Nokia plans to unveil its new line of smartphones with Microsoft‘s Windows Phone 8 today, and it will also disclose new strategic directions after spending billions in R&D to make phones smarter. Most critical for investors is whether Nokia can leverage the new Microsoft platform to take share from Google‘s Android.
Nokia could show the first Win 8 smartphone on the market. The fully-loadedLumia 920  has Qualcomm’s dual-core Snapdragon, a high-resolution screen, loads of storage and an 8-megapixel camera on the back, according to Extreme Tech. It may have a built-in magnetic induction loop that charges the battery on what looks like a rubber mat. Samsung introduced its Ativ S Win 8 phone but it is a prototype, not an operating phone and may ship after the Lumia. A second Nokia phone, the mid-range Lumia 820 also may be introduced with its  larger at 4.3-inch.
Nokia collaborated with Microsoft to create new user interfaces that are unique to its line. Rather than organize the icons by app, Nokia groups icons into categories, personal and business, making it easier for users to communicate in context with a person relative to their group.While connected, relevant information is pushed to the screen.
Courage for Difference
Two years ago, Nokia changed management and shifted strategy and is now half through a turnaround, according to CEO, Stephen Alop.  Despite depressed margins, Alop spent heavily on R&D, dwarfing rivals, which may allow it to deliver on elevating Microsoft to the third most popular platform after Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. In a couple of years, even 15% share of the world market would translate to a quadruple of the stock price.
Nokia is using artificial intelligence in the phones. This early leader in mobile phones was caught off-guard when Apple launched the iPhone in 2007 and integrated mobile phones in with the desktop, a difficult leap for non-PC players. ITunes delivered the final body blow with music and Nokia’s stock dropped 90% to about $2.83 over five years. This time around, Nokia is changing the game rules.
The Nordic phone maker elevated Marko Ahtisaari, the politically-connected son of the former President of Finland, to head the company’s design effort. Ahtisaari believes Apple’s operating system is outdated, and will not support evolution in a new direction. While there may be truth to claims that iOS needs an update, it is easy to dismiss Nokia’s claims that Apple’s is losing its Midas touch. Nokia is likely to gain share from Apple’s targets, Samsung and HTC stung Apple’s litigation. Nokia’s differentiated approach to user interfaces will avoid perilous infringement claims over touch patents.
Nokia’s design team is pushing to personalize phones, enlisting teams of developers inside and outside the company to develop algorithms and software. The objective is to mimic human interactions so closely, the device disappears from consciousness, leaving the users to communicate though all their senses and closing the gap in distance. It sounds cosmic, but then so did Steve Jobs.
“If you look at a physical the object, how natural we can make the interaction? Do you think that your view of discovering the most natural way that a person relates to an object, is already applied to software? Can it elicit an emotional response? Can you show something? We are just at the beginning, so how do we make common technology to recede to the background, so feel even more natural, and it becomes even more invisible.â€
Marko Ahtisaari, Executive Vice President, Design, Nokia
 Music Ecosystem
Nokia may also announce plans to expand its free streaming music service to the US ,promising access to more than 150 exclusive playlists without advertising. Nokia Music was introduced in Europe at the end of 2011 with the handset maker’s first smartphones running Microsoft’s Windows 7. The music service has many playlist genres, curated by US music experts Lumia owners can download the Nokia Music app from Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace.
What’s in the R&D Labs
Nokia’s “Kineticâ€Â is a large smartphone or small tablet, and it is in prototype development. The device has a bendable screen, so the user flexes it to signal commands rather than touch the screen. A twist one way signals scroll up and another scrolls down.
A second concept is more advanced, and not yet prototype. It’s a clear, teardrop-shaped “HumanForm,†which is activated by twisting and shaking. According to Designer Ahtisaari, “this breakthrough completely changes the user experience. With the new phone, the user does not need to bow his head to poke at a salient pixel on the screen.â€
Nokia’s HumanForm senses your emotions and those of others in your social network. It comes loaded with artificial intelligence and tactile sensations, which allow you to feel the image. Nano-chips make the phone translucent.
by Susan Kalla
Nokia and Microsoft Aim for Google in Smartphone Wars; Nokia to Unveil New Phones Today
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