Rumor Round-Up: The Future Smartphones of 2012

Rumored specs: Quad-core processor, 720p Super AMOLED Plus display, 12-megapixel camera, 2 GB of RAM, with Android Ice Cream Sandwich, according to tech blogger Eldar Murtazin and Unwired View.

What’s interesting about it: Samsung’s Galaxy S line is known for high-end specs, slim designs and no gimmicks. That simple combination has helped Samsung sell more than 30 million Galaxy S and S II phones worldwide. The third model, reportedly due out in April, should be one to watch. (The above image is from a Samsung CES wrap-up video, and could be the Galaxy S III.)

Rumored specs: Quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, 4.7-inch 720p display, 8-megapixel rear camera, 1.3-megapixel front camera, 16 GB of storage, 2,000 mAh battery, less than 0.35 inches thick, with Android Ice Cream Sandwich, according to PocketNow.

What’s interesting about it: The gargantuan display should help LG’s phone stand out from the quad-core pack, and hopefully that big battery will keep the phone running through a busy day. It’s rumored to launch in the late spring or early summer.

Rumored specs: Dual-core processor, 4.3-inch WVGA display with glasses-free 3D, 5-megapixel rear camera, 8 GB of storage, less than 0.39 inches thick, with Android 2.3, according to PocketNow.

What’s interesting about it: I still think 3D phones are a cheap trick, but LG’s going to try it again with a brighter display, a thinner design, and a way to convert 2D video into 3D. It could launch this spring.

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Xamarin developer tools reach Android 4.0, tablets

Xamarin, a company seeking to extend Microsoft's .Net programming technology beyond Microsoft's operating systems, has released a version of its developer tools that can work with the latest version of Google's Androidoperating system.

The company builds Mono, an open-source version of Microsoft's .Net technology for programming in Microsoft's C# language. With the newest version of Mono for Android, C# programmers can produce software that will run natively on both Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, and onAndroid tablets including Amazon's Kindle Fire and Samsung's Galaxy Tab, the company said yesterday.

The Android developer tools dovetail with the company's MonoTouch to lower the difficulties of writing software for multiple operating systems. "In many cases, you can reuse most of your existing code when porting from Android to iOS," Xamarin promises. The software also can reuse existing libraries of pre-written .Net code.

Mono for Android costs $399 for the professional version for a single person, $999 for the enterprise version for a single seat at a customer organization, and $2,499 for the enterprise priority version that includes faster support response. A free version lets programmers build software, but only run it in emulation mode on a developer's computer rather than on actual devices.

Xamarin has its roots in Ximian, which Novell acquired in 2003 but then later dropped the work after Attachmate acquired Novell in 2010. Ximian's two leaders, Chief Technology Officer Miguel de Icaza and Chief Executive Officer Nat Friedman, reunited as Xamarin co-founders in 2011 along with Chief Operating Officer Joseph Hill, who's worked on Mono since 2003.

Galaxy Nexus to arrive in U.S. on Friday, report says

Verizon Wireless will begin selling its version of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone on Friday, according to documents purportedly from an authorized Verizon retailer.

An e-mail and PDF posted by RootzWiki say UPS will ship the phones to Verizon stores on December 6 and gives an "official launch date" of Friday, December 12.

"Do not receive the product in via your scanner (this is a change in procedure)," the e-mail warned those collecting the shipments to stores--perhaps in response to the frequency with which sales plans have been revealed through screenshots of retail inventory systems.

Verizon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The phone has been highly anticipated because it marks the U.S. debut of Google's Ice Cream Sandwich version ofAndroid. But where some companies give advance notice about when new models will go on sale, Verizon has been very cagey, saying only that the Galaxy Nexus would arrive before the end of 2011.

The Galaxy Nexus will cost $299.99 with a two-year contract, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

The Galaxy Nexus has gone on sale in the United Kingdom, though it's a slightly different version than the model Verizon will sell. Verizon's uses 4G wireless networking with the LTE standard, compared to 3G in Europe.