According to sources close to the situation, Apple is planning an important — but not large-scale — event to be held in New York at the end of this month that will focus on a media-related announcement.

Per the usual caveat, the tech giant is well known for moving around their public show-and-tells, so this could certainly change at any moment.

But, for sure, several sources underscored that the event is not related to an upcoming version of the iPad 3, the next iteration of the popular tablet device that many expect to be available in 2012.

Also unlikely, the rollout of Apple’s large-scale rethinking of the interactive television initiative that it has been working on. While the company is expected to launch a new Apple TV product later in 2012, such an event would almost certainly be held in the heart of the industry in Hollywood or at least in Silicon Valley.

That leaves some kind of advertising or even publishing announcement, which might be the case, since Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue is reportedly involved.

Cue is in charge of a large swath of Apple’s media units, including the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, as well as iAd and its iCloud services.

It’s well known in the ad industry that Apple has been searching for a new head of its mobile advertising unit, since Andy Miller left last summer.

But such an appointment has not been made as yet, said sources.

The last time Cue was in New York for an event, by the way, was nearly a year ago, when Apple helped launch News Corp.’s online magazine, The Daily.

And Apple also recently opened a splashy new retail store in Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, and has been refurbishing its flagship glass cube on Fifth Avenue, too.

The holiday-having Apple PR team declined comment, but wished me a “happy, happy new year.”

Mozilla is set to announce that it has signed a new three-year agreement for Google to be the default search option in its Firefox browser.

It’s a critical renewal for the Silicon Valley software maker, since its earlier deal with the search giant has been a major source of revenue to date.

The companies said the specific terms of the commercial agreement are not being released. But, in 2010, Google contributed 84 percent of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue.

A previous version of the arrangement had expired at the end of November. Mozilla said at the time that it was in “active negotiations” with Google.

The relationship has not been without some tension of late. Since the first search royalty deal was signed in 2008, Google’s own Chrome browser has become a significant competitor. Just last month, Chrome overtook Firefox in global usage for the first time, according to StatCounter. Both browsers — software which is used to navigate the Internet — have about 25 percent market share.

Mozilla also has partnerships with other search providers, including Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon and eBay.

Here’s the full announcement Mozilla will soon put out:

Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search in Firefox

We’re pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google. This new agreement extends our long term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years.

“Under this multi-year agreement, Google Search will continue to be the default search provider for hundreds of millions of Firefox users around the world,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO, Mozilla.

“Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years and we look forward to continuing this great partnership in the years to come,” said Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President of Search, Google.

The specific terms of the commercial agreement are confidential and are not being released.

In the forefront of everyone’s mind covering the Apple event today, there is probably a fervent little wish that at some point its legendary co-founder and chairman Steve Jobs will saunter on out to take a much-deserved bow.

That seems unlikely for a variety of reasons — most especially because it would take the focus off Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook and also the new products being featured.

It certainly would be something to see, even if it would be difficult, in one stage moment, to encapsulate the profound impact of Jobs on Apple and on the tech world in general.

But it seems unlike Jobs to do that, mostly because it would be too obvious, too rote and too much of a Hollywood wrap-it-all-up cliche.

And, most of all, because it’s not different — a guiding idea that has always been at the heart of Apple and its best motto ever.

I thought a lot about that today, looking over all the frantic speculation about exactly what Apple would release this morning, and all the piles and piles of news stories, tweets and more about it all.

That has become typical around any Apple announcement, of course, and it can become more than a little wearying at times.

That said, when you take a moment to step back and think about it, all the hubbub is perhaps a good thing, given that a lot of it is about what could be done, what might be made, what people really hope for in technology.

That’s because — unlike other, more prosaic tech companies, who all make a lot of cool stuff, too — much of the crazy swirl around Apple seems to be about what’s possible and what could be.

And that is at the heart of the most important “one more thing” that Steve Jobs has given to Silicon Valley and beyond.

Which is to say, the impetus to think different.

In fact, it’s hard to say just how critical it is in this world today to zig in an opposite way from the safe norm, and to do it with a confidence that belies the difficulty of that shift.

In small tech ways, Jobs has done that again and again, dumping everything from removable batteries to Flash to internal disk drives to whatever he thought needed the heave-ho.

These are not easy decisions for a big tech company to make. But they are ones that are often muddled through by too many executives, to little effect and no definitive change, leaving a mushy pile of nothing.

As I like to say about a lot of big companies I cover — they think small, and then, well, think smaller.

For all its pros and cons, that has never been Apple under Jobs, and I hope that continues.

Jobs sounded a lot of the same arguments in his famous 2005 speech at Stanford University, in which he famously said: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

So in honor of his massive contribution: Let’s.

It reminds me of a poem by Shel Silverstein that I always read to my kids — so much so that they are more than a bit tired of hearing it, even if I never am:

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child,
Listen to the DON’Ts
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me –
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.

And while it is perhaps just another iPhone or whatever doodad Apple whips out today, the real point of it — and what Jobs has taught tech — is that it can be anything.

Enjoy:

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At Facebook’s developer conference today in San Francisco, CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled what he is calling “real-time serendipity.”

The announcement will change the way that all users interact with applications, and what information will automatically appear in the new ticker feed that scrolls quickly down the right-hand side of the page.

Yesterday, Liz Gannes explained what Facebook’s new features mean and how they will promote a lot more sharing without clogging everyone’s main news feed.

Well, this is how over-sharing will begin to work.

Before today, applications commonly would request permission to publish a story to your feed one at a time. For example, “Zack just found a mushroom in Super Mario Brothers!”

The audience applauded the action since oftentimes these permissions can be slow and annoying, but without them, it will no doubt disturb people seeking privacy.

Now users will be asked to give permission up front when they start using an application, so all these little alerts will show up automatically. This is being called “frictionless” sharing.

Now when you listen to a song, it will appear in your feed that you have started using Spotify, or are playing a game.

CTO Bret Taylor explains, “Adding an app to your timeline is like wiring a real-time connection between your app and Facebook… There is no step two.”

Zuckerberg says this is the best way to discover new music.

Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek made an appearance on stage to applaud the actions, saying it will lead to more music discovery and ultimately more music sold.

This announcement is tied to Facebook’s announcement that it is now adding verbs to your feed, other than “like,” such as “read,” “hike,” and “want.”

So, on the “read” front, Zuckerberg announced relationships with Yahoo news, the Washington Post and The Daily, where users will be able to click on an item in the stream and read it within Facebook. “This has the potential to rethink the way we read news, but also the way the whole news industry works,” Zuckerberg said.

The open graph will also change the way games are played. “Social games are killing it,” he said. “They’ve been the most succesful apps on Facebook.”

So, from the activity feed on the right of the screen, you’ll be able to see that your friend just played a word in a game of Zynga’s Words with Friends. From the feed, you can click on the alert to open the game board and see the game play.

