The Droid Razr Maxx and other Motorola devices face a U.S. import ban for violating a Microsoft patent. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

The U.S. International Trade Commission awarded Microsoft what could be a significant patent victory on Friday by deciding that all of Motorola Mobility’s Android phones and tablets should face an American import ban.

The proposed ban, which was first reported by the website Foss Patents, is the result of a December ITC ruling that Motorola’s Android devices violate a Microsoft-owned patent — patent 6370566 — that pertains to “generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device.”

Essentially, Microsoft owns a patent on enabling a mobile device to give users “the ability to schedule a meeting request from the mobile device itself” by assigning the created meeting request, or “object,” by way of “a global identification number which uniquely identifies the object to other devices which encounter the object.”

The Obama administration has 60 days to review the ITC’s decision. If the government doesn’t overturn the ban, it will go into effect after the 60-day period is over. Motorola can get around the import ban by removing the feature from its devices or by reaching a patent licensing deal with Microsoft, as many other Android handset makers, such as Samsung, LG and HTC have done.

But, as HTC is discovering right now, software changes can still delay the shipment of new products as federal officials inspect devices to make sure they’re in the clear.

The ITC, which is made up of a six-member board of commissioners, also imposed a 33-cent levy on each device Motorola imports into the U.S. during the 60-day review period.

Motorola officials were unavailable for comment by press time. For its part, Microsoft said it attempted to strike a deal with Motorola before heading to the ITC with its complaint and is still open to a settlement of some sort.

“Microsoft sued Motorola in the ITC only after Motorola chose to refuse Microsoft’s efforts to renew a patent license for well over a year,” David Howard, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel and a corporate vice president, told Wired in an e-mail. “We’re pleased the full Commission agreed that Motorola has infringed Microsoft’s intellectual property, and we hope that now Motorola will be willing to join the vast majority of Android device makers selling phones in the US by taking a license to our patents.”

An ad-supported Kindle Fire could spur impulse buys. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

Whether we like it or not, advertising pays for a bunch of stuff we enjoy. Network TV, magazines and web sites that don’t have multi-billion-dollar IPOs all depend on advertising dollars to make their profit margins — or even survive. And now Amazon is pondering an advertising subsidy for its Kindle Fire tablet.

Ad Age reports that Amazon has been pitching Kindle Fire welcome-screen ads to ad agency executives. For a paltry $600,000, companies can purchase an Amazon “Special Offers” ad to run for two months on the best-selling Android tablet around.

The agencies were unable to determine if the ads would be served to current Kindle Fires, or on an upcoming, subsidized Kindle Fire model. In the Ad Age report, one agency executive expressed concern that adding ads to the current Kindle Fire would upset owners: “You’re already paying a premium for the product and then having that unexpected ad experience makes for a worse consumer experience.”

It’s also unclear what exactly the welcome screen is on the Kindle Fire. Is it the lock screen? Or is it screen that appears when the Fire is started up?

Understandably, the ad agencies that spoke with Ad Age declined to sign up for the Amazon ad buy.

If Amazon is planning on an ad-supported Kindle Fire, the savings could be significant for consumers. Amazon has been selling ad-supported Kindle e-readers for a while now, offering hardware price reductions to consumers willing to suffer a few static ads. Ad-supported Kindles are on average approximately 30 percent cheaper than their ad-free counterparts. If Amazon were to knock 25 percent off of the price of the Kindle Fire, the tablet would sell for $150.

That is if Amazon can sell the ads.

Nokia's share prices from May 2007 to today. Image: Google Finance

Curious about how to burn through $2.5 billion in less than a year? Nokia might have some suggestions. According to a Reuters poll of analysts, Nokia is on track to lose 2 billion euros, or $2.5 billion, of its cash pile in the next three quarters — after already losing $2.7 billion of its cash reserves in the past five quarters.

And that’s not even the most pessimistic of outlooks.

More bullish analysts predict that the Finnish mobile company will wipe out the entirety of its 4.9 billion euro, or $6.2 billion, cash pile by the end of 2012. It’s a worsening outlook for Nokia, which suffered a $1.7 billion loss in Q1. And less than a month ago, the once-largest mobile handset company lost its position to Samsung and had its bonds downgraded to “junk” status.

“I would not rule out the possibility of Nokia being downgraded further,” Nancy Utterback, credit strategist at Aviva Investors, told Reuters. “The company is in a negative spiral that will be hard to reverse.”

Nokia declined to comment on the poll’s findings.

There is, however, still hope for Nokia, according to the 30 banks and brokerages polled by Reuters. The poll found that, on average, analysts believe Nokia will end the year with an actual cash buffer, albeit a small one, of 2.9 billion euros, or $3.6 billion.

It’s a significant loss compared to the company’s 2007 cash pile of more than 10 billion euros, or $12.7 billion. But at least there’s a sliver of hope that Nokia can survive longer than a couple of years.

