Engadget

After being teased, leaked and eventually revealed at Mobile World Congress, LG's Optimus L7 is finally ready for consumption -- at least in South Korea. Adopting the moniker of Optimus LTE III, the recently renamed handset boasts a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and a 2,540mAh battery. If that's not enough, the handset's 4.7-inch display flaunts the same pixel counting "True HD IPS" display technology as its predecessor. LG seems to be positioning the LTE III as a transition device, promising feature phone users a user-friendly "easy mode" to help them through the growing pains of entering the smartphone world. No word on international availability, but LG fans with a flair for the mid-range can read the (machine translated) announcement for themselves after the break. Read Korean? Check out the rightmost source link.

Read the Full Story | 0 Comments

The payphone. Despite how connected our world has gotten in the last decade or so, the majority of the 11,000 payphones in NYC stem from a 1999 contract. Due to expire and renew in October 2014, the city's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) has been actively figuring out how and what type of modern solution it wants to replace roughly all 11,000 of them with. You've heard about a small number being retrofitted with WiFi hotspots and SmartScreen information portals, but those have essentially been tests.

Last night at Quirky's offices, the city picked out finalists for five categories that could possibly help "Reinvent Payphones" here in the Big Apple: "connectivity, creativity, visual design, functionality and community impact." Well over 120 entries were submitted since this design challenge kicked off last December at the NY Tech Meetup, with a total of 11 semifinalists having gotten the chance to present their ideas last night for judging. As it turns out, there was a tie for community impact, leaving six finalists overall. Better yet, out of those six, the public can take to Facebook from now until March 14th to select a "popular vote" winner. Curious for more insight? We got to chat with the city's Director of External Affairs at the Department of Information, Nicholas Sbordone, about the project and he talked about how it went down and what it means for the future of payphones in NYC.

Read the Full Story | 0 Comments

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

Read the Full Story | 0 Comments

The official Nexus 7 dock has been one of the more elusive beasts in the accessory world, especially for anyone who wanted it from an official source. Google just brought that months-long pursuit to a close -- the dock is now sitting in the Google Play Store. So long as you have $30 to spend and can endure up to one or two weeks of waiting, you too can give your Nexus 7 an ASUS-designed home with both micro-USB and audio line out. Just don't try to overcompensate by buying docks en masse; Google caps the order limit at two.

Update: If you're wondering just where the dock is available, worry not. Google has just confirmed that the dock is selling in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US.

0 Comments

The latest numbers from ComScore show Apple strengthening its lead as the top US handset maker, with the iPhone nabbing an estimated 37.8 percent of the market as of January 2013. That's a 3.5-point boost from October of last year, putting healthy distance between Cupertino and the number-two smartphone maker, Samsung. That's not to say the Korean giant hasn't grown as well; its estimated 21.4-percent slice of the pie is up a more modest 1.9 points.

Apple's growth on the hardware front naturally has implications on the software side, and indeed this is the first time Android took a hit while iOS grew. According to the survey, Google's OS still maintains a healthy 52.3 percent compared to Apple's 37.8, but it's down 1.3 points while iOS saw a small boost. Where does that leave BlackBerry, Windows Phone and the rest of the gang? Pretty far behind -- as you can see for yourself in the chart below the break.

Read the Full Story | 0 Comments

Everyone googles themselves at some point -- even the people who say they don't. But if you don't like what you see when that search box offers possible queries linked to your name, don't go suing Google. The search giant is officially not to blame. That's the official ruling handed down by the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago today which found Google not at fault for a search result linking Wisconsin resident Beverly Stayart's name to ads for Levitra (a male erectile dysfunction drug). According to Reuters, presiding Judge Ann Claire Williams deemed the search result an exception to the state's misappropriation laws due to its incidental nature (Stayart is a poet and animal rights advocate). The case marks the second courtroom loss for Stayart who had originally leveled the same charges against Yahoo. Unfortunately for Stayart, the buzz from news like this will only help promote the "scandalous" search results she so badly wants erased.

0 Comments