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During the years when Nokia's Symbian ruled the world smartphone market, you might not have even known they existed if you lived in the US.

Prior to the iPhone, the US smartphone market was dominated by RIM's BlackBerry, with its enterprise email integration, and a small number of Windows Mobile phones.

Nokia never seemed interested in establishing the kind of carrier relationships required to be a major presence in the US market. In hindsight that may seem short sighted, but at the time it seemed to make sense considering how well Nokia's smartphones sold globally.

But when the US smartphone market exploded with the first iPhone, Nokia's lack of carrier partnerships effectively locked them out of this new major market, and unable to remain competitive worldwide as a result.

They appear to be preparing to correct that weakness with their Windows Phone handsets. Even though their Windows Phones aren't expected in the US until some time next year, a job opening posted on the Nokia website suggests they are already positioning themselves for success in the market.

The job, which has a title of 'WP Developer Evangelist', includes the following description:

Companies who wish to have a presence on Google+ now have that option through a new feature announced yesterday called Google+ Pages.

Official pages for everything from companies to bands have been a part of social networking services like Facebook for a long time, but Google+ initially focused exclusively on individuals.

With the introduction of Google+ Pages Google is focusing on integration with other communication services provided by the company, such as real time chat.

In addition, they are emphasizing the ability to get your Google+ Page indexed by their industry leading search engine through a feature called DirectConnect. Google Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra explained on the company's blog:

People search on Google billions of times a day, and very often, they're looking for businesses and brands. Today's launch of Google+ Pages can help people transform their queries into meaningful connections, so we're rolling out two ways to add pages to circles from Google search. The first is by including Google+ pages in search results, and the second is a new feature called Direct Connect.

Maybe you're watching a movie trailer, or you just heard that your favorite band is coming to town. In both cases you want to connect with them right now, and Direct Connect makes it easy?even automatic. Just go to Google and search for [+], followed by the page you're interested in (like +Angry Birds). We'll take you to their Google+ page, and if you want, we?ll add them to your circles.

Security research Charlie Miller recently found a problem in iOS which could allow an app to give remote access to a device.

After receiving no response from Apple when he reported the problem more than two weeks ago, Miller submitted an app to the iTunes App Store which takes advantage of the vulnerabililty. He then went public with the information, after which Apple rewarded him for his trouble by kicking him out of the iOS Developer Program.

In an article published yesterday, Miller was quoted, saying: (via Forbes):

Now you could have a program in the App Store like Angry Birds that can run new code on your phone that Apple never had a chance to check. With this bug, you can't be assured of anything you download from the App Store behaving nicely.

It's hard to understand why Apple, after dropping the ball themselves by failing to act on Miller's warning, would draw more attention to their own failure like this. Then again, it's hard to understand why Apple does a lot of things.

Before his app was pulled and his developer privileges revoked, Miller made a video demonstrating the problem.

Could HP be cutting its losses while there is still value?

According to Reuters, HP may be looking to unload its webOS division, just 20 months after purchasing it.

In April 2010, HP bought Palm and all of its patents and software for $1.2 billion, saving the company from imminent bankruptcy.

HP is now being advised by Merrill Lynch as to whether they should sell the division, a move that will likely only bring in $500-700 million.

Palm and its patent cove remain an attractive asset, and one source says Oracle may be interested.

Earlier this year, HP decided to pull out of the webOS hardware game after just one tablet and one smartphone.

When Chuck D filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group last week, the implications for that company were obvious.

If his suit is successful, which seems likely based on recent precedents, it could result in UMG facing a huge new royalty burden to pay numerous artists who signed standard recording contracts in the days before iTunes. But it could end up having an even bigger impact on another label.

EMI, the smallest of the big four labels, is currently owned by Citigroup. They took over the struggling company when previous owner, Terra Firma, defaulted on loan payments.

Citigroup has no interest in owning a record label, and is looking for a buyer. But with the threat of a huge royalty liability hanging over the company, that would become more difficult.

Digital Music News has spoken to people involved in negotiations to buy EMI, and they believe potential buyers will demand protection against that possibility. One source told them, "This could be accomplished through mechanisms like graduated payments, it could be done through clawbacks or sunsetting."

One of the AfterDawn.com servers had connectivity problems during the weekend, which caused problems for our North American users. Users in other regions could have been affected as well.

The problems were caused by a combination of abnormal network latency and cache frontend server configuration. There also was another problem that caused occasional "Oops, there has been an error" -messages when no error actually occured. This was also caused by an overly optimistic default setting in the version of Varnish Cache we were using. The setting has now been fixed along with an upgrade of Varnish.

We are deeply sorry about the inconvenience the problems have caused, and hope that they are now behind us.

Should you encounter problems accessing or using our site, please don't hesitate to contact me directly via email at firstname.lastname@afterdawn.com or via Twitter at @ketola or @afterdawn.

Reference:
https://www.varnish-cache.org/trac/ticket/1012

Slowly but surely, Google is going on the offensive to defend Android from the threat of patent lawsuits.

Google's position in this fight is arguably weaker than either of those companies. This has presented problems for major Android device manufacturers. Between Apple, who refuses to license their own patents to anyone, and Microsoft trying to make money from Android in place of having their own successful mobile OS, the very existence of Android could be at stake.

