Mobile Computing News

Photo: Nokia

Geez! Technology will leak. This is fact. And when it does, companies who enlist the authorities to get their devices back are clearly not after their consumers’ hearts. But still, this is exactly what Nokia has done, sending in Russian authorities to get the prototype Nokia N8 Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin caught, reaffirming the smartphone industry has become super cut throat.

Apple-Gizmodo all over again

This harks back to a similar case this year where the iPhone 4 was lost in a bar and ended up in Gizmodo’s hands. Police raided the Gizmodo editor in question’s home and there has been a whole host of legal back and forth since then. The case of the Nokia N8 involves Eldar Murtazin, editor of mobile-review.com, who first reviewed the smarthphone weeks early on 26 April using a working prototype. Nokia asked that ‘one of their missing children’ be returned but, clearly, Murtazin has not obliged.

It’s mobile phones espionage, we tell you!

Nokia accuse Eldar of being a consultant for other smartphone manufacturers in a blog post, saying, ‘Whether Mr. Murtazin’s actions were as a blogger, or whether he is acting in the capacity of a consultant in order to provide information to his clients is an open question’. Fighting words! Murtazin, in his defense, claims he has attempted to make contact with the Finnish mobile giant for weeks to no avail.
Why this matters

Photo: Nokia

In an age where tech bloggers and buyers – you, the person reading this now – are desperate to use early information to drive traffic to their site or inform their buying decisions as early as possible, tech companies who would rather announce on their own timeline get rather uptight. It’s a push and respective push back. And the big question is, do we, as journalists, have a right to this information on the smartphone industry big boys early on if we can obtain it, or are companies like Apple and Nokia in the right for using the long arm of the law to bring us to order?

On the phone in question

The Nokia N8 itself – the actual release, not the prototype – has been at the centre of tech discussions recently and for the wrong reasons. On release, the handset itself got a lukewarm to decent response, but the reason it’s so talked-about is that it is the only Symbian^3 powered smartphone Nokia intends to release. From hereon in they will use MeeGo exclusively for their N-series devices (or not). There is a lot of confusion regarding product strategy in Nokia’s focus on the smartphone industry, but we hope this particular incident ends well for everybody.