Verizon Wireless today launched two new prepaid plans with lower pricing for smartphone users as the company ramps up competition in the pay-as-you-go phone market. The new plans start at $60 a month for unlimited talk and text and 500MB of data or $70 for 2GB of data in addition to unlimited talk and texts. …

Samsung Electronics wants the spotlight all to itself for the Galaxy S4. The Korean electronics giant will be holding off on any major announcements at Mobile World Congress later this month, according to a person familiar with its launch plans. As with last year, Samsung will likely hold its own separate event to launch the latest iteration of its flagship …

Money: that’s what I want. I certainly wouldn’t say no to £300 just for buying a phone, and Carphone Warehouse is offering varying amounts of cash up to £300 on a range of phones including the Samsung Galaxy Ace and Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini. Buying the Galaxy Ace on a monthly contract from O2 though Carphone Warehouse earns you a respectable …

Clearwire continues to like Sprint’s buyout offer, but isn’t ruling out a bid from Dish Networks just yet. In a “Transaction Update” released today, Clearwire said that its Special Committee charged with determining the value of both Sprint’s and Dish’s offers “has not made any determination to change its recommendation of the current Sprint transaction.” That said, the committee added …

Intel will be on hand later this month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with some smartphone technologies in hand. The company yesterday announced that at its booth at Mobile World Congress it’ll show off “a new dual core, dual graphics platform.” Intel also plans to have Android-based handsets on display that will be running its Atom Z2420 platform …

Fancy a slice of Key Lime Pie? The next version of Google’s Android software will be revealed in spring according to new leaked information. Chip-builder Qualcomm appears to have inadvertently confirmed the arrival of Key Lime Pie with a leaked document detailing the development of Android. Key Lime Pie is listed for the second quarter of 2013. Google usually announces …

Note: we’ve made every effort to keep this review of House of Cards episodes one and two free of significant spoilers, but if you’d rather view Netflix’s political drama as a completely blank slate, look away now. House of Cards kicks off with Kevin Spacey strangling a wounded dog, and as the drama unfolds, events in this dark political drama …

When Saturday comes you’ll soon be able to watch the match on your phone, tablet or computer without forking out for Sky. Sky Sports is kicking off on Now TV, Sky’s online viewing service for those of us without a dish. Starting in spring, you can nab 24 hours of access to the service for £10. That’s okay value if …

Now playing: Watch this: BlackBerry Z10: Not your father’s BlackBerry 3:41 BlackBerry (formerly RIM) may have just lifted the lid on its completely overhauled BlackBerry 10 OS for mobile devices, but CNET has been testing the heck out of the OS and Z10 smartphone for over a week now. There are elements that we love and elements that we, frankly, …

BlackBerry’s splashy launch of two well-received smartphones wasn’t enough to halt a weeklong slide in its stock. Shares are down 6.7 percent to $12.86 in morning trading. In total, BlackBerry has lost more than a quarter of its market value over the last four days. While there seems to be universal acknowledgement that the newly introduced BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 …

The iPad remains the king of the tablet world, but Android rivals continue to carve off some of its market share. Apple shipped a total of 22.9 million iPads worldwide last quarter thanks to demand for the iPad Mini and the availability of the 4th-gen iPad, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. That number was in line with IDC’s …

Today, MetroPCS and LG announced their newest handset, the LG Spirit 4G for $199. The 4G LTE device features Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, a 4.5-inch Corning Gorilla Glass touch screen, and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. Related stories TV in the Bathroom: Technically Doable but a Very Bad Idea Best Laptop for 2022: The 15 Laptops We Recommend Best TV …

A job listing briefly posted on LinkedIn appears to confirm last month’s report of an “X-Phone,” now in development at Motorola, that represents Google’s biggest effort to date to inject life into the struggling device maker. The listing, first noticed by Android Headlines, advertises for a senior product manager for the X-Phone. The listing describes the project as a “next-generation …

Verizon Wireless today became the latest company to sell Square’s credit card reader, giving business owners another way to obtain the mobile gadget for credit card processing. Related stories: Starbucks starts selling Square Readers for $10 in-store Square hits $10 billion in annual payments processed Square launches mobile payment service at 7,000 Starbucks Square COO Rabois resigned following harassment claims …

Forget diamonds, graphene is now the world’s hardest material. And all sorts of developers most likely want to get their hands on it. Nokia looks to be ahead of the game in this graphene race. The Finnish mobile-phone maker announced today that it was one of the recipients of a $1.35 billion grant from the European Union to do research …