SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son didn’t mince words when discussing Dish Network’s unsolicited offer to buy Sprint Nextel from under the Japanese carrier. “To me, it’s ridiculous,” he said Tuesday of Dish’s vision of merging its satellite TV service with Sprint’s wireless service. Son spent more than 90 minutes during an investor presentation in Japan — …

Related stories Samsung Galaxy S4 review All about the HTC One (review) Your smartphone’s secret afterlife How’s this for an instant discount? Beginning Wednesday, when you trade in (almost) any old smartphone, AT&T is knocking $100 off the price of any new smartphone — including the HTC One, iPhone 5, BlackBerry Z10, and Samsung Galaxy S4. Of course there are …

There they go again. Seems being the CEO at a technology company invariably involves hitting the stump and doing what George H.W. Bush (father, not the son) once famously called “the vision thing.” So it was that earlier today Blackberry CEO Thorstein Heins made headlines when he predicted that the clock is ticking on tablet computers. “In five years I …

Verizon Wireless is getting into the cloud business in a big way. In the coming weeks, Verizon said Tuesday, it will deliver cloud-based storage for smartphones and tablets. The company’s customers will receive 500MB of storage at no charge, but can get up to 125GB of storage. Verizon is offering four storage plans to customers: 500MB: Free 25GB: $2.99 per …

Expect Labs, a company building a Siri-like platform on steroids, has just raised some extra cash from both Samsung and Intel. Venture capital arms at both companies on Tuesday announced that they have dropped some money into Expect Labs to help it continue to build its Anticipatory Computing Engine, a service for companies that’s “designed to analyze and understand conversations …

Thorsten Heins isn’t a big fan of big screens. The BlackBerry boss reckons mobile phones will become so good you won’t need a tablet. “In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet any more,” he told Bloomberg. “Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not …

Fresh comedy series Orange is the New Black is Netflix-bound. Thirteen hour-long episodes of the original comedy-drama series are set to hit the online streaming service worldwide on 11 July. Based on the memoirs of Piper Kerman, Orange is the New Black stars Taylor Schilling, from 2012’s The Lucky One, as Piper Chapman, sentenced to a woman’s prison for a …

Launching its 2013 TV range in Australia, LG has shown off smaller-sized Ultra HD TVs, a curved OLED TV and Ewan McGregor. LG’s 55-inch curved OLED TV on display at the launch in Sydney today. (Credit: Nic Healey/CNET Australia) Smaller, more affordable versions of its 84-inch Ultra HD TV are a key strategy of LG’s home entertainment offering for Australia, …

The “mastered in 4K” name is sure to confuse many buyers this year, but Sony’s special new Blu-rays are an impressive boost in quality over your average Blu-ray release. You’d be excused for thinking this Blu-ray is in 4K. It isn’t, but it is still very good. (Credit: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) Sony is pushing its status as the only …

We’ve all seen them: smartphones with shattered screens, the unfortunate victims of sudden outbursts of gravity. Your heart sinks a bit, watching your friends, loved ones, even total strangers slide their fingers over that sad, spidered glass, thinking, “There but for the grace of…” Knowing full well the costs and hassles of replacing a busted screen, I pressed a BodyGuardz …