Items tagged with (NYSE:NOK)
HMD Global, the “home” of Nokia phones, introduced a number of smartphones at the 2019 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. One of their most striking devices is the Nokia 9 PureView, which features a “Penta-lens” camera system with Zeiss Optics and Android 9 Pie. The Nokia 9 PureView includes seven circular cutouts on its back. Two of these cutouts are color cameras with Zeiss Optics, another three are monochrome sensors, and the final two are a LED flash and proximity sensor. The device uses artificial intelligence (AI) to to combine the data gathered from all of the cameras. The PureView is reportedly able to capture up to ten times as much light as...
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Despite all of the hype and excitement surrounding virtual reality over the past couple of years, the market for VR has not grown at the pace Nokia had anticipated or hoped it would. As a result, the company has decided to 'optimize' its investments in VR, starting with halting development of Ozo, a 360-degree VR camera that debuted at $60,000 before receiving a price cut to $45,000. The company is also reducing its workforce as it pivots to digital health. "Nokia Technologies is at a point where, with the right focus and investments, we can meaningfully grow our footprint in the digital health market, and we must seize that opportunity," said Gregory Lee, president of Nokia Technologies. "While...
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Do you remember when Nokia went all-in with Microsoft's Windows Phone platform? While Nokia chose to go with an underdog, it hoped to compete in the smartphone space by focusing on camera performance, and many of its devices featured camera sensors with high megapixel counts. Well, much has changed since then. These days HMD Global owns the rights to market Nokia branded phones (and tablets), and while the landscape is decidedly different this time around, camera performance is still a point of focus. As such, the Finnish startup announced today that it has sign an exclusive partnership with Zeiss to design optics and software for upcoming Nokia phones. Zeiss is no stranger to the Nokia brand,...
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Apple and Nokia have made nice on a patent dispute, putting an end to what could have been contentious litigation. Nokia had actually sued Apple at the end of last year after failing to convince the Cupertino outfit to renew expiring licensing agreements that were inked back in 2011. At the time, Apple accused Nokia of morphing into a "patent troll," claiming the once top seller of cellular phones was trying to "extort money" for technologies it did not own. The strong rhetoric from Apple painted the company as a champion of the people. "We are standing up for inventors everywhere by fighting this flagrant anticompetitive practice," Apple told Bloomberg at the time. But that is all water under...
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Nokia is officially back in the branded smartphone business with the launch of its Nokia 6, a mid-range Android handset that reports say sold out in under a minute in China, but that is not the only big news attached to the company. It would appear that Nokia is also getting ready to release a humongous tablet, one that will sport an 18.4-inch display with a 2560x1440 display resolution. Specifications for the massive tablet showed up on GFXBench. The gargantuan device could also be an upcoming all-in-one (AIO) system, though being an Android device powered by an ARM-based processor, it is more likely it will end up being a large size tablet (assuming it's real and that Nokia goes forward with...
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Nokia, once the top seller of cellular phones in what feels like a lifetime ago, is suing Apple over claims that its popular iPhone handsets infringe on several mobile patents owned by the Finnish company. The lawsuit is a result of Nokia failing to convince Apple to renew licensing agreements inked in 2011 that are about to expire. Nokia sought to extend those agreements, and had Apple been willing, there would be no lawsuit. Having sold off its handset business, many wondered if Nokia would turn to more aggressively pursuing patent agreements and litigation. A sign of things to come might have been hinted at when Nokia purchased Alcatel-Lucent's hardware portfolio for $16.6 billion last year,...
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Here's a bit of good news for budding filmmakers who want to create virtual reality experiences. Nokia just slashed $15,000 off the price of its funky looking Ozo, the first VR camera system specifically designed for professional production. Now brace yourself for the bad news—the price cut brings the cost down to $45,000, which is still a hefty chunk of change. Hey, that's $5,000 less than it costs to spend just a single night at the Ty Warner Penthouse at the top of Manhattan's Four Season's Hotel (no joke). And if you want a 2016 Tesla Model S P90D, you'll have to come up with more than twice as much cash, though admittedly you could hop in a BMW Series 3 Gran Turismo for slightly less. Have...
