02/12, 7:25pm
Samsung tablets outsold by Apple in home turf
Industry insider estimates have claimed that the iPad 2 has reached the million-unit sales mark in South Korea. The milestone came after a late November 2010 launch and 700,000 iPads shipped just in 2011, leaving the remaining 300,000 to have been sold in two and a half months' time, the Korea Herald said. That number could be higher, Korean media thought, since many had bought iPads even before official approval.
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02/12, 12:45pm
Google TV gets teased update
Google made the unusual choice of a Facebook posting to hint at "big announcements" coming for Google TV on Monday. The company wouldn't give any clues as to its plans. It's unlikely to include any minor OS updates, since it recently updated to Android 3.2.
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02/11, 1:40pm
Apple lawsuit vs Samsung expanded
An expansion upon what few details have been available from Apple's new Samsung lawsuit has suggested that it reaches more at the core of Android and less at Samsung's specific actions. Along with accusing Samsung of violating a newer unlock gesture patent than what was covered in Germany, a second patent for a "universal interface" for retrieving data appeared to Florian Mueller to accuse Samsung of violating Siri-style searches, where stitching together keywords presents just the immediately needed results. While Android on a base level doesn't do this, it would prevent Google from providing a narrower search method in Android.
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02/11, 12:55am
Spotify and Foursquare get special features
Two major mobile apps got updates for special features at the end of the week. Spotify on iOS (App Store) now has the option to both stream and sync audio at 320Kbps, the same quality as it exists on the desktop. While it requires either a more intensive Internet connection or extra storage for cached tracks, it puts the app's audio quality ahead of other on-demand music rivals.
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02/10, 7:50pm
Samsung complains, refuses to negotiate
KT, Korea's largest wire-line operator and Internet services provider, has begun limiting web access to Samsung's Smart TVs. KT took the step a day after it warned Korean TV makers that it could not give Internet-enabled TVs a "free ride" over its network. The service provider wants compensation for the alleged heavy traffic the TVs create, claiming it slows down Internet service to its other customers.
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02/10, 5:55pm
ATT upgrade fee hike coming February 12
A staff memo has leaked plans for AT&T to hike its device upgrade fee. The BGR copy had the cost jumping from $18 to $36. The cost was allegedly necessary because the "overall costs" for upgrading to a new device had gone up, AT&T said.
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02/10, 4:45pm
Apple uses patent exhaustion versus Motorola in US
Apple's lawsuit retaliation continued on Friday after it sued Motorola in the US over 3G patent issues. The iPhone designer sought to block Motorola from making patent violation accusations based on its use of Qualcomm's MDM6610 cellular chipset as well as any others it might use. It came after Qualcomm confirmed to Apple that it was already paying for a license to Motorola's 3G patents, which Apple took to mean that it was exempt from paying itself.
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02/10, 4:00pm
Galaxy Mini 2 due out at Mobile World Congress?
The Galaxy Mini from Samsung may soon get a successor in the form of the leaked Galaxy mini 2 S6500. GSM Arena was sent an image of the device from a source, together with some basic specs. The touchscreen has grown to 3.3 inches and has a higher resolution, while the processor is 200MHz faster, now at 800MHz. The internal storage space got the biggest bump, to 3GB.
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02/10, 12:35pm
Apple sues Samsung twice in one week
Apple scaled up its legal attacks late this week with lawsuits against Samsung both in the US and in Germany. The American complaint, details of which were filed in a Northern District of California court in San Jose on Wednesday and published on Friday, accuses Samsung of violating two patents that it had only just obtained in December. Samsung was accused of copying iOS' techniques for heuristic information finding as well as its method of suggesting a replacement word when a misspelling is highlighted.
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02/09, 6:20pm
Gaming laptop features 3rd generation Core i7 CPU
Samsung's new Ivy Bridge powered gaming laptop has popped up at the company's US website and is available for pre-order. The 17.3-inch NP700G7C-S01US is powered by a third-generation and so far unannounced 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM quad-core processor. It comes paired with a similarly unofficial, discrete NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M for graphics.
