According to Reuters, Microsoft has asked Samsung to pay $15 for each Android smartphone it makes. The Redmond-based firm believes that its software patents cover the technology used in Samsung’s Android devices and if history is any indication, Microsoft will get its way. In April of last year, HTC signed an umbrella agreement with Microsoft in which it was allowed access to Microsoft’s patents for an undisclosed fee estimated to be $15 per device. South Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper sai...

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Dell is ready to readdress the luxury notebook market with a new ultra-thin offering to take on Apple’s MacBook Air. Dell launched its sleek Adamo line in March 2009 and its first model was an underpowered, over-designed offering that started at $2,000. Dell would later introduce less expensive Adamo laptops but consumers still wouldn’t bite, and the Adamo line was killed off in early 2011. On Tuesday, Dell will unveil its latest attempt to cap...

Today, at the company’s planned media event, social networking giant Facebook took the wraps off of its new communication service. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, noted that the new system aims to be seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal, and short… but not email.The new service will: provide messaging across all of the different ways people communicate (SMS, email, IM, SMS), a conversation history for reference and archiving, and a social inbox to aggregate all the me...

There have been rumors floating around the internet about Verizon Wireless offering a second, “tiered” data plan, and that rumor was confirmed today. America’s largest wireless provider will begin offering a $15 monthly data plan to 3G smartphone users that offers 150MB data allowance. The carrier will bill overages at $15 per 150MB and the $30, unlimited data plan will remain unchanged.Also hot off the rumor wagon, Engadget is reporting that Verizon is testing calling plans with unlimited, ...

YouTube has decided to make it markedly easier for you to get your fifteen minutes of fame. How? By upping the time limit of uploaded YouTube clips from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. Those of you who dream of posting a video of yourself singing Can’s Mother Sky into a kitchen spoon, go right ahead. YouTube’s just made your dream a reality. Here is the official word from Google:Well, we’ve spent significant resources on creating and improving our state-of-the-art Content ID system and many other powe...

We all certainly remember what happens when sites doubt Gizmodo’s “reliable sources” — Steve Jobs’ health, anyone? As such, a particularly interesting rumor emerged this morning that Apple tablet hopefuls might want to take note of. Citing “a source that has always been 100% reliable”, Giz claims to have been informed that Apple is currently working on 13-inch and 15-inch tablet models in addition to the 10-inch model that is all but confirmed by now. The source state...

Oh no they didn’t. We hope T-Mobile locations around the US are currently in the process of riot-proofing their facilities — you read that title right folks, no Android update in May. Ok, so we’re exaggerating a teeny tiny bit… After all, the update roll out has only been pushed back by a week. At the same time, G1 users have been dying to get their hands on an official release of Android 1.5 for what seems like a decade by now. Well Android fans, while you continue to wait for T-Mobil...

Owners of the Android dev phone can now head over to HTC’s website and update their G1 to the official 1.5 version of Android. This early release for dev phones will provide developers with a few weeks of on-device testing of their software before the highly anticipated update is rolled out to the general public in May. All tools, instructions and necessary radio, system and recovery images are available directly from HTC via the read link below. Dev phone owners out there who take the plunge and update...

We gave you an exhaustive preview of Facebook 1.5 for BlackBerry handsets back in early March and while it isn’t necessarily a huge improvement over version 1.2, improved OS integration definitely makes it a worthwhile upgrade. We can’t tell you how many comments and emails we’ve received since then asking, begging, pleading and even demanding we provide further details as to the new version’s release date. Thankfully we can put all that behind us now as version 1.5 is available for al...

Seeing as Google built the Android platform with the concept of “open” at the forefront of its collective mind, we find the following a bit contrary. It appears as though G1 owners who have taken advantage of haykuro’s handywork and installed the ported version of Android OS 1.5 have now been locked out of the Android Market. In other words, no apps for you. Initially, Google’s app store was working fine for the savvy few who had grown tired of waiting for Google to finally issue the u...

The long awaited Android “cupcake” upgrade for the Android OS looks to be one step closer to release. An early-look version of the Android 1.5 SDK has been released to developers which includes a preview of soft keyboards, home screen widgets, live folders and speech recognition. This early version of the SDK also includes both Android 1.1 and Android 1.5, allowing developers to code for multiple OS versions within one SDK. The current release is only a preview version of course, with the final An...

This one’s for all of the BlackBerry-toting MySpace users out there. RIM hit us up last night to let us know MySpace for BlackBerry has been upgraded to v1.5, featuring three major enhancements. Just like the upcoming Facebook 1.5 we showed the world, we can’t help but think that these “enhancements” should have been there in the first place. Oh well, here’s what’s new:Friend Updates: Users can now view their MySpace Friend Updates from within the application and click on a...

For a while now there has been talk of Facebook 1.5 for BlackBerry. Back in November we cited a report which indicated a January release, something that obviously did not come to fruition. However, we can say with absolute certainty that Facebook 1.5 is just around the corner because we manged to get our hands on it courtesy of one of our RIM ninjas. A lot of the new features are ones we’ve already gone over, but some are more recent additions and actually pretty interesting, though not necessarily for ...

Behold what could very well be the sexiest piece of kit introduced at Macworld. Axiotron took the wraps off its latest OS X tablet endeavor yesterday at Macworld and caused inner conflict in nearly everyone who passed its booth. I can spend $5,000 on a tablet, right? NO, I need to pay rent! But the weather is great in California, can’t I make it on the streets? No, I’ll miss the premier of Lost! Wait, I can just watch it on the Modbook Pro… If you can swing it, Axiotron’s first Pro ver...