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Apple's China sales rose at a healthy clip in its latest quarter, but the numbers belied growing concerns as the bonanza in high-end smartphones started winding down.

Research In Motion is pinning its hopes partly on the debut this week of the BlackBerry Q10, its first keyboard-equipped model since the BlackBerry Bold was introduced in 2009.

Apple is opening the doors to its bank vault, saying it will distribute $100 billion in cash to its shareholders by the end of 2015. At the same time, the company said revenue for the current quarter could fall from the year before, which would be the first decline in many years.

In February, Google ran a contest for Glass offering "winners" the opportunity to be "Glass Explorers," i.e. the guinea pigs who will test out Glass in the wild. Downside: Explorers have to pay $1,500 for the product and for the privilege of being called "Glassholes." Upside: They get to test out a brand new product before anyone else. One 26-year-old Explorer came up with an even better upside: he planned to auction off his pair of Glass on eBay to pay down his student loans.

Shares of Apple Inc. hit their lowest levels in a year and half on Wednesday, after a supplier hinted at a slowdown in iPhone and iPad production. The stock was down $20.37, or 4.8 percent, at $405.87. Apple's shares hit $403.67 earlier, the lowest level since Dec. 2011. The decline means Apple has _for now_ lost its position as the world's most valuable publicly traded company to Exxon Mobil Corp.

Developers making apps for Google's smart glasses have been told they will not be able to display advertising - nor charge for their product... For developers, that controversy could begin with wondering how exactly they will be able to make money from the device.

Smartphones are powerful tools, and with the right apps and accessories, they can become even more so. A California-based tech company has launched a tool that turns a regular iPhone 4 or 4S into a powerful biometrics scanning tool. AOptix has unveiled its app and a wrap-around device for turning the smartphone into a portable iris, face, fingerprint and voice scanner.

Research In Motion said it will ask regulators to review "materially false and misleading comments" made Thursday about retail return rates for its new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone.

Shares of BlackBerry slipped about 8 percent on Thursday as analysts questioned whether the handset maker's turnaround plan would succeed in the brutally competitive smartphone market.

Fortune reporter Philip Elmer-Dewitt compiles sell-side and independent analysts forecasts on Apple.  He has gathered 56 projections that have an average of 18.4 million iPads sold from the Street analysts and 17.7 million from the independent analysts.  The median for all of them is 18 million, which would be 53% growth from last year’s 11.8 million and down 21% from December’s quarter.