Updated February 16, 8:45 a.m. ET A couple of weeks ago a colleague at CNET walked into my office and told me his TV had died. It was a Samsung LCD from 2008, and according to my colleague–let’s call him “Bill” since he said he’d rather not be identified in this story–a quick Google search …

Sprint is offering select subscribers a chance to upgrade their handset, even if they aren’t eligible for the “New for You” pricing. According to a leaked internal document scooped up by SprintFeed, the carrier is providing prorated upgrade fees that range from the typical $36 on up to $165. Provided the customers meets the criteria, they can renew their plan …

Setting a lock code on your smartphone is highly recommended to protect your personal information, but sometimes a lock code can be a bit inconvenient. What if you could do away with the device lock code, instead locking only the apps you want to keep private? An Android app named App Lock let’s you do just that. That’s not to …

There was a time when streaming audio meant sacrificing fidelity. Many early Internet radio stations delivered an AM-quality 64Kbps stream, while the “good ones” topped out at 128Kbps. Even Spotify for iOS, the app version of the popular music service (which CNET called “the best free music option since stealing”), could muster only 160Kbps–a bit better than FM radio, but …

A growing number of Congressional leaders and state officials are urging the Federal Communications Commission to move forward with its review of LightSquared, the controversial startup that plans to build a national wireless broadband network using satellite spectrum. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) conyers.house.gov Last week, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) sent a letter to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski in support of …

Acer hadn’t even announced the CloudMobile when it won an iF Product Design Award. And good news it did, as it prompted the company to tell us all about the phone early, ahead of its official outing at Mobile World Congress. The CloudMobile syncs with your PC and stores your movies, music and photos in the cloud, so you can …

The PS Vita‘s success as a games system is far from secure, but Sony has just hinted that it might make tablets and smart phones using the Vita operating system. Sony’s yet-to-be-anointed president and CEO Kazuo Hirai told reporters that the company designed the OS to be expandable to other devices, The Verge reports, quoting AV Watch. Sony’s deputy president …

Chinese authorities have seized iPads from a third-party retailer, according to several sources in China, a move apparently brought on by Apple’s continued refusal to honor a trademark owned by a Chinese manufacturer for the name iPad. A photograph of the alleged iPad seizure. tech.ifeng.com The seizure by government officials netted 45 iPad 2 units under the auspices of an …

Don’t let its 5.3-inch size fool you; the Samsung Galaxy Note for AT&T is no tablet. What it is, is a very large Android 2.3 smartphone firmly rooted in the Galaxy S II family tree. Yet the Note branches off in two places: that huge screen that makes the phone awkward to hold, and the stylus–called the S-Pen–that lets you …

The European Union’s regulatory body has unconditionally approved Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility in a deal that could be worth about $12.5 billion. The European Commission also said today it would monitor Google’s and its rivals’ use of patents to make sure that the deal complies with EU antitrust rules. “We have approved the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google …