Facebook is working with a ton of game companies to enable the games for the open graph, including EA, lolapps, Wooga, Digital Chocolate, and Zynga.

Facebook clearly worked with developers in advance to create examples of using the open graph, but Taylor said other developers should be able to update their current applications in one afternoon.

Still don’t get it? Here’s a video:

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After a series of increasingly disappointing quarterly earnings announcements, Wall Street is hoping that Research in Motion will deliver better results today.

The Canadian phone maker — most famous for its iconic Blackberry devices — will be reporting its second-quarter earnings after the markets close later today.

Analysts are predicting earnings of 87 cents a share for the period, which is within RIM’s own guidance range of adjusted profit — between 75 cents and $1.05 per share.

Higher would be better, based on the hope that sales of its most recent smartphones with the Blackberry 7 operating system, and also its lackluster PlayBook tablet, will help its results after a downward slide that has been painful.

That’s been especially tough, since both Apple’s iOS and Google Android are surging ahead in the mobile market.

RIM hopes to also get a boost from the first phone using the QNX operating system it bought last year.

Last Thursday, both Facebook and Google seemed to suddenly have gaming announcements at the exact same time. Due to the scheduling snafu, much was made of the ongoing war between the pair of Silicon Valley giants.

Some had speculated that Facebook moved up its developers-only event in order to screw up the news that Google+ was adding games to the social network. Others surmised that Google had rushed its plans in order to steal Facebook’s thunder about its improvements.

Not so on either side, as it turns out, especially since these kinds of complex events — and with so many varied partners — are a little like herding cats. In other words, you need to do a lot of planning.

According to sources, Google had long planned to announce its offerings this week. And, as you can see from the email below, Facebook had its invites out a while back.

Thus, although it makes for a gripping narrative, we can put away the cutlasses at dawn.

For now.

Because the real substance of the competition — each trying to draw more users to its games, which has been big business on Facebook — remains in effect, as the pair continue to make moves into each others’ businesses going forward.

Also impacted by Google+ games: Apple.

As Tricia Duryee noted:

“Google’s move into videogames today should scare both Facebook and Apple, the two leading next-generation game platforms. In particular, what should be frightening is that Google is attempting to break today’s 30 percent cut that has become standard across both Facebook and Apple.”

That’s scary, for sure. But, at least when it comes to scheduling, sometimes an event is just an event.

Here’s the Facebook invite:

Jeff Jordan, the president and CEO of OpenTable who unexpectedly stepped down from his job today at the online restaurant reservation leader, is set to take a job at a major venture firm in Silicon Valley.

Sources said Jordan has spoken to several major VCs about moving to their firms recently.

While Benchmark Capital was a big funder of OpenTable before it went public in 2009, sources said the likeliest home for the well-known Internet player–Jordan has also been a major exec at eBay–is Andreessen Horowitz.

The move would be a coup for the firm, which has been busy adding partners since its founding only a few years ago by Web icon Marc Andreessen and his longtime business partner Ben Horowitz.

Jordan’s announcement that he was leaving OpenTable today during its first-quarter earnings call caused the stock to decline precipitously today, even though he said he would remain active as executive chairman.

CFO Matthew Roberts was named as his replacement.

Explaining the move, Jordan said:

“I’ve been managing Internet businesses since 1999. That’s 12 years of being in the tornado, and it’s pretty exhausting. I’ll be looking at the next challenge, but in terms of operating an Internet business, I’ve scratched that itch very well.”

It’s an itch that he will be scratching as a VC apparently and likely at one of tech’s hottest firms, which has investments in everything from gaming phenom Zynga to social buying service Groupon to microblogging start-up Twitter.

A spokeswoman for Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment and Jordan has not responded to an email query.

It is definitely a bummer of a day at AOL today, for those employees getting the boot.

Last night, BoomTown broke the news that the layoffs were coming today in both the U.S. and India.

Sources said those being laid off on the AOL staff in the U.S. will be getting four weeks of severance plus one week for each year of service.

It will be paid out every two weeks, instead of a lump sum.

In a memo, AOL said “impacted employees will be notified by 3 PM EST today and we will be scheduling an all-employee call at 5pm EST to answer any questions you may have.”

After all the bad news today, sources at AOL said there will be a series of more forward-leaning announcements about changes to AOL’s editorial offerings, now run by the Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington.

AOL is making a lot of these drastic changes as its CEO Tim Armstrong seeks to turnaround the long-suffering Internet giant.

Finally, here the actual layoff memo, although I am not sure exactly what a “hyper-local, national and global media company” is:

From: Armstrong, Tim
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 07:16 AM
To: Armstrong, Tim
Subject: AOL’s Next Step

AOLers -

Today is the next critical step on the comeback trail for AOL. We are creating a next generation hyper-local, national and global media company, and every action we’ve taken since AOL became an independent company has taken us further down that path. Our strategy remains clear: create high quality content experiences for consumers, at scale. As the digital landscape quickly evolves, so must our business, and we must continue to transform our organizational structure to one that works for today’s Internet.

Today, we are announcing an organizational structure that will significantly improve AOL’s ability to focus on growth. The structure will also impact areas of our team–making the decision to reduce staff levels is a necessary part of rebalancing our workforce to be competitive in our industry. Affected employees will be notified today and AOL will offer assistance programs–including workspace, counseling, and technology. We ask all of our employees to help impacted employees find career opportunities within our industry.

The structural changes at AOL are possible because of the progress we have made as a team in the last 12 months. The majority of our sites have materially improved their consumer experiences, our advertising business continues to get healthier and more innovative, our video position is strengthening everyday, our local footprint is quickly expanding, we are attracting some of the most talented people in the world to work at AOL, and our technology infrastructure is simpler and more robust. AOL is a global brand and a global opportunity and we are doing the hard work that will once again make the company an industry leader.

There are three important aspects to the structural changes we are making today. The first is the architecture of our brand portfolio. The second is the organizational design of The Huffington Post Media Group. The third is our shift from India being a business process center to India being a consumer products group focused on the APAC market.

New Structure: Investing in our Brand Portfolio

AOL’s brand portfolio has become more focused and stronger over the last year and we will continue to invest in our brands. We are committed to an AOL brand architecture that empowers us to build best-in-class brands that serve valuable audiences with incredible content and great experiences. As you have seen and have access to, AOL’s brands are measured with a consistent set of criteria that will allow us to transparently judge the health of each brand. As we considered adding The Huffington Post, we looked at the combined assets of the two companies and have found creative ways to strengthen our portfolio and will continue the brand refinement process over time. AOL will have four areas of significant brands: Media (Media & Ads–including Local), Publisher Networks (Media & Ads for Publishers), Applications (Communications, Mobile, Commerce), and Subscriptions (Paid Subscribers).

