You may remember the “minor” security update for the HTC EVO 3D that Sprint rolled out a few days ago, but I bet you didn’t know it had a hidden surprise (don’t worry it’s a good surprise). It appears Sprint was kind enough to remove Carrier IQ from the HTC EVO 3D as slyly as they implemented it. This is great news for EVO 3D users looking to get that monkey off their back.

Whether you like it or not, phones are being pushed out at a ridiculous rate, and whatever you purchase today will most likely be outdated within the year. Such is the case with the recent announcement of Motorola’s DROID 4. It’s only been six months since the DROID 3 was released and Motorola has already moved on to the next big iteration, leaving consumers to wonder why there was even a DROID 3 to begin with? To add insult to injury, Verizon has just dropped the price of the DROID 3 to $99 in preparation for the DROID 4 landing.

T-Mobile didn’t have much to show at CES this year, but it’s not all that uncommon to see some carriers and manufacturers hold off until Mobile World Congress in February. While we’ve heard some high-end HTC devices will be heading T-Mobile’s way, we’ve got confirmation that HTC’s thinnest phone will be coming this spring. According to pocketnow, the 1.5GHz dual-core HTC Ville will be coming to T-Mobile and will feature:

If you happen to care about the ongoing patent wars, then you may want to know about the latest ruling in the Apple vs. Motorola case brought down by the International Trade Commission. The Administrative Law Judge ruled that Motorola Mobility does not violate any of the three Apple patents listed in Apple’s suit. This suit dates back to October 2010, when Apple claimed that various Motorola devices infringed upon certain patents related to touchscreen features, as well as an ability to add components without having to run an installation program or rebooting. While this is an initial ruling, chances of the final ruling being any different are extremely slim.

Google has consistently teamed up with manufactures to debut new Android software versions in a pure “Google Experience,” void of any manufacturer overlays. We’ve seen this with the smartphone Nexus line, as well as with the Motorola XOOM tablet. When it comes to Google TV however, there were actually two companies that had first crack at it, and as you already know, that didn’t go so well. For Google’s next version of Google TV, they’d like to make a better impression, and rumor has it that they may team up with LG to deliver it.