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02/09, 1:00pm
Samsung files for Galaxy Camera trademark
Samsung may apply its Galaxy smartphone branding to a dedicated camera if a recent trademark filing with the USPTO is any indication. The "Galaxy Camera" name it's seeking would likely involve an Android-powered compact digital camera with a significantly larger lens, perhaps similar to the Polaroid SC1630 we had a chance to check out at CES. The filing falls under the "Cameras and Camcorders" section of the patent office and therefore wouldn't be a phone.
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02/09, 12:10pm
Lytro camera torn down by FCC, shows Wi-Fi, BT
Lytro's infinite focus camera has been torn down by the FCC, revealing its internal components. Behind the 1.5-inch display hides a Marvell Avastar 88W8787 system-on-chip that contains both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios. This is interesting, as it indicates the camera has the hardware required to be controlled over a wireless link or share its photos online.
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02/09, 9:15am
iPad 3 to get expected one-year anniversary launch
Apple may hew closely to the formula of its iPad launch last year for the iPad 3 if leaks Thursday are indicators. The company would use the "first week in March" to introduce the new tablet and put it on sale roughly a week later, AllThingsD heard. The event would take place in San Francisco, most likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (pictured) that Apple has used for both iPad events so far.
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02/09, 8:55am
Telus becomes 3rd Canadian carrier with LTE
Telus became the third Canadian carrier with an LTE-based 4G network on Thursday. Starting on February 10 in Halifax, the carrier will have the same 75Mbps peak download speeds and 12-25Mbps averages as the existing networks from rivals Bell and Rogers. It plans to kick off the network with the Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE, LG's Optimus LTE smartphone, and Novatel's Ovation MC679 modem; the Galaxy Note with LTE will be available on February 14.
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02/09, 7:45am
Galaxy Tab 10.1N avoids preliminary ban
Samsung got a reprieve on Thursday after a Dusseldorf court ruling (PDF) denied Apple's call for a preliminary ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1N. Fulfilling early expectations, the judge determined that the 10.1N was sufficiently different from the iPad to avoid confusion over Apple's claimed design rights. The court also tossed ideas that even the consciously modified Tab 10.1N was breaking competition rules by unfairly using a similar product.
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02/08, 10:15pm
Lenovo Q4 results show banner gains
Lenovo as part of record results for its fall quarter clinched the top spots in key parts of the PC business. While it wouldn't give exact numbers, it mostly sided with IDC rankings that saw it claim 14 percent of the computer market worldwide, or second place. It was now large enough that it was the leader for shipments in work PCs of any kind as well as in home desktops.
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02/08, 7:50pm
DOJ may OK Google-Motorola with conditions
The Department of Justice is leaning towards approving Google's takeover of Motorola, insiders leaked Wednesday. It wasn't clear what the motivating reasons were in the Wall Street Journal tip, but the approval could be publicized as soon as next week. Regulators would mostly be watching to see if Google abused the patents it would get with Motorola to attack competitors.
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02/08, 7:10pm
iPad 3 may parallel Galaxy Tab in faster dual core
An incidental rumor floated next to talk of a purported iPad 3 case back has raised the possibility that Apple's expected A6 chip isn't quad-core. Citing unnamed sources, The Verge claimed that it would stay dual-core but have a "significantly more powerful" graphics core. Although not mentioned, it's presumed the clock speed, architecture, or both would be upgraded with the new chip.
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02/08, 1:25pm
Samsung MWC plans drop special event too
Samsung has hinted that any products shown at Mobile World Congress may be low-profile after it stated Wednesday that it had no plans for a special event at the Barcelona show. The company didn't rule out any "exciting new products" in a response to PCMag inquiries, but it hinted that it not only would miss the Galaxy S III but that any other major unveilings would wait until later as well. No clues exist as to when special events might take place later.
