The state government in North Rhine-Westphalia is now demanding over US$ 92 million in subsidies and interest after claiming that Nokia failed to meet its condition of creating a minimum number of jobs before closing its factory in Bochum, Germany. According to the state, the Finland-based company borrowed US$ 63 million to build the factory. For more details, check out the full article.

Looks like the most popular gadget in Europe this Christmas is the Wii if online searches are anything to judge by. According to the figures released by comScore Inc., the gadgets most frequently searched for in online engines in Europe during the first three weeks of November is the Nintendo Wii followed by the iPod. Next comes the DS lite, the PSP and the iPhone. More in the full article.

If you got excited by reports of a PSP Phone patent and you drooled over the prospect of getting a Bravia mobile TV in the UK, you'll be a little disappointed that Sony Ericsson senior marketing director Richard Dorman has shot down the rumors.

"It is not a focus for us with the UK and western European market at the moment," says Dorman. "I've seen our road map for the next 12 months and neither of those two handsets will feature in it."

This is contrary to Sony Ericsson gaming chief Peter Ahnegard's statements during the GC 2007 gathering in Germany a few months ago. Ahnegard said a PSP Phone was in the works and that it should be around before this year's Christmas.

That's a confusion yet to be cleared by the people over at Sony Ericsson. Is this another case similar to the Dual Shock 3 controller rumors for the PS3 which were vehemently denied by management but was later announced? We'll see soon enough.

Remember the news bit that stated that T-Mobile will be getting exclusive rights to Apple's iPhone? We've picked up more information about its upcoming launch for Germany, which includes a new launch date, and pricing details.

According to a recent press release that Apple's circulating, the iPhone's previously reported November 1 launch date has been moved. The iPhone's new release date is set for November 9, and will be available for purchase via Telekom Shops of Deutsche Telekom, and the T-Mobile web shop. As you've guessed, Germany's getting the new mobile at about the same time as the UK.

As for pricing, T-Mobile plans to offer the iPhone's 8GB model for € 399 (US$ 560) including V.A.T. The phone will also require a 2-year T-Mobile tariff.

It has been suggested before by analysts that Vodafone would be the iPhone's official carrier in Europe, but AppleInsider reports that Vodafone may not be the only European wireless carrier under consideration.

According to AppleInsider, MarketWeek reported last week that Germany-based T-Mobile is being favored as the sole outlet for iPhone sales in the continent. Other European such as O2 and Orange were said to have been in the running but were unsuccessful in reaching the later stages of contract negotiations.

Some analysts suggest though that it might be in Apple's best interests to get more than one operator to distribute the iPhone in Europe because "the European market is more fragmented than the U.S."

Today's a sad day for employees of BenQ Mobile. Forbes has revealed that the bankrupt German handset business of Taiwan's BenQ Corporation will be split up and sold after a failed bid to turn the struggling company around. This was announced by the company's insolvency administrator on Sunday.

"There is no longer a realistic chance of it being sold as a whole," spokesman Martin Prager said, confirming a report in Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The Munich-based company filed for insolvency protection in September, a year after the Taiwanese firm took over the struggling unit from Siemens AG.

Prager declined to comment on the fact that splitting up the firm means that almost all of the 3,000 jobs at the firm would be lost for good. Around 550 former BenQ Mobile workers have already signed up with other companies, some of them with Siemens. Forbes reports that thanks to a transitional arrangement largely financed by Siemens, the remaining employees will keep on receiving most of their previous wages for up to a year.

Dell announced today the winners of their eBay charity auction of two limited-edition World of Warcraft XPSTM M1710 notebooks. The winners are Trip Hoover of Texas and Daniel Marinow of Germany, whose combined bids for the unique notebook PCs reached nearly US$ 12,000.

All proceeds from the auction will go to America's Second Harvest, the Nation's Food Bank Network. "We are very pleased to accept this generous donation from Dell," said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of America’s Second Harvest. "This fun and innovative charity auction will help us provide thousands of meals to Americans who are at risk of hunger."

