Apple's Tim Cook earns almost 99% less in 2012

Tim Cook, in his first year as CEO of Apple after the late Steve Jobs, earned $1.4 million in salary this year, along with $2.8 million in bonuses. This is significantly less than his 2011 earnings of $378 million.

According to Reuters, Cook's actual salary went up by some $900,000, but this year he did not receive any Apple stock, which accounts for the large disparity. In 2011, Cook received some $376.2 million in long-term stock awards.

Almost all of Cook's stock bonuses will be awarded in two large chunks, the first of which will vest in 2016, the second in 2021. This will act as an impetus for Cook to perform well as head of Apple in the meanwhile, as the value of the bonuses will depend on how high the stock is in 2016 and 2021.

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Amazon cuts prices on 8X and Lumia 920 even further

Amazon has gotten pretty aggressive with the price cuts for Windows Phone 8 handsets. About a month ago, they cut the price of two WP8 flagships, the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC Windows Phone 8X, and now they've cut them again.

The Nokia Lumia 920 is now $40 with a two-year contract from AT&T (used to be $60), if you get it through the Amazon Wireless portal. Both the black and white versions are available. The Lumia 820 is free with two-year contract at Amazon Wireless too, has been for over a month.

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Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean is now available for HTC One S

HTC One S owners around the world have a good reason to smile today. Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean is now seeding to the Taiwanese company's likable mid-ranger.

The OS update is currently available for the international version of the smartphone. Users with carrier-branded devices will have to be a bit more patient.

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Samsung officially announces Galaxy Note Premium Suite

The latest generation of Samsung devices is already enjoying the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update. Samsung is working hard to update the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note for quite some time and as it seems the Note update is just around the corner.

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Nokia sells its HQ in Finland, to stay there on a lease

Nokia's financials aren't what you'd call great lately, and as a result the company is selling its headquarters building in Espoo, Finland for €170 million.

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Samsung Galaxy S III outsells Apple iPhone 5 in the UK

For a seventh consecutive month, the Samsung Galaxy S III is the most popular smartphone in the United Kingdom. The data compiled by uSwitch is based on live searches, pre-orders, as well as postpaid sales.

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Jelly Bean and ICS continue their growth at Gingerbread's expense

The Android distribution statistics for November just arrived, showing an over two-fold increase in the Jelly Bean market share.

Version 4.1 Jelly Bean is now on 5.9% of the Android devices from 2.7% last month, while the recently released 4.2 Jelly Bean already powers 0.8% of the droids out tehre. Undoubtedly, the release of the new Nexus devices has to do something with it, butthe release of JB updates from Samsung and HTC has also helped a bit.

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Apple iPhone 5 hits 55 more countries this month

Apple is expanding the iPhone 5 availability to 55 new countries this month. On December 7 the Apple's thinnest and lightest is coming to the Samsung's homeland - South Korea.

A week later, on December 14, the iPhone 5 will land in 33 more markets. Those include Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ecuador, Grenada, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kuwait, Macedonia, Malaysia, Moldova, Montenegro, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

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