Mozilla's Gary Kovacs has been harping on this idea of connecting the next billion or so people to the internet all week -- it's one of the driving philosophies behind Firefox OS. Nokia is looking to bring down the cost of entry to the mobile web with the 105 and 301. Then there are operations like Qtel and Bharti Airtel, that provide cellular service across the developing world and in emerging markets. These companies are all looking to put the democratizing power of the web in the pockets of people across the globe, and they're all here at Mobile World Congress 2013 to discuss just how they plan to do that and why it's so important. To find out what these CEOs, including Stephen Elop, Dr. Nasser Marafih (Qtel) and Sunil Mittal (Bharti Airtel) have to say, check back in at the time below.

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Nokia just launched the stylish Lumia 720 and Lumia 520 Windows Phones plus a pair of affordable candy bar handsets (Nokia 301 and 105) here at MWC 2013. We spent a few brief minutes with CEO Stephen Elop to discuss the announcement -- talking about the common design language and the incredible price points for these devices (€15 / $20 for the Nokia 105 and €139 / $184 for the Lumia 520). We also quizzed Mr. Elop about the Lumia 920's ongoing camera woes and what's being done to address them, then chatted about the company's recent focus on entry-level smartphones like the delightful Lumia 620 and what it means in terms of strategy. Hit the break to watch our video interview.

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Finnish site Taskumuro has produced an incredibly detailed behind-the-scenes history of Nokia's wonderful, yet doomed, MeeGo OS. Talking to current and ex-employees of the phone maker, it learned that a tablet (codenamed Senna) and CDMA Nokia N9 for Verizon were both in development before Stephen Elop killed the project dead around the time of the "burning platform" memo. The report also claims that the company's decision to develop Maemo (later MeeGo) in tandem with Symbian led to a developer turf-war, that the Swipe UI was cooked up at the 80/20 Design Studio in New York and the team had planned an Apple-esque strategy of releasing a single phone every year. If you'd like to learn more (and about how the original article was translated from Finnish into English in under 10 hours), head on down to the source links.

[Thanks, Masa and Justus]

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Source: TaskuMuro, (2) (Translated)

While this regular feature is called How Would You Change, in the case of Nokia's Lumia 900, it seems more apt to change the question to "What Killed It?." The flagship was designed to break the US from its traditional indifference to the company, yet only 600,000 users took the plunge. Firstly, despite its low price and smooth performance, it had mediocre specs and a middling display, while customers were outraged when the incompatible Windows Phone 8 and the Lumia 920 supplanted it half a year later. This week, we're asking you to play armchair Elop and tell us what you'd have done differently if they'd asked you.

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It's been a whirlwind week of all things Nokia for our Engadget crew here in Helsinki, Finland. With a (nearly) all access pass to the company's glass House in Espoo, we brought you a very candid, very live Q&A with CEO Stephen Elop -- recorded for posterity with the Lumia 920 -- as well as in-depth proofs of that handset's game-changing rear camera module. From side-by-side low light comparison shots with other leading smartphones to optical image stabilization tests and even a peek behind the Finnish outfit's R&D practices, we've got it all. So, if you haven't had time to catch up with this flurry of pre-launch news from behind the blue velvet rope, now's your chance. Just click on past the break for the full recap.

Gallery: Engadget visits Nokia House wrap-up

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Do you know what's better than one interview with Stephen Elop? Two interviews in one month. We'd barely recovered from yesterday's bout of nostalgia when we were given the opportunity to sit down with Nokia's CEO in his office at the company's HQ. Better yet, we were allowed to record the discussion with a hand-held Lumia 920 prototype. The resulting video is remarkably stable. Full disclosure: the audio was recorded with a shotgun mic mounted on a Sony NEX-C3 camera.

We talked about HTC's colorful "signature" Windows Phone 8X and 8S and what that means for the Nokia-Microsoft partnership. Next we asked if Nokia is planning to work with carriers to offer incentives for existing Lumia owners to upgrade to the company's 920 and 820 handsets. Finally, we discussed the evolution of PureView imaging technology from the 808 to the 920 and how Nokia plans to combine these building blocks in the future. Hit the break for our video interview.

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It's time to open the book! We're live from Nokia's headquarters in Espoo, Finland, with Stephen Elop. The smartphone maker's CEO has set aside 30 minutes to answer your questions about anything and everything Nokia. If you haven't already submitted your questions, it's not too late! Head over to Twitter and give us a shout @EngadgetLive -- we'll be pulling our questions directly from there, along with the comments section of yesterday's post. Unfortunately we won't be able to get to everyone, but we will be setting aside the second half of the session to respond to your follow-ups, so keep an eye on the Q&A and fire off your queries. Click the image above to get started -- this page will go live just before the clock strikes 4AM ET.

