Its the war of the Mobile Giants. Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Mobilin – two Linux based operating systems will merge to take on Apple’s iPhone. The new, merged product will be compatible on most mobile devices and smart phones.

The groundbreaking partnership aims to take on Apple’s iPhone, along with other operating systems that span across multiple devices, including Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. But Intel and Nokia said the MeeGo platform will extend beyond smartphones and will be flexible enough to scale to larger devices like full-fledged computers or in-car systems.

Renee James, Intel’s vice president in charge of software, told The New York Times that although Android is “fantastic,” it is also too “specific” and restrictive to run on a wide variety of devices, particularly more complex ones.

“I think it’s important that there are alternatives that are truly open for innovation,” James reportedly said.

Intel previously announced its Moblin operating system for low-cost notebooks running the company’s low-power Atom processor. And Nokia’s Maemo 5.0, first introduced last summer, was expected to play an integral role in the company’s smartphones to come. The move would seem to signal the end of both platforms, though Nokia still intends to sell smartphones based on its Symbian platform.

Another interesting note by the Times: Since the platform will run on ARM-based processors (in addition to Atom), Intel will be lending support to an operating system that benefits one of its competitors. Apple has used ARM processors in its iPhone, and created a custom version of the Cortex-A9 chip, known as the Apple A4, for its recently announced iPad.

Nokia has not yet announced whether it will build any handsets or devices based on Intel’s Atom processor. Both companies will keep their separate application stores: Intel’s AppUp for netbooks, and Nokia’s Ovi software store will remain, despite the partnership.

The first devices running MeeGo, including a new phone from Nokia, are expected to arrive later in 2010.

Nokia and Apple currently have a number of lawsuits directed at each other, making accusations of patent violations on both parties’ behalves. As the iPhone has grown in popularity, Nokia has retained its status as the market leader, but has suffered significant losses at the hands of competitors.

The Google’s own Nexus One was one of the most anticipated devices along with Apple iPad this year. We finally got time to review the so called “superphone” as mentioned by the Google Employees. After using it for several days, I was about as disappointed as I was after using Nokia E72. I am not trying to tell you that Nexus One is bad. It was the prelaunch hype which set huge expectations – Alias’s like the iPhoneKiller – which it failed to match. Is Nexus One a cool phone? It definitely is a cool phone. Is it an iPhone killer? I don’t think so.

This phone is Google only by name; it’s really an HTC phone at heart. The phone looks great and feels great as well. The body is made out of a metal frame that wraps around the plastic back-cover. It’s soft but offers adequate grip so that you don’t drop your 530$ toy. The Nexus One actually fits quiet properly in your hand even if it is a little big but what’s more interesting is its thickness that hits 11.5mm, which is incredibly good when you consider all the powerful hardware that is packed inside.

On top you’ve got your 3.5mm headphone jack, and the power button. On the bottom side you have a USB port and on the right you have a volume rocker. On the front panel the 3.7” AMOLED screen sits comfortably, you have 4 haptic feedback buttons under the screen – back, menu, home and search. You also have a trackball but I don’t know why they put that really, you’re not going to use it anywhere but it acts as a notification light for missed calls and new messages…etc.

The screen is AMOLED, as previously mentioned, and is quiet large. But just like all AMOLED screens, it has disgraceful sunlight discernibility. Although this thing is a superstar indoors, it represents a fat hooker outdoors.

The back side of the phone looks great. You have a huge Google logo just to make sure you know you’ve bought their phone. The curvy design of the metal bezel with the plastic back-cover looks great. You have two important features on the back, the camera and the loudspeaker. Both are pretty good and do their job. The snapper has a 5 megapixel resolution and an LED flash next to it for low light situations. The pictures produces are actually quite good, I have no complaints, since I expected much less from this HTC snapper.

The Nexus One has a modest specs sheet if you overlook the Snapdragon processor, which is one of the strongest cell phone processors out there. Other than the processor the phone doesn’t blow you away with anything else. It has 512mb of RAM which is on par with other competitive smartphones. You get a 4 GB microSD card, which is less than I expected. Still, it’s expandable up to 32 GB, so there you go.

