AT&T is once again said to be vying for the world’s second-largest mobile carrier, Vodafone.

AT&T’s executives are currently “laying the groundwork” for a takeover of the carrier, which could expand both companies’ reach to more than 500 million wireless subscribers, according to Bloomberg.

Verizon and AT&T were originally said to be involved inplans to snap up Vodafoneback in April, though Verizon denied the report. Separately, last month Verizon agreed to spend $130 billion to buy out Vodafone’s stake of its own wireless business (which had been a joint venture), a deal that was the third-largest corporate acquisition ever.

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The rumored takeover would have to wait until that buyout was complete, Bloomberg said.

An AT&T spokesperson declined to comment on the report.

AT&T’s last big spend was on Leap Wireless in July, a deal valued at around $1.2 billion that has yet to close. The company also made an attempt to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom as part of a $39 billion bid, which was later blocked by the Justice Department over antitrust concerns.

AT&T’s stock price is up 15 cents, selling at $36.41 a share, while Vodafone’s listing on the Nasdaq climbed 79 cents, or 2.18 percent, to $37.11 in late-day trading.

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Nexus 7 owners looking to protect their tablet now have four new cases from Google.

Introduced Tuesday on its Play Store, Google’s $49.99 cases for the 2013 Nexus 7 model come in black, white or gray — with colored accents. And similar to Apple’s Smart Covers and Amazon’s new Kindle Fire HDX cases, the covers can contort to function as stands that prop up the tablet in one of two positions:

Google’s Nexus 7 debuted back in July, and was the first device to run with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. Considering the entry level price of the tablet starts at $229, $50 is on the higher end of what most first-party cases cost, but where Google could make higher margins on what’s historically been a very low-margin product.

Google says all four of the new cases ship in one day, and work with both the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + cellular models.

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The U.S. International Trade Commission needs a little more time to make a final decision on whether or not Samsung infringed on Apple’s patents.

In a note Thursday evening, the ITC said it would deliver that decision by Friday, August 9.

That’s the same day the two companies head to court for oral arguments on permanent injunctions from the trial that wrapped up last August. In that case, a jury ruled Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple’s intellectual property.

Barring further delays, next week’s ruling will be final. It will come more than nine months after the group’s initial determination, which said Samsung infringed on four of Apple’s patents across a handful of its mobile devices. That list includes Samsung’s Galaxy S2 smartphone, as well as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.

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The delayed decision also will come after this weekend’s deadline for President Barack Obama to veto a separate, June ruling by the ITC that found Apple to infringe on Samsung’s cellular technology. That decision affects the importation and sale of certain iPhones prior to 2011’s iPhone 4S, along with 3G models of the first- and second-generation iPad. All have been replaced by newer models, though Apple and its carrier partner AT&T still sell the iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

The last time a U.S. president vetoed an ITC decision was Ronald Reagan in 1987. That case also involved tech companies including Sharp, Toshiba, NEC, and Samsung, and was filed by Texas Instruments. Though instead of wireless technology or user interface features, the focus was on memory chips.

Technology companies have increasingly turned to the ITC to settle their disputes. Companies can pursue an ITC case in parallel with civil lawsuits, and the threat of an embargo on products typically forces them to settle more quickly. Apple and Samsung have already held such talks, though haven’t come to a deal that would end litigation and likely result in a broad cross-licensing patent deal.

(Decision via Foss Patents)

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Apple and Samsung’s latest smartphones will face the scrutiny of state and federal prosecutors in San Francisco on Thursday, who plan to test the latest in antitheft security.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are testing the latest security features of Apple’s iPhone 5 and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 to see whether they can stop thieves who have made off with said devices.

In the iPhone 5’s case, the group will have security experts attempting to thwart Apple’s activation lock feature, which requires users to have a specific Apple ID username and password to use the device. For the Galaxy S4, experts are evaluating Lojack for Android, a $29.99 per year application that can remotely lock the phone and delete personal data.

