Here’s a pretty great idea – US Cellular is helping its customers save money on their mobile bills. They have a new app that get their customer's mobile devices off the network wherever possible, saving customers data usage as well as reducing traffic on the US Cellular 3G and 4G networks. US Cellular calls the program “Wi-Fi Now”.

Tapping into the system requires downloading the Wi-Fi Now app available for free in the Google Play Store.

Basically, the app runs in the background watching for "partner" Wi-Fi hotspots. Once it locates one it automatically connects your device and stops your data usage - saving you money on your bill. There’s no additional action required on your part to make the connection and no sign-in required. This applies to your home network as well as hotspots on the road.

US Cellular says that not just any network will qualify for the bounce. They have designed the app with at least some security in mind. Here’s how it’s described in the Google Play Store listing: "Wi-Fi hotspots are tested for functionality and quality service."

This app is only available only to US Cellular customers.

The drama between Apple and Samsung continues outside the courtroom in latest Galaxy S3 ad

What? Did Apple really expect Samsung to sit quietly?

It's been a good week for Apple, what with its big reveal and overwhelming enthusiasm for the iPhone 5.

But, despite all the recent glory, Apple's got an enemy. And the thing about enemies is that, as much as they like to kick you when you're down, they're just dying to kick you when you're up too.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that the courtroom battle between Apple and Samsung has been raging for the better part of a year now.

Most recently, the dispute over intellectual property saw Apple win a ruling from the U.S. International Trade Commission.

But that last ruling is unlikely to put an end to the drama between the two smartphone makers, even if it means taking the fight out of the courtroom and into the streets. In fact, Samsung has done just that.

Just days after Apple's iPhone 5 unveiling, Samsung's latest ad for the Galaxy S3 takes direct aim at the newest iPhone incarnation.

The ad, which compares the two smartphones' capabilities, and calls out the iPhone 5 by name, bears the statement: “It doesn't take a genius.” Presumably, the “it” in question is figuring out the Galaxy S3 is "better."

Samsung's latest Galaxy S3 ad calls out the iPhone 5 by name

The timeliness of the ad, which must have been prepared based on specs obtained before Apple's September 12 unveiling, led 9to5Mac to quip: “you can say a lot of things about Samsung, but one thing you can’t say is that they are slow.”

Indeed, Samsung pumped that one out pretty quickly. But that's no surprise considering this isn't the first anti-Apple ad the company's run. Back when they were promoting the Galaxy S2, they slammed the iPhone with an ad making fun of Apple fanatics, claiming “the next big thing is already here.”

This time, however, Samsung's Apple-bashing is more delicately directed at the company, not its users, and that may just work. At the very least, the ad should make people feel smart for choosing a Galaxy, rather than stupid for standing in line at the Apple Store.

What do you think of Samsung's new ad? Is it tasteful? Accurate? Do you think it'll work? Leave your opinion in the comments section.

We knew the hardware was going to be spectacular, and now that we know it’s called, when can we get our hands on the Apple iPhone 5?

Apple will begin accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 5 on September 14. They have already set up a landing page for the device on its online store.

On September 21st the iPhone 5 will hit store shelves in nine countries -- the U.S., U.K, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The iPhone 5 is priced at $199 for a 16GB version, $299 for a 32GB version and $399 for a 64GB version. Getting phones at those prices from AT&T, Sprint and Verizon require a two-year contract.

Apple’s website now shows the unlocked pricing for the iPhone 5.The site’s compare tool shows that the 16GB model starts at $649, the 32GB at $749, and the 64GB at $849.

If you’re in the mood for an Apple iPhone but don’t mind an older version, Apple has their usually deal for you. They’ve reduced the price of the 16GB iPhone 4S by $100 to $99. The 16GB iPhone 4 is now free. The discounts require a two-year contract with the big three U.S. mobile carriers.

LifeProof's new Nüüd iPad case promises "barely there" waterproof protection

Humankind's fascination with gadgets can only be rivalled by our longstanding fascination with water.

So, even though we quake with fear at the thought of submerging our iPads, iPhones and other devices, it shouldn't really surprise us that, when people go swimming or surfing, they want to take their tablet or smartphone along.

We've already seen something of the waterproofing trend from LifeProof – the San Diego-based company boasts what's been called the slimmest waterproof case for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

LifeProof already claims the slimmest waterproof case for iPhone 4 and iphone 4S

But now, the New York Times' Gadgetwise blog is reporting on the company's latest in elemental shielding for Apple devices.

This time, LifeProof has taken its efforts to tablets, with the waterproof Nüüd iPad case. The product gets its name from the fact that there's actually no screen covering – your iPad's naked glass screen is already waterproof, and adding an extra film on top only reduces clarity.

Instead, the Nüüd case seals around the glass and provides a waterproof backing for the rest of the iPad. There's also access at the bottom for charging and syncing, so you don't have to constantly take the case off and put it back on again.

As Gadgetwise points out, you still may not want to do any serious snorkeling with your iPad, since it wasn't really designed for that. But the new iPad case is great for poolside, a day at the beach, or any other routine encounter with water.