The battery is a Li-Ion 1400 mAh and offers on par performance at best. You’ll find yourself recharging this thing almost every day if you use it frequently.

One last thing about its hardware I have to mention is its microphone, or microphones in this case. The device has two microphones, one for noise cancellation and the other for your own voice. This offers very clear sound for the other caller, so you don’t need to shout when you’re at a train station for example. It’s a nice addition that I quiet liked.

As you read this, researchers from Princeton and Caltech are working on a power-generating rubber material that could harness walking and other movement to charge electronic devices. This might be the first Human powered Mobile charger in the making.

From what we learnt about the project, this new discovery is made from nanoribbons composed of lead zirconate titanate, a ceramic material which generates voltage when pressure is applied. The “piezo-rubber chips” are embedded in clear silicone rubber sheets that produce electricity when flexed.

The scientists–who detail their findings in the new issue of Nano Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society–say the rubber sheets could one day appear in shoes that power cell phones and other mobile electronic devices as the user walks or runs.

What’s more, “the new electricity-harvesting devices could be implanted in the body to perpetually power medical devices, and the body wouldn’t reject them,” said Michael McAlpine, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton who led the project.

For example, the biocompatible material could be placed next to a person’s lungs and utilize breathing motions to power pacemakers, the scientists say. That could reduce the need for surgery to replace batteries in the device.

We’ve heard of other gadgets that can be powered by kinetic energy, including the Dance Charge, which is strapped around the arm and powered, as the name suggests, by dancing. Still, it can be hard to significantly power devices through movement alone. M2E Power, one company that had designed and tested a human-powered charger for cell phones and other gadgets, sold its assets to Motionetics last year and changed its focus to the vehicle market.

The Princeton/Caltech researchers say they’re hopeful about their method; they maintain that PZT is the most efficient of all piezoelectric materials, able to convert 80 percent of the mechanical energy applied to it into electrical energy. For their product, the PZT is made into nanoribbons so narrow that 100 fit side-by-side in the space of a millimeter.

“PZT is 100 times more efficient than quartz, another piezoelectric material,” McAlpine said. “You don’t generate that much power from walking or breathing, so you want to harness it as efficiently as possible.

Apples New iPad must be the new kid on the block. Experts who has been using the device have already noticed security issues that had rocked iPhone on iPad too.

Smobiles chief technology office, Daniel Hoffman has confirmed that weak encryption on iPad can cause serious security threat to sensitive personal data, including phone number, contact data, sensitive notes, etc. According to Daniel, the data on iPad can be extracted and viewed by miscreants if this technical hole is left unattended on iPad.

“The problem with the iPhone security encryption is it is fundamentally worthless,” he said. “It can be easily bypassed.”

Hoffman not alone in making that assessment.

Secondly, if iPad users get their apps from the Apps Store, they are at risk of getting the occasional bad apple, Hoffman said, noting that there have been malicious apps found in the store.

In addition, the device is subject to man-in-the-middle attacks like any other device that uses unsecured Wi-Fi networks, he said. SMobile is developing a tool to protect against such attacks, in which someone is able to intercept Internet traffic mobile devices send over Wi-Fi networks and inject new messages while masquerading as a legitimate party in the communication.

The iPad also should have management capabilities, like the option of using PIN or passcode, and remote lock or wipe in case of loss or theft, he said. The iPhone offers service to help locate lost devices and for remote wipe, but it’s pricey at about $100 per year.

“Until it’s officially released we just won’t know on some of these things,” Hoffman said. “I would hope it would have remote wipe capabilities. People do mobile banking and store sensitive information and they want it protected.”

An Apple spokesperson did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment on Hoffman’s concerns.

After several 3G related issues filed by Nexus One users, Google have acknowleged the fact that there are several unfixed issues. Google informed its users that they are currently working on developing a patch that should take care of the issue temporarily. They have also added that this is not going to fix some other 3G related issues on the same phone. From what we understand, Google will be concentrating on improving the network problems that were reported before attending to the other issues in the same department.

