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It's been a rough transition for the hundreds of former Nokia IT staff in Finland whose roles were moved to HCL and Tata Consultancy Services after Nokia's January announcement that it was streamlining its IT operations. Globally, Nokia transferred 820 IT staff to the companies with over 700 roles coming from its Finnish IT operations.

TCS Finland took in around 460 ex-Nokians while HCL Finland absorbed over 200 and now both companies are planning cuts that could affect more than half the workers originally transferred from Nokia. Though it's not known exactly how many ex-Nokians could be impacted, Finnish union UIL says vast majority of employee negotiations have involved this group. 

TCS announced on Tuesday that 233 roles are on the block, although the exact number will not be known until the end of August. The redundancies impact 172 Finnish workers and 61 international employees. The company now employes 427 personnel in Finland.

The estimated layoffs are actually a slight reduction on the up to 290 roles Tata said in April that it may shed. The planned cuts came off the back of lengthy talks with staff about new conditions, which at one point included a scuffle over a BYOD program that jarred with Finnish customs. 

Meanwhile, Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat reported yesterday that HCL has begun discussions involving 209 former Nokians that could lead to a headcount reduction of 140. ZDNet has asked HCL Finland for comment and will update the story if it receives one.   

The pattern of staff transfers followed by layoffs at outsourcing service providers has caused angst among Finland's unions.

Nokia's Bridge programme — where outgoing staff are given financing to set up their own companies — has earned it a reputation for generosity to its former staff, but Finnish union Pro has repeatedly accused Nokia of outsourcing its redundancies, pointing to the most recent layoffs and earlier cuts at Accenture, which today employs very few of the 1,100 Nokians it took in after Nokia outsourced Symbian development in 2011 as part of its shift to Windows Phone. 

Amongst the buyers Siemens is said to have approached are TPG, Blackstone Group and KKR & Co, according to the Wall Street Journal, which notes NSN could be worth as much as €7bn ($9.36bn) including debt if publicly listed.

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A private equity buyout is just one option on the table after restrictions on the transfer of Nokia's and Siemens' interests in the joint venture expired this April. 

A less likely possibility, according to the paper's sources, is that Siemens sells its stake in the venture.

Nokia meanwhile appears to want to hold on to the mobile network equipment and managed services business, which has propped up revenues and helped maintain cash levels during Nokia's shift to Windows Phone. 

Last quarter NSN contributed €210m to Nokia's net cash position with revenues of €2.8bn, putting it on a par with Nokia's device and services sales of €2.88bn.

As the WSJ notes, NSN's share of Nokia's overall revenues has grown to 46 percent, compared with 30 percent when Nokia chief Stephen Elop arrived. Elop has also steered NSN's restructure, which is aiming for annual operating expense rate of €1bn less than in 2011.    

According to the WSJ, Nokia has approached Finnish sovereign-wealth fund Solidium to aid a plan to buy out the Siemens stake. However, that option could be difficult if the European Commission views it as a form of state aid.

A third option, which could be likely if Siemens or Nokia fail to secure the other possibilities, is an IPO of NSN shares, which analysts believe could value the company at between €7.1 billion and €7.5bn including debt.

NSN declined to comment on the rumoured changes. ZDNet has asked Siemens for a comment, and will update the story if it receives one.

Sweden's Data Inspectorate "Datainspektionen", which oversees the nation's Personal Data Act, this week ruled that the Salem Municipality in Stockholm must stop using Google Apps email and calendar services.

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The main problem is that the data processor, Google, sets the ground rules for handling personal information, and, according to the inspectorate, has too much room to use the data for purposes other than what is specified by the municipality.

Ingela Alverfors, a lawyer for the inspectorate investigating the case, told ZDNet that cloud contracts in general posed a problem for municipalities because the municipality was supposed to stipulate how data was processed.

"Usually the one responsible for the data is the powerful party. Now it's the cloud provider who writes the contract," Alverfors said.

The contract should, for example, include limits on how data is used, but Google's contract allowed it to process the data for maintaining and providing services, which was too open-ended in her view.

