Samsung says 'Galaxy S III' is in the works

Samsung has confirmed that the official follow-up to its popular Galaxy S II smartphone, which the tech media are dubbing the "Galaxy S III," is on the way.

But just when the next top-of-the-line Samsung smartphone will arrive is still unclear. The company issued a statement Wednesday, first reported by the website TechRadar, that the new Android handset won't make its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain (Feb. 27-March 1), as the rumor mill had been predicting.

Instead, Samsung said it will hold its own event for the new phone. Here's the statement, as reported by TechRadar:

Samsung is looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012. 

The successor to the Galaxy S2 smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product. 

Samsung stays committed to providing the best possible mobile experiences for customers around the world.

So, what will the next Galaxy S phone look like? Many of the rumors surrounding the device have speculated that a larger screen, better camera and faster processor (maybe even a quad-core processor) are on the way.

The Galaxy S II -- which was my personal favorite Android phone until the Samsung-built Galaxy Nexus arrived late last year -- was offered in multiple variations for multiple carriers and sold in either 4.3-inch or 4.5-inch screen sizes, matched with 8-megapixel cameras, 4G connectivity and dual core processors.

Lets hope that Samsung launches the "Galaxy S III" on the latest version of Google's Android operating system, known as Ice Cream Sandwich, whenever the phone does arrive.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Facebook.com/nateog

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Photo: The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, left, and the Samsung Galaxy S II. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times

Broadcom fourth-quarter profit, revenue top analysts' forecasts

Apple Inc. sold 37 million iPhones and 15 million iPads during its record holiday quarter. Those are also happy numbers for Irvine-based Broadcom Corp., which makes microchips for the popular Apple devices and many others.

Broadcom reported a better-than-expected fourth quarter Tuesday, beating Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue and earnings per share despite enduring profit and sales declines from the same period a year earlier.

The company's stock rose 1.98%, or $0.68, to $35.02 in after-hours trading following its earnings announcement. Since Jan. 1, the company's stock has risen 17.44%, a welcome jump after a rough 2011 that saw that company's stock drop 33%, from $43 to $29.

The market for semiconductor chips was bumpy in 2011, and Broadcom saw declining consumer interest in digital television sets, one of the products for which it makes microchips. The industry has also been recovering from major flooding in Thailand that led to a shortage of hard disk drives used by many computing devices.

Still, the company's leadership is optimistic, projecting revenue for the current quarter of between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion, above the $1.73 billion analysts expect.

"Broadcom delivered solid results in 2011, as we gained significant market share, secured record design wins across our businesses, and delivered record revenue and cash flow from operations," Scott McGregor, Broadcom's chief executive, said in a statement. "We will remain focused on product innovation and engineering execution that position us to grow faster than the industry."

Broadcom has about 20 lines of business, making communications chips for smartphones, tablets, televisions, set-top boxes and large-scale Internet servers. To stay competitive in the fast-moving electronics business, the company often buys smaller firms to acquire their chip design technology and know-how, and wraps the new teams into its main design business to work alongside other engineers from around the globe. It has acquired 46 companies since its founding in 1991.

The company reported $1.82 billion in revenue for the quarter, higher than the Wall Street consensus of $1.8 billion but a 6.4% decrease from the same period a year earlier. Its adjusted earnings per share were 68 cents -- Wall Street expected 65 cents -- a 25% decline from the fourth quarter of 2010.

[Correction, 4:55 p.m., An earlier version of this post said Broadcom saw declining user interest in set-top boxes.  The company mentioned a slide in the demand for its digital televisions as a reason for revenue decline, not set-top boxes.]

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-- David Sarno

Photo: A Broadcom mobile multimedia circuit board in 2010. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times

Apple vs. Samsung: Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban upheld in Germany

Samsung was dealt a loss in its ongoing patent battle with Apple as the South Korean electronics maker's request to overturn a ban on the sale of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Germany was denied.

A Dusseldorf regional appeals court upheld the August 2011 sales injunction of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and said that Samsung's Galaxy Tab 8.9 also should be banned from being sold, according to a report on the website FOSS Patents by patent expert Florian Mueller.

Although the decision hurts Samsung, the ruling may also be a setback for Apple. The reasoning behind the court's decision wasn't because of Apple's claims that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes on the design patents for the iPad tablet. Rather, "the appeals court based its decision on a violation of German unfair competition law," Mueller reported.

The injunction against Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in Germany cited Apple's design patents as the reasoning for pulling the Samsung tablet off store shelves.

