COMPANIES

Thanks to the Windows OS, Swedish telecom firm Nokia is experiencing a second wind. Reports said that Nokia has received more than 2.5 million orders for the Lumia 920 unit worldwide. This volume of orders is more than the entire line up of Lumia family sold in the third quarter of 2012.

Amazon is practically giving out a gadget steal for consumers willing to be tied up for a 2-year contract with U.S. telco AT&T and all they need to do is make a one-off payment of $US0.01, a package that is reserved for new subscribers of the company.

If you are mulling for a gadget purchase this holiday season and wanting to try out a different smartphone system, the best bet you can get is Nokia’s Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, according to tech experts.

The year 2012 could prove the biggest for South Korean tech giant Samsung so far as reports suggested that the Galaxy device maker is well on its way to keep the global smartphone leadership by shipping at least 60 million phones at the close of December.

HTC has another leak of an upcoming mobile device called HTC Deluxe which is expected to arrive January 2013. Other latest HTC Android smartphones released recently have powerful processors which are all in quad-core, providing efficiency and speed to the user.

Major book chain Barnes & Noble has joined the technology battle by releasing the Nook HD. The popular bookstore's decision to include more electronic items that actually are also considered rivals of its traditional books is an indicator that bricks and mortar stores need to accept and take part in the technology battle to survive financially.

Qantas Domestic Chief Executive Lyell Strambi blamed on Sunday the excess capacity in the country’s domestic routes as the reason behind the air carrier’s financial woes. He said the situation benefits passengers, but not the airlines.

Success or failure? The Click Frenzy on Nov 20 in Australia was met with mixed reviews with a major retailer calling the event a runaway success, while critics who bit the hype that it was the sale that would stop the nation were disappointed not only because of the Web site's crash but also the flimsy deals made available.

Quietly, Samsung has refreshed its Galaxy Tab line, which is the South Korean tech giant’s answer to Apple’s iPad, earlier this year, giving it some bump up to fit prevailing tablet lovers’ demands and trimming some excesses at the same time.

Few months into its scheduled February 2013 launch for new generation of handsets and a revised mobile platform, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) saw considerable boosts on shares value, reports said.

There is a third smartphone system outside the dominant Android and iOS world and it’s called the Windows Phone 8. Of course we know that already in the same way that we equate WP8 to Nokia’s Lumia handsets.

One more bad publicity for Microsoft’s Windows 8 as Yahoo! News reported that influential gadget reviewer Jakob Nielsen will wait out for the next version of the operating system, judging the freshly rolled out OS as lacking the punch for a compelling PC experience.

LG’s Optimus smartphone lines can be considered as the South Korean consumer electronic firm’s saviour. The handsets are largely credited for nudging LG out of the red column, chalking up respectable profits after the global smartphone scrambling had ended for the September 2012 quarter.

HTC One S has been in the competition for quite some time but a second and really thorough look seems warranted for a device that enraptured quite a number of tech experts for its impressive and sturdy finish.

Looking to get Samsung’s Galaxy S3 Mini minus the two-year obligation? The downsized mobile phone is currently available on Amazon, CNET said on Tuesday, but stocks are running very low.

Global sales of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 8, has been slow at best but devices running the cross-platform OS were moving in a much better pace, tech blog site Mashable reported this week.

The power of online shopping could be both liberating and problematic if one is not as conspicuous as ever. Scanning through colourful and interactive catalogues of products and services spells fun as the new shopping flare. Nonetheless. shopping or just browsing, one should not let your guard down as there are those on the watch to do some online mischief.

Click Frenzy's website may have crashed due to the surge of consumers wanting to get first dibs on discounted products, and may have lost patrons along the way, but the real winners here were the retailers themselves prepared to serve online consumers.

Looking to get Samsung’s Galaxy S3 Mini minus the two-year obligation? The downsized mobile phone is currently available on Amazon, CNET said on Tuesday, but stocks are running very low.

The Finnish mobile phone maker is set to deploy its revamped and rebranded map application, now called Here, to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android ecosystems, which the company said should be up and ready for downloads in the next few weeks.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is the tablet incarnation of everything about Amazon. As one reviewer observed – consumers so deeply entangled with the giant online retailer’s sub-ecosystem will find this new slate the quickest gateway in accessing products on the company’s store.

Smartphone served as the tech industry juggernaut in the past five years that it catapulted tech firms to record revenues and profits, according to Asymco managing director Horace Dediu.

Anti-virus specialist Symantec has unmasked a new malware that exploits a function of Google Docs to secretly communicate with its command and control (C&C) server, likely infecting even new machines running on Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

Android appears well on its way to global mobile device dominance, likely to complete its tablet rally much sooner than Apple had expected.

Rowing against the tide, Nintendo launched the Wii U Nov. 18, hopeful that gamers the world over will plunk down some cash for an upgrade of the experience that conquered the world six years ago.

Activision executives were in euphoric mood as of Friday last week, overwhelmed by the incessant cash register rings generated by the latest Call of Duty virtual mayhem. The new game title clocked $US500 million sales after its full-day of commercial debut, reports said.

If the first day sale of Nexus 4 were an indicator, it would be a Merry Christmas for Google since reports said that within hours, consumers snapped up units in Australia, United Kingdom and several other nations after the stores opened.

Microsoft is poised to pull off more surprises over the next few years but its chief executive, Steve Ballmer, is keeping all the details close to his chest for now, refusing to confirm talks of upcoming hardwares from the software giant.

Like Apple, Samsung thought it wise to have its own Mini but not a smaller tablet. Instead, the South Korean decided to serve a downsized version of its bestselling handset so far, the Galaxy S3, which recently outpaced the iPhone as the most sought-after smartphone brand in the world.