Now, a couple of days later, a second (much clearer) snap has reared its head, seemingly adding to the credibility of the first leak.
Like the earlier shot, the build of the device seems to be exactly the same as the iPhone 5. It doesn't appear to be larger and there appear to be no other format changes.
Sticking with tradition, the iPhone 5S seems likely to be more of an incremental update headlined by improved innards and the new iOS 7 software.
Is that it?
The question is, will those factors be enough to stave off challenges from Samsung, HTC and potentially the Motorola X Phone and an improved Nexus smartphone from Google and its partners?
Would the inclusion of an extra light bulb be enough to encourage you to update to the new handset? Or are you demanding much more from Apple when it unveils the new device later this year?
Vertu has announced a new special edition of the already special Vertu Ti handset. Called the Vertu Ti Color (surely they could have afforded to come up with a more creative name), the limited edition handset will be available in two colors, Sunset Red and Midnight Blue. Only 1000 units of this handset will be made.
One of the things that sets Vertu devices apart from other phones is the choice of material gone into making them (and the other being the resultant price tag). The Vertu Ti Colors follows that tradition by having a grade 5 titanium body, which other than making it five times stronger than other smartphones also makes it very light. Complementing the metal is calf leather in either of the two colors.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Vertu Ti Color has a 3.7-inch display with sapphire crystal cover that is said to be the largest every engineered. Sapphire crystal is known to be extremely hard and weaker only to diamond.
On the inside is a 1.7GHz processor of unknown make and model, 8 megapixel rear camera with auto-focus and dual LED flash, 1.3 megapixel front camera, 64GB storage memory, NFC and a rather outdated Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Also part of the package is Vertu's famous Concierge service.
The Vertu Ti Colors is priced at HK$90,000 (or US$11,600) and is on sale right now.
A trio of leaked screenshots that allegedly come from the LG Optimus G2 have appeared revealing a bit of what LG has been cooking for its upcoming Android flagship smartphone.
The images in question show that the company hasn't altered the look of the Optimus UI too much, but has rather given it a few refreshing touches here and there. What the screenshots do reveal though, is the resolution of the Optimus G2. The smartphone's 5" screen is now confirmed to have full HD resolution .
Here are the screenshots themselves. Notice the onscreen software buttons, suggesting that LG has chosen to leave out the physical buttons for its upcoming flagship. This would also make it easier for LG to make the rumored Nexus 5.
Alleged LG Opitmus G2 screenshots show the new Optimus UI
With the iPhone nearing its annual refresh cycle, Walmart has jumped the gun and put the current Apple smartphone offering in the discount corner to make space for the upcoming iPhone.
As a result, the Apple iPhone 4S and Apple iPhone 5 have both seen their prices slashed significantly. Walmart now sells the iPhone 5 for $129, down from $189, while the iPhone 4S is discounted from $89 to $39.
The deals are only available with new 2-year contracts with either AT&T, Spring or Verizon. T-Mobile isn't offered, as Walmart doesn't support the carrier. Other major brick and mortar retailer Best Buy is also reportedly planning to slash the price of both Apple smartphone devices by offering in-store credit.
The Apple iPhone 5S is expected to go on sale later this year. As a purported iPhone 5S live image showed, it is not going to be a completely redesigned product but more of a faster, more refined version of the current iPhone 5.
We're told that all kinds of technologies changed the world - Popular Mechanics' list includes the stapler - but today's researchers are working on ideas even more ambitious than joining several bits of paper together.
New technologies could replace fossil fuels, turn your house into a power station, save thousands of lives - and maybe even create new lifeforms.
Here are 10 technologies that have the potential to change the world all over again.
1. Phones
In developing countries the phone is more important than the PC: mobiles are used for banking, and for forecasting the weather (a critical business when a farmer has to pick the best time to sow or reap a precious crop). But phones can do even more.
Phone location data might also be useful in dealing with natural disasters, improving public transport or just helping retailers make shopping malls more profitable.
Phone tracking data is already fighting infectious diseases, and might help with disasters too
As imaging technology improves we'll see our world like never before, both outside and inside. DARPA recently showed off a 1.8 gigapixel surveillance drone that can watch 25 square kilometres at a time, while advances in medical imaging tech enable doctors to look inside patients with unprecedented levels of detail.
