Nokia's newest smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 900, was introduced this week at the International CES 2012 in Las Vegas by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. (Watch Elop discuss Nokia's strategy focusing on the new Nokia Lumia phones running Microsoft Windows Phone during the AT&T Developer Summit that took place at CES.)

The Nokia Lumia 900 phone runs Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5. It is the biggest and fastest smartphone yet. And it will become available exclusively through AT&T in March.

With support from AT&T's 4G LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network, the Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone will offer high-performance web browsing with Microsoft Internet Explorer Mobile, as well as both video and audio streaming. Other features include a long-lasting battery for all-day use; Nokia App Highlights to recommend key applications; two cameras, including an 8-megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens; a 4.3-inch AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) ClearBlack touch-screen display; and the Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive apps.

During CES, the buzz surrounding the Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone was loud. For instance, Wired.com called the phone one of the ’12 Best’ gadgets at CES. And the Nokia booth was consistently mobbed by people eager to see Nokia’s latest smartphone achievement.

Nokia this week announced mobile applications from CNN, Univision, ESPN, and Sesame Workshop that will be available first and exclusively on Nokia Lumia smartphones. Nokia’s partnerships with these four companies means new apps from some of the world’s biggest brands will be available to users of other devices running Microsoft Windows Phone. The exclusivity programmes will vary by content provider.

Momentum behind the Microsoft Windows Phone ecosystem continues to grow rapidly. Windows Phone Marketplace now has 50,000 apps. More than 80,000 developers have registered with the Microsoft App Hub, where they have downloaded more than 3 million developer tools. Currently, 300 new titles are being submitted each day to Marketplace. That is about three times higher than it was before the Nokia-Microsoft partnership was announced last year.

In addition, the Nokia Lumia 710 smartphone, announced for T-Mobile’s network in December 2011, is now available for order on the T-Mobile website; at T-Mobile retail stores and authorised retail stores in the U.S.; and at Costco, Target, and Walmart locations in the U.S.

The Nokia Lumia 800 phone will be made available online, including on the Microsoft Store website. The phone comes in three striking colours: cyan, magenta, and matte black. And it is available in a bundle with the Nokia Play 360° speaker and a Nokia Purity by Monster headset. This unique bundle will become available online in early February.

In three new videos, executives at Univision Interactive Media, Netflix Inc., and Evernote Corp. discuss their latest success stories in mobile app development, in partnership with Nokia and Microsoft Windows Phone. These videos are available now for your viewing pleasure:

- Univision: Jose Hernandez, VP of mobile content, and Alfredo Rojas, mobile product manager, explain how their app makes use of the Metro UI panoramas, to offer consumers a unique experience. 

- Netflix: Anthony Park, director of engineering, talks about how Netflix now enables consumers to easily start watching Netflix videos on their TVs or computers, then continue watching on their Nokia Lumia smartphones without having to start over.

- Evernote: Andrew Sinkov, VP of marketing, and Damian Mehers, senior software engineer, describe how Nokia and Microsoft helped from the very beginning in creating Evernote for Windows Phone, including providing feedback on the app before it was released.

Upgrades to Nokia Belle software (also known as Symbian Belle) are beginning to roll out worldwide. Now you can optimise your current apps – those compatible with S^3 and Symbian Anna – to make the most of the UI changes that Belle brings to a wide range of Symbian smartphones from Nokia.

While many existing apps will be largely compatible with Belle from the start, we recommend that you first test your apps, then address any compatibility issues you may find. Don’t have a Nokia Belle phone? No problem! You can use Nokia’s free Remote Device Access service to test your apps. Depending on the results, you may decide to make certain changes and then republish or update your app in Nokia Store to make the most of the new Belle software.

Themes remain one of the most popular content items users add to their phones, and several theme developers have achieved over 1 million downloads. And the news gets even better: Carbide.ui Theme Edition has just received a major update.

Among the changes is a redesigned theme-creation wizard. In addition to creating themes from a template or copy of an existing theme, you can choose a phone model; then, Carbide.ui will automatically select the right template. This feature also keeps you up to date through an RSS feed from the Devices section of Nokia Developer, so you can start creating themes for the latest phones as soon as they are announced.

Need to know which version of the Qt framework is running on a Nokia phone? The free QtInfo app is your perfect solution.

This app will show you the installed version of Qt, any installed modules, and details of the installation, including the versions of Qt Quick, OpenGL, and WebKit on the phone. The app's report will also include information on audio, video, and image formats supported by the current installation. You’ll even see a list of any optional Qt components that are installed.

Join us in Florence, Italy, on 27 and 28 January for Qt Day 2012, two days packed with exciting technical and business sessions. Highlights will include:

- A keynote by Manuel Reverte-Castro, Nokia’s head of Ecosystem Developer Experience for South Europe; he will discuss Qt as a strategic short- and long-term development platform that enables developers to monetise applications.

- Case studies on the use of Qt in commercial projects.

- Technical sessions, including what’s new in Qt, Qt 5, and Qt Project.

- A Digia presentation on the capabilities of the Qt Commercial team and the Qt Commercial roadmap.

Attendance to Qt Day 2012 in Florence is free. Note that most sessions will be conducted in Italian.

Curiosity drives Nokia Developer Champion of the Month Luis Valente to research mobile entertainment — specifically, innovative games that use gestures and games for visually impaired people. His Audio Flashlight series includes an option for playing with no visual information at all, providing great fun for sighted and visually impaired players alike. It was awarded the ‘best work’ distinction at the Brazilian symposium on human-computer interaction in 2008.

Valente has numerous published articles to his credit and is a member of the editorial board of International Journal of Computer Games Technology. Valente, who is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, recently completed his doctorate in informatics from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), a top Brazilian university.