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There are several tougher variations on glass. Borosilicate glass (once called "Pyrex", but the name has been sold and "Pyrex" today is not necessarily borosilicate) is tough and very tolerant of temperature stresses. There are various laminates of plastics and glass. A common combination is a thin layer of glass, for scratch resistance, on top of polycarbonate. That won't shatter; it dents or punctures if hit hard enough.

Cell phones should be using sapphire coated glass. Then you can put the thing in your pocket without a cover and not worry about it being scratched. The scanner glass at supermarkets is often sapphire coated, so it can handle years of canned goods being dragged across the scanner. Versace has shipped a "luxury cell phone" with this feature.

There's also a diamond-coated glass for that application. Diamond coating is much cheaper than sapphire, but not quite as scratch-resistant.

You didn't specify which password Verizon supposedly changed, but from the context in your message I'm guessing it was your router's administrative password.

Ownership shouldn't matter. Knowledge of your router's administrative password does matter. If you were too lazy or clueless to change that password before the tech who installed it got to his/her truck, you got better than you deserved. You should go immediately to your email program and write a nice thank you note to Verizon for doing a security sweep for a WiFi router administrative password vulnerability recently (2010-7-21) announced (by Seismic) on behalf of its customers. In particular danger are routers with no administrative password set (or ones set to known values used by technicians installing routers, like "password1"). A complete fix for this vulnerability will require firmware updates to the affected routers. But, making sure you have a strong administrative password activated is a good stop-gap measure. And, given the timing, I would bet this stop-gap protection is what Verizon was trying to provide for its customers.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/01/verizon-mobile-hotspot-on-webos-devices-now-free/

Seems like they were making an iPod with smart-device features (apps) while probing the possibilities of making a phone. I'm not buying that the large device was the genesis, sorry.

In Steve Jobs D* interview, he specifically says they were working on a tablet with a touch screen interface that he could use both hands to type on. Here is an uncomplete transcript:

"I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on," Jobs sai to Mossberg. "I asked our people about it. And six months later they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He then got inertial scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, 'my god, we can build a phone with this' and we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the phone." That is why Apple built the iPhone first.

Here, you can go and watch the video (second one down, "On the origins of the iPhone" is title above video) of him saying it and determine for yourself.

Kinnect wasn't a MS idea. MS saw that they needed to compete in the console space against their competitors' motion control solutions, and bought up a 3rd party and slapped an MS sticker on it. You can find quotes from many gaming sites that say they saw the same technology being demoed and fully usable at GDC prior to MS's purchase of 3DV so they could use their patented 3D depth sensing software with the PrimeSense motion sensor camera.
 
All this to say that MS didn't really develop it. They just saw they were behind the curve and needed a solution fast.

Jackeey Wallpaper if it's the same one Engadget reported http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/29/lookouts-app-genome-project-warns-about-sketchy-apps-you-may-ha/

Great information in your post. I suspect the reason Microsoft doesn't go with an ODM is because it might be significantly more expensive, which would result in a more expensive phone that won't compete as well in the marketplace (see: Dell Streak @ $299).

The iPhone is an ODM product - it's made by Foxconn. An 8GB iPhone 3GS is $99 if you get it from AT&T. Of course it's not really $99, AT&T pay a kickback to Apple to cover the cost of the hardware. I've read "$20 per month" or $325. That's $325 or $480 over the cost of a 24 month contract.

Now it's hard to get an unlocked iPhone, but let's say

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/18/atandt-to-offer-unsubsidized-iphone-3g-with-no-commitment-required/

$599 for 8GB

That makes me think the value of $480 is about right and they charge you $20 extra for unlocking. Now I could be wrong of course - other figures I've seen have been lower - the contract breaking fee is max $325, which would put the hardware cost at $424. But I've never seen an unlocked iPhone sell for as low as this.

