Today’s mobile news roundup features the brains behind the “Wake up Campaign,” Nokia’s plans to sell Vertu, Apple’s trick for paying less in taxes, and more.

So who’s behind Wake up?

Last week, news regarding the Wake up campaign involving a flash mob protest in front of Apple Store in Australia, a teaser page with a timer, posters, billboards, at the bottom of Bondi Ice Bergs pool, had everyone blaming Samsung since they have an event on May 3rd.  But the Galaxy maker denied any involvement in the smear campaign.

“Samsung Electronics Australia has nothing to do with the ‘Wake-Up Campaign,” said the Korean company in a statement.

Though some were quick to point their fingers at Samsung, others dug a little deeper into the matter and checked the source code of the teaser page.  The source code is a DoubleClick Floodlight Tag ID, 2215527, which is used by Research in Motion’s Australian BlackBerry site.

The said code is a unique identifier for DoubleClick users, which means that RIM Australia may be behind this campaign.  The timing makes sense as they too have an event this week – The BlackBerry World event at Orlando World Center Marriott, Florida kicks off on May 1-3.  Since BlackBerry devices aren’t doing too well in the market, this might be a ploy to get some attention.  Also, RIM announced that there won’t be any BlackBerry 10 devices announced at the event, so yeah, they need a bold move to gain some attention.

Nokia to sell Vertu

Finnish mobile maker Nokia is said to be in negotiations regarding the sale of Vertu, their UK luxury subsidiary which hand makes some of the world’s most expensive mobile phones.

The sale seems to be related to their recent negative credit rating, plus their poor Q1 financial report.  Nokia is said to be in talks with private equity group Permira for a sale price of 200 million euros ($265 million).  The report from Reuters also mentioned that the Northern European private equity group is also interested in purchasing Vertu from Nokia, but the Permira deal is more likely since the negotiations are already in advanced stage.

Vertu is known for their exquisite hand-made phones that sometimes feature crystal displays and sapphire keys, or aluminum with leather and ceramic keys, which can cost up to 200,000 pounds ($320,000).

Apple’s tax evading tricks

We all know how much revenue Apple generates in a given quarter.  They’re an undeniably wealthy company.  But even though they earn billions of dollars a year, they don’t pay a huge amount in taxes.   How’s that possible, you ask?  Simple–they built subsidiaries in low-tax places like in Nevada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands to reduce their tax payouts.

Nevada may be the most important subsidiary for Apple.  Thought Apple’s HQ is in California, the Nevada office collects and manages the cash generated by their US business.  California has a corporate tax rate of 8.84%, while Nevada has no corporate tax rate – Apple doesn’t pay taxes for the cash they generate.  Aside from not paying taxes in Reno, they get tax credit for maintaining their research and development in the Sunshine state – Apple has been credited as much as $400 million of R&D credits since 1996.

Apple’s also come up with a way to avoid international taxes.  The scheme is known as the “Double Irish With A Dutch Sandwich.”  Apple has a few more tax-evasion tricks up their sleeves, making them all the richer as people embrace their products.

More Galaxy S3 sightings

As the Samsung Unpacked events draws near, more sightings of Samsung Galaxy had been reported.  More photos and videos are are surfacing the web, making Fandroids drool.  Are you ready for the big event?  See here how the Galaxy S3 could stack up against an Apple iPhone5.