COMPANIES

As techies await the shipment and availability of Samsung's Galaxy S4 in retail outlets, the South Korean tech giant is ensuring that more consumers could lay their hands on the device. To match Apple stores, Samsung will open retail boutiques in 1,400 Best Buy locations.

For price sensitive techies, now is a good time to consider buying a new tablet or computer with technology firms and sellers offering bargain deals.

The three technology giants in Japan have teamed up to develop a 5.2-inch OLED smartphone screen with a 1,080p resolution and ultra-sharp 423 pixels per inch. The joint venture, called Japan Display, is made up of Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi.

Skype just reached a milestone by hitting 2 billion minutes of connections handled daily. To mark the important event, Skype released an infographic that shows the equivalent of 2 billion minutes in more practical terms.

Finnish game app developer Rovio said on Wednesday that it would launch mobile versions of the Angry Birds Friends on iOS and Android. It is the social version of the game that Rovio created for Facebook and has 60 million installs and 15 million monthly active users on FB.

A study by Bitdefender released on Tuesday indicated more threats to Internet user privacy amid large jumps in adware, malware and Trojans that target Android devices.

Texting apps are taking away revenue from U.S. carriers, estimated by market research firm Ovum to have reached $23 billion by the end of 2012.

Amid speculations that Nokia will roll out the Lumia 928 in April on Verizon Wireless, Techno Buffalo cited on Wednesday an WPCentral report that the successor to the Lumia 928 and 920, the Lumia 950, is coming out soon.

AT&T and Sprint will start to sell on April 19 the 32GB HTC One smartphone for $199.99. The deal comes with a two-year contract and is available in black or silver colours.

Last week's sleep-in-the glass box publicity stunt at the Museum of Modern Art Exhibition by actress Tilda Swinton paid off because it generated the desired global publicity and created a new Internet phenomenon called Tildaing.

Ahead of a clarification from Panasonic that it is not yet stopping the production of its popular Plasma TV, the gadget topped CNET's list of seven tech products that should still exist.

In an attempt to reach the younger and tech-savvy red-blooded male market, Playboy just released an app for Apple's iPhone. However, those seeking more skin that the famous magazine's print version would be disappointed because the models keep their clothes on in the high-tech version.

Even from his grave, deceased Apple co-founder Steve Jobs appears to continue exerting influence in the tech giant despite Tim Cook now serving as the chief executive of the California-based company.

Many computer literate people have dream tablets, whether the vision is for the device to have James Bond-like features, unbelievable specs, powerful and durable units or just plainly affordable for the majority. ZDNet writer James Kendrick lists 10 features of a dream tablet that many techies dream of, although reality is these specs would likely not be found together in just one device.

With the polycarbonate unibody and Gorilla Glass screen of the HTC One X, the device has earned a reputation as a very durable unit, but its strength could be the gadget's weakness also as repair Web site had labeled it a unit that is impossible to fix.

Battery has been always a problem for any smartphones no matter how high-end it is. Galaxy Note 2 users who are heavy on games and internet will not even be satisfied with 3100 mAh. So how to make your Samsung Galaxy Note 2 lasts for six long months without recharging it?

Four of the top 5 most viewed stocks in Yahoo Finance are tech companies. They are Apple, Facebook, MagicJack VocalTee and Nokia. The only non-tech is Bank of America.

Mashable reported another case of an exploding smartphone involving the Nexus S model. However, it was not a manufacturing defect, but the fault of the owner who opted to use as a spare unit a cheap battery.

The Apple iPhone 6 launch will definitely be one of the most exciting events for the year 2013. Recent reports point to the smart phone’s unveiling in October with the remarkable features of a 1080p Full Retina+ HD and wrap around 3D display.

South Korean tech giant Samsung is going beyond its popular smartphones and tablets. It is foraying into mining. Samsung won a $5.6 billion contract over the Easter weekend to develop Gina Rinehart's Roy Hill iron ore mining project in Western Australia.

Tech Crunch just released an article on Sunday night that claims YouTube, the most popular video sharing site in the world, will close on Monday, April 1. The Web site explained that YouTube started as a competition and the portal is now deciding the winner of that alleged contest as part of the closing down.

Popular blogsite, Tumblr, closed for three hours on Good Friday, March 29, due to networking problems. Tumblr reached a landmark when it reached 100 million blogs hosted and 44.6 billion posts on March 26, 2013, from only 50 million blogs hosted in April 2012.

Step aside, Samsung Galaxy S4, BlackBerry Z10 and iPhone 5S rumours. Facebook is creating noise once more, but not because of another change to its user interface but due to three surprises for the 1 billion members of the world's most popular social networking site.

Techies as well as analysts appear not too impressed with BlackBerry's quarterly report on Thursday, March 28, which disclosed the shipment of 1 million units of the BBZ10 and revenues of $94 million.

And the phablet explosion continues with Amazon likely to be the latest entrant. The online retail giant will soon release its phablet version that new reports said will begin selling by June 2013 at starting price of $US100.

Nothing yet is confirmed about the iPhone 6, not even its existence, but phone designers cannot help to express how they envision the rumoured Apple phablet, which a new render suggests looks like Sony’s Xperia Z.

Apple is reportedly using the same iPad Mini display for the 9.7-inch iPad 5 that would allow the tech giant to build a thinner and lighter regular-sized tablet computer.

South Korean tech giant Samsung could have more legal protection against patent infringement lawsuits in 2013 since it topped the number of mobile patents granted around the world in 2012 when over 7 million such patents were awarded.

A new security feature that was earlier reported to debut with the iPhone 5S will not make it after all on the rumoured June 2013 release of the upcoming Apple smartphone, new reports said.