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Nokia and Apple are supposed to be duking it out in court over both infringing on each other’s patents – but that doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. According to Reuters , the duo will only actually get to present their cases to a packed courtroom (probably with a comedic, oddball lawyer if TV dramas are to be believed) by 2012. This means that this litigation battle – unless settled in the intervening period – will be dragged over months and months, by which point the balance of power in the mobile world may have shifted even further. What’s it all about?

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These are testing times: if you want to experience the latest advances on the Linux desktop, you have to be prepared to test things and accept that stability is a secondary feature. The continued development of KDE 4 is the perfect example. Many of its users have felt like guinea pigs over the last couple of years, while its developers have filled in the missing blanks on the path to a fully operational desktop. But for many of us, this is how we like it. Messing around with applications, tools and utilities from the cutting edge is the reason why many of us got into Linux in the first place

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In January 2009 Vodafone made what seemed like a good investment buying mapping software maker Wayfinder for about $30 million. A year later it’s looking like a pretty awful deal in the wake of free navigation solutions from both Google and Nokia. Facing the inevitable, Vodafone is closing Wayfinder saying, “We could not charge for something that others gave away for free.” Vodafone has also invested several million additional dollars in Wayfinder, so it can’t be easy to walk away. It’s unlikely they’d do so without being sure they could not compete with Nokia’s Ovi Maps. This really isn’t much of a surprise, especially considering Nokia’s huge presence in Europe.

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

Nobody really talks a whole lot about Nokia anymore, not with sexy smartphones like the Motorola Droid and Google’s Nexus One stealing all the spotlight. Part of the problem is that Symbian, even though it dominates the market, hasn’t kept pace with other OSes. Look for that to change with Symbian 3. According to Nokia, “it is about renewal” with the upcoming OS and the new phones that will be built around it. Symbian 3 should be “functionally complete” by the end of Q1.

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

Orange and Intel have signed a new agreement to bring Orange services to the tech firm’s new MeeGo platform. Items such as Orange TV and Orange Maps will be brought to the new OS, which runs on Linux foundations, and will be used on devices running Intel’s Atom processor. The new deal will see MeeGo, with Orange services, brought to smartphones, tablets and netbooks, meaning a wide gamut of devices for the new platform. Bringing the mobile net The other cool element of this deal is that customers will be able to synchronise such services across multiple devices, as the agreement promises to enable customers to enjoy Orange’s offerings across ‘multiple screens’. “Seventy-five percent of our customer base has yet to embrace the mobile internet.

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

We’ve spoken to O2 about the impending Skype and Nokia deal over Symbian handsets – and it’s not good news for its users. Basically, as Skype is all about sending voice calls through data (which means calling people far away costs the same as dialling someone next to you) the amount of data used ramps up. O2 has decided that this is against policy – and has given TechRadar the following statement: “We do not as a general rule block access to voice over IP services on our network.

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

Nokia and Skype have announced that they will be offering VOIP calls for all owners of Symbian-enabled Finnish phones. In a joint statement, which TechRadar hopes was read out with spokespeople from both parties struggling to speak in unison, Skype for Symbian was formally announced. The service will work over 3G, Wi-Fi and apparently even EDGE and GPRS, which would be impressive given the limited amount of data speed offered by the latter.

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

The news that Apple is suing HTC for patent infringement reminds us of a quote by the great Jack Handey: “Even though he was an enemy of mine, I had to admit that what he had accomplished was a brilliant piece of strategy. First, he punched me. Then, he kicked me. Then, he punched me again.” Make no mistake, Apple’s move is brilliant – and while HTC is the apparent target, the company being punched here is Google. That’s bad news for Google’s Android partners, and potentially great news for Microsoft.

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

What fun would the tech world be without its patent lawsuits to keep us amused? Not wanting to disappoint us, Apple has opened up another round of patent lawsuits, taking direct aim at potential competitor HTC, alleging violation of twenty Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface and underlying architecture and hardware . In a statement that sounds all too familiar, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it.

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

After giving the most boringly obvious clue in the world , Nokia has debuted the new C5 at CeBit. The phone is the first in the new C-Series from Nokia, which seems to be the budget smartphone range from the Finns. The C5 will run Symbian S60 3rd edition, which means it just falls into the category of smartphone. This is impressive when you consider that it only costs €135 (£120) unsubsidised, with a decent feature set behind. Granted, the screen is only a 2.2-inch display, but there’s a 3.2MP camera, GPS for the free Ovi Maps navigation tool as well as a 2GB memory card in the box

The full story can be found on Tech Radar