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You may have since forgotten, but today was the original kick-off day for Nokia World 2012. With the big show canceled and the devices already launched, we instead opted to drop by the smartphone maker's headquarters just outside Helsinki. We're spending three days here in Finland, meeting with executives to get an inside look at the company's next-generation smartphone lineup. Our first face-to-face is with Nokia's chief executive himself, Stephen Elop, who has generously offered up 30 minutes to answer your questions. Because of the time constraints, we won't be able to accommodate every request, but we'll certainly do our best.

There are two ways to submit your questions: leave a comment below, or you can send us a tweet @EngadgetLive -- once the session begins, we'll only be able to accept messages through Twitter, and you're welcome to ask questions before we start and as a follow-up to Stephen's responses, as well. In order to accommodate the largest possible audience, we'll be using our liveblog tool to post both questions and answers, so bookmark this page and hop on over there at 4AM Eastern tomorrow. As always, you'll also find the local time just below. Now about those questions...

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Nokia's imaging chief Damian Dinning has released a paper explaining the "second phase" of PureView technology that's included in the new Lumia 920. Charged with improving low-light photography and eliminating camera shake, the experimental 808 handset was developed with a 41-megapixel sensor that oversampled images down to 5-megapixels. However, such equipment is bulky and expensive, so it changed tack for its second crack at the whip, which you can find out about if you join us after the break.

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Via: Damian Dinning (Twitter)

Source: Nokia (PDF), Damian Dinning (Twitter)

It's been nearly a year since we spoke with Stephen Elop in New York City for the launch of the Lumia 800, a year that hasn't exactly been full of success on the financials front. But, forget all that, because the new devices are here! We had the chance to chat with Stephen about the new Lumia 820 and 920 and ask him what he thinks the chances are of this version of Windows Phone will be the one that finally gains some traction in the market.

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Nokia's sale of the century hour continues, selling off a small intellectual property portfolio to Vringo. The little-known app maker has snapped up a bundle of 500 patents and applications from the Finnish phone maker, including 109 issued US Patents. The collection mostly concerns backbone tech, including communication management, signal transmission and cellular infrastructure. Neither company mentioned a figure, but Vringo revealed that Nokia's getting a chunk of any future profits made. There's PR after the break if you're curious enough to wonder if Stephen Elop's planning the mobile phone equivalent of a yard sale.

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The past three months haven't been the best for Finland's former world number one. It hasn't been helped by the three biggest credit agencies lowering the company's bond rating to "junk," and the Lumia 900's violently slashed price. Unfortunately the latest results reveal continuing gloom: the manufacturer made an operating loss of $1.01 billion dollars for the quarter. The company managed to make €7.5 billion in sales ($9.2 billion, down .5 billion since the last quarter), shifting four million Lumia handsets in the process. In fact, the only cause for optimism is that sales of the Lumia range have roughly doubled each quarter.

The number of handsets pushed out the door increased (thanks to the Asha range of budget phones) with the company selling 73 million phones. That said, the company has clearly failed to crack America, selling a paltry 600,000 handsets in the States. The cash pile has also continued to dwindle, with the piggybank currently standing at €4.1 billion ($5.1 billion), down from $6.3 billion in Q1, despite getting a further $250 million in kickbacks from Microsoft. Unsurprisingly, the prediction for the third quarter of the year was similarly dour, summed up rather euphemistically as "difficult."

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While Nokia's Lumia 710 may have been imagined as the Jan Brady of the Lumia line, this supposedly awkward middle child does plenty of things right. In fact, for everyone outside of the smartphone hardcore, it'll serve you very well at a far lower price than the better-looking (yet similarly specced) 800. That said, does it really need to exist? Would you pick this over the cheaper 610, the better designed 800 or the LTE-packing 900? That's the question we're asking you today -- if you were bending Stephen Elop's ear off about his trials and triumphs, what would you say about the 710, and more importantly, what would you change?

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So much for no plan B. A little less than a year after Nokia US' Chris Weber proclaimed rather bluntly, "the reality is if we are not successful with Windows Phone, it doesn't matter what we do," Nokia's chairman Risto Siilasmaa reportedly said in an interview that the company does, indeed, have a "contingency plan," should Windows Phone 8 falter. What precisely such a plan might entail, however, we're not really sure. Still, the F-Secure founder naturally remains positive about the future of Microsoft's mobile operating -- and Nokia head honcho Stephen Elop, whose leadership has been "good and transparent," according to Siilasmaa.

