HTC

Top Android phone maker faces possible U.S. import ban next week

Shares of HTC are down sharply in advance of a ruling on a key Apple patent suit

HTC shipped more than 5.7 million smartphones to the U.S. last quarter, according to Canalys, beating out Samsung and Apple to become the country's leading smartphone vendor.

So there's a lot at stake for the giant Taiwanese phone maker -- and indeed for the manufacturers of all Google (GOOG) Android phones -- in the ruling MORE

ExtremeTech: Carrier IQ-gate is best reason to buy an iPhone

A cellphone eavesdropping scandal casts a shadow on Apple's competitors

Have you heard that every text message, every e-mail, every phone number, every keystroke made on a Google (GOOG) Android phone may be secretly recorded, logged and sent to your cellular provider by a tracking service called Carrier IQ?

No? That's a surprise, because it's a scandal that's been brewing for several weeks -- ever since security researcher Trevor Eckhart discovered Carrier MORE

Why the mobile patent wars got so hot

Intellectual property law sounds like fodder for think tanks and PhD candidates — so why is Silicon Valley suddenly tearing itself apart over a seemingly sleepy subject?

By Daniel Roberts, reporter

FORTUNE -- If you feel like you've been seeing more news about patents than ever before, you have. In July, a consortium that included Apple, RIM and Microsoft made a move on Nortel's patent portfolio, outflanking Google. In August, Google hit MORE

Today in Tech: Gamestop testing Android tablet

Fortune's curated selection of newsworthy tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you every day.

* Gamestop (GME) president Tony Bartel revealed that the videogame retail chain is testing the sale and distribution of a branded Android tablet that will likely stream console games to it. (GamesIndustry)

* It's (still) official: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington confirmed at the tech blog's Disrupt conference yesterday morning that he's no longer an AOL MORE

Google gets its hands dirty

Android's purveyor crossed a line when it sold arms to be used against Apple

U.S. patent No. 6,473,006, "a method and apparatus for zoomed display of characters entered from a telephone keypad," has a long and tangled history.

It was originally filed, according to FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, by a company called Phone-com, which assigned it to Openwave, which sold it to Purple Labs, which sold it to Myriad, which sold it to MORE

Today in Tech: Should Yahoo's board be fired next?

Fortune's curated selection of the day's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you every day.

* Om Malik over at GigaOm proposes that Yahoo's (YHOO) slow-moving board should ousted too, and offers up a few new board candidates. (GigaOm)

* AOL (AOL) execs have decided to fire TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, though how they plan to do it remains unclear. The timing perhaps couldn't be MORE

Today in Tech: More iTunes Match info

Fortune's curated selection of the day's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you every day.

* A beta version of iTunes Match became available last night, and while only developers can currently get at it, the limited software release sheds more light on what the service will be like once it officially rolls out this fall. For the $25 annual fee, music can MORE

5 ways Google's Motorola deal could spoil

The search giant's $12.5 billion acquisition bid is a bold move that could reshape the mobile business. It's also fraught with potential pitfalls.

By Alex Konrad, contributor

FORTUNE -- Sometimes, plan B is pretty good. When Google missed out on buying Nortel Networks' patent hoard earlier this summer, few could have predicted it would make a stunning $12.5 billion cash bid for Motorola Mobility.

The move is sure to change Google's (GOOG) business, MORE

'Apple will push its legal claims hard and unrelentingly'

The payoff should Apple prevail in the patent wars: an estimated $30 billion

In a note to clients issued Thursday, Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi takes a hard look at the flurry of patent lawsuits Apple (AAPL) has launched against the manufacturers of Google (GOOG) Android phones.

All in all, he likes Apple's chances. The two key bullet points (we quote):

We anticipate that Apple will push its legal claims hard and unrelentingly and believe MORE

iPhone dominates Nielsen's 'brownie pan' smartphone chart

Android, at 39%, is OS No. 1 in the U.S. But Apple, with 28%, is the No. 1 manufacturer

If you're having trouble interpreting the chart of the U.S. smartphone market released Thursday by Nielsen, think of it as a brownie pan, a spokesman helpfully suggests, not a pie.

And depending how you slice the brownies, Apple (AAPL) is either No. 2 or No. 1 in the U.S.

When all the Android phones are combined, MORE