T-Mobile will move to a no-contract model on March 24, with an announcement as early as Monday — that is, if a story on blog TmoNews pans out. In reporting the shift, Tmo cites an unnamed source — “while we’re confident the details are accurate today, they could easily change tomorrow,” it says — and …

As it said it would, Google has removed a redirect that prevented Windows Phone users from accessing Google Maps via the mobile version of Internet Explorer and that instead sent them to Google.com. The redirect generated headlines last week, with various news outlets suggesting that it was not about poor functionality on the part of mobile IE (as Google maintained) …

Related stories Google may need history lesson on blocking rivals’ products What Google’s settlement with the FTC means for users EU: FTC decision on Google won’t affect our case Google says that it will no longer block Windows Phone users from accessing Google Maps and that the blockage was about ensuring a good user experience, not about intentionally interfering with …

Details have emerged about how Samsung might be affected by an October 24 ruling against it in an Apple patent case before the U.S. International Trade Commission. A public, partially censored version of the presiding judge’s initial determination and recommendations in the case was published by the ITC yesterday, showing Judge Thomas Pender’s suggested sanctions, which include an import and …

Update, 5:40 p.m. PT: Google says the situation isn’t deliberate. See the note at the end of this story. Fiscal cliff or not, Google Finance seems to have developed a sense of humor. A Reddit reader noticed earlier today that if you type “sell” into the search field at Google Finance, the site serves up Apple’s presently somewhat sullen stock …

New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission voted today in favor of a one-year test program that would let people use a smartphone app to hail a taxicab. And that was sweet news for startup Uber. The private-car service had begun offering its app to cab users in September but stopped the effort a little more than a month later …

Claire McCaskill, Democratic senator from Missouri. mccaskill.senate.gov Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill wants you to be able to tweet a photo of St. Louis’ famous Gateway Arch while you’re soaring above it in your commercial airliner of choice. At least that might be one option open to you if a letter she sent to the Federal Aviation Administration yesterday has the …

Barnes & Noble is dropping the price of its Nook Simple Touch e-reader by about $20 starting tomorrow, with a new price tag of $79, the company said today. Not a full-blown tablet, the Simple Touch relies on a touch screen for flipping e-ink pages, navigating menus, and so on. CNET Reviews gave it four out of five stars and …

HTC won’t be making its budget-minded Windows Phone handset, the 8S, available in the United States. In a statement to Engadget yesterday, the company called its higher-end device, the 8X, its “signature Windows Phone” and said that with its focus on that handset, the 8S “is not currently planned for distribution in the U.S. market.” Sources told The Verge that …

Apple and Samsung continue to hurl gadgets at each other in their seemingly never-ending patent battle. Midweek, Samsung filed a request that the iPad Mini, the fourth-generation iPad, and the fifth-generation iPod Touch be included in a California case set to go to trial in 2014. Not to be outdone, Apple responded last night by asking that several more Samsung …