“While we are appreciative of the efforts made by Apple and Samsung to improve security of the devices they sell, we are not going to take them at their word,” Schneiderman and Gascón said in a joint statement. “Today we will assess the solutions they are proposing and see if they stand up to the tactics commonly employed by thieves.”

To do so, Gascón and Schneiderman say the group will bring in experts from the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center to try to bypass the measures, and gain access to the devices as if they were someone who had stolen the phone.

An Apple spokeswoman reiterated a statement the company made in June, saying it has “led the industry in helping customers protect their lost or stolen devices,” since 2009.

“With Activation Lock, Find My iPhone gives customers even more control over their devices and serves as a theft deterrent by requiring an Apple ID and password to turn off Find My iPhone, erase data or re-activate a device,” the company said.

Samsung released the following statement, praising the tests:

We appreciate that DA Gascón has given us this opportunity to engage in a working session with his technical team. We plan to take what we learn from the tests to explore opportunities for further enhancements to our solution. We look forward to continuing to work with DA Gascón and his team toward our common goal of stopping smartphone theft.

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Phone theft has grown alongside the rising popularity of smartphones, which are expected to be the majority of all mobile phones shipped this year for the first time ever, according to a report from IDC last month. Per a report from the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year, around 113 smartphones are lost or stolen every minute in the U.S., and cell phone theft overall makes up 30 percent to 40 percent of all robberies.

“Finding technical solutions that will remove the economic value of stolen smartphones is critical to ending the national epidemic of violent street crimes commonly known as ‘Apple Picking,'” Schneiderman and Gascón added.

Even with the efforts by manufacturers, one thing software security does not protect against is the remaining value for various parts, which can be removed from phones and resold. Screens for the iPhone 5, for instance, sell for upwards of $100, while the battery and camera module can retail for around $30 apiece, making even a nonfunctioning device valuable.

The group was expected to release the results of their efforts late Thursday, but a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office indicated late Thursday results would not immediately be released.

Updated at 6 p.m. PT with a spokesperson telling CNET that the results will not be released on Thursday, and again at 8:30 a.m. PT on 7/19 with comment from Samsung.

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A recent analysis of Twitter activity during the debut of Apple and Samsung’s latest smartphones shows a wide difference in how much both products were mentioned.

That study, done by Investing Analytics, showed that the iPhone 5 was mentioned in more than five times the number of tweets than the Galaxy S4 on the day of and the day after their respective unveilings.

“We believe a Twitter analysis of tweets about the iPhone 5 launch compared to the Galaxy S4 launch demonstrates that the iPhone continues to hold more mass appeal with consumers,” said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in a note about the data set.

“We believe this demonstrates that while interest in the Galaxy S4 is growing, Apple continues to hold a meaningful lead as the smartphone with the broadest consumer appeal,” he added.

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The actual tally during that time period was about 2.4 million tweets about the iPhone 5, whereas Samsung’s Galaxy S4 racked up around 440,000. Even so, Munster says the majority of the tweets about Samsung’s product (81 percent) were positive, up from the iPhone 5’s 73 percent.

Of course, whether all this is a precursor to the strength of Samsung’s S4 sales is totally unclear. Apple took the wraps off the iPhone 5 last September, whereas Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S4 at an event in New York earlier this month. Samsung’s device, which is a follow-up to the popular Galaxy S3, sports a higher-resolution 5-inch display, faster processor, and better cameras and battery than its predecessor. The device goes on sale in the U.K. next month, with other markets to follow.

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Twitter today invited developers to a platform-focused event at its headquarters early next week, where it plans to show off new features.

The event — which begins at 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday and is scheduled to run until 9 p.m. — is not open to the press, the company said.

The company offered no other details as to what will be in store, though noted that it would focus on “mobile oriented” things.

