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    The Best Waterproof iPhone Case

    Rather than risk losing your iPhone, we think a true waterproof camera or a GoPro or a waterproof camera is the best way to get photos in the water. But if you have to protect yours from impact, liquid and dust, the best tough waterproof iPhone case, overall, is the $80 Incipio Atlas.

    We think the Incipio is the most well rounded phone case, more secure yet just as slim as last year’s favorite.

    It has a depth rating of 6 feet, but was among the driest in our endurance pool tests when many others simply flooded. It even has a 1-year warranty against water damage to your phone.

    But we also have a pick for a sport camera case to turn your smartphone into a quasi-GoPro action sports camera. And finally, I recommend a serious dive case for an iPhone that can go to over 100 feet of depth.

    Why You Should Believe Us (and How We Tested)

    My editor Brian Lam helped me test this case and the competition in Mexico and Indonesia, as well as the ocean and a pool in Hawaii. As an ocean exploration journalist and founder of the Wirecutter, I don’t think any technology writer is as equipped to test these cases as he is.

    He lives in Honolulu and tested all of these cases by verifying their seals were dust free and by swimming a half mile in open water dragging them behind him and roughing them up up to 10 feet underwater during freedives. He also kept them in a pool overnight at six feet of depth, to challenge their seals over time–most cases are only rated for an hour at their given depth so this is a really great way to test minor design flaws that would expose them over time or keep them from going deeper than their rated spec in case you needed to drop down for a moment. He also tested the deep dive case on an expedition as a fellow with MacGillivray Freeman films in Indonesia, to 80 feet.

    For non-water sports, ruggedness, shock absorbing designs and materials as well as build quality was factored in. For action sports camera cases, meant to take a smartphone and transform them into a GoPro kind of camera, things like accessories (mounting options) were also important.

    Google I/O: Unlocked Galaxy S4 with Stock Android

    It may not be one of the infamous freebies Google is giving away at its I/O conference, but the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be sold by Google starting on June 24th. This version of the S4 will run a stock version of Android 4.2, providing what Google is calling the "Nexus user experience." Timely Android updates are promised. It'll also be bootloader unlocked and will support GSM LTE basebands (AT&T and T-Mobile). The phone, with 16GB of internal storage, will be priced at $650. This is the one we'll be buying for testing.

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    Nokia Announces Lumia 928 for Verizon: $100 on May 16

    Surprise! Nokia's got a new Windows Phone model on the way, and it's for Verizon. In the US, Windows Phone has mostly been relegated to AT&T--Verizon currently only carries four models, and the Windows Phone 8X from HTC is the only one that creeps into high performance territory. So here comes the new Lumia 928 to save the day. If you're familiar with Nokia's Lumia 920, this phone's specifications won't surprise you, but there are a couple key differences.

    Here's the big difference: The body of the Lumia 928 has changed from that candy-colored polycarbonate Nokia has used with its flagship Windows phones. It now has a flatter, more squared-off look, and a new screen to go with its new body. Like the 920 on AT&T, the 928 uses a 4.5-inch 1280x768 display, but Nokia's swapped out LCD for AMOLED.

    The camera remains unchanged--it's Nokia's 8.7 MP PureView with Carl Zeiss glass--but they've thrown in a xenon flash, which is still extremely rare for a smartphone. Nokia's also stressing the device has three microphones for audio capture and the same optical image stabilization that's in the 920.

    A few other notable features: There's a loudspeaker on the back of the Lumia 928. It supports wireless charging and NFC. LTE support on Verizon's network is in. And the internals that powered the Lumia 920 are still on-board doing their thing. That means a 1.5GHz Qualcomm dual-core Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, 200 mAH battery and 32GB of storage.

    The Nokia Lumia 928 launches in the US on May 16th for $100 on contract--assuming you bother to send in the $50 mail-in rebate. Nokia's throwing in $25 of app store credit to sweeten the deal.

    Tap Emergency Power from a Phone Line

    Make Magazine's Jason Poel Smith demonstrates this nifty hack to tap into the power of a phone line. Even during blackouts, there is a small amount of power that flows through some traditional land lines, which is maintained independently of the electric company. Smith shows how manipulate RJ11 wiring with a voltage regulator circuit so that a smartphone can safely access some of that power to make an emergency call. Pocket this one under "MacGyver plot devices," Hollywood screenwriters.