“Our engineers have uncovered specific cases for which a software fix should improve connectivity to 3G for some users,” said a Google employee named Ivan in a Google Nexus One help forum. “We are testing this fix now, initial results are positive, and if everything progresses as planned, we will provide an over-the-air software update to your phone in the next week or so.”

However, he cautioned, the fix won’t address all 3G issues.

“It may be, however, that users are experiencing problems as a result of being on the edge or outside of 3G coverage, which a product fix cannot address,” he said.

The $529 Nexus One, which uses the Android operating system, is the first phone that Google is selling directly to customers. It’s unlocked so it can be used on many GSM networks, but it’s also available at a discounted price of $179 for those in the United States who sign up for a service contract with T-Mobile. That contract lowers the phone price through a subsidy T-Mobile pays Google that effectively shifts some of the customer costs from up-front payments to monthly fees.

Microsoft is currently working a phone which might threaten the market dominance of iPhone in the coming future. Microsoft, who was focusing on mobile based softwares all this while, is currently diverting their attention towards creating a Touch-screen phone which also has a resemblance of the Apple’s iPhone. Initially, this project was called project pink might be the answer to Google’s Nexus one along with iPhone.

Analysts believe the phone could debut within a month at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, or perhaps CTIA a month later. The project aims to produce a phone that will extend Microsoft’s reach of Windows Mobile operating system, as well as adding new software capabilities.

“We believe the phone will be based on WindowsMobile7, which has not yet been made generally available,” according to analyst Katherine Egbert of Jefferies. Egbert believes the device would also likely include Microsoft’s new Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a store for cellphone downloads along the lines of Apple’s App Store.

Windows Mobile was one of the first challengers to Research In Motion’s dominant Blackberry platform, but the recent entries of Apple’s iPhone platform has helped to push Microsoft usage lower.

Apple had around 8.9 million users last October, according to market data by ComScore. Blackberry had nearly 15 million users, while Microsoft trailed with 7 million. The tech giant hopes the tide will turn in its direction with this launch.

“Revenue from the phone is also very unlikely to be meaningful for many years,” Egbert says. “However, the new phone might explain why Microsoft has allowed WinMo to dwindle to  [less than] 10 percent mobile OS market share.”

Pink would be the ‘third screen’ (after Windows and Xbox) and final component in Microsoft’s “3 screens and a cloud” strategy. nalysts expect Pink to be a “Zune-like” phone, which includes 720p HD video and at least a 5 mega pixel camera.

Facebook is susceptible to certain types of attacks that could allow someone to hijack an account while a user is interacting with another Web site, a security researcher warned on Monday. Reseacher Nitesh Dhanjani also said a design flaw in Facebook is granting third-party apps permission to access user profile data without express approval from users.

Facebook used to display a pop-up window warning users when they added any third-party app that doing so would authorize the app to get access to user profile information. This allowed users to change their mind before adding the app. The company has changed its policy and now some apps can choose to use a new implicit authorization feature that does not warn Facebook users that a third-party app is trying to request their data, Dhanjani said.

“This allows Facebook to gain increased adoption of third-party apps, which can translate to revenue,” he said, adding that any warning would deter some users from adding new apps. “The only information apps can access without first showing the ‘Allow’ screen is publicly available information (the limited set of info that includes name, profile picture, gender, networks, friend list, and pages) and information set to be visible to everyone on the Internet,” Facebook spokesman Simon Axten said.

In separate but related research, Dhanjani and Israeli security researcher Shlomi Narkolayev said attackers could use clickjacking attacks to hijack Facebook accounts by tricking users into clicking on sites hiding malicious code. A Web site that looks like an e-commerce site or that shows videos could hide a Facebook log-in page behind it so that when a user clicks on the site to play a video, for instance, the user’s account is opened instead behind the scenes, without the user realizing it.

“Using ClickJacking I also could fool users to click whatever I want: adding me as their friend, delete their account, and even open their camera and microphone using flash (Older versions then 10.x), or install Facebook applications that post their Web camera and microphone every time they connected to Facebook,” Narkolayev wrote on his blog. He demonstrates an example of an attack in a video on his site and acknowledges that other sites are vulnerable to this type of attack, as well.