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02/08, 12:35pm
Samsung Galaxy Note ad out of top 10 for most
Samsung's Super Bowl ad for the Galaxy Note may have been one of the costliest mistakes in advertising in recent memory, based on new Nielsen data from the event. The Android phone's commercial appeared neither in the top 10 most-remembered ads of the football game nor the top 10 most-liked among Nielsen's nearly 12,000-person panel. Instead, the only technology picks went to E*Trade and to GoDaddy, whose flip-flop on SOPA still left it with the ninth most memorable spot.
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02/08, 9:35am
Sprint gives more details of LTE, iPhone in call
Sprint in the wake of its fall results expanded its LTE plans and also touted the iPhone as a better option for its network than Android. The carrier now planned to add its original WiMAX city, Baltimore, to the cities getting LTE-based 4G by mid-2012. Sprint's home area of Kansas City was also new and would see a total of six cities getting the new network.
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02/08, 8:30am
Nokia moves smartphones to Asia to cut costs
Nokia showed the toughening conditions of the smartphone field on Wednesday after it detailed plans to cut 4,000 manufacturing jobs. Positions both in its home territory factory in Salo, Finland, as well as in Komarom, Hungary and Reynosa, Mexico, would be eliminated by the end of 2012. Smartphone production would be moving more towards Asia, where it wouldn't just be cheaper to make devices, but faster.
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02/07, 11:00pm
Promotion ahead of Valentine's day
T-Mobile has announced that its entire range of phones, and a number of tablets, will be offered for free during a one-day promotion on Saturday, February 11. The "Valentine's Day Sale" applies to smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S II, BlackBerry Bold 9900, HTC Amaze 4G and Nokia Lumia 710, along with the SpringBoard tablet and the Sonic 4G hotspot.
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02/07, 10:25pm
Timing for fix remains unclear
Samsung and AT&T have temporarily halted their update program for the Infuse 4G handset due to an unspecified bug. The issue is claimed to affect only a small number of users, however the companies have nonetheless decided to stop releasing the updates while they work to develop a fix.
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02/07, 6:30pm
Telus goes all-in on Optik console and mobile
Telus' Optik IPTV service got much more control over non-traditional viewing on Tuesday. Optik TV for Xbox 360 takes advantage of the fall Xbox 360 Dashboard update to use the console as the set-top box, including for remote DVR viewing if there's a traditional DVR on the same network. The support includes full Kinect motion control.
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02/07, 4:40pm
Industry slipped in Q4 without Apple help
Looking at fourth-quarter results, Apple now represents almost half of cellphone/mobile computing industry revenues, and over 80 percent of its profits, says Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt. The industry is in fact said to have risen about 34 percent with Apple results included, but actually dropped 0.4 percent without the company. Some businesses might actually crack in the face of Apple competition and leave the market this year, the analyst argues, calling it a "make or break" period.
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02/07, 3:45pm
Samsung says France event not linked to new phone
Samsung in a response Tuesday quickly dampened rumors that it had already picked a special event date for the postponed Galaxy S III. A French invitation to a March 22 event was just a biannual open house event, Samsung told The Next Web. The Korean company had promised a separate event later than Mobile World Congress in late February, but hadn't said when.
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02/06, 4:15pm
Samsung tracks close behind, takes full year
In terms of shipments, Apple was the top smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a new IDC report. The company shipped roughly 37 million phones, giving it a 23.5 percent marketshare. Close behind was Samsung, which took a 22.8 percent share with 36 million phones. Nokia, Research in Motion, and HTC rounded out the top five, but trailing behind with shares of 12.4, 8.2, and 6.5 percent, respectively.
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02/06, 10:35am
NPD Q4 2011 results show iPhone bounce back
The iPhone is now the top-selling cellphone of any kind in the US, the NPD Group determined on Monday. As of the fall, the iPhone 4S was the bestselling device in the field. Apple also managed a clean sweep of the top three, with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS at second and third places.
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02/06, 8:30am
Samsung Galaxy S III details allegedly slip
A new rumor has fueled speculation surrounding the Galaxy S III. The hardware will reportedly squeeze down to as little as 7mm (0.28in) thick by eking every amount of thinness from the internal components, ETNews claimed. The mainboard, chips, and connectors would all be about 10 to 20 percent thinner than usual.
