Motorola Droid 3, Droid X 2 and LTE-equipped Targa really pictured?

The Motorola Droid 2 and Droid X are both headed toward their one-year anniversaries this summer, which has pretty much become the culling hour for a smartphone of any creed these days. Their successors, ingeniously titled the Droid 3 and Droid X 2, have seemingly made an appearance over atHowardForums, courtesy of longtime forum member wnrussell. He's also kindly provided imagery of a heretofore unknown device, called the Targa, which promises Verizon 4G LTE and has a protrusion on its rear that looks to be dedicated to accommodating an outsized camera sensor. It reminds us most of Motorola's XT720, though it sports a chrome outline to its body similar to what you see above on the purported Droid 3. Click past the break to get an eyeful of this Targa device and its Droid X 2 brandmate.

Visualized: Android activations been mapped geographically, chronologically, breathtakingly

Do you ever wish for an easier way to show your uninitiated friends what you mean when you say Android is growing? Well, here's the video for you: a Google-produced map of the world that throbs with Android activations over time, highlighted by some truly eye-opening flourishes in the immediate aftermath of marquee handset launches. The Google guys have even given us handy countdown timers -- "Droid launch in 3, 2, 1..." -- and broken things down by continent for easier viewing. Only thing missing is a soundtrack, so just have your Tron: Legacy OST loaded up and ready before jumping past the break.

Nearly 30% Of Motorola Mobility’s Revenuing In 2010 Came From Verizon

Verizon is pretty important to Motorola. Anyone with a TV could have told you that; just about every third commercial on the air last year was focused on Verizon’s “DROID Does” campaign and whichever Motorola DROID phone VZW was touting at the time.

Still, I don’t think I ever could have guessed just howimportant Verizon was to ol’ Moto in 2010. Go ahead — take a stab at how much of Moto’s revenue came from Verizon last year (assuming you didn’t already read the headline.) You ready for this? Twenty eight percent. Yep. Nearly thirty percent of Motorola Mobility’s revenue last year, all from one carrier.

One carrier that just got the iPhone. Uh oh.

The word comes from Motorola Mobility’s SEC Filing, which puts it rather bluntly:

During 2010, approximately 28% of net revenues were from Verizon Communications Inc. (including Verizon Wireless) (“Verizon”).

Now, lets recall what Verizon and Motorola sold together in 2010: the Droid 2 (and its variants, like Droid 2 Global and R2-D2 edition), Droid X, and the Droid Pro. Three phones, all pitched to consumers the exact same way: they were the anti-iPhone. (Of course, there was also the somewhat out-of-place and non-DROID branded Devour, which they opted to market as the phone that Meghan Fox uses in the bathtub. That phone was discontinued around 4 months later.)

I think my point is pretty clear by now: Motorola depended on Verizon for nearly 1/3 of their revenue, almost entirely around the idea that they made the ultimate not-iPhone phone. Now that Verizon has the iPhone, that’s a probably not a card they’re going to be able to play again. What’s a Motorola to do? They’ve got the XOOM coming up in just two days — but in a world quickly filling with me-too tablets, is a $600-on-contract tablet anywhere near enough?

I’m not a betting man, but if I were… I’d wager that Motorola’s going to take a bit of a hit this year.

Motorola has revealed 28% of phone revenue from Verzion in 2010

Motorola in an SEC filing on Friday confirmed a heavy dependency on Verizon for its success. About 28 percent of all of Motorola's net revenue in 2010, including only the mobile group that split off this year, could be attributed solely to supplying Verizon with phones. The figure could almost exclusively be attributed to Android phones and was portrayed as leaving the company vulnerable if it lost some or all of Verizon's deal.

"Motorola Mobility has several large customers, the loss of one or more of which could have a material adverse effect on us," it said.

The detail supported Verizon's heavy leaning on Android for its phone strategy and that Motorola's success was also tied strongly to the US carrier just as its standing was no longer secure. CEO Sanjay Jha warned that there was an iPhone-related slowdown even in the weeks before Apple made its Verizon deal public, as customers who would have bought a Droid X or Droid 2 held off expecting to get an iPhone 4 instead. Retail sales may have been slightly lower than expected but, according to leaks, led to 550,000 pre-orders alone from existing customers, a large portion of which were either leaving Android phones or going to the iPhone as a first smartphone.

The company has been trying to diversify and is about to ship the Atrix 4G to AT&T as that carrier's first truly range-leading Android phone. Most of its known US roadmap for 2011 still focuses heavily on Verizon, including the Droid Bionic and the Xoom tablet. Any significant failure could create early trouble for a company that had already forecast a loss for its first quarter after the split.

Imagination Technologies unveils Series 6 PowerVR GPUs -- promising desktop caliber graphics in mobile devices

Imagination Technologies may not be a household name, but they created the PowerVR GPUs that are the gold standard in mobile graphics, and are a part of the ARM SoCs you find in mobile devices like theiPhone 4, Galaxy S, and the Droid 2. Not one to rest on its laurels, the company unveiled its new Series 6 PowerVR chips -- affectionately known as 'Rogue' -- that are 20 to 100 times more powerful than its previous handheld offerings. That's right, these GPUs will have the same horsepower as today's desktop computers while needing only a milliwatt of juice to deliver face-melting graphics -- the catch is that this bit of black magic won't be showing up in devices for a few years. Guess we'll just have to settle for the Series 5 chips -- like the quad core beast found in the Sony NGP and the upcoming OMAP 5 platform -- which the company promises will make their way into select smartphones "within three months." Be still, our gaming hearts.