Mobile Mobile

Despite being a little too busy scooping up companies and striking new streaming deals, Amazon hasn't exactly been overlooking its set of mobile and desktop applications. Most recently, the online retail behemoth announced a refresh was on hand for Cloud Drive Photos on Android, providing users of said app with an auto-save option that, as you likely guessed, allows pics to be automatically uploaded to ones cloud account -- this, according to Amazon, was "the most requested feature from our customers." Better yet, version 1.2 also brings camera integration to devices running Android 4.0.4 or later, which will make it easier for some folks to quickly snap a shot and save it to the cloud-based drive without too much effort. Other tidbits like multiple file downloads and uploads made it to this release as well, making for a pretty plentiful update overall -- links to download from Google Play or Amazon's own app store can be found down below.

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A charger on every nightstand and a phone in every pocket -- it could be a presidential slogan, but it's really just reality. According to research from Strategy Analytics, a staggering 1.6 billion mobile phones were shipped (not sold) globally in 2012, and 700 million of them were smartphones. Samsung, Nokia and Apple, in that order, were the biggest movers of handsets, though the latter two change places when it comes to smartphones -- Espoo only shipped 35 million to Cupertino's 135, while Samsung topped the trio at 213 million devices shipped.

Surprising? Hardly -- smartphone sales climbed throughout 2012, and the aforementioned manufacturers have been kings of the category since last February. The numbers are telling though -- according to ABI Research, Apple saw less growth in 2012 than the previous year, and may hit a plateau in market share in 2013. Samsung, on the other hand, may have some room to grow -- capturing 34 percent of total smartphone shipments in Q4 with over 60 million smartphones moved. Apple nabbed 24.5% of the market with 47.8 million shipped iPhones, while Nokia and RIM took up the tail of the quarter with 86.3 and 6.9 million shipped devices, respectively. Statistic lover? You'll find full numbers (plus a little analyst speculation) in a trio of press releases after the break.

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Updates to both YouTube Capture and Google Currents on iOS have just hit Cupertino's App Store, bringing with them a handful of functionality and UI updates. Mountain View bumped YouTube Capture to version 1.1, adding support for 1080p uploads, improved audio syncing, detailed upload feedback and a grab bag of bug fixes and stability enhancements. If you're feeling particularly chatty after hamming it up for the camera, the refreshed app now allows for sharing to social networks. As for Google Currents, the latest update brings it to the two-dot-oh milestone with a number of UI upgrades. A new sidebar sorts editions by category for easy access and fresh controls let users swipe vertically to scan an edition or horizontally to skip to the next one. A brand-new catalog design, breaking stories from Google News and the ability to save articles by labeling them with stars round out the overhaul. Hit the source links below to give the revamped experiences a spin.

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HTC has put penny-pinchers in China and Taiwan square in its sights with its freshly announced Desire U. A price tag is MIA for the Android 4.0-toting and Beats Audio-infused device, but the specs paint a fairly frugal picture for the hardware, which comes in black and white flavors. Behind the handset's 4-inch 800 x 480 (WVGA) display sit a single-core 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of built-in storage, a microSD slot and a 5-megapixel rear-facing shooter. In terms of connectivity, the device supports 3G, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. As of now, there's no word on when it'll hit the streets in China and Taiwan or if a tweaked version with international-friendly radios will make its way to other countries.

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If the 170g Huawei Ascend D2 is a bit too imposing for your hands, then you may be curious to know of the Ascend P2, a previously teased smartphone that was just leaked by @evleaks. While there's no further info to go along with this image, it does show off a 13MP camera on the back of the phone, which makes us wonder how Huawei even managed to pack that into the sub-6.45mm-thick metallic body. A little digging around also showed that the company's Consumer BG CEO Richard Yu was seen fondling the P2 during a meeting back in December -- you can recognize the phone in the photo after the break. Naturally, we look forward to this successor to the Ascend P1 at Mobile World Congress next month.

Richard Lai contributed to this report.

