SMARTPHONE

Microsoft brings aboard Skype for $8.5 billion. With Skype, Microsoft is getting an established player in the increasingly competitive voice and video calling market. Skype has 170 million connected users and logged over 207 billion minutes of voice and video conversations in 2010.

Search-giant Google updated its Goggles app on Monday to include better note-taking capabilities, search history, and better business card recognition as machine-vision becomes more useful.

Zynga Inc is hiring two key developers of cocos2d, a popular game engine that powers top grossing iPhone apps such as Tap Pet Hotel and Tap Zoo in a move that will help the social games company boost its presence on smartphone and tablets.

Zynga Inc is acquiring two key developers of cocos2d, a popular game engine that powers top grossing iPhone apps such as Tap Pet Hotel, and Tap Zoo, in a move that will help the social games company boost its presence on smartphone and tablets.

Apple now has the world’s most valuable corporate brand, valued at $153.3 billion, according to a BrandZ report. This puts the value of the brand at a little under half of the entire worth of Apple Inc’s $320-billion market capitalization.

Nvidia looking to stay up to par with Intel and Qualcomm on mobility, acquires Icera for $367 million.

Inside Secure, a chipmaker hoping to benefit from technology that allows shoppers to buy goods with the wave of a smartphone, has hired two banks for a Paris flotation, people familiar with the matter said.

Apple is the number one brand in the world according to a report; Facebook is in the top 100 for the first time.

Samsung Droid Charge and HTC Droid Incredible 2 to meet most smartphone needs.

Researchers at the Queen's University Human Media Lab in Kingston, Ontario, have invented a device they hail as the 'future of the phone'. The PaperPhone, as it is called, is made of extremely thin film, and has a flexible electronic display.

Analysts say Intel has its sights set on the mobile space and ARM Holdings.

Apple may join the ranks of RIM and some other competitors as it mulls offering software upgrades over the air, doing away with the requirement of needing a PC to enjoy the latest improvements.

Research In Motion's decision to open its highly secure Enterprise servers to Apple and Android smartphones is a once-unthinkable concession that could save the BlackBerry maker's skin.

The top pre-market NASDAQ Stock Market gainers are: Kendle International, ZST Digital Networks, Hansen Medical, JDS Uniphase, Cbeyond, and ON Semiconductor. The top pre-market NASDAQ Stock Market losers are: Smith Micro Software, Sierra Wireless, Atmel, Aixtron, Mercadolibre, and ARM Holdings.

Intel unveils a new transistor design, which it says will revolutionize the electronics industry.

Intel Corp on Wednesday took the wraps off next-generation technology that crams more transistors onto microchips, hoping it will help the chipmaker catch up in a red-hot tablet and smartphone market.

Google's Android platform rose to a dominant position in the smartphone market in the first quarter, research firm Canalys said on Wednesday, increasing its lead over struggling Nokia.

Intel Corp introduced a manufacturing process that crams more transistors onto silicon chips, a technology that will help it catch up in the red-hot tablet and smartphone market, the chipmaker said on Wednesday.

New research says Apple's app store is going to be king of the app market mountain for quite some time.

Nielsen says by next year, for the first time in 20 years, fewer people are going to own TVs than they did in the previous year.

South Korean police raided Google's offices in Seoul as they investigate whether the company illegally gathered private data.