    Gmail for iOS Gets Even Better

    One of the reasons I'm still using native iOS apps for basic utilities like email is that Apple's apps are the default paths for most types of links. Click a link to a webpage in almost every app and you have to open it in Safari. Same goes with links to addresses and the troubled iOS Maps app. Short of jailbreaking your iPhone, there's no easy way to assign specific apps to open certain types of links in iOS. But the newly updated Gmail iOS app actually allows that. After this update, you have the option to open all links through their respective native Google iOS apps--Chrome, Google Maps, and YouTube. It's just a matter of time before Google's apps can bypass Apple services to make up a closed ecosystem on iOS.

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    Samsung Galaxy S4 Display Shoot-Out Shows Strong OLED Improvements

    With the launch of the Galaxy S4 a mere month away, DisplayMate's Dr. Soneira has subjected Samsung's new phone to its traditional display shoot-out, scrutinizing everything from DPI to color temperature to battery draw. This time around, Samsung's flagship phone sports a 1080p OLED screen at a monstrous five inches, which works out to 441 pixels per inch. That high resolution is partially thanks to Samsung's PenTile display technology, which has produced inferior image quality to LCDs in the past. DisplayMate's summary of PenTile (and how it has improved through the Galaxy line) paints a bright picture for the S4's display:

    "The pixels on most current OLED displays have only 2 sub-pixels in each pixel instead of the standard 3 Red, Green, and Blue sub-pixels found in most other displays and display technologies. Half of the PenTile pixels have Green and Red sub-pixels and the other half have Green and Blue sub-pixels, so Red and Blue are always shared by two adjacent pixels. This makes PenTile displays easier to manufacture and at a lower cost. It also improves brightness and reduces aging effects. Because the eye has lower visual acuity for color this works very well for photographic and video images. But for digitally generated fine text and graphics with precise pixel layouts the eye can visually detect the reduced number of Red and Blue sub-pixels unless the number of Red and Blue Sub-Pixels Per Inch is very high. And it is for the Galaxy S4 – there are 312 Red and Blue Sub-Pixels Per Inch, which is only a few percent lower than Apple’s Benchmark 326 PPI iPhone Retina Display. Visually the Galaxy S4 PenTile display delivers excellent visual sharpness across the board."

    Photo credit: Flickr user Kārlis Dambrāns.

    DisplayMate also happily points out that the Galaxy S4 offers several different screen modes, much like an HDTV: Adaptive, Dynamic, Standard, Professional Photo, and Movie. Soneira especially highlights the accurate color accuracy of the Movie mode, though notes its high color saturation. When it comes to brightness and contrast, the Galaxy S4 dramatically outperforms the Galaxy S III across the board, but has slightly oversatured colors, lower overall brightness, and a lower contrast ratio in high ambient light than Apple's iPhone 5 display.

    Similarly, the Galaxy S4 tones down on the S III's too-large color gamut but is still "somewhat large" at 122. That's much better than the S III's 139 percent but still higher than the iPhone 5's 104 percent. When it comes to brightness decrease at off viewing angles, however, the Galaxy S 4 spanks both the S III and the iPhone 5. It remains the brightest and presents the smallest color shift of the three phones.

    Despite its size, the Galaxy S4's display actually draws less power than the iPhone 5's at average brightness--0.7 watts to 0.74 watts. Maxed out it's a different story--the iPhone's power consumption remains the same, while the Galaxy's doubles to 1.5 watts. This is still the biggest drawbacks of OLEDs, but things are getting better. DisplayMate concludes:

    We measured an impressive 20 percent improvement in power efficacy between the Galaxy S4 and S III, and a 25 percent increase in brightness (and up to 68 percent with Automatic Brightness). If this keeps up then OLEDs may pull ahead of LCDs in brightness and power efficiency in the near future…

    The shoot-out ended in a tie between the Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5--LCD and OLED still have strengths and weaknesses--but if you were worried about the PenTile display technology, you'll be happy to know the sub-pixels are indistinguishable at more than 7.8 inches away from your face.

