You finally know which gadgets you’re buying for friends and loved ones this holiday season. But now you’re stumped about whether to shell out the extra bucks for features like 3G on the Kindle Touch or higher resolution on the Roku video-streaming box. Have no fear; Ask Maggie is here to help. Kindle Touch: 3G …

This could be a little controversial. Microsoft is offering the chance of winning a free Windows Phone, in exchange for Android owners sharing tales of woe on Twitter concerning Google’s operating system, Electric Pig reports. People are encouraged to use the hashtag #droidrage to vent their dissatisfaction. Windows Phone ‘evangelist’ Ben Rudolph tweeted: “Share your android malware story… and you …

According to a report over at TechCrunch (drawing on Calcalist, a Hebrew publication), Apple is preparing to purchase Israeli flash memory manufacturer Anobit for $400 million to $500 million. Apple The acquisition would be CEO Tim Cook’s first as the guy in charge at Apple, though he has been through the process before. Apple recently purchased P.A. Semi in order …

Photos of the upcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc HD (codenamed the Xperia Nozomi) have leaked, along with a host of specs. The details, sent to GSMArena, suggest that when it launches the mobile will be slightly bigger than the Arc, sporting a 4.3-inch LCD display. Not unusual, but we’re far more intrigued by the purported 720×1,280-pixel HD resolution — so …

A flaw has been found in the Windows Phone operating system that causes the phone’s ‘Messaging’ app to break upon receiving a malicious SMS, CNET News reports. Once the devious text has been sent to the phone, trying to open your messages will force the device to reboot and prevents the Messaging app from opening. A malicious Facebook chat or …

Fed up of shelling out for two-year contracts, only for your phone to be out of date a few months in? O2 may well have the answer: rent an iPhone 4S, thanks to its new O2 Lease programme, TUAW reports. Here’s how it works: you rent the handset for a year, rather than being weighed down with it for an …

Sprint Nextel and C-Spire today agreed with AT&T to hold off on their lawsuit until AT&T has a chance to re-evaluate its options, following similar steps taken by the Department of Justice yesterday. Sprint and the regional wireless carrier have sued to block AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, drafting behind the larger–and more relevant–Justice Department lawsuit. But with AT&T …

Nearly everyone has that one relative on their holiday shopping list who’s hard to buy for. When imagination fails, we turn to gift cards. While most gift cards these days are of the physical variety, there are at least a handful of companies starting to offer gift cards you can store on your smartphone. SmartPlanet’s Sumi Das finds out how …

In the latest build of iOS 5.1, now beta 2, Apple has finally decided to take steps against the popular rumor site tactic of rifling through iOS code to find references to new hardware models. Apple is now making it tougher for rumor sites to evaluate future hardware updates. Mark Gurman These references, typically something like iPhone3,1, were a great …

Most people don’t like watching TV in the dark. The problem is that flat-panel TVs tend to reflect light in the room; even if you have a matte-screen LCD, light bouncing off the screen is going to diminish picture quality in one way or another. (Credit: Geoffrey Morrison) This how-to guide has some obvious and some not-so-obvious tricks and tips …