“We’ve been working on some exciting new features for the Twitter Platform, and we’d like to share those with you,” Twitter’s platform lead, Jason Costa, said in a post on the company’s developer site.

Twitter turned 7 years old last week, and now has more than 200 million active users who are publishing more than 400 million tweets a day.

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Now that Samsung has said it’s working on a high-tech watch, one that presumably will pack smartphone features, 2013 could shape up as the year of smartwatch wars, with longtime foes Apple and Samsung leading the battle.

The motivation, Wall Street analysts argue, is that the biggies need another act as growth of smartphones sales are already slowing. Could smartwatches become that act? It might sound like a long shot; many people already are abandoning watches and relying on their phones instead. And in an age of ever-expanding phone screens, a device for the wrist comes with obvious limitations.

Yet Samsung is publicly prepping for this fight. Apple has been mum amid a slew of reports that it has a team in Cupertino, Calif., working on the iWatch, or whatever it might be called. Startup Pebble, meanwhile, has already gained a big fan base, showing that an app-filled watch that’s linked to a smartphone certainly has some eager customers.

For Samsung, however, this is hardly new terrain. Go back in Samsung history — to the heady days of 1999 — and you’ll find that Samsung was already pushing a Dick Tracy-like device. Why? Because the wireless market was “saturated.”

Here’s Samsung’s press release about its first watch phone, the SPH-WP10:

The SPH-WP10 is Samsung’s first product developed as part of a market segmentation strategy designed to respond to the nearly saturated domestic market for wireless handsets. The new product signals new marketing approaches by domestic manufacturers to target specific generations of mobile telecommunications service users.

At the very end of the announcement, the company adds: “Samsung officials expect their new watch phone to be a big hit with the youth market.”

With 90 minutes of talk time, a design that would probably get you an extra-special pat down when going through airport security, and a $700 price tag, the SPH-WP10 obviously did not set the world (or the youth market) on fire. Samsung tried again a decade later with the S9110, a much more svelte design that had nearly three times the talk time of the SPH-WP10, but still cost more than $600. Surprisingly, it never made it to the U.S., and was only available in France.

Samsung’s belief that the domestic handset market was “nearly saturated” was off too. That market was disrupted by the advent of smartphones, a market that’s grown so fast, and so large, that it overtook feature phones in worldwide sales in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to IDC.

So why return to a product genre that failed to catch on twice, and as recently as four years ago? Things have changed, and so has Samsung.

In 1998 — the year before its first watch-phone — Samsung had just 60,000 employees and made $16.6 billion in revenue in the U.S. Now it has 236,000 employees, and did more than $188 billion in sales last year alone. Smartphones and other mobile devices made up nearly half of that.

A brief history of smartwatches (pictures)

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On the business side, analysts now guesstimate that there’s about $56 billion a year to be made (or taken away from) in the watch market. Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst with The NPD Group, suggests it might be $40 billion, and says that market has been falling since 2006, right before smartphone popularity exploded.

“The watch business took a double whammy. It took a hit in functionality from smartphones, and then another from the economy,” Cohen told CNET.

The new hope, perhaps, is that the money comes on top of what people spend on smartphones, not instead of them. And that market could be even bigger if you figure that people would buy them instead of MP3 players and other small, portable electronics, says Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

That very idea is something that sets the modern-day smartwatch apart from Samsung’s past, failed efforts. Consumers don’t necessarily want a mashup of a phone and watch with limited capabilities. But a watch that promises to enhance the smartphone experience is an easier sell.

More recently, companies have run with that idea, shying away from trying to shoehorn the phone inside a watch, choosing instead to link up to people’s smartphones using Bluetooth. There’s good reason for that strategy. You can run big, beautiful apps on the phone, taking advantage of its large display, powerful processor, and always-on data connection, but keep what you do on the watch limited to things that suit the smaller size. So while playing Real Racing 3 on the watch may not be a good idea, quickly glancing over to see a text message is more convenient.

