Sony Ericsson has yet to make this public, but we've learned that the flagging handset maker has caved once more to the pressures of the modern phone market place. If you'll recall, 450 employees were nixed from the company's payrolls in September of last year, and now the entire Research Triangle Park facility is being shuttered. In an internal announcement made this morning, SE is fixing to close four total sites: RTP in North Carolina, a smaller Miami facility and operations in Kista (Sweden) and Chennai. All told, 2,000 employees will be trimmed, with severance packages being offered to those who qualify. As of now, the departing individuals have yet to be chosen, with employees in RTP given the opportunity to apply for jobs elsewhere (likely in Atlanta or California). We're told that the cuts will happen "in stages," with project teams being assembled as we speak to work out the logistics. Frankly, we aren't as shocked as we are saddened to hear the news -- SE has refused to keep pace with the other handset makers, and its decision to wait until next year to ship an Android device is indicative of the choices that have kept it in the shadows these past few years. Here's hoping this restructuring effort actually gets things headed in the right direction.

Update: And it's official. SE will also be shutting down small offices in Seattle and San Diego, with its North American headquarters shifting from RTP to Atlanta and its research and development operation transitioning from RTP to Redwood Shores, California.

Contrary to popular belief (and reports from yesterday), it seems that Samsung actually isn't planning to ditch Symbian anytime soon -- or at least it's not prepared to tell the public. Shortly after announcing its own Bada OS, rumors began to fly that Symbian support would fade in the near future; according to a company representative speaking with Mobile Burn, however, that's simply not true. To quote:

"Samsung is an initial member of Symbian Foundation and continues to cooperate with Symbian Foundation. At the same time, Samsung supports various existing open operating systems including Symbian, Linux, Android, and Windows Mobile. To provide more choices to meet consumers' many different tastes and preferences, we will continue our 'multi-OS' strategy."

'Course, just because it's "continuing" to support Symbian doesn't mean that the hammer won't fall tomorrow, but at least for now it seems the Big S is safe from seeing one of its own jump ship. Phew.

TomTom's probably still dizzy from the hit that Google laid on it just a few days ago, but it has somehow managed to get its bearings long enough to announce that a slew of gratis updates are incoming for its highly-hyped iPhone navigation app. Following in Navigon's footsteps, the outfit has today stated that a free update has been submitted to Apple for approval, and when (er, if) it clears Cupertino's ambiguous review process, it'll deliver advanced lane guidance, text-to-speech, "Help Me," updated map / safety cameras (in select European nations) databases, customizable audio warnings and iPod player control. Not a bad list of additions for the grand total of $0.00, but we wouldn't expect anything less given the lofty admission price.

Now that you've got an NPR-lovin' stereo in your bedroom, the only thing missing in your otherwise completely fulfilled life is an NPR application that enables you to listen to your favorite programs whenever, wherever. If we just rung your bell, you can now drift away and die happy. Available this very moment in the 100,000-strong App Store is the Public Radio App, which essentially acts as a DVR for the iconic station. Once fired up, the app can "pause and rewind public radio streams from NPR, PRI, APM and local public radio stations," and there's even an alarm clock setting that wakes you up with your favorite public radio stream. Unfortunately, on-demand streaming is still a pipe dream, but there's nothing to stop these guys from adding that very feature in the next iteration. Go on -- try and lay off the trigger. It's not like that awfully low $2.99 price point is tempting or anything.

Palm device owners have little to complain about when it comes to webOS; not after enduring Garnet and empty Access promises for so long. Still, that OS which relies so heavily upon web technologies like HTML 5, JavaScript, and CSS can be surprisingly sluggish when compared to other smartphone OSes. Now we have a hint as to why thanks to Palm's Ben Galbraith and Dion Almae who made an interesting admission Tuesday related to the Pre's UI latency compared to the iPhone 3GS -- a phone based on the same ARM architecture. According to the duo, "the path to the GPU didn't exist" in webOS, something that will be solved in the "immediate future" using CSS transforms to modify visual elements thus freeing-up CPU cycles for other tasks. Hmm, immediate future sure sounds like a webOS update to accompany the Palm Pixi release on November 15th.

[Via Everything Pre]

Man, talk about awful timing. At least TomTom and Navigon were able to sell a few rounds of their pricey iPhone GPS application before Google went and ruined everyone's day (at least in the GPS biz), and now that Google Maps Navigation is but an approval away from hitting iPhone users for free, we've got serious doubts about Telmap's ability to market its newest product. Utilizing NAVTEQ maps and familiar shells like MapQuest Navigation (in the US) and Orange Maps (in France), the company seems quite proud of its newest routing solutions. Oh sure -- there's live traffic, turn-by-turn guidance, in-car and pedestrian modes, etc., but is anyone really doling out cash for a phone-based routing system right now with Google at the wheel? Exactly.