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02/06, 7:35am
Nokia and Samsung have white phones this month
Two flagship smartphones got white edition treatments on Monday. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is now confirmed to be shipping to the UK in white on February 13. It carries the same features as the Android 4.0 flagship and shrouds the back in a white hue of the textured back.
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02/06, 6:35am
HTC revenue down, but expects to bounce back
HTC has said that it expects to record lower than forecast revenue
for Q1, according to Reuters. The news follows its revenue dipping last October for the first time after it had experienced spectacular growth over 2010 and most of 2011. At the time, the launch of the iPhone 4S was thought to have had an impact on its performance, however, it is arguable that the rapid rise of Samsung as the leading Android player has damaged HTC’s income stream more.
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02/05, 9:50pm
Samsung tries to go for enthusiasm in Super Bowl
Samsung's promised Super Bowl spot took an unusual turn on Sunday night. After showing iPhone queue waiters complaining about "missing the big game" and being "in detention," a passer-by shows a Galaxy Note. The giant Android phone's pen -- and an impromptu appearance by rock revival group The Darkness -- has the line kicking down the stanchions and joining the party.
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02/05, 11:35am
Galaxy Note orders begin early
Both Americans and Canadians alike got the opportunity to preorder the Samsung Galaxy Note on Sunday. An AT&T listing lets Americans pick the 4G device and a matching plan ahead of the February 19 release. Contract-free purchases aren't available ahead of time on the $300 Android phone, although both the very dark carbon blue and ceramic white colors are options.
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02/04, 10:05pm
Android 4.0.4 scoop shows speed, touch boosts
One unintentional early adopter has posted the as yet unpublicized Android 4.0.4 for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. The update was sent out over the air to an Android Central reader but can now be installed by anyone comfortable with digging into the platform to manually install firmware. As it's intended for the regular upgrade path, it only works with the official firmware and not mods or custom installs.
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02/04, 6:40pm
AMD hints openness to ARM
AMD in conversations at the end of the week wouldn't discount the possibility of making ARM-based processors. When pressed by Wired, CTO and former Apple executive Mark Papermaster made the unusual non-denial that "the answer is not no." The company's long-term plans were aiming for a modular chip design that could drop in ARM or another architecture without losing Radeon graphics or other AMD-specific touches.
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02/04, 4:05pm
Windows Phone Tango and Apollo dated
Microsoft's roadmap for Windows Phone was given a possible outline in a rumor Saturday. Tango, the first minor update, was pegged by Digitimes contacts as going live in March or April if Microsoft clinged to its roadmap. The rumored second Tango update would arrive in mid-year.
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02/03, 6:50pm
YouGov says Galaxy S II spots no longer past Apple
Metrics from ad tracking agencies has hinted that Samsung's TV ad campaign has lost momentum. YouGov BrandIndex has posted updated ad effectiveness tracking that suggests the buzz, or conversation around the brands, has leveled off. Its score has climbed since October, from 18 to 26, but Apple has also grown in the same space of time to get a comfortable lead at 34.
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02/03, 5:30pm
Galaxy Nexus on Verizon, Nexus S 4G degraded
(Update: Google follow-up An investigation into Google's supported device has revealed that Google has quietly demoted the CDMA version of the Galaxy Nexus. The Verizon model, and possibly the upcoming Sprint version, aren't listed anymore as supported hardware, Droid-Life said. Google now claims "no CDMA devices are supported" and has also pulled the Nexus S 4G and Verizon-edition Motorola Xoom from the list.
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02/03, 4:30pm
Canalys Q4 and year-end 2011 shows change of guard
A Canalys wrap-up of 2011 smartphone share painted an overall picture that kept Apple and Google in front, but also provided clearer pictures of Windows Phone. Android was just short of an absolute majority at 48.8 percent, while the iPhone held 19.1 percent. Nokia's Symbian and RIM's BlackBerry still held on to the double digits at 16.4 percent and 10.5 percent each.
