Nokia and Sanyo Electric Co. on Tuesday said they plan to form a joint venture to develop and make mobile phones for the CDMA standard, Yukari Iwatani Kane and Nathan Layne report from Tokyo. ”You could almost characterize it as a partnership of two weaknesses,” said Nick Ingelbrecht, an Australia-based analyst for Gartner.

The JV is likely to be located in California and Japan and will make phones for the dominant 3G telecoms service in the U.S. and parts of Asia, Dan Sloan reports in video.

The mobile industry unveiled plans to bring instant messaging (IM) to cell phones later this year to tap a new source of revenues and build on the success of text messaging, Santosh Menon reports.

Fifteen of the world’s top mobile operators, including Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, Telefonica and China Mobile announced plans to roll out PC-type instant messaging services initially targeting some 700 million mobile users.

But the service will not be free, and mobile operators plan to charge clients using the familiar “calling party pays principle”, under which users pay for sending messages but not for receiving them.

Nokia launched three new phone models on Monday (N-92 pictured above), due in the second quarter, saying it hoped to sell “tens of millions” of its new slim 6131 camera phone, Tarmo Virki and Georgina Prodhan report from 3GSM.BenQ Mobile said it will bring the world’s first HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) mobile phone to market around the time of the soccer World Cup in Germany that starts in June. The EF91 can download video such as football clips much faster than the first generation of 3G phones.

Sony-Ericsson K 610 is presented during the 3GSM. REUTERS/Gustau Nacarino

Former Vice President Al Gore was full of anger and passion as he visited the festival for the screening of documentary on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth”, Anne Thompson reports “The average person is ahead of politicians on this issue. People who care about it get disappointed by the lack of interest from the political system. We are beginning to see the critical formation of a mass movement in the public, which will make it impolitic for politicians to keep doing nothing.” The film’s first showings received standing ovations.

The Beastie Boys, (L-R) Mike Diamond, Adam Horowitz and Adam Yauch in Park City. The Beastie Boys’ documentary film ‘Awesome: I F***in’ Shot That’ is screening at the festival. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Neil Young (L) and his wife Pegi (R) at the premiere of “Neil Young: Heart of Gold” (Photo/Rick Wilking)

A wave of movies with messages have swept through the festival. “Audiences are getting a lot more smart about what they want to see,” Ricky Strauss, president of “Good Night” backer Participant Productions, told Reuters correspondent Bob Tourtellotte

Some say fans now demand more thoughtful films, which are vastly exceeding expectations at the box office. For example, the traditional Hollywood thriller “Stealth” bombed while independent movie “Crash,” about race relations, was a breakout hit.The trend also extends to the current Oscar season where movies with provocative themes like gay romance, “Brokeback Mountain” and free speech film “Good Night, and Good Luck” are winning awards and fans. Rosie O’Donnell (pictured right) came to this mountain town east of Salt Lake City with her documentary, “All Aboard! Rosie’s Family Cruise,” an inside look at the lives of gay families while on vacation.

While not at Sundance, Brad Pitt made his presence felt with a film he executive produced, “God Grew Tired of Us,” about young Sudanese refugees in the United States. It quickly became one of the most talked about movies at the festival.

After their rockumentary debut “Fast Future Generation,” twin rock stars Benji and Joel Madden have teamed up the documentary’s director, Marvin Scott Jarrett, to form production company, Fast Future Films, the Hollywood Reporter said.

The first production, “Valley of the Damned,” is slated to begin production in the spring.

OK, sort of self-referential for this blog, but this is the view of Sundance from the Hollywood Reporter (via Reuters):

As befits its indie roots, the Sundance Film Festival has long played host to innovations that have spread elsewhere.

Blogging is one of them. Personal blogs, millions of them, are spreading on the Internet like kudzu, from LiveJournal.com to MySpace.com. Professional blogs such as Gawker Media’s gossipy Defamer.com draws some 270,000 page views per day.

As blogs become more successful, they are challenging traditional media, and this year’s Sundance marks a fascinating juncture as newly powerful blogs like http://www.Cinematical.com take on the likes of the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.

(click for full story)

The Sundance Film Festival kicked off on Thursday (January 19) with the premiere of Jennifer Aniston’s latest film, “Friends with Money”. (click for full text story)