"You could do lots of things with the data. Our view is that Salem is probably not handling sensitive data in the cloud service, but still they are handling personal data," she said.

Salem Municipality has three weeks to appeal against the decision. IT chief Tony Sderlund told ZDNet Salem would appeal — for the second time since an initial probe in 2011 — and had no plans to abandon Google Apps.

"We are working with our response and it's too early to say what the response will be, but we are confident that our agreement with Google applies to Swedish and European laws,” Sderlund said.

"We are not thinking about abandoning Google Apps, partially because there is no  alternative to Google's excellent services."

Google said: "We believe that Google Apps complies with Swedish law and we'll continue to work with all involved parties. Over five million organisations worldwide, including well over one million in Europe, are already using Google Apps and enjoy the increased productivity, innovation and collaboration that internet computing offers."

The decision on Salem does not automatically prevent all municipalities from using Google Apps, but Alverfors said it would make the same decision if it found others with the same contract in place.

Alverfors said the inspectorate had not investigated Microsoft's Office 365, adding that cloud email services did not appear to be that widely adopted by Swedish municipalities.

Schools, however, were a different story and the inspectorate is currently investigating the use of Google Apps at schools in Sollentuna Kommun, another municipality in Stockholm, which migrated to the cloud platform in 2009.

"There's an open case [on the use of Google Apps] in Sollentuna Kommun. We hope to have decision at the end of the year," said Alverfors, who noted that the concerns are also primarily around the data processing terms.

Alverfors said the inspectorate will soon kick off a project to uncover how many schools across Sweden are using Google Apps and other cloud services like it.

Norway's data protection authority last year gave qualified clearance for local councils to use Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 after initially intending to block it. The Narvik municipality, which adopted Google Apps, is permitted to use Google's cloud so long as it is not used to transmit personal information about citizens. 

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Internet Explorer, Windows XP rank highly at work, but BYOD threatens mutiny

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Google released Frame in 2009 as a way to help developers who used modern web technologies to reach IE users without having to rewrite their web apps for Microsoft's browser. One example is the now retired Google Wave, which could be viewed in IE with the help of Frame. 

Frame also helped developers reach those who were "unable" to move to Chrome — presumably in the enterprise, which sometimes retain older IE or standardise on one browser to support in-house web applications.

"We created Chrome Frame — a secure plug-in that brings a modern engine to old versions of Internet Explorer — to allow developers to bring better experiences to more users, even those who were unable to move to a more capable browser," Robert Shield, Google Chrome engineer, noted in a post yesterday.

Frame supports IE, 6, 7, 8, and 9 on XP, Vista and Windows and there was both a standard version and one for administrators in the enterprise. Updates and support for Frame will end in January 2014.

Developers that used Frame in their sites have been told to prompt visitors to view Google's whatbrowser.org/ site, which points to "modern browsers", including Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and IE.

Enterprise admins that installed Frame are being encouraged either to run Chrome for business or Google's Legacy Browser Support, an add-on for IE 6 to 10 it launched in April. Instead of Chrome running inside IE like it would with Frame, Legacy Browser Support will automatically launch IE or Chrome depending on which website or app is being accessed.

Frame was no longer needed, according to Shield, because most people are now using modern web browsers.

"It's unusual to build something and hope it eventually makes itself obsolete, but in this case we see the retirement of Chrome Frame as evidence of just how far the web has come," Shield wrote.

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The proposed legislation requires that all new vehicles sold on the European market after October 2015 be equipped with eCall, a platform estimated to cost about €100 (85) which places a call to 112 in the event of a serious accident.

The system would rely on public mobile networks to establish an open audio line with emergency services and transmit the vehicle type and its location. Since the call should only be made in the event of a serious accident, eCall is envisaged to rely on in-vehicle sensors to determine when to trigger the call, or it could be manually activated by a person on the scene.

The proposed legislation covers requirements to make new vehicles and public mobile networks fit for a Europe-wide compatible, interoperable and continuous eCall service.

The European Commission had previously called for a voluntary roll out of eCall by 2009 but is now considering the legislation because adoption has been too slow.

