Samsung buys the mobile connectivity and location technology division of British chipmaker CSR for $310 million, in a bid to strengthen both smartphone and patent portfolio.

"By leveraging CSR's R&D capability, Samsung will strengthen its application processor platform and solidify its position as a leading semiconductor solutions provider," Samsung says.

CSR tells Reuters it was "losing ground" in smartphones to bigger rivals (such as Qualcomm) despite a selection of "cutting edge" Bluetooth, wifi and location technologies. Thus CSR prefers to concentrate on making TV and audio equipment processors for the likes of Sennheiser and Beats by Dre.

On the other hand Samsung wants to strengthen its smartphone business while owning more ever-important patents. With the CSR purchase Samsung gets WW royalty-free license of all handset CSR IP and 21 US patents.

Go Samsung Buys CSR's Handset Technology (Reuters)

Fresh reports emerge on what Amazon is apparently working on these days-- new Amazon smartphone rumours and Kindle Fire upgrade, the better to take on both Google and Apple with.

The latest Amazon smartphone report comes from Bloomberg. According to "people with knowledge of the matter" Foxconn is making the device while Amazon keeps itself busy buying wireless technology patents.

Amazon even has new help with the patents acquisition-- Matt Gordon, former senior director of acquisitions at Intellectual Ventures Management, the company founded by ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold and owner of over 35000 patents.

Patents make for valuable ammunition in the legal wars surrounding the smartphone market. Amazon was already involved in 20 patent-related cases in 2011 and 5 more in 2012.

Meanwhile AllThingsD has news on the second Kindle Fire-- it will launch in Q3 2012, is "thinner and lighter" and has a built-in camera and a higher resolution (1280 x 800) display.

As a positive buzz surrounds Google's Nexus 7 and Apple supposedly develops its take on the lower-end tablet, Amazon has to work harder than ever to retain its (shrinking) tablet share.

Go Amazon Said to Play Smartphone (Bloomberg)

Go Amazon's Next Kindle Fire Will Ship in Q3 (AllThingsD)

It appears Microsoft's ambitions of becoming similar to Apple go beyond merely making own-branded tablets-- Bloomberg reports Microsoft kept its PC partners in the dark, keeping the Surface a closely guarded secret.

Which company has a reputation for shrouding all future plans under a thick veil of darkness, before announcing them in glitzy press-only events? Oh, right...

According to anonymous Bloomberg sources in the US and Taiwan, PC vendors were let know about the Surface tablet only 3 days before it was shown to the press, when Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky "made a round of telephone calls but gave only the barest details on Friday, neither revealing the name of the gadget nor its specifications."

Sources at Acer and Asus say they only learnt about the Surface at the LA news conference. Analysts at Ovum say Microsoft was giving hardware partners "a huge vote of no confidence" and they "rightly feel slighted".

Following months of rumours Beats confirms the purchase of online music streaming service MOG for an undisclosed sum to the USA Today newspaper.

The companies give no further details of the acquisition as MOG CEO David Hyman says "the addition of MOG's music service to the Beats portfolio will provide a truly end-to-end music experience."

Founded in 2005, MOG offers over 16 million songs (in 320-kilobit MP3 format) through its website, Facebook app and subscription services on LG and Samsung devices. While similar to Spotify, MOG lacks one thing-- user numbers. Active MOG users amount to around 500000, while Spotify has around 3 million paying subscribers.

It makes sense for Beats to buy a music service-- or rather, it makes sense for HTC, who bought a majority stake in Beats for $309m back in August 2011. And let's not forget, as Android devices become increasingly similar, vendors continually look for services setting their hardware apart from the competition.

So, Beats wants to sell music-as-a-service. HTC wants to sell more phones. Will the combination of two markets turn the fortune of a struggling service around?

Go Beats Electronics Acquires MOG Music Service (USA Today)