May 21 - 11:00am EDT   Fashion house Christian Dior is today unveiling a new phone it says will help lift the company's profile. The Dior phone takes a different approach than the LG Prada or Samsung's P520 Armani and opts for flip design with both a keypad and a touchscreen. Additionally, the new phone includes a miniature handset known as the My Dior: the device is small enough to clip to a bag but pairs with the main phone to handle most call functions by itself. [full story]

April 17 - 1:05am EDT   Samsung today unveiled a new premium LCD TV designed by Giorgio Armani in 46 inch and 52 inch sizes at the Milan International Furniture Fair in Italy. The TV features a four-mode lit power switch with the two companies' logos on the front, a remote with backlit buttons, and a smaller "pebble" remote with several essential buttons. Pricing was not immediately available, but Samsung confirmed that the smaller TV would ship in Europe, Korea, and Russia in mid summer, with the 52-inch version shipping late-summer. [full story]

December 27 - 3:35pm EST   Samsung's impending F490 and P720 touchscreen phones have been spotted outside of official press events with new details to match, says Russian site Mobile-Notes. The F490 (shown) is now known to include haptic feedback, vibrating the phone when a user touches a control on its 3.2-inch display; though slim, it has a 5-megapixel camera and (currently Europe-only) HSDPA 3G access. Its interface is better than that of the LG Viewty it will challenge on launch, the Russian report says. [full story]

December 24 - 11:10am EST   Samsung is gearing up for at least two new touchscreen phones early next year, a visitor to a Ukraine press event has noted. The F490 should be a silver version of the Croix that strips out the physical keyboard entirely, relying instead on a virtual keyboard for all its input. It should still preserve the unusually tall 240x432 screen, 5-megapixel camera, and HSDPA access, though whether it will support North American networks at 3G speeds is unknown. The F490 recently appeared in an FCC filing and suggests at least basic support in the US. [full story]