It is estimated that once fully deployed, the system could save 2,500 lives per year and speed up response times by 40 percent in urban areas and 50 percent in the countryside.

The system is also being positioned as a boon for tech companies that will supply components for the eCall system, including in-vehicle systems, wireless data delivery, and public safety answering point systems.

The commission also believes additional services such as advanced insurance schemes and stolen vehicle tracking could be added on top of the eCall platform, given its positioning, processing and communication capabilities.

According to the commission, eCall could not be used for tracking a vehicle since it would only be active once an accident occurs. Also, as a "dormant" system that is not always connected to networks, hackers pose little threat.

It's not clear what Yahoo intends to do with Rondee, but the startup — which launched in 2006 — will join Yahoo's Small Business Team, a part of Yahoo that helps SMBs with marketing, web-hosting and e-commerce. 

Rondee is winding down the service on July 12 and the company has arranged for accounts to work on an alternative service called Instant Conference.

Earlier on Wednesday, Yahoo confirmed that it had acquired GhostBird Software, the iOS developer behind KitCam and PhotoForge2. Existing users can still run the apps, but the apps have been removed from the App Store.

GhostBird joins Yahoo's revamped Flickr team, which in May launched a new Android and iOS Flickr app along with a site redesign. 

The acquisitions extend Yahoo's recent buying spree under chief executive Marissa Mayer, who is trying to reinvigorate the ailing brand and boost its international appeal.

The biggest acquisition to date under Mayer, of course, was last month's Tumblr buy for $1.1 bn, which followed smaller mobile and social startup acquisitions including Summly, OnTheAir, and Snip.it.

Citing four sources, Reuters reports that Apple has taken plans for a 4.7-inch and a 5.7-inch iPhones to suppliers in Asia. If Apple does follow through with the plans, they would not be introduced until next year.

Apple bumped up its screen size to 4-inches in the iPhone 5, which launched last September, departing from the 3.5 inch screen on all previous models since 2007. But unlike its biggest rival, Samsung, it only went longer, not wider.

Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that a larger screen could differentiate phones, but noted the company had to weigh-up what "trade offs" would have to be made, from battery-life to the longevity of the screen. 

Some analysts believe Apple will launch a larger screen iPhone 6 next year, but expect it to stick with the current screen size for what is believed to be the iPhone 5S thought to launch later this year.

While the iPhone has been a firm favourite with business users, rivals such as Samsung and Microsoft (with Nokia) have been raising their game. The increasing popularity of so-called phablet style extra large smartphones such as Samsung's S4 has been another recent trend that Apple may feel it needs a response to.

According to Reuters, Apple will launch two new models later this year, including an upmarket device and a cheaper one with plastic casing in five to six colours with a $99 price tag that could improve sales in China.

One analyst last week also claimed that Apple would launch a cheaper iPhone in five colours, claiming at least two of the new colours included pink and blue. 

Apple's primary iPhone contractor, Foxconn, will make assemble the higher-end phone, while Pegatron, which makes the iPad mini, has been tipped to assemble the cheaper device.

DNA was an early supporter of the Finnish startup's work on remnants of Nokia's abandoned MeeGo phones and will now also help Jolla sell its successor.

DNA has 2.4 million mobile subscriptions and is in the process of rolling out its 4G network. The company has launched a site for potential buyers in Finland to register their interest.  

Jolla launched a pre-order campaign for the phone in May and expects to begin manufacturing this month with plans to deliver orders by the end of the year, however no firm date has been set. The phone will have a dual-core processor with 16GB of onboard storage and an extra SD card slot, with an 8 megapixel camera and 4.5-inch Estrade display.

Jolla has said the mobile is 4G compatible, but that will depend on carrier support.

The pre-order device is only available to European buyers (priced at €399/£337), but Jolla CEO Tomi Pienimäki told ZDNet yesterday that it had received orders from 118 countries. He did not reveal sales numbers.

The startup also expects to close another round of funding in the coming weeks, according to Pienimäki.

