Who needs a professional camera with a telephoto lens when you have an Apple iPhone 4S? Photojournalist Dan Chung is showing the world just what Apple’s soon-to-be upstaged iPhone 4S can do by live blogging the pomp, circumstance and excitement of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London using that amazing little camera phone.

Chung is keeping a photoblog entirely made up of pictures taken with his iPhone, showing the action on the field, in the pools and in the stands. Using the camera in the iPhone 4S, a clip-on Schneider lens, some Canon binoculars and the Snapseed processing app, Chung is capturing everything that makes the Olympics such a special event.

It looks like the iPhone 4S has found an unlikely home in the world of sports photography. We wonder what Chung would have been able to do with an iPhone 5. How about the Superbowl next year, Dan?

Apple and Samsung are getting even pettier with their patent war, and the judge is getting fed up with it.

Judge Lucy Koh took advantage of a day off from listening to the two in court to issue rulings that re-define the boundaries around Samsung’s arguments that they didn’t infringe on Apple’s iPad design or that Apple didn't have the rights to the design in the first place.

Samsung appears to have crossed the line with their argument that Apple lifted it from the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In a scene from the 1968 film, astronauts are eating and using personal tablet computers. Samsung argues that Apple got the idea for the iPad from that scene.

According to Samsung, the tablet in the movie “has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor.” That describes an iPad alright.

Samsung responded to Judge Koh’s statements with a press release that said, “Samsung was not allowed to tell the jury the full story and show the pre-iPhone design for that and other phones that were in development at Samsung in 2006, before the iPhone. The excluded evidence would have established beyond doubt that Samsung did not copy the iPhone design”.

Apple and Samsung are back in court today. We’ll see whether they’re paying any attention to Judge Lucy, and are ready to get back to the point.

Smartphones have finally taken over the United States with more than one third of American adults -- 35% -- own smartphones. According to The Pew Internet Project's survey found that 83% of U.S. adults have a cell phone of some kind, and that 42% of them own a smartphone, translating to more then 35% of Americans who own a Smartphone. Individuals who own a Smartphone fall into one of two categories include:

• One-third of cell owners (33%) say that their phone is a smartphone.
• Two-in-five cell owners (39%) say that their phone operates on a smartphone platform (these include iPhones and Blackberry, as well as phones running the Android, Windows or Palm operating systems).

American's now officially count for more than 100 million users Smartphone users in the United States. Android and Apple iOS continued to grow between November 2011 and January 2012, gaining 2.3% and 1.4% respectively. Google’s mobile platform topped the charts with a total market share of 48.6%, while Apple managed to capture a 29.5% share.

Smartphones are the main source of main source of Internet access for one-quarter of the smartphone population including 87% of smartphone owners access the Internet or email on their hand-held, including two-thirds (68%) who do so on a typical day. Most smartphone users such as Samsung Galaxy S3, BlackBerry Bold, etc typically use their smartphone rather than a traditional computer to access the Internet. Smartphone owners under the age of 30, non-white smartphone users and smartphone owners with relatively low income and education levels are particularly likely to say that they mostly go online using their phones. The Android OS Platform is the most common smartphone platform, followed by iPhone and Blackberry devices. Most Smartphones are operating on an Android Platform are especially common among young adults and African-Americans, while iPhone 4S and Blackberry devices are most prevalent among college graduates and the financially well-off.

Overall, in the Smartphone Market Samsung continues to tighten its grip on the featured phone and smartphone market. Nokia was still the global leader followed by Samsung and then Apple, which showed the highest percentage growth.

Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse has just confirmed that his company will carry Motorola’s Photon Q LTE later this year. The new 4G LTE smartphone runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 on a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor. The Photon Q comes with a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard,  a 4.3-inch ColorBoost Display screen,  a rear-facing 8MP camera with 1080p video capture, and a long-lasting battery (thanks to Motorola’s Smartactions app.)

The new Photon Q is expected to ship with NFC capability to power the new Android Beam data transfer service and Google Wallet mobile payment services.

This Android slider phone with a full QWERTY keyboard is perfect for the business community that has long been looking for a reason to retire those worn out BlackBerrys. The Photon Q is the latest 4G with a physical keyboard smartphone, joining the ranks of the Motorola Droid 4, Samsung Captivate Glide and Samsung Epic.

Like other Motorola phones, the Photon Q LTE will be environmentally friendly and ULE-platinum certified.

Sprint hasn’t mentioned a release date or pricing information for the Motorola device, but the company expects to make these announcements in the coming weeks.

Google has released the latest version of its Google Earth app with 3D imaging. You can download the app to the new iPad, iPad 2, iPod touch and iPhone 4S. The app is available in the iTunes store.

As Peter Birch, Google Earth product manager, blogged, “With today’s release of Google Earth for iOS you can literally fly through breathtaking 3D city landscapes and images and follow virtual tours of places you’ve never been — all with a simple swipe of your fingertip.”

Birch’s blog post highlighted the app’s Tour Guide feature that lets users browse through thumbnails to explore any city or landmark. Some of the photos are user generated.

Birch writes that Google is adding new locations “as fast as we can.” The cities that are 3D-viewable right now are Boulder, Boston, Charlotte, Lawrence (KS), Long Beach (CA.), Los Angeles, Portland (OR), San Diego, Santa Cruz, Tampa, Tucson, and the San Francisco Bay Area. On the international scene, the Google Earth app will show you Rome in 3D.

By the end of 2012, Google plans to have the 3D imaging available in metropolitan areas with a combined population of 300 million people or more.

Smartphones are an essential part of our daily lives from driving, grocery shopping and talking or texting our loved ones. Smartphones are an integral part of our daily lives that we cannot live with or without whether we're a tween, teen, a busy mother on the go, a father recording his son's first home run or a grandparent’s joy at seeing photographs of their first grandchild. Smartphone applications are a reflection of that diversity and individuality of every Smartphone user from the most necessary to the funniest applications available for every Smartphone user. Here's a list of the Top 10 Funniest Applications for Smartphones:

1.) Pocket God is an episodic and exciting application available for Android and Apple Smartphones that allows its users or players to determine what type of God they would be if they were all powerful. Players can choose whether they're a benevolent or vengeful God of their very own island with up to six islanders per island, an availability of five different islands and a number of forces of nature are yours to control and manipulate. Pocket God is a fun application for any Smartphone user especially if you have a little time to kill, after all its not everyday your God of your own island.

2.) AgingBooth is your more than typical application that shows people what they might look like when they get older. AgingBooth was launched by PiVi & Co the creators of both FatBooth and BaldBooth, some of the most popular iPhone 4S application. Now AgingBooth for Android is available to download for free on the Android Market.

3.) The Moron Test is currently one of the best selling applications well...since the introduction of the Smartphone with millions of players worldwide. The Moron Test features simple, addicting gameplay, five sections featuring hundreds of fun puzzles and even hilarious characters, sound effects, and music.

4.) BaldBooth is similar to AgingBooth and instead shows the user what they might look like if they had no hair rather than simply being older. BaldBooth is a hilariously fun way to instantly make people bald on photo with your HTC OneX and other smartphone which can be shared with family, friends or colleagues via email, MMS, FaceBook, and Twitter.

5.) Talking Lila the Fairy will allow Smartphone users to discover Lila's world of magic and songs. Lila is a flower fairy that lives in a meadow who loves to sing and cast magical spells over the Smartphone users like Nokia Lumia 900, Galaxy S3, etc. Lila the Fairy can create flowers, animals, stars and other items with the help of her fairy dust.

6.) Talking Santa is a free Smartphone application that lets you tickle Santa and make him laugh, you can also poke or slap him but that may cause Santa not to give you gifts anymore. If you're nice to Santa by bringing him milk and cookies or naughty by running him over with a giant snowball will determine what types if any presents he brings you for Christmas.

7.) GhostRadar is a paranormal application for the Ghost-hunters in your life. The GhostRadar will continuously run sensors on your Smartphone to determine if there is anything strange happening around the user. GhostRadar applications has set the standard in ghost hunting because it analyzes the readings from sensors giving indications only when interesting patterns in the readings have been made and has a  voice to let you know when interesting words have been detected.

8.) Talking Tom Cat is your perfect pet cat that responds to your touch and repeats everything you say. He can be especially fun for children and even allows you to record your own videos of Tom Cat and share them on YouTube and even Facebook.

9.) SackDude: If you're feeling a little stressed or a little irritable, Sack Dude is your interactive Smartphone stress ball. So if you’re having a rough day, just remember Sack Dude can be smacked, set on fire, tickled or electrocuted and is your perfect stress reliever.

10.) FatBooth:  if you are feeling a little fat FatBooth will really show you might look like carrying those few extra pounds. Or if you are having a really bad hair day FatBooth could make you feel much better about how you look now.

The Good News is that all these applications only cost $.99.

By Aldo Panessidi

In addition to Android 4.1 (Jellybean), last week’s Google I/O introduced us to a Chrome Browser update, Google Play news and the Project Glass carnival ride. Here’s the lowdown:

Chrome Browser:

The official version of Chrome Browser is now in the Google Play Store. You can download it for free. For those already using mobile Chrome, the new version provides much-needed stability and a few performance enhancements. Tablets got some UI adjustments - a good idea considering this will be the Chrome running with Nexus 7 tablet . There was no word on availability of this update for devices running older OS versions than Android 4.0.

Google Play got quite a bit of Google attention. Here its new angles:

Google Play Books:

Play Books was updated to support embedded streaming video and audio in books. This will have lots of useful applications, particularly in the educational environment.  There’s a new UI feature where you can tap the upper-right corner of a page to bookmark it. New settings options allow for auto text-to-speech and the ability to lock downloads to WiFi only. The rest of the updates were improving support for various formats and other stability fixes.

Google Play Movies:

Now you can purchase Google Play Movies in addition to renting them. TV shows are also available in the Google Play Store as well. The more Google can offer in the Store, the better they will be able to compete with Apple. Next we’d like to see Google step up to the subscription plate and give the likes of Hulu, Netflix and Amazon some nice competition.

Google Play Remote Features:

Uninstalling and updating apps you bought from Google Play can now be managed from a web connection. Just like it’s easier to edit your address book online rather than from your phone, apps need the same kind of management tool. So, maybe it’s time to clean out your app junk pile.

Project Glass:

Project Glass is Google’s R&D effort to create an augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD) they call Google Glass. Sergey Brin’s Google Glass presentation was fun. Some guys jumped out of an airplane and another ran down the side of a building. The audience got to see the little adventure play out on the big screen. The perspective was cool, but as a passive observer can’t we can get something very similar from video games and 3D movies? The final HMD won’t be ready for consumers until 2014, but attendees of the Google I/O were given the chance to pre-order a prototype pair of the glasses (to be delivered next year) for $1,500 a headset. Maybe we just don’t see the bigger picture for Google Glass yet…

By Aldo Panessidi

Last week, Apple posted a $2.6 million bond in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to ban the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet from being sold in the United States. As soon as Apple got their preliminary injunction and posted their bond, Samsung filed their appeal for a stay of the injunction. Judge Lucy Koh, the same judge who has decided many of the recent lawsuits, will hear arguments sometime soon.

Apple and Samsung are the world's two biggest makers of high-end phones including the Apple iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy S2, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Nexus. They’ve been accusing each other of copying designs and technology for mobile devices and are locked in patent battles all over the world. What’s at stake are profits from the $119 billion global tablet market.

By Adhurim Murtezai

One of the biggest banks in the world, Wells Fargo, has confirmed that the Apple stock deserves the “Outperform” rating and said that the next-generation iPhone “will be the biggest product launch in consumer electronics’ history.” We’ve heard that before.

And Apple rarely fails to disappoint consumers, reviewers or the investment community. The fall release is definitely going to make big news. iPhone 5 and the new iOS together are sure to create a feeding frenzy among new and old iPhone device owners.

Keep your Apple devices protected with top brand cases & skins while enhancing their mobility with the latest in earbud & headset, speakers & docking stations, Bluetooth Headsets  and data cables technology.

By Aldo Panessidi

It only took Android app developer Philippe Hausler 12 hours to load Swords and Soldiers onto the brand-spanking new Google Nexus Q media hub, the first social streaming media player:

Granted, the Android game isn’t functional yet, but that just might be a new hacking record. Some app gurus are touting the feat as an indicator of the potential of the device.

Right now the Nexus Q only works with devices running Google's new Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. The only available Jelly Bean device there is right now is the Nexus 7 tablet. Of course, Google promises more Jelly Bean products available in the coming months. Google says it the Nexus Q will eventually work with devices running older versions of Android, but with a $299 price tag, Google has to work faster on its compatibility.