Google has begun testing an update for its Android mobile operating system on some Google employees’ phones before releasing it to the public. An over-the-air update for Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, recently arrived on some employees’ Nexus S phones, according to an Android Police report. “Just got Ice-cream Sandwich update on my Nexus …

In a critical blow to AT&T’s proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile USA, federal regulators issued a staff report today that concluded the deal would lead to huge job losses and less competition. In the 109-page report (PDF), the FCC said that a merger of the two wireless carriers “would substantially lessen competition and its accompanying innovation, investment, and consumer …

Less than six months after launching the Droid 3, Motorola is apparently ready to give us its successor. The Droid 4 will launch December 8, according to purported promotional materials obtained by Droid Life. The site reports it has confirmed that employee training is already in progress at some Verizon Wireless stores. The Droid 4 will reportedly have Droid Razr …

Amazon is getting a jump on Black Friday with a smartphone sale. The Internet retailer has dropped prices on all its smartphones from Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T to 1 cent during its Penny Pincher sale. Shoppers can pick up the Motorola Droid Razr, which Verizon Wireless sells for $299 with a two-year contract, for a single penny (and the same …

Motorola Mobility’s shareholders have overwhelmingly voted to approve Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of the company. During a special stockholders meeting today, about 99 percent of the shares voting today approved adoption of the merger agreement, the company said. Those shares represent approximately 74 percent of the company’s outstanding common shares. “We are pleased and gratified by the strong support we …

An AT&T executive confirmed today that the company is in negotiations with Nokia to sell its Windows Phone smartphones in the U.S. next year. Glenn Lurie, head of AT&T’s tablets unit, revealed to Bloomberg that the second-largest U.S. wireless carrier was working out the final details with the Finnish handset maker. “We look at every promotional period separately and decide …

A treat for modders and developers, Google has released the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich. The source code for Android 4.0–the latest version of the mobile operating system–was released today as part of the Android Open Source Project, Jean-Baptiste M. “JBQ” Queru, a software engineer in the project, said in a blog post that urged patience. “Since this is …

Despite reports that Hewlett-Packard was nearing an announcement regarding plans for its WebOS business, Meg Whitman is still undecided. The company was reportedly expected to reveal the fate of its troubled mobile operating system this evening, but HP’s recently installed chief executive officer told a company-wide meeting that a decision would not come for at least a few more weeks, …

T-Mobile has announced the addition of the new Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus to its portfolio of 4G-enabled tablets. Samsung’s new tablet computer, an upgrade to its first 7-inch Galaxy Tab, which hit the market about a year ago, features a 7-inch multitouch display and packs a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot that …

Research In Motion is facing a possible class action lawsuit in Canada over the global outage that struck BlackBerry customers last month. The suit (PDF), which seeks class action status, was filed yesterday in Quebec Superior Court “on behalf of individuals who have BlackBerry smartphones and who pay for a monthly data plan but were unable to access their email, …