Do you use Twitter's "Find Friends" feature on your Android smartphone or iPhone device? If so, you may have been agreeing to more than you bargained for. Privacy advocates are up in arms after it was discovered that Twitter has been harvesting address books from smartphones that use this feature, in many cases without proper disclosure or the user's explicit permission.
Intel and Motorola might be collaborating to make a splash in the smartphone market with a nifty new device that's been spotted online. An alleged leaked render landed at PocketNow and it shows what is supposed to be Motorola's first ever Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) smartphone, which would also happen to be one of the first Intel-powered handsets.
Apple became the world's top smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter of 2011 by nabbing a 23.8 percent share of the global market, and 19 percent for 2011 as a whole, according to data released today by market research firm Gartner. According to Gartner, Apple sold 35.5 million iPhone devices in Q4 2011, representing a 121.4 percent year-on-year increase, though iOS still trails Android by a wide margin.
If your penchant for frequently washing your hands ventures into obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) territory, by all means, you're probably safe to use Android's swipe-to-unlock security feature to keep nosy Nancys from spying your contacts and text messages. But for the rest of us, so-called '"reverse smudge engineering" might be the bane of greasy fingers.
The red hot tablet and smartphone sectors are leading to increased mobile DRAM production ratios among first-tier DRAM manufacturers, but only Samsung seems to be benefiting from it all. According to market research firm DRAMeXchange, Samsung was the only semiconductor to remain profitable in the fourth quarter of 2011, which it accomplished by attacking the global market with its Galaxy S2 and Note products.
Verizon released the keyboard-sporting Droid 4 late last week, so you know what the intrepid crew over at iFixit spent their weekend doing: tearing the bad boy apart to see what makes it tick. As it turns out, the battery -- which isn't supposed to be removable by users -- can definitely be removed, but it's a major pain in the butt. The keyboard and LCD screen held a few design surprises, too.
At long last, Motorola's Droid 4 smartphone with slide-out QWERTY keyboard is available at Verizon. Motroloa's newest smartphone runs $200 with a two-year service contract and includes free overnight shipping if ordered direct from Verizon, or $550 sans contract. It's been a long wait for those who've been holding out for this particular phone, which was first rumored to drop on December 8, 2011.
If the ammunition you're using to try and take down your prey isn't getting the job done, you can either hunt different game or try different ammo. Apple has chosen the latter as it continues to chase Samsung through various courts around the world. According to reports, Apple added a pair of patents to its portfolio, which it's using to try and convince a California judge to ban sales of Samsung's smartphones and tablets.
In December 2011, Samsung 
Sprint's Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse wished long and hard for an opportunity to carry Apple's iPhone, but what he and his company never considered was the old adage that says 'Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it and then you're stuck with high iPhone subsidies.' We added that last part, but to be fair, does it matter? Sprint, like Verizon, was hellbent on carrying the iPhone, and now it's seeing the cost of that decision.
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