An employee of one of the world’s biggest tech companies loses a hotly anticipated new smartphone in a bar, only for it to be found, photographed and posted on the Internet — sound familiar?

In a case of history repeating, the Google Nexus 4 — a yet-unannounced model rumored to be running Android 4.2 Key Lime Pie — turned up at a bar after closing hours.

According to Wired, Jamin Barton, bartender at San Francisco’s 500 Club, found the phone but wasn’t able to figure out what it was: It was locked and didn’t include a SIM card, but did have a “not for sale” sticker and Google logo.

Dave, a tech-knowledgeable regular at the bar, apparently went ahead and called Google HQ about the mystery phone, setting off a slightly bizarre chain of events that involved Google’s security team, police and an unrelated but coinciding riot.

Eventually, the phone wound up with Brian Katz, global investigations and intelligence manager at Google. According to Wired, Katz offered the bartender a free phone if he didn’t share photos of the phone — but he did, and they’re posted online (Wired paid the bartender a freelance fee for the photos).

The Nexus 4 is rumored to be running a quad-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm APQ8064 Snapdragon processor with a 1280×768 display, 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage. See more, including the photos, at Wired.

Ultimately, it’s a story we’ve heard again and again: Apple lost an iPhone prototype at a California bar in April, 2010, and again in August, 2011. Why are these prototypes so hard to hang on to? Do you think these companies are intentionally “losing” phones to generate Internet buzz?
source:

Hmm. There could be some truth to this.

I'll look into this and re-post what I think.