Here's the Dell Streak

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/27/dell-streak-retailing-for-299-with-contract-549-without-dell/

I.e. and 8GB iPhone 3GS costs $424 to $599 without a subsidy and $99 with. A Dell streak costs $549 with no subsidy and $299 with. Dell have cheaper hardware but they failed to negotiate a good subsidy. They get $250 and Apple get $325 to $480!

Incidentally the BOM cost for an iPhone 3GS is $179.

http://www.isuppli.com/teardowns-manufacturing-and-pricing/news/pages/iphone-3g-s-carries-178-96-bom-and-manufacturing-cost-isuppli-teardown-reveals.aspx

So Apple are making a fortune regardless of the subsidy.

Now my argument is that one of the things that AT&T and the like tend to like is locked down devices. For example on my Windows Mobile device which is unlocked I get tethering for free.

On an iPhone I'd need to pay $20 per month. Given the sort of people who buy smartphones, I think they can argue that that added average revenue per month justifies more subsidy.

http://gizmodo.com/5553135/att-iphone-tethering-an-extra-20month

So my argument is that the Apple model is an ODM'd product which is locked down where things like tethering cost extra.

Actually if I got a subsidized Windows Mobile device, they'd probably disable tethering unless I paid them too.

I.e. unlocked devices have features that sell to customers. Locked devices have those features disabled to sell to operators if they want to get a high subsidy.

Great information in your post. I suspect the reason Microsoft doesn't go with an ODM is because it might be significantly more expensive, which would result in a more expensive phone that won't compete as well in the marketplace (see: Dell Streak @ $299).

The iPhone is an ODM product - it's made by Foxconn. An 8GB iPhone 3GS is $99 if you get it from AT&T. Of course it's not really $99, AT&T pay a kickback to Apple to cover the cost of the hardware. I've read "$20 per month" or $325. That's $325 or $480 over the cost of a 24 month contract.

Now it's hard to get an unlocked iPhone, but let's say

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/18/atandt-to-offer-unsubsidized-iphone-3g-with-no-commitment-required/

$599 for 8GB

That makes me think the value of $480 is about right and they charge you $20 extra for unlocking. Now I could be wrong of course - other figures I've seen have been lower - the contract breaking fee is max $325, which would put the hardware cost at $424. But I've never seen an unlocked iPhone sell for as low as this.

Here's the Dell Streak

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/27/dell-streak-retailing-for-299-with-contract-549-without-dell/

I.e. and 8GB iPhone 3GS costs $424 to $599 without a subsidy and $99 with. A Dell streak costs $549 with no subsidy and $299 with. Dell have cheaper hardware but they failed to negotiate a good subsidy. They get $250 and Apple get $325 to $480!

Incidentally the BOM cost for an iPhone 3GS is $179.

http://www.isuppli.com/teardowns-manufacturing-and-pricing/news/pages/iphone-3g-s-carries-178-96-bom-and-manufacturing-cost-isuppli-teardown-reveals.aspx

So Apple are making a fortune regardless of the subsidy.

Now my argument is that one of the things that AT&T and the like tend to like is locked down devices. For example on my Windows Mobile device which is unlocked I get tethering for free.

On an iPhone I'd need to pay $20 per month. Given the sort of people who buy smartphones, I think they can argue that that added average revenue per month justifies more subsidy.

http://gizmodo.com/5553135/att-iphone-tethering-an-extra-20month

So my argument is that the Apple model is an ODM'd product which is locked down where things like tethering cost extra.

Actually if I got a subsidized Windows Mobile device, they'd probably disable tethering unless I paid them too.

I.e. unlocked devices have features that sell to customers. Locked devices have those features disabled to sell to operators if they want to get a high subsidy.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/02/life-and-death-of-microsoft-kin-the-inside-story/

There's a rumor they already found one.

"putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone if certain boot files were tampered with"

This in no way puts that to rest. Rooting your device doesn't touch the boot partition at all. What should put to rest the bricking issue is Motorola straight up saying it won't happen. (see here)

Rooting and replacing the bootloader/ROM are completely different though. I thinks most people who know about the situation expected it would be rooted. The huge barrier that Motorola put up with the eFuse is still there however. And it's still going to be nearly impossible to circumvent. Key word being nearly.

