As the late, great Etta James famously sang: at last. The Samsung Galaxy S2 has begun to update to Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android — and it’s coming to the UK next week. After an extended bout of to-ing and fro-ing, Samsung has confirmed the Android 4.0 update starts today for Samsung’s …

In case there was any doubt that Verizon means LTE business, Big Red just dispelled that myth. Again. CNET first learned that Verizon would bless all forthcoming smartphones with 4G in January at CES, where Verizon called LTE a “hard requirement.” David Small, Verizon Wireless’ CTO, reiterated the point in an interview with Dow Jones yesterday. In addition to committing …

HTC has confirmed that its fashionable Rhyme smart phone will be getting updated to Ice Cream Sandwich, along with many of its other recent mobiles. In a post on its blog, the Taiwanese company listed all the phones it makes that will be getting an ice-cold scoop of Android 4.0. Lots of those phones aren’t out in here in the …

A nexus tablet, Instagram is here, but not really and google fails to entertain, all that and more on this week’s episode of Android Atlas Weekly for March 14th, 2012. Now playing: Watch this: Android Atlas Ep. 89: YouTube vs Android: a war for content 41:20 Listen now Your browser does not support the audio element. Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (320×180) …

4G handsets grabbed 35 percent of the smartphone market in the fourth quarter, up from just 6 percent a year earlier, NPD said yesterday. Among the various 4G flavors, HSPA+ was the most prevalent, representing 22 percent of all smartphone sales. Deployed by AT&T and T-Mobile, HSPA+ got a huge boost in the fourth quarter from the iPhone 4S, which …

Telstra and HTC announced the delivery of a major firmware update for the HTC Velocity 4G yesterday, an update that will advance the phone’s firmware from Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) to Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich). We installed the update last night, and have been genuinely impressed with the improvement in overall performance. Web browsing in particular receives a noticeable boost, …

The BBC has announced a plan to offer its programs for permanent download minutes after they finish airing on British airwaves. Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, confirmed rumours of an iTunes-style online shop during an address to the Royal Television Society overnight. Unlike the present iPlayer service, which allows viewers to stream the BBC’s programs online after airing …

Sky has had a reprieve from being forced to give up its grip on the latest movies. The Competition Commission is adding online movie streaming services Lovefilm and Netflix to its investigation of the market for movies on pay TV, potentially leading the way for a reversal of its provisional findings that Sky’s exclusive film rights agreements were anti-competitive. The …

Do a spot of spring cleaning and you’re likely to find a whole stack of videotapes lying around forlorn, sad and forgotten at the back of a shelf or cabinet somewhere. What should you do with these tapes? If they’re just recordings of The Midday Show or General Hospital, it’s probably a good time to clear up some space and …

Introduced last summer, the Nokia Maps mobile site, m.maps.nokia.com, has pretty much been the Google Maps knockoff that nobody knew about. It has given mobile users the ability to search for places, get directions, and share items with friends–all fairly standard stuff. But starting today, the Nokia Maps mobile site may have differentiated itself, as it now offers voice-guided, turn-by-turn …

It’s that time of year again, when anxious smartphone shoppers flood my inbox with questions about whether they should buy the current iPhone now or wait for the new version. And with good reason. No one wants to be the dupe who buys the older version of a product a week before the latest model is introduced. In this edition …

Last week Apple showed off the new iPad’s higher-resolution display and showcased a series of new apps that take advantage of those added pixels. If you have an iPad, I’m sure you’re relishing the chance to see the new display in action, but before you get too excited, don’t expect to get the full experience on day one. I hate …

Rolling out an LTE network may be T-Mobile’s longer-term goal, but in the near term, it still has customers cruising on its HSPA+ 4G network to satisfy. Starting today, denizens of Abilene, Amarillo, Odessa, and Victoria, Texas; Bakersfield, Calif.; Eau Claire, Wis.; and Joplin and St. Joseph, Mo., are the newest recipients of T-Mobile’s faster network. The fastest speeds, known …

It’s a crazy 4G world we’re living in. That’s mostly because the commonly accepted definition of “4G” straddles three technologies: HSPA+ (T-Mobile and most of AT&T’s offerings), 4G LTE (Verizon and some AT&T phones), and WiMax (Sprint, for now). It tends to get a little confusing, especially when parsing out which LTE phones are worth your while for your carrier, …

Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse should probably think about doing some networking on LinkedIn. Today’s Wall Street Journal has a rare, insider-rich piece targeting Hesse. A betting man would say his own board of directors had a lot to do with the story. No, no one on the board is quoted directly. But the picture the WSJ paints is certainly …