HP is launching "IT in a Box", a blend of software and hardware from Google and itself, that HP's network of resellers to sell to SMB customers. To do that, the company has also joined the Google Apps for Business reseller programme. 

But HP will be doing more than reselling Google Apps to businesses. HP already has its Android hybrid SlateBook x2 and Slate tablet, as well as its own Pavillion Chromebook, so potential customers can choose either its Windows 8 devices or those aligned with Google's OSes. IT in a Box will combine technologies across printing and PCs that fall under the Printing and Personal Systems Group it merged last year. 

The IT in a Box package will consist of Google Apps, HP PCs, printers, management console, administration and customer support.

HP notes that more than five million business run Google Apps for Business, offering its resellers a sizable market to pitch new hardware and IT management services to.

It also notes that its aiming to eventually "encompass all the technologies SMBs need", which could of course include its other categories like networking.

The product will be released in July in the US and worldwide later this year. HP notes that SMB package will eventually deliver integrated consoles for resellers, IT admins and end users to allow easy access to the entire solution, including Google Apps for Business.

According to the Financial Times, Nokia will not memorialise its final Symbian shipments with an announcement in part because there is still inventory in some markets that needs to be sold. 

Throughout Nokia's transition to Windows Phone, which began in 2011, it continued to ship a dwindling but significant number of Symbian smartphones. 

'Android before Android': The long, strange history of Symbian and why it matters for Nokia's future

'Android before Android': The long, strange history of Symbian and why it matters for Nokia's future

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In Q1 2010, Symbian's rule was on the slide, but the 24 million shipped held a dominant share at 44 percent (well ahead of second-runner RIM, which held 19 percent). Of course, the roughly 50 million shipped each quarter back then were a fraction of today's booming smartphone market.

By 2012, Symbian development had been handed to Accenture and Nokia's attention was on restructuring and Windows Phone. Nokia had also slashed its Symbian marketing budgets, accelerating its demise.

Last quarter, Nokia shipped 1.2 million Symbian smartphones worldwide, accounting for 0.6 percent of 216 million devices — three quarters of which were Android, according to IDC. 

The last Symbian smartphone Nokia made, the Nokia 808 PureView, arrived in mid-2012 with a whopping 41 megapixel camera, but despite its fans, with an abandoned OS and high price tag, it failed to secure wide carrier support. 

But it was not made in vain, according to a Nokia spokesperson who told ZDNet it was "fitting" that the 808 was its last Symbian: "This phone extended the platform's pioneering tradition, and acted as a bridge for the next wave of innovation now seen in our latest models, like the Lumia 925."

Though Symbian is synonymous with Nokia, it was once, like Android today, an open platform that underpinned the what was arguably the first smartphone — the large screen, data-centric Ericsson R380 launched in 2000. 

For a quick summary Symbian of highlights from Nokia's own labs, here's a brief run down from the company's press team:

• The first Symbian phone Nokia produced was the Nokia 9210 Communicator, which hit the markets in June 2001. It was the first phone in GSM markets that brought a multimedia experience in full color, with a full-keyboard to boot.
• A year later, the iconic Nokia 7650 was released, a device many people consider as Nokia’s first real Symbian phone with its S60 user interface. The Nokia 7650 was a pioneer in many ways: it was the first S60 phone, it had the first integrated digital camera and it was the first phone with polyphonic ringtones. It's no wonder that the phone made the cover of The Economist magazine under the title "Computing’s new shape".
• The first Nokia phone with a touch screen was introduced in November 2004. The Nokia 7710 was the only commercial phone which ran on Series 90, another Symbian operating system (OS) platform developed by Nokia which was later merged into S60.
• The first S60 touch phone, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, was launched in 2008. It was aimed at music lovers with the "Comes with Music" solution.

iZettle currently provides smaller merchants in seven European markets a smartphone-based app combined with either a €99 chip and PIN or a €25 chip and signature device to take payments from major credit cards.

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Besides the technology itself, iZettle is a middle-man between smaller merchants and card acquiring banks, which merchants generally need to be assessed by in order to begin taking credit card payments. iZettle acts like "super merchant" while its customers fall under its agreement with an acquiring bank. 