In an effort to not miss out on the growing tablet market in Germany, Samsung redesigned the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and then re-released a new German version called the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, which is allowed to be sold, though Apple has requested a sales ban on that product too.

The Dusseldorf appeals court ruling is the latest in an international fight between Samsung, Apple and their respective teams of lawyers. Last week, Apple was denied a requested sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the Netherlands, where the two companies are locked in a patent battle.

Earlier this month, Apple filed two new patent suits against Samsung in Germany, seeking a ban on 10 Samsung phones and five tablets. Last month, a U.S. district court in San Jose denied Apple's request for a ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before a July trial on Apple's lawsuit against Samsung in that court.

In December, a temporary ban on the Samsung tablet in Australia expired in a related suit between the two tech giants. The Australian dispute is set to go to trial in March, and other suits have been filed across Europe and Asia.

While the two companies are rivals and suing to block the sales of one another's products, Samsung and Apple are also business partners. Samsung, for example, manufactures the Apple-designed A4 and A5 processors found in the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and iPod Touch, among other components, such as flash memory, inside of many Apple devices.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: A Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet on display this month at a company showroom in Seoul. Credit: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

Obama and Romney campaigns use Square for fundraising

Barack Obama's use of social media is credited with helping him reach out to voters in a groundbreaking way that helped him win the 2008 presidential race. In 2012, the Obama campaign is eying a new way to reach voters and donors too -- Square.

The president's reelection campaign, as first reported by Politico, is outfitting its staff across the U.S. with the small plastic smartphone credit card readers and mobile payment apps from Square, the San Francisco start-up run by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

But just as the Obama campaign isn't alone in its embracing of social media this year, it too isn't alone in deploying Square for easier, faster fundraising on the campaign trail. On Tuesday, Republican Mitt Romney's campaign announced it too would be using Square for fundraising in Florida, where Romney is facing rivals Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum in a Republican primary.

"We have plans to roll it out nationally but right now we're using Square just in Florida as a sort of beta test," said Zac Moffatt, the Romney campaign's digital director. "The challenge on this sort of thing is never with the technology, it's with the compliance. We're making sure everything we're doing follows fundraising rules and is compliant with the FEC [Federal Election Commission] and that it works well. So, for now, were just focusing on making it all work on this smaller scale, but we'd like to scale this out in time, the right way."

Moffatt said the Romney campaign has been talking to Square about how to best implement the company's card reader and app for "probably about six months. This is one of the challenges we face relative to the Obama campaign -- we have only so much manpower. So we've had to plan this out the right way so that we're using the resources we have in an effective way."

To aid its ability to scale-up its use of Square, the Romney campaign is considering developing its own Square-compatibly app that a supporter could download to their smartphone to make a donation or possibly even collect donations on behalf of the campaign -- but that's an idea that hasn't been finalized just yet, Moffatt said.

The campaign looked to Square for fundraising because of the company's ability to turn a smartphone into what is essentially a mobile cash register with a simple app download and a Square card reader in the headphone jack.

"Ease of use is a big part of why we're using Square," he said. "Anything that reduces the barrier for entry is a No. 1 priority for us. Our apps, well that's something to think through. We still have some things to figure out -- whether or not the Apple is going to take 30% of a donation or not, details like that. But we're always looking to get as close to one touch donations as we can."

For the sake of convenience, Moffatt said, all of the Romney's campaign's Square usage will be iPhone based for now, though Android phones may be added in the future. The "beta test" will take place Tuesday night at the Romney campaign's election party in Florida, he said.

"There will be thousands of people there, so we'll be using Square for merchandise sales and fundraising," Moffatt said. "There will be lots of things like this in 2012 and the question always is, does this technology work for us? We have a lot faith this could be something pretty powerful for us moving forward."

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: A demo of Square's card reader and iPhone app in action. Credit: Square

Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet review [Video]

Motorola's Xyboard tablet line is just about everything I wished the Motorola Xoom had been when it was released not even a year ago.

The Xoom, Motorola's first attempt to build an iPad-competing tablet, was critically acclaimed when it launched last February. It even won the Best of Show award at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

But the Xoom, which sported a 10.1-inch screen, was a bit too heavy (1.6 pounds) and much too expensive (launching with an $800 price tag), and the 3G and 4G models were available only through Verizon. The 4G capabilities were also delayed about seven months, and when they did arrive, Xoom owners had to mail in their tablets to get a 4G hardware upgrade.

Thankfully, in the Xyboard, it seems Motorola has made up for most (but not all) of its missteps with the Xoom.

