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Today I’m in in San Francisco, where Microsoft will introduce the full Windows Phone 8 smartphone experience and the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920 in front of 300 media. This event will be another milestone in our journey to build a winning third ecosystem.

When we signed our partnership with Microsoft back in February 2011 the development work for Mango was pretty much closed. Both companies immediately started working together on new development priorities and the result was the Tango update, which brought Nokia Lumia and Windows Phone to new price points and to critical smartphone markets like China.

With Windows Phone 8, Nokia’s influence on platform development is clear for all to see. From the expansion to markets like Turkey and the Middle East, to NFC and the implementation of the Nokia Location Platform as the backbone of all location experiences, Nokia and Microsoft have built Windows Phone 8 side by side.

At Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference in Redmond later this week, Nokia and Microsoft will stand side by side again, showing off the latest Nokia Lumia devices and encouraging third party developers to continue the incredible growth in the Windows Phone apps marketplace. From 7000 apps when Nokia joined the ecosystem to 110,000 apps today.

The events this week are the continuation of activities that started with the launch of Windows 8 in New York on Thursday last week. It was an impressive unveil event at New York’s Pier 65, showing off Windows 8 and the new Surface tablet. Both went on sale online and at all Microsoft stores that same evening, including the two new stores opened in New York’s Times Square and Columbus Circle.

I’m also impressed by the scale of the marketing and advertising campaign that will go behind Windows 8. I was amazed to see Times Square turned into one big Windows 8 Start Screen with every available screen space taken over by Windows 8 tiles.

The use of tiles in Windows 8 is one of the areas in which the launch of the new PC operating system can benefit Lumia. The new Microsoft Surface tablet was used extensively at launch to show off the latest version of the world’s most popular operating system, which takes advantage of the increasing use of smart glass and touchscreens to create a more interactive experience.

If Windows 8 is adopted on the same scale as its predecessor Windows 7, Nokia Lumia and other Windows Phone devices won’t look so unfamiliar anymore. Nokia Lumia will be recognized as an extension of the same experience people are already using at home and work on their PCs and their tablets.

In addition to showing off the full range of new features on Windows Phone 8, I expect Microsoft to play up shared experiences with Windows 8 today at the San Francisco event. Such as the ability to use Microsoft Office on a PC, tablet or smartphone to access files stored on SkyDrive.

Xbox Music now provides a premium music subscription service and the ability to access music libraries across multiple devices. Nokia Music may still be the best way for Lumia users to discover new music on the go, but Xbox music provides Windows and Windows Phone with a service to rival iTunes and more encouragement for people to make the switch to a new platform.

Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820

Our first Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Be a part of it.

Of course, the flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphones, Nokia Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 will be on stage in San Francisco, together with other Windows Phone 8 devices. Thanks in no small part to Nokia leading the way with Lumia, the other OEMs have upped their game with Windows Phone 8 and the range of available devices is incredibly strong.

Not that Nokia needs to be afraid of the competition. As I purchased my own Surface Tablet at the Microsoft Store in Times Square last Saturday, the very attentive and highly professional retail assistants became incredibly excited as I told them I worked at Nokia.  They held up their Nokia Lumia 900s with pride and asked when the Nokia Lumia 920 would be available to buy. Of course, I couldn’t tell them, but their enthusiasm reflects the fact that as the best smartphones on Windows Phone (if not any platform), Lumia is also the most appealing smartphone companion to new devices like the Surface.

Nokia will be there today at the Windows Phone 8 event, showing off our phones to the world’s media. Chris Weber, our global head of sales and marketing, will be talking off-stage about the PureView camera technology in the Nokia Lumia 920 and we will demo the addictive convenience of features like wireless charging. Before long these experiences will be available for people to try themselves. Then, after all the launch events, media speculation and anticipation we will start to get feedback from the people who matter most – consumers. That’s when the real fun begins. 

Nokia has announced its first-ever Lumia smartphone for Verizon, the Nokia Lumia 822, which brings together high performance and unique industrial design in an affordable package.

Designed specifically for Verizon’s fast and ubiquitous 4G LTE network, the Nokia Lumia 822 extends the benefits of Lumia to many more U.S. consumers by being on the nation’s largest carrier.

The Lumia 822 is designed for simplicity and ease-of-use, pairing Nokia’s renowned hardware design with Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8 operating system, and comes with exclusive Nokia features including Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, and Nokia City Lens.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

It all comes alive on the bright 4.3-inch display with ClearBlack technology, and is powered by a fast yet efficient 1.5 GHz dual-core processor with 16 gigabytes of memory and a MicroSD slot for up to 32 gigabytes of added storage. Coupled with a removable 1800mAH battery, you end up with a powerful smartphone that’s able to get you through the day, while enabling you to get things done.

You may have heard about the convenience of  wireless charging, and the Nokia Lumia 822 joins the party thanks to the optional Nokia Wireless Charging Shell. It works seamlessly with accessories such as the Nokia DT-900 Wireless Charging Plate and the JBL PowerUp Wireless Charging Speaker.

Imaging

The best camera is the one you always have with you, and the Nokia Lumia 822 is equipped with an 8-megapixel shooter featuring advanced Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash. You’ll be able to capture amazing high quality photos and videos, and quickly edit them and add special effects.

A front-facing camera with 720p HD resolution gives you the ability to connect face-to-face with friends and family via video calls, and we’ve incorporated two microphones for superior audio recording.

Navigation

Getting to your loved ones is easier than ever as the Nokia Lumia 822 also doubles as a world-class personal navigation device with always-available turn-by-turn voice navigation and offline maps through Nokia Drive. And thanks to Nokia City Lens you can be a local anywhere with augmented reality view that instantly highlights local attractions, restaurants and stores.

Also free on the Nokia Lumia 822 is Nokia Music, which lets you stream tracks from a suite of over 150 exclusive playlists curated by an expert team of musicologists, plus artists like Rihanna and Lady Gaga. Exclusive to Nokia Lumia smartphones, it’s completely advertisement-free, requires no registration or subscription and also lets you create mixes based on your favorite artists. It’s the simplest way to discover and explore the music you love.

The Nokia Lumia 822 is scheduled to be available in white, black and grey before Thanksgiving for $99.99 on a two-year contract. 

You have been a busy lot, haven’t you? So busy you inspired me to take the snap above. That’s one of #MyLumiaMoments (snapped with a Nokia Lumia 800 in the fishing village where a popular TV show is filmed). But what about yours?

Well, Francois and his Nokia Lumia 900 fell in love with Carcassonne in France (and from this pic, it’s easy to see why).

Alex snapped a very arty bridge pillar. Again with the Nokia Lumia 900.

Both very cool, I think you’ll agree….but there’s more! ReinardJAD5 found a couple of friends saying hi to each other.

Steve managed to snap a triple rainbow with his Nokia Lumia 900. A triple. Rainbow. Look closely, they’re there

These great photos are giving us an insight into your personal #MyLumiaMoments, and if possible they keep getting better! Keep them coming! Tweet them using the #MyLumiaMoments hashtag.

Z opóźnieniem ale rozstrzygamy konkurs, w którym można było wygrać Motoactv z pulsometrem. Postanowiliśmy nagrodzić wypowiedź użytkownika “czeeek”, jednak wszystkie Wasze historie były bardzo inspirujące. Trzymamy za Was kciuki w przełamywaniu swoich barier! Dodatkowo “krwistymi” koszulkami Play nagrodzimy: Sebastiana Witkowskiego, Damiana P., Piotra, 3, oraz monikosci. Przyślijcie proszę swoje rozmiary i adresy korespondencyjne na [...]

Z opóźnieniem ale rozstrzygamy konkurs, w którym można było wygrać Motoactv z pulsometrem. Postanowiliśmy nagrodzić wypowiedź użytkownika “czeeek”, jednak wszystkie Wasze historie były bardzo inspirujące. Trzymamy za Was kciuki w przełamywaniu swoich barier! Dodatkowo “krwistymi” koszulkami Play nagrodzimy: Sebastiana Witkowskiego, Damiana P., Piotra, 3, oraz monikosci. Przyślijcie proszę swoje rozmiary i adresy korespondencyjne na [...]

Doładowując jutro konto za pomocą naszej aplikacji na Facebook.com macie możliwość otrzymać 60 minut do wykorzystania na połączenia do wszystkich sieci! Aby otrzymać bonus należy doładować konto dowolną kwotą. Bonus zostanie przyznany w ciągu 24h. Oferta dostępna dla klientów korzystających z oferty Play na Kartę, Play na Kartę Lubię to!, Play na Kartę Rok Ważności [...]

Doładowując jutro konto za pomocą naszej aplikacji na Facebook.com macie możliwość otrzymać 60 minut do wykorzystania na połączenia do wszystkich sieci! Aby otrzymać bonus należy doładować konto dowolną kwotą. Bonus zostanie przyznany w ciągu 24h. Oferta dostępna dla klientów korzystających z oferty Play na Kartę, Play na Kartę Lubię to!, Play na Kartę Rok Ważności [...]

Nokia has been hard at work bringing an amazing array of money-focused apps Nokia Lumia, to help ensure you have full control over your funds.  From finding an ATM to moving your money from one account to another, let’s walk through the apps that are now available to Lumia owners in the U.S.

PayPal is the world’s best-known payment service, powering person-to-person payments along with payments to businesses as well. Now, with PayPal on your Nokia Lumia, you can send money to other PayPal users along with requesting money to those who owe you. With the “Local” feature, you can see merchants around you that take PayPal as payment in your area.

Keeping up on the markets

What if you want to know what’s going on with the markets, foreign and domestic? Bloomberg is not only the most trusted source on your TV and online, it’s the best app for markets data on your Lumia as well. An exclusive Nokia Lumia app, Bloomberg Hub gives the most insightful news and analysis of the markets and is updated constantly throughout the day.

While we’re on the subject of markets and stocks, when you see an actionable development, there’s no time like the present – this is where E*TRADE comes into play. E*TRADE is amongst the leading low-cost broker services online and has a great Lumia app to help you make trades when the time is right.

Your local branch, in your hand

Sometimes you just want to check your account balances and make sure your money is in order at your local bank. For customers of Chase and Bank Of America, the respective apps on your Nokia Lumia will help ease your mind. With these leading bank apps you can check balances, make transfers and even contact customer support should the need arise. Also, if you want to set alerts on your accounts – such as a minimum balance or deposit alert, you can do this too.

Last but not least – two great MasterCard apps

When you need to get cold hard cash and just need to find an ATM, the MasterCard ATM Hunter is your best friend. This application senses your location and instantly suggests an ATM, no matter where in the world you may currently be. 

Also, for enrollees of MasterCard Easy Savings, the incentive program that gives participants special offers at merchants in your local area. To find these special offers, the Easy Savings app for your Nokia Lumia will give you a map-based view of offers around you.

If you’re not a member of Easy Savings, you can sign up directly from the application.

What’s your favorite money app for your Nokia Lumia?

Image credit: fudj

If you’ve recently bought a smartphone, chances are it runs on a multi-core processor. The Nokia Lumia 920, for example, is powered by a dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, a processor that can take on the most sophisticated tasks. However, the activity that matters most to mobile users—running the gamut of Apps—may not necessarily take advantage of all the cores in the processor.  

Thankfully, hardware support for multi-core is already enabled while major mobile operating systems have support for it as well. It’s a different story for apps, though. For applications to truly take advantage of multi-core technology, developers must change their mindset and “multi-thread” their code when creating an app, which requires a lot of skill and work .

One step at a time

The main challenge in programming for multi-core, or parallel processing, is that users and application logics tend to move sequentially.  In other words, they target one core before seeking out the next. And app workloads, unfortunately, hardly scale beyond the need for two cores. Consequently, it can be very hard for applications to truly take advantage of the benefits that multi-core platforms provide.

Apps made for single core

At the moment, almost all applications are programmed without too much attention paid to the number of cores. In fact, most apps are “single-threaded” or developed for single core processors, so multi-cores don’t directly affect their performance. What generally matters is clock speed or how many instructions a single core  can perform in a given amount of time. Another reason for programming single-core is that most of the time applications do not need a tremendous amount of processing power, so putting extra effort into making an application multi-core aware may be waste of time and resources.

Buttery smooth interfaces

There are times where multi-core processors like the Snapdragon S4 make software run smoother and faster. For a start, modern smartphone OSes have a number of background processes that can be run on the second core when the first one is busy running the main application. The Snapdragon S4 also houses other “cores” to better distribute these tasks. For instance, the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) found in a Snapdragon S4 processes audio when listening to your music library. The payoff is more battery life when work is offloaded from the CPU cores.

Now that Windows Phone 8 supports multi-core processing, the Nokia Lumia 920 takes advantage of Snapdragon’s multiple Krait CPU cores to ensure that complex user interfaces run buttery smooth.  

Kick ass gaming

And there are certain applications, which benefit from multi-core, too. If you’re a big gamer, you’ll be happy to hear that multi-core is a big win for high-end gaming. Games generally employ complex 3D rendering techniques and possibly an artificial intelligence for the computer opponent. What’s more, many visually rich and compelling games from the PC and console platforms are now available for mobile devices and some of these have been created with multi-core in mind. Add to that the fact that the Snapdragon is paired with the new Adreno 225 GPU, the new Lumias promise a mindblowing gaming experience.

Super camera shots and editing

If you’ve got an awesome camera smartphone like the Lumia 920, you’re also going to want great still imaging processing. Image post-processing truly benefits from multi-core set-ups. First of all, post-processing requires tons of algorithms and calculations. And secondly, post-processing can easily be divided between different cores by running the algorithms parallel on multiple cores. Luckily, multi-core processors trumps in this department, too.

What’s more, for Window’s 8 Lumia devices, the Snapdragon’s Image Signal Processor (ISP)—yet another “core”—makes doubly certain that you’ll get the very best shots, time after time.  Multicore also hugely benefits those of use who like to edit the photos and videos we shoot.

On top of these exciting features, app developers are starting to create apps specifically for multi-core smartphones. And as multi-core technology is used in lower priced smartphones, there’s an increasing incentive to look into dual-core, with quad-core on the horizon. So in the future expect even more reasons to be happy about multi-core processors. For now, though, which of these advantages most appeals? Let us know in the comments below. 

Image credit: Franck Mahon

It’s been a few months since we launched the Nokia Connects: Go! contest and challenged you to get out there and create amazing videos and photos with a Nokia. It’s your chance to get your hands on a Nokia Lumia 900 and Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset – every single month. We’ve had some simply stunning entries, and what better way to bring them to you than in a mash-up video?

I’ll stop talking and just let you watch:

Think you could do better? You don’t need to be on the trial to participate in this competition, just pick up your Nokia phone and post your photos and videos on Twitter using #NokiaConnectsGo. If you would like to trial a phone to take part in this, feel free to drop us a line on the Trial a Nokia page.