Daily Marauder

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Nokia is ready to drop its latest XpressMusic phone, the slim 5630, during the second quarter, according to Internet reports that say the midrange Symbian 60-powered handset will cost about $260 plus taxes. The device will feature a high-speed 7.2-Mbps HSDPA connection, a 3.2-megapixel camera and the N-Gage gaming platform — only the second non-Nseries handset to carry the high-end system. CNET (2/10) , Pocket-lint.co.uk (2/10)

Palm CEO Ed Colligan just pulled the plug on Palm OS, destroying the hopes and dreams of millions of Palm lovers around the world. Colligan also mentions that the Pre will have an app store and Palm will have no control over the content. The Pre will hit other carriers in 2010 and that they’re not too worried about Apple’s patents. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/11/palm-os-she-is-dead 2/11)

Sony Ericsson has debuted three devices: the C903 Cyber-shot camera phone, the AB900 Bluetooth car speakerphone and a Walkman music phone, the W395. The AB900 allows users to stream songs from their cell phones through their car stereo, while the 5-megapixel Cyber-shot rides the trend of companies’ integrating their devices more tightly with such popular Internet services as YouTube, Flickr and Picasa. PCWorld/IDG News Service (2/10) , Pocket-lint.co.uk (2/10)

Southwest Airlines began testing free inflight Wi-Fi service yesterday powered by Westlake Village, CA-based Row 44. (Only a few planes will be wired for now, but look for a “Wi-Fi Hotspot” sticker when you board.) Yahoo has built the service’s homepage, which is focused on providing local destination information. (Cynopsis 2/11)

Microsoft plans to unveil its own app store next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, per Business Week, part of a complete overhaul of its mobile content strategy. CEO Steve Ballmer will also announce a new service dubbed My Phone that will allow users to sync photos, contacts, videos and other content from their handset then access it from any PC or web-connected device. (Cynopsis 2/11)

Video services will spark a huge rise in the use of data on mobile networks over the next five years, predicts Cisco Systems’ latest Visual Networking Index, which expects a 66-fold explosion in data traffic by 2013 to reach 2 million terabytes — 2 exabytes — each month. In a separate study, ABI Research forecast that 500 million people would be watching TV on portable devices by 2013, but ABI said the medium would not take off until users were convinced about the service’s value. Unstrung (2/10) , GigaOm (2/10) , InformationWeek (2/10)