Nokia has announced the N8 smartphone, which is set to be the first device running version 3 of the Symbian operating system. There’s a 12 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, there’s HD-quality video recording, Dolby surround sound and a 3.5-inch organic LED screen in the aluminium body.

There's also social network aggregation, built-in video editing and the free Ovi Maps navigation service. Symbian ^3 includes support for multi-touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom on the touchscreen.

NTT DOCOMO, Renesas Electronics, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic and Sharp have announced an agreement that'll see them working together to develop a new application platform for mobile phones. The new platform, which promises improved processing speeds for high-quality video and 3D graphics, is intended to cut development time and costs for the four Japanese mobile phone manufacturers.

The new platform will be compatible with both the Symbian and Linux operating systems, while Android compatibility hasn't been ruled out. Mobile phones incorporating the new platform are expected to be seen in late 2011 or early 2012.

Nokia has just reported its first quarter financial results. Sales and profits were both up year-on-year, with net sales reaching 9.5 billion Euro. Device shipments were up 16% year-on-year to 107.8 million units, with sales of 'converged' devices – smartphones and mobile-enabled computers – up 57%. In addition, 10 million Nokia smartphone users have downloaded the company's free sat-nav service since January.

However, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo warned that the company continues to face tough competition at the high end of its mobile device portfolio and challenging market conditions on the infrastructure side.

Iain, James and Mark take their regular look at the latest mobile industry headlines. This week there's talk about Symbian, a possible delay to the Orange/T-Mobile merger, mobile phone components that rely on quantum physics... and plenty more.

This week’s edition of The Fonecast looks at the Motorola ZN5 camera phone and talks about mobile industry news from the last seven days - including termination rates, Symbian and international growth.