Have you ever noticed that your old flip phone held its charge for days, even weeks sometimes, but a half-hour spent surfing the Web or watching a video on your new smartphone and the battery is dead? You aren’t alone. As cell phones get more sophisticated, all those bells and whistles come at the cost …

Verizon Wireless is making a big announcement in New York on Tuesday. Could the news be the long-awaited Verizon iPhone? On Friday, the company sent reporters an invitation to a press event hosted by Lowell McAdam, Verizon’s chief operating officer. The event, which will take place at Lincoln Center, is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET. (That’s 1/11/11 at …

Editor’s note: This is a guest column. See Larry Downes’ bio below. LAS VEGAS–Attendees at a standing-room-only debate over Net neutrality were treated to a rare occurrence at the Consumer Electronics Show: consensus. Unfortunately, the only thing that Federal Communications Commission and congressional officials, along with representatives from industry and public interest groups, could agree on was that the fight …

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a smart phone or tablet PC fan — Dell’s got your back in 2011. The company used its press conference at CES 2011 to show off the new Streak 7 tablet and Venue smart phone, both of which run the Android 2.2 operating system. The Streak 7 is probably the more interesting of the two. …

At its CES press conference, Samsung apparently announced a tablet that has a sliding keyboard and runs Windows 7. We say ‘apparently’ because the press conference was rammed and we weren’t allowed in. From what we can tell though, the TX100 is a 10.1-inch multi-touch PC that will sell in the US for $700 (£450). Under the hood, you’ll find …

Roll up, tablet fans. Google’s just released some tantalising information about Android 3.0 Honeycomb — the operating system designed specifically to power the next wave of tablet PCs. The company has published a teaser video showing the design of the user interface and some of the OS’ swankiest features. It also outlined some of Honeycomb’s finer features on the Google …

Back in November I told you about Bluefire Reader, an iOS app with support for the ePub e-book format used by many public libraries. In other words, you can use it to check out books free of charge–but you had to do a lot of desktop hoop-jumping to make it happen. Enter OverDrive Media Console, an app that cuts out …

SmartPhone Medic Despite not mentioning a word about a possible Verizon-compatible iPhone during his presentation at CES, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg still found his company in iPhone-related news as pictures have surfaced purporting to be of the outer casing for the iPhone 5 or Verizon’s CDMA iPhone. The case photos, provided by SmartPhone Medic, show comparisons of Apple’s current iPhone …

Attention home-cinema enthusiasts: Sony’s new range of Blu-ray players is on the horizon, and the forecast is 3D with a chance of iPhone apps. The S380 (pictured above), S480, S580, E280, E380, E880 and E780W Blu-ray players turn your iPhone or Android smart phone into a remote control as you watch 3D Blu-ray movies such as Cloudy With a Chance …

Samsung has announced its smart televisions will integrate with its mobile devices, offering cloud-based video content and support for Flash. (Credit: CBSi) The president of Samsung’s Visual Display business, BK Yoon, announced several new services at its keynote at CES in US-based deals for subscriptions without the need of a set-top box with Time Warner and Comcast, which is similar …

LG’s serious about the 3D telly business. In 2011, a whopping 40 per cent of its TVs will be 3D ready, and we’ve got details on all the models you’ll need to know about. Top of the company’s agenda is its Cinema 3D range, so-called because it delivers third-dimension visuals in the same way as your local 3D picturehouse — …

With the range of touchscreen-only Android devices that have been released in Australia to date, we haven’t had to think too much about keyboard shortcuts. But with new handsets, like the Motorola Milestone 2 coming to town, it’s time to take a closer look at what you can do with an Android phone without touching the screen. (Credit: CBSi) Almost …

Apple Some iPhone users have been reporting problems with their Home Button not registering their clicks properly. For example, a double-click only registers as a single-click and a single-click is not recognized at all. I have actually been dealing with this very issue for the last couple weeks on my iPhone 4. I thought maybe I wasn’t pressing the button …

The Alcatel OT-209 was stupidly cheap when it cost 99p. But that seems exorbitantly expensive compared to its new price — just 1p on pay as you go from Carphone Warehouse. This badboy may be ugly as a mud fence on a rainy day, but it does the job without any fuss. In fact, we deemed it well worth buying, …

It’s only day two of our exhausting exhaustive coverage from Las Vegas and already we have a strong contender for the exalted CES Product Name that Makes Us Giggle Like Schoolboys award. MSI, Taiwanese purveyor of reasonably priced gaming laptops, has applied its legendary tin ear for western naming conventions and come up with the MSI WindPad *parp*. The WindPad …