Nokia no longer holds the top spot in mobile hardware, but outgoing chairman Jorma Ollila thinks that the company could soon wind up back in the lead.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Ollila teased Nokia’s upcoming batch of devices and exclusive services, claiming that they’re sure to “make a difference” in the company’s fortunes.

These devices include tablets, “hybrid” smart mobile devices, and handsets with “different form factors” from what’s currently on the market.

The figures Nokia recently released for their last quarter paint a grim picture. The company posted an operating loss of $1.76 billion, and sales are down.

Samsung recently overtook Nokia as the top phone manufacturer, and the same report noted that Nokia actually makes more money from licensing its patents to Apple for use in the iPhone than from selling its own devices.

This despite the recent release of Nokia’s Lumia 900 Windows smartphone, which has been met with glowing reviews but a mixed reception – particularly outside the U.S. in areas like the UK.

Perhaps in an attempt to replicate that revenue, Nokia recently filed 45 patent suits, against HTC and Viewsonic in the U.S. and HTC and Research in Motion in Germany, as well as a complaint against HTC with the US International Trade Commission.

The future is tablets

It’s been rumored that Nokia is working on tablet that has yet to be released, but that could change as early as this year.

Despite statements from Ollila, who’s being replaced as Nokia chairman today by Risto Siilasmaa, the company is remaining secretive on the subject.

Nokia spokesperson Karen Lachtanski told TechRadar that the company is “looking at the tablet space with interest,” but that they “have no details or announcement at this time.”

Nevertheless, speculation holds that a Nokia tablet could arrive later this year alongside Microsoft’s new Windows 8 OS.

Details on Ollila’s other claims, including new services, “form factors,” and “hybrid” smart devices, are even more scarce.

But Nokia’s secrecy could well be in preparation for some kind of announcement, so keep an ear to the ground.

Similar to the Android marketplace and the Windows mobile marketplace, Nokia too has a dedicated app store for all its Symbian phone users – Nokia Ovi Store. But the worst part of Nokia Ovi Store is that you can’t download all apps to your computer. It only provides the option to directly download to your mobile or send to a friend. So, in this article, we’ll show you how to download apps from Nokia Ovi Store to your computer.

1. Login to your Nokia Ovi Store account.




2. Select your mobile model.




3. Choose the app you’d like to download and right-click on the “Send to Friend” button. Copy the link address and paste in a new browser tab.
   




4. Now, replace send-to-friend with download.
   
   

   Ex: The original URL looks like this “http://store.ovi.com/content/1986/send-to-friend”
   So, replace it with “http://store.ovi.com/content/1986/download” and press “Enter”.

   
   




5. That’s it! You can now download ‘n’ number of Symbian apps from Nokia Ovi Store direct to your computer.

These downloaded Nokia Ovi Store applications can now be transferred to your mobile phone easily using a data cable or Bluetooth.

A few days back, I wrote an article on “how to download Symbian apps to pc from Nokia Ovi suite” and today lets see how to download android apps to PC from Android Market or Google Play.

The main advantage of Android phones over other OS mobiles is the availability of enormous number of free android applications. Android Market or Google Play has all the applications (both free and premium) available for your mobile. However, not many will have a high speed internet connection on their phone. And so, its better if you’ve the chance of downloading android apps to PC from android market and then transfer them to your mobile phone. By default, Google Play will not support downloading of apps to the computer. But, you can easily download them using a simple trick explained below.

Note: Android Market is renamed (re-branded) as Google Play recently.

How to Download Android Apps to PC Directly?

1. Go to Chrome browser and install APK Downloader extension. Once installed, an APK icon will be displayed at the end of the address bar.
   




2. Ignore the SSL warning that is displayed. To get rid of it, right click on Chrome icon (shortcut on desktop) and select “Properties” -> “Shortcuts” tab.




3. In “Shortcuts” tab, add –ignore-certificate-errors at the end of the target box after chrome.exe (as shown fig).
   




4. Now, go to Google Play and go to the android app that you wish to download.




5. Next, click on the APK icon (ref. step1) to start downloading the apk of that app on to your computer.

That’s it! Your android app is now downloaded to your PC. You can now transfer it to your phone either using the cable or memory card.

A number of manufacturers have been tipped as Windows 8 tablet makers eyeing an October release date, including HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Asus.

The word comes by way of Digitimes and its supply chain contacts, who also finger Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, and Lenovo as working on Windows 8 tablets for an early 2013 launch.

Meanwhile Nokia, Microsoft’s bestest bud and tablet wildcard, may release a 10-inch ARM-based Windows 8 tablet in November 2012 to complete the pack.

Take your tablets

Dell has been relatively quiet on the tablet front, only launching the Dell Streak 10 tablet running Android Honeycomb late last year which it then quietly ditched.

Similarly, HP’s forays into the tablet market have been less than successful with the HP TouchPad proving popular only after being vastly reduced.

But the sources haven’t stopped at just Windows 8 tablets, oh no – they’ve also decided that Apple will launch a 9.7-inch iPad in October, putting the iOS-shaped cat amongst the Windows 8-shaped pigeons for sure. We’re not convinced.

While some people – let’s call them “tedious attention seekers” – have spent most of this week queuing outside Apple Stores so they can get the new iPad a fraction of a second before somebody else, other people – interesting people; talented people; productive people – have been doing some interesting, talented and productive things.

This week in tech has good news for many Android users, and an interesting nugget from Nokia too.

Android first. Remember the moans about when existing smartphones would get Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest, greatest version of Google’s mobile OS? Moan no more, mobile fans! ICS is on the move, and it’s heading for a phone near you.

HTC’s rolling out Ice Cream Sandwich to various Desires, Sensations, EVOs and more, which is great news for an awful lot of people.

HTC isn’t the only firm spreading creamy goodness. The Samsung Galaxy S2 gets Ice Cream Sandwich next week, and its imminent Samsung Galaxy S3 will be an ICS device from the get-go.

The Galaxy S3, like many recently announced smartphones, is a quad core device. Is that good? Jeremy Laird isn’t convinced.

“The smartphone market has gone crazy,” he says, arguing that “we’ve been through all this before on the PC. Five or six years ago, Intel’s marketing pitch was all about a future of massively multi-core PC performance. Today, mainstream PCs sport a maximum of four cores. And that’s been the case for years.”

Why’s that? “There’s a lot more to performance than mere core count,” Laird explains. “That’s especially true for ultramobile devices like smartphones that are so sensitive to power consumption.”

Software needs to take advantage of all of the cores, and four cores are not necessarily better than two: as Laird points out, some quad-core Intel chips can beat the pants off eight-core AMD ones.

Laird’s piece is definitely worth a read if you’re considering a four-core smartphone or tablet, or if you’ve been mocking Apple for continuing with just two cores in the new iPad.

Great news from Nokia

Another firm that’s apparently thinking of two-core devices is Nokia, who confirmed months of speculation when design head Marko Ahtisaari confirmed that the Finnish firm has a tablet in the works.

“We’re working on it,” he told Finnish magazine Kauppalehti Optio, admitting that he was spending around a third of his time on it. According to “supply chain sources”, the Nokia tablet will be a Windows 8 device and may have a 10-inch screen and a dual-core Qualcomm processor, although we’ll have to wait until the end of 2012 to find out for sure.

When the Nokia tablet ships, will it be POWERED BY THE SUN? Er, no. But future tablets might be. According to Logitech director of mobile and tablet products Alexis Richard, in years to come our tablets could be solar-powered.

Solar is “a natural next step” in tablet accessories, although commenter wigwam_salesman isn’t convinced: “You’d have to point it at the sun to use solar power to its best advantage, and then you couldn’t read anything on screen,” he or she writes, perhaps forgetting that tablets can be slid into cases and/or connected to external accessories.

Oh, and there’s one more thing: if you’re currently camped outside an Apple Store, GO HOME! Apple will make more soon, and anyway, unless you’re raising money for charity camping for days outside a shop is no way for a grown man or woman to behave. You know we’re right, and your mum’s awfully worried.