    Samsung Tests Brain-Computer Interface with Galaxy Note 10.1

    What's the most counterintuitive way to interact with a touchscreen device like a smartphone or tablet? We'd have to go with not touching it. Samsung's playing around with exactly that with an experiment to see how effectively people can control a Galaxy tablet with nothing but the power of their minds. And, of course, a brain-computer interface, which uses several electrodes to monitor electrical activity within the brain.

    Just last month we wrote about a new implant that's a promising step for translating brain activity into computer interaction. Samsung's study isn't so invasive or complicated, since it involves wearing an EEG cap rather than having a wireless device drilled into your head. But turning brain impulses into virtual actions is still no simple task.

    An EEG cap, photo courtesy University of Maryland, via Creative Commons

    Technology Review describes how the study allowed participants to open apps:

    "To use EEG-detected brain signals to control a smartphone, the Samsung and UT Dallas researchers monitored well-known brain activity patterns that occur when people are shown repetitive visual patterns. In their demonstration, the researchers found that people could launch an application and make selections within it by concentrating on an icon that was blinking at a distinctive frequency."

    The researchers point out that pushing interaction forward is an important part of the evolution of technology. The same is true for the move from buttons to touchscreens. But there are still major challenges for brain-computer interfaces. "The initial focus for the team was to develop signal processing methods that could extract the right information to control a device from weak and noisy EEG signals, and to get those methods to work on a mobile device," writes Technology Review.

    Samsung's Galaxy Note was tested with a prototype EEG device that doesn't use the classic system of wet or gel electrodes to encourage conductivity through the scalp. The dry electrodes are much faster to set up--the gap is as wide as 10 seconds versus 45 minutes--but they're less accurate. Participants were able to make a basic app selection with 80 to 95 percent accuracy every five seconds or so, which is plenty accurate, but far, far slower than manipulating a touchscreen by hand.

    Meet Marty Cooper, Inventor of The Cell Phone

    "Forty years ago this month, Martin Cooper placed the first ever cell phone call. In this video he looks back on his invention and explains that cell phones have a long way to go before they reach their potential." This is such a great video--Cooper shares great insights into how engineers at Motorola developed the concept of the cell area, the design of the first cellphone, and what that first cell phone call was about!

    How Chinese Vendors Turn a Profit Selling $12 Unlocked Phones

    Mobile carriers like Verizon and AT&T hand out free cellphones like candy. Even a perfectly decent smartphone like the iPhone 4 costs a fat 0 dollars--so long as you're willing to pay for a two year contract to the tune of at least $80 per month, that is. In China, a free phone is something different altogether. On his blog, inventor and hardware expert Bunnie Huang (who's previously written about Chinese manufacturing) asks "how cheap can you make a phone?" Then he answers his own question: less than 10 bucks.

    Photo credit: Bunnie Huang

    "Recently, I paid $12 at Mingtong Digital Mall for a complete phone, featuring quad-band GSM, Bluetooth, MP3 playback, and an OLED display plus keypad for the UI," Huang writes. The tiny phone is aesthetically rooted in the 90s--it's cast from green, translucent plastic and has fat, gel-looking buttons below its tiny screen--but it's still far more compact (and much faster) than any cellphone sold in the Nokia age.

    It's an unbelievable deal. For $12, Huang got an unlocked, contract free phone in a box with a charger, cable and protective sleeve. How can it be so cheap? Huang writes that he's not sure yet, but he's piecing the answer together. For one thing, there's almost no wiring in the phone. "Everything from the display to the battery is soldered directly to the board," he writes. "The electronics consists of just two major ICs: the Mediatek MT6250DA, and a Vanchip VC5276...The MT6250 is rumored to sell in volume for under $2." The phone's plastic case is also designed to simply snap together, with no screws needed to hold it in place.

    For $12, Huang got an unlocked, contract free phone in a box with a charger, cable and protective sleeve.

    Huang compared the $12 phone to a $29 Arduino, noting that the phone has a 260 MHz, 32-bit CPU compared to the Arduino Uno's 16MHz, 8-bit processor. It has 8MB of RAM compared to the Arduino's 2.5 kilobytes. It has a battery and a two-color display. Obviously the two devices serve very different purposes, but the phone is an amazing piece of engineering for its price.