According to iZettle's chief Jacob De Geer, the partnership with Banco Santader and potentially others like will help its transition from local to multinational services.

iZettle established itself as an early player in Europe's mobile merchant payments market, which PayPal recently joined with its similar product Here. The startup now has offices in Stockholm, London, Berlin and Madrid. Most of its transactions outside of Sweden come from the UK, but it has also launched in Spain, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

De Geer has previously told ZDNet it intends to launch elsewhere in Europe and one market outside of the EU sometime this year, but hasn't said where. 

Banco Santander could help iZettle move in a few directions with the bank's claim to be the main financial institution in Spain and Latin America, where its key markets include Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina. It also has operations in the UK, Portugal, Poland and in the north-eastern part of the US.

"Millions of small business owners and professionals in the markets where we operate need an alternative to conventional credit card terminals," said Ramn Tellaeche, head of Santander Cards at Banco Santander. "We believe iZettle's innovative mobile technologies will be crucial to those merchants' near and long term success."

One way Santander will help iZettle in the UK is by offering customers that tie their iZettle account to their Santander account 50 cash back when buying iZettle's 99 plus VAT Chip&PIN reader. The bank offered a similar but smaller deal to Spanish customers this February.  

iZettle released the chip and PIN device in February this year for €49 in Europe, but, De Geer tells ZDNet that was a limited time offer and the price has since risen to the normal €99 rate.

"The €49 price was our introductory price and was for a limited time only. We saw an overwhelming demand for the initial batch and are still seeing a great demand for the Chip & PIN reader. The regular price is a very good offer compared to most traditional card terminals,” De Geer said.

Nonetheless, partners like Santander should help iZettle continue to roll out its readers to cash-conscious retailers at the introductory price, and could act as a lure for banking partners to grow merchant accounts. 

Get Online @ Home, a UK organisation backed by Microsoft and several local IT partners, is offering Brits on a variety of benefits a low-cost PC and broadband bundle to lure more of the nation online.

According to Go-On UK, the digital-inclusion organisation that Get Online @ Home is supporting, roughly 15 percent or 10.8 million of the UK's 63 million people do not use the internet, while 16 million Brits lack basic online skills.

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Get Online @ Home is promoting the offer as 24 for a PC or 74 for a laptop, but it hinges on a few conditions.

The PC and laptop actually cost 99 and 149 respectively, but if those eligible buy the devices between 11 and  30 June and sign up to a 12-month broadband deal, they will get a 75 discount on the hardware, bringing the cost down to 24 and 74. From July the discount drops to 50. People not on elegible benefits can buy from the program too, but they don't get the discount.

The PC comes with a minimum 2GHz CPU, 1GB Ram, 60GB HDD and a CD drive and includes a copy of Windows 7 Pro and Microsoft's Home and Student suite of Office.

The refurbished laptop option includes a minimum 2GHz CPU, 60GB HDD, a CD drive and a 14-inch screen. It will be wi-fi enabled and have a webcam.

Broadband prices are listed as starting at 2.99 a month over 12 months from all major network operators, via price comparison site Simplifydigital.co.uk.

If money is the obstacle to using the internet and computers, the Microsoft-backed deal is cheaper for those on benefits than any new laptop available on Amazon.co.uk.

Samsung's Wifi Chromebook sells used for 159 and new for 229, for example, and of course does not include Microsoft Office or a broadband connection. 

On the other hand, the refurbished PC offer comes as consumers turn away from laptops and desktops towards tablets and if consumers are happy with a 7-inch new Samsung Galaxy, at 139 that's cheaper than the official list price for the refurbished laptop.

The startup is joining WalmartLabs, the technology arm of Walmart Global eCommerce and gives the traditionally bricks and mortar retailer a predictive analytics platform to improve its site personalisation, search, fraud prevention and marketing.

Walmart has e-commerce sites in 10 markets and over 10,700 stores across the world, which it hopes to use in tandem to improve its e-commerce business. The company has a same day delivery grocery service in the US, which is still in beta, and earlier this year launched a locker service similar to Amazon's Locker pickup service.    

