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Perhaps you've heard about the thousands of cicadas that are preparing to take over the East Coast with a "frenzy of sex and death." Perhaps you're not really sure how intense the Insect Spring will become. We're here to help. The extremely noisy bugs are coming for what some have called the Super Bowl of cicada mating season, and they are due to arrive, up and out of your trees and with the sexual sounds of a power saw, sometime very soon. ...

The world’s top smartphone vendor has decided it would rather tug on our heart-strings than tickle our funny bones for its first Galaxy S4 ads. Samsung (005930), whose ads have often generated laughs at the expense of rival Apple (AAPL), released three new television spots on Wednesday that focus solely on three key new Galaxy S4 features: the S Translator that provides instant voice-enabled translations into different languages, the Sound Shot camera feature that lets users embed audio files into their pictures and the Group Play feature that lets users quickly sync up audio playing on all their devices to create a more amplified sound from multiple smartphone speakers. All of these features were important parts of Samsung’s tap-dancing Broadway unveiling of the

NEW YORK (AP) — The parent company of T-Mobile USA is considering raising its offer for MetroPCS Communications Inc., which some shareholders have called too low, according to a published report.

The Galaxy S4 will launch with two different models when it is released at the end of the month. The United States and Europe will receive the smartphone with a quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, while the global model will be equipped with an eight-core Exynos 5 Octa CPU. SamMobile recently ran some benchmarks on the unreleased handset and found that Samsung’s (005390) Exynos processor outperformed Qualcomm’s (QCOM) Snapdragon 600 but a substantial margin. The 3G-only global model, which includes Samsung’s eight-core chipset clocked at 1.6GHz, scored a whooping 28,018 in the popular AnTuTu benchmark test, compared to a score of a 23,607 from the 1.9GHz quad-core U.S. and European model. The 4G LTE Asian model, which is clocked at an even faster

Lasers are common, but until now, no one has deployed a laser for use as a weapon. The United States Navy announced on Monday that it now has a laser weapons system ready for deployment. The solid-state laser will be placed on the U.S.S. Ponce sometime after Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year 2014. Ponce serves as a Afloat Forward Staging Base in the Persian Gulf.

T-Mobile USA parent company Deutsche Telekom is reportedly preparing an improved bid for MetroPCS in order to help ensure that the merger proposed earlier this year is approved by shareholders, The Wall Street Journal reports. MetroPCS shareholders were recently advised to vote against the original offer by Institutional Shareholder Services, and DT’s improved bid would be a response to that and other opposition. The initial deal offered approximately $4 per share and a 26% stake in the merged company, and the revised offer could reportedly be announced as soon as Wednesday.

Asian disease epidemics can be poison for consumer electronics sales. The big SARS scare of 2003 had a major impact on Chinese handset volumes. In April of the year SARS swept the East, Chinese phone sales abruptly declined by nearly 10%, violently reversing the month-on-month sales growth of March. Back then, China was such a small part of worldwide phone sales that the spring swoon did not have much of a global impact. 10 years later, China’s role in global handset market is far greater, and the consumer reaction to a new epidemic could move the needle on worldwide shipment volumes. It is worth noting that SARS wasn’t exactly a match to the Great Influenza epidemic of 1918 — SARS ended

The Animals Hiding in a T. Rex s Roar

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — As soon as Google Maps Street View was rolled out in Lithuania earlier this year, tax authorities were ready.

Apple (AAPL) is set to post its results for the second fiscal quarter on April 23rd and a new report suggests increased competition may have hurt Apple more than usual. Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha said in a recent note to clients that competition is hurting Apple more than it has in the past, and he sees iPhone sales in the March quarter falling to 38 million units — though that figure is still up from 35.1 million iPhones in the same quarter last year.  Moving forward, Garcha thinks competition will become an even bigger factor in Apple’s fiscal third quarter following the launch of Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy S4, shipments of which are expected to top 10 million in the phone’s first month

Law enforcement officers raided the headquarters of Samsung’s (005930) display unit in South Korea this week over allegations that it stole OLED technology from LG Display (LPL), Bloomberg reported. Officers sought to gather evidence and determine whether partners of the rival display-maker leaked its technology secrets and if Samsung was involved in any way. The two companies have been butting heads recently with a string of patent infringement lawsuits stemming from charges filed against six LG employees who were found to have stolen Samsung’s OLED technology last July. A Samsung spokesperson denied the recent allegations, claiming that the company has “no reason to steal other companies’ technology” because it already has “the world’s best OLED technology,” while an LG spokesperson denied that

Two of the major broadcast networks are now threatening to remove their stations from the free airwaves if a little start-up called Aereo succeeds, with CBS joining Fox (and the NBCUniversal network Univision) in their pledges to go cable. ...

