Nokia’s fourth-quarter earnings report painted a grim picture of the Finnish phone maker’s business last quarter, but amid the red numbers peppered throughout Nokia’s earnings release, the high-level terms of its agreement with Microsoft were revealed. In exchange for royalty payments estimated to reach into the billions over the life of the agreement, Microsoft makes quarterly “platform support payments” of $250 million to Nokia according to the vendor’s earnings report. ...

Your prayers have been answered if you’ve been looking for a 4G LTE without having to empty out your wallet. Verizon’s first 4G LTE phone, the HTC ThunderBolt, is now free with a two-year contract through January 26th. The ThunnderBolt was first announced last year during the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show and it’s a bit slower than the high-end smartphones on the market today. It offers a 1 GHz Snapdragon chip instead of the dual-core 1.4GHz processor that’s included in top-of-the-li...

Mozilla announced Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with Google in which Google Search will remain the default search engine in Firefox for the next three years. “Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years and we look forward to continuing this great partnership in the years to come,” said Google’s senior vice president of search, Alan Eustace. While terms of the agreement remain confidential, Mozilla reported in October that its partnership with Google helped the company a...

Australian Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett has ruled that Apple must show Samsung its contracts with Vodafone, SingTel and Telstra if it cannot reach an agreement on Samsung’s accusations that the iPhone maker contractually forces the carriers to subsidize the iPhone. Samsung has also argued that the Apple iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and iPhone 3GS infringe on its patents, and has sought to ban sales of the devices in Australia. Apple, however, has already successfully banned Samsung’s ...

Sprint and Clearwire are negotiating a network-sharing contract that will last beyond 2012, Bloomberg recently reported, noting a 29% surge in Clearwire’s stock price earlier Wednesday. CEO Dan Hesse explained on a conference call that Sprint could take advantage of Clearwire’s network in an effort to balance traffic on its planned 4G LTE network. While Sprint is “making very good progress on the technical front with Clearwire,” a deal is not yet final or definite. Sprint announced ear...

Netflix on Thursday confirmed that as of early next year, it will no longer offer Starz content to its “Watch Instantly” subscribers. The streaming movie and television show service, which can be had for as little as $7.99 per month, allows users to stream any content from Netflix’s digital portfolio on demand. Said portfolio currently includes approximately 1,000 titles from the Starz movie library, and those films will all disappear as of March 1st next year when the current contract expir...

J.D. Power and Associates announced on Thursday that Verizon Wireless ranked highest in the company’s 2011 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study, Volume 2. The carrier’s overall score was 770/1000, which was above the average 761 score in the ‘full service’ category. T-Mobile came in second place with a score of 766, followed by Sprint (752) and AT&T (751). J.D. Power and Associates also noted that non-contract customers have shorter wait times than customers with contracts (5.5...

Google told the Superior Court in Boston last week that it did nothing illegal with regard to blocking Skyhook’s contract with Motorola. Skyhook wireless, a private Boston-based LBS company, filed suit against Google in September 2010, alleging that the Internet giant interfered with a contract the company had recently been awarded by Motorola. The deal would see certain location-based services from Google replaced by Skyhook’s solution, which, according to Google Group Project Manager Steve Lee, ...

Foxconn on Monday issued a formal response to reports from last week claiming the Chinese electronics manufacturer makes its employees sign a document promising they will not commit suicide or hold the company liable if they do. “Foxconn does not ask its employees to sign any such documents, any reports to the contrary are inaccurate,” a Foxconn spokesperson said in a statement. The company also denied overworking its laborers. “Foxconn takes our responsibility to our employees very seriousl...

Terry Gou’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. is said to have landed an exclusive contract to build Nintendo’s next-generation video game console. According to a report on Wednesday from Taiwan Economic News, Hon Hai could begin shipping the Wii 2 to Nintendo as soon as this coming October. Nintendo’s Wii console had consistently been a best seller for the gaming giant, but interest has finally begun to dwindle as competitive offerings pick up steam despite their age. Nintendo’s Wii 2 i...

Verizon Wireless has confirmed to BGR that it will eliminate the option to sign on for a 1-year contract beginning on April 17th. “The reason behind the change is the greater majority of customers sign up for a 2 year contract and take advantage of the discounted (promotion) price,” a Verizon Wireless spokesperson told BGR in an email. “Customers will still have the option of choosing month to month, prepaid or service with a two year contract.” Verizon’s one-year contract option...

CBS confirmed today with Dow Jones that it will pull some of its Showtime television shows from Netflix, and apparently Netflix is pretty shocked by the news. A Showtime spokesperson said that it will remove the episodes of shows that are currently still airing on television from Netflix’s portfolio when the current partnership deal between the CBS and Netflix ends this summer. “We’re perplexed by this,” Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesperson told Dow Jones. “We have great Showtime...

The day is finally here — as if we even have to remind you. Verizon Wireless’ first LTE handset, the HTC ThunderBolt, is now available on store shelves and online, ready to take home. If you plan on being one of the very first consumers to acquire the 4G handset, and suck up some of those virgin LTE airwaves, you have options. Verizon Wireless, Best Buy, and a host of others will be selling the handset for $250 on-contract, but if you don’t mind waiting for the 4.3-inch monster to be mailed to y...

According to a report filed by Bloomberg, Windows Phone maker Microsoft will pay Finnish handset manufacturer Nokia more than $1 billion as part of the two companies “smartphone software agreement.” The publication cites “two people with knowledge of the terms,” and goes on to note that Nokia will be responsible for paying Microsoft a “fee for each copy of Windows [Phone] used.” It’s widely assumed that the purported agreement, and fee, were part of Microsoft’s ...