During Apple’s press conference earlier in the week, they claimed that the infamous “death grip,” or the common name given to the signal loss you get when holding the iPhone 4 a certain way, is by no means exclusive to the iPhone 4 – they claimed that just about any mobile phone manufacturer suffers from the problem, and that you can find a way to hold any phone that will reduce signal and force calls to drop.

Almost immediately, Apple’s competitors in the mobile space, like Nokia, Samsung, and HTC, all fired back claiming that this was anything but true and their handsets were immune from any sort of “death grip.” So what does a smart tech columnist do? They put it to the test!

The fine folks over at PC Mag grabbed a bunch of phones they have for testing (and other hilarious objects) and decided to see if they could death grip the signal out of them as well. The results are in the fantastic video above – those with a sense of humor only need apply, but the results are pretty interesting – sure, if you pretty much wrap both hands around some phones you can force some signal loss, but in most cases it’s slight or the grip is so unwieldy that you’ll never find yourself holding the phone that way. Even so, other phones suffer from the death grip pretty substantially. You’ll have to watch the video to see the results!

[ PC Mag :: Death Grip Testing on iPhone Competitors Shows Mixed Results ]

Today’s a big day for Firefox enthusiasts: Mozilla announced the first public beta of Firefox 4, which includes a new, revamped UI, faster rendering engine, enhanced security, and some features that already exist in some of the competition like Chrome and Opera – things like crash protection for individual tabs and plug-ins (so, for example, Flash can crash without bringing down your entire browser, or one tab can die without bringing all of the rest down with it), and support for HTML5.

Of course, all of those things aside, most people will first notice the new interface, which brings tabs to the top of the window a-la Chrome, adds a “Firefox” menu that replaces the actual menu bar, and overall just looks like it fits with Windows Vista and Windows 7 (although it looks horrible in Windows XP – the massive titlebar ruins the look.) The new interface and new features may make Firefox competitive again in a world where Chrome, Safari, and Opera have been all gaining ground against it.

[ AppScout: Firefox 4 Beta Released ]

If you haven’t heard the news, (and a lot of people heard the news and thought “what’s that?”) Microsoft killed the Kin, the smartphone designed to be a semi-smartphone for young people and teenagers looking for a device that had a focus on social networking and staying in touch with friends but didn’t need enterprise-level features.

Most people in the tech sector saw the announcement (and still see the commercials on TV) and shake our head sadly at what could have been a good product if it had been given the right attention, resources, appropriate marketing, and aggressive prices.

I’m completely agreed with the notion that the Microsoft Kin could have been an amazing product, and could have been the pioneer for a new generation of feature phones that could have stood alongside devices like the LG Envy and dominated them. Instead, Verizon took them and put them on the same stage as smartphones that were way more powerful, at the same price-point, and forced owners to have expensive smartphone-level data plans to support them.

The price was something I would have been able to get over if it weren’t for the fact that Verizon charged data fees on top of them when they don’t for phones that are more like the Kin. The Kin, at least in my perspective, was less of a mini-smartphone or smartphone-lite as it was a super feature phone that would help teens send messages to their friends, send them photos, take video, and then manage all of that content from a Web app powered by Microsoft.

The Kin could have been rolled in with Zune and Zune Marketplace and as a precursor to Windows Phone 7, and positioned as the first in an aggressive new generation of feature phones that would have forced LG and Samsung to up their ante and bring feature phones to the market that would really be fun and useful for young people who don’t necessarily want (or whose parents don’t want them to have) BlackBerry devices or Android phones or iPhones.

Instead, the Kin died a slow and painful death because it was horribly marketed to no specific target group, generically labeled as a “social phone” without any real look at what made it stand out or what the companion Web app was good for, it was priced too high on shelves at Verizon stores, and the requirement of a full data plan for it was the final nail in the coffin. They didn’t sell, and Microsoft pulled the plug.

Over at Engadget there’s a beautiful retelling of the true and inside story of the life and death of the Kin, which includes how things went wrong from the very beginning and the entire project turned into a “just get it finished and out the door” kind of project, even if it was flawed and even if people at Microsoft and Verizon both knew that the way it was positioned meant it wouldn’t go anywhere. It’s worth a read, if not for lines like this:

While it’s hard to argue that Kin is an awful product, the saddest part of the story is that many of the people responsible for it knew it was — they were largely victims of political circumstance, forced to release a phone that was practically raw in the middle.