Earlier this week, Walmart chief Mike Duke announced the company planned expected global e-commerce sales to hit $10bn in financial year 2013. However, e-commerce is still dwarfed by the $466bn it expects to earn this year.

Inkiru will be used by Walmart's data scientists, who will be joined by several of the acquired companies own data scientists behind the platform.

The big data startup is WalmartLabs' third acquisition since May, which included platform-as-a-service OneOps, and social startup Tasty Labs.

The company that it is pursuing online is king of e-commerce, Amazon, whose revenues are still dwarfed by Walmart's overall figures, but well ahead of Walmart online. Amazon reported $16.14bn revenues in the first quarter of 2013.

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Like other Android malware, the trojan is designed to earn its controllers money by forcing the infected device to send text messages to premium-rate numbers. But what's rare about Obad.a, according to Russian security vendor Kaspersky Lab, is that it exploits previously unknown vulnerabilities in Android to remain invisible.

The malware is not widespread and so far has relied on malware-laden SMS to spread, but it contains an impressive list of capabilities that puts it on par with the sophistication of Windows malware, according to Kaspersky Lab malware researcher Roman Unuchek.

"Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a looks closer to Windows malware than to other Android Trojans, in terms of its complexity and the number of unpublished vulnerabilities it exploits," Unuchek notes in a blogpost.

The makers of Obad.a have found and used two previously unknown flaws in Android to create its cover from victims and a third in an open source software DEX2JAR, which helps it avoid probing from security researchers.

The trojan is designed to gain device administrator privileges but will not appear in the infected device's list of apps with such privileges, making it difficult for users to remove. This was one of the flaws Kaspersky said it had reported to Google.

The malware sends the victim's device data to a remote command and control server. Information it sends to the server includes the MAC address of the Bluetooth device, the name of carrier, the device's phone number and unique IMEI number, the phone user's account balance, and whether or not device administrator privileges have been obtained.

The malware can also take instructions from the attackers via SMS, such as which premium SMS numbers to text or instructions to scan for nearby devices with activated Bluetooth and share a file selected by the attacker.

Once it has admin privileges, the trojan can also block the device's screen for 10 seconds, and this action typically occurs after the device connects to a wi-fi network or enables Bluetooth. Once a connection is established, Obad.a can copy not just itself but additional malware.

Vodafone, O2 and Three in the UK have already released pricing and are taking pre-orders for the Lumia 925, with the first orders expected to be shipped to customers by June 21.

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German carriers are selling the device from today, according to Nokia. Vodafone Germany lists the Lumia 925 for €59.99 a month with a one-off fee of €109.89 on a two-year contract.  

Nokia has also unveiled a beta feature it's calling Glance Screen, which displays the clock and battery level when the device is in standby mode. It also allows the device to be unlocked with a double-tap on the screen. The feature will be rolled out to all Windows 8 Lumias once it has moved out of beta.  

Three UK is selling the 16GB black Lumia 925 from 35 ($54) a month on a two-year contract and expects to deliver the device by June 21. The carrier is also throwing in a free wireless charging stand and cover.

The Lumia 925 is a 4G device, but until Three rolls out its 4G network later this year, buyers will rely on its WCDMA network. The carrier plans to move customers over to the 4G network at no extra cost when it becomes available.

The 925 is launching against tough competition on specs and price. Samsung's 16GB Galaxy S4 starts at 33 a month on Three and offers a 5-inch screen, 13-megapixel camera and 1.9Ghz quad core processor.

The Lumia 925 delivers Nokia's first alumium design body, sporting a 4.5-inch display, 1.5Ghz dual core processor and an 8.7-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and flash.

Telefonica-owned O2 began taking orders for a white Lumia 925 on May 30 and its no-upfront cost two-year contract option starts at 37 a month. The carrier is offering a free case, but will charge 49.99 for Nokia's wireless charing plate. 

The 925 will also be the first phone Nokia sells with only a Micro-USB cable without the plug under O2's "charger out of the box" environmental initiative.

