Android’s supposed to be all about peace, love, and openness, but that apparently doesn’t exempt it from copyright law and trigger-happy general counsels (who knew?). In a move that should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone, Palm has sicced its legal team on the makers of the aptly-named “Palm Pre Android Theme” that borrows icons, wallpapers, and mojo (not to be confused with Mojo) directly from webOS. The concerns center around the usual suspects — graphics copyrights and trademark infringement — and the company is demanding that they cease use of the Pre’s interface, name, and all that good stuff by some date that’s been redacted from the leaked letter (we’re assuming it’s soon). To be fair, Palm comes out and says that it “appreciates that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery,” but at the end of the day, they’re concerned about the potential for consumer confusion. Interestingly, to the best of our knowledge, they haven’t given the iPhone-based theme the same treatment — but hey, maybe it’s easier to confuse a Hero with a Pre than it is an iPhone… or something.

[Thanks, Justin]

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Palm lays the smack down on Pre theme for Android

We didn’t expect too many fireworks from Microsoft and Nokia’s joint teleconference this morning, and, well, we didn’t get any. As expected, Office Mobile is coming to Symbian, along with Office Communicator Mobile, SharePoint, and Microsoft System Center, and the two companies also said they’ll be working on “future user experiences” for Nokia customers. Don’t get too worked up about that, though — Nokia said it was “deeply committed to Symbian,” and that “there are no such plans” to work on a Windows Mobile device. So much for that. We did ask whether this partnership would affect Nokia’s rumored Maemo plans, and we were told that development is Symbian-focused for now, but that there might be “other business opportunities” in the future, so at least that door remains open a hair — but for the most part this is all about Microsoft and Nokia trying to stake out a stronger enterprise position, not anything else. Video after the break, if you’re having a hard time taking that nap.

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Microsoft and Nokia announce Office coming to Symbian

It’s not the kind of thing you’ll probably want to brag about winning, of course, but, according to new research conducted by the OECD, people in the US, Canada and Spain come out on the top of the heap when it comes to high cellphone bills. The research was conducted by categorizing bills into three usage categories, with the mid-range being 780 minutes per year of voice calls, and 600 SMS per year. For that amount, people in the US of A pay about $635 (the highest rate), while runners-up Spain pay just over $500. The countries with the lowest phone bills include the Netherlands and Sweden, where that same usage runs about $130. Yes, that’s a huge discrepancy, alright, meaning that in the Netherlands you’d pay around $11 a month with that level of usage, while in the US the same amount will run around $53 a month. Then again, they don’t get to watch “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” in the Netherlands, do they?

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US, Canada, and Spain ‘win’ the battle for most expensive cellphone bills

Though it doesn’t have the star power of Android or (arguably) the Symbian Foundation, LiMo’s still slaving away on devices and picking up support, largely in Japan where NTT DoCoMo played a major role in its creation. Following a finalization of its Release 2 specs a couple months back, the Foundation’s now adding a couple additional big players into its ranks that should help it penetrate even further in Japan, too: KDDI, rival to DoCoMo and operator of the country’s CDMA airwaves, and Immersion, a (the?) big player in haptics. Japan’s Softbank is already on board, too, so at this point, these guys pretty much have the Japanese wireless trifecta under their belts.

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LiMo Foundation now counts KDDI and Immersion among membership

Whispers abound that French carrier SFR is currently developing on an Android version of its Atom-powered M! PC Pocket. Just in case you blink twice and wonder where you’ve seen the M! PC Pocket before, it is actually a variant of the Aigo P8860, similar to the remaining Compal-manufactured group. It remains to be seen whether this rumored Android-powered version will retain the first generation’s specifications including an Intel Atom Z500 800MHz processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB SSD and 4.3″ WVGA display.

Permalink: SFR device to run on Android from Ubergizmo | Hot: Wii, PS3 and Natal Motion Sensing

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SFR device to run on Android

The Motorola Sholes is a hot topic here at Android Central HQ partly because of our excitement for a Moto Android device and mostly because of the disappointment that is the Sholes’ teenage sister, the Morrison. We’ve been excited since we first saw the Sholes hardware and got even more excited after reports of the Blur UI surfaced. So is it possible to get even more excited about the Sholes? Quite simply, yes.

