Japan will be getting the loudly colored Sony Ericsson Xmini. This tiny handset combines what you will find in a Walkman MP3 player with your standard feature phone. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the phone is the 8-megapixle camera. You will also get the familiar control keys as well as 4GB of internal storage.

Vodafone and Western Union are working together to create a mobile money transfer service that will launch a cross-border Mobile Money Transfer (MMT) between the UK and Kenya. Users will be able to send money in a matter of minutes. This service is based on M-PESA, which is a mobile money transfer service that is already very popular in Kenya. If the trial service goes well, Vodafone will launch this service in many other countries.

It looks like those who are waiting for the Xperia X1a are going to have to wait even longer. The only Style is even showing the estimated shipping date as January 12, 2009. Even Best Buy has changed their online order form from “pre-Order” to “Coming Soon.” Blurry pictures have surfaced showing the rumored 8-megapixle handset that is coming to T-Mobile. We are told that this handset will feature the same Touchwiz interface we have grown accustom to.

Nokia now is reportedly shipping the N85 North American edition (N85 NAM) pre-orders. Users are coming fourth stating they have received emails confirming the N85 NSM edition has been shipped. The Vertu Boucheron 150 has got to be the most expensive phone you will ever see. At $30,000 this phone is crafted out of solid gold with a sapphire crystal keypad. It takes about 1,000 man-hours to shape, 700 hours to hand polish it as well as 500 hours to built this handset.  Even the wooden case is even a luxury item being crafted out of Noce Pedullo walnut tree courtesy of Reuge from Switzerland.

There seems to be quite a large market for luxury phones because not long after hearing about the first one did we receive word about the Mobiado Professional 105GMT Gold. This luxury handset features a real mechanical watch that has 25-jeweled bearings that are gold pained. What would a luxury phone be without being made of gold? This one may not have been crafted from solid gold, but it is finished with a 24- Carat gold coating.

We also debunked the rumor of a “Zune Phone” being announced at CES 2009. Rumors surfaced saying that the Zune phone was going to be announced as Project Pink. We were quickly reminded that Project Pink is not a piece of hardware at all, rather it’s a platform of services that could allow Zune like services to run on platforms like Windows Mobile.  After 6 months of trying to pull out of financial hardships Neonode Inc’s Swedish subsidiary, Neonode AB, was not able to hold it together and stay afloat and ended up filing for bankruptcy. Even with the bad news, Neonode will continue to operate as usual.

We also reported that the Symbian Foundation will be shaping Symbian to be open source within two years. Currently there are ten participants in the Symbian Foundation with memberships open to anyone with $1,500. They must work fast in order to keep any sort of lead over Google’s Android. RIM and Chalk Media Corp. have reached an agreement in the purchase of Chalk Media. Financial advisor, Blackmont Capital Inc., gave Chalk Media a fairness option, after which Chalk’s board of directors has unanimously approved the acquisition and recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the transaction.

Sprints Voluntary Separation Program (VSP) did not take as well as they had planned forcing Sprint to move forward with laying off employees. A proposal is going in front of the board next month and we can expect to see substantial layoffs soon after. It’s a real hard time for Sprint right now. There obviously have to be many uncharacteristic changes in order to save this sinking ship.