Anticipation reached Apple-like levels head of Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy S4 unveiling last month, and one feature in particular generated a good amount of hype. Though early reports incorrectly stated that “Smart Pause” utilized eye-tracking to automatically pause media when a user looked away from his or her phone, the new feature still achieved the same result using facial recognition technology. While Android fans will have to wait until the end of April at the earliest for the Galaxy S4 to launch before they can check out the new Smart Pause feature, a new free app lets iPhone users enjoy similar functionality today. Cube26 on Tuesday released a free iPhone app called LookAway Player, which functions as a portal into YouTube

Just because the iPhone is still the world’s best-selling smartphone, that doesn’t mean its sales can’t be disappointing relative to expectations. Reuters reports that iPhone manufacturer Hon Hai, which trades publicly as Foxconn, reported a 19% decline in revenue compared to a year ago. What’s more, Reuters says that the decline is due primarily to “disappointing” iPhone sales over the past quarter and notes that revenue from building iPhones and iPads typically account for at least 60% of Foxconn’s sales. Recent estimates have suggested that Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 5 has been selling below expectations but that the company is still in line to meet or exceed overall iPhone sales targets due to the continued strong demand for iPhone 4 and

There’s another controversy over Mother Jones magazine, a secret tape, and a prominent Republican speaking in private. And like with its publication of Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" comments, Mother Jones will probably cite a Supreme Court decision in publishing the recording.

Despite all the negativity around the Facebook phone, the early reviewers can all agree on one thing: The Facebook phone got them using Facebook—a lot. Maybe even too much. Ahead of Friday's official release of the $99 HTC First that comes preloaded with the new Facebook Home software, which will also be available for download by Android users, a bunch of gadget reviewers have been playing with the phone for a few days, bestowing their thoughts and feelings for our reading pleasure on the Internet today. Overall, they sound pleasantly surprised. ...

Apple’s (AAPL) next-generation iPhone will reportedly be available with three or five different color options, including one to three new colors on top of the current black and white options. Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White reported as much back in January, and now a new report from Japanese blog Macotakara reinforces those earlier claims. A translation of the post says that the iPhone 5S will be announced in July with three new color options, though a subsequent report from AppleInsider suggests the translation is not accurate and the original post says only one new color option will be available in addition to black and white. Macotakara says Apple’s new entry-level iPhone will be available in several different colors as well.

By Sarah McBride and Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As the wrangling over immigration reform intensifies in the Congress, the tech industry is lobbying hard to raise the limit on H-1B visas, which allow non-U.S. citizens with advanced skills and degrees in "specialty occupations" to work in the country for up to six years. Demand is so great that the annual cap of 65,000 was hit last week, just days after the application period opened. ...

Apple (AAPL) has struck a new deal to license patents from Access, according to a document published on the patent holding firm’s website. The IP covered in the small deal includes patents originally filed by Palm, Bell Communications Research and Geoworks. As 9to5Mac points out, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs once told then-Palm CEO Ed Colligan that the company’s patents were “not that great,” and that Apple had passed on an earlier opportunity to acquire them to protect the iPhone because they were basically worthless. To be fair though, the Apple-Access licensing deal is valued at 1 billion yen, or about $10 million USD, which is indeed practically nothing to a company with more than $140 billion in cash on hand.

Watch out, rival carriers: T-Mobile has its eyes on your iPhone subscribers. The so-called “un-carrier” on Wednesday announced that it would give new customers an iPhone 5 for $0 down if they trade in their iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S models. The iPhone 5 won’t be completely free, however, because customers will still have to pay monthly charges over a two-year period to pay off the cost of the device. That said, iPhone users who switch from other carriers will still be getting an iPhone 5 for $99 less than current T-Mobile subscribers who want to buy the device and for $199 less than what they’d pay on other carriers. T-Mobile’s full press release is posted below. iPhone 5 Comes