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Granted, the picture we see above us would've been much more intriguing a couple days ago, prior to Samsung Unpacked, but it shows the Samsung SM-V700 (aka Galaxy Gear) getting the official stamp of approval by the FCC, which means it's one step closer to store shelves. The docs don't give us any juicy tidbits that we didn't already know -- essentially, the device has Bluetooth and not much else in the way of wireless connectivity -- but this doesn't come as a surprise for an already-announced gadget. Still, the Galaxy Gear's appearance in the FCC is at least a clear indication that things are going in the right direction, and folks in the US may see it closer to the September 25th launch date than they initially feared.

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Okay, you have to admit: there might actually be something to this whole large smartphone business, started by Samsung two years ago at this very trade show. Not only has the trend not gone away, nearly every major OEM is hopping on the bandwagon. Alcatel OneTouch is interested in joining the party, and it's entering the field with a doozy aptly called the Hero, a 6-inch behemoth with a full HD (1,920 x 1,080) display and a few tricks up its sleeves. It's relatively easy on the hands, with a curved back and a decent thickness of 8.5mm. In fact, compared to the Acer Liquid S2 (another 6-inch smartphone announced at IFA), it's 6mm narrower, 7.5mm shorter and 0.5mm thinner -- great news, especially since we felt pretty comfortable with the S2 during our hands-on.

In many parts of the world, Alcatel OneTouch is still an unknown, despite the fact that the manufacturer has a reputation for pushing out up to a dozen handsets at one time. While this is still very much the case this week, we've noticed that the company has put a much higher amount of focus on quality. The Hero doesn't remind us of a cheap KIRF or knockoff phone. Instead, we came away much more impressed with the phone's look and feel than we originally expected. Continue past the break for more of our thoughts and the Hero's features.

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You can go ahead and consider Aio Wireless an option the next time you're shopping among mobile carriers, because the prepaid subsidiary of AT&T is now available nationwide. Service plans at Aio feature unlimited voice, messaging and overage-free data, and start at $40 per month for simple phones. Smartphone users can expect to pay at least $55 at Aio, which fetches 2GB of high-speed data, whereas the $70 plan comes with a healthy 7GB allotment. As one potential gotcha, the carrier throttles its high-speed data to a relatively paltry 8 Mbps -- a shame if you're sporting an LTE handset. If you're on a budget, it's worth mentioning that Aio Wireless is one of the sole providers of the Lumia 620 within the US, and at just $100 outright, it's a very tempting proposition.

[Thanks, Krishan]

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The oft-rumored Nexus 5 is turning into quite a riddle. If you've been following the saga, there has been no shortage of drama in recent memory. Most recently we saw a Google employee snapping pictures with an unknown LG-branded Nexus at HQ in Mountain View -- in an official video, no less, which was almost immediately taken down -- and now a smartphone dubbed the D820 has been approved by the FCC. Certainly, we don't want to just assume that every LG phone getting Federal approval for the foreseeable future is an N5, but there are a few clues in the paperwork that give us plenty of reason to nail this down as the primary suspect: first, the image above, taken from a section detailing the device's Qi wireless charging capabilities, shows the inside of the back cover. When comparing it to the phone revealed at the HQ slip-up, the two pictures line up incredibly well.

The D820 also features 7-band LTE, some of which are compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint (bands 2/4/5/17/25/26/41), CDMA / EVDO rev A, pentaband DC-HSPA+ and quadband GSM / EDGE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and dual-band 802.11 b/g/n/ac. That's an amazingly healthy list of specs for your usual FCC submission, and the list of LTE bands is quite stunning as well. If it's not the Nexus 5, it's certainly going to be one heckuva flagship. Question is, how much doubt do you have? As usual, we leave you with the docs for you in case you have a burning desire to do some digging yourself.

Update: Our commenters have noticed some more nuggets in one of the docs: an admission that the phone is running firmware M8974A, and the software version listed is "aosp_hammerhead-userdebugKyeLimePieFACTORYeng.sangjoon84.lee.20130618.015154." The firmware seems to indicate a Snapdragon 800 SoC, which wouldn't surprise us in the least, and the software appears to suggest that it's running KitKat (Key Lime Pie), weird typo aside.

