LG on Wednesday announced a new user-interface skin for its Android-powered devices runningIce Cream Sandwich. The South Korean company’s Optimus UI 3.0 is said to be designed with convenience and speed in mind, and is being labeled as both unobtrusive and simple. “With smartphone hardware becoming more and more similar, it’s important for manufacturers to differentiate their products from the competition through the user interface,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Both carriers and customers tell us that they want LG phones to look and feel unique and the UI plays a big part in that.

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Some believe Siri is a driving force behind Apple’s record-breaking iPhone 4S sales, but not everyone is impressed with the Cupertino, California-based company’s virtual assistant. Apple’s TV ads depict Siri as an impressive, fast-acting feature that intelligently offers help or information in responds to a wide range of and commands. A number of users have found that Siri is not as helpful as Apple leads consumers to believe, however, and the company has been hit with a number of lawsuits as a result.

Apple was sued in March by a New York man, Frank Fazio, who alleges that Apple’s Siri commercials are misleading and deceptive.On many of Apples television advertisements, individuals are shown using Siri to make appointments, find restaurants, and even learn the guitar chords to classic rock songs or how to tie a tie, Fazios complaint reads. In the commercials, all of these tasks are done with ease with the assistance of the iPhone 4Ss Siri feature, a represented functionality contrary to the actual operating results and performance of Siri.

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What do you get when you cross a struggling vendor’s debut tablet with a mobile operating system that has spent the past 18 months running into the brick wall that is Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS? One Dutch developer seemingly needed to find out, so he ported Microsoft’s perpetually-emerging Windows Phone OS onto RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. The result is a somewhat responsive slate that gives us a look at what will never be; Microsoft is on record in stating that it has no interest in bringing Windows Phone emphasis on “Phone” to tablets. Of course, with the software giant’s next-generation Windows 8 platform on the horizon there is no reason to put Windows Phone on a tablet. But for those curious to know what a Windows Phone tablet might look like, a video of the developer’s PlayBook running Microsoft’s mobile OS follows below. “Gamer109X,” the developer behind this curious chimera, said he plans to release a Windows Phone build for the PlayBook to the public in the coming months.

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According to a new report from Forrester Research, Microsoft is leading both Apple and Google in the TV and home entertainment sector, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. While Apple and Google may control mobile, Microsoft’s Xboxentertainment system tops both Apple TV and Google TV according to the report. With the Xbox, Forrester analyst James McQuivey believes Microsoft is the farthest along when it comes to delivering users content through their television sets. Using those metrics, Microsoft is in the lead, offering everything that matters: a growing content library, a convenient engagement path for millions of existing Xbox 360 owners, and a growing ecosystem of partners and developers eager to exploit the platform for their own purposes, McQuivey wrote in the report. Microsoft has continued to add more content apps such as Comcast Xfinity, Verizon FiOS and HBO Go to the Xbox, alongside thousands of games. The software giant has shipped more than 66 million Xboxes worldwide, and Forrester estimates that half of all Xboxes in the United States are connected to the Internet.

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LG on Wednesday announced a new user-interface skin for its Android-powered devices runningIce Cream Sandwich. The South Korean company’s Optimus UI 3.0 is said to be designed with convenience and speed in mind, and is being labeled as both unobtrusive and simple. “With smartphone hardware becoming more and more similar, it’s important for manufacturers to differentiate their products from the competition through the user interface,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Both carriers and customers tell us that they want LG phones to look and feel unique and the UI plays a big part in that.

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Similar to Apple’s iTunes program, Google Music only allows a certain number of devices to be connected to the service at one time. Google allows users to upload up to 20,000 song for free, which can then be accessed by up to 10 “authorized” devices. Once the limit is reached, a user can “deauthorize” a device to allow another a different phone or tablet to take its place. The problem, however, is that Google has limited device deauthorizations to just four per year. While Google’s limit may not affect the average Joe, rooters, ROMers, enthusiasts and even bloggers may run into some trouble. Custom ROM users in particular may run into trouble Google Music often has difficulties handling custom ROMs and will occasionally de-register and re-register it as a completely new device.

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Despite some vendorsseeingrecord smartphone sales, worldwide sales of mobile phones declined 2% year-over-year to 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, according to research firm Gartner. The decline represents the first of its kind since the second quarter of 2009. Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region, said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.

In the smartphone market, Android accounted for more than half of all smartphone sales, with a 56.

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One year ago, less than 40% of mobile subscribers in the United States had a smartphone. That number has increased dramatically, however; according to Nielsen, one in two mobile subscribers now owns a smartphone. Driven mostly by the rise of Android and iOS, which account for more than 80% of the U.S. smartphone market, 2012 has turned into the year of the app. The average number of apps installed on each smartphone has jumped 28% in 2012, an increase from 32 apps to 41.

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Sprint’s costly $15.5 billion gamble on Apple’s iPhone won’t pay off until 2015, according to CEO Dan Hesse. At that time, however, the iPhone will be “quite profitable,” and the company is “very happy” with the dealdespite conflicting reports, AllThingsD said. Hesse sees the iPhone as a long-term investment that will slow subscriber defections and attract new customers. We believe in the long term, the CEO said. And over time we will make more money on iPhone customers than we will on other customers.

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Analysts for Barclays said in a note to investors thata new 7-inch iPad will be released this fall, Business Insider reported on Wednesday. “Following up on comments made last week, recent research still leads us to believe that Apple may be planning to add another form factor to its iPad line in the 7″ range for the fall,” the note read. The banking firm states that a smaller iPad would be useful in promoting Apple’s education agenda and could also help the company’s gaming efforts. Rather than sullying the iPad brand and iOS ecosystem, Barclays states that a “lower priced iPad [is] a necessary entry point to make the tablet market the size of the PC market by 2015 in terms of units (over 350 million units) – a figure CEO Tim Cook repeatedly mentions.” Apple has long been rumored to be readyinga 7.85-inch iPad minito compete with Amazons Kindle Fire and Barnes & Nobles Nook Tablet.

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Facebook is just days away from one of the largestinitialpublic offerings of all time. The social networking site is looking to raise more than $16 billion dollars at a valuation in the $100 billion price range. Facebook is worth a lot of money, and a company called Abine has created a program to determine just how much individuals are worth to Facebook. The program, called Facebook Val-You Calculator, determines a user’s worth with the help of seven questions regarding the number of friends they have, how often they like things, and even their salary range. Individuals are priced anywhere from $1 to more than $100, however according to research firm Forrester, Facebook made less than $4 per active user in 2011.

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Verizon Wireless plans to eliminate its $30 per month unlimited data plan that it provides to customers who subscribed to the plan prior to the company’s transition to tiered data plans last July, Fierce Wireless reported on Wednesday. Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said at the 40th J.P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom conference that once unlimited 3G data plan customers upgrade to 4G LTE, they will have to purchase the company’s shared data plan. “Everyone will be on data share,” Shammo said. The carrier’s shared data plans arescheduled to launch in the coming months, and will allow users to share a single pool of data between multiple devices.

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Successfully launching an iconic smartphone is a daunting task, and following up a blockbuster flagship phone launch is even more difficult. Apple and Samsung might make it look easy, but companies like Motorola, Nokia and RIM have shown us that the success of one phone is anything but a guarantee that sequels will be met with the same fanfare. Perhaps no recent smartphone launch better embodies that notion than the HTC EVO 4G, a smartphone that gave Sprint a much-needed smash hit when it launched in 2010, and its successor the EVO 3D, which is now all but forgotten less than a year after its debut. Now, Sprint and HTC are back again with the HTC EVO 4G LTE, a smartphone that is more than worthy of its “flagship” designation. Impressive though it may be on paper, can Sprint score an EVO 4G-sized hit with this upcoming superphone or is it destined to meet the same fate as the EVO 3D? My full review follows below.

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Just two days before its initial public offering, Facebook has increased the number of shares it will offer by 25%. The social networking giant will now offer 421 million shares to investors, 83.8 million shares more than it had originally planned to make available. Facebook is looking to price its stock between $34 and $38 per share, potentially allowing the company to raise more than $16 billion, making it the largest technology IPO and third-largest of all timebehind Visa and GM. Fortune notes that the share increase will not affect Facebook’s valuation, however, as the extra shares are being reallocated out of the company’s existing share count.Facebook will belisted on the NASDAQ under ticker symbol FB.

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Android’s rise to the top of the mobile operating system food chain as measured by device proliferation has been remarkably swift, but not without its drawbacks. Due to the nature of Google’s open source OS and its aggressive strategy, smartphone vendors that make use of the platform have each gone their own way with software development, hardware design and other key elements.As a result, Android fragmentation, which might be defined as the spread of diverging versions of the Android OS across devices with varying core characteristics, was born.

Whether or not fragmentation is a problem in the Android ecosystem is a topic that is intensely debated by enthusiasts. Some claim the problem will eventually lead to Android’s downfall while others deny the issue even exists. Outside of these heated debates, a number of individuals and firms have tried to analyze the matter and look at fragmentation’s potential impact on the bigger picture.

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The launch of Sprint’s flagship EVO 4G LTE has been delayed indefinitely and supply of AT&T’s flagship HTC One X will be constrained as a result of ongoing patent disputes between HTC and Apple. HTC confirmed in a statement emailed to BGR on Tuesday evening that shipments of its new EVO 4G LTE and One X smartphones have been held up by United States Customs as part of an International Trade Commission investigation. Before the phones can clear Customs, the ITC will need to determine that HTC’s new handsets are in compliance with an earlier ruling.

“The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order,” an HTC spokesperson said.

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