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Nokia was once a major force in the mobile phone market, before the rise of smartphones and subsequent selloff to Microsoft, which never made good use of the transaction. Now Nokia is making a comeback, or at least will attempt to make one, through a 10-year licensing deal with HMD Global Oy. HMD is a new outfit in Finland that was created to "provide a focused, independent home for a full range of Nokia-branded feature phones, smartphones, and tablets." The decade long deal covers exclusive branding rights and intellectual property licensing, and in return HMD will make royalty payments to Nokia for sales of all Nokia branded mobile products, all of which will run Android. "Instead of Nokia...
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Remember Nokia's fancy pants Ozo camera? It's billed as the first virtual reality camera system specifically designed for professional production, and today we learned it will have a price tag to match -- $60,000. Ah, but turn that frown upside down, you don't have to come up the full amount right off the bat. It only requires a $5,000 deposit! All kidding aside, the price tag reflects the camera's target audience and intended purpose. This isn't a toy or even a high-tech device for hobbyists, but a serious tool for creating professional level content in the emerging VR field.Is it just us, or does Nokia's Ozo VR camera look like Q*bert? To do that, the Ozo sports eight 2K by 2K video sensors,...
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Virtual reality has captured the hearts and minds of consumers and developers alike with systems like Oculus Rift and Samsung's Gear VR, but what if you want to capture your own VR content? Nokia has you covered. The company announced a funky looking camera with an equally funky name -- OZO. While it looks like one of the orbs that shot energy bolts at a blindfolded Luke Skywalker during his Jedi training, it's actually a purpose-built camera designed for professional content creators. OZO came out of the minds of Nokia's R&D facilities in Tampere, Finland. It's a work in progress, though it's close to being finished -- Nokia says it will conduct final testing and refinements to OZO in partnership...
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A familiar face is returning to the smartphone scene. After selling its mobile phone business to Microsoft in 2014, Nokia plans to get back in the game in late 2016 when its agreement with the Redmond outfit expires. However, Nokia won't get back to building handsets and will instead design the hardware and license its brand to other companies."We will look for suitable partners," Nokia boss Rajeev Suri said. "Microsoft makes mobile phones. We would simply design them and then make the brand name available to license."As part of its sales agreement with Microsoft, Nokia is prohibited from slapping its name on phones until the fourth quarter of 2016. While Nokia would be allowed to build and sell...
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Nokia just announced a huge acquisition today, confirming that it is purchasing one of its closest competitors in the network equipment market: Alcatel-Lucent. The purchase price was a hefty $16.6 billion in an all-stock transaction. The acquisition will allow Nokia to better compete with Chinese players like Huawei, which have flooded the market with low-cost networking equipment. According to Bernstein Research, the combined companies will take over the second place spot in the mobile network hardware market with a 35 percent share. Ericsson will maintain its first place position with a 40 percent share, and hard-charging Huawei is coming on strong in third place with 20 percent of the market....
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On Android, given that it's built by Google, consumers already have access to what is arguably the best routing/navigational app in the known universe: Google Maps. But if for some reason that doesn't appeal to you, there's another major player coming to Android at long last. The HERE team is announcing this week that a beta of its mapping app is now ready for Android users, so long as you're using a Samsung device. Thanks to a licensing agreement with Samsung, it'll be available for free, exclusively for Samsung Galaxy smartphones like the Galaxy S5. What makes HERE special is that it'll work without an Internet connection. If you have a solid GPS signal, you're in business, even when it comes...
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If you don't want to get caught with a dead smartphone, it's a wise idea to carry along either a spare battery (provided your handset sports a removable battery) or a portable charger. However, if you have neither and you happen to be surrounded by 800 potatoes and apples, all you'll need is a copper wire and galvanized nails to be back in business. Practical? Not even for MacGyvr. Cool? You betcha. In a blog post, Nokia explains how multimedia artist Caleb Charland set up a large display of fruit and potatoes to organically charge a Lumia 930 handset. His setup generated an electrical current equivalent to an average of 20mA and 6 volts to power the device. "By creating this large organic charger...
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