As far as I can tell even now the Motorola Milestone (the european version of the original Droid) still hasn't gotten past the signed ROM requirement of it's boot loader even though it too has been rooted.

See the engadget article for details

According to Engadget, it has 2 GB of RAM (see http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/23/35-tablet-from-india-looks-to-be-worth-every-paisa-video/ )

But I think a lot of price considerations have to do with the fact that most westerners aren't going to buy something with a price point that is "too" cheap. People are used to paying $200 for even the cheapest notebooks/netbooks/tablets, if people see a $35 one, they are probably just going to buy the more expensive one to save on "quality" even if they are the same device.

Of course, this was the same India that created the $10 non-laptop-component-printer that cost $30... So take any reports from cheap electronics in India with a grain of salt...

They have already started doing that. The funny thing is that you need to purchase an activation code to access each movie that is already on the disk:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/12/seagate-teams-with-paramount-pre-loads-movies-onto-500gb-freeag/

• "Apple Claims Jailbreaking will Destroy Cell Towers" - ZDNet
• "Apple: Jailbreaking encourages cell tower terrorism, 'catastrophic results'" - Engadget
• "Apple also claimed that jailbreaking would pave the way for hackers to alter the Exclusive Chip Identification number that identified the phone to the cell tower, which could enable calls to be made anonymously. Apple said “this would be desirable to drug dealers.”"Wired - Threat Level

Do I need to continue? Or is the reality distortion field still in effect?

The real question is if Microsoft will have some of their legendary pressure applied to people that already have competing smartphones to drop them in amnesty bins or suffer the social consequences of the Redmond zealotry for being seen with an Android phone, or an iPhone around campus...

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/jobs-pulls-an-oprah-12m-in-iphones-for-all-apple-employees/

Please don't try to inject reason into what's essentially a 'hate on M$' session.

Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT mention that Apple spent $12M to give free iPhones to all their employees. It will be just too much for the cognitive dissonance on here. http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/jobs-pulls-an-oprah-12m-in-iphones-for-all-apple-employees/

It looks like BP might have used the same people for its image editing needs as Microsoft and Iran

It's because they are more vivid. And sharper. That's not hyperbole. The coating that reduces glare also distorts your image. You can't get something for nothing, it's a trade off.

It's easier just to copy/paste an earlier rant I posted than to type everything all over again:

I can't speak for print artists, because I don't know much about that. But the "glossy" and "matte" that everyone talks about are actually called anti-reflective and anti-glare coatings, respectively.

Basically anti-glare (matte) coatings scatter the light that is reflected from outside light sources. The problem is that it also scatters the light coming *through* the coating from your screen. So images are less sharp, and colors less accurate.

A good summary can be found here:

http://www.screentekinc.com/pixelbright-lcds.shtml#anti-glare

If my explanation is unclear, the diagrams there should make it a lot easier to understand.

In either case, I would never choose anti-glare (matte) over anti-reflective (glossy) unless I knew I would be using the screen in an environment where there would be a high degree of distracting glare. the clarity, brightness, and brilliant color is just so much nicer, unless I *need* to prevent reflections.

Would the glossy display be distracting on a notebook used outside? Yes, probably. But 95% of my work is done on a desktop in a room where glare is not a problem. To answer the OP's question, "Yes. I do."

I'm not shocked though. Most people don't notice these things. It's kind of sad, but this is the same reason it's hard to find a non-TN LCD display. Every other tech (IPS, MVA, PVA, etc) has viewing angles around 178 degrees. 8 bit color, etc. TN is stuck at 6 bit, and 170 degree (often 160) viewing angles. Not to mention terrible color reproduction, color "banding", where because the viewing angles are so low you can often find yourself in a situation where a portion of the screen is on angle, and the rest is off angle, so the colors don't match even when the color displayed is perfectly uniform!

Why do people prefer TN? They're slightly cheaper, and 99% of consumers are too dense to notice these flaws. Once you do, you can't un-notice them, and it's impossible to go back.

The answer to your glossy screen issue can be found with Pixel Qi. They have replacement screens for your less than desirable panels that can function in direct sunlight with no backlight. These products are not widely available yet as Pixel Qi is relatively new to the market. They were formed by a couple people form the OLPC project who worked on the screen design. Link to Engadet review: click here

A few ways that Windows Phone 7 can carve out it's own niche in the new dog-eats-dog mobile space:

1) Concentrate more on Corporate features.. full Exchange and Office support, Sharepoint, etc. than iPhone/Android

2) Leverage XBox integration and XNA Developer base, Microsoft demo-ed developing games for XBox, Windows PCs and Windows Phone 7 from pretty much the same codebase(except of course, controller and graphic resolution and capability differences). See http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/microsoft-shows-off-xna-games-running-on-windows-phone-full-3d/

This might result in the big Xbox/Windows developer base "easily" porting from Xbox, or simultaneously developing Xbox, Windows and Phone 7 games... a big plus compared to the Objective C and Java hurdles that iPhones and Android development creates.

And integrate with Xbox/Kinect somehow... use it as an additional controller or to navigate menus on Xbox?

3)Tighter Windows 7 Integration.. hopefully develop cool features such as controlling the phone from the PC, using it as an additional alert display etc etc.

4) Leverage the huge .NET/C#/VB.NET developer/Third parties base to develop applications.

An uphill battle for sure... but I won't count MS out yet. After all, they have inscribed "Developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS!" on the side of the free phone prototypes that they're handing out to developers.

Statement from Redmond..

"Windows Phone 7 Series will not initially offer copy and paste; instead, we try to solve the most common uses for copy and paste via single-tap action. For example, people often want to take an address and view it on a map, highlight a term in the browser and do a search or copy a phone number to make a call. Instead of the user manually doing a copy and paste in these scenarios, we recognize those situations automatically and make them happen with just one touch. In our early testing people have been pleased with this approach, but we're always listening to feedback and will continue to improve our feature set over time based on what we hear."

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/19/microsoft-windows-phone-7-series-will-not-initially-offer-copy/

But somehow, the real life testing using automated systems and real people both observing the data didn't catch the phones "signal strength software miscalculation" problem.

Which bring us back to the fact that Engadget didn't see it on 2 out of 3 iPhone 4s either "P.P.S. Since some of you are asking, our review unit showed none of these issues.">

It's a statement of fact, yes, with the intention of misleading mindless masses into believing something entirely different. Steve could have given the numbers. He lied about not being allowed to. AT&T has published them in the past -- http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/28/atandt-says-its-closing-the-gap-on-dropped-calls/

Weasel words can be completely factual objective statements with the intention of making people believe something false, and in this case they most certainly were.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/28/atandt-says-its-closing-the-gap-on-dropped-calls/

Apparently the baseline is actually about 1%. The issue we're discussing is whether or not the iPhone 4 antenna absolutely sucks. With a 100% increase in dropped calls over the 3GS, I'd say the answer is "yes."

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/28/atandt-says-its-closing-the-gap-on-dropped-calls/

Those slides look pretty official to me. Apparently it may only be about 1% nowadays, which would mean a 100% increase if the 3GS is more or less average.

1 more dropped call per 100 calls. http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/apple-iphone-4-drops-less-than-one-additional-call-per-100-tha/

I can't guarantee this'll work, but my url for the engadget site ended with "&refresh=60".
so I added two 0's.

Seems to be working so far. Not gonna wait to see if it is accurate to the second though.

"So what if only 0.55% of people called AppleCare about this issue? If that is 80% of their call volume, then it is a real problem affecting users. "

How do you reconcile that?

If less than 1% of the customers who purchase an iPhone 4 are calling to complain about a specific problem, how does the total call volume change its significance? Unless you are implying that it is a significant problem for Apple, since their overall call volume increased.

