Try as it might, Apple and its legal team haven't been able to stop Samsung's meteoric rise in the mobile handset market. For the first time in Samsung's history, the company achieved mobile handset sales of more than 300 million units, and there's still nearly three weeks left in the year. No one expected Samsung to be as successful as it has in the mobile phone market, not even Samsung itself, which had set a lower target earlier in the year.

Samsung claims to have sold (not just shipped) 10 million Galaxy S II smartphones around the globe since launching it back in April, with five million of those sales coming in past eight weeks alone. That doesn't put Samsung's flagship device on par with the iPhone in terms of sales numbers, but it certainly shows one reason why Apple is so intent on blocking Samsung shipments whenever and wherever possible.

A member of the Android Central forum uploaded a picture of a Best Buy employee waving his middle finger, which came pre-loaded on his newly purchased Samsung Epic 4G Touch (Galaxy S II) smartphone. After discovering the surprise extra, he sought out a store manager who dismissed the situation, saying it's not uncommon for Best Buy employees to open new merchandise and play with the hardware before boxing them back up and selling as new.

It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride trying to determine when exactly Samsung would drop its Galaxy S II smartphone. Last week a representative from Samsung India tweeted that the Galaxy S II was being delayed at least until June, not just in India, but around the globe. A few days later, Samsung came out and said it would launch as planned. So when is it really coming? If you live in the U.K., you'll be able to nab the Galaxy S II starting May 1, 2011.