Smartphone | featured news

Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of photo-sharing start-up Instagram has shifted the spotlight to the newest phenomena in mobile apps: uploading personal videos from smartphones.

Samsung took the wraps off of its latest smartphone, the Galaxy S III, last week. The new phone joins a line of other flagship smartphones from several manufacturers that are vying for a spot in consumers’ pockets.

Did "sexting" just get safer? Maybe, but probably not. A free and increasingly popular iPhone app called Snapchat allows users to take a picture, send it and control how the message is visible – between 1 and 10 seconds.

The Samsung Galaxy S III's plastic build may not be to everyone's liking, but the quad-core processor and improved voice control feature show that Samsung's flagship Android line has staying power.

Wounded cellphone maker Nokia has turned on one of its former allies in the patent protection battlefield by filing lawsuits against rival smartphone maker HTC as it steps up its efforts to raise funds.

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins today unveiled the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 operating system at its BlackBerry World conference. Thorsten Heins took the stage here to give his first keynote as CEO of Research in Motion.

Soaring sales of smartphones lifted Samsung Electronics's profit to a record and apparently pushed the South Korean company past Nokia as the world's biggest cellphone seller—and perhaps past Apple as No. 1 in smartphones.

When Verizon Wireless started selling the iPhone, AT&T sounded a defiant note, saying that its customers would remain loyal. A year later, it's clear that the Verizon iPhone has crimped AT&T's stride. Verizon had little problem attracting new customers before it started selling the iPhone. In fact, it was the only wireless carrier that managed to keep up with AT&T's iPhone-fueled growth.

Samsung has decided to pour some fuel on the fire and release a Web site teasing its “next galaxy,” which is likely the update to the Galaxy S II. Most people have been calling this phone the Galaxy S III, though that name is not confirmed. All we know about the next Galaxy is that it will be unveiled at Samsung Unpacked in London on May 3.

While the company's new Lumia line of smartphones is gaining traction, those using the older Symbian operating system have lost their appeal.