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

"The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable," said CEO Steven Elop in an internal email.

Apple has started production of a new version of its iPad tablet computer. It will have a front-facing camera for the first time. The new iPad will be available through Verizon and AT&T, but not Sprint or T-Mobile in the U.S.

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.

The first full quarter on Elop's watch will include the first sizable sales from the company's N8 smartphone. The 44% drop in profit forecast by analysts stands in contrast to Apple's 78% earnings growth in the period.

In the roughly two weeks since Motorola's biggest customer Verizon Wireless unveiled plans to start selling an iPhone in February, Motorola has already noticed a decline in smartphone sales, Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said on Wednesday.

Huawei Technologies Co., China's largest telecommunications equipment maker, won a court order barring Motorola Solutions Inc. from disclosing confidential information about Huawei's technology to Nokia Siemens Networks, which plans to buy Motorola's wireless networks business.

In January 2010, the imaging and photography giant filed a complaint with the U.S. ITC against Apple and RIM, alleging that the phone makers infringed on a Kodak patent involving image previews.

The mail order smartphone business didn't work out so well for Google with its Nexus One. But that doesn't mean the idea of carrier independence can't succeed with an established direct sales leader.

"Things have changed quite a bit," says Robert Passaro, a senior product manager for BMW. "We're tapping into where people are living their digital lives now, and that's on the smartphone. It makes sense to leverage that and integrate it into the car."

The most recent topic is whether the iPhone 5 will incorporate a GSM/CDMA chip that would enable users to choose their carrier of choice. A source recently suggested that Apple had chosen Qualcomm over Infineon for that reason.

The included video shows how you would "flick" apps from one screen to another and flip the phone to scroll, among other innovative and useful things.

Apple has been criticized by Chinese green groups for lax corporate oversight of its suppliers in China, leading to poor environmental and work safety standards that poisoned dozens of factory workers.

In a sign of the rapid shift away from non-smartphones, Apple has recently become the number-one provider of mobile phones, finally surpassing the Finnish giant Nokia as "feature phones" fall out of fashion.

Apple has signed a new deal with AT&T. A non-exclusive deal that is multi year and multiple product.

The Mobile Internet and Digital Home Business Group will be run by Liu Jun, formerly president of Lenovo's Product Group.

The struggling Finnish mobile-phone giant has abruptly canceled the U.S. launch of a smartphone that was slated to launch exclusively this year with AT&T, people familiar with the situation said. The unexpected cancellation leaves Nokia further behind in its effort to correct a major strategic weakness -- its poor showing in the lucrative U.S. market, where it lags behind Apple, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and phones powered by Google's Android software.

Apple acknowledged that it still can't make enough iPhones to meet demand, and the addition of the Verizon iPhone will simply add to the crunch.

Nokia will terminate its free service of music downloads for mobile phones, Ovi Music Unlimited, in the UK and 26 other countries. The service allows Nokia mobile phones' customers to download unlimited music for free. By the end of the year, the service will be discontinued in all but six countries.

Jobs, 55, has suffered in the past decade from two serious medical conditions. In 2004, he disclosed he had surgery to remove a rare form of pancreatic tumor. In 2009, he had a liver transplant.