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As Samsung predicted, Q4 2012 was another big one for the company with 8.84 trillion won ($8.27 billion) in operating profits, around double what it reported for the same period back in 2011. Overall revenue was also up, showing a gain of 18.5 percent from the same period last year for a total of 56.06 trillion won ($52.04 billion.) The company reported "strong" sales of its tablets and smartphones, specifically calling out its Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, which last seen crashing through the 30 million and 5 million sold barriers, respectively. If you were hoping for a Galaxy S IV preview, it won't be found here, although Samsung expects demand for replacements and the expansion of LTE to drive sales, the anticipated seasonal drop in sales in Q1 suggests we won't see a new model right away.

For its TVs, Samsung claimed overall demand was flat from last year, however a focus on higher end LED models drove higher profits. Samsung sees the 60-inch and higher market growing in 2013, however Q1 sales are expected to be slow before the new models are introduced. Samsung is also a major chip maker, and it reported weak demand for PC RAM, but growth in the server and mobile markets. Hit the source link to check out the PDF yourself or check out the press release after the break for more details. We didn't learn anything particularly illuminating on the conference call, however executives believe there are more surprises left in the smartphone market for innovative companies like Samsung -- take from that what you will.

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Intel is finally opening its wings and spreading its mobile influence to Africa, as Kenya's Safaricom has officially introduced the Yolo phone. The device, which will be the very first Intel-powered smartphone on the continent, will be priced at Kshs 10,999 ($126) and bundled with 500MB of data. The handset supports HSPA+ network connectivity and packs a Z2420 Atom processor that reaches speeds of up to 1.2GHz. If that CPU sounds familiar, it should, because it's the same "Lexington" chip that we sampled a few weeks back at CES. As for the rest of the Yolo's specs, you'll be looking at Android 4.0 on a 3.5-inch display and snapping pictures with a 5-megapixel shooter capable of recording 1080p HD video. Not looking to compete with top-shelf handsets, Safaricom hopes to catch the eye of frugal first-time buyers with this budget-friendly device. If you fit the bill, you may want to check out the Yolo as soon as possible -- after all, your phone only lives once.

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The craziest week of the tech year is at end, and we have to say, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Sure, it wasn't quite as epic as it has been in years past, but CES is still the show that sets the stage for the rest of 2013. By that measure, we may well be seeing an interesting shift. With the loss of Microsoft, some smaller companies have been using the show to make names for themselves amongst the 4K TVs released by the bigwigs like Samsung, Sony and LG. The Pebble smart watch, the Oculus Rift and the Razer Edge all scored big. We take a look at the products and discuss how things like crowdfunding are affecting the world of hardware startups.

We've also got interviews galore -- we'll be talking with Sony CEO Kaz Hirai, SMS Audio CEO (and rapper, we're told) 50 Cent, rally car driver Ken Block, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, Stern Pinball CEO Gary Stern, MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis and CEA president Gary Shapiro among many, many others (including a very special appearance from Gallagher -- this is Vegas, after all). Daniel, the winner of our Bring a Reader to CES contest will show you what it's like going to the show for the first time and our editors discuss how this year's event compares to years past. And, of course, we've also got lots of floor time with our favorite gadgets from the show.

Toss on a comfortable pair of walking shoes, because it's time to do CES all over again.

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As we've heard before, Google's Glass project features are "still in flux" -- could one be a bone-conduction speaker? It very well may, at least according to a US patent application published today. The gadget, described as a "wearable computing device with indirect bone-conduction speaker," appears to be similar in structure to Glass. It includes "at least once vibration transducer," so it's possible that this HMD implementation wouldn't offer stereo sound. This audio solution does seem within reach -- Panasonic had functional bone-conduction headphones at CES, and while they weren't quite loud enough to provide an earbud-like experience, they did indeed work. As with any patent application, the document confirms only that Google was considering such a technology, not that it'll actually ship a similar device. So, if you've decided that your portable audio future will be headphone-free, you might want to keep an eye on Panasonic's solution, instead.

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