    The blog post concludes by discussing the gongkai, or "open," ecosystem in China, comparing it to the unique and independent ecosystem of the Galapagos Islands. It's an interesting perspective on the technological progress being made in China's open source market. "Gongkai isn’t a totally lawless free-for-all. It’s a network of ideas, spread peer-to-peer, with certain rules to enforce sharing and to prevent leeching," he writes. "It’s very different from Western IP concepts, but I’m trying to have an open mind about it."

    How To Maximize Apple's iPhone 5 Warranty Policies

    Ok, so we've talked about how Apple checks to see if a damaged MacBook qualifies for warranty repair. But what about Apple's best-selling product, the iPhone? My hunch is that more people bring in their iPhones to Apple stores for service than any other Apple product, given the numerous ways you can break it. It's also a device that users seem to scrutinize more carefully--a light scratch on a MacBook may be something you can live with, but a scratch on the iPhone's case looks exceptionally garish. And with the iPhone 5's chamfered aluminum casing, the iPhone is more prone to scratches than ever before.

    Photo credit: Flickr user msvg via Creative Commons.

    Unfortunately, it's official Apple policy that scratches or chips on any of its aluminum products is considered normal wear and tear. Apple's Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller said as much in an email to a concerned user back in September. So you can't take your iPhone in for replacement or a free repair for scratches--fair enough. You also can't rely on Schiller to clarify about every point of Apple's iPhone damage policy. But here's the next best thing: Apple's Visual/Mechanical Inspection Guide for iPhones. This is the document that details what kind of damage is covered under warranty and teaches Apple store employees how to evaluate that damage. The VMI guide for every iPhone generation through the iPhone 4S was leaked earlier this year, but not the one for the iPhone 5. That's the document we recently received from an Apple repair technician.

    Whereas the iPhone 4/4S VMI guide is identified as document number 070-2515E, the one for the iPhone 5 is 070-3037-D, dated March 28th 2013. It has numerous differences from the earlier guide since it covers only the latest iPhone model, and shows several key changes in warranty damage classification. Let's go over some of its highlights.

    Cosmetic damage considered normal wear and tear

    First, as seen in the image above, is the inclusion of a cosmetic damage damage section that reinforces what we already know: scratches, dents, and chips are considered normal damage for an iPhone, and aren't covered under the standard one-year warranty. You can't even pay to have this damage fixed in out-of-warranty service. The one type of external damage that is covered is a bulging case that's due to a swollen battery. In that situation, the entire phone can be replaced at no cost. And even if the phone is out of warranty, damage caused by a swollen battery is eligible for a whole unit replacement at the cost of a battery replacement ($80). That's reasonable.

    Next, on to the water damage policy. This is where things get interesting.

    Samsung's Mega Phones

    I'm going to make the not-so-bold assumption that these phones are not going to be pocketable. Samsung has official announced the Galaxy Mega line--5.8 and 6.3-inch Android smartphones with 960x540 and 1280x720 resolution screens, respectively. Dual-core processors, no stylus. These are decidedly mid-range phones for people who just want a big screen and long battery life. They'll be out in May for Europe and Russia.

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    Are Your Contacts Trapped In an iPhone You Can’t Sync Anymore?

    The iPhone’s obnoxious sync limit, which only allows you to sync your phone with one computer, is one of the last vestiges of the device’s legacy as an MP3 player. If you lose, destroy, or even need to reformat the machine you initially synced your phone with, your data will be stranded beyond the reach of Apple’s default sync. If you’ve configured your phone to use a shared address book, such as Google Contacts, an Exchange server, or a CardDAV provider, this should never be a problem. Once you store your information online, switching phones is as simple as logging onto a new server from your phone.

    If you don’t store your stuff online, switching phones can be a bewildering nightmare; something I discovered as I watched a friend manually copying his contacts from his old phone to his new phone. By typing.

    When I freed my contacts from my phone, iOS was still called iPhone OS. Since then, it’s gotten much easier. If your device is running iOS 5 or newer, you can just set up an iCloud account on the phone with the contacts, sync the contacts on your device to iCloud, and then either use iCloud to sync your info between devices, or download a VCF file from iCloud.com that will let you transfer your information to most contact managers.

    If you're running a version of iOS older than 5 (or don't trust Apple to get the sync right), there are dozens of apps in the App Store that promise to back up the contacts from your phone, package them in a convenient VCF or CSV file, and email them to you on another computer or device. I ended up recommending My Contacts Backup Pro to my friend, which costs $2 (free if you have fewer than 500 contacts), and worked perfectly. It generated a VCF file that we were able to import directly into Google Contacts, and then set up CardDAV syncing on the new iPhone.

    Facebook Home for Android and the HTC First Coming April 12

    Facebook and HTC teamed up on Thursday to reveal Facebook Home and the HTC First, a new Facebook launcher for Android and the first phone that will come with it pre-installed. Facebook's press release states "Home isn't a phone or operating system, and it's also more than just an app. Home is a completely new experience that lets you see the world through people, not apps." The closest approximation to Facebook Home is an Android skin, like HTC's Sense or Samsung's TouchWiz--you know, those customized software layers that marred the Android world with slow, clunky user interfaces for the platform's first few years on the market.

    Android skins aren't always terrible. Samsung's TouchWiz has gotten much better since the days of Android Froyo, for example. But so has the base Android experience--there's a reason that the stock Ice Cream Sandwich and Jellybean OS versions available on Google-branded phones like the Nexus 4 are almost unanimously recommended by tech fans.

    As Facebook says, though, Home is doing something different. Instead of reskinning the presentation of Android with different widgets, contact lists, and app trays, it's re-focusing the entire phone experience to be all about Facebook. The Verge quotes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: "We spend as much as 25 percent of our time on our phone using Facebook and Instagram, he said, so why not design a phone around 'people, not apps?' "

    Home is comprised of a series of apps that prioritize people over apps. The Cover Feed app replaces the home screen and lock screen with updates from friends--and ads from Facebook. You can naturally like and comment on posts within the Cover Feed interface. The Chat Heads app works within other apps to facilitate Facebook messaging and SMS. Whenever you get a message, a "chat head" (your friend's face in a little bubble) will pop up on the screen. You can click on the bubble to read the message and respond. Again, the focus is on people, rather than the messaging service or individual app you would normally use to communicate with them.

    The full app drawer is still available as its own screen, and the launcher of your favorite apps is accessible with a swipe. Even notifications are Facebookified; The Verge writes "There are badges and notifications on every app that let you know when something new is happening, when someone is communicating with you. Notifications are sorted by friend, rather than app — it says when your friend is doing something, rather than letting you know that an app has something new for you."

    Home will be available on the HTC One and One X, Samsung Galaxy S III and IV and Galaxy Note 2. It's downloadable from the Google Play store starting April 12, but will come pre-installed on the just-announced HTC First.

    The First is a 4.3-inch Android 4.1 phone running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 400 processor. Like Home, it will be available on AT&T (with LTE support) on April 12. Since it's launching with Home pre-installed, the first will also have deeper integration of Facebook's app into Android--think system notifications that don't come from the Facebook app. Don't expect the full specs to rival the HTC One, which also ships this month--the First will be available for $100 on contract.

    Scratch-Proof Sapphire Screens Could Protect Future Smartphones

    We live in fear of cracked, scratched, and smashed smartphone screens. Gorilla Glass is tough, but it isn't tough enough--a face-off with concrete or a sharp object can still permanently scar or destroy the screen on a $600 piece of technology. Wouldn't it be great if the surfaces of our screens were carved from impenetrable diamond, rather than fairly penetrable glasses and plastics? Actually, the next best thing may be possible; Technology Review says "Your next smartphone screen may be made of sapphire."

    Most kids know that diamond is the hardest natural substance on Earth, but sapphire is nearly as hard. While diamond alone scores a 10 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, sapphire scores a nine. Technology Review writes that sapphire is three times harder and three times more scratch resistant than Corning Gorilla Glass. Sapphire is many, many times more scratch resistant than the glass or quartz commonly used in watch faces.

    And sapphire can be used as a glass. Apple currently uses a sapphire lens for the iPhone 5 for its thinness and durability. Why not cover a smartphone's entire screen with one of the hardest substances on Earth?

    The answer, of course, is cost. But it's not as expensive as you might think. Writes Technology Review: "A Gorilla Glass display costs less than $3, while a sapphire display would cost about $30. But that could fall below $20 in a couple of years thanks to increased competition and improving technology, says Eric Virey, an analyst for the market research firm Yole Développement."

    So sapphire currently costs 10 times as much as a Gorilla Glass panel--that's too high a price difference for smartphone makers, but as the prices of other components continue to fall, and sapphire becomes cheaper to produce as a glass, that gulf will narrow. And at some point, sapphire may be worth the price.

    There's also a possibility that smartphones can use an incredibly thin layer of sapphire bonded to traditional glass or plastic. That surface coating would still be durable, but wouldn't cost as much as a thicker sapphire sheet. "GT Advanced Technologies, based in Nashua, New Hampshire, is developing a method for making sapphire sheets thinner than a human hair—much thinner than the nearly millimeter-thick glass used now on mobile phones," writes Technology Review.

    GT Advanced Technologies estimates prices can come down to only three or four times Gorilla Glass--potentially about $10 per screen. If anything's standing in the way of sapphire screens, it's other technologies being "good enough." Gorilla Glass becomes more scratch resistant every year, but we wouldn't mind having a phone that we can drop onto concrete without seeing spiderweb cracks and a hefty repair bill flash before our eyes.

    T-Mobile to Carry iPhone 5, Starting April 12th

    In addition to officially launching its new Simple Choice contract-free plans, T-Mobile announced its 2013 LTE rollout, which today includes seven cities: Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose, and Washington, D.C. This is true 4G LTE and not HSPA+, which T-Mobile has been passing off as 4G for the past few years. LTE coverage on T-Mobile is expected to reach 100 million people by the middle of 2013, as the network adapts its AWS (1700MHz) bands to support LTE. If you recall, T-Mobile paid 4.2 billion in 2006 to purchase the AWS license to service the AWS bands.

    Photo credit: Flickr user lukema via Creative Commons.

    Also notable is that T-Mobile will now officially support the iPhone 5, which they'll begin selling on April 12th. Though the phone won't come subsidized, T-Mobile will sell the phone for $100 with a monthly payment plan ($20/month for 24 months, totaling $580). As clarified on Twitter, T-Mobile's iPhone 5 will work on both its LTE and HSPA+ network, though previously, the iPhone did not work on T-Mobile's 1700MHz/2100MHz bands. This is because T-Mobile is also now providing HSPA+ service on the PCS (1900MHz) band, which had previously been allocated for Edge/2G. The iPhone's quad-band radios (locked in firmware) can only tap into service on 850/900/1900/2100MHz bands.

    F.A.A. May Relax Electronics Restrictions on "Reading Devices" This Year

    F.A.A. regulations on electronics have always seemed to follow a very loose, very scientific old adage: Better safe than sorry. There's never been much in the way of proof that Kindles or GameBoys or MP3 players affect the sensitive electronics of an airplane, but that hasn't stopped them from insisting that passengers turn off everything for takeoff. Now that blanket ruling from the F.A.A. might be changing--but not on the scale most people would like to see.

    Photo credit: Jetstar Airways

    According to the New York Times, insiders say "the agency hopes to announce by the end of this year that it will relax the rules for reading devices during takeoff and landing. The change would not include cellphones." The new ruling, if it comes to pass, would allow passengers to put reading devices in airplane mode rather than turning them off. "Reading devices" presumably covers Kindles and other tablets like iPads, but doesn't mean smartphones. We wouldn't be surprised if the rule fails to make a distinction between tablets with built-in 3G radios and those without.

    Defining what "airplane mode" should entail would allow for more general guidelines with different types of devices.

    The F.A.A. has obviously been under pressure to change its electronics rulings for years, and the Times reports that the agency has been working on the issue with a number of associations including Boeing, the F.C.C., and Amazon, since last year. They're expected to unveil their findings by July 31st.

    Senator Claire McCaskill plans to introduce legislation to update electronic rulings if the F.A.A. doesn't move quickly enough. Ideally, the F.A.A. will institute a broad set of rules that will apply to future devices as well as current electronics on the market. They'll also be determining what, exactly, "airplane mode" should entail, which will hopefully allow for more general guidelines with different types of devices. But if the ruling allows for Kindles and not for cellphones, few passengers will be satisfied unless the F.A.A. makes a stronger case for cellular signals interfering with airplanes. Better safe than sorry isn't going to last much longer.

    The Math Works Out for T-Mobile's New Contract-Free Plans

    Ahead of its New York press conference tomorrow, US cellular carrier T-Mobile has launched its new contract-free pricing plans for both individuals and families. And the plans actually sound really good. Here's the breakdown of how much they cost and what that'll get you.

    • Individual plans start at $50 a month, which includes unlimited talk and text, and 500MB of data per month on T-Mobile's HSPA+ network.
    • That 500MB cap can be expanded to 2GB per month for an extra $10, and uncapped "unlimited" data costs yet another $10. That's $70/month for an unlimited plan.
    • Good news for worrywarts: none of the plans have overage charges if you go over your allocated amount. You'll just be throttled to 2G/Edge speeds.

    Of course, there are some caveats.

    T-Mobile is just beginning to roll out its LTE service this year, so the vast majority of its subscribers will be using its "4G" HSPA+ service. That's fine if you're using a phone like the Nexus 4, but will make purchasing an unlocked phone a tougher decision, since many come with both LTE and HSPA models at different prices. Sony's new Xperia ZL, for example, will cost $719 unlocked, but the LTE version costs $40 more. The acclaimed HTC One also is pegged at $740, unlocked. And of course, if you buy an iPhone 5, you won't be able to use T-Mobile's LTE since the phone's chipset doesn't support T-Mobile's basebands. The 16GB unlocked iPhone 5 costs $650.

    According to OpenSignal user data, LTE is expected to roll out to T-Mobile customers starting with eight cities: Denver, Las Vegas, Kansas City, New Orleans, New York, San Diego, San Jose/Bay Area, and Seattle.

    And finally, the $50/month plan doesn't include taxes and other regulatory surcharges mentioned in the fine print. Taxes could account for up to 28% of your monthly bill, so get a definitive estimate before switching off your current contract. The math does work out if, like me, you're paying close to $100 a month on a two-year contract. The $450 saved every two years in phone subsidies when on contact only amounts to $19 a month, but I'm paying $2400 over two years in service to AT&T.

    HP Prototypes Transparent Glasses-Free 3D Display

    Are 3D displays passé at this point? 3D TV sales have been a big bust for the likes of Sony and Samsung. Nintendo's 3DS seems to be succeeded in spite of its 3D display, not because of it. The 3D displays that still get us excited on a pure tech level are transparent--perhaps because they evoke the holographs of sci-fi--and HP just so happens to have worked up such a display in their R&D department. Technology Review reports that HP's new display can be installed in a millimeter thick piece of glass and project images and video. And, thankfully, it's glasses-free.

    HP's small 3D display works similarly to other glasses-free panels. The pixels are angled in such a way that each of our eyes sees a different image, creating the stereoscopic effect. HP claims they've done better than other glasses-free tech, though, with a wide field of view--"up to 180 degrees in principle"--from a meter away. Compared to Nintendo's 3DS, which has a very narrow 3D field, that's a huge improvement.

    Image via Nature/Fattal et. al.

    HP wants multiple viewers to be able to see the 3D effect on a future phone or tablet, and that field of view should be wide enough to facilitate that. Glasses-free 3D tech has been problematic for 3D televisions, simply because there are so many possible places a viewer could sit or stand while watching such a large screen.

    The screen itself doesn't look too impressive, but it does have that neon look of The Future. HP's prototype units can handle resolutions of 88 pixels per inch and 127 pixels per inch; the latter's not terrible for a mobile display. Given a few more years in the R&D lab, they may be able to make the screen's big enough for hand-held devices. It's just hard to tell how practical it will be. In the brief video from the original Nature report below, it's hard to really see much of anything on the screen. We'll have to see a movie or web browser on the display before we're sold on the technology.