You may swear to have never texted on the toilet, but show me the techie who says they've never brought their phone or tablet into the bathroom, and I'll show you a liar. In any case, waterproofing just makes solid sense.

Any survival expert will tell you that where there's life, there's water. But as we at Pure Mobile know, where there's life, there's also tech.

Pi in the sky

Yesterday an awesome and inspiring event took place in San Francisco, but it didn’t have anything to do with Apple’s big day. It was all about pi.

Up in the San Francisco sky three jets succeeded in writing the first 10,000 numbers of pi. That’s right, pi: the old ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Most of us know it from high school math class as “3.14159… - the number that never ends.

The planes wrote the numerals in smoke in dot matrix format a quarter-mile high. Each plane wrote every third number in a string that extended for 150 miles around San Francisco.

An artist and a design company came up with this incredibly creative work of art. They may have just eclipsed the launch of the latest flagship product of one of the most innovative companies in the world. As expected, Apple provided a terrific iPhone, and we can’t wait to see the iPad mini unveiling. The project on the ground was impressive, but it wasn't as hypnotic as what Apple used to deliver. But those on the ground couldn’t keep their eyes off what was happening in the sky.

Someday soon Apple, please hypnotize us again.

According to their latest campaign slogan, OIS is on. But Nokia's marketing team is way off in recent ads for the Lumia 920.

As Mashable reported the day of the device's September 5th unveiling, Nokia's been left with pants ablaze after two independent bloggers discovered that images and video used to promote the new Lumia 920 were misleading.

To clarify, the campaign's entire raison d'être was to pump up the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) technology used for the new Nokia Lumia's “Pure View” camera. The argument here is that OIS makes for better pictures and video.

The campaign, shot in Helsinki, presents a model in different scenarios, with split screens labeled “OIS Off” and “OIS On.” Obviously, the images and video clips labelled “OIS On” are clearer, and even have a more artistic appeal. The only problem is, they're fakes.

Light diffractions in the Nokia Lumia 920 campaign images show they can't have been taken with the device

Neither the campaign photos nor the video were shot using the Lumia 920. Instead, a leaked picture of the photo shoot showed artificial lighting and professional equipment.

Since the story's emerged, Nokia has issued an apology, while still trying to cover its own ass. In an emailed statement, Nokia spokesperson Brett Young told Mashable:

“The video was produced while the Nokia Lumia 920 was in early prototype and still not ready to show the full benefits of the amazing innovation it contains.”

An independent blogger posted this photo of the proffessional lighting and camera equipment at Nokia's shoot for the new Lumia

That's like McDonald's saying the Big Mac in their ads only looks so big and juicy because the squashed sandwich you received with your order wasn't ready to display yet.

Nevertheless, says Young, “while there was no intention to mislead, the failure to add a disclaimer to the video was obviously a mistake.”

Apology aside, the campaign video now also contains a disclaimer that clarifies the footage is a “simulation of OIS technology.”

Nokia posted genuine photos on their site taken in low light with the latest Lumia 

Meanwhile, Nokia has posted some real photos on their site that were shot in low light with the Lumia 920 and without “artificial lighting or stands.” These are compared with similar images shot with competitors' devices. Assuming the new Lumia's pictures are the real deal, they do look quite good.

The big Apple event everyone was waiting for took place today. Now we have the iPhone 5 to line up for later this month.

Here is a summary of what the iPhone 5 is all about:

A 4-inch screen with a resolution of 1,136 x 640 or 326 pixels per inch - still a “retina” display, as Apple defines it. The larger screen has a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. The iPhone 5 is a little bit longer because of this, but it accommodates six rows of apps on the screen: five rows on the “pages” along with the permanent single row along the bottom.

The case is made of aluminum and measures 7.6mm thick - 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S. It's also 20 percent lighter at 112 grams.

The new Retina panel is 1136 x 640, which clocks in at 326ppi. It also provides better color saturation with full sRGB rendering.

The iPhone's A6 processor has been significantly shrunk down in size yet gives more powerful performance. The claim is that it doubles CPU and graphics capabilities. The result is pages loading up 2.1x faster than iPhone 4’s speed.

The smaller processor is also more energy efficient. It should provide 8 hours of talk time even with the LTE. When using Wi-Fi you should get 10 hours of life out of the device.

The camera is about the same as the one in the iPhone 4S, just a little bit slimmer. It's a backlit 8 megapixel sensor with a 5 element lens and an f/2.4 aperture. The shutter speed is supposed to be 40 percent faster. There's also a new panoramic shooting mode.

The iWork suite, Garage Band and iMovie have all been updated.

Older apps will still work, and they’ll be displayed in a letterbox format until Apple provides an update.

Yes, the iPhone 5 has high-speed 4G LTE capability and still has HSPA+, EV-DO and EDGE capability. In the U.S., AT&T, Sprint and Verizon will all support its 4G LTE connectivity. In Canada, Rogers, Telus and Bell will also have 4G.