We have a clear path to brand success–which is only turbo-charged with the addition of the Huffington Post to our brand portfolio. We have an AOL brand that enjoys 99% brand awareness and our commitment to reinvigorating the AOL Brand has enabled us to begin to shift brand perception of AOL–including being named as one of the top 50 brands “loved” by consumers at the end of 2010. We will continue to invest in the AOL Brand as well as support best-in-class brands that will allow us to grow our overall audience and reflect our focus on the most valuable audiences–our 80, 80, 80 strategy.

New Structure: Huffington Post Media Group

The addition of the Huffington Post will be a core foundational element in our drive to be a leading digital media and brand advertising company. HuffPost attracts over 27 million people a month–its unique visitors have increased 588% over the last three years, and revenue has increased 400%. The company is leading the way in connecting content with social communities. AOL will be replacing approximately $20 million of loss in our news and finance operation with a high growth company and a team that is pioneering the way the world gets information.

The newly formed Huffington Post Media Group (HPMG) is a vehicle to house and grow our investments in journalism and content in general. The goal of HPMG will be to create compelling, content-driven experiences for users. Consumers, world-class brands, relevant audiences, and innovative brand advertising opportunities are a winning formula for the future of the web and HPMG will have significant resources and distribution to be a leader in our space.

With Arianna’s leadership and vision, HPMG will be fueled by high-quality editorial content, and will give AOL the enhanced ability to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, entertainment, information, and community – all integrating our local, national and global content initiatives. As President and Editor-in-Chief, Arianna will lead the content vision. Jon Brod, as HPMG Chief Operating Officer, will be Arianna’s business partner and lead the business strategy for HPMG. We will replicate this model through the vertical content areas and become an editorial-led media organization that allows us to create higher quality content in real time, while better aligning the editorial and business sides of our company.

We are creating Department Editor positions for each of the editorial departments and their partners will be the General Managers (formerly our Mayors), who will continue to serve as CEOs, driving revenue, distribution and overall growth strategy for the departments they support. We will be expanding the advertising programs (like Project Devil) and the distribution opportunities (like mobile and video) through the work of the GMs. GMs will also work to connect the content brands with our central sales force.

The editorial-driven model of The Huffington Post Media Group will also change the way we create our content. Going forward, AOL will invest more heavily in our in-house editorial team and transition away from a reliance on freelance journalists. Journalists are the heart and soul of a media company, and our reporters and editors will be working closely with the tech group to produce compelling and engaging editorial content–including lots of video.

As part of this enhanced focus on quality journalism, we will be making new editorial hires in the HPMG as well as continuing to expand and grow Patch. With the acquisition of The Huffington Post and this renewed focus on editorial creation, we have increased the number of staff dedicated to content creation to over 1200 people and remain a net importer of journalists.

As a result of this new structure, close to 200 people will be leaving the AOL Media and tech groups in the US. These changes, among others, will be necessary as we execute our Media Group’s vision of creating real-time engagement and continuing to build a comprehensive source of compelling news, entertainment, information, opinion, and community. Specific elements of this integration are still being finalized, and we will communicate them to you as soon as we know more.

New Structure: Refocus in India

India is an important consumer and business market for AOL and we have a talented workforce covering many aspects of our business. As Kumar has announced to AOL India, as part of the new organizational structure, we have decided to focus our efforts on the India consumer market and move the business processing functions to scaled partners. India is gaining importance as a consumer market and we are actively working on products for that market and will be ramping up research and product engineering after the restructuring. A small number of project engineering functions will transition to Dulles and Dublin, while India starts to focus on Asia and India related consumer products and revenue.

Back office and support functions will transition to 3rd party partners and many current AOL India employees will transition along with those roles to continue to support core AOL functions with new partner companies. For our business and our scale, it makes business and financial sense to partner with other providers.

Overall, the structural changes in India will impact close to 700 jobs, with approximately 400 transitioning out of the company, and 300 transitioning to outsourcing partners to continue to work on the AOL business. AOL India has been a significant part of AOL, starting with call center outsourcing in 2002 and morphing into a business operations center. The employees of AOL India are talented, energetic, and hard-working – and we will be offering impacted people transition services. I would hope that India becomes a great future consumer market for AOL based on India-first product development.

Today is a day that represents a step toward the future, but also a day where change will cause an impact across our team. AOL remains in the middle of the disruption that the Internet is causing and we are starting to move from being a disrupted brand to a brand that is leading the disruption. The changes we are making are not easy, but they are the right changes for the long-term health of the company, the brand, and for our employees.

Impacted employees will be notified by 3 PM EST today and we will be scheduling an all-employee call at 5pm EST to answer any questions you may have. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly -TA

Here’s a blog post that Demand Media put up in response to Google’s announcement last night that it would prune low-quality content from its search results.

In a blog post titled “Finding More High-Quality Sites,” Google said:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality site–sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

Some think Google was aiming at Demand, whose top exec recently said the content company welcomed any improvements to the search results in its recent quarterly call.

“We consider ourself very white hat,” declared CEO Richard Rosenblatt, to a question from a Wall Street analyst about the series of recent declarations by Google to clean up its search results.

Demand went further in a blog posted last night, which is here in its entirety:

A Statement About Search Engine Algorithm Changes

How our content reaches the consumer–whether it’s through direct visits, social media referrals, apps or search–has always been important to and monitored closely by us. We also recognize that major search engines like Google have and will continue to make frequent changes. We have built our business by focusing on creating the useful and original content that meets the specific needs of today’s consumer. So naturally we applaud changes search engines make to improve the consumer experience–it’s both the right thing to do and our focus as well.

Today, Google announced an algorithm change to nearly 12% of their U.S. query results. As might be expected, a content library as diverse as ours saw some content go up and some go down in Google search results.This is consistent with what Google discussed on their blog post. It’s impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term–but at this point in time, we haven’t seen a material net impact on our Content & Media business.

Coming out of the IPO quiet period this week, we knew the topic of Google’s search engine changes was top of mind for many people–so we discussed it on the earnings call, in a couple of follow up interviews and are now issuing this statement. However, we generally don’t comment or speculate on changes by major search engines. They make changes nearly daily in a quest to give consumers the best possible experience, as do we.

Finally, in our Q4 earnings call on Tuesday we talked at length about the nature of our content and the consumer experiences we are delivering. Beyond our success helping consumers discovering our content via search, we also shared metrics around direct visits, repeat visits and social visits. We believe these metrics are leading indicators that our properties are developing into recognizable consumer brands that are delivering real value to an increasingly loyal community.

We believe these kinds of indicators are a result of our firm commitment to the interests of consumers, and that is where we continue to focus our efforts.

Larry Fitzgibbon is Demand Media’s EVP of Media and Operations, and manages the company’s rapidly growing network of consumer properties.