Why? Because if the rumors floating around are to believed–the Motorola Sholes will run Eclair and there’ll be a GSM version offered (either for AT&T or T-Mobile) to go along with the reported Verizon CDMA version.

The Sholes running the Eclair Update to Android can be taken one of two ways–Eclair is closer than we think which means Donut is even closer than imagined or that the Sholes won’t be available for a very long time. We’re hoping/praying/crossing-our-fingers that it’s the former and not the latter.

The GSM version of the Sholes is planned for 2010 and if picked up by AT&T, a very compelling Android device will be offered by both the number 1 (Verizon) and number 2 (AT&T) carriers in the US. And if the HTC Hero get’s released on Sprint like expected, that’ll mean every big US carrier will offer an Android device (T-Mobile already has two Android phones). Not too shabby.

Obviously, this report is merely a rumor but if all this falls into place–Motorola will be back and Android is going to get very popular, very soon.

[bgr]

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Motorola Sholes Will Run Eclair, GSM Version To Be Offered ?

Documents to Go is one of our favorite mobile applications ever and most certainly one of the top flight Android applications available. We’ve showcased how it works before and were extremely excited to announce its 1.0 launch back in April but now Docs to Go gets even better.

DataViz has launched Documents to Go 2.0 for Android and it’ll include viewing, editing, and creating PowerPoint files along with viewing PDF files. Editing, creating, and viewing Microsoft Word and Excel files have been improved in this version as well. The full version of Docs to Go 2.0 will cost new users $29.99 and will be offered as a free upgrade to previous owners. There’s a free version of Docs to Go which will offer viewing for Word and Excel files.

Any big users of Documents to Go?

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Documents To Go 2.0 for Android Released !

The ability to natively view and edit Microsoft Office documents on smartphones is often limited to Windows Mobile devices only. For other platforms to be able to do this requires third party software like Documents to Go from DataViz.

DataViz has announced that the new 2.0 version of Documents to Go for Android devices is now available. The new version allows viewing, editing, and creating of PowerPoint files in the latest file formats. Users can view Adobe PDF files with full options.

The new version also enhances support for Word and Excel files with viewing and editing of Word .doc and .docx files and Excel .xls and .xlsx files. A free version of the newly updated software is also available that lets users view Word and Excel files.

Pixelpipe, a great service that allows its users to distribute documents and media files to over 100 social media services, just released over 50 new single-purpose applications through the Android Market. The company also submitted the same number of apps to the iPhone App Store and the Nokia Ovi Store. Why so many apps? As Pixelpipe’s CEO and founder Brett Butterfield tells us, the company realized that about half of Pixelpipe’s users only used the service to forward files to one service.

Sponsor

In order to serve this market better and to link its name closer to the brand names of the services it supports, the company decided to release co-branded versions of its mobile app for 50 of the 100 services it currently supports. Pixelpipe will sell these co-branded versions of its app for $0.99 and a pro version with support for all the 100 services that Pixelpipe currently works with will sell for $1.99.

The iPhone apps still have to go through Apple’s approval process, which can take a while, but the Android apps will be available today and the Nokia apps should be available in about one week.

Pixelpipe’s App Factory

As Butterfield told us, the company has automated most of the app development process, so whenever Pixelpipe adds a new service, a new mobile app can also be created with very little effort.

App Store SEO

Overall, this seems like a very smart move. The company started to experiment with co-branded Android apps for a few services like Facebook, Twitter, and Photobucket a few days ago. As these apps actually include the name of the service in their titles (“Twitter for Pixelpipe”), they are much easier to find for consumers who would otherwise never have heard of Pixelpipe. After all, as we pointed out earlier today, most users rely on Top 10 lists and browsing through categories to find interesting new mobile apps.

As Pixelpipe told us, these apps are already outselling the company’s own app by a significant margin and Pixelpipe has heard from a number of services who would like to partner with the company and promote the apps.

We think this is an interesting story, as it points out some of the problems developers face when trying to market their apps. Also, while social media mavens love the fact that Pixelpipe Pro can send documents, audio, video, and pictures to 100 other social media services, for most users, this is simply overkill and just generates confusion.

Discuss

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Pixelpipe Announces 50 New Mobile Apps for Android, iPhone, and Nokia

Nimbuzz is a multi community mobile social messenger combining Instant Messaging, (geo) presence, and VoIP.