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Welcome to Samsung Day, 2013. While we wait on some big (and little) product launches this afternoon, here's a quick bite to keep us going: an interesting processor spec mentioned in the user manual for the SHV-E330S, which we think will be the new LTE-Advanced variant of the Galaxy S 4 intended for South Korea. How the folks at RBmen spotted it we have no idea, but one of the pages (shown after the break) confirms the presence of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974), which not only supports the new double-speed LTE standard but is also something of a beast when it comes to general performance. This isn't especially relevant to a Western audience, perhaps, except that it marginally increases the probability that we'll see this same powerhouse inside the rumored Galaxy Note III, since Samsung evidently feels comfortable with Qualcomm's flagship silicon -- and it can't have failed to notice that LG's engineers are fond of it too.

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To date, home theater mavens who've wanted Logitech's Harmony Ultimate Hub have had to buy it as part of a Harmony Ultimate or Harmony Smart Control bundle -- neither kit being a bargain for viewers with existing gear. They'll have a better option soon, as Logitech now expects to ship its promised stand-alone version of the Ultimate Hub to Europe and the US in August. Those who shell out $100 will have the same IR, RF and WiFi support as the bundled hub, just without the redundant hardware. They can even rely solely on Logitech's free Android or iOS apps for input, should a dedicated remote seem archaic. The Ultimate Hub may be well-timed: when alternative remote control bridges are fading away, Logitech may snag some of those customers looking for a replacement.

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LG and Qualcomm have enjoyed a close relationship for mobile phone chips, and it appears that will continue with the next Optimus G device, which is due in Q3. A press release tonight promises it will feature a Snapdragon 800 CPU for "the ultimate mobile experience" -- a claim benchmarks seem to back up. Qualcomm says the new 800 chip can best the original Optimus G's S4 Pro by "up to 75 percent" in performance, although what may be more interesting is how this aligns with a LS980 handset that recently leaked on Sprint's website. The release also highlights the new chip's ability to use LTE Advanced carrier aggregation for even faster bandwidth speeds, so while a Galaxy S 4 variant may deliver the feature first, it probably won't be alone for long.

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Yes, we've seen Samsung's Galaxy Mega 6.3 at the FCC before. With its second visit, however, there's something special. The extra-large phone is back as the SGH-i527, and it's carrying AT&T-native LTE that hints at a probable US carrier deal. There aren't any other visible changes in the filing, although we weren't expecting any. The real question is when this behemoth will ship to the States, assuming it ships at all -- for now, any possible AT&T launch remains shrouded in mystery.

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Nokia keeps slipping out clues as to what we might expect from its Zoom Reinvented event: following the RM-877's appearance at the FCC, an RM-875 device has also popped up at the US agency. This new hardware looks like an international variant of the RM-877, and thus a second take on what we believe is the EOS. The RM-875 sheds what traces were left of its sibling's 1,700MHz HSPA+ data and switches the LTE to more exotic 850MHz, 1,800MHz, 2,100MHz and 2,500MHz frequencies, but it's otherwise a near perfect match in terms of dimensions and antenna layouts. The camera grip accessory and wireless charging cover persist, too. As such, it's quite possible that whatever Nokia unveils on July 11th will ship worldwide -- let's just hope it ships quickly.

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Good news for the folks at Spindle came today, as the provider of hyperlocal offers from businesses was acquired by Twitter. Described by the company as, "a tool for tuning into your surroundings," the service pulls updates from Twitter and Facebook and categorizes offers around themes such as restaurants and shopping. Spindle also includes a social element, with the ability to share check-ins through Facebook and Twitter. The service is currently limited to 11 cities, which includes New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, but according to the company, "By joining forces with Twitter, we can do so much more to help you find interesting, timely, and useful information about what's happening around you." As sad news to current users of Spindle, however, the service will shut down effective today, as the team prepares for its transition to the Twitter team in San Francisco. At any rate, it looks like the folks at Lucky Sort won't be the rookies of Twitter HQ anymore. For a peek at what Spindle entails, just hop the break.

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Facebook comment threads are apparently a bit too calm, so the social network company's decided to mix things up with the addition of in-line image embeds starting today. But wait -- put down the link to your hottest GIF -- apparently the service only supports static images for now. And not everyone has it thus far, with the service only rolling out to folks who have a camera icon appear in the comment response field.

The functionality is rolling out on both web and mobile versions of Facebook; product engineer Bob Baldwin debuted the addition on his Facebook profile, where he said he built the image embedding "at a hackathon" with a gaggle of other FBers. Let us know in the comments below if you've already got it, and leave some pictures on the Engadget Facebook page!