For one thing, the Xyboard prices are more acceptable.

The Wi-Fi-only version of the Xyboard starts at $399.99 for the 8.2-inch model and at $499.99 for the 10.1-inch model. The Verizon-exclusive 4G version, known as the Droid Xyboard, starts at $429.99 for the 8.2-inch model and at $529.99 for the 10.1-inch model -- that is, as long as you sign a two-year data plan along with the tablet. (All four of the prices named are for tablets with 16 gigabytes of storage.)

Both the 8.2-inch and 10.1-inch Xyboards have touch screens with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.

The Xyboard 10.1 is thin and light, and physically felt much more competitive with Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, the two high-end tablets against which I think the Xyboard 10.1 will be competing most for consumer dollars. The Asus Transformer Prime tablet, a tablet I haven't yet tried, is likely be in this category as well.

In my time testing the 4G-equipped Droid Xyboard 10.1, it was clear more than just the pricing strategy was different with Motorola's new tablets.

Inside, the Xyboard 10.1 is fitted with a 1.2-gigahertz dual core processor and 1 gigabyte of RAM, which powers the tablet to speedy performance that lived up to its price tag.

In the front and rear are 5-megapixel cameras, which shoot detailed photos and 720p video out back too. They aren't as sharp as some 5-megapixel cameras I've seen on smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Apple iPhone 4 and Nokia Lumia 710, but they're far better than the lackluster cameras in the iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab.

The Xyboard 10.1 is just 0.35 inches thick and weighs 1.32 pounds, making the inclusion of such high-resolution cameras and a rear LEG flash all the more impressive. It also has dual stereo speakers in the back, which sound good for a tablet (better than speakers on the iPad and the Galaxy Tab 10.1) but don't replace a good set of headphones.

The displays on the Xyboard 10.1 were another high point, responding to touch input quickly and rendering websites, apps and videos sharply, clearly and brightly. Unlike the iPad or the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Xyboard has a mini-HDMI port built in, so it's easy to hook the tablet up to a TV set.

Motorola sells 200,000 tablets, reports $80-million loss

Motorola Mobility sold 1 million tablets in 2011 -- with only 200,000 Xooms and Xyboards sold in the fourth quarter of the year, a quarter in which the company also reported an $80-million loss.

The consumer electronics maker reported the low tablet sales and negative earnings on Thursday in its quarterly earnings report. The loss came on revenue of $3.44 billion in the fourth quarter. A year earlier, the company reported a fourth-quarter profit of $80 million on $3.43 billion in revenue.

For the full year, Motorola reported a loss of $249 million on $13 billion in revenue, up from an $86-million loss on $11.5 billion in revenue in 2010.

Product shipments are also down year over year for the fourth quarter. Motorola shipped 10.5 million phones and tablets (all of which run Google's Android operating system) in the last three months of 2011, down from 11.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

In 2011 as a whole, Motorola shipped 42.4 million mobile devices, up from 37.3 million devices shipped in 2010.

Motorola also said it remains "energized by the proposed merger with Google and continue to focus on creating innovative technologies." The Google takeover is still awaiting approval from regulators in a number of countries, but Motorola said it expects the $12.5-billion deal to "close in early 2012 once all conditions have been satisfied."

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: Motorola's Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet on display at Motorola Mobility's booth at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Credit: David Becker/Getty Images

Motorola sues Apple over patents, probably with Google's blessing

The power of mobile technology: Never before have consumers been able to hold so many lawsuits in their hand.

Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. has just thrown another baton in the smartphone lawsuit parade that has stretched to courtrooms across the globe, as phone-makers sue one another over similarities in their mobile devices, which are packed with patent-protected circuits and widgets from dozens of companies.

Motorola has  filed suit against Apple Inc., purveyor of the mega-blockbuster iPhone (the device lifted Apple to $46 billion in sales in its most recent quarter).  Apple is an increasingly bitter rival of Google Inc., which agreed to buy Motorola in August, a deal that is still awaiting regulatory clearance.

As patent observer Florian Mueller noted, Google probably had to approve Motorola's lawsuit, given that part of the buyout terms appear to forbid Motorola from filing lawsuits without Google's explicit permission.  Google has not directly sued or been sued by Apple in this matter -- the two compaies are fighting their legal war by proxy.

Phones that run Google's Android operating system have collectively outsold the iPhone, and Apple is none too happy about that.  The Cupertino electronics maker has initiated a flurry of lawsuits against Android phone manufacturers, including Samsung Electronics and HTC Corp., alleging that the companies "slavishly copied" the iPhone's signature look.