Vodafone secured an exclusive 32GB version of the Lumia 925 and will sell the device from 34 a month on a two-year deal. 

EE, the UK’s 4G network jointly owned by Deutsche Telecom and France Telecom, has not announced plans to sell the device.

The cameras are the latest devices to hit the market in the wearable technology market, whose growth has been spurred by the arrival of Google Glass.

The device clips on to the wearer's shirt, takes snaps every 30 seconds and is designed to be always on. The hardware has a GPS and costs $279, which includes a one-year cloud subscription with a maximum of 1.4TB storage — calculated on the assumption it would take 2,000 2MB geotagged photos every day of the year.

The images can be accessed and shared through its Lifelogging app, which organises photos into groups of "moments".

Around 4,000 people who paid into its Kickstarter campaign will be the first to get the devices under Memoto's plan to build "a few hundred at a time" and then work through pre-orders that have come in since. The company pitched for $50,000 and ended up with $550,000 last November.

"We'll roll out the 2,500 Kickstarter 'pre-orders' as quickly as we can manage, and after that the 2,000 or so normal pre-orders collected after the Kickstarter [campaign]," Memoto's special projects manager Niclas Johansson told ZDNet.

He said the gradual rollout was more due its backend and customer support capacity than constraints on actual hardware manufacturing.

"Our aim is to sell 10,000 units during this year — again, we're looking to grow at a speed that we can manage, and will ramp up to a higher tempo after this initial period," Johansson said.

The company is using a batch of 75 finished devices it took receipt of this week to seek approval from the FCC and the EC to begin selling the device. 

Memoto is also planning a line of accessories for the camera, including a wi-fi-enabled charging dock that will be like a "fully functional little computer" and will have an SD-card slot for swappable memory storage to offload images. An  additional lens is also on the cards.

The current fixed focus lens has 70-degree viewing, but a a snap on lens in the pipeline will give it a 135-degree view and a fish eye perspective. It’s also developing a waterproof case and is planning on releasing an API for others to build upon.

Google on Tuesday announced its first European power purchase agreement with Swedish wind farm company O2, under which the internet giant has guaranteed to buy the 72MW capacity farm's entire output for 10 years.

German insurance company Allianz is bankrolling the project and will take over its first Swedish wind farm when it is scheduled to become operational in 2015, retaining O2 to maintain the facility.

Google's Finnish datacentre in Hamina (not far from St Petersburg, Russia) will not actually consume output from wind farm, which is located 800km away in the northern Swedish town Maevaara, which straddles the vertorne and Pajala municipalities.

Similar to Google's US 20-year agreements with wind farms in Iowa and Oklahoma, the 72MW output that Google buys in Sweden over 10 years will be sold at local market prices into the regional grid via Nord Pool Spot — a power trading market for the Scandinavian and Baltic regions. Google gets a Certificate of Origin from the Swedish farm which it can then use in Finland to consume an equivalent amount of energy.

Google expects to make a small net loss in the short term since "generic energy" is cheap. However, it expects the contracts to make money as power prices rise. In the US, it uses renewable energy credits (RECs) for its datacentre where one credit equals one megawatt-hour and helps the facility become treated as carbon free.

The agreements differ slightly to the one it signed for another Oklahoma facility in Mayes County last year, where it contracted directly with a utility for the supply of 48MW of wind energy from the Canadian Hills Wind project in west central Oklahoma.

In a note to clients on Thursday, RBC wrote that it was more likely than not that Nokia "may negatively preannounce its second quarter results over the next weeks", with a loss of three percent for its devices and services business, compared with Nokia's own outlook of a two percent loss, plus or minus four percentage points.

Nokia has said it expects Lumia sales in the second quarter will at least beat the 27 percent quarter-on-quarter growth seen in the first quarter, when it shipped 5.6 million Windows Phones. Consequently, it's expecting to sell 7.1 million this quarter.

However, RBC's forecasts are lower, and the analyst expects Nokia to only sell seven million. With Symbian in the mix, it should sell 7.5 million smartphones altogether.

