Smartphone | featured news

Samsung's new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, will be launched by all of the Big 4 national U.S. wireless carriers this month, starting at $199, the phone maker said Monday.

Samsung's new flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S3, today becomes available in 28 countries, including several European markets such as Germany and the UK.

Google Inc's Android mobile platform has not infringed Oracle Corp's patents, a California jury decided, putting an indefinite hold on Oracle's quest for damages in a fight between the two Silicon Valley giants over smartphone technology.

Samsung design VP Chang Dong-hoon has refuted accusations that the Galaxy S III was designed "by lawyers." Responding to the reports that stated the new handset was tweaked to circumvent deliberate trade dress claims made by Cupertino in its lawsuit, he said that the redesign is part of the company's five-year plan rather than a sudden change. He went on to say that the flagship went through hundreds of iterations before the team alighted upon the model that will shortly make its way into sweaty palms all over the world.

Google said on Saturday that Chinese authorities have approved its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings, the last regulatory hurdle to a deal that would allow the world's No. 1 Internet search engine to develop its own line of smart phones.

HTC said Wednesday it will delay the launch of a new smartphone in the U.S. due to a customs review required after the International Trade Commission ruled late last year that the company violated a patent held by Apple.

Made-in-China mobile devices are clicked on every continent. The same isn't true of Chinese mobile software, which is mostly aimed at domestic users. One company that reckons it has a product that crosses continents is UCWeb, a developer of mobile browsers that has gone head-to-head with Tencent's mobile platform in China.

Research In Motion on Wednesday said the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) had approved six models of the company's BlackBerry 7 for use on its networks, extending a long relationship with the smartphone known for its tight security.

This is a guest post by Caribou Honig, a partner with QED Investors in Alexandria, Va. In a prior post on the topic of mobile payments, I made the case that the mobile wallet will become the foundation of a new, disruptive "payment Operating System."