As carriers go, Japan’s KDDI au seems to spend more time than just about anyone dreaming up crazy concept handsets — some of which actually go on to become production models this is Japan, after all). Alongside those Yamaha-branded musical instrument phones, KDDI has been showing off the plywood-inspired “Ply,” an expansive touchscreen backed by a number of layers that represent the phone’s various functions. Said functions are actually pretty far-fetched — there’s a printer, pico-projector, and analog clock with a minute hand that actually swings out beyond the body of the phone itself, for example — but the phone itself is pretty stunningly beautiful, so we’d love to see it on the streets of Tokyo even if it meant nixing the printer.

[Via textually.org]

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So when we first loaded this image, we immediately thought “oh, that’s funny, the perspective got smushed somehow.” But then we saw the perfectly-shaped Sprint logo, at which point our thoughts quickly changed to “oh, no.” But oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen: this appears to be LG’s upcoming LX600 for Sprint, a bizarre little creature that flips open to reveal a 2.4-inch display and a full QWERTY keyboard (a laRumor) for ease of texting. Little else is known about what the hell is going on here, so it looks like we’ll have to wait until closer to the phone’s release, which is currently rumored to be October 16. In the mean time, does anyone out there want to fess up to this being nothing more than a disgusting Photoshop job of theirs? Please?

[Thanks, Nate C.]

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We saw a couple versions of the iControlPad iPhone gamepad surface back in May, but it looks like the clever add-on is getting close to reality — check out these case prototypes that just popped up. Yeah, it’s not, uh, small — good thing the target price is under $30. Touch Arcade also has some other pictures of another iPhone gaming accessory that looks like it slides open, check it out at the read link.

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Yesterday we got the height and width, today it’s the full wireframe model with scale measurements. While we can’t confirm the authenticity, several details including that arcing base certainly dovetail nicely with the images found in the original FCC filing. It’s also a near-perfect match to that early reference design seen kicking around the Googleplex courtesy of Andy Rubin. While not obvious before, we can clearly see that the arc belongs to the handset’s rigid, non-sliding “chin” with lots of logos from HTC, T-Mobile, and Google fighting for visibility.

Notably, the right-most image contains measurements which can be applied to the rest of scale model as well. This confirms the 115 x 55-mm height and width shown by the FCC yesterday as well as a new, approximate, 16.35-mm depth after applying the calipers. That would make it fatter (as expected) than the 12.3-mm iPhone but skinnier (and a hair wider) than the 18.1-mm HTC Touch Pro and 17-mm Xperia X1. Not bad. Now let’s get to it boys, else there won’t be much left to announce in September.

[Via Android Community]

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We’ve been slipped a handy little document that indicates the dates that Sprint is currently targeting for the release of a few of its fall hotties, and although we already knew some of this stuff, it’s always good to have some corroborating evidence in these situations. First up, the Motorola Renegade V950, i365, and Samsung M220 and M320 are all still apparently locked for September 2, as is the Touch Diamond. We’ve heard a groundswell of concern from tipsters that the Touch Diamond may have been bumped out to October — it certainly wouldn’t surprise us, given our jaded, overwhelmingly pessimistic personalities — but here’s hoping, anyway. It also looks like the just-released Katana Eclipse in silver will be getting pink and black siblings come October 16, along with an “LG LX600 Messaging Handset.” We’re not sure what the LX600 might be beyond what a confidentiality-bound FCC filing tells us, but the Rumor is getting a little long in the tooth, so it could conceivably be replacement device or a slightly higher-end QWERTY set that would sit somewhere above the Rumor in the lineup.

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We can’t help but feel the BlackBerry Bold 9000’s much-anticipated launch ended up being just a tad bit anti-climactic. Maybe it’s a Canada thing, or maybe we’re just haters. Or maybe we hate Canada. While we mull that over, you might as well have a look at CrackBerry.com’s video unboxing of the new phone, complete with some comparison shots and, um, unboxing. Oh, there’s an iPhone versus near the end, so don’t go anywhere! Video is after the break.

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Developers are mad as hell about the copy / paste situation on the iPhone, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. Despite rumblings of the long-overdue feature making an appearance in version 2.1, a grass-roots effort has been started in the form of OpenClip.org to implement a totally independent, third-party clipboard solution that apparently manages to remain entirely within the bounds of Apple’s airtight SDK agreement that significantly limits what App Store apps can and cannot do. Some eleven apps are already listed as having pledged support for the OpenClip standard, which will inevitably be wiped out if Apple decides to do something official — which, let’s be real, should’ve happened ages ago. Follow the break for a video demo of OpenClip in action.

[Via MacRumors]

Continue reading Third-party clipboard framework for iPhone in the works

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We’re not going to re-hash the details of Nokia’s N79 and N85 yet again. After all, we just went through it less than 24-hours ago. We will tell you that both the N79 (tri-band GSM, 900/2100 UMTS/HSDPA) and N85 (quad-band GSM/EDGE with either 900/1900/2100 or 850/1900/2100 UMTS/HSDPA) will hit Europe in October for €350 and €450, respectively, pre-tax and pre-carrier subsidies. The N85 could also be Stateside sometime soon given those frequencies and prior FCC approval, Oh, and pictures, lots of pretty pictures.

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