Nokia's latest Lumia 928 and 925 appear to be "compromise devices", whose specs don't measure up to Samsung's flagship Galaxy S4 and HTC's One. Another problem Nokia is facing, according to RBC, is higher than normal return rates for its Lumia devices.

"[We are] trimming our CY13 devices estimates. Nokia appears to be a step behind the competition in introducing compelling smartphones with excitement around the Lumia now replaced by what we believe may be higher than normal return rates," the analyst wrote.

Meanwhile, Nokia's feature phone business is being hammered by cheaper Android devices such as Samsung's Galaxy Star in markets where its feature phones were traditionally popular.

The bottom already appeared to have fallen out of Nokia's feature phone sales in the first quarter, due to the arrival of low-cost Android smartphones that outshone its S40-based Asha range. 

RBC lowered its full year estimate for Nokia's feature phone business from 218 million to 196 million device shipments.

Nokia declined to comment on the RBC report when contacted by ZDNet. 

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How Nokia went from mobile powerhouse to Windows Phone maker

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Samsung devices accounted for 36 percent of the 587,000 smart and feature phones shipped to Finland in the first quarter of 2013, according to figures from analyst IDC.

The South Korean electronics giant's market share in Finland now overshadows Nokia's, with the Finnish firm now accounting for 33 percent of total shipments. Apple meanwhile has 14 percent share of the country's overall mobile shipments.

The gap between Samsung and Nokia widens when comparing purely smartphones, which made up 73 percent of all devices shipped to Finland last quarter.

Samsung leads with a 38 percent share of 429,000 smartphones shipped to the country, compared with the 22 percent held by Nokia's Windows Phone-based Lumia lineup.

According to Finnish tech site Digitoday, which first reported Samsung's Finnish eclipse, Nokia lost its lead on smartphones in Q3 2012 — one of Nokia's grimmer quarters in recent times, just ahead of its transition to Windows Phone 8 with the Lumia 920.

Despite IDC's figures showing a clear trend overall away from Nokia phones in Finland, it does remain popular with some carriers. Sonera, Finland's largest mobile network operator reported this month that Apple's iPhone 5 was the top selling device, followed by the Lumia 920, 620 and 820.     

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Samsung is remaining tight-lipped about a new high-tech research and development facility that it's opening in Espoo, Finland — the home of Nokia's headquarters.

"On June 13, 2013, we plan to open a new R&D center in Finland, which will be a branch of the Samsung Electronics R&D Institute UK (SRUK). This decision to establish our R&D presence in Northern Europe reflects the importance we place on the European market," Samsung said.

Invites for the new R&D centre's opening ceremony were sent out this week, according to a report from Finland-based blogger Stefan Constantinescu. 

The invite does not shed any light on what the the R&D facility will focus on beyond "advanced technologies" but notes it will be Samsung's first in the Nordics. The centre joins 18 other Samsung R&D facilities in nine countries focusing on a range of technologies.

There are a few possibilities. Samsung last month announced a €1m partnership with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland to work on technology to improve energy efficiency, according to Finnish news organisation Yle. 

However, Engadget has spotted an ad for R&D director to head up its 'Samsung Electronics Research Institute' (SERI) in Finland, which will be based on Espoo, according to the ad. The candidate needed experience in designing software in mobile telecommunication and is offered the opportunity to "create the future of R&D in mobile business".

SERI in Finland has already made a key appointment, according to the LinkedIn profile of Timo Jokiaho, a former Nokia engineer, who lists his current role at SERI as "Head of Finland R&D and European Open Source Innovation Group". 

It's no secret that Samsung has plans for a high-end Tizen phone later this year, and among other things open source, Jokiaho will be heading up "selected domains" of the Tizen MobileOS stack, such as multimedia, security, graphics and web. Other areas include work on the Linux kernel and drivers, graphics acceleration, WebKit, and HTML5.

Jokiaho joins Samsung R&D from Huawei's Finnish operations, where he was VP of terminal OS strategy and planning. Huawei announced a new R&D centre in Finland late last year, which focuses on software development for "terminal" devices, which include Android and Windows Phone platform.