-Can one app save Apple's Maps?
I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET Update.
Folks are buzzing yet again about Apple.
This time, there's a report that it might buy the traffic app, Waze.
It's a social navigation app with about 30 million users.
TechCrunch has a source saying that the app is asking for $750 million, but Apple, so far, is only offering $500 million.
Apple, of course, would be interested in buying a direction app to help strengthen its troubled Maps app.
But Apple has got another trouble this week.
The company said there's a glitch with its new "Do Not Disturb" feature and it won't be fixed until Monday.
This feature on iOS 6 lets users silence incoming calls, alerts, and notifications, but just for a preset time window.
For example, you might wanna put a "Do Not Disturb" on while sleeping, so a text message alert doesn't wake you up, but somehow, the "Do Not Disturb" function remains on
past its set time.
So, people are missing messages unless they manually turn off the feature.
Looks like Sprint is planning to launch its own prepaid service on January 25th with four phones.
At least that's according to a document leaked on the blog Android Police.
These aren't the top phones and smartphone plans cost $70 a month.
Sprint's prepaid business has always come from its sister stores, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile.
Boost and Virgin have better monthly rates, but they do limit download speeds
when you hit a certain threshold.
Expect prepaid to be a bigger area of competition in the coming year, especially with T-Mobile about to merge with MetroPCS.
And there's a new operating system coming to the party.
Ubuntu, which is an open source operating system for PCs and televisions, is launching a system for smartphones.
It has several swiping gestures for navigation.
It might remind you of WebOS from the old Palm phones.
This isn't something you probably see for another year, but it will be on display at the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas.
Also, at CES, we'll learn more about the Smart Evolution Kit for Samsung televisions.
Last year, Samsung said it was working on this device that you stick in the back of your TV to give it a system upgrade so you can get the benefits of the latest TVs without having to buy a new one.
It's like a TV brain transplant.
Well, Samsung says such a kit could cost between $200 and $300 and we'll finally get more facts on Monday at the show.
You wanna keep the CNET all week for continuous coverage of CES, but our live video coverage begins Monday.
And on Thursday, we name the best of CES show winners so you won't wanna miss that.
That's your tech news update.
You can get links to all the stories I mentioned on our blog cnet.com/update.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
