It was only a few days ago that reports were landing that Google wanted a repeat of the Nexus 7's success, but in smartphone form, and now there's some hands-on reports of LG's Optimus G Nexus.

Android and Me are reporting from multiple sources that have told them that LG are working on a Nexus phone, with some hands-on information to go with it. Their source claims that he's not an employee of Google, but has access to one of the Nexus devices that were handed out last week for testing:

I can confirm the next nexus is LG Optimus based. The phone looks surprisingly like the Galaxy Nexus and does not have sharp corners like the LG Optimus we already know. It has a silver'ring like the iPhone 3G around the outer edge of the screen which seemed to be similar to the Galaxy Nexus in size but was much better in brightness.

You might be waiting an extra week or three for that new iPhone 5 that you ordered. At 1PM October 5 Beijing time, Foxconn workers went on strike over new quality control standards implemented by Apple and Foxconn. It seems that Apple wanted to reduce the number of iPhone 5s coming with scratches from the factory and tightened quality standards.

Unfortunately, they didn't provide any additional training to workers to meet these new standards. Workers were frustrated by the fact that they couldn't meet these new standards and started beating up quality control inspectors. These inspectors, in turn, went to their management where the managers turned their back on the issues.

This led to a strike of about 4,000 workers and quality control managers, bringing the iPhone 5 production to a halt. The watchdog group China Labor Watch has the following to say about the incident:

We haven't heard much about Megaupload recently. We last left the saga with Kim Dotcom's extradition hearing being pushed off all the way until March of 2013. Now, a user of the Megaupload service has been granted a hearing by the United States court regarding whether or not he should be able to access his stored data.

Kyle Goodwin originally filed a motion back in May with the Electronic Frontier Foundation supporting his request. In the most general of terms, his motion asked the courts to figure out a way to allow users to get back their data from the shut-down servers, arguing that many users hosted legitimate content using the service.

"The Court stated today that it will hold a hearing to find out the details about Mr. Goodwin's property - where it is, what happened when the government denied him access to it, and whether and how he can get it back," says EFF attorney Julie Samuels.

Samsung is a giant when it comes to electronics. Producing a wide array of electronic gadgets, toys, and tools, Samsung has been growing in popularity and quality. The latest smartphones coming out of the company are incredibly brilliant--just ask Anthony Garreffa how much he likes his Galaxy S III!

Due to the smashing success of the Galaxy S III, along with its television division and other smartphone sales, Samsung is estimating record breaking profits of $7.3 billion for the third quarter. The finalized earnings report is due out on October 26, so the real number could be higher or lower than this estimate, though it shouldn't vary by too much.

The estimate places the total consolidated sales at $46.7 billion, which is a huge sum of money. Samsung has to be happy that these figures didn't come out during its trial with Apple as the damages awarded could have come in even higher than the $1 billion that the jury awarded Apple.

The thrifty among our readers will be happy to hear that the AMD Radeon HD 7850 has seen another price cut, bringing the retail price for the 2GB version down to $189. Along with that cut, the rest of the product line continues to trend downwards as the series ages, the process matures, and competition heats up between AMD and NVIDIA.

Anandtech has produced the nice chart you see above. The chart shows how the prices of AMD's offerings have declined continually since launch by comparing launch price, spring MSRP, late summer MSRP, and fall retail price. AMD has changed from quoting MSRP to quoting retail price as that usually is $10 lower than MSRP.

While the prices on the HD 7000 series started out really high, as of late they've become extremely reasonable due to the continual price cuts that AMD has been implementing. With the HD 8000 series due out early next year, prices will likely continue to fall on the HD 7000 series, though probably not until the holidays or just past.

If it wasn't so crazy, you'd think I was making this up...and I wish I was. But, no, I'm not. The following is a completely true political attack on a Democrat candidate using her playing of the popular game World of Warcraft as the focus. For some reason, the Republican incumbent believes that this makes her unfit for office.

Now, I don't want to start any political debates between Republicans and Democrats. Instead, I would like to take this moment to point out how absolutely ridiculous this claim is. The fact that a candidate plays World of Warcraft almost shows that he/she is more in touch with current life than the opposition.

"I think it's weird that I'm being targeted for playing online games," Lachowicz said. "Apparently I'm in good company since there are 183 million other Americans who also enjoy online games. What's next? Will I be ostracized for playing Angry Birds or Words with Friends? If so, guilty as charged!"

The cheap $199 Nexus 7 tablet from ASUS and Google was a huge success - I rated it very well and still use it as my everyday tablet. But it looks like Google wants to hit the homerun again, but with a smartphone this time.

Sources have told DigiTimes that Google are working with manufacturers "to launch smartphones based on its Nexus 7 platform". DigiTimes reports that Google are letting OEMs have more free rein on design and hardware specifications as long as they "are based on its latest native Android system".

I really hope we see this happen, and I have no doubt that we will. I expect a launch in early-2013 of the next iteration of Android, which should be Android 4.2 Key Lime Pie, on a Nexus handset. Bring it on.

NVIDIA have pushed forward something called the Green Light program, which is a certification process that is designed to ensure that GPUs meet specific requirements, reports the Bright Side of News.

The Green Light program requires vendors to send in their board designs to NVIDIA, where they wait for their approval from the GPU maker. NVIDIA will check that the design meets their noise, power, voltage and heat numbers - and if it meets them, the card is approved. If not, it is declined and they'll have to resubmit.

What happens if a partner doesn't submit their card for approval? Well, they can have their GPU warranty and BIOS support removed, or worse - they could have their allocation of GPUs from NVIDIA cut down, or stopped completely.

Don't get me started on how much time I wasted during my school years on SimCity. I remember we were one of the first schools in my state to receive a suite of computers, back in the day of the Pentium and CRTs, and mice with balls in them.

I played SimCity on those systems so much, and made my parents get SimCity 2000 which I played for countless hours - but there's a new, PC-exlcusive SimCity coming and boy does it look great. The video above is a 10-minute gameplay unveiling, where we can get the basic idea of how the game has changed, and just how much scope there is built in.

From building residential areas, to dumps, to casinos - SimCity has it all. It looks like a huge time-consuming city-building game, and I think it's going to appeal to a lot of people. SimCity will hit Windows and the Mac in February 2013.

I'm quite excited about Samsung's Galaxy Camera, as it ushers in an era of Android-powered point-and-shoot digital cameras from a strong Android-based smartphone maker.

Samsung's Galaxy Camera will first drop on AT&T's network, who will offer the camera on a 4G (non-LTE) data plan. There's no details on pricing, or if the carrier will offer any sort of subsidy. AT&T have stated that they will unveil pricing when the camera is released in a few weeks time.

In case you haven't heard of the Galaxy Camera, let's run over the specs again. We're looking at a normal point-and-shoot camera, that is just a powerful as a decent smartphone minus the voice call part of things. The Galaxy Camera sports 21x optical zoom with f/2.8 maximum aperture, with a 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor with an ISO range from 100 to 3,200.