A Map App, as Sleek as iPhone 5, Is Often Off  —  Last week, I used Apple's new Maps app on my iPhone to guide me to a speaking engagement.  —  The GPS navigation screen was clean, bold and distraction-free.  The voice instructions spoke the actual street names.

EU regulators set to charge Microsoft over breached deal  —  (Reuters) - EU regulators are preparing to charge Microsoft Corp for failing to comply with a 2009 ruling ordering it to offer users a choice of web browsers, the EU's antitrust chief said on Thursday.

A New Google App Gives You Local Information — Before You Ask for It  —  Google has created a new mobile app that gives people facts about the places around them — unprompted, without the need to even ask for the information.  —  The app, Field Trip, offers historical trivia about a park …

Instagram Beats Twitter in Daily Mobile Users for the First Time, Data Says  —  Pictures beat words: In August, U.S. smartphone owners visited Instagram from their smartphones more frequently and for longer periods of time than they visited Twitter.  —  That data comes from comScore …

New Zealand Prime Minister Apologizes To Kim Dotcom  —  “Of course I apologize to Mr Dotcom, and I apologize to New Zealanders.”  —  These were the humbling words of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key today after a report from Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Paul Neazor found …

Schmidt raps Apple for patent trolling  —  Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt made it clear Thursday that he is against patent wars in the mobile phone industry, expressing his frustration with Apple's recent move to file a myriad of legal attacks against users of the Android operating system (OS), including Samsung Electronics.

Bad Piggies Is A Hit, Taking Just 3 Hours To Hit The Top Spot In The U.S. App Store  —  And just like that, Rovio is back to number 1.  The Finnish gaming company today launched Bad Piggies, an entirely new game that features some of the same characters from the smash hit, Angry Birds.

“iCloud Backup”  —  Last year, I bought my 87-year-old grandfather an iPad 2 to replace the who-knows-what PC that was frustrating him constantly.  He only used the PC for email and playing music, so it was a no-brainer.  —  Since my grandparents live in Arizona and I usually …

Seen in the wild: An Apple trade show booth  —  Here at the Surge Conference in Baltimore, Md. I stumbled upon this Apple booth on the trade show floor.  Sure, many of the developers and operations engineers attending the conference toted MacBooks of some sort, but Apple doesn't show up at trade shows pitching its wares anymore.

FCC chair grants AT&T's wish for a nationwide 4G band  —  AT&T asked, and the Federal Communications Commission most definitely listened.  Three months after AT&T submitted a complex proposal to turn a very cellular-unfriendly band into pristine 4G airwaves, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski appears set …

Samsung teases Galaxy Note 2 launch party on Oct. 24  —  We already know that five carriers will get the 5.5-inch phone/tablet hybrid, but Samsung looks like it will hold a grand opening anyway.  —  Just one look at the stylus in Samsung's Save the Date invite we received today will tell …

Camera+, a Top-Selling iPhone App, Expands to iPad  —  Camera+, an iPhone camera app that has been a top seller in the App Store for years, expanded to the iPad on Thursday.  Not many people shoot photos with an iPad, but the core features of the app are its editing suite and integration of Apple's iCloud online storage service.

Will TV will be Apple's Undoing?  —  The Wall St. Journal columnist who foresaw the “Microsofting of Apple” has a new theory  —  FORTUNE — Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. published a provocative theory Wednesday in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal.  —  The “maps farrago,” as the paper's …

Disrupt Battlefield Finalist Zumper Reveals It Raised $1M Seed Round From Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, Others  —  Zumper, the San Francisco-based startup that's assisting apartment hunters in finding the most ideal abode, announced today that it closed a $1 million seed round.

LG Display Files Patent Suit Against Samsung  —  SEOUL—LG Display Co. said it filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against its biggest rival, Samsung Electronics Co., in a South Korea civil court over the use of advanced OLED displays in smartphones and tablet PCs.

Apple's A6 CPU actually clocked at around 1.3GHz, per new Geekbench report  —  As the initial wave of iPhone 5 reviews hit, it looked as if Apple's dual-core A6 processor was sporting a clock speed of around 1GHz.  We saw reports (and confirmed with our own handset) ranging between 1.00 and 1.02GHz …

Operation Unlike Is A Go: Page Fan Counts Are Dropping Because Facebook Is Deleting Fake Accounts  —  Some Facebook business Pages lost tens of thousands of fans today, but they shouldn't fret.  Facebook has confirmed with me that it's currently purging fake accounts and Page Likes …

Amazon seeks to throw out Apple “app store” advertising claim  —  (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc has asked a federal judge to throw out Apple Inc's false advertising claim in a lawsuit challenging the online retailer's use of the “app store” name.  —  The claim is part of a March 2011 trademark lawsuit …

Amazon Could Be Working On A Square Competitor  —  Rumors have been coming in that Amazon is readying a mobile payments product that could compete with Square, Intuit GoPayment and PayPal Here.  A tipster and an industry source both tell us that Amazon is going after smaller chains of retailers …

The iPhone 5 Display: Thoroughly Analyzed  —  When Apple rolled out the iPhone 5, they announced that it had a full sRGB gamut, which the new iPad almost achieves and would be a substantial improvement over the 4 and 4S displays.  The slight increase in screen resolution and size means …

Airbnb Now Gets 26 Percent of Traffic From Mobile, More Than Double a Year Ago  —  Like examining rings on a tree stump, years from now we may look back at this quick acceleration to mobile, but it's neat to try to slice it in real time.  —  Take the popular travel rental site Airbnb …