Apple iPhone 5

Over the last year, we've heard a ton of rumors about what it might deliver with LTE, a taller display, and a redesigned connector being the most likely tidbits. Fortunately, we now can put all that speculation to rest as Apple spilled the secrets.

Taller, thinner, and a metal back
As expected, the new iPhone is 18 percent thinner (0.30 inch vs. 0.37 inch thick) than the iPhone 4S. Apple says it's the thinnest handset around, but that's a race that changes often. That means it's also 20 percent lighter for a total of 3.95 ounces. The Retina Display expands from 3.5 inches (its size since the original iPhone) to 4 inches. The total resolution remains the same, though, at 326 pixels per inch. The total pixel count is 1,136x640, and we now have a 16:9 aspect ratio.

To the user, that means a fifth row of icons on the home screen. That's pretty nice since it will let you cut down on the number of home screens. You'll also get a full five-day week view in the calendar, the calendar will show more events, and all iWork apps will take advantage of the bigger display. Third-party apps that haven't been updated will continue to work, but you'll see black borders on each side (so they won't be stretched or scaled). Apple also promises that wide-screen movies will look better, with 44 percent more color saturation than on the iPhone 4S.

Touch sensors are now built into the display itself, which makes it 30 percent thinner as a result and less prone to glare.

The iPhone 5 also fixes a design flaw that we first saw in the iPhone 4. Apple replaced the glass back with one that's mostly metal. Too many people (us included) cracked an iPhone 4 or 4S after dropping it accidentally. We don't think the change negatively affects the iPhone's aesthetics. In fact, many might see it as an improvement. A return to a metal back reminds one of the original iPhone, and the crisp, clean-cut back has a bit of the feel of other Apple devices like the iPad.

All of the design changes result in a new iPhone that's surprisingly light to hold. Think 20 percent lighter isn't a big deal? Pick one of these up and you'll feel the difference: the iPhone 4 may have been dense, but the iPhone 5 is a featherweight.

The screen is big, bright, and crisp, too, not shockingly so, but a subtly improved experience. It's akin to being the extrawide comfy chair of iPhone screens. Stay tuned for more, but this new iPhone has a good hand feel.

LTE and carriers
Not a shocker either, but the iPhone 5 will support 4G LTE networks. That's in addition to the current support for GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, and HSPA data networks. LTE has a single chip for voice and data, a single radio chip, and a "dynamic antenna" that will switch connections between different networks automatically.

So which carriers will support an LTE iPhone 5? Well, in the United States that means AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless. So again, T-Mobile loses out. In Canada it's Rogers, Bell, Telus, Fido, Virgin, and Koodo. In Asia the providers will be SoftBank, SmarTone, SingTel, and SK Telecom. For Australia there's Telstra, Optus, and Virgin Mobile, and in Europe it will go to Deutsche Telekom and EE. On carriers without LTE, the iPhone 5 will run on dual-band 3.5G HDPA+.

A faster chip
The iPhone 5 will offer an A6 chip, which is two times faster than the current A5 chip. Graphics will get faster speeds, as well. Yet, despite the speedier performance, the new chip will be 22 percent smaller than the A5. According to Apple's specs, users will see Web pages load 2.1 times faster, and the Music app with songs will load 1.9 times faster.

Battery life
LTE tends to be a power hog, but the iPhone 5 is set to deliver respectable battery life even if it's not quite the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx. Of course, the real story may differ, but here's what Apple is promising for now. We're supposed to get 8 hours of 3G talk time, 8 hours of 3G browsing, 8 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of music playback, and 225 hours of standby time. You can be sure that CNET will put these promises to the test when we get a device in our hands.

Camera
The main shooter, or the "iSight" camera, stays at 8 megapixels (with the best resolution being 3,264x2,448 pixels) with a feature list that includes backside illumination, a hybrid IR filter, a five-element lens, and a f2.4 aperture. A dynamic light mode is new, and you should be able to launch photography apps up to 2.1 times faster. Another addition is an image signal processor in the A6 chip. That will bring spatial noise reduction and a "smart filter" that produces better low-light performance and captures photos faster. Finally, there's a built-in panorama mode that stitches shots together for one large 28-megapixel photo.

The secondary front camera now can shoot 720p HD video and it gets a backside illuminated sensor. And as we heard at the announcement of iOS 6 back in June, FaceTime will work over 3G cellular networks. Some carriers like AT&T have already announced restrictions for that feature, so be sure to check with your provider first.

Video resolution remains at 1080p HD, though image stabilization has been improved and face detection is now available in clips for up to 10 people. And in a nice move, you can take photos while you're shooting video.

Audio
The iPhone 5 gets an additional microphone for a total of three. You'll find one on the bottom, one on the handset's front face, and one on its rear side. What's more, the speaker now has five magnets (so up from two), which is apparently better and it's supposed to use 20 percent less space. The noise-canceling feature should be improved, as well, and there's a new wideband audio feature that promises more-natural-sounding voices. Twenty percent of carriers will support wideband audio, but so far we only know that Orange in the United Kingdom will be among them.

Smaller dock connector, smaller SIM card
On the bottom of the iPhone 5, there's that new and long-anticipated smaller dock connector. Called "Lightning," it has an all-digital, eight-signal design and an "adaptive interface" (we're not quite sure what that means yet). It's 80 percent smaller, and since it's reversible, both ends will be the same (that's kind of nice).

By all means, it's bound to annoy owners of current speaker docks, accessories, and charger/syncing cables since it will render them obsolete. Apple will offer an adapter and adapter cables (of course it will), which range from $19 to $39. We imagine, though, that the adapter may be awkward to use with some current accessories like a bedside alarm clock/music player. For new accessories, Apple says that manufacturers like Bose, JBL, and Bowers are working on new products.

