Samsung wasted no time in sending a team of executives to one of its suppliers' factories in China to investigate claims that it may be using child labor. The in-house investigation is in rapid response to a China Labor Watch (CLW) report alleging to have found issues of underage workers and student labor exploitation at HEG, which builds mobile phones, DVDs, stereo equipment, and MP3 players for Samsung.

Research In Motion (RIM) has a lot riding on the release of BlackBerry 10, the upcoming mobile operating system that will power a new generation of devices. If all goes to plan, BB10 will thrust RIM back into relevance and save a company that's seen its share of struggles in recent times. More likely, however, BB10 will stand in the shadows of next-gen OSes from Google and Apple, and if that happens, Samsung's best bet is to acquire RIM, according to analysts with investment firm Jeffries.

It's too late to claim things are getting ugly between Samsung and Apple. The question before us now is, how ugly can things get? That depends on which court system you're talking about. Here in the U.S., Apple is peeved at Samsung for leaking rejected evidence to the public, and over in Australia, Samsung is accusing Apple of inappropriately meeting with expert witnesses to change their opinions on things that could affect the outcome of the patent trial.

The patent dispute between Apple and Samsung isn't just an ugly affair, it's turning downright fugly. Samsung managed to tick off both Apple and U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh by sharing evidence with the press that was ruled inadmissible, specifically a set of PowerPoint slides showing Apple did to Sony what the company claims Samsung has done to them -- copying designs.