Photo by =xAv= –  Some rights reserved

Welcome to the 209th edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists.  Every Monday the Carnival pops up somewhere on the Web  to showcase the best recent posts on any aspect of the mobile ecosystem. This week it’s WapReview’s turn to host the Carnival and boy have we got some great stuff to share with you. So sit back and enjoy the read.

At Always On Real-Time Access, Chetan Sharma analyzes technology that could help to solve the growing problem of providing adequate backhaul capacity to cellular base stations in his “ New Whitepaper: Role of Optical Wireless Broadband in the Evolving Mobile Ecosystem“.

On the lighter side, Raj Singh lets us in on the untold story behind Nokia’s love affair with resistive screens, revealing the  “Top 6 Reasons Why Nokia Doesn’t Have a Capacitive Touch Screen“.

In the first of two in-depth posts about the iPad, Randy Giusto writing at New Digital Cafe explores how the new device fits into the existing market place and ponders who will buy it and why.   “Apple’s iPad Will Push Multiple Usage Models“.

Also in the strategic vein, “iPad: The (attempted) Windows killer” by Michael Mace offers an unexpected but plausible thesis that Apple’s real target is the PC as we know it and that Microsoft has far more to fear from the iPad than Amazon!

Mobile Mandala‘s Mark Jaffe makes a wake up call to the mainstream entertainment business in Mobile Is Not An Island. Will they heed it in time?

Thinking about getting a Mifi? Improbulus offers and a through review of the  “3 Mifi wireless mobile broadband for computer, iPod Touch, Playstation etc“. It really sounds like a cool device. As an American, I’m blown away by 3’s pay as you go pricing on the MiFi. Similar pocket-able WiFi routers from US operators cost four times much initially and data is far pricier too.

Calling all mobile developers!  “Ericsson getting ready to Jam at MWC2010“. Translation –  Caroline Lewko is reminding us that the industry’s best “No PPT, no panels, no ties” developer event is happening this month in Barcelona.  I wish I could be there!

Andrew Currie asks a very good question in “Why aren’t Linux phones using SyncML?” Why indeed are all three major open source based smartphone operating systems forsaking an open standard for a closed proprietary protocol from Microsoft!

Mjelly’s James Coops introduces his new blog (and new venture) Mobyaffiliates with slides from a presentation on “Mobile Internet Affiliate Marketing Opportunities” that he gave at the he gave at the recent London Affiliate Conference.

Peggy Anne Salz offers her typical, insightful analysis into the surprising results of a survey of mobile professionals on app store prospects. “Apple App Store Leads The Pack; Will Operator App Stores Struggle?“

At Smartmobs, Gerrit Visser  links to some of the top web resources for understanding the security implications of Facebook’s latest iPhone app in “Facebook Adds Pickpocketing Feature to its iPhone app“.

Rounding up this week’s carnival is my own compendium of tips for using Maemo’s best app, “N900 MicroB Browser Basics“.

As I said at the start there is some great content in this week’s Carnival. It wasn’t easy picking this week’s best posts but there can be only one winner in each category. I’m giving the award for Best post by a Carnival newcomer to Andrew Currie for his impassioned  plea for open standards.  Post of the week honors go to Michael Mace for his unique and thought provoking take on the iPad launch.

That’s all for now, take thirty minutes or so to read the posts linked above. I think you will enjoy the experience and gain some new insights into what’s happening in mobile today.

Next Monday head over to Indigo102 for the next installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists.