In July we reported that a new Finnish company called Jolla had been formed from a team of specialists that had worked on the MeeGo-powered Nokia N9. It planned to release a smartphone with a new user interface based on MeeGo.

A few days ago Jolla Ltd announced a new ecosystem alliance to support a MeeGo-based mobile OS codenamed ‘Sailfish’ and today it’s confirmed a date for the public unveiling of its user interface.

Last year Finnish software company Digia arranged to acquire the Qt commercial software licensing business from Nokia.

It’s now announced plans to acquire the Qt technology and business from Nokia, which means it’s taking over the entire Qt Project. Digia now plans to bring Qt to the Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms.

Last year’s announcement of the Tizen open source mobile project appeared to suggest an end to the Linux-based MeeGo platform, which was formed in February 2010 with the merger of Maemo and Moblin. However, a new company in Finland is promising to keep the MeeGo OS going.

Jolla Ltd has been formed from the team that built the MeeGo-powered Nokia N9, along with a number of other MeeGo specialists.

Senseg, the Finnish company that enables smartphone and tablet screens to offer different textures when touched, has appointed Paul Costigan as its Chief Executive Officer.

Mr Costigan was previously the chief operating officer and Asia-Pacific region president for video processor business Movidius, although he’s probably best known as co-founder and CEO of fabless semiconductor firm Massana.

Stockholm-based mobile payment service iZettle has announced it’s now able to accept American Express cards in Sweden and Finland. The company was already able to accept MasterCard, Visa and Diners Club payments via its card reader and app. 

iZettle’s reader plugs into an iPhone or iPad and turns it into a mobile payment terminal for ‘chip and PIN’ credit cards.