Player 10.1 to mobile phone makers and Android's latest operating system will lead the charge.

Mobile analytics firm Flurry has attempted to measure Apple's influence on the portable gaming market, and its analysis concludes that iPhone games now account for about one-fifth of all revenues for portable game software in the US.