San Diego-based Qualcomm has purchased mobile patents from PC giant Hewlett-Packard, giving the mobile chipset manufacturer 2,400 mobile patents for an undisclosed amount.

Many of the patents now controlled by Qualcomm include those of now-defunct Palm, which was purchased by HP in 2010 for $1.2 billion. Read more »

For the past year, the Chinese government along with the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have been developing its own mobile operating system to rival Android .

Today the fruits of their labor have been revealed, as an HTC Butterfly S has emerged running China Operating System (COS) – a closed-source mobile OS based on Ubuntu that looks eerily like Android Jelly Bean skinned with HTC’s Sense 5 overlay. Read more »

Viber has released a new update for the Android version of the app. v4.2 brings with it some useful new features, most importantly call blocking. You can now specify any number or contact you don’t wish to receive calls from and it will be blocked for you.

Other changes include ability to send up to 10 images at the same time, ability to customize your messages and call sounds, new media gallery within conversations and other improvements and bug fixes. Read more »

It seems popular keyboard maker for Android SwiftKey is working on an iOS version. But because of the way iOS works, you can’t have a universal custom keyboard outside of a particular app so now it seems we are getting SwiftKey Note.

SwiftKey Note seems like a note taking app along the lines of the Fleksy keyboard app. Basically, this app will let you type whatever you want using the custom SwiftKey keyboard and all the features its known for and then you can copy paste the text in any other app. This is an extremely roundabout way of doing things, which probably explains why keyboard apps haven’t taken off on iOS but it seems SwiftKey is trying to make do with what they have. Read more »

Well that was quick. An hour after Snapchat’s new security update was seeded to the public, it was succinctly hacked in under an hour.

The popular ghost-messaging service has come under fire recently after 4.6 million Snapchat users’ data was disseminated online due to a security vulnerability in Snapchat’s software. Read more »

Jolla’s Sailfish OS is new, intuitive, and interesting. We gave a preview of the OS’ features a while back and even though we like it, it’s no secret that it will be challenging for Sailfish to gain momentum in a market that is already dominated by well-established operating system’s like iOS and Android.

However, if you have a Nexus 4 (or presumably any other Android phone with an unlocked Bootloader), then you can try out Sailfish without having to fork over your hard-earned cash for an entirely new device. You can see a video of Jolla’s OS in action on a Nexus 4 after the jump. Read more »

Android OS provides mechanisms for push notifications that leverage two services from Google and apps like Gmail, Facebook and Twitter use it to deliver instantaneous notifications. The problem is that those services infringe on patents held by SimpleAir, an “inventor-owned technology licensing company.”

A jury in Marshall, Texas unanimously found that the patent in question, No. 7,035,914, is valid and that the search giant infringed upon five of the claims in the patent. Read more »

Last year, Nokia unveiled the HERE Transit Beta app available for select touch-based Ashas, specifically the ones of the Asha 50x range, and now the time has come the app to graduate to final form and hit the Nokia Store.

Currently, only the Nokia Asha 500, Asha 501, Asha 502 and Asha 503 have access to download the HERE Transit app. Read more »

The latest iteration of the popular Asphalt racing series for mobile devices is now available for free on Windows Phone 8 devices.

The game usually retails for $0.99, so be sure to grab it quickly before the offer runs out. Read more »

Are you obsessed with the performance of your smartphone and won’t be satisfied unless it beats out all others? If you’re looking for more detailed reports on your device’s performance, then you’ll be happy to hear that Rightware has released the latest iteration of their Benchmark OS software: Basemark OS II.

It’s designed to work with pretty much any Android, iOS, or Windows Phone device and it even offers online comparisons, so you can see how your handset stacks up against others.

Teemu Uotila, a Rightware employee had this to say about the latest update: Read more »

The VLC player for iOS has been updated to version 2.2 and has gained a new UI with a more iOS 7-friendly look. The new UI adds a few neat tricks such as two-finger tap for video pause and swipe controls for brightness, playback position and volume. A vertical swipe in the right half of the video will adjust the volume, while the same on the left part adjusts screen brightness.

In addition to the fresh look, the latest iteration of VLC player adds support for Dropbox and HTTP live streaming as well as download from Google Drive. Read more »

Samsung has teamed up with popular espresso maker illy in the UK but the partnership doesn’t have coffee machines planned. Instead Samsung and illy will represent their products in each other’s stores, starting on London’s Regent Street.

Samsung VP Yoinghee Lee has revealed to Pocket-Lint that “this partnership is about sharing a communality between two brands.” – hopes are that by the end of this year Samsung devices will be in two illy coffee shops and illy coffee in two Samsung flagship stores in the UK. Read more »

The rumor mill has been abuzz with talk of Microsoft’s upcoming virtual assistant, which will borrow its personality from Cortana (you know, from Halo). Now, Head of Microsoft Research, Peter Lee, has confirmed that the a “big focus” for the company is artificial intelligence, including a virtual assistant.

The video interview features a short glimpse of a virtual assistant prototype at work but somewhat disappointingly it didn’t use Cortana’s avatar. Read more »

Samsung has released the Android 4.4 KitKat kernel source code for its flagship phablet, the Galaxy Note 3, facilitating developers in building custom ROMs for the device.

If you are a developer, then the source link below has the kernel codes for you to play with. Read more »

Skype for iOS has received an update which mainly benefits Apple’s A7-capable devices. The iPhone 5s, iPad’s Air and iPad mini 2 will get two-way HD video calls, receiving messages while Skype is minimized while other iOS devices will also get faster syncing across all devices.

It’s a big step as the iPhone currently relied heavily on Apple’s FaceTime service, which is limited to the unimpressive HVGA (480px by 360px) resolution. Read more »