The launch of the iPhone 5 will undoubtedly put Apple back on top. Over the last quarter, sales of the older iPhone models have dropped significantly - from 35.1 million to 26 million. That’s all going to change now. Some analysts are predicting Apple will sell 10 million units in just the first three weeks.

A third party manufacturer compared the sizes of upcoming devices to an iPhone 4S case and an iPad 3 case

We love a good rumor, and the big news on everyone's lips this week surrounded some leaked photos that may reveal the dimensions of the upcoming iPhone 5 and iPhone mini.

MacRumors reported September 10^th on pictures released by a third party iPhone and iPad case manufacturer that compare tentative cases for the new devices to an iPhone 4S case and iPad 3 case.

“The cases were created by case manufacturers in anticipation of the upcoming models. Designs are based on leaked specs coming out of Foxconn factories,” says MacRumors.

While the new iPhone 5 case is taller than the iPhone 4S, the case for the iPad mini is smaller than the current iPad 3 case

If the specs are right, those who believe bigger is better will be happy to know that the new iPhone 5 will in fact be larger than the current iPhone 4S, though it'll just be taller, not wider, with a 4” diagonal screen.

As for those who think less is more, the case designed for the new iPad Mini is smaller than the iPad 3 case shown in the image, but not significantly. The new device is rumored to have a 7.85” screen.

The size comparison as outlined by MacRumors 

As Gizmodo noted, “ if that iPad Mini shell is accurate, the realization that it's not a total dwarf next to the 10-inch iPad, kinda makes the idea of one all the more tantalizing.”

For now, it's all just speculation, but we're likely to have at least part of the truth on September 12^th, when Apple's expected to unveil the iPhone 5 at a press conference. However, we'll have to wait a little longer to see the new iPad Mini, which is expected to be unveiled at some point in October.

If you buy an Apple iPhone 5 you’ll be something very good for the U.S. economy. The chief economist at J.P. Morgan, Michael Feroli, estimates that sales of the new iPhone could possibly add from 1/4 to 1/2 percent to the annualized growth rate of U.S. gross domestic product in the last quarter of the year. Since the nation’s total GDP is only expected to grow 2% in the last quarter, the iPhone 5 alone could make up 25% of the entire country’s economic growth!

A Feroli put it in financial geek-speak, “Calculated using the so-called retail control method, sales of iPhone 5 could boost annualized GDP growth by $3.2 billion, or $12.8 billion at an annual rate.”

Analysts at J.P. Morgan predict that Apple will sell 8 million iPhone 5s this year, each with an expected retail price of around $600. Add in a couple of adjustments to account for the fact that most of us up our carrier contracts rather than pay full retail, and the price of each phone still puts $400 into the economy.

Feroli added that his estimate for annualized growth should be taken with a grain of salt, as it “seems fairly large,” but he points out that the iPhone 4S launch a year ago significantly increased retail sales that month. Both online sales and computer sales had their largest monthly increase on record.

Remember this when you’re handing over a few hundred bucks for your new iPhone. You’re making a contribution to putting the U.S. back on the road to prosperity.

Apple’s press event, where they are expected to tell all on the new iPhone, is scheduled for Wednesday Sept. 12 at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET).

During last weekend’s Disrupt SF Hackathon events, 147 teams had 24 hours to design, build, test and present their products to judges. Only three teams had the chance to demo their projects in front of the crowd. The first place team was awarded a $5,000 grand prize.

Techcrunch, the sponsor of the event, invited hardware hackers to “Build toys, robots, Arduino cases, or whatever you want and enter the Disrupt Hackathon as an inaugural hardware hacker. We dare you.” 400 hackers took TechCrunch up on their challenge.

While the Sirious Margarita Maker “a highly complex system that allows you to tell Siri to make you a margarita, and the Memstash app “that helps you memorize anything” gave the winners a run for their money, three other teams beat them and everyone else out of the top prize.

First Prize: Livebolt

Livebolt is a cloud-based identity management system. It consists of a metal block that slides on the back of a physical lock. The block responds to an order from an iPhone app. Once a user passes authentication, the iPhone app can authorize the metal block to lock or unlock the user's door.

Runner-up #1: Autopus

Autopus is an app that lets sellers on sites like Craigslist to conduct auctions on their own listings. As bids are placed on their stuff, sellers gets notified and can monitor activity in almost real-time.

Runner-up #2: HeatData

HeatData provides a way to track the gestures of mobile website users. Knowing how users interact with pages helps vendors determine how to improve the design and UI for their mobile app.

Many of the other teams didn’t go home empty handed. Sponsors like AT&T, Evernote, dotCloud, Ford, Locu, Microsoft Bizspark, Dropbox, New Relic, Pearson, Qualcomm Innovation Center, Qualcomm Labs, SAP HANA, SkyDrive, TokBox, Twilio, and Zypr all awarded prizes to the teams that made the best use of their services.

TechCrunch Disrupt is one of the most anticipated technology conferences of the year, and it's underway this week through Wednesday.

Hold onto your smartphones, tablets and any other device with a broadband connection. There's a lot of innovation going on out there.