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Delta Airlines announced Thursday that it has adopted Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 platform and the Nokia Lumia 820 as its go-to handheld device for 19,000 flight attendants. The smartphones will be used to handle a range of tasks both on the ground and in the air.

 The phones are running customized software for Delta from Avanade that runs on the Microsoft Dynamics for Retail mobile point-of sale platform. Delta believes that the system, together with Wi-Fi/4G connectivity provided by AT&T, will empower its flight attendants while also improving its customers' experiences throughout the boarding, flying and deplaning processes.

The Lumia 820 is fairly compact, which makes it easy to carry around and use. It has a 4.3-inch ClearBlack display, a dual-core 1.5-GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, 1 GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, NFC and Nokia's suite of software.

 Together with the Avanade software, the Lumia 820 should be a powerful ally for flight attendants. It can handle near real-time credit card processing for onboard purchases, including upgrades to Delta's Economy Comfort seating, as well as food and beverage purchases. Customers can choose to have e-receipts emailed to them rather than accept a paper receipt on the plane. The system promises to speed up transactions by about 10% across the board. It is compatible with regular and prepaid credit cards, and will soon be able to read digital coupons that are displayed on a customer's mobile phone. Delta said that its flight attendants will be able to pull up flight connection details for passengers, too.[via]

Nokia's Amber update builds on Microsoft's most recent Windows Phone 8 update and sees the Finnish firm further outdoing HTC and Samsung with unique Windows Phone features.

The most notable new aspect is Amber's added camera features. The update adds Nokia's Pro camera app that debuts on the Lumia 1020 to some of its older phones, including the Lumia 920 and Lumia 925. Nokia's Smart Camera app is also made available to more devices, as the Amber update sees the app arriving in the Windows Store.

Detailing the Smart Camera app on its blog, Nokia said, "The app brings a slew of different options – use Best Shot to find the sharpest image from a series of ten; combine several shots of people in movement into one with Action Shot; heighten the appearance of speed by blurring the background with Motion Focus; create ideal group shots by choosing the best faces from a series with Change Faces, or remove unwanted objects from your pictures."

Glance Screen - the ultimately pointless but nifty feature that lets you view the time even when the phone is inactive - is also included in the update, and is coming to all Lumia devices except the low-end Lumia 520 and Lumia 625 models.

Other features included in Nokia's Amber update include flip to silence, double-tap to unlock, updates to Nokia's Here mapping service and an easier way to free up storage.

Nokia is rolling out Amber now to the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 handsets in "selected countries", with the update expected to hit all phones by the end of September. [via]

The new Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphone is worth paying attention to, but not for the reason you've heard.

The key figure in Nokia's ads and marketing is 41 -- as in, the number of megapixels of the Lumia's camera. That's a crazy number, triple what any other manufacturer except Nokia itself with its 808 PureView (which runs the old Symbian operating system, as opposed to the Lumia's Windows Phone 8) has ever put into a smartphone.

The thing is, the number of megapixels, while important, is vastly overrated in evaluating smartphone cameras. Where it matters most is in maintaining sharpness at large sizes. Now, when was the last time you printed a poster from a photo taken on your phone?

In fact, photos that pixel-dense can be a problem in real life; they take up lots of storage space and don't lend themselves easily to sharing.

So now that we've disposed of that, here's what's important about the 1020: the camera.

Nokia has included several features not found on many phones, including an optical image stabilizer and backlit sensor, which make an appreciable difference in picture quality. The 1020 is particularly good in low-light situations or those with complex scenes, such as a night baseball game with areas both brightly lit and pitch-black.

The Lumia also includes several apps and features that give photographers who know what they're doing a level of control not typical for smartphone cameras.

The default camera app, Nokia Pro Cam, provides settings for ISO, shutter speed, white balance and manual focus, among other things. Another Nokia app, Smart Cam, captures a series of shots and identifies the best one, while allowing you to do such tricks as erasing a moving image or choosing the best faces -- eyes open, everyone! -- in a group shot.

There are other nice aspects of the Lumia 1020 besides the camera. Its screen, 4.5 inches, is neither too big nor too small; its 1280 by 768 resolution, while not the highest around, is more than sufficient. At 5.6 ounces, it's not exactly featherweight, but is noticeably lighter than earlier Lumias that tended toward the bricklike.

And while Windows Phone 8 hasn't exactly set the app-developing world afire, it remains an attractive and capable operating system, augmented here by not only Nokia's camera apps but by its Here service, a rival to Google Maps.

Still, none of those other features are enough to justify the Lumia 1020's premium price -- $299 on a two-year contract from AT&T for a model with 32 gigabytes of storage. For that kind of money, you have to be the kind of user who'll be able to extract maximum benefit from its camera-related features. Point-and-shooters need not apply.[via]

The company announced today that it now has 100 million worldwide users taking advantage of its free phone calls, texting, and photo-messaging services. It's not clear if those users are actively using the service or have just signed up. Still, the company claims to handle over 2 billion minutes of calls and 6 billion messages every month. An average of 10 million calls are placed each day. 

Viber has established itself as a true competitor to Skype, the popular VoIP service now owned by Microsoft. Viber works across iOS, Android, and a host of other mobile platforms, and allows users to communicate with others for free.

In addition to announcing its milestone, Viber said today that it has launched a new version of its service for Nokia's Lumia line of Windows Phone 7 devices. The app allows owners to place free HD-quality phone calls and hold group-messaging sessions. Users can also send out free text and photo messages.

To further commemorate its milestone, Viber announced that its app is also being released on Nokia's S40 platform. The VoIP app is also making its way to Symbian and Bada.

 Source by

Nokia may offer entry-level Windows Phone 7.5 devices by year's end, according to DigiTimes.

Citing the usual "industry sources," DigiTimes said the new phones would be aimed at consumers in emerging markets, who are considered more price-sensitive.

The hardware requirements for Windows Phone 8 are stricter than those for its predecessor, demanding a dual-core processor and support for near-field communication (NFC). Those features would be difficult to add to more entry-level and mid-level phones, according to the sources, prompting the need for less pricey Windows Phone 7.5 devices.

The September 5 event by Nokia and Microsoft could mark the launch of the first Windows Phone 8 devices. It could be the Nokia Lumia 920, which is rumored to pack some of the best hardware till date on a Windows Phone. Now, The Verge is reporting that this new Lumia device could sport wireless charging, 32GB internal storage and an 8-megapixel PureView camera.

An image of the Nokia Lumia 820 has been leaked by Twitter user evleaks. The 820 apparently has a 4.3-inch display, and if you squint you'll make out "Carl Zeiss" on the camera lens, but not much more is known at this point. It looks though this is the mid-range "Arrow" handset we reported on last week, which is set to launch on AT&T and T-Mobile in the US. A variant codenamed Atlas is bound for Verizon later on. Nokia has a press event on September 5th where we're expecting it to unveil the Lumia 820 alongside the just-leaked flagship, the Lumia 920 with PureView