Electronics | featured news

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.

The flow of new customers to Sprint stopped in the latest quarter, the company reported Wednesday as it weighed the offers of two corporate suitors. Sprint Nextel Corp., the country's third-largest cellphone carrier, said it added a net of just 12,000 customers to its Sprint brand in the quarter, and it would have lost 252,000 if it wasn't for Nextel customers moving over now that their network is being shut 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.

A movement urging Verizon to get rid of wireless contracts appears to be gaining steam. A petition calling for the carrier to end contracts for smartphones and "create an affordable way for consumers to purchase their devices" had attracted more than 55,000 signatures by midday Tuesday on Change.org, the online petition platform.

New research shows that tablets have made big inroads against traditional gaming platforms among U.S. adults who play video games. For marketers, the research brings good news in the form of an acceptance to seeing advertising within video games—as long as the games themselves are free—and a willingness to see familiar brand names and products within games.

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.