TELECOM

British smartphone users could get their hands on ultra-fast 4G browsing speeds before the end of the year, as the country's biggest network announces major steps forward.

Ever since Apple unleashed Siri on its iPhone 4S, the voice-activated personal assistant has become the buzz of the town. Little wonder then that smartphone maker HTC has also caught the bug.

Apple has released a preview of the upcoming Mac OS X operating system featuring Notification Centre, Messages and Game Centre.

In recent times it seems carrier operating costs have outstripped profit margins accrued through sales of smartphone devices, particularly for those from the big brands like Apple.

Sony's grand ten-year joint venture with Ericsson (the maker of telecommunications technology), comes to an end with a formal buyout of the latter's $1.47 billion shareholdings in the mobile communications market.

Samsung may be announcing a 10.1-inch version of the Galaxy Note smartphone at Mobile World Congress at the end of February.

Nokia is predicted to be announcing six new devices at MWC - three smartphones and three budget feature phones.

Apple is believed to be working with Asian suppliers to produce an 8-inch iPad Mini to compete against the Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung's Galaxy Tab range.

Vodafone 155 focuses on senior UK citizens with disabilities such as limited dexterity, vision and/or hearing impaired.

Google has announced Chrome for Android, a mobile browser for smartphones that the search giant claims to be users' "Chrome from home".

Research in Motion provides users with more than six million applications per day.

Apple is once again allowed to sell its full range of iPhones and iPads in Germany, after it won a temporary suspension against a sales ban brought on by Motorola.

Apple has removed the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 3G from its German online store, following the placement of an injunction requested by Motorola.

Invoxia NVX 610 is a desk phone with a difference with powerful conference call features, clever iOS integration and more than a hint of Apple-inspired design.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 will not be making its debut at Mobile World Congress, contrary to popular belief that the quad-core smartphone would appear in late February.

After the slow-motion plane crash that was 2011, Research in Motion feels that 2012 is the year to turn its BlackBerry brand around, and a team of cartoon superheroes is - apparently - the answer.

Apple is once again the number one smartphone supplier in the world, having shipped 37 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The iPhone 5 will have an October release date and feature LTE networking allowing the smartphone to download data much faster than the iPhone 4S, a leading analyst claims.

The Apple iPhone 5 is to soon be put into production and a range of prototypes with larger four-inch screens have been spotted, according to a Foxconn worker.

O2 has issued an apology for the major security flaw which saw the mobile network accidently leak users' mobile phone numbers to every website they visited.

The Information Commissioner's Office is to contact O2 about a possible breach of the Data Protection Act, after the network has been accused of sharing users' numbers with every website they visit.

The mobile phone operator O2 is investigating a major security flaw which gives users' mobile phone numbers to every website they visit.

Sales of the Apple iPod have shrunk for the 11th consecutive quarter, as the company posted a 21 percent drop in sales of the MP3 players.

The first day in a new job is never going to be an easy one, but on 23 January Thorsten Heins walked into one of the least enviable positions in business, as he took over as chief executive officer at Research in Motion.

Doubts have been cast over Research in Motion's new CEO Thorsten Heins just hours after he took over the BlackBerry manufacturer from Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie on Monday.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says that he wishes the iPhone did as much as his Android smartphone, claiming that Google does voice commands better than iOS.

Super-fast 4G wireless technology and high-resolution retina display highlights of Apple iPad 3.

The iPhone 5 will have a new, thinner design, a quad-core processor and be able to operate on 3G and 4G LTE networks across the world.

Motorola has announced the Droid Razr Maxx, a smartphone with twice the battery life of the iPhone 4S, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.