Yes, it is a real problem affecting 0.55% of users. Steve Jobs admitted this much, and said he apologizes to those users, and offered them a free bumper case.

"From what I read, they didn't admit they had an issue. The tried to prove there isn't an Apple specific issue, and gave inconclusive numbers to try to bull**** their way through. "

We must not have read the same transcripts. Steve Jobs, as quoted by various "live-blogs", said: "Now when we look at this data, it's hard to escape the conclusion that there is a problem, but that problem is affecting a very small number of users."

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/live-from-apples-iphone-4-press-conference/?sort=newest&refresh=60

      -dZ.

For a QOS standpoint that makes sense, but the attenuation would be apparent to the proper testing done by the engineers in the lab *before* it was field tested by employees making calls, and indeed today engadget has a story that the engineers knew this could be a bad problem

I've not been able to replicate that result - you should read engadgets follow-up on the story showing people simply do not have that kind of problem in real use:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/13/yes-the-iphone-4-is-broken-no-the-iphone-4-is-not-broken/

It's a problem, but it's not serious if it almost never happens.

Real-world tests by Wired, Engadget, etc. all show that you can have 4 bars and great signal. Hold the phone and have zero signal.

Read the followup from engadget.

Mostly you find some people can replicate the problem, but that in real life it's not causing many issues. Which is just what I said.

Here ya go..

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/30/droid-x-ad-pokes-fun-at-iphone-4-antenna-troubles/

This basically appears to be a mobile version of "LaserTouch" that was done at Microsoft Research in 2008. I wonder if he's added anything to that? http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/23/microsofts-lasertouch-prototype-brings-hand-control-to-any-disp/

Let me guess... Verizon phone?

http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/02/verizon.html
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/25/skype-mobile-for-verizon-on-android-hands-on-with-wifi-off/

There is no Android Skype app other than this one as far as I know. If you've found one, please share it with us :)

Many black-market 'recyling' out-fits ship their stuff to China. China is one of the worst offenders for re-selling and re-using recycled equipment. Towns in rural China are plagued with toxic chemicals seeping into their ground water. What's worse is the local governments, which are far from national oversight or are benefactors of nation indifference, abuse their power to take a cut of the profits and forbid foreign correspondents from filming the whole mess.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/10/video-chinas-toxic-wastelands-of-consumer-electronics-revealed/

It is best to ratify a treaty only once you are prepared to enforce that treaty's obligations, rather than ratify and flagrantly ignore a treaty, otherwise the concept of having a treaty is worth nothing.

Great, so after 3 minutes--the time it takes to fill up my gas tank--I can go 50 miles. 5 minutes for 70%, and after that, the time to continue to fill up grows exponentially.

We're certainly going in the right direction, but don't give people false hope. Inspire people.

I originally read about it on Engadget, where they note the time trend.

If you want to know why the Kin failed, go look here at engadget. It's a far more interesting read and you might actually learn something about office politics at companies as large as Microsoft. I'm all for hating on [Insert large tech company] but I expect more out of Slashdot than reporting on some tool of an article.

Me, I just go for a good warranty and keep backups.

Um, not in the way that Apple does. If I e-mailed a CEO or support member of just about any other phone manufacturer other than Apple, I wouldn't get a reply like "Stop holding it that way"

Yeah, if you email AT&T's CEO you'll get a nice friendly cease and desist warning.

Google is dropping the Nexus One.

Not true; from your own link: "instead partner with carriers to sell the N1 in-store"

You will not be able to buy an N1 directly from Google, but they will still be sold.

I don't think you understand, in the near future all carriers will be locking down their Android based devices. They will be as locked down as an iPhone if not more-so. Look at the HTC Aria as a sign of what's to come.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/01/atandt-explains-basically-ignores-criticism-for-locking-down-andr/

You can still buy a Nexus One. It's a reference design and unlikely to be discontinued

Google is dropping the Nexus One.

The phone's initial cost is more but you don't have to sign a contract and you can buy cheaper data plans so the cost over two years is much less.