New camera tech enables incredibly detailed images, such as BT's 320-gigapixel London panorama
Fibre-optic cabling has been around since the 19th century, but it wasn't until 1970 that the problem of attenuation - signals degrading over distance - was solved.
Since then fibre-optic has become part of the fabric of the internet, but it's a fabric that, for most people, stops long before it gets to their house.
When fibre broadband finally makes it into every home - which it will, albeit not until some of us are really, really old - it promises to revolutionise the way people use the internet all over again.
Fibre everywhere means internet-connected services we can't even imagine
DARPA calls it Targeted Muscle Re-innervation, or TMR for short. We call it astonishing: TMR makes brain-controlled prosthetic limbs almost as responsive as real ones, providing sensory feedback that enables prosthetic users to riffle through a bag or grab an object without having to look at it.
From electronic eyes to entire exoskeletons, the combination of serious technical talent and enormous piles of cash is bringing us ever closer to a cybernetic future.
3D-printed guns and drugs may get the headlines, but the real effect of 3D printing is likely to be less sensational and much more useful.
It's already helping to revolutionise manufacturing by slashing research and development costs, and in the longer term it might mean that instead of ordering online and waiting for couriers to deliver, we'll just print products at home - maybe even food.
That's good for the environment but could have disastrous consequences for many people's jobs.
You can download a dress, but you can't download Dita. Yet (credit: Dezeen)
Research firm ON World reckons that in 2017, firms will ship some 515 million sensors for wearable, implantable or mobile health and fitness devices, and that's just the tip of an electronic iceberg.
The row over the Prism surveillance system rumbles on, but there's no doubt that the technology to watch people's every move exists: one version, dubbed RIOT, mines public websites such as social networks to build up a surprisingly detailed picture of individuals and their likely future behaviour.
Another, PREDPOL, uses algorithms and mapping data to predict where and when crimes are likely to occur. Put them together, add a bit of Tom Cruise and you're getting awfully close to Minority Report-style policing where the cops turn up before the crime is committed.
Predicting where crime's likely to occur and when it'll happen? There's an app for that
Solar technology has been held back by several issues: solar panels are hefty, pricey, and of course they don't provide energy when it's dark. The biggest problem, though, is efficiency: as National Geographic reports, they only capture 10 to 20 percent of the sunlight that strikes them.
The future? Nanotech that makes the panels much less reflective, much cheaper to produce and much more efficient. Other ideas include tiny antennae on devices that capture solar energy and instantly convert it to power, solar panels that can actually store energy, and nanotech paint that turns entire buildings into solar energy collectors.
Solar panels are famously inefficient, but nanotech could solve that problem (Credit: Mhassan Abdollahi)
There's a controversy brewing on Kickstarter: the Glowing Plant project plans to engineer glow-in-the-dark plants, and some experts are worried: they fear that this is the thin end of a very big and scary wedge.
As Nature reports, "they fear that distributing the plants could set a precedent for unsupervised releases of synthetic organisms, and might foster a negative public perception of synthetic biology - an emerging experimental discipline that involves genetically engineering organisms to do useful tasks."
Biohackers could engineer entirely new lifeforms, good or bad, and the emerging sector is almost entirely unregulated. Friends of the Earth has called for a global moratorium on the release of synthetic organisms "until the proper regulations and safety mechanisms have been put in place".
The MyGenome iPad app is a glimpse of the future, enabling you to analyse the full genetic makeup of someone. For now that someone is the developers' CEO, but if DNA sequencing prices continue to plummet - the cost per person has dropped from US$2.7 billion to US$5,000 in ten years - then full genome analysis could be in many of our futures.
That could have profound implications: we could discover if we're prone to particular kinds of cancer, or if we have higher than average risks of various unpleasant conditions, or if particular drugs could kill rather than cure us.
Angelina Jolie's recent preventive surgery was an example of DNA sequencing in action: Jolie has the BRCA1 gene, which means she has a high risk of developing the breast cancer that killed her mother.
As Carole Cadwalladr writes in The Guardian: "revealing our full DNA will revolutionise medicine - but it will also raise huge ethical questions about what we do with the information".
Genomic medicine could warn us of any ticking time-bombs that might lurk in our genetic make-up