Smartwatch maker Pebble did this to create a small device with a handful of bite-size apps, but where most of the heavy lifting is happening on the phone. Does everyone now have a Pebble? No, but its Kickstarter campaign very quickly raised more than $10 million, well beyond the upstart’s expectations.

That brings us to Apple, which is reportedly working on its own wearable device to release later this year. How exactly it will fit in with Apple’s ecosystem is unclear, specifically because the big assumption is that it will be able to run iOS apps, just like the iPhone and iPod Touch. The only problem with that theory is Apple’s track record of segregating its cheaper, smaller devices with completely different software.

The iPod Nano, which has been the shining example of where Apple’s watch efforts would ascend from, runs a special operating system. The latest version may look a bit like the iOS that Apple uses on the iPhone and iPad, but there’s no way to expand its features through something like the App Store. And it’s still entirely dependent on Apple’s iTunes desktop software to get it up and running. If Apple’s watch will be a companion to a smartphone or a computer, it could follow suit.

But Apple has some serious incentive to veer from that strategy and expand the iOS platform, said Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes. In a note to investors last month, Reitzes noted that the firm was tracking a high rate of customers coming back to buy these types of devices every few years, and by broadening iOS, Apple could set up a nice recurring business — kind of like subscriptions.

“We believe that Apple actually has recurring revenue in the 40 percent range overall — much higher than most likely believe,” Reitzes said. “If the company can continue to add new products and services — the repeating nature should only grow.”

Therein lies one of the differences between Apple and Samsung though. Where Apple has shown high reservation in expanding its product lines (see the iPhone and iPad as the most recent example of that) and marketed them based on that very simplicity, Samsung’s modus operandi is to try things out and see what sticks. It may have some strange side effects like featuritis and devices that just don’t take off, but that very strategy has led to seemingly improbable successes like the Galaxy Note. Whether it will pay off with something you strap to your wrist, well, only time will tell.

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Samsung’s next flagship smartphone is here.

Samsung took the wraps off the Galaxy S4, the much awaited successor to the S3, at an event in New York tonight.

The handset, which has a 5-inch display, will be available on 327 carriers in 55 countries, starting in April. The company did not provide a price.

It packs new features like simultaneous shooting from dual cameras, “smart” scrolling and pausing that works by tracking eyeballs, health tracking, and a built-in language translator.

The phone will come in both black and white, which the company is calling “black mist” and “white frost.”

As expected, the S4 has got an onslaught of new hardware and software features. Here’s a quick rundown:

Hardware:
Display: 5-inch, 1920 x 1080, with Gorilla Glass 3
Processor: 1.9 GHz quad-core processor OR 1.6 GHz Octa-Core processor (depending on the market)
Weight: 130 grams
Thickness: 7.9mm
Rear camera: 13 megapixels
Front camera: 2 megapixels
Storage: 16/32/64 GB internal, with a MicroSD slot for expansion
Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Sensors: Accelerometer, Barometer, Gesture, Geomagnetic, Gyro, NFC, Proximity, Temperature and Humidity, and RGB light.
Bluetooth: Version 4.0
IR LED
Battery: 2,600 mAh

Software
OS: Google Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean

Drama Shot: Turns a string of photos into a timelapse.

Dual View: This lets S4 owners use both the front and rear cameras at the same time, which can also be used during video calls.

Group Play: Lets people share media between one another without Wi-Fi. Also syncs up music playback between devices.

Story Album: Pulls together photos you’ve taken and can be turned into photo albums.

S Health: Uses the S4’s onboard sensors to track and estimate personal fitness.

S Translator: Translates voice or text within certain applications, and works offline.

S Voice Drive: Takes voice commands while driving, and turns up the size of text. Works over Bluetooth with Bluetooth-enabled cars.

Samsung Optical Reader: Scans business cards and QR codes for text.

Samsung WatchON: Uses the built-in IR to control other electronics like TVs and set top boxes.