[ Engadget :: Life and Death of Microsoft Kin: The Inside Story ]

The long-predicted subscription offering from Hulu has arrived, and while it’s not the service changer I think we all feared or expected, depending on how the private beta goes, it could define the future direction for the service.

It’s called Hulu Plus, and as expected, will run you $9.99 USD per month, and give you access to entire seasons of popular series, and will extend to other devices for which Hulu is making streaming video apps like the iPad and iPhone.

From PCMag:

When they are available, the Apple apps will run over 3G or Wi-Fi, Hulu said.
Shows will play in high-definition 720p resolution and content will also sync between devices.

“You can start watching a show on your HDTV one night, pick up where you left off on your laptop at lunch, watch another chunk on the bus ride home on your iPhone, and finish watching in bed on your iPad. The time to watch your favorite shows is any time you want,” [Hulu chief executive Jason] Kilar wrote.

Kilar said Hulu Plus will not replace the original Hulu, but will instead provide access to an extended library of content. At this point, Hulu users typically have access to the five or so most recent episodes of a given TV series. With Hulu Plus, subscribers will have access to every episode of the current season.

Hulu will also add back seasons or full runs of certain TV shows, including The X-Files, Arrested Development, Law & Order: SVU, Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Roswell, Grey’s Anatomy, and Desperate Housewives. The company will also make available skits from the first five and most recent seasons of Saturday Night Live.

“This is all on top of hundreds of shows already on Hulu.com today,” Kilar wrote. “It’s a treasure chest in the cloud for TV lovers.”

It makes sense that Hulu is looking for some way to broaden its reach and make a little money in the process. A number of people have complained that any subscription Hulu service should come ad-free, but it’s not clear whether or not Hulu Plus will be – the service is still in private beta and was only released this week, so more details are sure to follow.

[ PC Mag :: Hulu Announces Subscription-Based 'Hulu Plus', iPad App ]

The court presiding over the $1 Billion lawsuit Viacom levied against YouTube has finally ruled…in YouTube and Google’s favor, dismissing the case.

In a post at the YouTube blog, Kent Walker, Vice President and General Counsel at Google, had this to say:

Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.

This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other. We’re excited about this decision and look forward to renewing our focus on supporting the incredible variety of ideas and expression that billions of people post and watch on YouTube every day around the world.

Obviously Viacom could very well appeal the decision, and it’s likely that they will if Viacom and Google lawyers can’t come out of this with some kind of mutual agreement, but even if Viacom does appeal, that just means the standard of proof is going to be that much higher for them in an appeals court, which would have to determine if there’s some new evidence or specific reason why the lawsuit wasn’t handled properly or the correct decision was made in the first place.

Only time will tell, and this certainly isn’t the last volley in this battle, but here’s hoping both parties can settle out of court – clearly this hasn’t put much of a dent in either of their businesses, aside from the legal fees both sides must have incurred.

(thanks to Mashable for the tip!)

[ The Official YouTube Blog ::YouTube Wins Case Against Viacom ]

In a press conference today, Motorola and Verizon, along with special guest, Google’s Eric Schmidt, announced the newest member of Verizon’s Droid family, the Droid X – Motorola’s next generation Droid handset, which by the looks of it will be leaps and bounds past the current Droid by Motorola.

There have been rumors abound about the Droid X and the Droid 2 (they’re two different phones), and which one we would see today – turns out the Droid X is a new slab-phone with physical keys at the bottom, a bigger, higher-resolution screen, a 1GHz processor, 720p video recording, an 8-megapixel camera, 24GB of storage (8GB on-board and a 16GB SD card, upgradable to a 32GB SD card), and 3 microphones for superior call and recording quality. The Droid X will be available July 15th for $199.99 after a $100 rebate for new contracts or – thanks to Verizon – any Droid owner with a “new every two” upgrade coming in 2010.

The Droid X will also serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot for an extra $20 per month, which is a huge feature, and will support Android 2.2 “Froyo” and Adobe’s Flash 10.1 when they’re both made available later this summer (but not at launch.)

The Droid 2 continues to be un-announced phone, and although a few blogs claim to have had their hands on it, nothing official from Motorola or Verizon has been announced. The Droid 2 appears to be more of a direct upgrade to the existing Droid by Motorola – with a slide-out physical keyboard and a faster processor than the existing Droid but not as powerful as the one coming in the Droid X. The Droid 2 will retain most of the features of the original Droid by Motorola, and it looks like Motorola is positioning it as an upgrade and an additional device in the market as opposed to positioning it against some of the kings of Android phone performance like the Droid Incredible and the Droid X.

Regardless, if you’re looking for an upgrade to your Droid (although not many original Droid owners will have an upgrade coming this year) or want your hands on the most powerful smartphone on the market, you may consider the Droid X. Still, it was just announced today, so the reviews have yet to roll in.

UPDATE: PC Mag has some first impressions and video, live from the unveiling event!

[ Verizon Wireless :: Droid Does ]

In the same vein as The Fastest Mobile Networks 2010, PC Mag has now tested the fastest Internet Service Providers around the country to come up with a list of ISPs give you the most bandwidth and the most speed regardless of where in the United States you live.

The lowdown and the straight answer is clear and should be obvious to everyone who’s paid any attention to ISPs in the past several years – the fastest national ISP is Verizon FIOS. Not their DSL service, which I think everyone understands is universally awful, but FIOS. Cable providers took the number two and three spots, but Comcast didn’t make an appearance until number four.

The picture definitely changes though depend on where in the United States that you live – the survey breaks down the country into regions and includes some regional ISPs as well as national ones, and depending on where you live the results might be a little surprising. Again, keep in mind that the PC Mag crew was testing for speed, not necessarily availability, price/performance (bang-for-your-buck), or reliability – just who you should sign up with if they’re available where you are for the fastest possible connection you can get. They also list some average connection prices in the story as well, so you can see how much you should be spending on your ISP on average.

[ PC Mag :: The Fastest ISPs in the US 2010 ]

Apple surprised everyone yesterday and announced a sweeping update to the Mac Mini, one of its most dejected and neglected platforms, adding an SD slot, HDMI ports, an easy-open bottom, and updated graphics and processors to the mini desktop, making it more and more a perfect candidate for an HTPC that slides well into your entertainment center or a small-but-powerful desktop that’s perfect for general use or if you’re just looking for a compact desktop PC that’s affordable with decent features.

Among the upgrades? The new aluminum body design, the addition of the SD card, the HDMI port, super-low power usage, and a built-in power supply (so it doesn’t have a massive brick hanging out the back of it), all of which are impressive for a machine its size and in its category. The folks at PC Mag loved it so much they gave it 4/5 stars and the Editor’s Choice award for its class of desktop computer.

Only down-side? No Blu-Ray drive in the box, or support for one in Mac OS, which is unfortunate. Still, we all know Apple hasn’t embraced Blu-Ray yet, although it’s just a matter of time.

[ PC Mag :: Apple Mac Mini Review ]

Monday was Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) and as predicted, Apple unveiled the next generation iPhone, the iPhone 4, at the show. Steve Jobs stood on-stage and acknowledged the leaks and the missing iPhone saga, and sure enough the device we all got to see on Monday looked an awful lot like the prototype that turned up on Gizmodo a few months ago.

But that’s not all that happened at WWDC, let’s take a brief look:

iPhone 4

Obviously the star of the show was the iPhone 4, newly designed and complete with sharper edges, a more slab-like feel, and specially engineered tempered glass on the front and the back of the device. The new design has individual buttons on the side for volume and other controls, dual microphones in the top and the bottom for noise cancellation, a micro SD tray in the side, a front-facing camera for self portraits and Apple’s new “Face Time” real-time video calling feature (shown above, and largely considered the biggest announcement of the show), an LED flash on the new 5 megapixel camera on the back, and longer battery life.

The new iPhone will sport the Apple A4 chip under the hood, the same processor that powers the iPad, and part of the reason the battery life is improved. Additionally, Apple’s re-engineered the iPhone display to be much sharper and have much smaller individual pixels, which increases the overall resolution and presents a sharper image – they’ve patented the new display technology and call it the Retina Display. Aside from the hardware upgrades, Apple also announced that their eBook reading app, iBooks, along with Netflix streaming video, will make their way to the iPhone this month, and Apple previewed new development tools that make use of the new built-in gyroscope and utilize HTML5 in addition to Cocoa Touch (the iPhone’s native development platform.)

The new iPhone is pretty impressive as-is, and AT&T and Apple have agreed to allow existing iPhone users upgrade to the new iPhone 4 for less than the full retail price, which paves the way for more current iPhone and iPhone 3GS owners to upgrade to the new device as soon as its available, which is currently June 24th (pre-orders will open on June 15th). The 16GB version will run you $199, and the 32GB version will run you $299.

PC Mag got hands on with the iPhone 4 at WWDC and has their first impressions here, along with a video walking through some of its new features.

iPhone OS is now iOS

This is an entertaining tidbit. Much like the word “iPhone” used to be property of Cisco, the phrase “iOS” used to describe the operating system for Cisco’s enterprise routers, switches, and other network devices. Apple was way ahead of itself this time (unlike when they launched the iPhone in 2007) and already arranged to license the phrase from Cisco going forward to describe the OS that now runs on iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads.

I have to wonder how much Apple is paying Cisco to make that happen – or even whether those discussions started in 2007 back when Apple and Cisco settled the flap over “iPhone.”

Safari 5 and iTunes 9.2

Very quietly, Apple almost glazed over the announcement of the new version of Safari, Safari 5, available now. Safari 5 is fully HTML 5 compliant, a bit faster than Safari 4, and has an interesting new “Safari Reader” view that hides ads and other fluff content away from the primary page content that you’re likely interested in reading without the distraction of banner ads and other flashy content in the margins.

PC Mag has an excellent review of Safari 5 if you’re curious what else is new – and perhaps what isn’t new – about the new browser. A quick Twitter poll showed that not too many people use Safari at all, even on the Mac, so this likely won’t make PC users download it if they don’t already love it, but Mac users will get the update as part of Software Update, regardless of whether they actually use it as their primary browser.

Almost entirely unnoticed was iTunes 9.2 – in fact, I don’t think it was mentioned at all during the keynote, other than the fact that the new iOS4, which will power the iPhone 4 and be available for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS (and possibly the iPad) will be available later this month for download via iTunes 9.2. iTunes is currently at version 9.1.1, so this means there’ll be an iTunes update in our immediate future – although what other features it’ll bring other than being the conveyor of iOS4, we have yet to learn.

That’s all she wrote!

That’s about it – Apple has been very adamant about message control lately, so we didn’t see any additional products or announcements at the WWDC this year: no AppleTV announcements or upgrades, no iPod Touch upgrades (although the iPod usually has its own music-themed event in August or September), no iPad upgrades or announcements, and that fact left a number of Apple faithful a little wanting. Still – the iPhone 4 was the star of the day, and that’s exactly how Steve Jobs wanted it when he walked on stage on Monday.

The beauty of knowing someone whose passion it is to play with, examine, and test mobile phones and test the networks they run on and call out the carriers that sell them as Sascha Segan, of PC Mag, is knowing that when he does some comprehensive testing, it’s worth looking at.

Now, Sascha has traveled to 18 different cities and tested the cellular networks in each of them from all of the major carriers on multiple devices to test their 3G coverage, their 4G coverage, their standard coverage, their data networks, their voice networks, and all of their features. If you’ve ever wanted to know who really has the best network – especially since all of the carriers will tell you in their commercials that they do – this is the comprehensive study that will tell you what’s up, and not just what’s up in general – what’s up where you live.

For example, and I don’t mind spoiling this, the survey found out that AT&T has the fastest mobile network on average across the country. The trouble with AT&T having the fastest network is that you can hardly get onto it in a number of cities because of the network congestion and the lack of signal since AT&T largely hasn’t invested in making its network more robust. Even though AT&T was the fastest, in my backyard the study found that Verizon was the most consistent with the best signal and converage at all times.

What will it show for your neck of the woods? Head over and find out!

[ PC Mag :: The Fastest Mobile Networks 2010 ]