Electronics, Samsung Electronics | featured news

Hours after releasing its latest teaser video for the Galaxy S4 come rumors that the next big thing, as Samsung likes to bill it, will have eye-tracking software for scrolling through content.

Samsung is trying to build excitement for its next Galaxy phone ahead of a big media event on March 14, releasing a teaser ad for the device on Monday. The ad stars a child, Jeremy Maxwell, who is, for whatever reason, chosen by Samsung to be the “secret messenger” charged with carrying the company’s next big release to the conference himself.

A federal judge on Friday slashed nearly half of the $1 billion damage award a jury ordered Samsung Electronics to pay Apple Inc. after a high-profile trial over the rights to the design and technology running some of the world's most popular smartphones and tablet computers. U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh lowered the damages awarded to Apple Inc. by $450.5 million for 14 Samsung products including some products in its hot-selling Galaxy lineup, saying jurors had not properly followed her instruction in calculating some of the damages.

Apple Inc lost a major ruling in its ongoing patent battle with Samsung Electronics on Friday, as a federal judge threw out part of a jury's $1.05 billion damages award against Samsung over a variety of phone products.

The next generation is just a few weeks away for the world's hottest smartphone without a piece of fruit on it. The Samsung Galaxy S IV will be unveiled March 14 at a New York event, the company announced Monday.

The rumors you might've heard are true: Samsung's got a new 8-inch tablet, appropriately named the Galaxy Note 8.0, on the way. The new tablet will sit between the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2 smartphone and the 10.1-inch Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet. It competes with Apple's 7.9-inch iPad Mini and Google's 7-inch Nexus 7.

Android continues to dominate the battle to be the top smartphone system in the world, thanks in part to Samsung, which reigned as the top phone manufacturer for 2012.

Apple has become the leading U.S. mobile-phone vendor for the first time last quarter, securing a record 34% of market share, and knocking rival Samsung off the top spot. The Cupertino, Calif., company shipped 17.7 million phones during the fourth quarter, growing 4% annually, according to a new report by research firm Strategy Analytics. For comparison; that number jumped from 12.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, when Apple captured 25% of the market.

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected Apple Inc's request to revive its bid for a sales ban on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone, dashing the iPhone maker's attempt to recover crucial leverage in the global patent wars.

Samsung Electronics is expected to announce its Q4 results on January 25. The electronics giant has already given a sneak peek into its earnings, announcing earlier this month that its operating profits grew close to 90% y-o-y to a record 8.8 trillion Won ($8.3 billion) during the holiday quarter.