While the 5-inch LG Optimus G Pro looks like it’s an exclusive to NTT DoCoMo in Japan for the time being, the phablet sized 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro is apparently heading to LG’s home country of South Korea. That 5.5-inch display retains the 1080p resolution of its slightly smaller cousin, along with a 1.7GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm and 2GB of RAM.

To help power the bigger screen, they’re also giving it a bigger battery, a 3140mAh unit to be precise. That’s right around the same size as the Note 2, which makes sense since they have the same sized display (though the Note 2 is only 720p). Rounding out the spec sheet are 32GB of internal storage and a microSD slot for even more space.

This is just a leak at the moment, so we haven’t found anything in terms of pricing and availability just yet, but I’d say it’s pretty safe to assume that some variant of the Optimus G Pro will eventually make it to our shores. We just don’t know if it’s a 5-incher, a 5.5-incher, or something different altogether.

[Source]

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Chalk this up to unconfirmed rumors for now, but word out of Korea is that the LG Optimus G2 will come with an impressive 5-inch 1080p display. This would follow in the footsteps of the HTC J Butterfly (Droid DNA), plus the rumored 5-incher on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4. This isn’t the first time that LG has gone to this size–you might remember the LG Vu–but this is the first 1080p smartphone from the Korean manufacturer.

Under the hood, we’re hearing that the Optimus G will come powered by a 2GHz Qualcomm chipset, though it’s unclear how many cores it will have. We’d guess that it’ll have 2GB of RAM and a hell of a camera, but I hope that they do improve the battery life over what we have now in the Optimus G.

According to MK Business News of Korea, the LG Optimus G2 will be ready for launch as early as May 2013. Given that timeline, it would not be all that far-fetched to at least see an announcement at CES in January.

[Source]

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There’s only one thing more worrying than a robot wielding a knife, and that is a robot wielding a knife that it knows how to use it. However in this instance, CIROS, a unit suitably fit for the kitchen, robot knife skills may be more helpful than we may have thought before.

The Korean Institute of Science and Technology have designed CIROS to help around the house and handle everyday tasks such as making a salad, creating a cup of tea or scrubbing the dishes.

By using complicated algorithms to identify objects it may come across in its environment, the Korean institute hope that CIROS will be fully capable of making himself useful around the house as his own free will.

At its current state, CIROS seems awfully slow, and you may be better off cutting your cucumber and lettuce yourself, even if you’re feeling extra lazy that day. However, CIROS is definitely an interesting step in robotic technology, I’m just not sure if giving a robot a knife will ever be a smart thing to do.

Watch CIROS in action below:

[Slate via IEEE Spectrum]

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Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. That’s the way it’s sounding over in South Korea, because Samsung is ready to go on the offensive in its ongoing patent war with Apple. Apple has gotten the Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned in Germany, so Samsung is getting ready to get the iPhone 5 banned as soon as it touches down in Seoul.

This comes by way of an “unnamed senior executive at Samsung” who says that the company “plans to take Apple to court here [in Korea] for its violation of Samsung’s wireless related patents. For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents.”

Those are some very strong words from a person who doesn’t want his name publicly published. In any case, it looks like Samsung is completely changing its strategy in this patent war. It had been on the defensive, since Apple is one of Sammy’s biggest customers, but I guess the gloves are coming off. If you can’t beat them to market share, you just ban them from selling their wares in the first place.

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Just because you want to join in on the all the tablet fun doesn’t mean you need to break the bank. I’ve never heard of Enspert before, but the company’s new line of Android tablets just might catch your eye.

Announced at CES 2011, the IDENTITY line of tablets from Enspert are supposed to bring affordability to the Android realm without sacrificing much in functionality or quality. If you only need WiFi, you can get the IDENTITY tab E201, for example.

Adding 3G to the mix is the IDENTITY E301, while the E302 does the WiMAX thing for Europe and Asia. Both the E301 and the E302 come preloaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Yeah, there’s no Honeycomb here, but you knew you had to sacrifice somewhere.

Enspert is based out of Korea and they didn’t offer anything in terms of pricing in the press release. They do mention that the E201 will be ready in early 2011 with the E301 following up “shortly after.” They plan on offering that through “a leading US wireless carrier in time for the 2011 back-to-school season” too.

[Enspert]

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