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Looking to capture some vocals or record a few guitar riffs while you're out and about? Well, IK Multimedia has yet another gadget that looks to lend a hand. The outfit's iRig Pro serves up a digital audio and MIDI interface that connects to the full gamut of iOS devices and Mac machines via USB. Battery-powered and quite diminutive in stature, the device wrangles microphones, guitars, MIDI devices and other Hi-Z instruments for mobile recording -- with those audio and MIDI inputs able to be employed simultaneously. The connected phone, tablet or laptop actually powers the add-on, but that internal 9V kicks it when needed to provide phantom power to a mic. A smattering of the company's apps come packaged with the unit including AmpliTube, SampleTank and iRig Recorder. Folks with older Apple devices shouldn't worry: the iRig Pro ships with cables compatible with Lightning, 30-pin and USB connections. If all of that sounds too good to pass up, $149.99 will be the required investment later this month. For now, venture past the break and take a quick look at the setup in action.

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In a commendable move, the NFL Players Association is contracting with Uber for the 2013-2014 season in an attempt to keep intoxicated athletes from getting behind the wheel. Each player will receive a personalized keychain card that contains $200 credit for the on-demand ridesharing service, which will complement an existing telephone-based service that's offered by the union. Uber currently operates in 17 of the NFL's 31 cities, which isn't ideal, but the service is expanding at a respectable pace. The agreement stands as Uber's biggest deal with major league sports to date, which previously provided a trial service to the San Francisco Giants. Naturally, we'd like to see other players' organizations and teams get on board with similar programs, which could help prevent tragedies such as the one that took the life of a Dallas Cowboys player last year.

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All-you-can-eat subscriptions work well for digital magazines, music and videos; why shouldn't they work for e-books? Oyster certainly thinks they should, as it just launched a flat-rate book service for iPhone users. Members pay $10 per month for unfettered access to about 100,000 books from HarperCollins, Hougton Mifflin Harcourt and smaller publishers. The unlimited-use model also facilitates a Goodreads-like social component that shows what friends are reading at any given moment. Bookworms can request an invitation today. Oyster hasn't said if or when the service will go without invitations, but it hopes to release an iPad app in the near future.

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KDDI and Softbank already enjoy the fruits of Apple's labor. Now, according to a report from Nikkei, NTT DoCoMo could be joining the party later this month. When Cupertino takes the wraps off its latest iOS handset(s) on September 10th, its expected that DoCoMo will be added to the list of Japanese carriers selling the device. Rumors were circulating in late August that the two parties were in talks to bring the iPhone to Japan's largest mobile company, and now it appears to be a done deal. Unfortunately, there's not much detail beyond that. DoCoMo subscribers will just have to wait patiently for Apple to brighten their day.

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You know how they say that when it rains, it pours? Well, shortly after unveiling a new set of native ware for Chrome, Google's also taken the time to announce an update to its Drive app on iOS. Most notable is the introduction of the card-style user interface, something we saw make its way to the Android version of Google Drive earlier this year. There's now a better way to browse and preview files as well, plus an easier approach to how links get copied within the app -- essentially, this means users will see a new option that automatically copies file links to the clipboard. The update doesn't appear to be live everywhere just yet, but keep an eye on the App Store as it should be arriving very soon.

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Think the Microsoft Surface's Touch Cover was thin? You ain't seen nothin' yet. CSR, a company that delights in coming up with clever ideas and putting a significant amount of engineering personnel behind them, has a working prototype of a 0.5mm-thin keyboard. The board -- if you can call it that -- is made of flexible material and printed circuitry, combined with an Atmel touchscreen sensor and a few other life-bringing chips near the top (because of this, the top of the keyboard is a little thicker). Since it uses Bluetooth Smart to transmit your strokes and taps to a phone, tablet or computer, the only possible concern is the issue of incompatibility with devices that don't support the standard yet; iOS 7 and Windows 8 will be good to go (a rep told us that while Android 4.3 supports Bluetooth Smart, it doesn't utilize the HID profile that CSR relies heavily on).