“Computers are really here to make us happier,” Schmidt said, promising these devices will give people more time with friends and family, not less.

Schmidt, who gave up the CEO role last month, said that nearly all devices will get more interesting when they connect to the Internet. A music player that doesn’t connect to the network isn’t very interesting, he said, perhaps opening the door to the announcement of a long-talked-about, cloud-based Google music service.

The talk is just geting started. Mobilized got a really good seat in the front row, just two seats over from Andy Rubin, and has live updates below.

5:59 pm: Schmidt talking about things phones should be able to do, such as figure out better traffic routes and bridge language barriers. “You really can do magic,” he says, pointing to Google Translate, which lets you speak one language and have a language you don’t speak returned. “That’s done in a twentieth of a second or what have you,” he says.

6:01 pm: Brings out colleague to show an application on “an interesting new device.”

6:03 pm: The device is the Motorola Xoom tablet and the program is “Movie Studio,” an app built from the ground up for creating and editing movies on tablets.

He has a few images and videos from around Barcelona.

He creates a movie onstage and shows how it can easily be shared on YouTube. (This looks like iMovie and Windows Live Movie Maker so far–both of which also let you edit movies and share directly to YouTube.)

6:07 pm: Upload goes slowly, though, as Schmidt notes it is the problem of doing a demo at a mobile network convention where everyone is hammering the networks.

6:09 pm: The goal of many of Google’s products, Schmidt says, is to do tasks quickly so that people can get back to being human. “We ultimately believe that speed matters,” Schmidt says. Google Instant, he says, can save two to five seconds per search.

Search is also becoming more personal. With permission, users can get more information. Next up, he says, is autonomous search as information comes up as one walks or drives, and is driven by location.

“That’s just the beginning of a large number of new apps that use that infrastructure to make a big difference,” Schmidt says.

Schmidt says how much info to share will be up to the user, but those that opt in can get much richer results.

There’s also a trend, he says, to returning more structured data, such as travel.

6:12 pm: Stat time: 120 million people using Chrome, up three times from a year ago.

YouTube revenue doubled in 2010. Now just being able to monetize professional content at a rate that starts to make sense for content partners.

6:18 pm: Computer science can help all kinds of things, Schmidt says. With phones and tablets, “You never forget everything” which is precisely what phones are good at.

If you choose, you can remember the hotels you stayed in and the people you met, etc., “Humans forget,” he says.

Computers are also preventing people from ever getting lost. When I was a boy growing up in Europe “I was always lost,” Schmidt says.

Translation may not prevent war, but should at a minimum increase dialogue, Schmidt says.

6:18 pm: “Even better you are never lonely,” he sats, because computers can point you to nearby friends or connect you to distant ones.

You are never bored, Schmidt says. You are never out of ideas because we can always suggest what you can do next.

Other changes, include the self-driving cars that Google has been working on.

“It’s obvious that cars should drive (themselves),” he says, adding that there will be a “kill switch” in case there are bugs. And it will take time, he says.

“This is coming. It will be decades, I suspect–not a year.”

He also says these innovations will scale to the masses.

“It’s a future for the masses, not the elites,” he says.

6:21 pm: With that, on to Q&A.

6:23 pm: Talking about targeted broadcast quality ads as next frontier.

“Who wants to see an ad that is not relavent to them,” Schmidt says. And that leads to revenue, which Schmidt points out is the whole point of advertising in the first place.

6:24 pm: Question on Android fragmentation saying there is frustration among phone makers and developers.

“We hear some of this,” Schmidt says. “You’ve stated the problem more strongly than I would have, but I will take that as feedback.”

6:26 pm: Question about role of Google in financial services.

Schmidt quips that Larry Page and Sergey Brin periodically suggest that Google issue Google Bucks as its own currency, but Schmidt says he always points out the regulatory issues.

On a serious front, he talks about the power of near-field communications as a means to turn real-world transactions into electronic ones.

“In that are very large businesses,” he says.

(Google built NFC into its Nexus S device.)

6:29 pm: Are you interested in Twitter?

“We love Twitter and I like to tweet,” Schmidt says, eliciting laughter from the crowd.

6:31 pm: Why so many operating systems?

Sometimes these things occur because the teams move so quickly, Schmidt says.

People have been asking when Gingerbread and Honeycomb will come together. Schmidt: You can imagine the follow-on release will start with an “I” and be named after a desert and will combine the best of both, Schmidt says.

These releases occur on roughly a six-month cycle, Schmidt says.

6:33 pm: On Chrome OS, Schmidt says there will be an opportunity to merge that with Android over time, but better to wait for the operating systems to mature and a natural time than to push them together too soon.

6:34 pm: On HTML5, Schmidt imagines that some number of years from now, most apps–mobile and desktop–will be running on HTML5.

6:39 pm: Question on Google’s role in health care.

Phone should be able to, at a minimum, carry medical info. Several percent of queries on Google are health-related.

6:42 pm: Is Facebook with its “Like” button a main competitor?

Today our main competitor is Microsoft. Microsoft has a good product in Bing, he says.

“There’s a couple cases where it might be too good. We discussed that in a blog post.”

They have the cash, the scale and the reach to do good and amazing things.

6:44 pm: On Nokia-Microsoft partnership:

“We would have loved it had they chosen Android,” Schmidt says. “That offer remains open.”

Android would have been a good choice for Nokia, he says.

‘We certainly tried” to get them, he says.

6:46 pm: How do you approach the fact that Android going higher and lower in the market?

Schmidt says that the company tries to show the best in its Nexus line, while putting minimum specifications out there to set the bar for what developers can expect.

6:47 pm: Question on why Google is not more broadly used in the education market?

Schmidt says the company has funded a number of YouTube professors. “We’ve not yet come up with the killer [education] app,” he says.

6:49 pm: Asked about Google’s interest in the PC operating system market, Schmidt says that Google’s answer is Chrome OS. Sometime in the spring you will see a series of PC makers come out with Chrome OS devices. However, he adds they won’t run current PC apps, such as Windows apps.

“It does not run any of your current PC applications so you might think about it,” Schmidt said. That said, he adds there are, in most cases, cloud-based options that are roughly equivalent.

6:52 pm: With that, Schmidt wraps up.

In a statement released today, Intel said that while it’s disappointed by Nokia’s decision to refocus its mobile efforts around Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, it’s “not blinking” on MeeGo.

“We remain committed and welcome Nokia’s continued contribution to MeeGo open source,” the company said. “Our strategy has always been to provide choice when it comes to operating systems, a strategy that includes Windows, Android, and MeeGo. This is not changing.”

Perhaps. Intel claims its silicon will be in a phone that ships this year. But it didn’t say what OS it will run or who’s manufacturing it. After today’s news I can’t imagine it’s Nokia.

