Intel and Nokia announced that they have created a joint laboratory at the University of Oulu aimed at creating new user interfaces and experiences. It’s called the Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center, and will employ about two-dozen R&D professionals.

Intel says the lab will initially conduct research for mobile user experiences that could leverage the rapidly increasing capabilities of mobile devices. They’re looking for an experience that does for mobile what 3-D graphics have done for movies.

Nokia announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire Motally, a mobile analytics firm. The company provides in-app tracking and reporting, enabling developers and publishers to optimize the development of their apps.

Nokia Siemens Networks and Motorola today announced that Nokia Siemens  will acquire the majority of Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure assets. Said assets come at the price of $1.2 billion in cash.

iPhone 4 reviews are all over the web now. Techmeme has a pretty huge roundup of them. You can find just about every angle of this phone covered, including the insides.

TechCrunch is reporting that Apple may be adding another patent infringement lawsuit against HTC. These two companies already have suits against each other.

iOS4, the recently announced new version of Apple’s mobile operating system is due out today. Users of devices that utilize this OS are no doubt anxious to get it, but they shouldn’t have to wait much longer. Although as Brad McCarty at The Next Web points out, "Bear in mind, iPhone OS 3 (released last year) took the better part of the day to hit the public."

Yahoo and Nokia officially announced a partnership, which has been expected for several days.

The two companies, which have collaborated for five years,  will provide consumers with e-mail, instant messaging and maps and navigation services. Specifically under the partnership:

Yahoo may soon announce a partnership with a very big mobile phone company.  Supposedly Nokia – which reported around $12.7 billion in sales for the first quarter of this year – is prepared to start integrating Yahoo’s services into its products.

Mobile device maker Nokia said today it has made Skype available as a free download in its online Ovi Store.

The new Skype for Symbian software will allow more than 200 million Nokia smartphone users globally access Skype over a WiFi or mobile data connection.

Skype for Symbian will allow Nokia smartphone users to make free Skype-to-Skype calls to other Skype users, save money on international calls and texts, and share pictures and videos.

Nokia said today it’s releasing a new version of Ovi Maps for its smartphones that includes walking and driving navigation for free.

The move by Nokia to offer free navigation on its smartphones is widely seen as a way for the handset giant to boost sales and better compete with the likes of Google, which already offers free Google Maps Navigation in the 2.0 version of the Android operating system.

The global mobile phone market saw slight growth in the third quarter, according to IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.

Year-on-year growth remained negative, but improved from the first half of 2009. Mobile shipments totaled 287.1 million units worldwide in Q3, down from 6 percent from the previous year, but up 5.6 percent from the second quarter.

Nokia announced today that it has acquired "certain assets" of Plum, a privately held company.

Plum’s tagline is "making websites social," and the company says it helps websites become social by powering Groups in the Travel, Education, Entertainment, Publishing and Not-for-Profit sectors.

Global mobile phone sales reached 286.1 million units in the second quarter of 2009, a 6.1 percent decrease from the second quarter of 2008, according to a new report from Gartner.

Smartphone sales were a bright spot for the industry, surpassing 40 million units, a 27 percent increase from the same period last year, representing the fastest growing segment of the mobile devices market.

Microsoft and Nokia announced an alliance on Wednesday to make Microsoft Office software available on Nokia’s Symbian devices.

The software and cell phone companies said Nokia will start offering Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile on its smartphones next year, followed by other Office applications and related software and services in the future.

The global mobile phone market saw another quarter of year-over-year decline in the second quarter of 2009, shipping a total of 269.6 million units, down 10.8 percent from 302.2 million units in 2Q08, according to IDC.

The second quarter results are an improvement from the 17.2 percent decrease in the first quarter, but challenges from the economic crisis remain a factor to watch.

LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman is featured in a video from Nokia’s IdeasProject.com. He talks about new products being created from the social data that is available on the Internet.

Global mobile phone sales totaled 269.1 million units in the first quarter of 2009, a 9.4 percent decrease from the first quarter of 2008, according to Gartner.

Smartphone sales surpassed 36.4 million units, a 12.7 percent increase from the same period last year.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, global sales of smartphones reached 38.1 million units, an increase of 3.7 percent over the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Gartner.

Worldwide sales of smartphone for 2008 reached 139.3 million, up 13.9 percent compared to 2007.

Global mobile phone sales increased 6 percent in 2008 over the previous year while sales declined 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter due to the economic downturn, according to Gartner.

Worldwide mobile phone sales reached 1.22 billion in 2008, up from 1.15 billion in 2007.

Nokia and eBay-owned VoIP service Skype announced a deal today. Skype will be integrated into Nokia devices, starting with the N97 series.

Microsoft is set to launch its new My Phone service online at the upcoming Mobile World Congress wireless show starting February 16.

My Phone syncs information on a mobile phone to a storage space on a Web site hosted by Microsoft. The cloud service allows mobile users to manage contacts, appointments, text messages, photos and videos.  Most phones that run Windows Mobile 6 operating system are compatible with My Phone Service.

In San Francisco last night, Six Apart (who recently launched data portability initiative Motion) hosted a roundtable to discuss the future of activity stream standards. In attendance were people from Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook, Nokia, Plaxo, Comcast, and others.