Intel has wanted to be a part of the smartphone market since 2005. Its Atom line of processors and systems-on-chip was developed for this market, and each iteration has got smaller and more tightly integrated. With Medfield, announced earlier this year, the company finally has the chip it needs to take on ARM head-to-head. Intel has partnered with Indian manufacturer Lava International to bring its chipset to market, and the result is a new Android phone: the Xolo X900.

The phone is not available in the US. It sells in India for about $420. The phone's specification is at the upper end of mid-range: 1024×600 4" screen, 8 MP rear camera with 1080p30 recording, 1.3 MP front camera, and 16 GB of storage. It runs Android 2.3.7, with an upgrade to version 4 due later this year. So far, so ordinary. The thing that sets it apart from its competition is its processor. It's called an Atom Z2460: a 1.6 GHz single core, hyperthreaded 64-bit x86 CPU, paired with a 400 MHz PowerVR SGX 540 GPU, and 1 GB RAM.

Google’s original plans for Android included a subsidized, $9.99 unlimited monthly data plan to be offered by T-Mobile. The deal proposed in November 2006 obviously didn’t come to pass, but it was part of exhibits presented today in the trial for Oracle’s patent and lawsuit infringement claims against Google.

The unlimited data plan would include everything except photo updating, and be subsidized in part by Google forgoing a commission on each sale, according to CNET. Exhibits also showed an early prototype of the "Google Phone," which looked somewhat like a BlackBerry:

The Verge has more details and images illustrating the user interface Google was developing for Android in 2007. As you might expect, it looks a lot different from today’s Android interface.

The combination of Google's new storage service, Google Drive, and the company's recently unified terms of service and privacy policy, have riled the Internet into demanding to know why Google seemed to be claiming ownership of their customers' files. As it turns out, the company claims no ownership—it says so right in the terms of service, and a comparison between Google Drive's terms and that of other storage services turns up few material differences, except for a couple of questionable terms that may land your content in Google's promotional materials.

In a comparison piece, The Verge noted that the terms of service from four major cloud storage services—Dropbox, iCloud, Microsoft SkyDrive, and Google Drive—all claim no ownership of the files you give them. Several publishing outfits raised the alarm about a clause in Google's terms of service that states Google reserves the right to "use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute" content uploaded to their services. But as The Verge pointed out, other services have similarly expansive, and sometimes more expansive, terms, and those services mean only to use them in service of, well, the services.

Sprint's iPhone-using subscribers will continue to have access to unlimited data service for the foreseeable future, according to CEO Dan Hesse. And that will include unlimited 4G LTE service, assuming the next iPhone is indeed compatible with the high speed wireless standard.

Sprint got its first crack at lucrative iPhone customers in October of 2011 with the launch of the iPhone 4S. The company made a reported $15.5 billion bet on the popular smartphone, agreeing to sell millions of the phones up front in order to launch the device on its network. Hesse defended that decision last month, noting that iPhone customers are more profitable than those of other platforms despite the high subsidy on the device itself.

Furthermore, the iPhone is attracting new customers to the carrier. For the fourth quarter of 2011, four out of every ten iPhone users were new to Sprint. The company's most recent quarter showed similar results, with 44 percent of the 1.5 million additional iPhone activations coming from customers who were new to Sprint.

Hesse told CNET that the carrier plans to continue to offer unlimited data to iPhone users, including LTE service if the next model comes equipped with LTE compatibility.

"I'm not anticipating the unlimited plan would change by that point," Hesse said. "That's our distinctive differentiator."

The company has heavily advertised the fact that it's the only carrier in the US to offer unlimited data to iPhone users. As many iPhone owners already know, the two most popular carriers in the US—AT&T and Verizon—both sell tiered data plans now, and neither offers an unlimited plan anymore. 

"Frankly, it's a marriage made in heaven," Hesse told CNET. "We're clearly attracting customers from our competitors."

Read the comments on this post

The US International Trade Commission has entered an initial determination that Apple is infringing on one of Motorola Mobility's patents related to 3G wireless standards. However, there is some question as to whether the decision will result in any adverse action toward Apple.

Administrative Law Judge Thomas Pender ruled that Apple did infringe on two of Motorola's patents, but that the infringed claim on one patent was invalid. That leaves Apple potentially on the hook for infringement of one patent related to wireless 3G standards.

However, the outcome may not result in an import ban on iPhones or iPads any time soon. A German court has already ruled that Apple could plausibly work around the claims of this particular 3G-related patent. It's also possible that Apple's current Qualcomm-equipped products do not infringe the patent due to "patent exhaustion"—in other words, Qualcomm's license to the patent very likely covers Apple's use of its chips.

Furthermore, Motorola's attempt to garner an import ban from the ITC on Apple's products using the patent in question may violate its pledge to license patents it declared essential to 3G standards on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. The European Commission just launched an official investigation over Motorola's actions with respect to FRAND-encumbered patents earlier this month.

Read the comments on this post

More than three months after releasing software for Windows-users to send documents to a Kindle, Amazon has now released the Mac version. Announced on Tuesday afternoon, the "Send to Kindle for Mac" application allows Mac users to wirelessly send personal documents to their Kindles via drag-and-drop in the Dock or within the app itself. Users can also send documents to the Kindle by printing from any Mac application.

As we wrote in January when the Windows version was released, each Kindle already comes with its own e-mail address so users can send files to themselves. (There's also an Instapaper mechanism for sending documents to Kindle.) The desktop software aims to make that process easier, however, by eliminating the need to involve an e-mail client (especially convoluted in the case of printing from an app, which would involve printing to PDF and then sending that PDF to your Kindle). Users don't have to be sending documents to a hardware Kindle either—files can be sent to a Kindle app on a mobile device, too (such as the iPad or an Android phone).

According to Amazon, users can also use the Mac software to archive documents in your Kindle library for download later if you don't want those files to show up and take up space on your device right away. "Your last page read along with bookmarks, notes, and highlights are automatically synchronized for your documents (with the exception of PDFs) across your Kindle devices and Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Android," the company said in a statement.

Read the comments on this post

Google has started selling phones directly to customers again—well, one phone at least. The company is now selling the flagship Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, directly from its Google Play store.

The Galaxy Nexus is currently the only physical product in the Google Play store. Google is selling an unlocked GSM version with access to HSPA+ networks, meaning it will work in AT&T and T-Mobile in the US and 200 other providers worldwide. The phone started out as a Verizon exclusive at $299.99 with at two-year contract, but recently became available on Sprint for $199.99. Google dabbled in direct sales with another of its flagship phones, the Nexus One made by HTC, which was also sold unlocked at the time.

Unfortunately, the Android 4.0 phone is available only to customers in the USA, but we don't doubt a gray market could swell up to fulfill any lust for the Galaxy Nexus overseas (the unlocked GSM version has been available in Europe, though for higher prices). The fully unlocked handset is priced at $399.99 without a contract, and comes with a $10 Google Wallet credit.

Read the comments on this post

After years of speculation, Google Drive was released today, giving users 5GB of free storage to sync across computers, and finally giving Google a viable competitor to Dropbox, Microsoft's SkyDrive, Apple's iCloud, and the like.

Google announced the new service today and it's available at drive.google.com. Like Dropbox, it makes a special folder in your computer's file system, and any file put in the folder will sync across devices. It's available for Windows, Macs, and Android. Google said it's "working hard" on a Drive app for iOS devices.

On the Web, numerous third-party vendors have already integrated Chrome apps with Google Drive, and Drive has a browser-based file manager as well as integration with Google Docs to display any documents that Docs is compatible with.