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If you've been following our Windows Phone 8 coverage today, you know that anybody who buys a Windows Phone today will not be able to upgrade to WP8 when it ships this fall. If you were an early adopter that's not such a bad deal, but if you bought a Lumia 900 oh, say, three weeks ago you might be upset -- and rightly so. And rightfully angry is Luke, who sent us an email he fired off to Nokia's Stephen Elop and AT&T's Ralph de la Vega in which he asks why he shouldn't, right now, turn around and return his phone.

I just watched the Windows Phone 8 announcement and learned that the Lumia will not be upgradeable to WP8, it will more or less get a skin with the new live tiles and a few other features... at the end of the day unless one of you responds and convinces me to stay with Microsoft Windows Phone, Nokia Lumia or Att wireless I will just wash my hands of all three companies and move over to Verizon.

Surprise surprise, Elop responded very promptly, stating:

We have a lot of exciting capabilities coming as part of a pattern of updates for the existing Lumia products. This includes some of the most significant visual elements of WP8 - for example, the new start screen. As we have always been, Nokia is committed to delivering a long term experience to any purchasers of our products.

Granted, Nokia is bringing some nice updates to current Lumias, like some Scalado-augmented photo magic, but Elop's mention of "significant visual elements" leaves us wanting. We're waiting to hear what Luke's going to do, but here's your chance to weigh in. What do you think he should do? Full emails are after the break.

View Poll

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Chinese residents not willing to fork out for Nokia's flagship just got another option, the Lumia 610. China Unicom will be offering the littlest (and most recent) Lumia device, according to Stephen Elop, who managed to sneak the announcement into an at-times grim conference call held yesterday. While we knew the device was headed to all places Pacific, the device now looks set to join existing smartphone options on 3G (presumably low-price) plans. Interested? Then you may want to revisit our review for our thoughts on Nokia's humbly-priced handset.

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O Meltemi, we hardly knew ye. In fact, we didn't know ye much at all, since Nokia never made the OS official. Nonetheless, claimed insiders have told AllThingsD that the reputed Linux-running alternative to S30 and S40 won't ever see the light of day. Nokia's deep structural cuts are to blame, and we imagine Nokia's previous drive to whittle down its OS portfolio will have come into play. CEO Stephen Elop and other executives never directly acknowledged Meltemi's existence during the cutback-related conference call, although Elop did admit that some projects were screeching to a halt behind the scenes -- possibly the closest Espoo will come to saying that the platform was ever real. Sad, to be sure, but between the new Asha Touch line and ever-cheaper Lumia models, we're not too worried about whether or not Nokia has the low end covered.

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Former Nokia executive Lee Williams admits that he's a bit of an "arm chair quarterback," but won't let such labels stop him from offering up some seriously pointed criticism of Stephen Elop, telling CNET that the CEO is "struggling," due in part to a lack of "overarching vision." Williams cites the company's shift in focus to Windows Phone as a cause of the companies woes, adding,

It might have made sense to introduce a product or two into the portfolio based on Windows Phone. What I do not think they should have done is pretend it is a one horse race, and that one software system is all you need. They have executed in this fashion, and are paying for it.

Not that Williams is advocating backing just Symbian either. "One size does not fit all," he explains, "and I think technology religion is dangerous in a good products company. You cannot marry yourself to any one technology or way of doing something." More furniture football in the source link below.

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Nokia's released the bundle of spreadsheets that comprise its 2012 Q1 financials, just a week after it acknowledged that it would make a loss, despite bullish sales of the new Lumia 900. The numbers reveal that the company had net sales of €7.4 billion ($9.7 billion), down from €10.4 billion ($13.6 billion) at the start of last year. Net sales are down 30 percent year-on-year, which means the company's posting a loss of €1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) for the first three months of 2012. That loss is broken down as €772 million to restructure Nokia Siemens Networks, €101 million to restructure the Devices & Services and Location & Commerce departments, principally in shedding employees and relocating its factories to Asia. It had forecasted an operating margin of three percent below "break even," and says it's likely to remain that way well into the second quarter.

Stephen Elop pointed out that much of the loss is due to both increased competition and the costs of restructuring, but also seemed to tacitly confirm rumors we'd heard that UK carriers have been resistant to Nokia's new direction, saying that establishing momentum in the country has been "challenging." However, it's still promising to arrest the slump and in a statement to Moody's on Monday, the company pledged that it was prioritizing "cash conservation" exercises, although its liquid cash reserves have fallen 24% in a year, meaning that the company's only got €4.8 billion ($6.3 billion) put aside for a rainy day.

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