Michelle Maisto

Samsung has begun selling the Galaxy Note II through 260 operators in 128 markets, beginning in South Korea, Bloomberg reported Sept. 27. Samsung introduced the device—which it calls a smartphone, though anyone would be forgiven for thinking it a tablet—in August but didn’t share details about when it would reach U.S. shores. The Note II […]

AT&T and Novatel Wireless have introduced the MiFi Liberate, the first mobile hotspot with a touch-screen. Given the Liberate’s name, it’s unclear exactly what users are being freed from—slow speeds? Lame battery life? Tricky usage? The Novatel hotspot addresses these issues and others. It runs on AT&T’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G network, can run […]

Lumia 920 On Sept. 5, Nokia introduced the Lumia 920, which comes in yellow, red, gray, white and black. Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphone, the Lumia 920, features a 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ WXGA LCD display, advanced camera technologies, a City Lens app that complements Nokia’s suite of mapping software and up to 10 hours […]

Verizon, which runs the nation’s largest wireless network, plays a significant role in shaping the world’s expectations about mobile devices, mobile speeds and the role of technology in our daily lives. Fran Shammo, Verizon’s chief financial officer, sat for an interview—replacing a whisked-away CEO Lowell McAdams—at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference Sept. 20 and offered […]

Sprint has been playing catch-up to Verizon Wireless and AT&T for years. But with CEO Dan Hesse’s three-part plan to get the derailed carrier back on track beginning to show results, the nation’s third-largest carrier is attracting attention, and may be ready for an acquisition, Bloomberg reported Sept. 26. In 2005, Sprint made what turned […]

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion will share the results of its fiscal 2013 second-quarter Sept. 27, but first it has some developers to excite. CEO Thorsten Heins kicked off RIM’s BlackBerry Jam Americas developer event Sept. 25 with a keynote that blended an early look at some features of RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 10 with promises […]

Smartphone, tablet and PC sales, when looked at together, are on the rise. And while smartphone numbers now dominate the three, tablets are the fastest-growing category, according to a Sept. 26 report from research firm IDC. During the second quarter, shipments of the three, known collectively as smart connected devices, reached 267.3 million, up 27.4 […]

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion played host to more than 1,500 developers in San Jose, Calif., Sept. 25, as it kicked off the American leg of its BlackBerry Jam tour. Once a leader in the smartphone market, RIM has fallen well behind Samsung and Apple but hopes to turn things around with its upcoming BlackBerry […]

Jefferies analysts believe Apple has strong sales and bustling months ahead. After spending a weekend with the iPhone 5, analyst Peter Misek also believes Apple has created a smartphone that leaves the fast-selling Samsung Galaxy S III looking rather ridiculous. “Comparing the [iPhone 5] to the Samsung Galaxy S3 is unfair as the latter seems […]

Nokia introduced the Nokia Asha 308 and 309 Sept. 25, continuing to reach out to first-time smartphone users and the next billion people yet to have easy access to the Internet. The small, attractive and nearly identical sister phones feature scratch-resistant 3-inch touch-screens, run Nokia’s Asha Touch operating system and differ in two ways—the Asha […]

Suction Cup “I never thought I would be so happy to see a suction cup,” iFixit’s MJ said in a video on the company’s blog. “A screwdriver and a suction cup are all you’ll need to replace a broken display.” That’s a far cry from the 38 steps—and roughly 45 minutes—required to get the display […]

Nokia is trying to use Apple’s rare misstep—the release of a far-from-ready Maps app in iOS 6, intended to help keep software by rival Google off its iPhones—to remind the world, or at least readers of the Nokia blog, that mapping is an area at which it excels. “We understand that ‘pretty’ isn’t enough. You […]