Apple Stomps Over Nokia to Become Most Profitable Phone-Maker in US

Despite being in the game for just over two years, gaining only a 2.5% national marketshare and selling only one main model at a time, Apple is now the most profitable maker of phones in the US market, taking the lead spot from Nokia. Apple's operating profit was half a billion dollars more than Nokia's this summer, mostly due to a high profit margin on smartphones—Nokia barely competes in the States in the smartphone category. Nokia doesn't seem inclined to initiate the kind of aggressive push into the US (they're mostly focused on their native Europe) that would be required to compete, so it looks like Apple will continue to sleep on giant beds of cash. It ends up in Remainders because this kind of thing is really only pressing news to Apple shareholders and the kind of weirdos that watch CNBC. [Electronista]

Windows Mobile 7 Is on Track for an Early 2010 Release to OEMs

ZDNet Taiwan reports that Microsoft is on track for an imminent release of Windows Mobile 7, the long-awaited overhaul of the soul-killing WinMo OS. It should be released to OEMs in the first quarter of 2010, which is in line for a spring 2010 general release. Hopefully it won't feel outdated so far in the future. This story landed in Remainders because, well, it's a rumor stating a project is on track for a release a long time in the future. Not the most exciting news ever. [ZDNet via WMPowerUser via Engadget]

Bing Videos Aggregates Hulu, YouTube, ABC and More

This is actually really cool: Bing has begun aggregating videos into its search results, pulling video from sites like Hulu, YouTube and ABC (as well as Microsoft's own MSN Video) into one clean homepage. It allows for easy searching and organization, plus a standard UI (which includes dimming and sharing features). The rollout started today and will continue to expand over the next few days, and can be accessed here. [Bing]

Non-Apple Companies to Support Mini DisplayPort Soon

I hate Mini DisplayPort. I hate proprietary jacks, I hate having to buy a $20 adapter, and I hate capitalization in the middle of words. But I have a MacBook Pro (more mid-word capitalization!) and I have to deal with it, so I guess I'm glad that VESA, the Video Electronics Standards Association, has agreed to adopt mDP as a legitimate branch of DisplayPort. That, coupled with Apple's recent decision to grant no-fee licenses so companies can develop products for it, means Mini DisplayPort could start being more than an annoying Apple idea. Expect accessories using the new standard to start popping up fairly soon. [Ars Technica]

• Intel Atom N270 CPU
• 1GB of RAM
• 160GB HD.
• Three USB ports.
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Wi-Fi b/g
• Windows XP

It weighs 1.1 pounds and measures 300 mm x 240 mm x 65 mm. It has been announced in France for for $254. [Journal du Geek via Pocket Lint]

A touted aspect of DisplayPort is its "security," comforting to those who create content but an unwelcome guest for those who can't stand even the thought of DRM (digital rights management). Carrying HDCP along with it, the standard is designed to protect content from those free-copying, eyepatch-wearing pirates. In addition to that, it also carries an additional DRM can of worms, DPCP (DisplayPort Content Protection).

That gives the standard an advantage over DVI in the eyes of content creators, who have sometimes been known to arm-twist various hardware manufacturers. Speaking of which, the standard has gotten rousing support from many of the usual suspects, including Dell, HP, Philips, Samsung, Intel and Lenovo, and also graphics cards manufacturers AMD and NVIDIA.

Those companies might like this standard better than HDMI for another reason, too: Unlike HDMI, DisplayPort's an open standard with no fees required to those who invented it. Other than that, besides the slight bandwidth advantage of DisplayPort, the two are almost the same and will be interchangable in some cases with an adapter. But not all cases. Such as...

What do we like about it? You can daisy chain multiple 2560x1600 monitors together, and the standard also supports fiber optic cable, able to blast tons of serious bandwidth for longer distances. It also has an advantage over DVI with its 15-meter spec length, compared with DVI's measly 5-meter recommended distance. We're also quite fond of that ability to support 16-bit color for each component, and hey, the damn thing is easier to connect than a DVI or VGA cable. With Dell and ATI first out of the gate, expect graphics cards and monitors to jump on board any day now. [DisplayPort Info Guide]

Those crazy videoheads at VESA have approved the final version of DisplayPort 1.1 that was announced at CES '07. And while we thought it was yet another new connector for your computer, monitors, TVs and projectors, different to every other video port out there and obviously designed to confuse everyone, apparently VESA says "it's a new roadmap for display connectivity convergence."

According to the Gizmodo Dictionary Of Marketing Drone Speak, "display convergence" means "something that is different from HDMI but that includes the same HDCP 1.3 digital content protection that neither the consumer nor some other companies want, and requires stupid dongles to connect to all displays because nobody supports it yet."

More baffling details after the jump.

DisplayPort 1.1 is the size of a "small USB connector", whatever that means, consumes "less energy," whatever that means, offers "higher performance than dual link DVI at 10.8Gbps," whatever that means, and has optional audio support, which I know what it means and makes absolutely no sense. Hopefully, it will be as ignored as DisplayPort 1.0 and everyone will just use HDMI, which currently can support any current monitor's highest resolutions (up to 3.200x2.048), even while it tops at 10.2Gbps. – Jesus Diaz

Press release [VESA]