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02/03, 6:55am
Stakes raised in Apple case against Samsung
Apple has initiated a massive expansion of its lawsuit against Samsung in Australia, according the The Australian. Its lawsuit now encompasses 278 claims across 22 patents that cover 10 Samsung devices, some of which are yet to go on sale locally. In its initial claim against Samsung, which had resulted in a temporary ban on the sale of its Galaxy Tab 10.1, Apple had chosen to test only three of its patents.
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02/02, 11:00pm
Now at 74 percent of industry earnings
A new report from analyst firm UBS shows that while Apple is neither the largest cellphone maker nor the majority leader in phone platforms, it nonetheless dominates the entire industry in terms of revenue from phones, now taking 36 percent of all cell phone revenue (feature or smartphone) as of the end of 2011, even though it only sells nine percent of the world's cell phones. By the industry yardstick Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT), Apple takes in 74 percent of the industry's earnings.
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02/02, 10:55pm
Apple TV set may miss Q2 without Sharp displays
Speculation that Apple might ship its own TV set as soon as the spring was cast into doubt by an unusual counter-rumor late Thursday. Supposed industry contacts told Digitimes that there weren't any signs Sharp was ready to ship the IGZO displays many believe Apple would be using for the device. Yields of workable displays were also considered a possible problem.
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02/02, 10:45pm
Identity of device remains unclear
Yet another unannounced Samsung device appears to have made its way through FCC testing. The handset, which is referred to by the model code SGH-T769, has been approved for GSM bands and the WCDMA bands that T-Mobile utilizes for its 4G network.
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02/02, 12:25pm
$40 LTE plan back at MetroPCS on more phones
MetroPCS this week brought back its Unlimited $40 per month plan for 4G handsets. It's available on the Samsung Galaxy Attain 4G, LG Esteem, and Samsung Galaxy Indulge smartphones, which were only previously available with the $50 or $60 LTE plans. The same unlimited web browsing and YouTube access in addition to the same unlimited talk and text as before is included.
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02/02, 10:35am
Samsung Mobile Display hints at tough OLED plans
Samsung Mobile Display has struck a deal with Corning to use its Lotus Glass for OLED screens. The joint venture will operate out of Korea. Although Samsung will be a core customer, the two will supply glass substrates for many companies using OLEDs.
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02/02, 9:10am
IDC says Apple past LG in Q4 and all of 2011
New IDC data has shown Apple's 37 million iPhone sales making it the third-largest cellphone maker in the world. More than doubling its shipments, in tandem with LG nearly cutting its shipments in half to 17.7 million, saw it move up a spot and stake out 8.7 percent of the entire cellphone space. The change in position carried through for all of 2011, with Apple's 93.2 million iPhones putting it at six percent of all phones sold that year while LG was down to 5.7 percent, or 88.1 million.
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02/01, 11:25pm
Sony under Hirai likely to make major cuts
A profile of Sony's soon-to-be CEO Kaz Hirai has revealed that he may have been instrumental to getting a credible iPad rival into the market. The Wall Street Journal look showed that, under Sony's traditional structure of independently operating divisions, four different segments of the company were developing their own tablets. The User Experience group, formed while Hirai was an executive deputy to Sir Howard Stringer, culled all but one project and started focusing on the speed optimizations and PlayStation Suite support that would define the Tablet S.
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02/01, 6:00pm
Qualcomm fiscal Q1 2012 and outlook hit records
Qualcomm posted record results for the fall that could be credited to the rapid rise not just of mobile devices as a whole but specific partners. Its revenue was up 40 percent to nearly $4.7 billion, while its profit also climbed to 20 percent, or $1.4 billion.
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02/01, 5:35pm
Lines up with possible launch at MWC
Rumors have been circulating about two possible new tablets from Samsung. The Japanese Blog Ameblo has published copies of certifications issued by the Wi-Fi Alliance confirming two Samsung models codenamed the GT-P3100 and GT-P5100. Samsung traditionally uses the P badge to indicate a Galaxy Tab family member, leaving little doubt as to the device type.
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