COMPLETE COVERAGE:

• Former Microsoft Exec Pursuing New Opportunities at Nokia; Former Nokia President Just Pursuing New Opportunities
• Nokia’s Stephen Elop Talks to Mobilized About the Big Microsoft Deal (Video)
• Massive Layoffs Expected at Nokia
• Nokia’s Microsoft Partnership: Does the New Strategy Add Up?
• Live From the Nokia-Microsoft Press Conference: It’s a Windows Phone World After All
• More From Nokia: Forecast Gets Cloudy, Plus Expected Executive Changes
• Nokia-Microsoft: What Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop Have to Say in Their Joint Letter
• Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership With YouTube Video
• R&D Spending: Nokia Vs. Apple Shows Size Doesn’t Matter
• Not Seeing Much Return on That Massive R&D Spend, Are You, Nokia?
• Nokia: Big and Slow
• Could Nokia’s Miracle Be Microsoft?

Nokia has already announced the key piece of its strategy–a shift to Windows Phone for future smartphones. Now the company is set to talk about the financial implications of that and go through the rest of its strategy, which includes a mix of Symbian and even a dash of MeeGo.

The investor event is scheduled to start shortly and due to run until about 2 pm London time. Mobilized will have live coverage, providing our battery holds out. I’ll try to mention only the high points, however. Mobilized loves numbers, but it is awfully early for a whole lot of financial speak, especially for the U.S. insomniacs tuning in.

12:02 pm: Still waiting for things to get going. But if you really want something to do, we have plenty of earlier coverage, including the press conference and the YouTube video of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, as well as a chat with Elop on how he made his big decision.

12:05 pm: Okay, things are getting going as Elop takes the stage (the same one as the earlier press conference.

12:06 pm: Elop is reviewing things. Lots of talk of both challenges and gems. If you read his memo, or anything else he’s said recently, you have heard this.

Battle of devices to war of ecosystems, etc. Mobilized has this part memorized.

12:09 pm: Smartphone strategy is just one piece.

Reviewing the three alternatives that Elop considered–MeeGo, Android or some partnership with Microsoft.

As for Google, Elop says it is the case there are some advantages for that approach.

“There’s something happening there. There’s no denying that.”

However, Elop says the company was worried it would be late and be just one of many, and was not sure how it could leverage assets like its Navteq location-based services.

“Our sense was differentiation could be a pretty big challenge,” Elop says. “The risk for commoditization would increase dramatically.”

Feels profit would have eventually moved to Google, with handsets becoming a commodity.

“It felt a little bit like giving up and not enough like fighting back,” Elop says.

12:12 pm: As for Microsoft, Elop says both companies are bringing something to the table.

As expected, Elop is characterizing this as more strategic than just taking a license to Windows Phone. Talking about Nokia services like mapping, local advertising and other things that Nokia can bring to the table.

“It’s far more interesting than a simple licensing deal,” Elop says. This was the only strategy that makes it a three horse race with Google and Apple.

Elop says he is convinced that Nokia will be able to differentiate within the Windows Phone ecosystem on a sustainable basis.

12:15 pm: There were some challenges and potential disadvantages, he acknowledges.

Top among these is the fact that Windows Phone 7 is new on the market.

“It’s early,” he says. “Will it succeed?”

12:17 pm: Also, there is the issue of being locked in or a lack of control. Elop does not disclose terms but says the company has flexibility and “substantial control” over the future of the ecosystem.

“This is not your mother’s OEM deal with Microsoft,” Elop says.

12:17 pm: Elop says the deal is at the “term sheet” stage, noting that the companies have yet to sign the “definitive agreement.”

12:18 pm: Already the engineers are working through, and Elop says this deal will allow Nokia to move far faster than it has in recent years.

12:18 pm: He’s also making the cost-saving argument, saying Nokia can focus its investment, which he acknowledges hasn’t been getting the return it should.

Elop earlier acknowledged that the company expects significant cost savings from the move as well as substantial workforce reductions.

“Bottom line: Products that are more competitive,” he says.

12:22 pm: Operators are excited by a third viable option, Elop says.

“A two-horse race is not a satisfactory [situation] for operators,” Elop says.

Elop says that Microsoft-Nokia will be operator-friendly, as compared with Google and Apple.

12:24 pm: Elop talking about differentiation–a key concern of analysts and investors.

Elop talks about Windows Phone as offering differentiation form Apple and Google, but also insisting that Nokia has the assets and business terms it needs to stand out from other Windows Phones. He focuses on camera technologies and “unique relationship.”

Stresses again that this is not a standard handset maker agreement. But he also says that just because Nokia can change lots of things within Windows Phone, doesn’t mean it should.

Nokia, he says, must “resist the temptation to customize just for the sake of customization.”

12:27 pm: Now talking about Symbian. For those that missed it, Elop reiterates this is a transition strategy, but adds that the company still expects to sell 150 million more Symbian devices before that transition is complete.

12:29 pm: Strategy is more than just smartphones. He wants the company to be a leading force in connecting the next billion people to the Internet via phones in emerging markets. “The market for feature phones is pushing down the price curve and that is an opportunity for Nokia.”

Nokia will do incremental work in that area–things like Nokia Money for people that don’t have a bank account or telephone. Another, Nokia Life Tools, helps connect, say, farmers to market information.

This area is still a target for innovation, he says, but it also faces competition from Chinese-made phones based on MediaTek chipsets.

Elop says that the company must also plan for the future so that it can be disruptive down the road. “As they say in Finland, it is time to shoot ahead of the duck,” he says.

That’s where MeeGo comes in–the mobile version of Linux that until recently was seen as Nokia’s future. Nokia said that team will ship a phone later this year and then see where the future is headed.

12:35 pm: Want to point out this New York Times article that said both Google and Microsoft were offering hundreds of millions of dollars in engineering and marketing support in order to woo Nokia.

12:36 pm: Elop now talking about cost cuts, including significant job reductions.

“We are not announcing how many and in what country,” Elop says, but adds that the company wants to move quickly on that front.

He says that he has made changes to the business to ensure speed, including leadership structure changes aimed at ensuring accountability. “If things go well today, I’ll be the CEO.”

Of note, the two of the three business unit leaders are women–Mary McDowell, who will lead lower-end phones, and Jo Harlow, who will head the smartphone business.

12:40 pm: Nokia looking for a new leader for its services and developer division. The acting head is Tero Ojanpera, but he will soon be looking for other opportunities within Nokia, Elop says.

Also of note, Louise Pentland, who is head of the legal and intellectual property unit, is being elevated to the top leadership team.

“We have one of the strongest patent portfolios out there” he says, adding that he would encourage all players to take a license to said patents. (hear that, Apple?)

New leader of North American sales unit to be named in coming days.

“We are creating a different industry,” Elop says in closing his introductory remarks.