Dell is also sponsoring an online sweepstakes in which WoW fans can win one of five XPS 710 H2C Gaming PCs outfitted with new 27-inch wide screen monitors. Fans can head on over to dell.com/imagination and put their WoW knowledge to the test by answering five questions about the game. They are then entered into a random drawing for a chance to win one of the five high-end gaming systems. The drawing will be on or about February 20.

Researchers in Germany gave a demonstration of something they called the "next future" (others refer to this as 4D) of cellular technology. They claim that this new technology can sustain data transmissions at speeds of up to 100Mb/s (megabits per second). 3G cellphones (next generation cellphones) can only reach up to 384 Kb/s to 2 Mb/s.

The demonstration was held at the ITU Telecom World, a convention for the worldwide telecom industry. The technology was based on the concept of using multiple antennas (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output or short MIMO), an idea which gained a lot of attention in the wire communication industry.

The Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI), a research division of the Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, thinks that MIMO can be applied to cellular networks to increase the rates of data downloads and uploads.

During the demonstration, they were able to reach a download rate of 100Mb/s and an upload rate of 50Mb/s. This technology could reach a range to a "few miles", according to the organization.

Though HHI did not specify when the technology would be available to the public, many found it interesting since downloads and uploads can be done at the same time. HHI reps claim that it would be possible to browse the internet, talk on voice-over-IP (VoIP), and play online games all at once. Talk about multi-tasking.

Cellular phone companies have been doing individual researches about the said technology, too.

Not all the gaming fun is limited to dedicated consoles or tricked-out PCs. Sure, the mobile phone may be no PSP or DS, but it doesn't stop developers like Fishlabs from developing good games for them. Fishlabs in in fact notable for developing 3D titles on mobile phones. German-based o2 has announced that it would install a game demo jukebox featuring five Fishlabs games onto Nokia 6233 and Sony Ericsson K610i phones.

We've featured a couple of the games before: the racing title Burning Tires 3D and the Wipeout-themed Planet Riders 3D. Now it's time to feature the other three:

• Robot Alliance is a first-person shooter massively multiplayer-playable over a mobile network. The game features 3D-modeled and motion-captured characters shooting it out in spacious outdoor and indoor maps.

• Set in space, Galaxy on Fire is a 3D shooter featuring 10 playable ships with up to five different weapons to upgrade, 500 destinations and an intensive storyline to explore, and a trading sim to earn and acquire them ships and weapons. Think of it as Wing Commander in a mobile phone.

• And Heli Strike is a vert-scrolling shooter featuring 3D graphics, tons of power ups for the player-helicopter, trick combo shots to pull off, and rewards to acquire. Fly through 3 different terrains and 21 stages, and up against more than 20 different types of enemies - including boss characters.

Galaxy on Fire screenshots:

More screenshots after the jump!

Spam used to appease the senses, specifically the gustatory one. It was a treat for us kids when we'd get spam for breakfast. The aroma and the taste really had us going in the morning commute to school. Now, Spam is something that needs to be crushed like the cockroach that it is. At least cockroaches do something for the world, the other just makes the inboxes full to the brim with useless information.

There are now programs out there that limits the spam's clutches. We can finally see the end of our inboxes again. Yet, like a bad movie, there seems to be a twist to this whole story. Remember those movies where in the end the villain seems to have been defeated but somehow you get a feeling this guy's not yet out for the count, example:all 'Friday the 13th' movies. Well, it looks like spam is doing a Jason as well. Photo Spam. It's here and it lives inside your inbox. The moment you open it, you never know what will happen.

According to a leading anti-virus software lab AV-Test in Germany, one third of spam today is image-based. It's where text is included in an image. Most spam filters today look out for text spams only. That can only mean only two things: you have less text spam, but a lot of photo spam.

So what can the emailers who just want to send their vacation pictures to their parents, not land in the spam folders do? Write information relative to the picture in the email. Most photo spams have just pictures in them, no text.

The receivers have more chances of filtering spam if they use online e-mail services, rather than buying a filtering software. Cheaper too. A cautionary advice: one must have at least one alias address. The "real" e-mail address should be reserved for family, friends, and known acquaintances.