U.S. Cellular rings in the holiday season with three affordable prepaid plans that will make messaging fans happy. They are $29, $39, and $49 respectively, and all include unlimited messaging. The $29 per month plan has 200 minutes, the $39 option has 400 minutes plus 5GB of mobile surfing, and the $49 plan has 1,000 …

WikiLeaks put its site on Amazon’s servers knowing it would be likely to get booted off, in order to reveal the site’s hypocracy, and that of the US, claims Julian Assange in an interview with the Guardian today. Assange was answering questions from the public, including a person who asked if WikiLeaks had planned to get kicked off Amazon’s servers …

Price is important for a large swath of the cell-phone-buying public. But so are call quality, hardware and software features, and style. That perfect balance between a great price and satisfying everything else is rare, and also subjective. Nevertheless, we’ve rounded up the nine cell phones and smartphones that caused our deal hounds the most excitement in 2010. This wasn’t …

In case you didn’t hear it loud and clear the first time, Level 3 is once again accusing Comcast of setting up a toll booth on the Internet in violation of Net neutrality principles. Earlier this week, Level 3 set off a public relations war with cable and broadband giant Comcast as it described an ongoing commercial dispute between the …

Google Reader, the uber-searcher’s RSS reader, now has an official app for Android phones. There were already plenty of apps available on the Android Market that connected with Google Reader to grab your feeds, but it’s always nice to see an official app that can serve things up simply and reliably. The app syncs with your Google Reader account to …

You could soon be buying your clothes on an Apple-based point-of-sale system. 9to5Mac Apple’s iPod touch-based point-of-sale system, dubbed EasyPay, had been rumored to be available for third-party retailers looking for a mobile solution to their sales experience, which may soon land in some major stores. 9to5Mac reports that Gap, Inc. has begun piloting the EasyPay (rebranded ZipPay) system at …

Google has produced more than a couple Android apps over the last two years with Listen, Scoreboard, and Sky Map among its most notable titles. Yet, there has been one app people have been clamoring for since the T-Mobile G1 debuted: Google Reader. Sure, we’ve always had a mobile optimized site available to use, but nothing beats a good native …

At CNET, we look at so many cell phones and smartphones throughout the year that many of them tend to look the same after a while. Therefore, it’s easy to remember the ones that looked especially interesting. I’ve compiled a list of the most eye-catching phones we’ve seen this year, be they short stubby phones like the Kin One or …

Bonnie Cha/CNET With some 175 handset reviews in the bag, we can tell you it’s been a pretty busy year for cell phones and smartphones. However, it hasn’t been all about devices. Several companies revamped their mobile operating systems, next-generation technologies were introduced, and there were even some scandals–all of which are sure to make for an interesting 2011. Before …

Though it’s not quite the end of the year, the new cell phone releases for 2010 are beginning to wind down. So as December lurches on, we take this opportunity to look back at the mobile year that was. Since January, CNET’s cell phone reviews team has reviewed almost 200 handsets. Some were fantastic, some were awful, and the rest …

A phone with the soul of a tablet, Google TV a flop?, and our required App list, All that and more on this week’s edition of Android Atlas Weekly for Thursday, December 2nd, 2010. Join Justin Eckhouse along side Senior Associate Editor, Nicole Lee! Now playing: Watch this: Ep. 26: Our Required Android App List 41:38 Podcast Your browser does …

The Motorola Flipside is a new messaging phone for AT&T. The $99 price tag isn’t bad at all for this midrange Android 2.1 handset, which sports a 3.1-inch HVGA touch screen, a 3-megapixel camera, and a 32GB-capable expandable memory card slot. It has the full range of rock-solid Android apps, but also some only arguably useful preloaded programs and the …

Find concerts in your town and buy tickets on the spot with the new Live Nation app. Screenshot by Rick Broida Suppose you just found out Brendan Benson is playing in your town (he’s in L.A. tomorrow, FYI). You don’t have to run scrambling to the nearest computer to buy tickets; just fire up the new Live Nation app. With …

With all the millions of dollars that manufacturers and mobile operators pour into advertising their flagship smartphones, you’d think more commercials would be hits. But we all know better than that. For every poignant or entertaining ad there are five more duds that fail to entertain, or elicit any sort of emotional response. Take 2010, for instance. There have been …

Saving the best for last? Well, we’ll have to see about that, but the Dell Venue Pro is finally available for purchase directly from Dell. The Windows Phone 7 device is available in two configurations: 8GB or 16GB. The former costs $99.99 with a two-year contract with T-Mobile or $449.99 without contract, and the latter goes for $149.99 and $499.99. …