Mobile

Huawei's Prism 2 'coming soon' to T-Mobile

Slipping under the radar is the T-Mobile Prism II, a new handset that was posted today on the carrier's online site. Manufactured by Huawei, the successor to the original Prism does not have any pricing information listed yet, but apparently it will "come soon" to T-Mobile users.

The 3G device will feature marginal upgrades from its last iteration. It will run Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and powering its insides is a 1GHz processor (in comparison, the Prism housed a 600MHz CPU).

It will also sport a bigger, 1,750mAh battery, which is estimated to yield up … Read more

AT&T;'s mobile chief: We've sold out of the Facebook phone

So, the HTC First wasn't a complete disaster after all.

AT&T managed to get rid of most of its inventory, according to AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega. The move to a 99-cent price tag helped spur sales of the Facebook phone, which struggled to catch on with consumers.

"We sold a bunch more when we lowered the price," he said in an interview on Monday. "We sold everything we had on that."

It's unclear how many HTC First phones AT&T had in its inventory, and the … Read more

Gold Galaxy S4 sells out; gilded HTC One debuts

HTC and Samsung have each been hoping that their HTC One and Galaxy S4 Android flagship phones will become the gold standard for the latest generation of smartphones, but the customizers at Goldgenie are taking the notion quite literally.

The British company has been selling gold- and platinum-plated iOS devices and BlackBerrys for a while now, but it seems to have decided that the HTC One and Galaxy S4 have finally presented a pair of Android phones worth the deluxe bling treatment.

Given the pace of device development and technological obsolescence, you might think that adding more than a thousand … Read more

T-Mobile says it has a fix to FCC auction rule debate

T-Mobile USA says it has the answer on how to make the upcoming spectrum auction fair for all participants without sacrificing potential revenue for the government, as larger carriers have suggested will happen if restrictive rules are imposed.

In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday regarding the 600MHz spectrum auction, T-Mobile described what it is calling "dynamic spectrum rules" that it claims will help preserve competition in the wireless market by not allowing the biggest wireless carriers with the deepest pockets to walk away with the bulk of the new spectrum, without sacrificing revenue that … Read more

Samsung denies report it will exit desktop PC business

Samsung desktop PCs may soon be a thing of the past.

The Korean electronics giant plans to close its desktop business in order to focus on tablets and all-in-one laptops, according to a report from the Korea Times that cited unnamed officials at the company.

"Tablets, all-in-one and hybrid PCs are Samsung's current focus. Samsung is speeding up its restructuring of its PC business via product realignment toward profitable variants," one Samsung official told the Korea Times.

However, Samsung denied the report as "groundless" in a statement to The Next Web.

The rumor that Samsung … Read more

Six ways to share your exact location with family (and why)

Families outfitted with a fleet of smartphones have a lot of options for checking in that don't require exercising those texting thumbs or distracting a driver with a call just to find out exactly when he or she is coming home for dinner.

I've gathered a handful of Android applications designed to help smartphone users keep an eye on each others' whereabouts. Indeed, the first thing that comes to mind in this NSA age is whether or not this stuff is private. Rest assured, dear reader, I've got your interests at heart.

These are apps are opt-in … Read more

Photo-sharing site Imgur launches 'official' Android app

Photo-sharing site Imgur has officially taken its Android application out of beta.

The company updated the app on Sunday, saying that it's now "officially" available to the Android community. The application has been available in the Google Play store for quite some time, but was offered in beta status. The full-featured version 1.0 is the final build.

The app is Imgur's first major step into mobile. The company has previously succeeded by appealing to a relatively large number of users sharing photos online. Like its Web-based counterpart, the free Android app allows users to browse … Read more

Apple's patent win over Mirror Worlds stays intact

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Mirror Worlds' appeal of an Apple victory in a patent case, putting to rest the long-running dispute.

The nation's highest court said on its site that it has denied Mirror World's request that it consider the case related to software patents for features such as Apple's Cover Flow.

Mirror Worlds was founded by Yale University computer-science Professor David Gelernter. In a 2008 lawsuit, the company accused Apple of infringing on its patents with its Mac OS X operating systems going back to 10.4 "Tiger," … Read more

Apple to cut iPhone orders for rest of year, claims analyst

Apple may trim its iPhone build orders for the rest of 2013, at least according to a new report from analyst Peter Misek.

In an investors note released Sunday, Misek said Apple has already revised its build plans. iPhone orders for the calendar third quarter will be cut to 25 million to 30 million from 40 million to 45 million previously. And orders for the fourth quarter will drop to 50 million to 55 million from 60 million to 65 million.

Why the downturn? The analyst cited a few reasons, mostly notably iPhone inventory checks at the stores of three … Read more