12:44 pm: Elop Brings on CFO Timo Ihamuotila to go through the numbers.

12:46 pm: Ihamuotila acknowledged Nokia didn’t meet the targets it had set out to achieve at its last financial analyst day.

“Our execution did not cut it.” he says.

12:49 pm: Ah, Now on to the good stuff. CFO talking financial impact from Microsoft deal. Says should be good over the long term.

Slide shows royalty payments to Microsoft causing lower gross margins, but says sales and marketing support from Microsoft should lower operating expenses.

“We will receive substantial go-to market support from Microsoft,” he says, without giving numbers.

12:52 pm: Ihamuotila talking now about the company’s long-term targets for devices and services period “after the transition period.”

Device sales to grow faster than the market, with operating margins of 10 percent or more–but this is only after the transition period, which the company has said could last this year and next.

Significant uncertainties in this period.

Ihamuotila shows a slide showing Symbian sales slowly giving way to Windows Phone with lower-end mobile phones remaining about half of sales.

12:57 pm: Ihamuotila shows chart of how it expects to cut R&D with the company investing less in services, more in entry-level phones and far less on MeeGo, though still some. The investment in Symbian will be replaced by a far lower investment in Windows Phone R&D. Overall, R&D should be a fraction of what it was.

1:02 pm: Over long term, Ihamuotila says that the Microsoft deal should help significantly boost the company’s Navteq navigation business.

“We think this new strategy is the best way to maximize long-term value, both to our shareholders and to other stakeholders,” Ihamuotila says.

On to Q&A for financial analysts.

1:03 pm: Question on how Nokia will keep employees motivated, something else and when to expect the first Windows Phone.

“Thanks for the one question” Elop quips, before addressing them in turn.

Elop says that the key is on focused innovation so they see the fresh opportunities (at least for the ones who don’t get cut by the large workforce reductions also promised).

He also pointed to his sharply worded memo, which he said was designed to convey the message that “Here is the truth, we’re making decisions and we’re moving forward.”

Won’t give date on first Windows Phone, but says again that the move will allow a substantially faster pace than the company was on with Symbian.

1:07 pm: Elop is asked about some of the challenges with Microsoft and Nokia each responsible for different pieces of software and services, as opposed to Google and Apple, where things are more integrated.

“We wanted to drive operational simplicity,” Elop says, adding that the companies talked about other arrangements, though not a full-on acquisition. The companies, Elop says, decided not to go with the operational complexity of a joint venture.

1:10 pm: Elop says Nokia has opportunities to differentiate from other Windows Phone devices, but adds it is in Nokia’s interest for there to be other strong handset players supporting Windows Phone.

“We’ve got to make Windows Phone successful,” he says.

Nokia’s mapping technology, he says, will benefit rivals like Samsung and HTC. “We’re willing to make those trades,” Elop says.

1:11 pm: Elop is asked why he feels comfortable with a “bet the farm” strategy on Microsoft, a company he clearly knows well.

Elop points out that it was harder to see how Microsoft would rapidly be successful without someone like Nokia.

“But this is now different,” he says, adding that this is now an ecosystem that Microsoft and Nokia are jointly helping to build.

Mapping and local advertising were not part of the ecosystem before the Nokia-Microsoft partnership.

As for impact of the transition, it’s hard to say, Elop says. Symbian is strong in some places where Apple and Google are present today.

1:14 pm: Asked whether Nokia will remain profitable during the transition. “It’s hard to say financially, and I am not going to provide any further specific guidance.”

1:17 pm: Elop won’t say when the first Windows Phone will ship, but lots and lots by next year at various price points.

“We’ll be shipping in volume in 2012,” he says.

1:20 pm: Another two-parter! 1) Why will Symbian be supported if it is transitioning away? 2) Why does Nokia think it will be able to have double-digit operating margins using someone else’s platform?

Elop: They recognize Symbian is key to Nokia being able to transition, but he agrees that consumers will have to want the Symbian phones Nokia builds. CFO also notes that less than half of Symbian phones are sold through carriers.

As for question on margins, CFO says the company has opportunities for higher margins around services and advertising.

1:23 pm: Asked about how the company is confident Windows Phone can get to lower prices, Elop says that was a key consideration, down to which chipsets will be supported, etc.

Between the two companies there was a lot of work to get a high degree of confidence.

“That was a critical evaluation,” he says.

That said, Elop agrees there is a smartphone market below Windows Phone that Nokia will manage with an evolution of today’s Series 30 and Series 40 operating systems.

1:31 pm: Elop: Some of the hardware designs that would have run MeeGo or Symbian will be repurposed for Windows Phone. Some devices may come out with similar models for both Windows Phone and Symbian.

1:32 pm: Question again on who pays whom in Microsoft-Nokia. Is there a lump payment from Microsoft?

Elop doesn’t answer and instead refers to slide that shows opportunities on both sides. Saying value going both ways. As for Microsoft’s payments, “That is a significant part of the conversation,” Elop says.

1:35 pm: Two good questions: Can Windows Phone be put on any current devices? What happens to QT development layer that Nokia bought and had sought to unify developer approach?

Elop: It’s not as simple as plugging in and downloading on to current phones, though some technologies can be repurposed.

QT continues to be the development for Symbian and lone MeeGo device. Also could have a role on low-end devices.

However, Elop says, “We are not proposing a QT on Windows Phone” approach. Adding another development environment could fork the ecosystem, which is not good for Nokia or Windows Phone, he says. Development environment for Windows Phone will be Silverlight and XNA–Microsoft’s current tools.

1:38 pm: Asked about branding, he says in some cases you will see both Microsoft and Nokia brands. Examples could include Nokia Search powered by Bing or Bing maps powered by Nokia, though he says those are examples and not final choices.

1:39 pm: Asking about tablets, questioner points out that Nokia had an early lead in tablets, but Apple “stole the show.”

“We are not announcing today a specific tablet strategy,” he reiterates, saying that Microsoft creates opportunities.

Elop notes that there are rumors of Windows Phone and Windows that could power tablets.

“We could do that,” he says. “We might do that.”

Also an opportunity for Nokia to step back into the game using its own software.

1:41 pm: Elop wrapping up.

“We have set a new course for Nokia,” he says, adding that despite what has been written, Nokia is still an incredibly powerful company, though perhaps not in North America. “Today we are diving forward” he says. “We have a strong partner in Microsoft who is incented as are we in making this successful.”

Investor guy closes by reminding there were forward-looking statements. He’s still going as people leave the room.

