Today in Tech: Nokia-Microsoft phone photos, cheaper iPhone coming

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  Nokia CEO Stephen Elop revealed over the weekend that Microsoft outbid Google and will pay Nokia “billions” for the right to have its recently-introduced Windows Phone 7 operating system run on the handset maker’s devices. Elop also hinted the first Windows Phone 7 are likely to come out this year instead of next. (Computerworld)

• CityVille-maker Zynga is in talks with potential investors about raising around $250 million in new funding in a deal that could value the three-year-old start-up at between $7 billion and $9 billion. (Wall Street Journal)
• Borders could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today or tomorrow. (Los Angeles Times)
• If you’re already an iPhone user, then you’re used to shelling out $199 or $299 for the newest model. But as Bloomberg reported last week and The Wall Street Journal writes this week, Apple is rather far along in developing a new line of iPhones that will be significantly cheaper and better position the Cupertino-based company against the growing legion of competitively-priced smartphones out there. This new phone — what some internally reportedly called the N97 and what members of the press have dubbed either the “iPhone nano” or “iPhone mini” — will be roughly half the size (and price) of the iPhone 4, as well as significantly lighter with an edge-to-edge screen. As an added bonus, Apple may also make its cloud-computing service, MobileMe, free instead of asking for the $99 annual subscription fee it’s charged in the past. (Wall Street Journal)
• No surprise here, but Apple tops Barron’s list (again) of the 100 most-respected companies, with 68% of surveyed professional money managers saying they highly respect it, and 0% reporting they don’t. (Fortune)
• An insightful look at groups of successful alum, or “mafias,” of notable Silicon Valley companies, from Fairchild Semiconductor to PayPal and Facebook. (TechCrunch)
• Adobe will soon release a mobile version of Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.0 Honeycomb and BlackBerry’s Tablet OS. The updated version significantly cuts down on a device’s processor usage and battery drain by letting the phone’s hardware (instead of the software) decode and render video. The company predicts that over 132 million smartphones will support Flash, 36% will ship with it on Day One, and more than 50 tablets — Apple’s iPad of course being the most notable exception — will ship with Flash onboard. (CNET)
• Here’s early concept art of a Windows Phone 7 phone from Nokia, confirmed by the handset maker. Excited? (Engadget)

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