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Nokia reported today that their smartphone business saw strong growth, shipping 21.5 million units in the Q1 2010, a 57 percent jump year-on-year.

That number is expected to give Nokia a 41 percent share of the global smartphone market.

Overall mobile phone shipments grew 16 percent to 107.8 million which helped Nokia boost its quarterly profit 60 percent year-on-year.

Apple, on the other hand, saw 131 percent growth in the quarter, thanks to strong sales in China of the iPhone.

Nokia says the entire smartphone industry will continue to grow 10 percent in 2010, but the company says its share of the market will remain flat. Says CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo: Nokia faces "tough competition with respect to the high end of our mobile device portfolio."

The smartphone maker's new operating system, Symbian^3, has been delayed until the summer.

DaringFireball's John Gruber, known for his top connections inside Apple, says that the prototype "iPhone HD" revealed by Gizmodo earlier this week is very close to the final product, and may even be the final design.

The barcode on the back shows the label N90_DVT_GE4X_0493, with n90 known internally as the codename for the upcoming iPhone, and DVT standing for Design Verification Test, a unit only made "very late" into the development of a new product.

Gruber adds that the company has told him there will likely be only minor changes to the final design, so the phone lost in a bar last week is likely the iPhone 4G/HD as we know it.

New to the "iPhone HD," are a front-facing camera for video conferencing, a better standard camera (including larger lens and flash), a Micro-SIM slot (just like the iPad), 960x640 resolution, a second mic, metallic exterior (not plastic) and split side buttons for volume.

Engadget has leaked four new Dell smartphones, Lightning, Thunder, Smoke and Flash, four high-end phones that will use Android or Windows Phone 7 as their operating systems.

First off is the Lightning:


The phones uses Windows Phone 7, has a large 4.1-inch OLED screen, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a full QWERTY keypad, 512MB RAM, 1GB ROM, 8GB of internal storage for music, movies, etc, a 5MP camera with LED flash, and Adobe Flash, DivX and Microsoft Silverlight support.

The phone will be available before Christmas for GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile.

If multiple reports are correct, it appears that Apple is considering acquiring ARM Holdings for $8 billion USD.

ARM is the company behind the processors in most of the world's current smartphones, including the iPhone.

The latest rumor comes via the London Evening Standard, which says Apple is looking to purchase ARM for 5.2 billion pounds, the equivalent of about $8 billion USD.

Although this is still speculation, Apple has over $25 billion in cash reserves and no debt, meaning the deal could be completed easily.

The move would have two positives for Apple. They would bring chip technology in-house, allowing for more "Apple-ized" processors, and secondly, Apple could potentially block ARM processors from being used in rival smartphones, such as those made by HTC with the Android OS.

The second "positive" may never come to fruition, given the notoriously strict nature of European anti-trust regulators, but it still a possibility.

Hulu, one of the most popular video streaming sites in America has announced it will begin testing a $10 per month premium subscription starting on May 24th.

The service, called Hulu Plus, will allow users to watch additional episodes than those that are currently made available to free users. Free users can, for the most part, watch the last five episodes of a current season of a show.

News Corp., NBCU and Disney, the three media giants behind the streaming site say Hulu has been profitable for two quarters now, with over $100 million in revenue coming from advertisers. Of course $100 million is a drop in the bucket compared to profits from "traditional media" outlets.

On top of the subscription model, Hulu is expected to eventually add as many commercial breaks as current TV has, 9 minutes for every 21 minutes of programming.

Despite being the second most popular streaming video site behind YouTube, Nielsen Online reports that unique viewership has almost flatlined, still growing but barely.

Sony has announced they will be bringing Major League Baseball to the PS3, in one of the biggest streaming deals announced in the history of the console.

Peter Dille, senior vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment America, agrees: "This is one of the biggest deals we're bringing to the PS3, and it won't be the last one, there's lots of conversations going on."

The games will be broadcast in 720p HD through MLB.TV, which costs $25 a month or $120 a year for a subscription.

The PS3 will get a custom MLB.TV interface which allows users to scroll through live games or archived games. You can also pause, rewind and jump forward during games, just as if it had been recorded with a DVR.

Notably, due to "blackout rules," users cannot watch their own local market teams.

"We're excited about bringing MLB onto the console ... this is something you can't find on any other console," Dille continues, via Reuters.

iPhone Dev Team member "planetbeing" has released a video today showing off a huge accomplishment, the Android OS running on a first-gen iPhone.

The hack is currently still in alpha stages, but planetbeing says it should get the ball rolling, and that it will be an "easy port forward to the iPhone 3G." Users with the latest iteration, the iPhone 3GS, will probably not even get to test the second OS for some time, however.

Making the video even more notable is that the device is running both the iPhone OS and Android, working like "Bootcamp" does on Mac computers, allowing for booting of multiple operating systems.

Watch the video, it's pretty incredible.

Out of all of the interesting news that came out of Apple's earnings report yesterday, one of the most interesting pieces was the incredible growth seen in iPhone sales in China.

Overall, Apple sold 8.752 million iPhones in the Q2 2010, beating even the most ambitious analyst projection by 20 percent.

In the earnings conference call (transcripted by CNNMoney, Apple COO TIm Cook talked with Barclay's Ben Reitzes. The conversation went like this:

Reitzes: Did China meet your expectations?

Cook: China has been interesting. If you look at greater China which we define as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the iPhone units were up year-over-year over 9 times. We added another 800 points of distribution in China. The revenue, we have never released this number before but I will do this in this particular case, through the first half of the fiscal year that we just completed for the six month period our revenue from greater China was almost $1.3 billion and this is up over 200% year-over-year. So we are well pleased with how the company is positioned to take advantage of the growth in greater China.

