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MOBILE PHONE RETAILER The Carphone Warehouse has mistakenly announced the Lumia 900 launch date of June in the UK.

A coming soon page for Nokia’s upcoming handset was put online by the firm for customers to register their interest and tell them that it will arrive in June. It has since been taken down, presumably because Nokia wasn’t so happy about it.

We have spoken with The Carphone Warehouse, which simply told us, “The page was put online in error and has now been taken down.”

Nokia announced the Lumia 900 earlier this month at the consumer electronics show (CES) in Las Vegas. It’s effectively a bigger version of the Lumia 800, which along with the Lumia 710 has sold an estimated 1.3 million units.

We haven’t heard back from Nokia about the launch date but when it does tip up the Lumia 900 will offer a 4.3in touchscreen, an 8MP rear facing camera and Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. µ

MAKER OF SHINY TOYS Apple has a poor reputation for releasing its Iphones with annoying bugs, so The INQUIRER has come up with a list of likely things that could wrong with your Apple device.

The Iphone is believed to suffer from an infrequent problem of turning into a pile of salt. One Apple employee we spoke to, Ima Madeupname, said that this is actually an intentional feature that should only activate when you’ve ordered fish and chips and the chipper is out of salt. Madeupname also suggested this could be particularly useful when the snow arrives, as you can sprinkle the salt on your front walk to get to your car or a cab without breaking a leg.

Losing your phone signal is one thing, but losing you ear is quite another. We’ve seen reliable reports that certain versions of the Iphone grow teeth and attempt to chew your ear. It’s not known if this is to fill the void left by a lack of battery power or if it is just teething problems. According to some reports, Apple is hiring technicians and dentists to fix this issue.

Your Iphone might get up while you’re not looking and saunter down to a local pub, where it is likely to be found by a total stranger and sold for ,000 after becoming extremely intoxicated. The chance that this might happen appears to be several million times more likely in the case of Iphone prototypes.

The next Iphone is likely to come with an update to Siri that will help it become sentient, but an expected bug will mean that it will only be able to feel the emotion of hatred, which won’t do Iphone users much good. We heard that Apple won’t pay for the years of counselling your smartphone will need, making the Iphone an even more expensive option.

There is also the strong possibility that the next Iphone could grow wings and claws, which it will use to carry you back to the supreme overlords at Cupertino. We’re not certain what goes on there, but we’ve heard rumours that captives are forced to swear to buy every Apple product that is released for the rest of their life. Some speculate that the recent static noise in calls is actually the fluttering of leathery wings inside the Iphone case.

Iphones might mute themselves and turn invisible, a trick taught to them by Apple’s many stage magicians. It is not known if this is actually a bug or a way for Apple to increase Iphone sales when people seem to have ‘misplaced’ their smartphone.

Perhaps the worst thing that could happen is that your next Iphone could become a Windows Phone. This possibility was likely programmed in from the beginning, with Microsoft plotting to look like it’s trailing in the smartphone game but really plotting world domination. It is believed that Google is assembling an army of little green robots in preparation for this eventuality. µ

FINNISH PHONE MAKER Nokia has unveiled plans to reel in developers as part of its effort to increase Windows Phone market share in collaboration with its partner, Microsoft.

Nokia’s head of apps and partnerships, Keith Varty told The INQUIRER in an interview, “Now we are working in conjunction with Microsoft, the game changes. The way we reach out to developers needs to change. Microsoft has a good reputation in the developer market and we want to add to that.”

Varty said that Nokia will offer developers help with marketing, as well as getting into new markets where Nokia is strong, such as China. He said the company is working on a programme along with Microsoft to help developers translate and market their apps.

Nokia will also run UK workshops, Varty said, following a kick-off event a few weeks ago. The firm is looking to train Symbian and Nokia developers on the platform too. Varty added that Nokia is still “in the early stages” with Microsoft and “a lot lies with them, as they do the SDKs,” while Nokia will be looking at adding its services such as mapping and Nokia Music to the Windows Phone 7.5 operating system (OS).

The Windows Phone 7.5 app store has around 40,000 apps, we reckon, so Nokia and Microsoft still have some work to do before the OS catches up with Android and IOS. However, Varty said, “I don’t think we’d have any milestones but it’s not a numbers game. If we look at all the categories we have the apps in each of those. We want a mix of the popular stuff but we also want the long tail.”

