It's been a hectic few months for Samsung. The Korea-based technology corporation released the Galaxy S III at the end of May, and has spent the summer in court in both Korea, and California battling Apple over patent infringement claims that it has since lost -- virtually a tie in Korea; forced to pay $1 billion in U.S. verdict.

Today Samsung confirmed that it is willing to modify its smartphones if it cannot successfully fight Apple's request to have them banned in the United States. After managing a big win in its trial against Samsung, Apple made an initial request with the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California to ban eight smartphones including the Galaxy S II. Samsung plans to fight the request. However, if the company is unsuccessful, it confirmed that it is willing to modify the devices in order to avoid sales bans.

"We will take all necessary measures to ensure the availability of our products in the U.S. market," a Samsung spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, further noting that Samsung would file to block the injunction, appeal any injunction granted by the judge, and then modify devices should the company's appeal fail.

Apple is expected to seek bans on additional Samsung smartphones in the coming weeks - in all, 21 Samsung devices were found to infringe on Apple's protected technology and design patents.

But while this is certainly bad news for the company as a whole, in the days since Apple won the patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung, Gazelle.com has witnessed a huge change on its site. It says the number of Samsung devices being traded in has jumped by 50% over the past three days, leading to a 10% drop in the value of those devices traded in.

"Consumers seem to be jumping ship," Anthony Scarsella, chief gadget officer at Gazelle.com, told MarketWatch. "We expect this trend to continue, especially with this latest verdict."

Gazelle.com reports that the glut of Samsung devices reaching its site has devalued them, which means consumers won't get as much cash back when they are traded in.

MarketWatch points out that the resale value of Apple devices has historically been higher than that of competing devices.

"Even before the ruling Android products didn't hold their resale value as well as iPhones," said MarketWatch. "The Samsung S II--which sells for $199 new on a two-year contract, the same as a 16-GB iPhone 4S--currently goes for $90 on resale site NextWorth.com. The iPhone, however, sells for as much as $300 on NextWorth."

Global Equities, a research firm, called up five AT&T stores, three Costco Stores, five Sprint Stores, and three Verizon Stores to see what was going on, reports CNN.

"Following Apple and Samsung August 24th verdict, customers rushed to buy Samsung Galaxy S III this weekend, with some stores reporting stock outs," said Global Equities' Trip Chowdhry.

The two reports suggest that consumers are dumping the Samsung Galaxy S II, which is one of the many devices the jury found to infringe on Apple's patents. Global Equities says they're doing this in favor of the Galaxy S III, the successor to the GSII. In other words: consumers might be dumping one Samsung device for another.

It's worth pointing out that the Galaxy S II, while still a great phone, is now 18 months old. It debuted in February 2011 and went on sale in the U.S. June 2011. The Galaxy S III is a dramatically superior device and worth the upgrade with or without the context of the Apple/Samsung drama in the background.

Further, tons of new devices have reached the market in the last few weeks and many more are set to debut. Next week alone as many as three new flagship devices are expected from Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung.

The real effects of the trial's outcome are likely months away from being felt.

Another positive for Samsung fans, the company could very well release a new version of its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy SIII, with a 16 MP camera at this year's consumer electronics fair IFA in Berlin, Germany from August 29-September 5. No official announcement has come from Samsung, but this comes according to reports review site GSM Arena received from "an insider with knowledge about the company's secret plans for the launch."

If the rumors prove are true the latest edition of the Galaxy SIII would pack a mighty 16 MP image sensor, as opposed to the 8 MP currently on the Galaxy SIII. However, aside from the camera, the new version of the Galaxy SIII, if launched, is not expected to have any other different specifications to the current Galaxy SIII.

Samsung is also expected to release its highly anticipated next-gen tablet / smartphone hybrid, the Galaxy Note II at IFA, while Sony is expected to drop their next-gen high-end smartphone the Xperia SL at the event.

Longtime Android users who are familiar with the old-school Motorola Droid will remember its Car Home app that presented users with a simplified interface for interacting with apps designed for use in the car. Samsung continues that tradition today with the announcement and launch of its new Drive Link app for the Galaxy S III.

The app's welcome screen features large, easy to read weather conditions and date and time information along the top edge. Occupying the center of this screen is a summary of the next scheduled appointment in the phone's calendar with a trio of links to set an the event's address as a destination, to call a contact associated with the appointment, or to ignore the appointment altogether. Dropping down into the main menu, the user is presented with three large shortcut buttons for the Samsung music player app, the navigation app and destination search, and the hands-free calling system. There are also shortcuts to other apps that are designed for use in the car, such as TuneIn internet radio. Samsung expects the list of additional in-car apps to expand in the future.

Incoming text messages, emails, and social media updates are read aloud via a text-to-speech engine and any address included in an inbound text message can be set as a destination and navigated to with a single tap.

The app is also compatible with MirrorLink enabled headphones and its interface is able to be replicated and interacted with on compatible in-dash OEM and aftermarket receivers.

The app is downloadable from Samsung Apps for Samsung Galaxy S III users in 21 countries. Interestingly, the United States is not listed among supported markets, but Samsung states that Drive Link will be available for other smartphones (presumably Samsung's own) running Android 4.0 in the near future. Text-to-speech functionality is available for English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish speakers

This week Samsung also announced that the Galaxy S III will soon come in four new colors: "amber brown", "garnet red", "sapphire black", and "titanium grey." The only current colors widely available are "marble white" and "pebble blue." The new colors will have the same brushed metal-like "Hyperglaze" finish as the current ones.

Samsung is obviously sticking with the "inspired by nature" marketing that the company unveiled at the announcement of the Galaxy S III, these colors are an earth goddess' dream. Consumers shouldn't be expecting a neon pink version of the smartphone any time soon, though an "emerald green" or "amethyst purple" phone wouldn't stray too far from the formula.

"Every inch of the Samsung Galaxy S III has been created to reflect the natural elements that inspired its ergonomic design, from the softly shaped curvature to the minimized bezel," said Minhyouk Lee, lead designer of the Galaxy S III. "By expanding the color range of the Galaxy S III we are continuing to evolve the "Minimal Organic" design theme of the handset. The color options we have added evoke the phone's emotional and natural aspects in a very simple but effective way."

Mock-ups of the new colors provided by Samsung can be seen below. The red case has already been announced for the U.S. as an exclusive for AT&T, presumably to make up for that carrier getting the Galaxy S III weeks after other U.S. carriers. Samsung specifically stated that the availability of these new colors will vary by country and wireless carrier.