Apple and Samsung may finally be able to play nice after all, as an Apple lawyer revealed on Friday that ultra high-level executives from both companies have been in talks over the patent dispute.

The disclosure relieved no one more than U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who has been asking the two tech giants to figure it out already. → Read More

Have you ever excused yourself from a real-life interpersonal conversation to play Farmville? Do you update “what’s on your mind” more often than you eat? Do you scour the social network religiously for signs your ex-girlfriend is “in a relationship?” If you answered yes to any of these questions, it’s possible that you have a Facebook addiction.

Luckily, HTC has created a way to keep you hooked on the ‘book, instead of ween you off of it: the HTC ChaCha, photos of which have surfaced with an AT&T logo emblazoned across the front. → Read More

When we happen to catch products on their way through Verizon’s Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) system, it usually means we’ll see those goodies on the shelf faster than you can say “Minimum Advertised Price system.”

Today, that same treasure MAP turned out to be a gold mine, as Droid-Life spotted both a 4G-capable Motorola Xoom and that Motorola Droid 3 we’ve been hearing so much about. → Read More

http://player.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=lqcTlqMjovWE-gCRBLjm0xrsrRmDcQRp&version=2 Sorry that I’ve so many of these videos but this offered a tighter and closer look at the Ulysse Nardin Chairman and, considering this is probably the wildest phone I’ve seen in years, it’s worth a second look. Enjoy this quick run through of some of the basic features and a bit of time spent on the counterweight. → Read More

Keeping your ear to the ground for news about the Palm Pre 3? As much as I love webOS, I can’t honestly say that the Pre 3 is one you should be holding out for — but hey, it’s your 2 year contract to wait out.

Here’s the latest stuff from the ol’ mill: → Read More

The predecessor to the thin-as-ever Xperia Arc and Sony Ericsson’s first dual-core smartphone has taken its first few glamour shots, which appeared today on Chinese Forums. It’s being called the Sony Ericsson Xperia Duo.

We don’t have a lot of details to work with, although from the picture we can see that the Duo will have the same triple-button hardware on the front that we usually see on Xperia-branded phones, along with a few familiar widgets. → Read More

Without a shadow of a doubt, RIM is struggling. It feels like every day we see something new pop up on the reader about how RIM forecasts were cut, and then nearly missed, or how Mike Lazaridis straight up freaked out during a BBC interview, or how one of the COOs needs to take medical leave, (pause to take a breath…) or how the company lost its sixth-largest investor, or how PlayBook sales are a mess, or how the BlackBerry maker has been reduced to layoffs, and the list goes on.

Seriously, just aggregating contextual evidence on the woe-stricken Waterloo-based company for this article was exhausting. But to put a sour little cherry on top of what seems to be a spoiling BlackBerry-flavored sundae, a former RIM employee has stepped out to explain why he thinks the company can’t seem to get back on top, or even close. → Read More

So remember the Optimus 3D smartphone from LG? It was the first smartphone announced to boast a glasses-free 3D display, and we were all really excited when LG said this bad boy would launch worldwide in June.

Unfortunately, the phone has seen a couple delays, most recently the shift from a June 20 UK release to July 11. In spite of the delays, LG wants to keep us excited about the Optimus 3D, and has issued a press release as a reminder. → Read More

Listen up Nokia loyalists, this one’s for you. Amazon has just put the Nokia E6 business-class smartphone up for pre-order on its web site, which is pretty good news considering the fact that US carriers haven’t exactly been chomping at the bit to sell Nokia handsets. → Read More

Talk of NFC has been around longer than I can remember, but when are we actually going to get to wave our phones around and magically pay for soda, or a movie, or whatever else our little hearts desire? → Read More

Just a quick heads-up for all of our readers rockin’ Sprint’s HTC Evo Shift 4G: you can start nommin’ on some Gingerbread with the official update to Android 2.3 right this second. According to an announcement posted over on Sprint’s forums, they’re going to start rolling out the update to everyone on June 20th. If you just can’t wait any longer, however, there’s a way to get it now: jump into the settings menu, then click into System Update >> HTC Software Update. You’ll be one of the first to nab the download and thus be something of a guinea pig — but hey, these things never go wrong, right? → Read More

You know, just last week I was sitting there playin’ some Pac-Man on my iPhone when I thought to myself, “Man! This is fun and all, but it would be so much better if I had a big ol’ wonky metal nipple-joystick thing sticking out of my screen.” Just kidding, that didn’t happen. I don’t even have Pac-Man on my iPhone. I just needed an intro. I’m sorry I lied*, okay? For those that do have Pac-Man — or any of the many games out there for iOS with a circular, touch-based D-Pad contraption — ThinkGeek has just announced the Joystick-It, an $18 (or $24.99 for the bigger, iPad version) stick-on joystick modeled after an oldschool 8-way ball arcade stick. It’s made of milled-aluminum, sticks and unsticks without leaving any adhesive, and is preeeeetty much the geekiest thing you can buy for your phone. * I’m not sorry. → Read More

After Ping’s not-exactly-earth-shattering launch, Apple has remained relatively quiet on the social networking front. However, a freshly discovered patent application suggests the company isn’t quite ready to toss in its friend-making towel quite yet.

Filed towards the end of 2009, the patent application describes a location-based social network that lets users find people nearby that share common interests, including books, movies, and, of course, music. → Read More

When the dual-screen Kyocera Echo first appeared, my initial reaction was, “Nice gimmicky idea, but let’s hope this double-screen thing doesn’t get trendy.” Honestly, I see no need for two screens on a phone, especially when one screen tends to do a great job draining battery life all on its own.

But apparently LG and T-Mobile don’t feel the same way, as a dual-screen QWERTY slider has made an appearance in the wild. → Read More

With the exception of the Foxconn fire, we rarely, if ever, report on any real tragedy in this industry. The closest we come to reporting a tragedy probably involves RIM, or Nokia, or some form of a product delay, but very rarely do we write up anything truly horrific.

Today, however, a young man from the Panchmahal district of Gujarat, India was electrocuted to death by his shanzai phone. → Read More

Poor Nokia. It seems like just yesterday that everyone around me was sporting some form of a Nokia handset. Now, I literally don’t know one person who owns a Nokia phone, at least not as a primary handset. The company that once ruled the world, or at least the mobile world, has now fallen to third place behind Samsung and Apple, and it looks as though things are only getting worse.

Apparently, the Finnish company is closing the doors of its online stores in the UK, Spain, and France. Nokia pledges that the shuttering sites have nothing to do with slow sales, but rather that the manufacturer would like to start selling handsets to carriers instead of selling to end users directly. → Read More