Carlo Fernandez

A U.S. judge has rejected Apple's request for a preliminary injunction that would have temporarily banned Samsung from selling its devices in the United States. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh allowed Samsung to continue selling the Galaxy S 4G, Infuse 4G, Droid Charge and Galaxy Tab 10.1 while the lawsuit filed by Apple is pending. The lawsuit, which goes on trial July 30, 2012, claims that Samsung has slavishly copied the design and functionality of the iPhone and iPad.

Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics are engaged in cutthroat competition and are embroiled in an all-out-war in courtrooms across a dozen countries. Apple has sought a ban of the Samsung Galaxy S 2 and Galaxy Tab devices on grounds that they are imitating Apple devices. Samsung has countered with lawsuits seeking the ban of the iPhone 4S on claims that the latest iPhone is infringing on Samsung's wireless patents.

But you won't see smartphones with powerful quad-core chips, an Apple iPhone with a 4-inch display and NFC chips, or new smartphone brands from Facebook, Amazon, and Panasonic, during this year's holiday season.

The Galaxy Nexus is already available in the U.K. and will be available in December in the U.S. (via Verizon Wireless) and Canada. In the UK, the Galaxy Nexus is available contract-free for GBP515 at Clove technology for GBP515, compared to GBP499 for the iPhone 4S. In Australia, a contract-free Nexus is already being sold by online retailers Mobicity and Kogan.

Apple, Samsung, Nokia, HTC and Research In Motion will face several new rivals in the smartphone market next year.

Retailers will start opening doors for the holiday shopping season on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Nielsen's annual holiday gift survey says that 44 percent of kids aged 6 to 12 want an Apple tablet in the coming months, and 25 percent have placed non-iPad tablets on their wish-list. PriceGrabber's winter holiday shopping survey says four out of five people want a tablet instead of a laptop as a gift.

Tablets have become a must-have item, with estimates saying that four out of five persons intend to buy a tablet as a gift this Christmas.

What password do you use for your Facebook or PayPal e-mail account: your birthday? "1234567"? "abc123"? your favorite sport? Better change your passwords before hackers break into your bank account information or read your private e-mail messages.

Apple Inc. had over 90 percent of the tablet market in 2009 when it launched the iPad. The following year, Apple continued to reap record sales of the 9.5-inch iPad, although it market went down to less than 70% with the entry of Android tablets in the market. Next year, Apple could lose further market share as smartphone makers, PC makers and even online retailers like Amazon seek to bolster their media tablets line-up.

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson will unveil the full version of the sandbox construction game originally written in Java, at the MineCon convention in Las Vegas over the weekend.

Minecraft, the indie sandbox building game, will be available for the iPhone, iPad and other Apple mobile devices starting today, Nov. 17.

Apple Inc. is the world's most valuable tech company, it's the world's second largest company by market capitalization, it reported record revenue of $108.2 billion in fiscal year ended Sept. 24, and it had record net profit of $25.9 billion in fiscal 2011.

Apple Inc. finally made changes to its board of directors in its post-Steve Jobs era. On Tuesday, the Cupertino, California-based company named Arthur D. Levinson, Ph. D. as the Company's non-executive Chairman of the Board. Apple also announced that Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, will join Apple's board and will serve on the audit committee.

Apple Inc. has informed registered owners of the first generation iPod nanos sold between September 2005 and December 2006 that the devices may overheat and pose a security risk.

"As far as we understand, Apple newly assigned production of two key components for its iPhone 5 and iPad 3 to a Taiwanese company, but these showed problems such as overheating during final tests," The Hankyoreh quoted one Samsung Electronics official as saying.

ASUS has unveiled the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime, an ultra-thin tablet with a powerful quad-core processor. Apple Inc. last year had more than 90% of the tablet market with its iPad. In the recent quarter, Samsung's Galaxy Tab and other tablets cut Apple's market share to less than 70%. Asus, the world's fifth largest seller of personal computers, is poised to make the iPad look outdated with the revolutionary features of the second generation Transformer.

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson will unveil the full version of the originally-written-in-Java indie video game at the MineCon in Las Vegas, Nevada, next week.

Apple Inc. is known for its revolutionary and innovative products. But that doesn't mean that devices meticulously designed by the top-notch engineers at Apple are free of any issues.

Despite sluggish sales of the first edition of the XOOM, Motorola Mobility won't do a Hewlett-Packard-like early exit in the tablet market. It will instead try to challenge Apple's market leading iPad for a second time, but, this time around, with the right ingredients.

It used to be Apple Inc. against Android device makers, with the Cupertino, California-based company leading race with its revolutionary and elegantly designed products. It should have been a three-way race, but Microsoft Corp.'s Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates missed the boat after they killed the Courier, a dual touch-screen touch enabled tablet which was...

Apple Inc. has confirmed battery life problems with the new iPhone 4S as well as mobile devices updated with the iOS 5 mobile operating system.

Pundits have been saying that the patent war among smartphone makers is killing innovation. But recently unveiled touch-screen phones show that device-makers are no longer copying each other's designs for a large rectangular brick and are trying to outdo each other in adding cutting edge features in their devices.

Nokia at the Nokia World 2011 in London unveiled what its claims to be a "bold portfolio of innovative phones" led by the Nokia Lumia 800. With the new Lumia line, the Finnish handset maker hopes that its partnership with Microsoft Corp. would help it regain its dominance in the smartphone market.

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Steve Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson. "I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty."

It's possible -- although unlikely -- that voice-based commands on the Siri-like artificial intelligence software would make present input, namely the keyboard, mouse, and the touch-screen, obsolete.

Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics appear, involved in a contentious battle in the courtroom and in the mobile devices market, will be engaged in another showdown: mini tablets.

Rarely does Apple Inc. fail to live up to expectations. When it didn't unveil the iPhone 5 at a developers' conference in June, the rumor mill on a fifth generation iPhone being released in the following months spread like wildfire. The effect -- Apple reported underwhelming results for its most recent quarter, as many postponed phone purchases in anticipation of an iPhone 5.

Yes, it's worth the price, i.e. if the tool actually works.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000119312511273826/d244527dex991.htmhttp://online.wsj.com/article/AP26ba15082dab4ca48a7a71030b115715.htmlhttp://www.beatweek.com/news/9664-losing-touch-ios-5-on-iphone-ipad-signifies-death-of-ipod-branding/http://online.wsj.com/article/AP26ba15082dab4ca48a7a71030b115715.htmlhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/12/us-apple-poll-idUSTRE79B6CI20111012