Got an N97? Yeah? Reckoned that Nokia has forgotten about your loyalty and moved all of its focus onto the N900? Fret not, dearest early adopter -- the engineers in Espoo are making good on a promise to clear out lots of bugs in the aforesaid handset with firmware 2.0, and if we're seeing this right, it's available now to download all over the world. We know, you 5800 owners are clamoring for the same type of TLC, but for now it looks like the pricier sibling is getting its due. Hit the read link and get your download going, and make sure to report back on your kinetic scrolling experience, cool?

[Thanks, Daniel]

Hey, you -- yeah you, the BlackBerry Storm owner over there. You listening? Good. That mythical software update we heard about just last week is obviously the real deal, and a screen grab from Verizon's internal systems has shown up to prove it. We're told that it should go live tomorrow (that's October 25th for those in strange, potentially illegitimate time zones) at 6PM. On the whole, it'll make your Storm act a lot more like the forthcoming Storm2, but specifically you can expect a "faster, more accurate and more natural text input experience, word completion, a virtual QWERTY keyboard in portrait view and enhanced sensitivity when editing, copying and pasting." You'll also get the ability to "enable Auto Correction as opposed to Word Completion in landscape view." The full changelog should be coming soon, so hang tight! Oh, and cancel those plans for tomorrow night, okay?

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Update: Check out the full (purported) changelog after the break!

Man, remember LiMo? Amazingly, there are some 40 handsets on the market today based on the platform, but precisely none of them are boasting a profile as high as any one of the Android smartphones also on store shelves. As Motorola scrambles to re-make itself and prove that its CLIQ is a force to be reckoned with in the burgeoning Android phone sector, the company has also decided to remove itself as a "founding member" of the LiMo Foundation. The company recently noted that the outfit was sliding down to "associate member," stating that "at this time it feels that the Android platform gives it a richer, more consistent foundation with strong support for the ecosystem and developer community." That's a pretty damning statement to our ears, but we won't go so far as to call the breakup between Moto and LiMo official; we're guessing "it's complicated" would be entirely more appropriate here.

[Via phonescoop]

Microsoft's Windows Phones just left the chute a few days ago, and already it seems that ye old DRM is getting talked about -- and not in a good way. According to one Chainfire over at XDA-Developers, the so-called "copy protection" involved in keeping applications in place rather than strewn across a neighborhood of handsets is a pitiful joke, requiring just five minutes of tinkering to save the CAB files that the Marketplace app downloads to a separate folder. In other words, that relocated CAB file could be distributed to all of your friends, turning a single purchase into freeware for as many people as you know (or don't know, even). So, Marketplace devs -- does that make you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, or what?

[Thanks, GreeKNastY]

Hey, remember Motorola Phone Tools? That overpriced app that enabled a select few of you to hack into your Moto and do all sorts of nifty things? Yeah, if and only if you were amongst the smattering of individuals lucky enough to get it installed and functioning properly. Now, it seems as if the company is looking produce a similar app with one primary difference: the new iteration is easy to use. Dubbed Moto Phone Portal, the Android program allows users to select WiFi or USB to connect to one's PC, and once the app is fired up, you simply point your machine's web browser to the listed URL in order to manage contacts, media, etc. on the big(ger) screen. Obviously, Motorola has yet to come forward and confess that this beautiful bit of code is actually real, but we're pretty sure Leakdroid's extensive hands-on will have you convinced.

[Via Leakdroid]

The game's back on. Palm just announced the availability of its 1.2.1 update to WebOS for the Palm Pre and, well, that's it for the time being. It fixes Exchange mail syncing issues experienced by some users, which is nice, but for everyone else it re-enables media sync with iTunes 9.0.1, with or without the USB-IF's support. In fact, Palm has signaled its commitment to its rogue approach by improving synchronization with the Photos app to keep the album structure in tact while allowing lower-resolution images to be synced to the Pre. Oh happy day -- enjoy it while it lasts Pre owners.

Practically all summer, the buzz surrounding TomTom's forthcoming iPhone GPS app was near deafening. But said noise apparently didn't penetrate the labs at Navigon, as that very outfit has produced what's easily the most full-featured option on the market today. Just a week after updating the already-great app with text-to-speech, iPod controls and location sharing, the company is now proclaiming that live traffic will splash down in October (at least in North America). The update will enable the software to utilize real-time speed data from drivers currently en route as well as historical information in order to alert you of slow-downs and re-route you when necessary. We've personally seen live traffic functions fail more often than not, but we're giving Navigon the benefit of the doubt here until we can test it ourselves. Best of all, it'll only cost MobileNavigator users (priced at $89.99) a one-time fee of $24.99 for lifetime traffic, and if you snag it within the first four weeks after it goes on sale, that rate drops to $19.99. So, TomTom -- what now?