LG has ambitious plans for 2011 – sell 30% more phones this year, for a total of 150 million devices, and smartphones will make up 20% of that. LG has no illusions though and knows that smartphones will be the big money maker.

The company intends to introduce 20 new smartphone models globally in 2011.

They will be growing their workforce and R&D budgets too… Read more »

Hey there, we had a really rough evening today. An hour before all press events started, we got a serious Denial-of-Services attack on our server. Our blog got hit the hardest. As a result we’ve missed our live blog schedule.

We’re deeply sorry, you can imagine our own disappointment too. Things are looking better now and hopefully, we’ll be able to cover all new product announcements over at GSMArena.com.

We still have our best guys out there in the field, doing all the hard work so you can bet you will get all the juicy details this evening.

LG has issued a new action-packet ad inspired by the Transformers movie, where the LG Optimus Pad is represented by Optimus Prime fighting some Mega…tablet… tron.

Even though the clip is not Hollywood material, the latest advertisement for the Optimus Pad from LG is sure worth a thousand words (and laughs). Just watch the epic battle between good and evil, and I’ll see you after the break. Read more »

Celebrating losing its iPhone exclusivity in the US (just kidding), AT&T has announced that as part of its new bonus service called Mobile to Any Mobile, all AT&T customers will be able to call anyone in the US on their mobile for free.

To be eligible for the bonus service, you need to be on either the National or the FamilyTalk plan and also have the Unlimited messaging add-on plan activated. The Unlimited messaging plan is available for $20 per month on top of the usual monthly fee for the individual plan.

Read more »

Samsung just released the promised HDTV remote control application for its high-end Android devices – the Galaxy S and the Galaxy Tab.

The app requires Android 2.1 Eclair and either the Galaxy S or Tab need to be hooked up on the same wireless network as the TV set. Yeah, you need one of those connected HDTV sets. Here are some screenshots of the two apps. Read more »

Having the best time you can possible have is what going to the beach is all about. It’s sunny, you’ve hopefully brought friends along and there are plenty of activities to keep you happy like building castles made of sand (over the said friends) and whatnot. And here comes the Jetlev – a hybrid Jetpack, running on water, to up the level of the summer fun-having.

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Research and development, or R&D, is the most important department if you want innovative products – it’s where tech breakthroughs are made. So, how much a company spends on R&D should be a clear indicator of how much “innovation” each company has.

Well, reality begs to disagree with my common-sense argument – Apple, arguably one of the most innovative companies in the world, is last but one in terms of R&D budget, while Nokia (which hasn’t been so hot lately) spends the most… Read more »

Sony Ericsson was first to announce it will hold a pre-MWC event on the 13 February this year. This is a somewhat strategic move to steal the spotlight before the MWC 2011 is even on. It was to be expected as they’ve been doing such pre-MWC events for at least three years now.

Last year Samsung joined in on the fun and held an event on the exact same date and time. And today, only a couple of weeks before the beginning of MWC 2011, Nokia decided to go the same route.

Yes, the Sunday evening of 13 February will be hot, in a geeky kind of way.

In regards to new product announcements, the Mobile World Congress 2011 is the most important event in the mobile industry, setting the pace for at least six months ahead. This time it takes place between 14-17 February (as usual in Barcelona, Spain) and in a bold move three major manufacturers announced they’ll be holding pre-MWC events at exactly the same date and time.

Now I remember witnessing a similar situation last autumn. Read more »

Computers, Internet and mobile phones – those are an indispensable part of our modern lives. We are so dependent on the technology that even the slightest tech problems (remember Skype blackout?) can cause damage on economics, transport, even life.

The last decade has been pretty intense technically. More than two billion people are using the Internet compared to the 400 million ten years ago. The cellphone subscriptions have also risen to 5 billion – five times more compared to the 1 billion subscriptions in year 2000, according to the International Telecommunication Union.

Read more »

O2 UK just announced it’s working on a nation-wide Wi-Fi service in the UK. Most importantly, the service will be free for everybody and not just for O2 customers. Rollout will begin immediately starting with the current hotspots in O2’s shops and own retail centers and will soon be expanded to include strategic places around the UK.

Their goal is to surpass the combined number of premium hotspots offered by BT Openzone and The Cloud in the country by 2013.
Read more »

The computer market grew in the fourth quarter of 2010 by nearly a fifth. It turns out tablets were a major driving force behind the increased sales.

Apple is rising in the ranks, jumping to the third spot in the top PC manufacturers list, powered by the strong iPad and Mac sales… Read more »

There’s change at the very top of Google – Eric Schmidt, who’s been Google’s CEO for the past 10 years, will be stepping down from that position moving to a position of an Executive Chairman. Larry Page will be replacing him starting 4 April – apparently all this is a planned effort to streamline decision making…

Read more »

Opera just published its State of the Mobile Web report for December 2010 and this time the special feature part is dedicated to holiday shopping. According to Opera, the Amazon usage share reached 1.6% in December, compared to 0.9% in January. And that is despite the fact that the total number of users also rose 84.7% YoY to reach 85.5 million.

Which means that nearly 1.5 million people used Opera Mini to visit the Amazon web site last month, while in January 2010 only half a million did so. Read more »

In tech circles, Steve Jobs is nothing less than a legend. He’s been having health problems in the recent years though and now, he will be taking his third medical leave since 2004. This news caused quite a stir, especially since Apple is due to announce its Q1 earnings today, but Apple seems to have everything under control…

Read more »

According to 27% of the people that took part in the latest Nielsen survey 4G is what the latest iPhone is called. True story!

With American carriers all keen to boast about their 4G networks to anyone who would listen, Nielsen decided to check how much people really know about 4G wireless tech. As it turned out 17% of the participants have never heard of it, while only 51% of the rest claimed to know what it means. Now that speaks volumes of the efficiency of those multi-million ad campaigns, doesn’t it?

And back to where we started, some 27% of the interviewed claimed that it was the name of the current iteration of the Apple iPhone. A new Android phone from T-Mobile was the answer of every 7th participant. Another 43% thought 4G stands for new devices that process data faster. Read more »