Nokia shipped 123.7 million phones in 2010 Q4. Out of them smart phones were the quoted 31 million. So the summary should say that Android overtakes Symbian in the smart phone segment, not all mobile phones. Those over 90 million phones are cheaper models running S40 etc. That makes Symbian still the most-shipped mobile platform.
Sources:
http://www.intomobile.com/2011/01/27/nokia-q4-2010-sales-up-profits-down/
http://www.nokia.com/press/press-releases/showpressrelease?newsid=1482864

We've been doing smartphone based banking over over 10 years now.. Nordea (Swedish/Finnish bank) launched mobile on-line banking service in January 2000. Granted, you didn't call handsets "smart phones" and they weren't as shiny as iPhone (Nokia 7110 for instance) and the service was (and is, I guess the service is still running) based on WAP instead of HTTP over TCP/IP but still it was smartphone based banking of the time. Source: Nordea Annual Report 2000, page 4. Personally, I've been doing all my personal daily banking needs (wire transfers, paying of bills, checking the balance and so on) using Nordea's online bank since 1997 (then called Merita). The site hasn't changed that much for over 10 years now except for minor layout face lifts and addition of services, and that's great. I've been using the same simple service meant for desktop browsers with phone browsers for many years. This stuff really shouldn't be very exiting..

You can run HDMI over Cat5/6... http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.21489

There maybe be a political angle to this also. Skype is originally written in Estonia. Diplomatic relationship between Russia and Estonia is not exactly warm at the moment. I guess that makes "the threat to Russian businesses" particularly "threatening".

Setup a publically accessible Linux box at your school. Load the development server with a selection of text editors to experiment, Sun Java JDK and screen (if using Ubuntu, everything is installable by running just one apt-get(1) command). Give each pair a shared account on the machine. Have them connect to the development server using what ever SSH client they please (Terminal.app + command line ssh on Macs, what ever GUI terminal emulator on Linux clients + command line ssh or Putty for Windows clients). First one to log in starts a screen(1) session. Second one will attach to the session by running screen -x. Now they both share the console session in real time. Both can type input and the other one will see the updates immediately. Have them write code using any Unix text editor such as vim or emacs (or pico or jed or what ever for wussies).

Summa summarum.

• It can't get more text based than this.

• Connection will be perfectly usable over a low-bandwidth link (though you should have reasonable latency, say 100ms or less, for jerk-free operation).

• Minimal requirements at student's end

• Having to work on text-based command line may sound a bit kinky at first if the student's are not familiar with it, but hey, you need not to be a long-bearded Unix weirdo in order to set up and use this kind of system. It's really simple when you think about it and let your prejudice go and spend 15 minutes learning the basics first.

• Definitely free as in beer and freedom!

I don't get it what's the big deal here. An Atom-Based MID is a PC, which can run Linux, which can run XBMC. Just install Ubuntu Intrepid, add a couple of lines to /etc/apt/sources.list and a dozen pressed keys later you have XBMC installed. Yay.

Remember one, and use some version of Password Safe. Sure, your desktop might provide similar functionality (at least Mac OS X and GNOME does), but they are not cross platform. When using Password Safe, you can just copy around the encrypted data file or have it with you in your physical keyring (hah!) stored on a USB drive and access the passwords on any Unix or Windows machine or platform that can run Java and SWT. Actually, it was originally designed by that Chuck Norris guy, so it must be good!