COMPLETE COVERAGE:

• Nokia’s Stephen Elop Talks to Mobilized About the Big Microsoft Deal (Video)
• Massive Layoffs Expected at Nokia
• Nokia’s Microsoft Partnership: Does the New Strategy Add Up?
• Live From the Nokia-Microsoft Press Conference: It’s a Windows Phone World After All
• More From Nokia: Forecast Gets Cloudy, Plus Expected Executive Changes
• Nokia-Microsoft: What Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop Have to Say in Their Joint Letter
• Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership With YouTube Video
• R&D Spending: Nokia Vs. Apple Shows Size Doesn’t Matter
• Not Seeing Much Return on That Massive R&D Spend, Are You, Nokia?
• Nokia: Big and Slow

This one will be more limited than yesterday’s announcement: A source tells me Time Inc. is launching a subscription offering on Google’s Android platform for a single title–Sports Illustrated–but that the plan is to expand the program over time.

But in both cases, the subscriptions are to be powered by a platform Time Inc. has built and will operate itself.

Time Inc. has used Sports Illustrated as its Google guinea pig in the past: The magazine was the publisher’s first entry into Google’s Chrome App store late last year.

I don’t have other details for now, except to note that this is separate from the newsstand concept that Next Issue Media, the publishers’ joint venture/consortium, wants to launch this year.

Subscriptions for tablet magazines have been a sore spot for publishers since last summer, when Apple rejected Sports Illustrated’s plans to sell subscriptions for its iPad magazine app. Time Inc. and its parent company Time Warner have been vocal about their disappointment with Apple, and their desire to work with other platforms that will give them the terms they want.

Conduit president Adam Boyden said in an interview that small publishers and even plenty of larger ones are having trouble keeping pace as the number of mobile platforms grows.

“it gets really complex really quickly,” Boyden said, noting that publishers need not only to develop their apps, but also keep them fresh and updated, and find ways to promote them. Given how similar that is to the Web app business–and the growing power of HTML5 and Web apps in general–Boyden said he sees a huge opportunity in mobile. Conduit’s apps, Boyden said, will meet the standards to be included in Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market.

Less clear, though, is how the company will make money. It plans to make development of the Web apps free, but will look to find ways to generate revenue as apps are successful.

“We are going to examine and experiment with lots of different models,” Boyden said. “We will work out a model where we can get remunerated in a way that makes sense for everyone.”

Currently, Conduit makes its money through its eponymous Web app site and as a big maker of custom toolbars. The company made some headlines last year when it switched from Google to Bing. About half of Conduit’s revenue comes from toolbars, with the other half coming from the Web app part of the business. The 200-person company is profitable, Boyden said.

Although the company has a lot of big-name publishers on the Web side, including companies like Univision and Major League Baseball, it is starting with a more modest list on the mobile side. Soccer team Liverpool and game makers Bigpoint and Exent are among its early mobile customers.

The company will be in Barcelona next week (as will Mobilized) for the big Mobile World Congress trade show, where it hopes to formally kick off the mobile push.

No, not the tech industry. The ad industry.

Verizon is attacking AT&T, AT&T is attacking Verizon, and T-Mobile is attacking both of them. Only Sprint is staying out of the fray, taking its mother’s advice that if it doesn’t have anything nice to say, it should perhaps just say nothing at all.

Among the more recent attack ads was one from Verizon touting the sound quality of its iPhone. Now, AT&T is firing back at Verizon with an ad touting the benefits of talking and surfing the Web at the same time, which is apparently very important for procrastinators. (That said, Mobilized is a huge procrastinator and rarely ever talks and surfs at the same time.)

The ad comes on the heels of Verizon’s announcement earlier Friday that it had sold out of the iPhones it had available for pre-order on Thursday. The iPhone goes on sale for all customers, including would-be switchers, next Thursday.

In any case, here’s the ad:

That’s according to people familiar with the new deal, announced last night, between the video site and cable giant Viacom. They tell me Hulu has agreed to a guaranteed payment in the $40 million to $50 million range for Viacom’s programming. The total payout could increase depending on the shows’ performance.

That money covers the new deal’s entire length, which hasn’t been disclosed–Viacom will only allow that the deal goes “into” 2012. But it’s reasonable to assume it’s a two-year pact, just like Hulu’s programming deals with its parents/content owners–News Corp.’s Fox, Disney’s ABC and Comcast’s NBCU. (News Corp. also owns this Web site.)

Stewart’s and Colbert’s shows will be available for free, the day after they air, on Hulu.com– just as they used to be. In addition, Viacom will also provide shows like “Tosh.0″ and “Jersey Shore,” on a 21-day delay, on Hulu’s paid Hulu Plus service.

The deal is a coup for Hulu, but it’s unclear how many more of them CEO Jason Kilar can pull off without getting more financing. And for that he’ll need the full support of his partners, which makes the blog post he put up last night in the wake of the announcement that much more puzzling. Or maybe he doesn’t want to run Hulu anymore.

For now, just like old times, here’s a Hulu clip from one of Stewart’s recent episodes, where he takes advantage of the big, fat, hanging curveball that Rep. Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party served up last week.

Today I heard back from him. His sister, who lives in New York, had checked his messages for him, and kindly replied to my email messages. She then gave me the number of a wireless phone he has that is for one reason or another able to send and receive text messages.

I sent a message to that number and heard back from him, mere minutes after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had finished giving the speech in which he said he wouldn’t be a candidate in the forthcoming election in September.

It is one thing to see the media reports that have been emerging from that country, but quite another to hear from someone you know on the ground, especially under the difficult communications circumstances that the government has imposed. Because of that, his terse messages feel all the more precious.

In response to my first message he wrote:

Hosni Mubarak is clinging to power despite everything. There is a lot of impatience among Egyptians for him to leave office now. Protests are intensifying and they are drawing bigger crowds. I am working on some filming.

I replied that I thought at first the people would be feeling victorious following Mubarak’s announcement. He replied back:

They want him to leave this minute! They don’t want him to stall. He is already 20 steps behind the demands of the street. His time is up. Mubarak is in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. But if he were in Cairo, he would have fled the country by now, fearing protesters might charge the presidential palace.

I sent another reply containing the phone numbers for Speak2Tweet, the service Google and Twitter launched yesterday that allows people in Egypt with working phone lines to leave audio messages that are then broadcast to the world via Twitter. That Twitter account has now carried more than 1,000 messages from people in Egypt, some of which, like the one from the young woman below, are in English. Judging by her tone, events there have yet to reach their conclusion.

For those messages not in English, some volunteers have been translating the messages into English and publishing them into a continuously updated spreadsheet on Google Docs. This effort in turn led to a site called “Alive in Egypt,” where SayNow messages continue to be translated and transcribed.

I haven’t heard back from Abdulla after his last message. Now that Mubarak has pledged to leave office in September, there is as yet no information about when Egypt’s communications infrastructure will be restored to a normal operating posture.

Meanwhile, the folks at Internet research firm Renesys, who have so deftly tracked the finer technical details of Egypt’s disappearance from the Internet, have produced yet another visualization of the peculiar event as it unfolded. The video below is a minute-by-minute graphical representation of Egypt’s four major Internet service companies as they went dark. In a new blog post, they point out that what you’re watching is the silencing of the voices of 80 million people. One of them is my friend.

[Image Via: SheKnows]

Rovio, maker of the popular mobile game, announced on Friday that it is teaming up with Twentieth Century Fox to create a version of the game centered on the upcoming animated movie “Rio,” which hits theaters in mid-April. The game will arrive ahead of the movie, launching sometime in March.

In Angry Birds Rio, the original flock is kidnapped and taken to Rio, where they then escape and seek to help their friends–the two macaws Blu and Jewel, who are the stars of “Rio.”

The game will have 45 levels initially, and then additional levels will be available via updates. The game will be available for various smartphones and tablets, the companies said.

The Angry Birds have one detour or more before they make it to Rio, though. Rovio is planning a Valentine’s Day update to its seasonal Angry Birds game. The Birds have been on a tear of late, with an expanding empire that includes a line of toys, T-shirts and more.

It’s indisputable that Verizon is going to sell a lot of iPhones when the device finally arrives on its network. The question is how many? And the answer is as varied as the research houses trying to pinpoint the number. On the low end, analysts have been calling for nine million, and at the highest end, 12 million.

Until today, when R.W. Baird & Co. analyst William Power reset those parameters with a bullish new potentiality: 23.8 million iPhones sold to Verizon subscribers in the first year.

That’s about double the top end of the range I mentioned (it’s also more than a quarter of Verizon’s current subscriber base). But according to Power–who cautions that this is a “directional number” and not a forecast (there are constraints around how many devices Apple can actually ship)–a recent Baird survey of 1,000 smartphone users supports it. From the survey:

• 29 percent of current Verizon feature phone owners said they will “probably” or “definitely” upgrade to the Verizon iPhone in the next three months. The carrier has roughly 64 million postpaid feature phone users, so that’s 19 million potential iPhone upgrades, assuming eligibility.
• 25 percent of Verizon’s current smartphone users said they will “probably” or “definitely” switch to the iPhone. That’s 4.8 million additional potential iPhone sales, again assuming eligibility.

Grand total: 23.8 million potential Verizon iPhone sales–from the carrier’s installed base alone. Add to that the 5.6 percent of current AT&T iPhone users who told Baird they planned to switch to Verizon and that number rises to nearly 25 million.

Which sounds fantastical, seemingly even to Power, who is standing by his current forecast of 10 million iPhone activations at Verizon. But it does suggest, strongly, that demand could be far greater than anyone has anticipated.

That’s great for Verizon (though perhaps less so for its network) and even better for Apple. Not too bad for AT&T, either. Doesn’t bode well for Android handset makers like Motorola Mobility, though. As CEO Sanjay Jha said during an earnings call yesterday, the company has already seen a slowing of device shipments around news of the Verizon iPhone. “Since the announcement of the iPhone, we have seen some slowdown in our sell through of devices at Verizon,” Jha said. “There was anticipation of devices coming to Verizon even prior the announcement of the iPhone.”

Below, a carrier-by-carrier breakdown of interest in the Verizon iPhone. Each pie chart represents the base of subscribers at each carrier who plan to purchase a smartphone in the next three months. Note: the 25 percent / 29percent numbers above refer to the percentage of the total base of Verizon respondents (i.e. Verizon respondents who plan to purchase a smartphone in the next three months plus those who don’t).

Murdoch, who runs Europe and Asia for his father Rupert’s company (which also owns this Web site), offered up the quasi-launch date during an onstage interview at the DLD conference in Munich.

As far as I can tell from the coverage, Murdoch didn’t reveal any other details that haven’t been reported–he confirmed that the service will cost 99 cents a week, etc.–but Staci Kramer at paidContent seems to have a good summary. You can watch the chat yourself here.

Meanwhile, I can offer up one tiny morsel of news about the Daily. And granted, it really is tiny. But: Here’s something you won’t see when the app launches, but will eventually–3-D video.

People familiar with the Daily tell me plans for future editions of the app include a gee-whiz feature that will allow correspondents to offer readers a 360-degree view of whatever they’re talking about.

It’s easier to show than to tell, and I can’t embed a sample here, but you can see one on this YouTube page. Most of the applications we’ve seen for 3-D Web video so far involve music videos set in party scenes. But you can imagine how much more interesting this might be if it involved someone reporting from, say, Tunisia.

And with 9.2 million Google shares, it’s not like he needs the money, though his stake has suffered a significant decline in value since the company’s executive office shake-up. Prior to the announcement, Google shares were trading at around $641, making Schmidt’s stake worth about $5.9 billion. Today, they’re hovering around $608, making that stake worth $5.6 billion–down $300 million on news he’s stepping down as CEO. That’s a nasty little drop any way you look at it, though I’m sure the obscene size of the remaining sum makes it a bit easier to stomach. Perhaps the residuals from that new Eric Schmidt talk show reportedly in the offing will make up for it….

PREVIOUSLY:

• Talking Schmidt: Google’s CEO in His Own Words
• A Big Quarter From Google, and Shake-Up at the Top–Larry Page to Become CEO

The 3DS will be available in the U.S. on March 27 for a competitively priced $249.99. The handheld game player’s big selling point is that it offers 3-D without the need for special glasses. The device will come in Cosmo Black or Aqua Blue. Prices will vary outside the U.S.

At an event today in New York, Nintendo revealed more of the device’s capabilities, and many of them sound like features found on the iPhone and many other smartphones.

Apple’s ability to turn its MP3 players and phones into portable gaming devices has been a competitive threat to Nintendo, which with the 3DS release looks like it is willing to recognize.

For example, the new 3DS has an online store, called the eShop, where users will be able to download games. It also has three cameras and a built-in gyro, so the device can be tilted and turned to affect game play. It will also have location-based features, where users can elect to receive new content from Nintendo or other 3DS users as they travel around. The feature can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots when in sleep mode to collect this content or to function as a pedometer, which counts a user’s steps.

Additionally, users can take pictures with the camera, or listen to music and surf the Web on an Internet browser, which will come soon in a system upgrade. Users will also be able to play with one another by exchanging a simple code. About 30 games are expected to be available by June for the device.

It’s some of these more nuanced features that could make the device more competitive, but it’s the 3-D interactivity that Nintendo is really pushing, and so far consumers have not gravitated to 3-D as a reason to upgrade a TV, so it’s unclear whether it will be a draw for the 3DS.

Nintendo’s enthusiasm for 3-D also suffered a blow when it issued a warning that it is not healthy for kids under the age of 6 to view 3-D images. Nintendo says the impact from that should be minimal because the 3-D effect can be ratcheted up or down, and even turned off completely.