Research In Motion

If you want to give your loved ones environmental peace and joy, you might want to hold off on buying them the latest hot gadgets as gifts. E-waste is a dirty problem that lingers far beyond the time when Christmas present becomes Christmas past.

Google is solving a problem that many of us have, but that of few us suspected would be dealt with by a smartphone: It's taking its popular mapping platform indoors with interior floor plans of select buildings, among them major airports and large retailers.

Amazon has become an surprising gadget rock star. Skeptics bet against the original Kindle, which became a blockbuster, and the Kindle Fire is the first non-iPad tablet to sell well. Next stop for Amazon's gadgeteers: smartphones.

Nokia smartphone users starving for app extras may finally get some new toys for their handsets. App developers who previously stuck to iOS and Android are probably going to branch out, thanks to Nokia's Windows 7 deal.

Apple has had a great few weeks of sales with the iPhone 4S, but somehow, it's latest quarterly report sent the stock down nearly 6%. The new CEO blamed the rumor mill for cutting into last quarters iPhone sales, but the real issue may have been more a matter of timing.

Microsoft's next quarterly report arrives Thursday, and it's hard to get too excited. It's still the world's largest software company, and it's growing. It just happens to be as sexy as Abe Vigoda. But Microsoft could still innovate its way out of its slump. Here are four things we'd love to hear Microsoft say on Thursday.

Following the massive outage in service that affected tens of millions of BlackBerry users worldwide last week, Research in Motion said it would provide $100 of free premium apps to each customer, ranging from games to technical programs, including SIMS 3, iSpeech Translator Pro and Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant.