Gadgets, Cell Phone | featured news

Fresh off its partnership announcement with Facebook last week on the Android-based Facebook Home, HTC had news of a more troubling nature to share with investors Monday — its quarterly earnings report. The company, reported profits had fallen 98 percent from the same period last year to $2.83 million. The Associated Press reported this was the firm’s lowest quarterly profit on record.

Readers know I am a huge fan of the HTC One and rather than go with a carrier version I decided to pre-order the Developer Edition that is fully unlocked and comes with 64GB of integrated storage. At $649.99, it is also priced lower than most carriers, when you buy without a contract.

Justin Bieber’s phone may never ring and texting and messaging may have started to take the place of voice calls, but back on April 4, 1973 a man named Marty Cooper wasn’t taking the voice call feature on the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x for granted. On that day, 40 years ago, Cooper, who was a Motorola engineer, placed the first public call from a cellphone.

Yes, this again. Facebook on Thursday sent out invitations for a press event that promised to show off the company’s “new home on Android,” which naturally led to fresh speculation about the company’s intention to produce its own Facebook-centric smartphone.

AT&T said it will start pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and will charge $250, making the hot Android phone $50 more than Apple's entry-level iPhone 5, its biggest competitor.The new phone is expected to be offered by all carriers, but AT&T is the first to announce pre-orders for the phone, beginning April 16.

"Texting while driving is not just a teen problem," says John Ulczycki of the National Safety Council. "Teens text. But you're looking at around 10 million teen drivers, but about 180 million other adult drivers."

The launch of the BlackBerry (BBRY) Z10 didn't go as well as some were expecting. That has caused several Wall Street analysts to rethink their positions, with one research firm even downgrading the name.

With the BlackBerry Z10 poised to make its U.S. debut later this week, it's comments from CEO Thorston Heins about the iPhone that have generated buzz. In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Heins discussed the importance of staying on top of smartphone advancements, citing Apple as an example.

Samsung announced a barrage of new features for its Galaxy S4 smartphone on Thursday meant to dazzle smartphone buyers: everything from touchless controls to new implementations of face-recognition technology. Read full article >>

When is a touchscreen not a touchscreen? Increasingly, it's when your smartphone reads your eyes, gestures and movements to perform basic functions without tapping the screen at all. That was Samsung's point Thursday with the rollout of the new Galaxy S IV, the latest from the company's flagship line and the first Android-based phone to seriously challenge Apple's iPhone for dominance in the mobile market. The phone will be available on all major U.S. carriers by the end of April.