Nokia and Microsoft are obviously hoping that Windows Phone will emulate the rise of Android that we’ve seen over the last year, so the pair are investing heavily. Varty said, “The investment we are making behind the platform, I’m sure we will tick that box {of growing share]. Our job is to potentially get the awareness out there.”

He added, “It’s our smartphone platform and very much our plan A and it very much hasn’t had the focus from others [manufacturers]. It’s kind of welcomed. If you talk to operators, developers and retail staff everyone really likes the platform.”

Microsoft and Nokia also want to integrate Xbox further with the Windows Phone OS. Varty said, “We want to tightly integrate more. The ambition would be to be able to stop a game on the Xbox and pick it up over the device.”

Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7.5 device, The Lumia 800 will be released on 16 November and it wouldn’t be far off to say that Nokia’s future depends on its success. When asked about sales targets for the device, Varty wasn’t inclined to say and used language we’d rather not repeat on this family web site. But it was said in fun, we think. µ

KOREAN ELECTRONICS GIANT Samsung is awaiting news of a possible ban of its Galaxy Tab in Australia, so we pondered what it might do to tackle its lost smartphone and tablet markets.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is already banned in Germany thanks to an injunction granted there to Apple, but further bans seem likely throughout the world as both companies fight tooth and claw over the multi-billion dolar mobile device market.

Should Australia ban the Galaxy Tab, Samsung has several options to help recover any lost market share.

One potential option is to call the judge ‘mate’ and hope that alone will gain an appeal. If that fails, which seems unlikely, Samsung could attempt to market the Galaxy Tab as a high-tech surf board or barbeque tray.

In Germany we imagine that Samsung might appease German officials by entering the sausages and beer market, an area that is far more lucrative, not to mention more secure long-term, than smartphones and tablets.

We spoke to a reliable source at the Institute of Misinformation, who told us that he saw Samsung plans to rework the design of its Galaxy S and S II into the shape of a sausage, which Samsung believes will help deal with Apple claims that it is guilty of “slavishly copying” the design of its Iphone. Our investigations confirm that Apple has not yet patented the sausage shaped smartphone, which we expect will be affectionately called the ‘banger’ by Samsung supporters throughout the UK.

As for the Galaxy Tab, the next version of which appears to be codenamed Mash, our misinformant whispered to us that there are plans to market this as a high-tech drinks tray, a sector that Apple has so far failed to monopolise. Analysts suggest that Samsung could achieve global success with the Galaxy Tray, with a launch day sell-out expected in Ireland.

The INQUIRER anticipates a large scale advertising campaign for an upcoming Samsung range of devices called ‘Bratwurst und Bier – Jeder ist Eingeladen.’ This, of course, translates to Samsung’s familiar slogan “Sausages and Beer – Everyone’s Invited”. µ

INTERNET SEARCH GIANT Google has revealed its energy footprint for the first time, and we doubt that it could buy its sandals off the shelf.

It would not take a genius to speculate that the firm uses a lot of energy, but it’s very huge indeed. Headline grabbing trivia include the fact that it could power Salt Lake City, Utah.

According to the New York Times, Google’s datacentres draw a continuous 260 million Watts or, if you prefer, around a quarter of the output of the average nuclear power plant.

This is fine though, as while Google uses a large amount of electricity, it stops its users from using other fuel, like petrol.

According to the company you should remember how much money is saved when, for example, someone does not drive to a library to look for information, but instead searches for it online. The same could be said for online shopping, perhaps.

“The numbers] look big in the small context,” said Urs Hoelzle, Google’s SVP for technical infrastructure in an interview with the New York Times.

The amount of power that individuals use is also small when looked at in perspective, according to the report, and consumption is reckoned to be around 180 Watt-hours a month, equal to running a light bulb for three hours.

Other numbers are described in fun terms, and Google reckons that running Gmail for a year, per user, is the equivalent to drinking a bottle of wine, sticking a note in it and tossing it into the sea, while performing 100 searches is the same as running a 60W lightbulb for 28 minutes.

Google also makes an effort to improve the way its buildings use energy and has cut down on car numbers by offering its workers shuttle services to use between their homes and offices. It added that it also offsets its carbon through “very high quality” outlets, such as livestock farms.

In a blog post Hoelzle said that Google is very close to completely offsetting is carbon emissions thanks to these and other novel methods.

“We started the process of getting to zero by making sure our operations use as little energy as possible. For the last decade, energy use has been an obsession. We’ve designed and built some of the most efficient servers and data centers in the world-using half the electricity of a typical data center. Our newest facility in Hamina, Finland, opening this weekend, uses a unique seawater cooling system that requires very little electricity,” he explained.