Doesn't matter. I can't get it on Verizon, and that's a deal breaker.

I am continually amazed at the financial illiteracy of people who can't do the math...

I'm amazed at how condescending you are.

If you don't understand the difference between the open source Android OS and the closed source iPhone OS...

I understand the difference. The differences are just abstract and philosophical, and don't have any practical bearing. In both cases, the practical truth is that I'm stuck with the functionality that my phone carrier will happen to allow; if I want to install additional features, then I need to hack it.

You know, there are quite a few Nexus One users outside of US.

Furthermore, in some countries it's actually offered by the carriers themselves, complete with a plan offering - e.g. in South Korea.

What are you talking about? According to http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/05/kin-one-and-two-review/ they cost $50 or $100 subsidized after rebates. The Droid Eris cost $99 on release which was way before Kin and went down to about $30 or so before the Kin launched. Today, there is the LG Ally which is less than the Kin was when first released but I'm not sure that it was released when Kin launched or not.

Yes, today the Kin is insanely cheap on contract but thats only because they were a failure to start with. They didn't start out that cheap and yes, there was an Android phone that was cheaper than the Kin on release (yes the Eris is discontinued now, but it was discontinued on June 21 or 22nd, way after the Kin was released).

So, no, your argument makes no sense, there was an Android phone out there for cheaper than the Kin on launch.

Well, they probably did test, but their testing apparently included a case that looked like the iphone 3gs to hide the fact that someone was out using a new iPhone. I'm wondering if that's why they didn't discover the issue sooner. None of the testers were using bare phones.

So what did the testers from Engadget do wrong? http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/24/some-iphone-4-models-see-signals-drop-to-0-when-held-left-handed/ 2 out of 3 phones "showed none of these issues."

Engadget already beat you to it

How can anyone post this when we have the exclusive deal confirmed? http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/10/confirmed-apple-and-atandt-signed-five-year-iphone-exclusivity-de/

Show me the signatures on that contract and the date it was signed. Their "confirmation" is a referral to general knowledge of an exclusivity deal because USA Today published wording to that effect. Basically they're using weasel wording so they don't have to disclose the actual contract--which suggests the whole truth is missing. Further, who's to say the 5 year exclusivity deal started the day the iPhone went on sale, and not 18 months earlier when Apple was looking to lock a network? You think they designed, built, and shipped a phone with a contract that didn't start until they reached customer's hands?

And the other is that the last time I checked, Verizon doesn't have GSM. Why would Apple manufacture two different devices, and one that can't be used in all the other world markets? I'm not trying to start a GSM/CDMA holy war, just acknowledging that Apple is doing just fine with AT&T and GSM. Why would they go through all that trouble just to get Verizon customers?

Especially since Verizon seems to insist on branding all phones they offer--I don't see how Steve would accept that either.

Verizon has nearly 93 million subscribers, a large percentage of which have expressed interest in an iPhone. Apple is expected to sell 16 million iPhones this year to AT&T's 83 million subscribers, which is nearly half of their total sales. Why wouldn't Apple jump at the earliest opportunity to further increase sales by another 50%? It's not a big technical feat for them to design a CDMA iPhone, other manufacturers with much less money at stake than Apple produce multiple models on CDMA, GSM, euro-specific frequencies, AT&T frequencies, and T-Mobile frequencies. After Apple's done with VZW, there's also China and Canada, along with Sprint, Cricket, and MetroPCS in the US all with decent numbers of CDMA subscribers. In all, world CDMA subscribers are something like 462 million, even if that's only 14% of the mobile market.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/06/piper_15_8m_us_iphone_sales_in_2010_even_without_verizon.html
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20070215/127796/

Lenovo's new Ideapad which will be out later this year:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/05/lenovo-ideapad-u1-hybrid-hands-on-and-impressions/

It was supposed to come out about now but they decided to replace the snapdragon OS with Android. I showed this to my manager, the IT staff and we all can't wait for it. Especially now that Android will be on it.

The price is supposed to be around 1K as well.