We're still feeling the effects of the Apple court victory over Samsung.  The latest word now is that Samsung has lost $12 billion in stock value because a jury decided they were guilty of infringing on Apple's patents.

Fortunately, Samsung says they have workarounds for the major things that the California jury felt constituted infringement.

This kind of thing happens so often in technology. HTC had a phone that Apple got blocked at the port of entry earlier this year. But then HTC just showed they had workarounds in their technology to avoid interfering with Apple's patents. So they're now free to do business.

If you own an Android phone, some of the functionality may change over time, but you will still be able to use those phones without too much disruption.

Meanwhile, we're just weeks away from Apple's announcement about the iPhone 5. That's already been sucking life out of the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S, causing prices to drop in the marketplace. Sprint has discounted the iPhone 4S (with contract) down by $50, and Apple is matching that price at their stores.

The real question will be can you buy an iPhone 4S from the non-contract wireless carriers at really good prices? Unfortunately, we won't have a sense of that until maybe around Halloween.

Meanwhile, Straight Talk has a plan where you can bring your own device. You could buy an unlocked iPhone and take it to Straight Talk. You can buy a SIM card from them and use the iPhone on their network for $45 a month with the service being provided by T-Mobile or AT&T.