Alibaba maintains Aliyun’s legitimacy, but agrees with app piracy accusations

It seems as if this may be the year for finger-pointing, as we’ve seen the epic Apple vs. Samsung trial, HTC vs. Apple, White House vs. Google, and now Google vs. Alibaba. The accusations are based around whether or not Alibaba’s OS is a shameless copy of Android; the only truth standing at the moment is the insane amount of pirated apps in the Aliyun app store.

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Samsung comments on the Galaxy S4 rumors, says they’re not true

Yesterday the internet went gaga when rumors out of Korea suggested that Samsung was going to announce the Galaxy S4 at Mobile World Congress next year and then ship it a month later in March. Samsung, looking to make people ignore the S4 and focus on the recently launched S3, wrote a tweet in their native language today saying:

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LG’s quad core Optimus G is finally official, set to go on sale next month!

LG’s Optimus G, which is scheduled to be shown off at a press event in New York City tomorrow, has officially been in announced in South Korea today. While it’s technically not the first smartphone to use Qualcomm’s quad core Snapdragon S4, that honor goes to the China only Xiaomi Mi-Two, the Optimus G is going to ship in “key global markets in October”.
So what else, besides the processor, makes this thing special? It has 2 GB of RAM, something that’s still considered “special” in today’s market. The display, which measure 4.7 inches diagonal and pushed 1280 x 720 pixels, is using a new in-cell touch technology which makes it thinner, brighter, and less reflective. The camera, which comes in at 13 megapixels, should be awesome, though some countries will get the Optimus G with an 8 megapixel sensor due to supply issues. Oh and there’s also 4G LTE in this thing, so if you’re in a market with LTE support, prepare to melt your face off with the speed this puppy is capable of delivering.

Are there any downsides to this device? Just one: It ships with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, not Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. No word as to when it’s going to be upgraded either. Yes, there’s the whole ROM flashing thing, but that’s not very mainstream.

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MasterCard releases mobile payments SDK, hopes the world pays attention

Raise your hands, how many of you have been dreaming about one day being able to pay for everything with nothing but a tap of your mobile phone? It’s a fantasy we all want to see come to fruition, but there have quite a few number of hiccups. MasterCard, in an attempt to get the ball rolling on mobile payments, has just released an SDK that’s compatible with Android and BlackBerry smartphones. They basically want developers to integrate their wireless payment technology, PayPass, into their applications.

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Intel’s Clover Trail will indeed support Linux and Android

Yesterday we filed a report saying Intel’s next generation mobile platform, Clover Trail, was only going to be capable of supporting Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system. Turns out this isn’t the case anymore. An Intel spokesperson sent Computerworld the following statement:

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Yahoo! employee smartphones: iPhone 5, Android, Windows Phone (anything but BlackBerry)

We earlier wrote a news story that Yahoo! would be overhauling the company’s smartphone policy and give free smartphones to employees. Among the new CEO Marissa Mayer’s strategic shifts when she came onboard as chief executive is to revamp the company as a product company. As such, she wants employees to be able to think from the perspective of a consumer, and not just an engineer, developer, designer or marketer.

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HTC phablet becomes known as the HTC One X 5

Rumors of a 5-inch phablet device from HTC have been floating around for a while now. From leaked photos to information about the phablet getting unveiled on September 19th, we’ve just about heard it all.

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Aston Martin is set to release a luxury Android phone called Aspire

Luxury car manufacturers releasing Android devices is something we’ve dealt with before. They specialize in creating the greatest cars on Earth with designs and specifications meant to awe and impress. Aston Martin is the latest car manufacturer showing interest in creating its own Android devices and has already announced the Aston Martin Aspire.

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Is Google planning an integrated password management service?

In a blog post today, Google’s Tim Bray lamented that instead of searching through Google, users will often go to a specific website to avoid the hassle of signing up or logging in with new services, and mentioned that Google may be working on a solution. Does this mean that an integrated Google password manager could be in the works?

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Google+ hits 400 million registered users, 100 million active users

There are many people who will never forget the days leading up to the public release of Google+. Many of us had already gotten private beta invites and countless more were trolling forums to find them. Before Google+ was even released, it had tens of thousands of users who were already sharing posts. Even Tom from Myspace was relevant again. It was a merry old time.

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