Handset

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.

After 80 years of tech achievements, Motorola has run into a nemesis unlike others it has overcome in the past. And it's not for lack of trying. Even as Motorola restructures and launches new products, it keeps getting upstaged by the iPhone.

In a breakup that's been in the works for the last two years, Motorola says it will officially split into two companies -- Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions -- on Jan. 4.

No less than four major mobile companies -- Apple, HTC, Microsoft and now Motorola -- are suing each other over cell-phone technology. At issue is the intellectual property that underlies several popular devices.

The reason Marvell could be a good bet now: Its chipsets are favored components in practically all mobile handsets and other hand-held consumer electronics, including RIM's BlackBerry, Apple's iPhone and iPad, Amazon's Kindle and other devices.

After a year in which the cell phone industry was happy with flat numbers, 2010 should see growth for an array of reasons, from next-gen handsets and 4G networks to mobile video and a game-changing entry from Google.

In the heart of the holiday phone-buying season, AT T handed Google a fabulous present and partner Apple a lump of coal. Both were wrapped in one spectacular network failure, which stranded thousands of the Web's most vocal and demanding iPhone users.

Rumors have been spreading for months that Google (GOOG) would launch its own wireless handset. PC Magazine even went so far as to report that Google employees have been issued the phone. Now there is a sort of confirmation from The Wall Street Journal that the handset, to be called the Nexus...

Google is famous for touting its adherence to open standards and for developing on top of Open Source software platforms such as Linux. Launching Android, Google (GOOG) stated its new operating system would be open sourced -- that is, the software code would be free to download, modify and change....

Boy, this mobile advertising scene is starting to get complicated. So Apple (AAPL) spoke to mobile online advertising company AdMob before the company's CEO Omar Hamoui inked its recent $750 million deal with Google (GOOG), Bloomberg and others have reported. This was unusual as Apple has typically...