The first Nokia Windows Phone -- the shining hope of Microsoft's future in mobile devices -- was revealed in this video by Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop.

Elop asked the room full of employees not to take any pictures or video of the "super confidential" device but someone did anyway. I found this via Liveside.net.

In the video, Elop talks about how the advances seen in Nokia's new N9, which was unveiled Tuesday, will be extended to the Windows devices. No wonder Nokia didn't deny this speculation when the N9 was revealed earlier this week.

"There's a whole collection of innovation in the N9 that's going to live on," he said, before revealing a phone code-named "Sea Ray," Nokia's first Windows phone.

The phone looks great, which may be the reason that details of Apple's upcoming new iPhone were released early, in Wednesday's Bloomberg story.

Sea Ray has roughly the same physical design as the N9 and sports an 8 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. It appears about a minute and a half into the video.

I wonder if the code name is a reference to a Sea Ray boat, the kind that Microsoft executives may use to visit each other's homes along the eastern shore of Lake Washington.

Here's a larger picture of a Sea Ray:

A strong voice joined the chorus saying that Apple will release the iPhone 5 in September. Bloomberg's reporting that the device is coming with a more powerful chip and an 8 megapixel camera, up from the current 5 megapixel version.

Apple's also testing a new iPad with a higher resolution screen like the one used in the current iPhone, the report said.

It cites "two people familiar with the product" and said Apple declined to comment.

But the report comes as a wave of competitive new phones are being released, some for the fast new wireless networks that Apple hasn't yet enabled the iPhone to use.

Firmer reports about the new iPhone create uncertainty among phone buyers considering recently released phones, and cast a shadow over Microsoft's Windows Phone launch and new Nokia hardware coming later this year.

The Bloomberg story said the phone will look similar to the current iPhone. It suggests more common hardware between the iPhone and iPad. The iPhone 5 will use the A5 processor that's used in the iPad 2, while the tablet device is getting a display with resolution similar to the current phone.

The report also said Apple's working on a smaller, lower-priced iPhone aimed at overseas markets.

Nokia introduced a gorgeous new touchscreen phone that hints at the kind of hardware that could come with Windows Phone software later this year.

The N9 unveiled at a conference in Singapore is running the Meego software that Nokia is phasing out in favor of Windows, but the real sizzle is its industrial design and specs. It has a 3.9-inch curved AMOLED touchscreen behind Gorilla glass, with a 1 gigahertz A8 processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM and 16 or 64 gigabytes of storage.

It has no physical buttons at all on the face, so you unlock the device by tapping on the screen.

Nokia has also given the device an 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss wide-angle lens that takes 720p video, plus a second camera for video calls. Its HSDPA radio is capable of up to 14.4 Mbps downloads.

Nokia's going to release a mix of Windows Phone models by the end of the year, and it seems a good guess there will be an upper-end version based on this chassis.

(UPDATE: Nokia scheduled a big event for Oct. 26 in London and some are speculating that's when the Windows Phones will debut.)

Meanwhile Nokia will begin selling the Meego-powered N9 "later this year" in black, cyan and magenta. Nokia said availability and pricing will be "announced closer to the sales start." (I wonder if it will appear before or after the iPhone 5, which is rumored to be coming in September.)

The phone also has turn-by-turn navigation for walking and driving and a built-in "Drive" app for automotive use. Microsoft plans to use Nokia's navigation technology as part of their partnership so perhaps this is another preview of what's coming to Windows phones.

A Nokia spokeswoman declined to say whether the N9 hardware will be used with Windows Phone software, saying via email that "we have not provided further information on our first Windows Phone devices at this time."

It also has NFC capability, for wirelessly making credit transactions, which will probably be a standard feature on smartphones pretty soon.

Here's Nokia's demo video:

Expect to hear more about the next version of Windows next week.

It was just announced that Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live group, will speak at the All Things D conference next week in the Los Angeles area.

Sinofsky [below] has a longtime relationship with conference co-host Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's personal technology columnist.

The timing is right for another peek at Windows 8 or whatever Microsoft decides to call the next version of its flagship operating system. It's expected to go on sale, along with a wave of new PCs, in early 2012.

At the Consumer Electronics Show In January, Sinofsky gave a technical preview of the software, showing that it runs on small mobile device hardware.

A fuller preview is expected at a Windows developer conference that Microsoft's holding in Anaheim in September.

Perhaps Sinofsky will stoke anticipation -- and further ties with Mossberg -- by using the D9 conference to reveal more details of Windows 8 such as its interface design.

