s3

A lot of companies have jumped on the case bandwagon for the freshly released Samsung Galaxy III (S3), and Speck, known for its wide assortment of iPhone cases, is out of the gate with three different styles.

The PixelSkin HD ($29.95) and FabShell ($34.95), which has a fabric back and comes in multiple designs, are on sale already, while the CandyShell ($34.95) is due to hit soon.

I got my hands on an early sample of the CandyShell and it offers Speck's typically eye-catching glossy finish and a slim, snug fit. I like it, but at $… Read more

Samsung has promised to investigate claims of a Galaxy S3 burning up and melting in Ireland.

"There have been recent online posts displaying pictures of a Samsung GALAXY SIII that appears to have heat-related damage at the bottom of the device," the company wrote today on its official blog. "Samsung is aware of this issue and will begin investigating as soon as we receive the specific product in question."

A Ireland-based forum poster yesterday published images on Boards.IE showing what appears to be a Galaxy S3 with burns along the bottom. According to the poster, &… Read more

Foxconn CEO Terry Gou isn't shy about talking about the next iPhone, crowing about its virtues at the company's annual shareholder's meeting, according to a report.

Consumers should wait for the iPhone 5 because it will put the Samsung "Galaxy S III to shame," Focus Taiwan reported him as saying this week, citing the Tuesday edition of the China Times.

It's probably safe to say Gou didn't get the green light from Apple headquarters to chat up the next iPhone. Luckily for Apple, he didn't go into any detail about why it … Read more

It's a phone-tastic episode today:

Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 operating system will be in new Windows Phones this fall, but existing Windows users won't be able to get the full upgrade. That's because the Windows Phone 8 OS requires better hardware, like multicore processors and NFC support. The next OS will also have more enterprise-friendly features and Nokia's maps. (Maps are becoming a new battle ground in mobile phones.) However, current Windows Phone users aren't completely ignored. There's a slight upgrade coming that gives the live tiles in the home screen new … Read more

The housing market may never get back to where it was in the boom years, but even if you can't flip your condo it could be possible to flip your phone this month with some help from eBay.

eBay's Instant Sale site is offering some pretty big bucks for used flagship smartphones through the end of June, a promotion timed to coincide with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S III later this week. For example, an iPhone 4 with 32GB in working condition could be worth as much as $300 -- that's $100 more than competing buyback site Gazelle is currently offering.

eBay is showing love to existing Android phone owners, too, with a used Galaxy S II fetching up to $220 and a Droid Razr Maxx worth as much as $250. If you're able to work it so you can get a subsidized price on your Samsung Galaxy S III, you could end up upgrading for a net cost of zero, or even make some money on the deal.

Here's some more example trade-in offers that eBay sent along: … Read more

HTC has confirmed with The Verge that it is using a lower-powered Snapdragon S3 chipset for the HTC One S in select European and Asian markets. Thanks to an unusually high demand for the Snapdragon S4 processor, HTC has instead opted for Qualcomm's S3 CPU in some instances. … Read more

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC says it plans to go ahead with its planned purchase of computer graphics company S3 Graphics.

HTC had announced last July that it planned to buy the California-based company for $300 million. S3 was an attractive takeover target for HTC, as its 270 patents had stood up well in disputes against Apple. But HTC got cold feet over its acquisition of S3 last fall, when the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in favor of Apple in a patent dispute between S3 and Apple.

The company said in November that it was reconsidering its options. Now … Read more

Amazon's Jeff Barr noted this morning that its S3 online storage service reached 1 trillion objects, or files, last week, impressive growth for a service that launched in 2006.

Barr writes on the company's Amazon Web Services blog:

That's 142 objects for every person on Planet Earth or 3.3 objects for every star in our galaxy. If you could count one object per second it would take you 31,710 years to count them all.

He added that the object count has been growing by up to 3.5 billion objects in a single day, or … Read more

It's time to pony up for prepaid iPhones, avoid password scams and drop that mayor obsession:

The iPhone is coming to Virgin Mobile at the end of June. But you'll have to drop a hefty $650 to get the iPhone 4S, since there's no two-year contract. Plans start at $30 a month. It's cheaper in the long run to go prepaid with this plan instead of spending $200 upfront and paying for a more expensive monthly bill for two years (but you'll be limited with talk minutes). Virgin is on the Sprint network.

If Android … Read more