Technology, Mobile | featured news

Google Inc. is buying cell phone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in cash. It's by far Google's biggest acquisition and a sign the online search leader is serious about expanding beyond its core Internet business and setting the agenda in the fast-growing mobile market.

To recap, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, sent a shot across the bow of Apple, Microsoft and Oracle, accusing them of participating in an “organized campaign” to take Google’s Android platform down through patent lawsuits.

Don Bailey says he can unlock thousands of cars across the United States simply by sending a few texts from his Android phone.

The next iPhone will include lots of goodies, but support for next-generation 4G wireless networks still isn’t one of them, Sterne Agee & Leach analyst Shaw Wu wrote in a note to investors Tuesday. The new iPhone will get a dual core processor, a “slightly larger” display, and a thinner bezel. No 4G, though.

Verizon Wireless will use technology from American Express for mobile phone payments, allowing Verizon customers to use the financial company's Serve software to make online payments.

Apple and Samsung overtook longtime leader Nokia for the top two spots in the global smartphone market, highlighting the Finnish company's struggles even as it sets up a battle between the U.S. and South Korean rivals.

You may have visualized cramming someone's cellphone down his or her throat out of sheer frustration on occasion, but odds are that you've never acted on such a violent thought — unlike one New York City patent attorney.

The US Army is near finishing a largely successful test of smartphones on the battlefield. In an interview this week, project director Michael McCarthy told CNN the six-week trials in Fort Bliss, Texas and White Sands, New Mexico were 'encouraging' in gauging the effectiveness of Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone hardware for communicating information in the field. They had also been testing iPads as well as unspecified Dell and HP tablets.

A quarter of smartphone users rely mainly on their phones for internet access, according to a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, that also found that more than one-third of all American adults have taken the smartphone plunge. In the center’s first stand-alone examination of smartphone use, it found that 33 percent of users said their phones were smartphones and 39 percent said their phones operate a smartphone platform such as iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone or Palm.

In the past year, mobile payment systems have picked up steam and are now becoming mainstream. Could our wallets be replaced one day soon by our smartphones?