Google Patent Counsel, Tim Porter, argued the company's case to San Francisco Chronicle columnist James Temple. In the process, he directed a number of criticisms against not just the companies who pose that threat, but also patent system itself.

Reacting to the numerous license agreements Microsoft has made with Android device makers, he said:

Unfortunately, the way it works is you don't know what patents cover until courts declare that in litigation. What that means is people have to make decisions about whether to fight or whether to reach agreements.

Multiple sources are reporting on the leaked pictures and specs of the upcoming HTC Edge, the world's first quad-core smartphone.

The device will have a massive 4.7-inch screen, 720p resolution, be just 10mm thick and run on Android 4.0.

Under the hood, the device has 1GB RAM, a Tegra 3 processor at 1.5Ghz, a backlit 8MP camera with a 28-millimeter f/2.2 lens, 32GB storage, Beats Audio and Bluetooth 4.0.

Additionally, the device will run the updated Sense UI which adds the HTC Listen music store, the HTC Read bookstore, the HTC Play multiplayer gaming hub and the HTC Watch HD movie rental portal.

The device will have support of the very fast 21Mbps HSDPA+ "4G" network but no LTE.

Google and Disney have said today that the two companies are teaming up to bring video content "tailored" to Disney audiences.

Co-branded "video destinations" will be available from Disney.com and YouTube.com starting next year.

The programming will be considered family-friendly and will be aimed at younger audiences.

Disney says a video series based ont he popular game "Where's my Water" will be the first project, launching in February.

Says Disney (via USAT):

With online video consumption exploding and YouTube at the center of that trend, we see an opportunity for Disney Interactive and YouTube to bring Disney's legacy of storytelling to a new generation of families and Disney enthusiasts on the platforms they prefer.

A German court issued an injunction against Apple, banning them from selling any mobile devices in the country... sort of.

The injuction was granted in a lawsuit against Apple, alleging the iPhone and iPad both infringe on Motorola patents. It was issued after Apple failed to appear in court.

While that sounds like a big deal for Apple, and in the end it could be, as Florian Mueller at FOSS Patents points out, the situation is much more complicated than it sounds.

First, there's the injunction itself. Apple has issued an extermely ambiguous statement on the matter, saying (via FOSS Patents):

This is a procedural issue and has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It does not affect our ability to do business or sell products in Germany at this time.

There are many ways that could be interpreted based on the nature of the lawsuit. For starters, it could mean Apple believes they will be granted a temporary stay of the ban, which may be decided in the next couple of weeks.

6000 copies of the upcoming Modern Warfare 3 game were stolen this week in France, following a daring armed robbery.

The truck was crashed into by a car in southern Paris before two armed and masked individuals jumped out, tossed tear gas then stole the truck.

Reports say the lot is worth about 400,000 euros.

There was little other to report on the theft but French citizens are told to look out for stolen copies of the game selling before its official release date.

According to Ticonderoga analyst Brian White, the Apple iPhone 4S sold out in Hong Kong in just 10 minutes.

Pre-orders on the device went live on November 4th and almost immediately sold out.

The device will hit the nation on the 11th as Apple expands the the iPhone 4S to 16 new countries.

A full sell-out is surprising as Siri lacks global language support:

We believe this rapid sell out $76.83 will rest concerns surrounding the uptake of the iPhone 4S in the Greater China region that were driven by the limited language capability of Siri, which did not launch in Mandarin or Cantonese.

Time Warner Cable has confirmed today that its Internet customers experienced a temporary outage this morning.

Says the ISP:

We appear to be recovering from a large but brief internet outage affecting most of our service areas.

TWC customers from around the U.S. all reported the quick outage this morning but the problem has been resolved now.

The ISP tells users to "attempt connecting again" if they have issues.

According to the latest "rumors and tips," the next generation Xbox gaming console will be smaller, cheaper and be based on ARM processors and the Windows 9 operating system.

The rumor comes via blogger "MSNerd":

With a heady mix of rumors, tips and speculation, I am now stating that Xbox codename "loop" (the erstwhile XboxTV) will indeed debut a modified Win9 core. It will use a Zune HD-like hardware platform- a "main" processor with multiple dedicated assistive cores for graphics, AI, physics, sound, networking, encryption and sensors. It will be custom designed by Microsoft and two partners based on the ARM architecture. It will be cheaper than the 360, further enabling Kinect adoption. And it will be far smaller than the 360. It will also demonstrate how Windows Phone could possible implement Win9's dev platform on the lower end.

MSNerd has provided early and accurate information on Microsoft's defunct Courier and the Kin.

Blockbuster Express is rolling out new pricing for their disc rental kiosks, hiking prices from $1 to $2 for so-called "Hot Movies."

Hot Movies are major releases which have been out for between 29 and 90 days. The price for keeping a disc longer than 24 hours will remain at $1.

In addition, a program which has been in testing in a few markets, offering new releases on the same date they are released for sale, is expanding to all locations. New releases rent for $3 with an additional $1 per day after the first.

Under the new pricing scheme, which they are calling the 3-2-1 Plan, all prices will return to the flat $1 per night after 90 days.

It is understandable why Blockbuster Express would want to differentiate themselves from other rental outlets by offering new releases right away. But it's questionable how much much of an advantage that will be at such a high price.

In any case, it's unlikely to do anything to meet the studios' stated goal of selling more discs, which is the reasoning behind the ridiculous rental windows in the first place.