Today, Nokia announced the long-awaited Lumia 900, often referred to as the “Ace”, at CES. The Lumia 900 is the first LTE device for Nokia, and it’s making waves all over the web, with iPhone aficionado MG Siegler even giving it a virtual round of applause.

What’s getting everyone so excited? The device is actually quite gorgeous and has improved upon its last Lumia (the 800) with a 1.4GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 8-megapixel camera, and a 4.3-inch AMOLED display.

Nokia released a hands-on video today, giving you your first look at the unit up close and personal. The demo gives you decent glance at how beautiful the display is and how smoothly the Windows Mango OS runs on it.

Will it be enough to make a dent in the iPhone and Android heavy market? Our own Matthew Panzarino, who is on the ground at CES, says that an ecosystem needs to be built around the OS first for devices to become winners.

Having said that, a lot of iPhone and Android users are taking more than a few glances at the Lumia 900 today, but will they buy?

With Nokia arguably being the least exciting brand in mobile, the company decided to change that in Malaysia with a gimmick that turned into a world record.

File this one under “well-played”, as Nokia got over 2,000 people to interact with one of its handsets thanks to an ongoing game of Angry Birds.

Nokia noticed that not everyone knew that the game could be played on its devices, identifying Angry Birds with iOS and Android handsets exclusively. How do you get a large group of people to take notice of your products? Throw a big old event where you aim to break a world record, of course.

Last June, Nokia held this event in Kuala Lumpur, the largest city in terms of population in Malaysia, and consisted of 9,000 attendees. It was all put together by Nokia’s marketing department, which grabbed some impressive pre-event hype that hit social media, TV, magazine, and the street. Street marketing consisted of someone dressed up as an Angry Birds character informing people about the event.

How did Nokia do? Pretty well, amazingly. The company had hoped for 5,000 attendees at the stadium event and got 9,000. It had also hoped for 1,500 people to interact with the brand online and got 5,000 to do so.

And about that record? Malaysia grabbed the Guinness World Record for “The Most People in a Mobile Phone Game Relay.”

That’s pretty genius marketing there, and a way better effort than that ugly Nokia plane.

Prideaux was born without a left arm, and had to go to extra lengths to use his cell phone.

Thanks to help from Nokia and medical experts in Great Britain, Prideaux now has a Nokia C7 embedded in his prosthetic arm, which makes texting and calling his friends and family infinitely easier.

Prideaux says this about the medical marvel:

I think this is the first time this has ever been done in the world – and it is brilliant

Seeing medical technology merge with communications is extremely exciting, as we’ve seen amazing life-changing stories in the past thanks to technology achievements and creativity.

Finnish mobile giant Nokia has announced it will cut as many as 3,500 jobs as it continues to adapt its market strategy and cut company costs associated with manufacturing, its Location and Commerce business and other “supporting functions”.

In its press release, Nokia says that it will “take additional actions to align its workforce and operations” by adjusting its manufacturing capacity across Europe, closing its one of its factories in Cluj, Romania by the end of 2011, shifting output to Asian suppliers that “provide greater scale and proximity benefits”.

Nokia says it will also review the role of its manufacturing operations in Finland, Hungrary and Mexico, factories that are currently utilised for smartphone production for its European and North American customers. The shift will see the factories move to production of market-specific software and customise sales – which could see operations cut to produce mobile devices that are in-demand in those areas.

The company’s mapping and location business will see changes also, with Nokia looking to concentrate its Location & Commerce development efforts in Berlin, Boston, Chicago and other supporting sites but will close its operations in Bonn, Germany and Malvern, US.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said:

“We are seeing solid progress against our strategy, and with these planned changes we will emerge as a more dynamic, nimble and efficient challenger. We must take painful, yet necessary, steps to align our workforce and operations with our path forward.

Europe is core to Nokia’s future. In addition to our headquarters, we have a strong R&D presence in Europe. We have four major R&D sites in Finland and two major R&D sites in Germany, as well as Nokia Research Centers and other supporting R&D sites in Europe. Nokia also retains a strong local presence in our many sales offices throughout this region, as well as our operations in Salo and Komarom.”

The closure of Nokia’s Cluj factory will see 2,200 jobs cut, with the changes in its Location & Commerce business impacting around 1,300 staff.

If you’re a T-Mobile user wondering what your choices for phones looks like in the year ahead then it’s worth taking a look at this 2011 Roadmap put together by Chris Zeigler at This is My Next. There is a rundown of every expected or rumored model coming to the carrier in 2011. Some highlights include several BlackBerry models, a mystery Samsung model codenamed “Dumont” and the LG Optimus II.

They’ve backed up this list with a full breakdown of each model and corresponding rumors from TmoNews and BGR. The list of phones in chronological (more or less) order looks something like this.
June

• HTC Sensation 4G
• Samsung t589 Gravity Touch 2
• Samsung t759 “Hawk”
• Huawei E587 “Wayne”

July

• HTC “Doubleshot” AKA myTouch 4G Slide
• HTC “Marvel” AKA Wildfire S
• BlackBerry “Monza”

August

• BlackBerry Bold Touch
• BlackBerry “Apollo”
• Huawei S7 with HSPA+ and T-Mobile branding

September

• Samsung Hercules
• LG “Flip II”
• Nokia “Panda” AKA Nuron 4G

Further Out

• LG Maxx
• LG Maxx Q
• Huawei U2805
• Samsung “Jamong”
• Samsung “Dumont”
• LG “Gelato” AKA Optimus II
• HTC “Bresson”
• HTC “G-Infinity”

That’s a lot of phones slated for America’s third-most popular carrier. TIMN points out that the G-Infinity might very well be the next G-series device to follow the G1, G2 and G2X. The Samsung “Dumont” is noticeable if only for the complete lack of details but it would be nice to see a new flagship Samsung phone on T-Mobile. The BlackBerry Bold Touch has already been outed but the “Apollo” could be a new Curve replacement. The “Doubleshot” should end up being a 3.7″ dual-core, HSPA+ flagship phone for HTC.

The lineup looks pretty packed, with a decent selection of phones from most of the majors. Noticeably absent from the rumors is Motorola, which currently offers the Defy on T-Mobile. Head on over to This is My Next for a complete breakdown.