Not so long ago, Chinese government made a statement (source: People's Daily Online) about single national standard on mobile phone chargers sold in the country. They wanted to avoid waste and to lower costs: "Under the new standard, all mobile phones, regardless of the brand, will be able to share one charger with a USB access, allowing users to charge handsets through laptops. (...) China has almost 450 million cell phone subscribers, with up to 100 million replacing their phones every year. The chargers are often disposed of with the phones.". 

Although no deadline had been set to allow charger makers to adjust their production, they responded quickly - Nokia did it as well (it's worth to note that China is the first largest market for Nokia in terms of sales, India being the second).
At the time of writing, five S40 devices have microUSB port (models: 8600 luna, 6500 classic/slide, 7900 prism, 6555). Some of these devices use microUSB for all connection types (one port for charging, data connection and audio), some have 2.0mm charger connector, 2.5mm audio and microUSB for data. It seems that Pop Port is not needed anymore. One big question is when microUSB with charging capability will come to S60 - will it be S60 3rd FP2 or later? The answer will come soon. Till then owners of devices with 2.0mm connector can use a special charger via USB (Nokia USB Charger CA-100).

I also have an idea - it would be interesting to use (micro)USB port in smartphones like we use in PC's. Just imagine connecting 'normal' PC's keyboard, mouse or additional flash memory to your smartphone through USB (is it a matter of proper device driver written for Symbian?)... one step in this direction is audio (which works directly through microUSB + headset HS-82 or AD-55 adapter).

Competition in mobile operating systems area is getting stronger. Apart from Symbian OS, MS Windows Mobile family, there are plenty of Linux based mobile platforms: Maemo (Nokia), Open Moko (e.g. Neo1973 phone), LiMo (Vodafone, NTT Docomo, Motorola, Samsung, Nec and Panasonic partnership), ACCESS Linux Platform to mention a few. According to CNN Money ("Motorola Unveils MOTOMAGX Mobile Linux Platform" article), Motorola announced its next generation mobile Linux platform - MOTOMAGX. New platform is supposed to "lay the foundation to deliver new levels of openness, flexibility, and support for third-party applications on Motorola mobile devices". In the next few years, up to 60% of Motorola's handset portfolio is expected to be based on Linux, with the MOTOMAGX platform playing a key role in supporting this strategy.
"Motorola's MOTOMAGX platform is designed to support a broad array of content created by third-party developers. Today, MOTOMAGX supports applications developed in Java ME(TM), with plans to introduce new WebUI (featuring web technology to enable widgets and Web 2.0 experiences) and native Linux application environments in upcoming releases. These three application environments, combined with the relevant tools available through Motorola's MOTODEV Studio integrated development environment, will help enable MOTODEV developers to innovate and accelerate time to market for their applications."

I see that Linux will soon be a major competitor to Symbian and Windows Mobile. If Linux based platforms don't have a program similar to Symbian Signed and complicated Platform Security, they may become better platform for mobile developers (Linux is widely accepted by opensource)... It's also worth noting that widgets have become accepted in mobile world and now are spreading around many mobile platforms.

After iPhone, we should be prepared for... gPhone(s). According to The Wall Street Journal ("Google Pushes Tailored Phones
To Win Lucrative Ad Market" article), "The company, which has made billions of dollars in Web advertising on computers, is courting wireless operators to carry handsets customized to Google products, including its search engine, email and a new mobile Web browser, say people familiar with the plans. It wants to capture a big chunk of the fast-growing market for ads on cellphones." For wireless operators, the plans are a double-edged sword - on the one hand they will sell more data packages to subscribers, on the other hand they may lose control over the mobile-ad market ("What's interesting about the ads in the mobile phone is that they are twice as profitable or more than the nonmobile phone ads because they're more personal" said Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt).
Google devices will have cameras for photo and video, built-in Wi-Fi, possibly 3G and GPS.

I wonder if people will accept a lot of advertisements in mobile world...

According to NewScientist ("Oil and water flexi-displays" article), we can expect that flexible displays (that can be rolled up!) may be in mass production in the very near future. This may change the way we use our mobile devices. New technology will use oil and water to produce images (it's an OLED alternative).

How does it work? Instead of making pixels out of OLEDs, there are designed out of oil and water contained in tiny plastic cells connected to plastic electrodes. The oil, which is opaque, floats on the water and obscures a coloured surface beneath. But applying an electric field forces the oil away from the water, revealing the coloured layer beneath and changing the colour of the pixel.

The process of production is cheap and simple, which hopefully will make possible reading a completely digital morning paper using mobile device (imagine being able to unroll an A4-sized display out of a device little bigger than a pen).
Would you like to use such a toy every day?