Twitter was hit by a series of clickjacking attacks last year. Axten said the attack examples were standard clickjacking and not unique to Facebook. “We’re building some additional protections for these types of attacks and reminding people to be cautious of any message, post, or link they find on Facebook or elsewhere on the Internet that looks suspicious,” Axten said in an e-mail.

Facebook has advanced systems to detect and block the posting and sending of malicious links on Facebook, Axten said. “If we learn of a site that’s using clickjacking against our users, we add it to our blacklist so it can’t be spread through the network,” he said. “We also work with third parties to get malicious sites added to browser blacklists or taken down completely.”

This isn’t the first research done into clickjacking threats on Facebook. A self-proclaimed white hat hacker who goes by the name “theharmonyguy” wrote about it on his blog last October.

Three Symbian^4 UI mockups found their way to the surface. As compared to previous leaks, now there are semi-transparent menu overlays and richer variety of sample homescreen widget. But the pictures show only a small part, the Concept Proposal document offers a lot more suggestions though.

The semi-transparent menu bar overlay is the most notable change we can see. Next are the nicely designed clock and to-do widgets, and that’s all you can conclude from these new images.

The User Interface Concept Proposal found alongside the UI design mockups include renewed layouts, non-standard shaped homescreen widgets with free movement and placement, improved task-switcher, redesigned Settings and Power menus.

The renewed layouts concerns the titlebar region, which may contain three interactive elements – universal signal and battery indicators, app title menu with drop-down element for more options and a back button. The titlebar and the bottom menu bar can be set to auto-hide on a predefined interval.

The Symbian^2 and ^3 are expected in Q1 and Q4 this year, while the Symbian^4 shown here is scheduled for the early 2011.

From Motorolas current flow, it is no secret that they are taking the fight to all their competetors door step with their new found love – Android. So, we at Techgiraffe were not shocked when we heard of the Android Running BACKFLIP smartphone from Motorola. What shocked us was the form factor, which looked very much like it was just out of Star Trek.

When we saw the pictures, we were about as shocked as you are now. We didn’t think it was going to be a possible/sensible option but Motorola did it. There is no better name for this phone than what they have decided to go with – BACKFLIP. The full-QWERTY touchscreen smartphone runs on Android 1.5 and has the company proprietary MOTOBLUR interface preinstalled.

Backflip’s technical specifications are about as interesting as the phone. Though the phone is very reminisent of Nokia N 97, it got the features that can give RIM a run for their money. Backflip measures a 3.1” in diagonal Half Visual Graphic Array (HVGA) resolution. This device is fired by a 528 MHz processor with256 MB RAM and 2GB internal Memory. The tri-band 3G with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA complements the quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support. The other features that might catch your eyes are 5 mega-pixel Camera with Auto-focus, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, USB and 3.5mm headset jack.

Backflip comes with a unique BACKTRACK feature, which enhances your web experience. Well, to be precise, we are not aware of its functionality however, we know that you actually don’t have to touch the screen to use this feature. Motorola BACKFLIP is expected to be available in North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe starting from Q1 2010. Unfortunately there is no information about its pricing just yet.

Nokia may be dodging the Mobile World Congress however, inside sources confirm that Nokia is preparing to reveal a new phone at Consumers Electronics Show. We received an email from our source along with several pictures of the new phone. From what we hear, it is christened – Nokia Mystic – for now. Mystic will belong to the E-series family and will have all the features of its predecessor QWERTY devices.

Nokia has decided to maintain the heritage of their award winning Nokia E71 on all their QWERTY devices. Compared to Nokia E63 and Nokia E72, Nokia Mystic sports a full QWERTY keyboard and an extremely compact body.

We have not received complete technical specifications of this phone. From what we heard, it will spot :

• 600MHz processor
• 5 Mega-Pixel Camera
• Panorama image capturing

It is also rumored that Nokia is planning on developing a dual-SIM device. It is speculated that Nokia Mystic will be the first smart phone from Nokia to sport dual-SIM facility. Nokia will most probably announce Nokia Mystic at CES starting today which goes on till sunday. Keep reading TechGiraffe for updates on this phone.