Samsung seems to be in hot water again, this time over negative comments which appeared on HTC One reviews by people apparently paid to write them by the Korean firm.

Only last week did police raid Samsung's Seoul offices after LG accused the firm of stealing its OLED secrets and now the Galaxy S4 maker is being investigated by Taiwanese authorities over false advertising.

According to AFP, Samsung hired students in Taiwan to post negative comments about the HTC One online, while also promoting its own products in the process.

Not so fine

Apparently if these allegations are upheld Samsung could face a fine of around $835,000 (£545,680/AU$805,200), and there will be some red faces around its office too.

There may be some truth in the allegations though, after Samsung Taiwan posted a message on its Facebook page saying: " Samsung Taiwan has ceased all marketing activities that involve the posting of anonymous comments.

"We regret any inconvenience this incident may have caused. We will continue to reinforce education and training for our employees to prevent any future recurrence."

We have spoken to HTC and Samsung about these allegations and will update this article if we receive a comment from either party.

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The near-universal standing ovation offered to the HTC One's aluminium body may have convinced Samsung to up its design game, according to reports this weekend.

The Korean company may have enjoyed a series of box office smashes with its Galaxy S and Galaxy Note devices, but each has been critiqued in some capacity for their plasticky, cheap-looking designs.

Now, according to Sam Mobile sources, the company is "worried" by how the HTC One raised the stakes and plans to strike back with an improved build material for the Galaxy Note 3, rumoured for later this year.

The site wrote: "According to SamMobile's famous insider, Samsung is planning to switch build quality for the next flagship device. He pointed out that the Galaxy Note 3 will not use the design guidelines of the Galaxy S4."

Taking Note

The report didn't elaborate on which material Samsung would be choosing for the Galaxy Note 3, but with the iPhone and HTC One going with aluminium, that would clearly be the favourite.

Sam Mobile said the company had experimented with a metal Galaxy S4, which was received very well internally, but would not have allowed Samsung to mass produce enough of the device in time for launch.

The perception that Samsung phones lack the build quality of some of its rivals has helped the chasing pack cling to its coat-tails in the last 12 months.

May the smartphone gods have mercy on their souls if Samsung really decides to go high-end with its design ethos.

It appears that Apple's iMessages and FaceTime outage earlier this week was not an isolated incident, as Apple users had no doubt hoped.

The messaging and video chat networks went down again for some users this morning.

Tuesday's iMessage and FaceTime outage lasted more than five hours and affected users on both iOS and Mac OS X seemingly on a global scale.

Today's service interruption was really more of a hiccup, lasting little over one hour according to Apple, though CNET reported that it was actually closer to two.

Does it really matter?

One of the things that attracts everyday consumers to Apple is the company's reliability. If there's an issue with a product or service, Apple is normally quick to help, and the "geniuses" in Apple stores can solve most problems with a quick visit.

Anything that tarnishes that image can't do Apple any good.

Granted, the lack of iMessages this morning and on Tuesday likely went unnoticed by the majority of iOS users, as all it meant was the little bubbles changed from blue to green as normal SMS messages were sent instead.

Some who found Apple's FaceTime video chat service down may have felt the outages more keenly, though.

In any case, Apple has yet to release a statement or provide a reason for the outage, despite our queries. We'll update this story if and when they do.