Sinofsky is likely to be asked to clarify some of the details about Windows 8 that were released by Intel. A manager revealed there will be different versions of the software and different application compatibility for systems based on traditional x86 computers and those running mobile ARM processors.

Steve Ballmer gave him an opening, dropping a few tidbits at a developer conference in Tokyo today, Mary Jo Foley noted this afternoon. Ballmer said the new OS will be released in 2012 and he called it Windows 8, although that may not be the final name. From his speech:

We're obviously hard at work on the next version of Windows. Windows 7 PCs will sell over 350 million units this year. We've done a lot in Windows 7 to improve customer satisfaction. We have a brand new user interface. We've added touch, and ink, and speech. And yet, as we look forward to the next generation of Windows systems, which will come out next year, there's a whole lot more coming. As we progress through the year, you ought to expect to hear a lot about Windows 8. Windows 8 slates, tablets, PCs, a variety of different form factors.

D9 co-host Kara Swisher announced Sinofsky's appearance today, but held back on previewing whatever news he'll make next week. Swisher said Sinofsky "will talk about the future of Windows in the era of all kinds of new devices and the cloud."

Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos had no details to provide, beyond confirming Sinofsky's appearance at the event.

The conference runs Tuesday through Thursday.

Other speakers include a raft of CEOs: Hewlett-Packard's Leo Apotheker, Twitter's Dick Costolo, AT&T Mobility's Ralph de la Vega, Disney's Robert Iger, Zynga's Mark Pincus and Reed Hastings of Netflix. Others include Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Sinofsky's old co-worker, Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop.

Hooking up with Nokia will help Microsoft overtake Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry within a few years, according to a new report from research firm IDC.

The combination should boost Windows phones to second place among smartphone platforms worldwide by 2015, IDC said in its latest Mobile Phone Tracker report.

For now, the big story is Google's Android software. IDC expects Android will become the most-used smartphone platform this year, after zooming up to second place in 2010.

"For the vendors who made Android the cornerstone of their smartphone strategies, 2010 was the coming-out party," Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst, said in the release. "This year will see a coronation party as these same vendors broaden and deepen their portfolios to reach more customers, particularly first-time smartphone users."

Overall sales of smartphones will continue growing but not at the same pace as 2010, it predicted. Smartphone sales are expected to grow 49.2 percent this year - to 450 million units - as consumers and business users continue upgrading their devices, it predicts.

Llamas said the Nokia deal will reverse Microsoft's phone slide.

"Up until the launch of Windows Phone 7 last year, Microsoft has steadily lost market share while other operating systems have brought forth new and appealing experiences," he said in the release. "The new alliance brings together Nokia's hardware capabilities and Windows Phone's differentiated platform. We expect the first devices to launch in 2012. By 2015, IDC expects Windows Phone to be number 2 operating system worldwide behind Android."

The chart from the release:

Every time you turn around nowadays there's another huge tech trade show, at which a bunch of new phones and tablets are announced.

Here's a sample of the cool new gadgets surfacing at the CTIA wireless conference this week in Orlando. Some of the devices were already announced, and some still don't have prices and specific ship dates yet.

Sprint was the first to offer a 4G phone in the U.S., and now it's offering a 4G phones with glasses-free 3D displays, available 2U this summer for a price to be announced later. It's an Android-based device built by HTC, with the "Sense" interface designed in Pioneer Square.

The HTC Evo 3D has a 4.3-inch, 960 by 540 pixel 3D display. Inside it has dual-core 1.2 gigahertz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 4 gigabytes of internal memory and 1 gig of RAM. It functions as a 3G/4G hotspot supporting up to eight devices at once over WiFi and outputs 720p video via HDMI. On the back it has dual 5 megapixel cameras for taking 3D images and videos.

Sprint's also going to sell a tablet-sized version of the device, called the HTC Evo View 4G. It has a 7-inch diagonal, 1024 by 600 pixel touchscreen (without 3D). The tablet runs on a 1.5 GHz Snapdragon dual-core processor with 32 gigs of internal memor and 1 gig of RAM. It also uses HTC's "Scribe" system for input with a digital pen and works as a hotspot.

Yesterday, Sprint announced that it's also going to sell Google's new flagship Android device, the Nexus S 4G. The Samsung phone has a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, 1 GHz processor, a dedicated graphics processing unit and Android version 2.3 ("Gingerbread"). Sprint and Google also said they're connecting Google Voice, so Sprint customers can use their phone number with Google's calling service. The phone's coming this spring.

