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With new phones that dwarf the iPhone becoming mainstream, it appears Apple will finally update the popular phone's design to account for a bigger screen.

According to channel checks, Apple looks to be buying bigger screens from Asian suppliers that are at least 4-inches.

All previous models of the device have 3.5-inch screens, including the most recent iPhone 4S.

Apple is said to be working with LG, Japan Display and Sharp but not with Samsung, who is the company's largest competitor in the smartphone arena.

Samsung shipped 44.5 million smartphones last quarter, beating out Apple at 35.1 million although both company's continue to see exponential growth.

The expensive, failed wireless network project LightSquared has filed for bankruptcy protection.

LightSquared, which had been hoping to deliver a 4G network to over 200 million people in the U.S., was blocked by U.S. regulators. After testing and research, it was found the LightSquared network interfered with critical GPS networks used by police and emergency officials.

The company was allowed to manage the $15 million remaining it has in cash whilst in bankruptcy, as it is the only money that is not owed to lenders. The cash is expected to take the company until mid-July.

Overall, the company owes over $2.29 billion outstanding to different lenders.

Mainly thanks to spectrum, the company does have listed assets of $4.48 billion.

Diverging from tradition, it appears that Google will unveil its Android 5.0 Jelly Bean operating system on not just one Nexus smartphone, but on multiple.

If accurate, the WSJ report states the OS could debut on five Nexus phones later this year.

The move away from a single phone for new OS introductions would be a huge move for Google, who has long been rumored to be looking to get into the hardware smartphone business itself. The Nexus line is popular because the phones are the first to feature the latest Android OS and also feature a "vanilla" version of the OS, with no third-party user overlays like HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz.

In the report, the newspaper says Google will rollout the new phones, unlocked, in the U.S., Asia and Europe via the Google Play Store and through brick-and-mortar stores.

Microsoft will begin a promotion in June to reward late Windows 7 PC buyers.

The promotion, which will begin June 2nd, will allow any buyer of a new Windows 7-based PC to upgrade to the upcoming Windows 8 Pro for just $14.99. The normal price is expected to be upward of $79 for an upgrade copy when the operating system hits in October or November.

As in past years, the promotion makes sense since consumers (unless they are desperate) are usually willing to wait a few months to upgrade or purchase a new PC if they now a new operating system is coming.

This promotion however, is slightly different as any kind of Windows 7 will be upgradeable to the Pro version of Windows 8, which is the higher-end and more expensive version of the OS.

The deal is valid until January 31st of next year.

Firefox for Android 14 beta adds support for flash, new UI and more.

The latest release for the Android OS features a redesigned user interface, and significant performance improvements over the previous release. A new Start page has also been added.

Mozilla has also optimized the browser for better performance on Android 2.2+. Other minor changes have been made also, such as a change that will make all Google searches through HTTPS by default from now on.

The biggest change of course is the support for Flash, which has taken some time to show up.

These improvements are available for smartphone users only for now, with tablet users expected to be able to test them out soon.

Firefox for Android requires Android 2.1 and above, an ARMv7 processor, 512MB of RAM and 17 MB internal or SD card storage.

You can get Firefox for Android 14 beta from Google Play.

Nvidia closing in on mobile space.

The GPU-maker is targeting large data centers that provide cloud-based services to end users. President and Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang showed off new technology based on its Kepler GPU architecture geared toward these conditions to drive the cloud-based services of tomorrow.

"Kepler cloud GPU technologies shifts cloud computing into a new gear," said Huang at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC).

"The GPU has become indispensable. It is central to the experience of gamers. It is vital to digital artists realizing their imagination. It is essential for touch devices to deliver silky smooth and beautiful graphics. And now, the cloud GPU will deliver amazing experiences to those who work remotely and gamers looking to play untethered from a PC or console."

Nvidia today announced the launch of its GeForce GRID cloud gaming platform. With the GeForce GRID platform, gaming-as-a-service providers can deliver the most advanced visuals with lower latency, while incurring lower operating costs, particularly related to energy usage.

Gamers benefit from the ability to play the latest, most sophisticated games on any connected device, including TVs, smartphones and tablets running iOS and Android.

Low consumer impact cited as reason for snubbing Facebook ads.

Just days before Facebook is going public, General Motors Co has confirmed it will stop advertising on the popular social networking site. Facebook's IPO will value the company at as much as $100 billion, rivalling the market value of heavyweight Amazon Inc.

Reuters cited a source close to GM in reporting that the automaker will pull ads from Facebook due to low consumer impact. It will still maintain a presence on Facebook, however.

The Wall Street Journal reported that GM was spending about $40 million per year on Facebook, though only $10 million of that budget went on Facebook ads. The rest went to content creation for the company's Facebook pages, as well as to the numerous advertising agencies involved.

"This does highlight what we are arguing is the riskiness of the overall Facebook business model," said Brian Wieser, Internet and media analyst at Pivotal Research Group.

"It is not a sure thing. It sure looks likely that it will be one of the most important ad-supported media properties, but it's not certain because there will be marketers who are challenged to prove the effectiveness of the marketing vehicle."

Blizzard Entertainment putting more servers online.

The eagerly-anticipated Diablo III launched this morning, putting Blizzard's servers under enormous pressure very quickly. The PC and Mac-only game requires an Internet connection to play, even if you do not want to play online, which makes server problems far more serious.

The support forums for the title have a lot of complaints and requests for technical assistance from gamers. Blizzard said it was addressing the problem by putting more servers online as needed.

Still, the game launch was seen as a big success for Blizzard. About 1,500 fans showed up at its Californian headquarters for the midnight launch. They got to observe artists at Blizzard sketch out characters from the game, as well as watch new footage and take part in quizzes.

"There's nowhere I'd rather be tonight," fan Ian Noble said at the event.

Jay Wilson, lead designer of Diablo III, said he hoped that the fans would be excited about the new iteration of the series. Wilson joked that the developer took so long to finally release Diablo III because they were goofing off most of the time, but then said the real reason is Blizzard's commitment to quality.

Change could value Facebook at over $100 billion.

It has now set a price of shares in the company to between $34 and $38, up from between $25 and $35. It attributed the change to strong demand ahead of the IPO. Trading in the shares is expected to begin on Friday, after a couple of years of anticipation from investors.

A valuation as high as $100 billion would put it above Disney and Ford. It's listing on the NASDAQ will rival Amazon's current $100 billion valuation.

Recent questions about Facebook's long-term ability to generate revenue from its service have not dampened the interest from investors. Currently, Facebook's revenue is about 1 percent of what its market value is expected to approach.

It has singled out mobile as its most important area for expansion, and has been found to be experimenting with numerous ways to generate new streams of revenue in recent weeks.

The service boasts over 900 million users worldwide.

Siri no longer shows Lumia 900 love.

Over the weekend, iPhone 4S users noticed that if you asked Siri what the best smartphone ever was, it would return a result that recommended the Nokia Lumia 900 handset. It was reported by a lot of tech sites and blogs in a lighthearted way as another example of how Siri can give interesting answers to questions.

Now, however, if you ask Siri what the best smartphone ever is, it will respond by asking, "Wait... there are other phones?". This is a default answer that has been given previously for similar questions about phones.

"Apple position Siri as the intelligent system that's there to help, but clearly if they don't like the answer, they override the software," said Nokia spokeswoman Tracey Postill, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Nokia later stated that Postill's comments were not to be taken seriously, and that the lighthearted comment was taken out of context. Still, it does beg the question of whether Apple should have allowed Siri to find the answer to the question as it had before (in this case, from Wolfram Alpha), or changed it to a default answer.

Appeals court sends case back to district court for further review.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the judge in a California district court was in error when he ruled that Apple failed to show that it had a case.

The case has now been sent back to the district court for review. The decision involves a single patent which Apple claims Samsung violated in the design of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The iPad-maker is seeking an injunction against the sale of the tablets in the United States.

The judge in the district court had ruled that design patent in question could be challenged as "obvious," which casts doubt on the decision to grant the patent to Apple in the first place. The appeals court disagreed that the patent could be challenged as obvious.

The court did agree with the district court on its decision on three other patents, in which case the court denied requested preliminary injunctions. Apple and Samsung are locked in a patent war across the world.

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) nudges Apple to change adverts.

The newest iPad from Apple has been marketed with the term "Wi-Fi + 4G", since it can connect to Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks in the United States. However, in the UK and the rest of Europe, the iPad will not connect to LTE networks if they are available, because different bands are used in the European Union as those used in the United States.

Consumers complained in the UK that the "4G" element in Apple's ad campaign for its iPad is misleading. Apple says that the confusion is caused by the fact that certain cellular providers market the term 4G differently.

Still, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) approached Apple on the issue, and the Cupertino-based firm said it will change the way it markets the new iPad in the UK.

"Carriers do not all refer to their high speed networks with the same terminology," said the firm in a statement, "therefore we've decided to use 'wi-fi + cellular' as a simple term which describes all the high speed networks supported by the new iPad."

Lenovo shows off new Ultrabook.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon was just one of many new products shown by Lenovo at its Accelerate Channel Partner Conference in Las Vegas. The 14-inch (1600x900 screen) next-generation business Ultrabook has a premium carbon fiber rollcage, weighing less than three pounds. Lenovo's previous Ultrabook, the ThinkPad X1 has a 13-inch screen, and weighs more at 3.8 pounds.

It also features embedded 3G connectivity, a RapidCharge feature that can bring the battery to an 80 percent charge in 35 minutes, a backlit keyboard and HD (720p) camera.

"We crafted the ThinkPad X1 Carbon with premium carbon fiber material in order to make it incredibly thin and light, yet durable," said Lu Yan, senior vice president, Think Product Group, Lenovo.

"Our new ThinkPad laptop portfolio embodies much of the innovative thinking exemplified in the X1 Carbon, such as a backlit keyboard, super-bright high definition display, Dolby Home Theatre and rich communications features that balance business performance with personal use."

The exact hardware configuration is not yet known, except for the fact that it will be powered by an Intel Ivy Bridge processor. It will go on sale in the summer (no price information available yet).

Japanese to take on South Korean counterparts.

Reuters is citing sources close to Sony Corporation and Panasonic in reporting that the firms are in talks to combine their OLED TV production efforts. Organic-Light Emitting Diode (OLED) televisions provide better images and use less power than their LCD rivals, and are thought to be the next big thing in the declining market.

Both Sony and Panasonic have been hammered in the TV space over recent years, particularly since the start of the downturn in 2008. A strong Yen also works against both the Japanese firms in the global market.

Meanwhile in South Korea, Samsung and LG Electronics are moving way ahead of the Japanese firms in OLED, with both planning to sell 55-inch OLED televisions by the end of the year. The OLED displays are as thin as 4mm.

Sony had been making progress in OLED televisions, debuting its first OLED television in 2007. The global downturn halted Sony's progress in OLED however, and the firm has been scrambling to plug record breaking losses in its TV division, and overall poor performance. Right now, it does still make OLED screens for high-end customers, but they come with price tags around $26,000.

IObit to stop offering popular application for free.

IObit, a software developer that offers both paid and freeware applications, has warned that its popular Game Booster application for Windows will cease being available as freeware from June 30th, 2012. After this date, users will have to pay to buy a license for Game Booster.

Game Booster is a one-click application that attempts to free up system resources for gameplay. Another single click will relaunch services and other resources that were temporarily halted by Game Booster, later on. It has been downloaded millions of times from IObit and download portals.

"We intend to keep pace with what gamers care about, and improve Game Booster with practical functions to satisfy gamers' demands," says Kevin Zhou, marketing director for IObit, "Gamers ask for high speed and system stability when gaming. They want easy-to-use software rather than complicated programs that could potentially drag a CPU down."

Zhou also hints that more announcements concerning the future of Game Booster will be released as July approaches. Users who have downloaded Game Booster before July will still be able to use it for free.