And Nokia still has the potential to bounce back with its Lumia line of smartphones and the growth of Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. The polled analysts predict that Nokia will sell a total of 46 million smartphones next year, more than double the expected 20 million units for this year.

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By Alexander George. This article was originally published on The Wirecutter, a "list of great technology" curated by Wired alum Brian Lam.

The iPhone's camera is good, but we spent a good amount of time searching for the best gear to make it better.

On top of the homework, we also spoke to some friends from Instagram, like Jessica Zollman, one of the original members of Instagram's community team. And photographer Cole Rise, a designer of some of the filters (including the "rise" filter) and the Instagram app icon itself.

We started out with a list of a few dozen accessories, but since most of the value of the iPhone comes from its apps, there are very few accessories that will really improve your shots, and honestly, only the Olloclip -- first up in our gallery, and described below -- is the must-have device in this list. The rest are good, useful and novel, and if you have a specific need in mind, proven technology.

The Olloclip slips on over the iPhone’s corner and, depending on which direction it’s turned, gives a fish-eye, macro, or wide-angle effect to your shots. The simplicity and sturdiness of its design trumps other lens options that are obtrusive, flimsy and inconvenient by comparison.

Wired magazine’s iPhone lens round-up test bullet-points its qualities: “A must-have for Instagram addicts. Attaches in seconds. The most versatile lens set in the test.”  Jessica Zollman, a member of the community team at Instagram, attests: "It's my favorite for amazing macro photos and I carry it around with me everywhere I go. You never know when some beautiful bug is gonna pose long enough for you to snap its picture. There are some pretty incredible photographs on Instagram tagged with #olloclipmacro too."

Laptop Magazine agreed, and expounded on the potential the device unlocks. They noted that a dedicated point-and-shoot couldn't swap a fish-eye for a macro as quickly as the Olloclip can. Macworld likes that "the fisheye and wide-angle lenses also have secure, plastic lens caps, so you don’t need to worry about the glass getting scratched while bouncing around in a bag with sharp items.” Engadget held lenses to professional standards, and only found “minor barrel distortion” compared to that of a DSLR’s wide-angle lens.

The one grievance reviewers agreed on is that the Olloclip can’t attach over an iPhone case. This was a deciding point for iLounge, with its staff of iPhone case advocates. They said, “In short, despite its capabilities, the 3-in-One Photo Lens wasn’t something any of us would actually use, and mounting was as much to blame as anything else.” But if you’re anything like our own Kyle VanHemert or Instagram superstar Doctor Popular, both of whom carry their phones au naturel, this isn’t a problem.

The Olloclip has few competitors, but the devices that perform a similar function are complicated and expensive. Still, The Tech Block found that Schneider Optic’s iPro Lens System, which attaches its lenses to a metal iPhone casing, is great. Its image quality, especially with the fish eye, is much better. They said, “The Olloclip, you see, goes for $69, while the iPro Len System will set you back almost three times that, at $199." They added: "for casual users who’d like to spice up their phone’s camera without breaking the bank or toting around extra hardware, the Olloclip’s just fine.”

Is the Schneider Optics system worth the extra $130? We don’t think so, but the coated glass on the lenses is, as Wired explains, the same quality as low-distortion SLR hardware. Reviewer Grayson Schaffer says, “When the whole rig is on, the iPhone feels like a serious camera, even though the mount means that some quality is lost between lens and sensor."

Another option is something like Photojojo’s Dial. The case, while intriguing, hasn’t had any evaluative coverage. For us, at $70, (the dial will run you $250) the Olloclip still wins.

Other companies have figured out how to attach a true SLR lens on the iPhone, but no one seems to think the rigging is worth the effort. One example is the Turtleback TurtleJacket SLR Mount, which isn’t responsible for the problems involved with DLSR-ing an iPhone. Since the phone doesn’t have a correcting mirror, you’re shooting all images upside-down while manual focusing.

For the money, the Olloclip can't be beat.

Amazon could be stoking a bigger Fire. Photo: Victor J. Blue/Wired.com

If rumors are to be believed, Apple and Amazon are both working on tablets that would invade each other’s turf. The latest scuttlebutt has Amazon preparing for a 10-inch Kindle Fire: DigiTimes reports that “market rumors” are pointing to a 10-inch Amazon tablet launching in the third quarter of this year.

While Amazon is notoriously tight lipped about its sales figures, the Kindle Fire has been pegged as the number one selling Android tablet on the market, with a 54 percent share among a vast field of competitors. With such a commanding lead, it makes sense that Amazon would set its sights on expanding the Fire line, and taking on the iPad in the 10-inch tablet market.

The irony, of course, is that Apple is rumored to be working on a 7-inch iPad mini. The smallish 7-inch form factor — once blasted by Steve Jobs as being dead-on-arrival — is actually doing quite well for Amazon’s Fire, and conventional wisdom says Apple is finding the prospect of lucrative 7-inch iPad sales too hard to ignore.

Both companies’ tablets support robust digital ecosystems that make money on their own. Apple makes a tidy profit on all its iPad sales, but also takes a 30 percent cut of all iOS app sales. And of course Apple makes money on iTunes movie, TV show and music sales as well.

Amazon, meanwhile, takes a different route: It doesn’t make any money on its rock-bottom-priced, $200 Kindle Fire, but recoups everything on the back end (and then some) via all the digital and physical goods it sells via the tablet, a veritable gateway drug to rampant consumerism. Thanks to this pricing model, the company could effectively subsidize a 10-inch Kindle Fire, selling it for cost at between $300 and $350. At this price, consumers could wave off the iPad and its heady $500 entry fee, and save a bit of cash.

Of course, the 7-inch Kindle Fire isn’t in the same league as the current 10-inch iPad in terms of performance, U.I. and available apps. So, if Apple were to release a 7-inch iPad, Amazon could find itself up against a true competitor in the mini-tablet space. Apple has shown that it can sell hardware at a premium price and still garner a healthy profit.

With each company allegedly looking to drink from the other’s milkshake, the tablet market could get very, very interesting by the end of the year.

Steve Jobs at the 2010 iPad event in San Francisco. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

J.Crew CEO and Apple board member Mickey Drexler revealed some never-before-heard insights into Steve Jobs’ plans and goals at Fast Company‘s Innovation Uncensored conference last month. Apparently, Jobs had dreamed of one day taking Apple onto our public roadways with a sleek, well-designed car.

“Look at the car industry; it’s a tragedy in America. Who is designing the cars?” Drexler said. “Steve’s dream before he died was to design an iCar.”

What an Apple car would look like, we’ll never know. Drexler said Jobs never ended up designing the dream vehicle. Apple’s CEO did help design a few other vehicles, though, including a luxury superyacht and a private jet (not to mention having a hand in iconic Apple products like the iMac, iPhone and iPad).

Drexler also made a statement that could potentially corroborate the seemingly endless supply of Apple television rumors: “The living room they’re dealing with at some point in the near future.”

Of course, Apple’s already got a living room presence with its Apple TV set-top box, so Drexler’s ambiguous statement could reference that — or just about anything else.

Watch excerpts from Drexler’s conference appearance below.

The augmented reality power ring. Illustration: USPTO

Head-mounted wearable computers present a bit of an interface problem. Voice-based head-mounted systems impart the impression that a person is murmuring to him or herself, and accelerometer-based systems that rely on head movement make users look like they have a nervous tic.

One solution to the head-mounted-computer user interface conundrum involves hand gestures. Enter a new Google patent that seems to be the search giant’s answer to controlling its Project Glass augmented reality system. Titled, “wearable marker for passive interaction,” the patented system, which just went public Tuesday, would use a reflective infrared identifier placed on a user’s hand to track and identify the user’s gestures.

The IR identifier would be invisible to the human eye and could be placed on a ring or glove, or even affixed to a fingernail. (Whether the fingernail identifier would be bejeweled isn’t defined in the patent’s language.” An IR camera integrated into an HMD (head mount display) would be used to track the IR image.

Using hand gesture patterns, the HMD would be controlled by a user’s hand movements. For example, a certain gesture pattern could be used to launch an application or open a document.

In addition to interacting with a wearable system that looks suspiciously like Project Glass, the IR identifier could also be used to identify individual users. For example, the system could offer pre-determined, custom eyewear settings for each user: You put on your Google glasses, look at the IR identifier on your finger, and the system would activate your user pre-sets.

Of all the input systems that could be used to control Project Glass, hand gestures would seem to make the most sense. That is, if you’re comfortable looking like you’re conducting an orchestra while walking down the street.

Apple's gorgeous Retina display may not be limited to the iPhone and iPad much longer. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Updated 4:15 Pacific time to emphasize the patent application is a continuation of a previous application.

It looks like we’ll be getting MacBook Pros with Retina displays sooner than later — that’s the news from an industry expert regarding Apple’s supply chain, and it’s supported by an Apple patent filing describing resolution-agnostic user interface design.

The Apple patent application, simply titled “User-Interface Design,” lends additional support to reports that Apple’s next-generation MacBook Pros and iMacs could feature Retina displays. The filing is a continuation of a 2007 patent application that addresses the engineering challenges intrinsic to graphical elements that are first designed for low resolutions (75 to 100 pixels per inch), but later need to be reformatted for higher resolutions (150 PPI, for example).

The patent posits a method for representing a graphical user interface in a resolution-independent way by storing a set of both resolution-independent and dependent attributes in a single file. This would allow for the creation of “a visual representation of the object at any number of resolutions.” Something like this could potentially be useful in converting UI elements to a higher resolution both in iOS and OS X.

Obviously, the patent application doesn’t directly reference upcoming refreshes to Apple’s hardware line, but it shows the company has always been thinking about the engineering challenges it might face when producing gear with significant variations in display quality.

Another data point comes from NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim, who has looked at supply chain indicators, and has reported that higher-resolution MacBooks should be on the way.

Shim told Wired that NPD DisplaySearch is seeing activity in the production of two different types of panels: a 13.3-incher and a 15.4-incher, both coming from suppliers that normally make displays for Apple notebooks. The 13.3-inch panel has a 2560×1600 resolution, which amounts to 227 PPI. The 15.4-inch model comes with a 2880×1800 resolution and 220 PPI. That’s double the resolution of current MacBook Pros. Shim said the 15-inch model started production in Q2 this year, and the 13-incher looks like it will begin production in Q3.

When the iPad jumped to a Retina display in the third generation model, the resolution doubled from that of the 2011 iPad 2. “Consumers love Apple’s retina display, so it makes sense to extend it throughout Apple’s product line,” Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps told Wired via email.

Portions of Mountain Lion source code have also hinted that Retina display would arrive in 2012 Mac products. Various insider sources have confirmed the Retina display upgrade to a number of different outlets. And ABC News reported that in addition to MacBook Pros, the iMac line would also be getting a high resolution refresh.

If you’re in the market for a new Mac, looks like you should hold off for a few more months yet.

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On this week’s edition of the Gadget Lab Show, the gang takes a gander at the Nook Simple Touch e-reader and the Pebble Smartwatch, the most successful Kickstarter project ever.

Gadget Lab editor Jon Phillips and Reviews editor Michael Calore open up the show with a look at the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch E-Ink reader. It’s been updated from last year’s model to include an LED backlight that illuminates the screen from behind, making it easier to read at night. It’s still got a touch-sensitive screen. The light adds $40 to the price, making it $140. If you’re on the fence as to what e-reader to buy, Michael advises not to look at the e-reader itself, but the platform it belongs to.

Next up, staff writer Alexandra Chang joins Jon to talk about the Pebble Smartwatch, which she got to check out first-hand in Palo Alto, California. The display is a memory LCD, which is easy to read in bright sunlight, and refreshes more quickly than similar-looking E-Ink displays. The Pebble team sold 85,000 watches, and reached $10.2 million in their Kickstarter campaign. Pebble Smartwatches should begin shipping to the original Kickstarter backers in September.

To close the show, Michael joins Jon again to go hands-on with the new Big Jambox from Jawbone. Its design apes the original Jambox, but the speaker is about 10 inches long, and bigger in every dimension. For those who aren’t familiar, the original Jambox is an uber-popular $200 Bluetooth speaker. This larger model is $300, and works exactly the same as the original, but is way louder and has better audio quality all around.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds.

Or listen to the audio below:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #151

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0151.mp3

Your new phone booth. Photo: Virgin Atlantic

Whether you want it or not, phone calls are coming to commercial airplane flights. But like any new service, there are technical limitations, a premium price point, and a chance someone is going to be upset sitting next to a Chatty Kathy.

On Tuesday, Virgin Atlantic announced that customers would be able to make cellphone calls and send text messages while traveling across the Atlantic. The airline announced the immediate availability of the service on select aircraft, with the feature expanding to 20 aircraft by the end of 2012.

So how will the airline keep passengers in contact with their friends back home? Virgin is using satellites and microcells.

The technology behind the system is quite straightforward. According to Virgin Atlantic’s technology partner, AeroMobile, each plane with the feature will be equipped with a picocell installed in the cabin above the heads of passengers. The picocell acts as a tiny GPRS cell tower. Because the picocell is so close to passengers, user cellphones will actually emit relatively modest signals because they won’t have to work very hard in securing a network handshake. Airplane instruments are extremely sensitive, so the less random signal in the air, the better.

To communicate with people on the ground, the picocell uses the same satellite communications system as the airplane to connect calls. AeroMobile told Wired that because of capacity restraints in existing satellite communications systems, their picocell could only connect to six mobile devices at a time.

Whether the in-flight calls will be a convenience or nuisance remains to be seen. But before you start charging your phones or purchase a pair of noise-canceling headphones, consider a few caveats.

Initially, only customers of British carriers O2 and Vodafone will be able to use the service. If and when the service is adopted by U.S. carries, it will work with GSM phones only — Virgin’s system does not work with the CDMA networks used by Sprint and Verizon. So if you’re a Sprint or Verizon customer, you may as well put your phone back into airplane mode.

Because of an FCC ban on cellphone calls from airplanes in flight, the AeroMobile system is disabled when an aircraft is within 250 miles of the U.S. border. The FCC had proposed easing the restrictions on in-flight calling in 2007, but nixed the plan, citing technical issues and complaints from the public. Apparently no one wants to sit next to someone calling his doctor for test results while 30,000 feet in the air.

Virgin Atlantic says that the new call feature is targeted at business travelers, and is intended for use in exceptional situations. These exceptional situations appear to come down to a passenger’s willingness to pay a premium for a quick call or text message. Indeed: Customers can expect to pay premium international rates for keeping in touch while in the air.

The upshot: The chances are slim you’ll be stuck next to a someone gabbing away on your next flight. Unless, of course, you’re sitting next someone with a story to tell and money to burn.

Shipments of the HTC One X have been blocked by U.S. Customs enforcement. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

If you’re looking to buy an HTC One X or Evo 4G LTE smartphone, you might have to wait awhile. Shipments of the two new Android handsets are currently being blocked by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, who are reviewing the devices to make sure they don’t violate an Apple patent.

“The U.S. availability of the HTC One X and HTC Evo 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order,” HTC told Wired in an e-mail. “We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval. The HTC One X and HTC Evo 4G LTE have been received enthusiastically by customers and we appreciate their patience as we work to get these products into their hands as soon as possible.”

The holdup comes as part of a ban on a limited number of HTC smartphones that went into effect on April 19. The ban was the product of a patent suit ruling made by the International Trade Commission in December. The Commission found that HTC was infringing on a 1996 Apple patent — patent number 5,946,647 — that covers the “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data.”

Essentially, the ITC ruled that Apple has a patent on a data-detecting function: When you receive an e-mail or text message containing, say, phone numbers or URLs, your device will convert those elements to live links. Tap a link, and you’ll be sent straight to your phone app, web browser, and so on.

HTC says it has fixed the way it deals with links to computer-generated data, and that the One X and Evo 4G LTE should eventually be cleared for sale. But, so far, HTC can’t say when the matter will be resolved.

Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection were unavailable for comment by press time.

The One X and the new Evo are the first two phones to face the ITC-imposed review process, though a small number of One X handsets did ship to the United States before the April 19 ban on patent-violating devices went into effect. The HTC One S, which runs the same software as the One X and the Evo 4G LTE — Google’s Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) skinned in HTC’s Sense 4 user interface — was shipped to the United States before April 19.

The delay could result in the Evo 4G LTE missing its launch date on Sprint’s network, which is this Friday. The One X, an AT&T exclusive in the United States, went on sale May 6.

Via Reuters.

The HTC Evo 4G LTE. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Flipboard has added audio content to its social magazine offerings. Image: Christina Bonnington/Wired

Flipboard is a graphically stunning social media aggregator that organizes your friends’ tweets, posts and links into beautiful, magazine-like spreads. But now the basic Flipboard experience isn’t just visual: In an update Tuesday evening, Flipboard added sound to the mix, so you can enjoy your favorite podcasts and music through the app as well.

Flipboard now includes programming from NPR and Public Radio International (PRI), as well as integration with Soundcloud, an online music-streaming platform. The app is also becoming more accessible to the visually impaired through iOS’ VoiceOver integration.

Flipboard’s decision to update the app with audio integration moves it beyond informative eye candy, making it a much more complete news and entertainment experience.

The audio integration is executed in true Flipboard style. You can add your favorite podcasts, netcasts and more by accessing the content guides via the red tab in the upper-right corner of the app. You just click the new Audio section, and from there you can sample featured content — for example, NPR’s Fresh Air or Lifehacker’s SoundCloud station — or add specific audio channels, such as KQED (northern California’s public radio station), PRI’s The World, or Radiolab. These are then added to Your Flipboard.

When you’re listening to music or a podcast, a music note icon appears next to the app’s back button. This lets you easily play, pause, or skip tracks while you catch up on the day’s news stories. And audio keeps playing when you leave the app, which is convenient in case you need to check email or send a text.

Flipboard, a longtime iPad staple, introduced an iPhone app in December and will be coming to Android in the coming months. The app was a personal favorite of Steve Jobs’, and garnered a spot in our Essential App list in the 2011 Wired App Guide.

Along with the audio integration news, Flipboard also released a fourth completely international version of the app for Japanese users. The app is already available in French and Chinese versions, and for those abroad and looking for local content, the app has a customized content guide for nine different countries.

If you’re not interested in the app’s new audio features, you can keep on Flipboarding as you have been. But if you’re a fan of podcasts available on NPR, PRI or SoundCloud, the added functionality should be music to your ears.

Samsung's flexible OLED display technology is being mass-produced this year. Photo courtesy Jennifer Colegrove

Flexible displays have tickled our imaginations for years. And before the end of 2012, we’ll finally see companies employing flexible displays in their products. But while the possibilities are tantalizing, don’t let your imagination run wild. The earliest iterations of flexible displays won’t be very bendy, and they won’t appear in Apple hardware as some news outlets have recently speculated.

In early March, Samsung announced it would be mass-producing its flexible OLED displays, like the one seen above, by the end of this year. Now flash-forward to this Monday: According to a report from the Korea Times, Samsung is seeing “huge” orders for this display, and Apple is “likely” to be one of the major players.

Such a display could be useful in a number of applications, such as in a device with a gently curved screen. Ultimately, the display could even be deployed in a flexible, bendable phone or tablet. But that’s probably not on the horizon — especially Apple’s horizon — anytime soon.

“It’s completely impossible to see any Apple product with flexible AMOLED this year,” Jennifer Colegrove, NPD DisplaySearch’s vice president of emerging display technology, told Wired. “However, I do believe Apple display engineers are constantly looking into new technology to put into their products, and OLED is one of the technologies they are looking at.”

Samsung’s flexible OLED display certainly has some advantages over current display tech. For one, it’s basically unbreakable because it doesn’t use glass, but rather a type of plastic called polyamide.

“This type of flexible display will be very thin, lightweight, rugged, and unbreakable,” Colegrove said. All of these qualities are very attractive features for a future iOS device. And that’s important: Apple wouldn’t adopt trendy, gimmicky tech just for gimmick’s sake.

“Apple is very function oriented. They figure out the function, then make it appealing and useful,” said Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. “Other companies may take a flexible display, and just make it curvy just because it’s interesting.” Sounds like what we’ve seen with the deployment of 3D technology in smartphones.

Currently, devices like the Nokia Lumia 800 appear to have a slightly curved display, but the display itself isn’t bent. Rather, the glass on the top of the display tapers to a curve.

Gillett said bendable displays could ultimately be used in devices that roll up like a newspaper — ideal for reducing the physical footprint of any mobile device. But that’s just the far-out, sci-fi-inspired application of flexible display technology. A truly bendable device “would be an engineering nightmare because the more people flex it, the more you’d wear the components inside it,” Gillett said.

Colegrove concurs: “The challenge to making a display rollable or bendable is durability.” Indeed, there are a lot of parts inside a display — substrates, electrodes — and after a few thousand bends, they just might not function anymore.

So why even use a flexible display in the first place? Gillett points out that if this technology is more energy-efficient than current types of displays, a manufacturer may not be interested in flexibility at all, and simply use the screens because they save on battery life.

Colegrove said there are two reasons why Samsung’s flexible OLED is attractive to device manufacturers. First, the display is thin, lightweight and difficult to break — this offers immediate design benefits. Second, any type of new, novel technology offers marketing benefits. You can hear the commercial spiel now: “We have the first flexible AMOLED display devices in human history!”

“I think it’s highly possible that the display will be used in a flat formfactor, or in a slightly curved shape,” Colegrove said. And while the display itself might be curved, its shape would be fixed — a user won’t be able to freely bend it or roll it up like a newspaper (or at least not this year).

It’s also worth noting that Samsung is talking about relatively modest production runs of the new flexible technology — 960,000 OLED sheets according to the Korea Times. This level of output simply isn’t enough to accommodate the production demands for Apple gear, which, for devices like the iPhone, can reach into the hundreds of millions.

Nonetheless, Gillett and Colegrove expect flexible display technology to hit the consumer market on a relatively small scale before the year’s end. E-readers should be the first devices to include flexible e-paper displays. They’ll remain flat in shape, but provide all the ruggedness manufacturers look for, Colegrove said. As for Samsung’s flexible OLED technology, it will appear in phones in 2012, and possibly in tablets next year.

And if you’re looking to find a flexible display in an iDevice, you’ll probably have to wait until the 2013-2014 time frame, says Colgrove — with truly bendy iDevices appearing in 2015 at the earliest.

The Galaxy Nexus was Google's flagship Samsung phone for the Android 4.0 launch.

In support of its upcoming Android 5.0 operating system release, code-named Jelly Bean, Google will deploy the OS on not a single Nexus smartphone per Android tradition, but perhaps on five Nexus phones this fall — so says a Tuesday report by Wall Street Journal.

The move would be a huge reboot for Google’s Nexus program, which so far has resulted in three phones over the last three years — the HTC Nexus One, and Samsung’s Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus. Each handset has shipped with a “pure” version of Google’s Android operating system, free of any third-party skins, bloatware or alterations.

Last month, Google began selling an unlocked variation of the Galaxy Nexus, which runs Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), for $400 via Google Play, the company’s online storefront. If Google rolls with the multiple Nexus phone approach, as the Journal reports, it would sell the phones unlocked in Asia, Europe and the U.S. on both Google Play and through traditional brick-and-mortar retail channels.

Google declined to comment on the report or its future Android and Nexus plans.

By delivering a flagship phone to every handset manufacturer of relevance, Google could help alleviate fears among OEMs that it will favor Motorola Mobility, which Google hopes to purchase for $12.5 billion. Regulators in the U.S. and the European Union have both signed off on Google’s proposed takeover of Motorola’s consumer gadget arm, but the Chinese government has yet to approve the deal.

A Nexus family of phones could be produced by as many as five different hardware makers, launching in time for Black Friday this November, the Journal reported, adding that a rumored Nexus Tablet from Asus could go on sale around the same time.

If Google could pull of this bold strategy, it could also reduce Android OS fragmentation. Not only would more phones in the ecosystem be running the latest OS — Android 5.0 — but each handset manufacturer would have more familiarity and expertise with the new OS, allowing it to more quickly tweak its own custom builds for Android 5.0 on non-Nexus handsets.

Currently, about 64 percent of Android devices run on version 2.3 (Gingerbread). Android 4, better known as Ice Cream Sandwich, runs on only some 5 percent of Android devices, despite launching on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus last November.

A model shows off LG's Optimus 4X HD smartphone. Photo: LG Electronics

LG’s first quad-core smartphone, the Optimus 4X HD, is launching in Europe next month, taking on other four-core flagships such as the HTC One X and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S III. Just one caveat: The top-of-the-line Optimus 4X HD might not make its way to the U.S. 

At this point, no quad-core smartphones have come to North America, though Samsung’s Galaxy S III has been announced with a four-core CPU, and a stateside launch of sometime later this summer.

The North American version of the HTC One X packs a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor rather than the quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 chip in the international version. We tested both versions, and didn’t notice any performance dips in the dual-core model.

On Tuesday, LG said the Optimus 4X, which uses the same 1.5GHz Tegra 3 processor as the European One X, will arrive in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Poland and Sweden in June. The South Korean electronics company hasn’t made any U.S. announcements for the Optimus 4X, and LG currently has “no plans beyond what has already been announced for Optimus 4X HD at this time,” company spokesman Robbert Abott told Wired in an email.

The prospect that the Optimus 4X won’t make it’s way to the U.S. is a shame. On paper, it looks like a hell of a phone, featuring a 4.7-inch IPS display, 16GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, an 8MP rear camera and Google’s Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system.

The new Nokia 112 (left) and Nokia 110 (right) give users web-browsing access at a low cost. Image: Nokia

Don’t look now, but Gadget Lab is actually excited by a couple of feature phones.

Nokia isn’t just focused on bolstering its position in the smartphone market. The company on Tuesday unveiled two new feature phones — the Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 — that will bring web browsing, social networking and gaming to budget-conscious consumers and emerging markets.

The Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 will both cost less than $50 without contracts, and will run on Nokia’s Series 40 operating system. Users will have access to the web through the Nokia Browser, which reduces data consumption by 90 percent by compressing websites to a cloud-based server, according to Nokia. This will keep data costs down for Nokia 110 and 112 users.

Both phones also feature Facebook and Twitter access directly on the home screen. And in its aim to target younger customers, Nokia will make 40 EA game titles available to Nokia 110 and 112 owners to download for free. On board there’s also an FM radio and a media player that can play both music and video.

Both feature phones have a 1.8-inch TFT LCD screen, a VGA camera, dual SIM card capacity, and MicroSD slots that support up to 32 GB of storage. The main difference between the two devices lies in battery life — the Nokia 110 gets up to 10.5 hours of talk time, while the Nokia 112 offers 14 hours.

While these definitely aren’t the kinds of phones you’ll want to wait in line for, both models pack a lot of features at a minimal cost. And Nokia definitely needs to give its feature-phone sales a boost. According to its Q1 earnings, Nokia’s feature and basic phone sales dropped 16 percent, mainly due to competition from microvendors in emerging markets. Differentiating its phones with web browsing and social-network access, at a low cost, is a sensible move for the company.

The Nokia 110 is set to ship in the second quarter for 35 euros, or around $45, and the Nokia 112 is scheduled to ship in the third quarter for 38 euros, or around $49.

A demonstration of the Isis Mobile Wallet app running on an Android smartphone from HTC. Photo: Isis

Isis — the mobile-payments venture founded by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon — announced on Tuesday that it has struck deals with Coca-Cola, Foot Locker, Macy’s and a number of other retailers to use its pay-by-smartphone system in stores nationwide later this year.

Isis also announced that hundreds of local retailers in Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah, will accept payments using its Isis Mobile Wallet platform later this summer when the wave-and-pay effort officially launches.

As for which smartphones will actually work with Isis, the mobile payments consortium is keeping mum.

Isis, like its rival Google Wallet, uses the near field communication (NFC) chips found in many smartphones to store either a user’s credit card data or a pre-loaded amount of digital cash. With their Isis phones, users will be able to make purchases by waving or tapping their smartphones on an Isis-compatible check-out scanner.

Google Wallet is already working with check-out scanners in more than 100,000 retail locations, including big-name stores such as the Gap, Office Max, Toys ‘R’ Us and Walgreens. However, Google Wallet is stymied by its poor smartphone support — it’s currently available in only four phones from Sprint, and none from Isis backers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.

The national retailers opting into Isis include the clothing store chain Aéropostale, Coca-Cola (via vending machines), Dillard’s department stores, Foot Locker and its subsidiary Champs Sports, Jamba Juice and Macy’s, said an Isis spokesman. Various local-only retailers in Austin and Salt Lake City will also support Isis payments, the spokesman said.

Roping in all these prominent brand names is a win for Isis, but don’t feel too bad for Google Wallet. Coca-Cola, Footlocker, Champs, Jamba Juice and Macy’s are already working with Google’s mobile payment scheme.

The Project Glass design gets a patent. Illustration: USPTO

When Google announced its augmented-reality glasses, Project Glass, with a wowing demo video, researchers with augmented-reality expertise were skeptical that Google could pull off what it was showing.

It turns out the researchers were right to question Google’s ability to bring the UI portrayed in the video to market. CNET reported Tuesday that a Google spokesperson said images would not be displayed on the lenses of the augmented-reality headset.

In other words, the system portrayed in the video below will not be coming from Google any time soon.

Instead, a small display will be placed in the tiny arm that’s situated above the right eye of the user. This design would keep overlay graphics away from the user’s direct line of sight, alleviating any safety issues that might arise from having augmented-reality data consume a user’s field of vision.

Unfortunately, the lack of full data overlays also makes the headset less exciting. The type of display Google is now describing has been on the market for years, most notably in Recon’s HUD MOD live alpine goggles.

But what Google lacks in whiz-bang, display-in-lenses awesomeness, it hopes to regain in functionality. One of those functions was used by Google Lab X founder Sebastian Thrun when he recently uploaded a photo taken with the glasses to Google+. But other than this photo-taking feature, Google is mum on additional Project Glass features. Specifically, Google told CNET, “It’s still too early to know what the functions and UI will be.”

In related news, Google was granted a design patent for the Project Glasses headset on Tuesday. The patent, first noticed by Engadget, is similar to the prototypes shown in Google’s media releases of the devices and the glasses worn by Sergey Brin at a recent party in San Francisco. The patent regards the glasses’ frames, not the augmented-reality component.

An alternative to in-car voice control: a steering-wheel-mounted click wheel. Image: Patently Apple

It’s rare that an Apple patent application passes through the system completely unnoticed until it’s actually granted, but such is the case with a patent for a wireless remote control for a car steering wheel.

The patent, “Wireless remote control device for a portable media device,” was discovered by Patently Apple Tuesday. It describes a touch-sensitive, iPod-style clickwheel device that attaches to a vehicle’s steering wheel, and is used to control a media player.

The patent specifically mentions the remote control’s potential for use with mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. It would hook on to your steering wheel using adjustable clamping feet, and the faceplate, which could use either capacitive or resistive-touch technology, would be rotatable.

In-car entertainment and infotainment systems are becoming increasingly commonplace in today’s vehicles. You can find them in everything from Toyotas to Mercedes to Fords.

These systems are usually compatible with your smartphone, allowing you to play music from your device on your car’s stereo (among other uses). But there’s one problem: It’s not easy to safely control music playback functions while driving. Most current systems only output your device’s audio, and to advance through tracks and the like, you have to manually adjust your mobile device.

Some auto manufacturers are addressing the interface hurdle via voice recognition. But if you’re jamming out while you’re cruising down the highway, do you really want to have to turn down the volume or yell over the music just to skip to the next track? It could be quite useful to instead adjust a remote control that’s just a thumb-click away.

In case you’re wondering, this patent wasn’t filed during the click-wheeled iPod’s heyday — it was originally filed in Q1 2011. It was designed by Apple UI Design Manager Policarpo Wood and Anton Davydov, a principal designer at Frog Design, the company behind the Apple IIc and NeXT workstation.

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Gadget Lab is awash in high-end smartphones. We’re practically swimming in multi-core processors, cutting-edge display technology, and 4G bandwidth. Ice Cream Sandwich? We eat it every day for lunch.

We’re gadget enthusiasts. We’re literally paid to test the industry’s hottest superphones. But while we’re playing around with top-shelf hardware, what are less-passionate, less-demanding consumers actually buying? After all, not everyone will be purchasing an elite smartphone this year. Across the planet, the wireless industry will put some very crappy phones in the pockets of people who just aren’t interested in (or can’t afford) the latest features and specs.

Last week’s CTIA Wireless show in New Orleans was ground zero for bottom-feeding mobile phone hardware. Have you heard of Plum Mobile? The company makes the Might, shown above. How about Unnecto? These are not household names. Nonetheless, these manufacturers and others almost equally as obscure descended on the convention to strike deals with wireless carriers. Gadget Lab was there to see their handsets up close.

If any of the following phones strike your fancy, let us know, and we’ll call them in for review. If nothing else, spending more time with bottom-feeding handsets should remind us just how much we love high-end smartphones -- and that we should never take our jobs as gadget critics for granted.