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The housing market may never get back to where it was in the boom years, but even if you can't flip your condo it could be possible to flip your phone this month with some help from eBay.

eBay's Instant Sale site is offering some pretty big bucks for used flagship smartphones through the end of June, a promotion timed to coincide with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S III later this week. For example, an iPhone 4 with 32GB in working condition could be worth as much as $300 -- that's $100 more than competing buyback site Gazelle is currently offering.

eBay is showing love to existing Android phone owners, too, with a used Galaxy S II fetching up to $220 and a Droid Razr Maxx worth as much as $250. If you're able to work it so you can get a subsidized price on your Samsung Galaxy S III, you could end up upgrading for a net cost of zero, or even make some money on the deal.

Here's some more example trade-in offers that eBay sent along: … Read more

The Samsung Galaxy S III and its Galactic chums could be getting a next-generation stylus, which you could use to chat with your friends as well as do the usual scribbling and scrawling.

Spotted by Patent Bolt in a recent patent application, the digital stylus is designed for writing or tapping on the screen of your phone or tablet -- but also for chatting, thanks to a built-in wireless headset.

The headset, housed in the clip, lets you make or receive a phone call without interrupting your doodling. It also means you don't have to lift your oversize phone or tablet to your face.

Read more of "Samsung Galaxy stylus scribbles, scrawls, makes phone calls" at Crave UK.… Read more

Samsung's latest flagship phone, the Samsung Galaxy S3, is about to launch in the US. I'm excited! But I'm also confused. Is this my dream phone, one that I can use with both AT&T and Verizon? Getting a straight answer has proven tough.

In the past, swapping a phone between the two major networks had been hard because they use different technologies for their 2G and 3G networks. Verizon uses CDMA (as does Sprint), while AT&T uses GSM (as does T-Mobile).

But in the full 4G world, both are using … Read more

In the weeks leading up to the formal unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S III, the Internet was full of rumors, conjecture, and a smattering of "leaks." In some cases we saw dummy displays, and other seemingly legitimate fanboy fodder, but for everything that landed online, no one leak turned out to be 100 percent accurate.

So how was Samsung able to keep the Galaxy S III shrouded in mystery? As Samsung tells us in a new blog post, it was a combination of tight lips, isolation, and multiple prototypes. … Read more

Apple's bid to ban the sale of the Samsung Galaxy S III in the U.S. has been put on ice.

U.S. District Court judge Lucy Koh decided (PDF) this week that Apple cannot argue its case for a ban on the flagship handset at a previously scheduled June 21 hearing. Instead, Apple is required to file a motion for the ban that includes a request for a hearing date held sometime after June 21.

The issue, according to Koh, is that there are already quite a few issues to consider at the June 21 hearing. And to … Read more

Google and Apple have upped their game in 2012, and a new crop of smartphones running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Apple's new iOS 6 will offer consumers a tough choice when it comes to choosing a new phone.

Apple isn't expected to launch the next iPhone until the fall. But the company gave a preview of what's to come with the unveiling of iOS 6 mobile software this week at its WWDC conference in San Francisco. From what I can tell, the new iPhone will give the current crop of Android 4.0 devices … Read more

Nick DiCarlo waved me over to a low table in a hotel meeting room, pointing me to rows of stickers affixed to card stock. Taking in my quizzical expression, Samsung's VP of product planning for mobile urged me to hold the Galaxy S III demo device in front of a sticker, one that happened to be attached to his business card. The phone buzzed, and a moment later, DiCarlo's contact information appeared on the screen, ready for me to save to my address book.

These TecTiles, as Samsung calls them, are no ordinary stickers. A tiny nub of … Read more

It's clear that Samsung wants its flagship Samsung Galaxy S III to be ubiquitous.

In addition to selling it on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and U.S. Cellular in the upcoming weeks, the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone will also sell on C Spire Wireless, formerly Cellular South.

Today, the regional carrier announced the Galaxy S III as its debut handset for the 4G LTE network it plans to launch in September to 20 Mississippi markets.

C Spire will announce the Galaxy S III's pricing and availability "in the coming weeks."

As you'd expect, today's Apple WWDC keynote drew big crowds of Apple fans eager for hardware and software news. Yet, you might be surprised that even the most devout Android enthusiasts were watching along to see what the "competition" was doing.

After two hours crammed full of products and services, we came away with some wonderful stuff. What we didn't get, though, is a new iPhone or any promise of when one might come. And while that's surely disappointing for some, it opens the way for a sunny Android summer, dominated largely by Samsung. … Read more