COMPANIES

Australian air passengers may soon find themselves on the same flight as mining billionaire Nathan Tinkler. The reason is that Mr Tinkler, who owns several companies, lost his $15-million private plane and corporate helicopter because of the collapse of a company he owns due to unpaid debts.

Android lovers wanting to enjoy the latest features and more of the Google mobile platform need not to wait for say Samsung or telcos to deliver the updates, which come excruciatingly slow.

Despite stubborn claims by Microsoft that its Windows 8 launch is going along just fine, analysts have expressed doubts on the manner that the revamped operating system has been unfolding so far.

It’s official, many more lusting after the Nexus 4 will never get their hands on the Google handset this December, which the internet giant said is sold out for the holidays and will not ship until January, at the earliest, next year.

In November, Google Chrome surpassed 1 per cent of web usage in smartphones and tablets. The market increase is from Android users so far, although the Chrome has been released to iOS in June, it only accounted for 0.01 per cent in the same month.

There are reports that Facebook, the most popular social networking site, is in talks to acquire WhatsApp. The hit mobile messaging WhatsApp denied the report as a rumour.

Supply of Nokia’s Lumia 920 was getting scarce in the past few weeks due mainly to solid demands and apparently the Finnish mobile phone maker was caught off guard by the overwhelming reception generated by its new flagship smartphone.

With the recent release of Windows 8, all-in-one PCs with bend, twist, turn, and touch features are all over the market. These hardware capabilities are all state-of-the-art and considered breakthroughs in computer technology.

Analysts agree that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) would cut on its Tuesday, Dec 4, policy board meeting the overnight cash rate by 25 basis points to 3 per cent. The move would bring down the key lending rate to a three-and-a-half-year low or the same level in April 2009, the height of the global financial crisis.

The new super-thin 21.5-inch iMac is quite a view and getting inside the new Apple desktop is most definitely an engineering marvel, as proved by the latest discovery of teardown specialist iFixit.

What’s so sexy about the new Lumia 920? Nokia chief designer Marko Ahtisaari points to the Windows smartphone’s natural ability to fuse what is both physical and digital, creating an advance device that remains in touch with being ‘human and organic’.

A report by Malaysian daily The Star on Sunday said that the country logged 24 cases of electronic hacking involving RM3.3 million in losses. The hacking of smartphones took place between January and September 2012. The reports highlights the vulnerability of smartphones to cyber hacking and other malicious threats through the mobile phones' short messaging service (SMS) which is celebrating 20 years of use on Dec 3, Monday.

Several smartphone units are now capable of controlling other devices such as TVs, cable boxes and Blu Ray disc players. Usually, smartphones have built-in applications to perform such a task, but in some cases, applications can fill in and only require wireless connection to execute the task.

South Korean technology giant Samsung will release the world's first flexible smartphones in 2013, BBC reports. However, Samsung has yet to officially confirm if the new technology would be on the next Galaxy S or Galaxy Note smartphone or if it will roll out a new line of Galaxy Flexible smartphones.

Twenty years ago, 22-year-old British engineer Neil Papworth sent the message "Merry Christmas" to an Orbitel 901 mobile phone from his office computer. It was the world's first text message and since then the number of people who use the short messaging service on their cell phones had grown to 4 billion.

Sony announced on Thursday the return to store shelves of its Xperia Tablet S after it temporarily pulled out the units due to a technical glitch. With its return, the device's phablet war with a similar device, the Microsoft Windows Surface, is expected to be revived.

By the end of 2016, at least 17 million mobile phones will be using 4G services in Australia with the spontaneous growth of smartphones and other mobile devices using this kind of network. That means within four years, almost half of all mobile connections in the country will be on 4G LTE.

By all indications, the Lumia 920 is fast-becoming a hero phone for Nokia, which analysts said represents a much-needed push for a struggling firm that has seen lacklustre product debuts and market battering in the past few years.

Toyota Australia has expanded its hybrid family once more with the addition of the new luxury-spec Toyota Prius V i-Tech.

Kia Australia believes that its localization program for its vehicles is a huge deal for its on-going success in our market.

There is a new tablet on the block. Not that new actually as Sony launched the Xperia Tablet S September this year only to withdraw it from the market a month after due to build defects.

The latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech released on Wednesday said that Apple regained the lead of smartphone sales in the U.S. market by garnering 48.1 per cent of total sales due to the release of iPhone 5.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Balmer disclosed at the company's shareholder's meeting that sales of Windows Phone 8 were off to a great start. He attributes it to the combination of new software and more powerful hardware which resulted in four times as many sales compared to the same period in 2011.

With the recent release of Windows 8 and record-breaking sales, upgraders should be aware of at least five issues they may encounter as they move from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

Australian tech retailer Dick Smith is joining the anticipated holiday push of Apple’s iPhone 5 via its exclusive unlocked offering for the popular handset, which starts selling Nov 28 at $788.

Without providing specifics, Microsoft said on Tuesday that it has identified the cause of the random reboots reportedly plaguing the Nokia Lumia 920 and the HTC Windows Phone 8X and a patch to repair the problem is set for a December deployment.

Amidst the ongoing management upheaval at Apple, the tech giant took some breather on Tuesday as new research data showed that the iPhone has snatched back the title as the bestselling smartphone, at least in the United States.

Windows 8 is just about to replicate the achievements of its immediate predecessor as Microsoft disclosed on Tuesday that around 40 million licenses of the new operating system have been sold a month after it was rolled out.

Sold at $99 in Verizon, the LG Spectrum 2 is viewed by tech experts as a good buy for smartphones as mid-range. Expected to be its competition in the mid-range section is Samsung's Galaxy Premier slated for release the last month of 2012, although its price tag is unknown but expected also to be in the mid-range level.