T-Mobile's VOD+ movie service has now signed its latest partner, Warner Bros., which will make a plethora of films available to users with Android handsets.

Users can rent and download the movie and then watch it on the PC or on their mobile phones.

Saffron Digital, the video delivery platform behind VOD+ has deals with Nokia, Vodafone, LG, Sony Pictures, Paramount and Fox.

The first seven movies available for rental through the VOD+ service are Driving Aphrodite, Superman 2, Matrix Revolutions, Lethal Weapon, Interview With a Vampire, The Hangover, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

More films are expected over the course of the year.

"We anticipate the Desire being one of our most popular handsets of 2010, and the VOD+ service makes it even greater value for our customers – giving them even more functionality on top of an already impressive features list," says Nicola Shenton, Head of Handset and Device Marketing at T-Mobile, via DT. "As the service is unique to T-Mobile, it will also be a key differentiator for us as we compete with other networks."

In January, Eastman Kodak said it was suing RIM and Apple over patent violations relating to the cameras used in BlackBerrys and the iPhone.

Today, Apple countersued Kodak, accusing the film pioneer of violating two digital photography patents that Apple owns.

Apple has accused EK of violating patents 6,031,964 and RE38,911, which are "a system and method for using a unified memory architecture to implement a digital camera device," and a "modular digital image processing via an image processing chain with modifiable parameter controls."

Adds Kodak: "As regards our intellectual property, Kodak has a long history of digital imaging innovation and we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars creating our industry-leading patent portfolio. We have an obligation to our shareholders and the other licensees to protect their interests. When others use our technology, we merely seek fair compensation for that use, in the same way that many other leading technology companies pay us to license Kodak technology."

Facebook has shutdown their "Lite" version of the site which launched last year in India and the U.S. and was aimed at Internet users with dialup or slow DSL connections.

The stripped-down site was available since September.

Adds Ray Valdes of Gartner Research: "I think a lot of the Facebook experience was left out of Lite, especially the monetisable parts...the other part of this decision is probably because they have improved the performance sufficiently with the main part of Facebook and made things run better that they didn't need this back-up approach to cover a situation of low performance."

FB Lite only allowed users to write on walls, post video and photos and browse other profiles while all other features, such as applications, were stripped out.

There was no official word on why it shutdown but it seems that there was no point to keeping it open due to lack of users.

"It would seem not enough people were using it but then there was not a lot of awareness about the product. Tears will not be shed over the loss of Facebook Lite," wrote Nick O'Neil via the BBC.

According to Asahi, Nintendo is blaming piracy for the huge 50 percent drop it has seen in DS software sales over the past year in Europe.

The company says it loses "trillions of Yen to piracy each year," with flash carts such as the R4 or the M3 blamed for most of the piracy.

Flash carts are used to run homebrew and other legal features on the Nintendo DS handheld, but also allow for the easy playback of pirated ROMs.

The company says there were about 238 million illegal downloads in 2009 of software, with the main offenders coming from Spain, France and Italy. If the numbers are accurate, Nintendo forecasted $10.7 billion in losses due to the piracy.

Google has finally released their free turn-by-turn GPS software, Google Maps Navigation for Android users in the UK, a full six months after it was launched in the United States.

Navigation will work with any Android phone running firmware 1.6 or higher.

Google mobile maps chief Steve Lee says the huge delay between the US and UK releases had to do with "a number of issues that came up during development." One of the technical issues included the excess of roundabouts in road layouts.

Additionally, Lee says that the Navigation will pre-cache the entire route you have selected, meaning users will not be affected by data connection drops.

One important note that Google says to watch out for is if you are using the voice command feature: "If someone has a really strong accent, it's going to be a bit more tricky" for Navigation to work correctly, says the company.

Target has announced that it will begin selling the e-reader market leader Amazon Kindle in its brick-and-mortar stores starting April 25th, marking the first time the device will be available in stores.

Until this announcement, Amazon had remained the exclusive e-tailer for the Kindle.

To start, the device will only be available at 103 retail stores, with a larger rollout expected as the year progresses.

The Kindle sells for $259, putting it in direct competition with the Barnes & Noble Nook and less directly with the newly launched Apple iPad which sells for $500 but has more features than just e-reading.

"We're excited to be working with Amazon to help even more readers discover Kindle, in-store only at Target," adds Mark Schindele, senior vice president of Target, via MarketWatch. "We strive to enhance our product offerings to include surprising products and services at great values so we're proud to be the first brick-and-mortar retailer to sell Kindle, allowing our guests to feel how lightweight and easy on the eyes Kindle is."

Police in Denver have released a surveillance video showing a thief stealing an iPad from a man leaving the mall, at the same time ripping off part of his left pinky finger.

The victim, Bill Jordan, was buying the tablet device at the Cherry Creek Mall for a co-worker.

"I kind of wrapped it around my fingers so I didn't drop it on the way out. It was a heavy duty bag they put it in, and had real thick cords," says Jordan, via KDVR.

As Jordan left the store, the attacker followed him, finally going for the theft when Jordan reached the door to leave the mall.

"The next thing I know, I'm spun around. I see this kid, his rear end almost on the ground, and he's pulling it out of my hand. I just remember seeing this kid pulling and pulling and pulling till it got caught. Took the flesh right off and the tendons and everything. There was nothing but bone," says the victim.

Jordan had to have his left pinky amputated after the incident.

Here is the surveillance video picture of the attacker: