Nokia CEO Stephen Elop: Work On First Windows Nokia Phones Has Begun

Nokia CEO (and former Microsoft executive) Stephen Elop has toldReuters that the mobile phone giant has begun work on the first smartphones based on Microsoft’s software.

The tidbit of news comes about a month after the Finland-based company announced the partnership with Microsoft along with a series of management and organizational changes.

Nokia’s chief executive, who transitioned to that role after leaving his position as president of the Microsoft Business Division, also commented on speculation that Microsoft might lodge an attempt to acquire Nokia:

I’m not aware of a strategic interest that Microsoft would have in the rest of the business.

To the extent that a partnership has been formed around what they’re really interested in, then what would an acquisition bring other than a good year of anti-trust investigation, huge turmoil, delays?

Elop said he hopes to produce a Nokia-Windows phone by the end of this year, although we might have to wait until well into 2012 to really start seeing the fruits of their labor.

It better be worth the trouble: Nokia’s decision to dump its software platform in favor of Microsoft’s unproven Windows Phone software already wiped 29 percent off its share price. 

InMobi Adds More Evidence That Android Is #Winning (With 37 Percent Mobile Ad Share)

                                                          The evidence is mounting that Android phones are surging past the iPhone in terms ofsubscribers and now mobile ad impressions, at least in the U.S. A new report put out this morning by mobile ad network InMobi shows that mobile ad impressions on Android devices eclipsed Apple’s iOS devices in                       January, representing 37 percent of all U.S. mobile ad impressions on its network versus 23 percent for the

iPhone.

Android’s share jumped a full 21 percentage points since InMobi’s last report in October, 2010. (Android actually passed the iPhone for the first time in December). The iPhone’s overall share of mobile ad impressions actually dropped 1.3 percent.

Obviously, there could be other things going on here, such as a preference on iOS for other mobile ad networks including Apple’s own iAds or more premium ads. InMobi only measures ad impressions on its own network. Although a majority of its 5.9 billion North American ad impressions in January (58 percent) came from the mobile Web rather than apps, so these numbers should be fairly representative. And 4.1 billion of those ad impressions came from smartphones, nearly double from October.

Globally, Nokia and Symbian OS phones still make up a larger share of InMobi’s ad network, with 20 percent and 18 percent share, respectively. The iPhone is third globally with 16 percent, and Android has 14 percent. Android’s share globally grew 8.6 percent since October, 2010, whereas the iPhone’s growth slowed to 1.7 percent.

In Preparation For Its “Social Buying” Launch, ‘Facebook Deals’ Get A New Landing Page

On the tail of the news that Facebook will be testing a new deals service, Facebook has removed its old Deals locator landing page and put up a new Facebook Deals subscription page which allows interested users to subscribe for its coupon-like checkin deals. Subscribers will eventually get updates via email.

“We will test a new feature for our Deals product that allows people to buy deals on Facebook and share them with their friends. Local businesses will be able to sign up to use this feature soon and people will be able to find Deals in the coming weeks,” Facebook told PC World in a statement. More details on the product have not yet been posted.

The new feature will center around social buying and this new feature will focus on people who want to sign up for activities with their friends, like a dinner or Pilates class. Facebook tells me that businesses will be able to sign up for the deals soon and that Facebook users will be able to buy deals in the next few weeks.

The new deals landing page supports San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego with “more cities coming soon.” The in-stream updates are not yet live.

Speedier, Easier Google Chrome Browser Now Out Of Beta

Three weeks ago, Google kicked off the Year of the Rabbit with a beta version of Chrome 10. Today, the company is launching a stable release of the upgraded desktop browser solution, which it points out comes with a speed boost that corresponds to a 66% improvement in JavaScript performance on the V8 benchmark suite. (see chart below)

Get it here, while it’s hot.

The browser comes not only with speed improvements but also a simpler settings interface (see video) and an extension of Chrome’s sandboxing tech to the integrated Flash Player.

In addition, you can now quickly log on to the websites you frequent even when you switch computers by synchronizing passwords across all your Internet-enabled devices. You can also choose to sync bookmarks, extensions, preferences, themes and more.