AT&T yesterday announced that it's also selling a glasses-free 3D phone, the LG Thrill 4G, with a 4.3-inch screen, dual-core 1 GHz processor and Android version 2.2. The Thrill comes with 16 gigs of memory - 8 onboard plus an 8 gig memory card - and records 3D video at 720p and 2D video at 1080p. It also plays back high-def video thorugh an HDMI port or streams it to DLNA devices.

AT&T's also going to sell a version of the Windows-based HTC HD7, which it's calling the HD7S. It's going to use the HSPA+ network and have the updated software with cut-and-paste when it's released in a few weeks.

T-Mobile also introduced several new phones, including the "G2x with Google by LG," or the G2x for short. It's based on a dual-core 1 GHz Tegra 2 processor and Android 2.2. There's also an 8 megapixel camera that takes 1080p video and front-facing 1.3 megapixel chatcam.

T-Mobile announced that it's boosting the maximum speed of its HSPA+ network in a handful of markets - Las Vegas, Orlando and New York - to 42 megabits per second. To get those speeds, you'll need a new device, though - namely the "Rocket" stick modems announced at the show:

The Bellevue-based company also introduced a "value" smartphone, the Nokia Astound, that will cost $80 (after a $50 rebate) when it goes on sale April 6. It has a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen, free turn-by-turn navigation and an 8 megapixel camera that takes 720p video. The Astound is based on Nokia's Symbian operating system that's going to be displaced starting next year by Windows.

No wonder Nokia agreed to use Windows Phone software.

Microsoft will pay Nokia more than $1 billion to promote and develop Windows phones, according to a new report by Bloomberg's Dina Bass.

The story, based on two unnamed sources "with knowledge of the terms," offers new details about the huge deal announced Feb. 11.

It said the contract between the tech giants struggling in the smartphone market will last more than five years and has yet to be finalized.

Despite the huge payout, Microsoft will still make money from royalty payments made by Nokia, the story says. The Redmond company will also give Microsoft the right to use Nokia's huge patent portfolio.

Images of Nokia concept phones running Windows Phone 7 were posted this afternoon by AOL blog Engadget, and they look pretty credible.

They also look a little bit like the Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7, at least from the back, with the subtle taper on the back.

I wonder if this was a deliberate leak to build enthusiasm among gadget fans who weren't captivated by this morning's business-heavy announcement by Microsoft and Nokia.

Here's a screengrab of the page:

The top executive at HTC's U.S. headquarters said he's not too worried about Nokia hooking up with Microsoft and the deal validates HTC's approach to the smartphone business.

After getting an early boost from Microsoft, HTC has emerged as a leading producer of advanced phones, claiming higher-end market share that Nokia's hoping to win back with Windows-based devices.

Mighty Nokia is actually following the same path HTC took to its success, said Jason Mackenzie, (left) Bellevue-based president of HTC for North America and Latin America.

Mackenzie said Nokia's partnering with Microsoft is "a validation of what we're doing."

"Nokia's following a similar lead to what HTC's been doing, in not investing in our own platform, taking solid platforms and filling the gap to deliver a solid experience to the end user," he said.

As for the competition HTC will face from Nokia phones running Windows, it's "one more competitor," he said.

"I feel confident in what we're doing," he said. "We've got a fresh brand that's resonating with consumers."

HTC emerged in the late 1990s as the first manufacturer of Microsoft Pocket PC devices and early Microsoft smartphones that appeared starting in 2002.

In recent years the company invested heavily in software and hardware design studios in Seattle and San Francisco to differentiate its phones. It developed a polished software interface that it layers over the underlying operating system.

HTC continues to make phones based on Windows -- including five Windows Phone 7 models so far =- but it's now selling more phones based on Google's Android software. It released the first Android phone in 2008.

Mackenzie said HTC will continue to produce Windows Phone 7 devices, despite the Nokia announcement. It won't be announcing any new Windows models next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona but several will be announced later in the year.

"Obviously Windows Phone 7 is a platform we've invested tremendously on" and "we'll continue to support that," he said.

Asked if the Nokia deal will improve the momentum of Windows Phone 7, Mackenzie said: "It broadens the ecosystem, which is good for everyone. We'll see."

Google's apparently not going to be dancing with Nokia.

Nokia's preparing to make a big announcement Friday, presumably about whether it will partner with Microsoft or Google to help revamp the Finnish phone giant's smartphone business.

But over the last few days, a few prominent Google employees have posted snarky comments on Twitter that imply Google's Android platform is no longer in the running. That implies that Nokia's going to announce that it will use Microsoft's Windows Phone software instead.

