Cel phones extensions could ring in the end for landlines

HTC Mini - Landline killer?Our family’s landline has long been an expense that I’ve greedily eyed for elimination. After all, we’ve got 3 cel phones in our house, do we really need these extra handsets just because we’re at home?

The argument against moving to strictly cellular phones (mostly from others in my house) is generally that without extra handsets we’d have to carry our cel phones around all the time. If we go into the basement or upstairs, we’d have to tote our cel phone around all the time if we want to be able to answer it.

Not so anymore, thanks to the HTC Mini.

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Apple’s legal victory over Samsung – and consumers

Rotten apple by _Tawcan, on FlickrApple was awarded over $1 billion in damages today in a landmark legal decision that was an almost complete loss for Samsung that could leave the company struggling to survive. And though the case could mean the end for Samsung, it will likely leave consumers as the real losers.

A federal jury in San Jose, California, ruled that Samsung infringed on several Apple patents and awarded the iDevice maker over $1 billion in damages. According to USA Today, the ruling is the largest surviving verdict in patent history. (Two larger verdicts were reversed, according to Stanford University law professor Mark Lemley).

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