Electronics, Cell Phone | featured news

Taiwan's HTC, the world's No. 5 smartphone maker, launched a new range of smartphone models on Sunday, hoping the fresh designs will help it to recover some of the lost market share. The new smartphones are crucial for HTC in a cut-throat market place -- dominated by Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc -- as lack of new, outstanding models has sent its sales sinking over the last months.

The rise of ‘nomophobia’ – the fear of being without your mobile phone – is completely understandable. As smartphones increasingly become the norm for most of the nation, I am shocked that only 66 per cent of those recently polled on this issue, said they were suffering from this 21st century syndrome.

Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of cellphone maker Motorola Mobility has won approval of European antitrust regulators, moving Google one step closer to completing the biggest deal in its 13-year history.

European Union antitrust regulators on Monday approved Google’s acquisition of the U.S. cellphone maker Motorola Mobility without conditions, but added a stern warning: Play fair in markets for smartphones and tablet computers, or face tough sanctions.

Marketers are tracking smartphone users through "apps" - games and other software on their phones. Some apps collect information including location, unique serial-number-like identifiers for the phone, and personal details such as age and sex.

2011 marked the beginning of a major shift toward mobile computing. Smartphone shipments topped PCs for the first time ever last year, by 73 million units, according to figures published by research firm Canalys on Friday. Last year a total of 487.7 million smartphones were shipped. Only 414.6 million PCs, which include tablet PCs, shipped. That?s ...

On Sunday, AT&T is reconfiguring its mobile data plans in way that will anger many customers but may actually please others. It’s raising its smartphone and tablet data plan rates, while simultaneously offering customers a better deal on the data they do consume.

As far as years in technology go, 2011 was one for the record books. It wasn’t just about big battles like Apple vs. Samsung, Microsoft vs. Google, AT&T vs. the world, or Hewlett-Packard vs. itself. It wasn’t just about the growth of apps and the ever-increasing pervasiveness of the Web in our daily lives, though there were plenty of amazing developments both these realms. It wasn’t just about hardware or software. And it wasn’t just about towing the line or trying to hold onto it.

Taiwanese handset maker HTC Corp narrowly lost a patent battle with Apple Inc on Wednesday, as the International Trade Commission found that HTC had infringed on one of Apple's patents.

AT&T acknowledged that it could not overcome opposition from the Obama administration to creating the nation’s biggest cellphone service provider. The company said in a statement that it would continue to invest in wireless spectrum, but could not overcome resistance from both the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. It added that American wireless customers “will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled” by the regulators’ decisions.