Fortune blogger Seth Weintraub and others called out the first, a coded Feb. 8 pronouncement from Google Vice President Vic Gundotra. He tweeted "#feb 11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle."

February 11 is the date of Nokia's partnership announcement. Weintraub noted that the "two turkeys" comment also echoes a 2005 comment by a Nokia executive, dismissing a competitive challenge from Siemens and BenQ.

If that wasn't enough, today Google's Android developer advocate, Tim Bray, trashed the judgement of Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop, former president of Microsoft's business division until last September.

Weintraub also spotted Bray's snark:

"Poor Mr. Elop. Has to make the big tech call not ever having written a line of mobile code or done system bring-up work."

Elop has a degree in computer engineering and management and worked at Lotus, Juniper, Adobe and Macromedia before joining Microsoft in 2008.

Bray tried to downplay the comment with followup tweets, saying that "I have no inside info on Nokia. What I said is also true of every other handset-maker CEO. Core prob in technology management."

Poor Mr. Bray and Gundotra. Their tweets also reveal something about Google.

Nokia's deal with Microsoft may not last forever. How enthusiastic is Mr. Elop going to be about Android the next time around?

You can only read so many tech blogs "surprised" by Stephen Elop's move to Nokia, opining that the Finnish phone giant really needed someone like Steve Jobs.

For more perspective, check out this analysis in the British tech pub The Register. A few excerpts:

So modest is Elop's resume, that he lists his tenure at fast food outlet Boston Chicken Incorporated twice on his LinkedIn profile. (To be precise -- Boston Chicken Inc and Einstein Brothers Bagels.)

It's amazing just how widespread is the perception that Nokia has been left behind. For example, today the BBC, reporting on the change of CEO, tells us that Nokia has "struggled to break into the smartphone market". This must hurt; Nokia effectively created the smartphone market and has (numerically, at least) led it for a decade. But Nokia's smartphones really aren't used as data devices. They're expensive phones, and the end-user experience has been horrible and getting worse.

Elop's biggest challenge is that Nokia is more than capable of restoring its fortunes. This was pointed out by Junhani Risku in his recent book on the company. It still has the clever designers and boffins to bring innovations to market. What the CEO needs to do is cut through huge layers of corporate bureaucracy to allow this innovation to flourish. And since Nokia is something of a state institution, this isn't going to be easy.

The second phone to take advantage of Clearwire's 4G network will be the Samsung Epic 4G, a special version of the Samsung Galaxy S going on sale Aug. 31 for $250.

It follows the Evo 4G that debuted in June. Both use 4G where available and 3G everywhere else, and work as mobile hotspots for an additional fee.

Sprint's release billed its new Android slider phone as "A Movie Theater in Your Hand." Samsung's preparing a "media hub" service with a video store to buy or rent movies and TV shows via the device, which has a 4-inch Super AMOLED display.

The phone's also going to work with Samsung's "AllShare" service that wirelessly shares music, photos and HD video with TVs, cameras, printers and other devices with DLNA certification.

Inside it's running Android 2.1 on Samsung's 1 GHz processor; Apple uses related processors from Samsung in the iPad and iPhone 4. The Epic 4G has a 5 megapixel camera that takes 720p HD video and a front-facing camera for video chat.

The price is after a $100 rebate and with a two-year commitment to plans starting at $70 per month. Pre-orders begin Friday.

Sprint's announcement coincides with a new report from Gartner saying that Android has overtaken Apple's iOS to become the world's third-most popular mobile operating system, behind Symbian and RIM, during the second quarter. In the U.S., Android's now ahead of RIM, the report said.

Samsung, meanwhile, is the world's second-largest phone maker behind Nokia and ahead of LG.

Today's jaw-dropper is the amazing growth of Android-based phones - up 886 percent in the second quarter, according to research firm Canalys.

The surge also made Android the largest smartphone platform in the U.S., where it took 34 percent of the market in Q2.

Crazy growth in the overall market for smartphones continues as mobile phone buyers, especially in the U.S., upgrade to the more capable devices. Canalys reports that smartphone sales grew 64 percent in the quarter.

Worldwide Nokia still leds with 38 percent of the smartphone market in Q2, with its shipments growing 41 percent year-over-year to 23.8 million in the quarter, Canalys reported.

RIM's BlackBerry grew 41 percent, holding second place with 18 percent of the global market, while Apple's iPhone sales grew 61 percent after the iPhone 4 launch and it now has 13 percent of the smartphone market, according to Canalys.

