The European Commission’s Vice President for Competition Policy, Joaquín Almunia, has confirmed that it will charge Samsung  “very soon” in an antitrust patent case after the Korean electronics giant broke competition rules by filing patent-infringement lawsuits against Apple. Samsung has been under investigation since January for a possible breach of antitrust rules, and earlier this week, it dropped all of its injunction requests against Apple in Europe.

If you’re hoping to get a new Android or iOS devices this Christmas, the first thing you’ll want to do is load up their respective app stores and take advantage of the holiday discounts. EA reduced a stack of titles on iOS yesterday, and today Sega has been slashing the prices of its most popular mobile titles. We’ve put together a list of titles on sale — check it out below.

Back in July, Apple purchased acres and acres of land surrounding its campus in the heart of Austin, Texas. It was later reported that Apple was making a $304 million investment to grow its operations in Austin and bring an additional 3,600 jobs to the area.

Now Apple has broken ground on its 39-acre Texan campus in an effort to expand its growing U.S. Operations Center.

Borderlands 2 from Aspyr is now available to download at the Mac App Store, almost exactly a month after it debuted on Steam — and there’s good news and bad news.

I’ve had a blog on Tumblr for years, and I’ve never been able to really get into using it on my iPhone until recently. A platform’s mobile presence is so important, and it’s been nice to see Tumblr work on drastically improving its mobile web and iPhone apps in recent months.

For some unfathomable reason, Tumblr has never had an official iPad app—well, until today. It just went live in the App Store.

James Bond gets all the cool stuff. Fancy gadgets. Fast cars. Beautiful ladies. And a bottomless bucket of martinis. But he doesn’t have an iPhone controlled dragonfly that can spy on all the bad guys without making a sound.

You’re not James Bond, but you can get your very own dragonfly robot to conduct your own espionage missions, or just take pretty ariel pictures to post on Instagram. The best part is that your flying robot will be controlled with your iPhone and it’ll only cost you 120 bucks.

Yesterday we told you that TIME magazine had shortlisted Tim Cook for its prestigious Person of the Year award, but U.S. President Barack Obama ended up getting selected as this year’s winner. Since Cook is the runner-up, TIME has profiled the CEO with an interview and a look at his history with Apple.

While much of the content in TIME’s profile has already been covered in Businessweek’s extensive interview and NBC Rock Center’s segment, the article does offer a nice overview of how Cook has stepped out of Steve Jobs’s shadow to become the leader of the most valuable company on earth.

Looking for a good, affordable last minute Christmas gift for the gamer in your life? Look no further: the Humble Indie Bundle is back with its seventh iteration, and they are offering some awesome games (and a movie) for one low, bundle-y price.

Right now, the games include Snapshot, the wonderfully weird rogue-like The Binding of Isaac, the action platformer Shank 2, the platform puzzler Closure, and — if you pay more than the average contributor — the awesome Dungeon Defenders tower defense game, and Legend of Grimrock, one of the year’s best old-school RPGs. All that and a high-res copy of Indie Game: The Movie! Sweet.

All games, as usual, are cross-platform, so you get them on Mac, Linux and Windows. Right now, the average contribution is sitting around $5.92, so move quick, and you can get these games for a song.

Source: Humble Indie Bundle

Ever wish you could just write on your iPad or iPhone and have it type up your notes for you? Long for the days of the Newton, or just wish you had Android-style handwriting recognition on your iPhone? Well, wait no longer, as MyScript Notes is here, powered by the same tech as what powers the Samsung Note, so you know it’s gonna be good.

How many college-aged girls do you know running around with broken iPhone screens? 15? 20? All of them? It takes the average college girl like 2.37 days to shatter her new iPhone screen, or at least that’s the stereotype some choose to believe.

To make things easier for college girls, Apple is launching the iPhone 5C. It comes with a pre-shattered screen so all your friends think you live a wild and crazy life. It’s genius. It’s like buying pre-faded jeans. It’s also totally fake, but The Onion is on to something in their latest hilarious but fake news story that covered the launch of the fictitious device.

Here’s the video of the iPhone 5C’s launch:

Believe it or not, Christmas is almost here, and we’ll mark this midwinter festival by getting together with friends and family and continuing to drink and eat far too much.
Meanwhile, we also buy gifts for those same friends and family members, whether they want them or not. Luckily, we’re here to help, and if you follow our festive advice, your gifts just might make it into the “wanted” category.

From now until Christmas, Cult of Mac will be putting together holiday gift guys full of ideas for the special ones in your life, no matter what their interests or your budget. Today, we’re looking at gifts that cost less than $50. Yes, you can appear to be a big spender, but without actually spending that much.

Redbox Instant, a joint-venture between Redbox and Verizon that hopes to compete with services like Netflix, has today made its debut on Android and iOS in the form of a private beta. The new app allows subscribers to stream unlimited movies to their devices for $8 a month. Here’s how to get on the waiting list.

One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.

Day 19 is here, and along with it, one of our favorite iPhone cases: the Speck PixelSkin HD.

EA makes some of the best games for iOS and they’re ready to unload a truckload of Christmas gifts on you. EA just launched a massive sale on their iOS games today. The most expensive games are now listed for $0.99 while many are now free.

If you’re dreading spending some quality time with your family this holiday season, and want to get lost in some long games of Madden, Mass Effect, and Monopoly, you should probably take advantage of this deal.

Here is a list of some of the games on sale:

What could be tougher than a fire hose? Nothing, that’s what – not even a dragon’s hide can beat out these woven polymer wonders. And it turns out that they are also pretty damn useful: when not being used to quench fires or give civil-rights protesters a jocular nudge, a firehose can be used to protect your iPhone.

I’m pretty sure I have some speakers on my desk. I say “pretty sure” because, while I can hear them loud and clear, I haven’t been able to see them amongst the clutter for many months now. I’m just terrified of unplugging the little cable from my MacBook’s jack socket in case I can never listen to music again. Not that I can find my MacBook either.

But the UCubes might be the answer. First, they hook up via USB, sucking both sound and power out through the bus, meaning I can leave my existing speakers hooked up, just in case.

Second, they are so handsome that I might be inspired to do my annual spring clean a few months early to allow them full aesthetic access to my desk. Where by “spring clean” I mean “sweep everything but my computer into a box and start over.”

New on the App Store, and just in time for a Christmas gift to a Beatles fan, is this rather lovely app collating 250 of John Lennon’s letters. It’s been made with affection for the great man, and provides an interesting insight into his mind.

It seems Apple’s problematic new Maps app was discouraging a lot of people from upgrading to iOS 6, the Cupertino company’s latest software. But now that Google Maps is official available as a native iOS app, there’s nothing to stop users from finally performing the upgrade. In fact, its arrival boosted iOS 6 adoption by 29%.

We’re at the time of year where we’re shooting tons of photos. Whether it’s at a family gathering, capturing wintry landscapes, or admiring decorations adorning houses in your neighbourhood, taking photos is definitely on the agenda. But taking photos isn’t enough – you want to make them look as appealing as possible, and Cult of Mac Deals has assembled The Mac Photo Bundle to help you get more out of every photo you take.

And it can be yours for a limited time – all 5 apps – for just $25!

Would Apple ever make a credit card? They’ve got millions of credit cards on file for iTunes and App Store purchases. They could integrate it with Passbook. And they’ve got over $100 billion in cash just chillin in the bank, so why not?

We don’t think Apple would ever make a credit card, but it’s an interesting idea that the guys at Credit Card Compare dreamed up – like how it would integrate with Find My iPhone so you could chase down anyone who swipes your wallet. The mockup marketing materials they created for the iCard are perfect. It’s exactly what Apple.com would look like after the big iCard keynote.

Take a look:

Realmac Software, the developers behind Clear and RapidWeaver, have slashed the price of their Mac apps by up to 65% for the holidays. All of their titles are included in the sale, which lasts until January 6, and Clear for iPhone has also been reduced to just $0.99. We’ve got a complete list of the apps on sale below.

If you know someone who just got a new iPhone or iPad, or might be getting one for Christmas, you can help them stock up on apps, music, and movies for cheap with an iTunes gift card. Walmart is selling $50 iTunes gift cards for only 40 bucks. That’s 20% off and the biggest discount we’ve seen.

You can only get this deal online from Walmart.com. Once you purchase the gift card you’ll receive an email with a code that you can redeem via iTunes that will give you a $50 credit in your account. It’s free money. Hurry and get the deal while it’s still available.

Source: Walmart

Just a few weeks back we brought you the then-cheap $100 ring-light for the iPhone, a cheap way to shoot flat fashion photos and videos with your favorite camera. Now, though, you can achieve the same thing for just $10.

Bonus: It’s a DIY project, so you have a great excuse to ignore your family this Christmas.

Nyne’s new NB-250 portable speaker is a modern update on the venerable boombox: portable and loud.

But it’s a lot smaller and more discreet than a boombox of old.

The Bluetooth speaker comes in a trendy, unobtrusive black shoulder bag for transporting to park, pool or a party. It not only looks good but sounds nice as well.

Apple’s much-anticipated television set has entered its initial testing phase at Hon Hai Precision Industry, a company source has revealed. It’s expected to feature a display between 46 inches and 55 inches in size, and shipments are likely to be “huge.” Don’t expect to have one in your living room anytime soon, however; it doesn’t look like it’s going to get its grand unveiling during 2013.