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We knew it was coming, but AT&T has now officially announced the NEC Terrain. Set to become available on the same day as BlackBerry's physical QWERTY-packing handset, the LTE-ready Terrain boasts a "high-resolution" 3.1-inch display, a decent 1.5GHz, dual-core Snapdragon S4 CPU and 8GB of built-in storage which can reach up to 32GB via microSD -- all while running a not-so-fresh version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. Given that NEC designed it with the business folk in mind, this little ruggedized (MIL-810G) smartphone also offers on-device encryption for VPN access and compatibility with AT&T's Enhanced Push-to-Talk services, which the company says makes for the perfect blend of "the necessary features needed for work and personal use." As stated earlier, the NEC Terrain will be hitting shelves on June 21st, carrying a $99.99 price tag with the accustomed two-year deal on the Rethink Possible carrier.

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Apple won a contract this week with the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide iPads to its students, netting Cupertino $30 million across the next two years. The agreement will roll out iPads to students at 47 campuses; the iPads cost $678 apiece (nearly $200 more than a standard entry level iPad) and come loaded with educational software. Bizarrely, with tablets priced at $678 apiece, $30 million only nets LA schools approximately 45,000 iPads, while the school district comprises 640,000 students. We asked Apple to clarify and were told that the contract is for 31,000 iPads (for both students and teachers) which come with "Pearson Common Core System of Courses delivered via a new app." That's in addition to Apple standards like iWork, iLife, and iTunes, as well as "a range of educational third-party apps" included. The first iPads arrive in classrooms this fall, in what is deemed the "first phase" of a larger rollout.

The battle for LA's school contract was hard fought, with both board members and a Microsoft rep pushing back against student / teacher ratings and the overall cost. The teachers union president Warren Fletcher requested the money be spent on hiring new staff over mass-buying iPads, while district officials argued that national student tests require computer literacy, the LA Times reports -- the board voted unanimously (6 - 0) to approve the contract.

Traditionally, iPads have been used in college-level education -- both Seton Hill (not Seton Hall) and Tennessee's Webb School use Apple's tablet.

[Image credit: 'flickingerbrad']

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The Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), a consortium working to establish a new wireless charging standard, hasn't been around for terribly long -- Samsung and Qualcomm joined forces to create the organization just over a year ago -- but it's planning to make waves as quickly as possible. One of the most effective ways to do exactly that, then, would be to persuade large players in the mobile industry to join along, and Intel certainly meets that qualification. The company announced this afternoon that it has officially joined the A4WP's Board of Directors. This move doesn't guarantee that we'll be soon seeing Intel-powered devices with built-in wireless charging capabilities, but it's at least a solid indication that the folks in Santa Clara are mindful of (and intrigued by) the potential that near-field magnetic resonance tech holds.

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Earlier than expected (and a little pricier than we'd hoped), the BlackBerry Q5 will go on sale tomorrow in the UAE. We know that its radios are primed for AT&T 3G and while the build might not rival the flagship BB10 device, it's another option for those who can't relinquish the tactile joys of a physical keyboard. It will launch priced at 1,499 AED (just above $400), which nets you BlackBerry's latest OS spread across a 3.1-inch touchscreen with the aforementioned keyboard nestled below. Interested in hopping on a red-eye flight for the third device since the company's name change? Then we'd recommend reacquainting yourself with our first impressions.

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Anyone who's tried to tether to their iPhone or iPad will recall how iOS manages to craft its own passwords when used as a personal hotspot. The aim is to ensure that anyone sharing a data connection will get some degree of security, regardless of whether or not they tinker with the password themselves. However, three researchers from FAU in Germany have now worked the structure behind these auto-generated keys -- a combination of a short English word and a series or random numbers -- and managed to crack that hotspot protection in under a minute. To start, the word list contains about 52,500 entries, and once the testers were able to capture a WiFi connection, they used an AMD Radeon HD 6990 GPU to cycle through all those words with number codes, taking just under 50 minutes to crack with rote entry. Following that, they realized that only a small subset (just 1,842) of the word list was being used.

With an even faster GPU -- a cluster of four AMD Radeon HD 7970s -- they got the hotspot password cracking time to 50 seconds. The Friedrich-Alexander University researchers added that unscrupulous types could use comparable processing power through cloud computing. "System-generated passwords should be reasonably long, and should use a reasonably large character set. Consequently, hotspot passwords should be composed of completely random sequences of letters, numbers, and special characters," says the report, which outlines the trade-off between security and usability. However, as ZDNet notes, Apple's cycled password approach still offers more protection than static options found elsewhere. Check out the full paper at the source.

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