"Expect to see smart phones accounting for a growing proportion of the wider mobile phone market as they become increasingly affordable to more customers," Canalys Senior Analyst Pete Cunningham said in the release. "By 2013, smart phones will grow to represent over 27% of shipments worldwide, with the proportion in some developed markets in Western Europe surpassing 60% and 48% in North America."

The chart - with U.S. and China stats only - included in the Canalys release:

Phone sales grew 19 percent in the first quarter, according to a new report from ABI Research, which noted that sales of 3G handsets overtook those of 2G handsets. The company is predicting 1.3 billion phones will be sold this year.

Nokia is still selling the most phones, followed by Samsung. Apple has 2.9 percent of the world market, but grew the number of phones sold by 130 percent in the quarter.

Sales grew the fastest -- 20 percent -- in the Middle East and Africa, followed by the U.S., where they were up 11 percent, according to a summary provided by ABI.

Seattle has to have a few contenders for a new contest Nokia is running. It's offering a $1 million investment in the best mobile business idea submitted to its Growth Economy Venture Challenge.

That's a lot of Finnish cheese for a phone app.

But it can't be another mobile game or Twitter client -- Nokia wants to hear from people thinking globally. It's looking for:

-- An idea that could truly change the way people use Nokia mobile devices.
-- An idea that demonstrates how mobility improves the lives of millions of people in emerging markets worldwide.
-- An idea that recognizes a good business opportunity can also contribute to "doing good" -- and making a dramatic difference in the lives of people in developing nations.

Here's the judging criteria, from the contest Web site:

-- It must include a clear mission statement; and provide a product or service plan that will undeniably raise the standard of living, and/or enhance the lives of people living in emerging market countries today.
-- The initial target market must be located in a region with per capita income significantly lower than what is found in industrialized nations today (e.g., sub-$5 per day).
-- It must include a viable business model that has a high likelihood of providing a strong return on investment for the venture funding provided.

Submissions are due June 10.

It's still early days in the mobile application marketplace and Apple's App Store hasn't won yet, competitors told game developers during a panel at the Casual Connect conference this afternoon.

A new version of Microsoft's equivalent, a Windows Mobile marketplace, will start taking submissions from developers on July 27, said Steve Hegenderfer, Windows Mobile group product manager. The company's still trying to figure out things like whether to set price tiers.

Hegenderfer said Apple has "early mover" advantage but the industry is still in its infancy, with all sorts of new opportunities, he said.

"If anyone thinks Apple is going to run this thing they're sorely mistaken," he said, adding that "we are so early, we are barely scratching the tip of the iceberg, and it's exciting."

Nokia launched its "Ovi" mobile application store on May 23, said Patrick Stanton, the Finnish phone company's director of content operations.

Stanton didn't comment directly on how it will compete with Apple's App store, but noted that the Ovi store software is being preloaded on Nokia phones and the company ships about 300 million units per year.

There will eventually be half a dozen big marketplaces and developers are going to offer their applications in all of them, Stanton said.

"We're all playing in similar spaces so you're going to have to look at how these things evolve over time,'' he said. "It's going to be a competitive marketplace for some time to come."

Hegenderfer said the winning mobile marketplaces will be the ones that enable developers to make a living.

"That's what its gong to come down to ... who is going to allow you to make more money than anyone else," he said.

But developers in the audience said it gets complicated to develop for platforms with multiple devices.

"If I build for you I've got to build for nine form factors," one told Hegenderfer, before telling Stanton that writing for Nokia's Symbian platform "doesn't do me any any good on the PC platform or Mac platform" and "it's wickedly hard to develop for because of your memory model."

If an Apple representative was in the room, he continued, he'd tell that company to open up its platform.

Time to check the Goodwill's cellphone bin: Hackers in Europe are offering up to $32,000 for a certain type of phone made at a now defunct factory in Bochum, Germany.

Apparently these Nokia 1100 phones are particularly easy to use in a bank fraud scheme involving authentication messages sent by European banks, according to an IGN story picked up by PC World.

It sounds like something out of a novel:

The 1100 can apparently be reprogrammed to use someone else's phone number, which would also let the device receive text messages. That capability opens up an opportunity for online banking fraud.

In countries such as Germany, banks send an mTAN (mobile Transaction Authentication Number) to a person's mobile phone that must be entered into a Web-based form in order to, for example, transfer money into another account. A TAN can only be used once, a security feature known as a one-time passcode.

Nokia said it's unaware of any software vulnerability that's particular to the Bochum-made 1100s.