“Whenever possible, we use renewable energy. We have a large solar panel installation at our Mountain View campus, and we’ve purchased the output of two wind farms to power our data centers. For the greenhouse gas emissions we can’t eliminate, we purchase high-quality carbon offsets.” µ

INTERNET SEARCH GIANT Google has revealed its energy footprint for the first time, and we doubt that it could buy its sandals off the shelf.

It would not take a genius to speculate that the firm uses a lot of energy, but it’s very huge indeed. Headline grabbing trivia include the fact that it could power Salt Lake City, Utah.

According to the New York Times, Google’s datacentres draw a continuous 260 million Watts or, if you prefer, around a quarter of the output of the average nuclear power plant.

This is fine though, as while Google uses a large amount of electricity, it stops its users from using other fuel, like petrol.

According to the company you should remember how much money is saved when, for example, someone does not drive to a library to look for information, but instead searches for it online. The same could be said for online shopping, perhaps.

“The numbers] look big in the small context,” said Urs Hoelzle, Google’s SVP for technical infrastructure in an interview with the New York Times.

The amount of power that individuals use is also small when looked at in perspective, according to the report, and consumption is reckoned to be around 180 Watt-hours a month, equal to running a light bulb for three hours.

Other numbers are described in fun terms, and Google reckons that running Gmail for a year, per user, is the equivalent to drinking a bottle of wine, sticking a note in it and tossing it into the sea, while performing 100 searches is the same as running a 60W lightbulb for 28 minutes.

Google also makes an effort to improve the way its buildings use energy and has cut down on car numbers by offering its workers shuttle services to use between their homes and offices. It added that it also offsets its carbon through “very high quality” outlets, such as livestock farms.

In a blog post Hoelzle said that Google is very close to completely offsetting is carbon emissions thanks to these and other novel methods.

“We started the process of getting to zero by making sure our operations use as little energy as possible. For the last decade, energy use has been an obsession. We’ve designed and built some of the most efficient servers and data centers in the world-using half the electricity of a typical data center. Our newest facility in Hamina, Finland, opening this weekend, uses a unique seawater cooling system that requires very little electricity,” he explained.

“Whenever possible, we use renewable energy. We have a large solar panel installation at our Mountain View campus, and we’ve purchased the output of two wind farms to power our data centers. For the greenhouse gas emissions we can’t eliminate, we purchase high-quality carbon offsets.” µ

JAPANESE ELECTRONICS GIANT Sony revealed it has taken so long to produce a tablet in order to get it right and make it unique.

We popped out of The INQUIRER towers to Sony’s Christmas Crackers event where it spoke to us about its upcoming tablets. The devices still have the codenames S1 and S2, which it appears to be sticking with for now.

Unfortunately the two tablets were stuck inside a glass case at the event and are still prototypes, so we didn’t get to use them but we got some close up photos of each.

Sony plans to launch both tablets this Autumn, which we already knew, but we were told by Chris Trewhitt, product manager at Sony that they “won’t necessarily be launched at the same time”.

The devices will be running Android 3.x Honeycomb and Sony will aim to launch the pair with whatever the latest version is at the time. When asked why it had taken so long to produce a tablet Trewhitt said, “It’s taken so long in order to get it right and make them unique.”

Android is the operating system of choice for Sony, rather than developing its own, because of Android’s “awareness and momentum”, added Trewhitt.

The music and video services that were a possibility when we reported on the tablets in April are now features that definitely will appear on the gadgets. Sony also confirmed that they will include its Playstation Suite, which will allow users to do things like move and resize controls.

The S1 will be able to be used as an infrared remote control and both tablets will have DLNA technology, which Trewhitt confirmed will work with any brand rather than being locked to Sony products. A unique ‘flick’ gesture will magically make content that you’re viewing on the tablet appear on your TV.

Both Sony tablets will have microUSB connectivity but no HDMI. We assume that the lack of HDMI ports is down to the inclusion of DLNA technology. Unfortunately we weren’t able to wheedle any other information out of Sony on prices or any more detailed specifications. µ

TAIWANESE PC MAKER MSI has announced its military grade A75 motherboard that is capable of dual graphics and easier overclocking.

The A75MA-G55 is the Micro Star International (MSI) outfit’s latest motherboard and it is based around the AMD Hudson D3 chipset. The MicroATX board uses Military Class II components and will support AMD A8, A6, A4 and E2 processors in an FM1 socket.