Smart Pause: Pauses video playback when it detects that you’re not looking. The same technology works for scrolling up and down on a Web page, or e-mail.

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Along with the S4, Samsung also debuted a new version of its S View cover that includes a slit to show relevant data, even when the rest of the device is covered up.

The event brings to a close a major push by Samsung to tease the S4, which included television spots and tweets, including one that teased an image of the front of the device. Unofficially, a string of leaks showed off quite a bit more of the device in photos and videos of some of the new features in action.

The S4’s unveiling comes less than a year after the debut of the S3, which Samsung showed off for the first time at an event in London last May.

For CNET’s complete hands-on first impressions, go here.

CNET’s video hands-on with the S4:

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Google today pushed out its first update to its mapping software on Apple’s iOS, adding a few new features.

Chief among them is integration with a user’s Google contact list, a feature that will pull up any addresses you have stored with Google, and not just on your phone.

The update (iTunes) also adds a new option in the search menu that will quickly look for nearby points of interest, including restaurants, gas stations, movie theaters, and coffee shops. You could search for these things before, but the new menu means you don’t actually have to type out the search.

Google released a standalone maps app for iOS in December, three months afterApple replaced Google’s technology with its own inside the Maps app that ships on iOS devices. The main attraction, besides Google’s more mature set of mapping data, was spoken turn-by-turn directions, something that Android users had enjoyed for years but wasn’t offered out of the box for iOS users until iOS 6.

Other features in the update are the option to toggle between kilometers or miles, regardless of what country you’re in, and the app’s release in Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Google’s iOS app is still missing a few things found on the Android version. That list includes mapping layers, the offline mode that lets you save mapping tiles to your phone for use if you’re away from a data connection (though it will temporarily save them once loaded), biking directions, and indoor maps. Google has not spelled out if those features will be carried over.

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The White House today backed an Internet petition asking the Library of Congress to change its stance on the legality of smartphone unlocking.

In a post on the We The People blog, R. David Edelman, the White House senior adviser for Internet, innovation and privacy, said the administration agrees with those who signed the petition, and aims to support any legislation that would remedy the issue.

“The White House agrees with the 114,000 plus of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties,” Edelman wrote. “In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smartphones.”

Edelman added that the issue falls within the realm of the Federal Communications Commission, and to some degree mobile device manufacturers to make sure “customers can fully reap the benefits and features they expect when purchasing their devices.”

“It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs,” Edelman said.

Having an unlocked cell phone means you can change carriers freely, something that many device manufacturers lock down even after a contract’s term is up. Consumers typically need to spend more to buy a device up front in order to buy it unlocked, or face what are usually higher fees with travel data packages or international roaming. The updated law, which went into effect in January, means that unauthorized unlocking — that is, any unlocking that is done without the permission of your carrier — is illegal.

Even with that recommendation from the administration, that doesn’t mean it’s now OK to unlock your smartphone. The Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress, a legislative branch agency. To that end, Edelman notes that the Obama administration “would support a range of approaches to addressing this issue,” including legislation.

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In a statement, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski noted that the group was examining the issue and pushing for a legislative fix.

“From a communications policy perspective, this raises serious competition and innovation concerns, and for wireless consumers, it doesn’t pass the common sense test,” Genachowski said. “The FCC is examining this issue, looking into whether the agency, wireless providers, or others should take action to preserve consumers’ ability to
unlock their mobile phones. I also encourage Congress to take a close look and consider a legislative solution.”

The original petition was launched in late January, and has since amassed 114,322 signatures. It needed 100,000 to demand a response from The White House, a threshold it reached late last month.

“This is a big victory for consumers, and I’m glad to have played a part in it,” petition creator Sina Khanifar told CNET in an e-mail. “A lot of people reacted skeptically when I originally started the petition, with lots of comments to the effect of ‘petitions don’t do anything.’ The optimist in me is really glad to have proved them wrong.”

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