Lynn La/CNET AT&T’s $1.2 billion acquisition of prepaid wireless provider Leap Wireless and the Cricket brand won the approval of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday. Related stories When Does My Phone Unlock? And How Can I Get My Carrier to Do It? Best Internet Providers in Chicago Galaxy S22 Deals: Up to $1,100 Off …

AT&T announced late Thursday that it had completed its $1.2 billion acquisition of prepaid wireless provider Leap Wireless and the Cricket brand. The deal, announced last July, was granted approval earlier Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission. Because the US Justice Department did not raise any antitrust objections, the carrier closed the deal Thursday afternoon after receiving the FCC’s blessing. …

Sundar Pichai, Google’s SVP of Android, Apps and Chrome, at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, on Sunday. Daniel Terdiman/CNET Google plans to release a software development kit in the next two weeks that will allow third-party developers to create Android software for use on wearable computing devices The announcement was made Sunday by Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president …

Samsung appears to have a new Chromebook in the works that sports the company’s new trademark faux leather cover. Images tweeted by @evleaks shows what appears to be a Chrome OS-powered notebook featuring a back wrapped in textured fake black leather and framed by stitching on the edges, much like last year’s Galaxy Note 3 and the recently announced Black …

The US House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday that would allow cell phone customers to unlock their devices for use on competitors’ networks. Passed by a 295-114 vote, the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act would repeal a 2012 decision by the Library of Congress that made cell phone unlocking a violation of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright …

The FCC’s Speed Test app for iOS. FCC With the launch of a new app Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission expanded the scope of its research on US mobile-broadband speeds to include iOS users. The FCC Speed Test for iOS app, released to Apple’s App Store today, is designed to collect information about the performance of participating smartphone users’ mobile-broadband …

HTC plans a private demonstration next week of a smartwatch, the first of three wearable devices next week, a well-placed source told Bloomberg. The troubled handset maker will preview a prototype smartwatch based on Qualcomm’s Toq smartwatch for wireless carriers during the Mobile World Congress, a source described as having direct knowledge of the company’s plans told the news agency. …

After teasing us with suggestions that a smaller version of its flagship Android smartphone was on the way, LG officially announced Wednesday that the G2 Mini would be unveiled in a matter of days at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Although the handset maker had posted an image to its Facebook page of a G2 accompanied by an identical …

Daniel Terdiman/CNET The Obama administration said Tuesday that although the president “vigorously supports” a free and open Internet, he can’t order the Federal Communications Commission on how to proceed in reinstating Net neutrality protections. The statement was in response to an online petition asking that the White House order the FCC to reclassify broadband providers as so-called “common carriers,” which …

Basis Science, the maker of the Basis Band fitness gadget, could soon get snapped up by a major mobile player for less than $100 million, according to TechCrunch. Basis has been shopping itself around for the past couple of weeks, talking with Apple and Google about a potential acquisition, according to the report. Microsoft and Samsung are also reported to …