The model we played with was a little cramped, which means we had to consciously try not to hit the wrong keys; other than this, we actually had the same kind of typing experience tonight that we've had with the Touch Cover. Of course, these kinds of things can easily be worked out as CSR works out the kinks. As you might expect from a prototype, don't expect to see the white membrane pictured above in a big box store. CSR doesn't plan to sell it directly to users, but rather it's busy pitching it to developers and OEMs in case they want to embed it into devices of their own. Because of this, the company isn't ready to disclose details about when or where we'll see its tech show up first -- when it makes an appearance, however, we'll let you know. Head below for a gallery and video.

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We've already seen Google and Motorola's creation, the Moto X, land on AT&T and Verizon, and now it's time for Sprint to add the handset to its lineup. The Now Network announced today that the Moto X will be available for $199.99 with a two-year contract, though there is a limited time promotion which allows new subscribers to get the device for $100 less by way of instant credit. Sprint's going to only be offering the Moto X in woven black and white to kick things off, but the carrier did say that the Moto Maker feature is expected to be supported "in the coming months."

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GetGlue is continuously massaging its socially connected app for TV watchers, and the latest update reflects some of the ways TV viewership is changing. Like Foursquare's recent changes, after an initial focus on check-ins and sharing, the new updates are all about helping users figure out what they're doing / watching next. There's a redesigned guide (again) in v5.0, now offering a personalized view at not only what's on right now via traditional broadcast networks, but also video on-demand and internet services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, HBO Go and more than a dozen others. With the rise of on demand viewing from a number of sources, it will be interesting to see if GetGlue can fill in some of those viewership statistics companies like Netflix have kept private.

There's also a new "Search & Discover" feature to find programs with browsing by genre or curated lists from GetGlue staff. Reworked show pages feature more social tie-ins, and the app also lets users directly add images, videos or news articles to their posts for some IntoNow-style meme creation and spreading. Finally, DirecTV customers can connect the app to their satellite boxes and change the channel directly from GetGlue's guide. The new app is rolling out today, let us know if its social networking focus is helping you finding new shows to watch or if it's just another source of oversharing on Twitter and Facebook.

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Firefox has certainly taken some pretty huge steps since Mozilla initially announced its "Phone for Apps" program back in May. Still, the browser maker knows there's a lot to be done before the mobile OS becomes more of a household entity. To help it achieve that, Mozilla's launching phase two of the "Phone for Apps" initiative, offering developers a Firefox OS device -- in this case the Geeksphone Keon -- in exchange for porting their HTML5 apps to the young platform. More specifically, this qualifies devs who have "already built and shipped an HTML5 web app and have the time now to port that app to the new Firefox OS." Is this you? Then here's what's left to do: click the source below to peruse the rest of the guidelines, fill out the application and, if you're amongst the chosen group, expect a confirmation to reach your inbox sometime thereafter.

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PayPal's status as the mobile payment method of choice for the masses is beset upon all sides by many would-be usurpers. What's the company doing to stay on top? Beefing up the feature set of its apps for iOS and Android in a big way today -- adding a full-on mobile wallet, automatically-applied deals and discounts and some new ways to order stuff and pay for it.

The wallet feature lets people pay with a PayPal account, a credit or debit card, bank account or a line of Bill Me Later credit that can be applied for within the app. Like Google Wallet, the new PayPal app incorporates deals and discounts that are then automatically applied when you pay. Speaking of which, you can still send money the old-fashioned PayPal way, but the new app also integrates ordering, couponing and paying within PayPal's merchant network. We got to see the new app in action, so join us after the break for more.

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After a successful closed beta trial, mobile ticketing is now a reality for the multitude of mass transit riders in the Portland metropolitan area. The TriMet Tickets app is now available for iPhone and Android users, establishing TriMet as the nation's first multimodal transit agency to offer smartphone-based ticketing across all of its operations -- this includes the region's commuter rail, light rail, streetcar and bus lines. The free app allows users to purchase either one or multiple tickets, which extend from 2-hour fares to 30-day passes. Tickets are verified with QR codes and on-screen animations, making it difficult for riders to game the system with simple screenshots. The mobile payment system is made possible by GlobeSherpa, a Portland-based company that also provides service alerts and backend fleet optimization for the TriMet system. BlackBerry and Windows Phone users can look forward to forthcoming versions of the TriMet Tickets app, and for a quick overview, you'll find a tutorial video after the break.

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