MSI said, “AMD’s new APU combines dual and quad-core CPUs with the fastest integrated graphics on the market. The most stable Military Class II Components available have been used to make MSI’s A75-Series mainboards.”

The A75 board is the “world’s easiest 1 second overclock”, according to MSI. This is achieved by using OC Genie II which, with a push of a button, overclocks both the processor and memory and apparently “unlocks hidden CPU cores”.

Support for AMD Hybrid Crossfire allows for scalability with multiple AMD Radeon graphics cards by using dual graphics.

Expansion-wise the A75 has two PCI-Ex16 slots, one PCI-E slot and one PCI slot. Four memory DIMMs support up to 32GB of DDD3 RAM. There are also six SATA 6Gbits/s ports with RAID support.

Rounding off the design is eight channel audio, a 10/100/1000 Mbits/s LAN, four USB 3.0 ports and eight USB 2.0 ports, plus HDMI, DVI and D-Sub outputs. The BIOS system is user friendly with the ability to make changes using either a mouse or just a keyboard. µ

AMERICAN APP DEVELOPER Daniel Amitay has published the most commonly used passcodes on Apple Iphones in his blog.

The post on student and Iphone developer Daniel Amitay’s blog reveals the passcodes most commonly used to get onto Apple’s shiny Iphones. He conducted the research using his own app called Big Brother Camera Security.

The 10 most common passcodes according to Amitay’s findings are, in descending order, 1234, 0000, 2580, 1111, 5555, 5683, 0852, 2222, 1212 and 1998. The top ten passcodes used to unlock the Iphone make up 15 per cent of all passcodes in use.

Amitay didn’t spend forever looking over peoples shoulders and writing down passcodes 204,508 times but used his app to record the data. He anonymously recorded passcodes that people used for his application.

His app for the Iphone, which takes a photo of anyone using your phone without permission, uses a lock screen that’s almost identical to the one used by the Iphone itself. For this reason he thinks his findings should correlate well to what people use for their passcodes for the Iphone.

There’s also the fact that most people like to use the same codes for things to avoid confusion and forgetting things.

Among the same digit passcodes are ones that spell words, that is, 5683 spells ‘Love’. Amitay wrote that passcodes ranging from 1990 to 2000 are all in the top 50, and 1980 to 1989 are all in the top 100, and he said, “I would interpret this occurrence as a subset of users that set their passcodes to the year of their birth or graduation.”

If the findings really do match the actual passcodes of Iphone users then with the top 10 codes making up 15 per cent, nearly 1 in 7 Iphones can be unlocked within 10 blind attempts.

A day after he put his blog post up Apple removed Amitay’s app from the App Store. In a tweet Amitay said, “The Apple gods that be have removed Big Brother Camera Security from the App Store. Working on getting it back on!” µ

AN ANALYST has attempted to clear up confusion over whether PC sales are rising or falling, coming to the conclusion that overall PC sales are declining by a considerable amount.

Horace Dediu, an analyst at Asymco, said that he made his own analysis of how well the PC market was doing after reports from IDC and Gartner failed to highlight the causes of changes, failed to segregate by operating system instead of vendor, and failed to include devices that do the same thing as PCs, such as Apple’s Ipad.

Dediu discovered that since the first quarter of 2010, PC sales growth has been falling. By the first quarter of 2011 growth was down to only 7.5 per cent, well below its peak growth of nearly 30 per cent a year prior.

Windows systems have seen the worst slowdown, flattening out at the end of 2010 and declining slightly by two per cent in the first quarter of 2011. The category shared its peak with overall PC sales in early 2010, making the drop even more dramatic.

Mac computers have also seen slowing growth, but nowhere near the same rate. Growth has dropped from over 30 per cent to around 22.5 per cent.

Apple is doing well overall, however, with growth of 272 per cent, up from the just over 30 per cent figure it had in the first quarter of 2010. Most of this boils down to the Ipad. When we take the Mac PCs figure out of the equation we’re left with a roughly 250 per cent growth for the Ipad alone.

The findings suggest that the growth of Ipad sales might have had a direct impact on the growth of PC sales, but Dediu classifies the Ipad as “the new PC”. However, many other analysts consider it a “media tablet”, a term that Dediu dislikes, since he regards media viewing is one of its least common purposes.

Even if we drop the Ipad from the equation, we still end up with overall PC sales growth down and Windows PCs losing out the most. µ