Design by Community is nearing an end it's at the penultimate step, which by the way I find the most interesting. The fictional Nokia U was designed from the ground up by popular vote (including the name) and now as Nokia Conversations always promised they’ve released three sketches to pick the final design again by voting…

If you haven’t followed Design by Community closely, check out this page with the finalized specs. Each group of specs was chosen by a weeklong poll. Voters consistently picked the best of the best available and the finalized specs are probably impossible with today’s technology. No problem though, this was always meant as an experiment trying to design a phone for the future.

Guided by the features picked by voters, Nokia’s designers have prepared three concept sketches. The winning sketch will get the full 3D design treatment. Here are the three possibilities of how the Nokia U could look.

Looking at the designs you can quickly spot the heritage – the first sketch is heavily inspired byNokia N8, the second takes its cue from the Nokia X6 and curiously, the third sketch looks a bit like the rumored Nokia C7.

I fell in love with the phone at MWC 2010, when I got my hands on it in an outside booth. The article was so enthusiastic that I myself am surprised. You can find it here.

When the phone arrived to me in Moscow, I decided to respect the rules of the game in order to prevent my initial impressions from affecting the final conclusions. Should you know, I was unsuccessful. Completely. The situation was unique, as I, lovestoned, played with the device and praised those behind it, without even paying attention to its characteristics. I spent a week with the phone without knowing the resolution of the camera, with only a rough idea of the actual screen diagonal. Usually, what interests me most, are the technical characteristics, not the impressions. But with this excellent product from Sagem, the emotions come first. There is one catch, though. You have to be a PUMA fan to realize the true worth of the phone. Every now and then, the level of its sophistication can blow you away. On the box, made of recycled paper, there is an image, according to which, you will need your brain to use the device. I would put it differently. The people behind the device cared about a plethora of tiny little things, which allows one to say that they like what they do. For example, you can hold the camera button to activate the flashlight mode. Isn't that handy? And it's like that everywhere. The device offers a high general level of comfort, sports plenty of winning details. They make you neglect the fact that it's expensive, based on an outdated platform and with occasional working delays. All of that fades away. The emotional charge beats the disappointment with the technical realization. I am certain that the model will be blamed by many. It can't do that, it's freezing there, it has one icon too many in some menu. All of that is expected. But those, who can understand it and love it, will discover an ideal model. It is an exceptional example of an emotional device. It is the PUMA customization that makes it ideal. Moreover, I believe that we will see more devices like that in future, and all of them will be different. It is important that emotions, impressions, but not technical characteristics matter, which requires a perfect balance of the two realms. The PUMA has it. It is a casual model from the technical point of view but a little masterpiece from the emotional perspective.

Sagem's business is not going well, they are struggling their way out, and the device didn't come natural for them. And that is splendid as it shows what an emotional device can be like. In Russia, it is due this fall. The price is around USD 400. We will talk about that in the review, though. The latter will be out this week if nothing extraordinary happens.

It seems that Apple are stumbling from one legal mess to another these days what with class action suits being levelled over Antennagate, competition investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and the possibility that the EU may force them to allow 3rd party access to their previously closed platform. Well Apple have one more to add to that list, a lawsuit being brought because of overheating iPads shutting down. The people behind this new lawsuit are seeking the status of class action for their efforts and their lawyers, Scott Cole & Associates, have created ipadoverheating.com to search for more claimants who may experiencing the problem.

The claimants are saying that "the iPad is virtually unusable when sitting in particular environmental conditions (e.g., in direct sunlight with virtually any ambient air temperature) since it turns off, sometimes after just a few minutes of use." This they say is a problem because "according to the www.apple.com website, "[r]reading on iPad is just like reading a book.' However, contrary to this promise, using the iPad is not 'just like reading a book' at all since books do not close when the reader is enjoying them in the sunlight or in other normal environmental environments. This promise, like other portions of APPLE's marketing material for the iPad, is false."

To be fair to Apple their product information for the iPad states that it should be used in environments with a temeperature between 0 and 35 celsius and advises that using the iPad in high or low temperature conditions might shorten battery life or cause the iPad to stop working properly. We're not Apple fanboys by any stretch, but this does look to be a bit of a hokey lawsuit from people that don't bother to RTFM. Even so Apple won't be pleased to learn of yet another impending legal battle, especially when its plate is already so full. 

It's not unusual for those thinking of buying the latest iPhone to compare it with the latest and geatest from other manufacturers. It's a fair enough concept, but often overlooked is the question of whether the latest iPhone is really giving you much more bang for your performance buck than your current iPhone. Well the folks at The Unofficial Apple Weblog have decided to pit the four generations of iPhone against one another and they've produced a handy video for your viewing pleasure. You'll see the original Jobs' baby go head to head with the 3G, 3GS and the much maligned iPhone 4. Whilst the iPhone 4 does tend to walk away with the game when it comes to most tasks it doesn't get it all its own way though, the original iPhone actually outperforms it when shutting down and the 3GS beats it in terms of boot time. Take a look for yourself below: