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Although Samsung is preparing to unveil the Galaxy Nexus (Nexus Prime) in a few hours, NTT DoCoMo has leaked the specs and a picture of the upcoming device.

The Android 4.0 ICS device will have a 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP4460 processor, a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen and dual cameras 1.3/5 MP.

Samsung is prepared to unveil the phone tonight, a week after its original launch date, with a release date in early November.

Android 4.0 ICS is supposed to be Google's largest firmware update yet, combining the code of Honeycomb 3.0 and Gingerbread 2.3.x.

Pics via Verge:

Catcher Technology, the Taiwanese manufacturer, has shutdown one factory in eastern China this week due to "strange odors" coming from the plant.

The plant is notable because it produces over 60 percent of Apple's Mac uni-body enclosures. The cases are seen on all current MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. The factory also produces cases for Acer, Dell, Lenovo and Sony, says AI.

Catcher president Allen Horng says shipments from the factory will fall 20 percent this month and as much as 40 percent next month if the plant is not cleared to re-open. "Shipments to our customers will inevitably be affected, We already asked them to make adjustments to their (casings) procurement," says Horng.

Motorola Mobility and Verizon Wireless have officially unveiled the DROID RAZR Android smartphone. It will be go on sale to Verizon customers next month for $299.99 with a 2 year contract.

It will run Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) and have a 1.2GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and a 4.3 inch Gorilla Glass display. In addition, it has an 8 megapixel rear camera with 1080p video recording capability and a front facing camera for video chat.

The two companies are emphasizing the phone's thin profile - just 7.1mm, Kevlar body, and water resistant coating.

"DROID RAZR by Motorola is a testament to the innovation and design possibilities that stem from a strong partnership between Motorola Mobility and Verizon Wireless," said Sanjay Jha, Chairman and CEO, Motorola Mobility. "We set out to design the best smartphone on the planet and delivered DROID RAZR which is thinner, smarter, stronger than any device on the market."

A more interesting aspect of the DROID RAZR is an array of accessories which will be available for it, including a number of different docks and a wireless keyboard and trackpad.

The docks include 2 different laptop-style units, one with a 14" screen and another with a 10" screen. There will also be docks designed for connecting the phone to external displays (including HDTVs) and speakers, as well as a vehicle navigation dock for mounting it in a car.

Samsung has announced the launch of "ChatOn," the company's first mobile messaging service.

The app will be preloaded in Bada devices and most future Samsung Android devices.

ChatOn will be released for iOS and BB/BBX in the near future, says the company.

Additionally, the service will be available via desktop, as well.

Although Windows Phone 7 was not specifically mentioned, the app should make its way to the OS eventually, especially considering Samsung is one of the major hardware builders for the platform.

As with rivals like BBM, iOS Messenger, Google Talk and more, users can talk to each other and exchange audio/video when connected to the Internet.

At today's BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011, RIM has announced the launch of BBX, the future of the company.

RIM says the "next generation mobile platform takes the best of the BlackBerry platform and the best of the QNX platform to connect people, devices, content and services."

Additionally, RIM has updated their developer tools, including WebWorks for BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook and a developer beta of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 with support for running Android applications.

Says Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO:

With nearly 5 million BlackBerry apps downloaded daily, our customers have made BlackBerry one of the most profitable platforms for developers. At DevCon today, we're giving developers the tools they need to build richer applications and we're providing direction on how to best develop their smartphone and tablet apps as the BlackBerry and QNX platforms converge into our next generation BBX platform.

BBX-OS will support BlackBerry cloud services and all apps created for the PlayBook including Native SDK, Adobe AIR/Flash and WebWorks/HTML5, as well as the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps.

HTC's patent claims against Apple in the US have been dealt a blow by the International Trade Commission. An ITC judge released a preliminary decision finding that Apple devices do not infringe on HTC patents.

HTC was asking for a ban on importing Apple devices. The complaint was in response to Apple's own patent lawsuits against the Taiwanese handset maker.

In a statement to Rueters, HTC general counsel Grace Lei downplayed the decision. She wrote, "This is only one step of many in these legal proceedings. We are confident we have a strong case for the ITC appeals process and are fully prepared to protect our intellectual property."

The decision will not be final until it is reviewed by the full commission in February. It does not cover the additional complaint from HTC regarding the patents acquired from Google earlier this year.

This decision may actually end up being irrelevant thanks to HTC's purchase of S3 Graphics earlier this year. S3 already has already won a preliminary judgement against Apple, which is also waiting to be heard by the commission.

Apple appears to be having problems meeting demand for the iPhone 4S, at least for Apple Store customers.

Rumors of production problems started circulating last month. It was even suggested they might result in the new iPhone not being available until the end of October.

Although the iPhone 4S launched on schedule last Friday, there are signs those rumors may have been accurate.

If you are ordering an iPhone online, the process is the same as always. But if you plan to buy an iPhone 4S from an Apple Store, you will need to reserve it the night before from Apple's website.

Apple hasn't released any information about the cause of the shortage or how long it is expected to last. It may simply be a side effect of adding 2 new US carriers and an accelerated launch schedule.

Sales of the iPhone 4S over the first weekend were higher than for any previous iPhone. This was, in part, due to launching in an unprecedented 7 countries at once and the addition of both Verizon and Sprint in the US.

According to The Korean Times, Samsung is already producing the quad-core A6 processor that will be seen in the iPad 3 and iPhone 5.

Apple had allegedly signed a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for the processors, but now it appears that deal may not be in the works anymore.

The new report says the buyer/supplier relationship will remain into the foreseeable future, as Apple has declared the company a critical partner.

TSMC will still produce a small amount of the chips, perhaps under 10 percent.

Samsung has streamlined the process and is producing the chips at their new plant in Texas.

After just four months, Google+ has reached 40 million users.

Speaking after the company's blowout earnings report, CEO Larry Page said:

We had a great quarter. Revenue was up 33% year on year and our quarterly revenue was just short of $10 billion. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started!

Despite the strong amount of signups, traffic has been dwindling as less people find use for the service. When the service moved out of beta, traffic exploded 1200 percent, but the spike was short lived, falling as much as 60 percent from the peak, says Chitika Insights.

Rival Facebook has 750 million users and is the top visited site in the U.S.

According to GigaOM, Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström are working on an online video service that will compete against market leader Netflix.

The service is to be called Vdio, similar to the entrepreneur's online streaming service Rdio.

For now, the site for Vdio is just a landing page with a "coming soon" sign, but Om says "Skype's founders have apparently been quietly assembling an A-team of media and web technology experts to launch a site that seems destined to replicate the model behind their music subscription site Rdio in the video space."

The service has been secretly under development for two years.

An upcoming closed beta service will let users "instantly watch the best in TV and movies."

More info when it becomes available.

The EC is preparing to invest about 9.2 billion euro into broadband infrastructure as the Commission wants faster Internet speeds across the European Union.

Mainly, the plan is aimed at stimulating investment into rural broadband.

Additionally, the EC wants all European households to have, at minimum, 30Mbps broadband connections by 2020, with over 50 percent of the population with 100Mbps by then.

Doing so will make the region for competitive, says the BBC.

The investments, if approved, would begin in 2014 and end in 2020.

According to sources, Microsoft will pay $44 million total to Nokia and Samsung in the coming months to pump Windows Phone 7 in the UK.

Nokia will get the lion's share of the money ($31.5 million) and their first promo images have already leaked for the Nokia 800 (pictured).

Samsung will use the money to promote the Omnia W, which has a 3.7 inch 800 × 480 pixel Super AMOLED display, 1.4GHz processor, dual cameras and HSPA+ 14.4Mbps data support.

Nokia's "Nokia World" event is set for 10 days from now and the company is likely to unveil 2 new devices, each running Windows Phone 7.5 Mango.

New voluntary industry standards will force carrier to send customers who want them real-time alerts if they are near their monthly voice, data or text messaging limits.

The deal with the FCC has been in the works over the last year after reports of "bill shock" has increased significantly. Bill shock is the term given to monthly phone bills that have a severe excess of fees, usually because the user unknowingly went over their data limits.

Over the past year, there have been a few high-profile cases where the bill went as high as $20,000.

Carriers have agreed to start the real-time alerts within 12-18 months.

The EU has had similar rules in place since 2010.

According to new StatCouter figures, it took two years but Windows 7 has surpassed its older brother XP in market share.

In April, Windows 7 passed XP in the U.S., but the international count stood at 46.8 percent for XP and just 31.5 percent.for 7.

That number has now quickly reversed, with Windows 7 gaining to 40.15 percent and XP falling to 38.78 percent.

Vista also gained a bit to 11.14 per cent.

Apple's Mac OS X saw another uptick to 7.26 percent.

A US legislator is asking Amazon to answer some questions about potential privacy implications related to their Kindle Fire tablet.

Representative Ed Markey sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asking for detailed information about data the company plans to collect via the Kindle Fire's Silk web browser. Silk will use a new Amazon cloud service to speed up browsing.

In order to make that service to work, Amazon will collect data on user behavior in order to make an educated guess about what content they may request next.

In a New York Times article which sparked Markey's interest, Jenna Wortham pointed to concerns being voiced by some technology experts about the implications of Amazon's data collection. She mentioned comments by Apple's Chris Espinosa, who wrote:

People who cringe at the data-mining implications of the Facebook Timeline ought to be just floored by the magnitude of Amazon's opportunity here. Amazon now has what every storefront lusts for: the knowledge of what other stores your customers are shopping in and what prices they're being offered there. What's more, Amazon is getting this not by expensive, proactive scraping the Web, like Google has to do; they?re getting it passively by offering a simple caching service, and letting Fire users do the hard work of crawling the Web. In essence the Fire user base is Amazon's Mechanical Turk, scraping the Web for free and providing Amazon with the most valuable cache of user behavior in existence.