But Apple is finding that big legal wins are hard to come by.

Now Motorola is trying to make things even more difficult for its rival. In its second action against Apple in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, the company wants the court to ban iPhone sales.  Motorola alleges that Apple devices infringe on six of its patents, including one for a phone with a "concealed antenna," and another about keeping data on "multiple pagers" synchronized.  Motorola, as children of the 1990s will recall, made a lot of pagers -- they still do.

For updates in this saga, make sure to keep your pagers on.

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Image: "Hungry Evil Android".  Credit: asgw / Flickr

Microsoft releases Hotmail app for Amazon's Kindle Fire

Microsoft's Hotmail service now has a Kindle Fire app.

OK, this may not be as exciting as Google releasing a Gmail app for Apple's iPhone, and there is still no native Gmail app for the Fire. But the Hotmail app for the Fire should be a worthwhile release for many owners of Amazon's popular 7-inch tablet due to the addition of Exchange Active Sync.

Unlike Amazon's included email app on the FIre, which merely downloads your messages via POP3, Microsoft's Hotmail app will synch emails, contacts, folders and subfolders, said David Law, Microsoft's director of Hotmail product management, in a blog post.

While the free Hotmail app for the Fire is technically an Android app, the version for Amazon's tablet is different from the standard Hotmail Android app used by more than 3 million people, Law said.

The differences between the Fire Hotmail app and the standard Android Hotmail app have to do with the changes Amazon made to Android to create the Fire-specific operating system it runs on its tablet, which as we've noted before is unlike any other version of Android out there.

"Because the Kindle Fire uses a different implementation of Android, we needed to make some updates to our previous Hotmail app for Android to ensure it worked well," Law said. "Now that we've finished the work and the app is ready, we're excited to give customers a great Hotmail experience on the Kindle Fire."

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screen shot of the Hotmail app listing in Amazon's Appstore for Android. Credit: Microsoft / Amazon

Droid Razr Maxx with bigger battery to launch on Verizon

When I reviewed the Motorola Droid Razr in November, I had a lot of good things to say about the Verizon-exclusive handset, but I also had a complaint when it came to battery life.

"Daily charging would be a part of life with the Razr and anyone considering buying this phone should have a charger at home, work and in the car," I wrote.

And evidently, I wasn't the only one who thought the Razr could do better when it came to holding a charge -- lots of other tech critics complained too. Motorola seems to have agreed also, which is why the company is releasing the Droid Razr Maxx through Verizon on Thursday.

The Razr Maxx, as I reported before, is the same fantastic phone as the Razr, but it features a bigger battery.

With a bigger battery comes a thicker phone, so the Razr Maxx will be 0.35-inches thick compared with the Razr, which is just 0.28-inches thick. Yeah, they're both pretty thin, but the Razr Maxx won't be able to claim its place as the thinnest 4G phone on the market the way the original Razr does.

Other specs included a 4.3-inch screen, 1.2-gigahertz processor, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that can shoot 1080-pixel video, a front-facing camera for video chat and 32 gigabytes of storage (16 gigabytes of storage built into the phone and the rest coming on a 16-gigabyte microSD card).

The price for the Droid Maxx will be the same as the skinnier Razr when it launched -- $299.99 on a two-year Verizon data plan. The first Razr was dropped to $199.99 earlier this month. Both run on Google's Android Gingerbread operating system.

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Image: The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx. Credit: Verizon Wireless/Motorola

Apple loses bid to ban Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Netherlands

For the second time, a Netherlands court has denied Apple its request for a ban on sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, whose design Apple says illegally copies the iPad's.

The Samsung victory, first reported on the blog Foss Patents run by patent expert Florian Mueller, came Tuesday in The Hague, where an appeals court ruled that the Samsung device -- which runs on Google's Android operating system -- doesn't steal from the iPad's patented design.

The Dutch court's decision, which upheld a lower-court ruling made in August, is another setback for Apple in its worldwide patent battle against South Korea-based Samsung.

Last month, a U.S. district court in San Jose denied Apple's request for a ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before a July trial on Apple's lawsuit in that court. Also in December, a temporary ban on the Samsung tablet in Australia expired. The dispute is set to go to trial in Australia in March.

Apple last week filed two new patent suits against Samsung in Germany, seeking a ban on 10 Samsung phones and five tablets.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: An Apple iPad 2, left, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at a store in the Netherlands. Credit: Robert Vos / EPA