LG today announced the Optimus LTE Tag, a new Android phone that incorporates near-field communications and ships with NFC-based tags that can activate certain phone functions. LG explains that the tags can be placed in different areas, such as an office, car, or home, and when the phone is touched to them it can be set to switch to silent mode, to activate Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, to turn up the volume, and other actions. The Optimus LTE Tag will ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread (updatable to Android 4.0) and has dual-core 1.2GHz processors, 4.3-inch (800 x 480) in-plane switching display, 5-megapixel main camera with autofocus and LED flash, 1.3-megapixel user-facing camera, 16GB of storage, and support for MHL and DLNA. The Optimus LTE Tag is headed to LG’s home market of Korea later this year, and the company hasn’t said if it will offer the device to other markets.