Though we welcome the idea of a smaller connector, we're miffed that Apple couldn't just adopt the semi-industry standard of Micro-USB. That would make things easier for smartphone users across the globe. Yet, even so, the smaller connector may be a smart move for the future. The 30-pin connector has been around since 2003, long before the iPhone even existed: frankly, it's a dust magnet. A smaller connector helps shave extra space to achieve a smaller phone with perhaps a bigger battery. The new connector cable will mainly be used for syncing and charging by most people who own an Apple TV or Bluetooth/AirPlay accessories.

iOS 6
Inside, the iPhone 5 will debut with iOS 6 already onboard. Highlights include the new Apple Maps app, Passbook, shared photo streams, Siri updates, and the aforementioned FaceTime over 3G. For more on Apple's newest mobile OS update, check out our iOS 6 First Take. iOS 6 will be available for download next Wednesday, September 19.

Release date and pricing 
The iPhone 5 will be available in three capacity models, all of which will come in black and white versions. The 16GB is $199, the 32GB $299, and the 64GB $399. On September 21, it will go on sale in nine countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Anyone in that first batch of countries can preorder starting September 14. More countries will follow by the end of this month, and by the end of the year, the iPhone 5 will land at 240 carriers in 100 countries. As a reminder, the U.S. carriers are the Big Three: Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint.

Is this the iPhone you've been looking for? 
During very brief hands-on time with the iPhone 5, this much is clear: it's the weight you'll remember more than its thinner profile. The iPhone 4S is already a svelte device: most people probably won't spot the difference if they see the new iPhone from the side.

The screen size, also, is more of a subtle improvement. This isn't a jaw-dropping leap from the iPhone 4S: it's a gradual increase, done almost so cleverly that the front face of the iPhone 5 might, with the screen turned off, look very much like the iPhone 4S. The proof will be in the pudding for how app developers and iOS 6 take full advantage of that extra screen real estate, but the bottom line is this: more screen size and more pixels are good things.

The real killer app on this phone -- no surprise -- might be the iPhone's 4G LTE, as well as the promised battery life. If data speeds and battery life can live up to the promises, those alone will make many want to upgrade.

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Facebook tied into Apple's iOS 6, report says

The next major version of iOS will be getting a lot more social, according to a new report.

TechCrunch says it's heard Apple's iOS 6 -- which is expected to be unveiled at Apple's annual developers conference in a little less than a week and a half -- will have built-in connections to Facebook.

According to the report, the integration will give app makers an easier way to let users log in with their Facebook account, presumably without kicking them out to Facebook's app, which is how the behavior is presently treated.

What's not mentioned is whether Facebook will get included in the sharing options alongside Twitter, which was added as part of iOS 5 last year, and set to be a built into OS X Mountain Lion when it's released this summer.

This is not the first such time Facebook has been rumored to be headed to iOS. Earlier this year, tech site iMore claimed iOS 5.1 -- a supplemental update to last October's iOS 5 -- would add connections to the social network. That evidence came from a beta version of the software delivered to developers. Pre-dating that, a report from Business Insider in early 2010 claimed Facebook contact syncing would make it into iOS 4.0.

Of note, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said to "stay tuned" on the company's relationship with Facebook. During an interview at the D10 conference on Tuesday, Cook said he has "great respect" for the social networking giant, and that "I think we can do more with them."

Apple famously yanked planned support for Facebook in Ping, the company's lackluster social music sharing network built into iTunes, at the very last minute. According to an interview with then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Facebook had demanded "onerous terms."

Facebook itself has since said one of its biggest weaknesses is mobile advertising, something it could hope to bolster by getting more users signed up, and making it easier to integrate on other platforms, including Apple's.

Apple is expected to fully detail iOS 6 at WWDC, which kicks off on June 11 at 10 a.m. Pacific. CNET will be there to bring you all the news, as it happens. Stay tuned for more details on that.

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Cool or creepy? Alohar tracks your location, always

In 2006, Sam Liang of Google started to work on the company's geolocation project. It was his team, he says, that created the back-end technology that enabled the creation of the blue dot on Google's mobile maps: the one that tells you where you are.

Now, six years later and at his own company, Alohar Mobile, he's working on a new blue dot: one that's both more precise and that uses far less battery life.

PlaceMe drops pins on a private map anytime you stop at a location for more than a few minutes.

What he's trying to do is create an "ambient" location tracking technology. (Mark that word: ambient. It's an emerging thing in tech products.)

Alohar's technology works by using not just the usual location-finding sensors (the GPS receiver and Wi-Fi hot spot triangulation) but also other sensors and algorithms, some of which Liang would not tell me about. It does use the accelerometer and compass, I learned, and also statistical modeling to tell "where you most likely are."

Car navigation apps also use a form of modeling: Since you're in a car, they assume you're on a road, and even if the GPS radios aren't placing you directly on a road, the algorithms will "snap" your location to one by default. Alohar does similar things but uses more data: If you're moving at walking speed, for example, it will place you on a sidewalk or in a building, not in the middle of the street. If the camera on your phone sees fluorescent light, it will try to geolocate you to an indoor location.

If you stop moving, Alohar will shut down the GPS until you start again; that's one way it does better geolocation while using less power.

The goal is to make accurate location data available to apps all the time, without draining batteries. This always-available location data can be used for cool new things. At the Launch conference in March, Liang showed how an always-running app could determine if a person carrying a phone was in a car accident, and send an Onstar-like emergency alert automatically. Or, a user could press a Help button if they were having a medical emergency. Liang points out that standard phone GPS isn't accurate enough to direct paramedics or police to a downed person's location; Alohar pinpoints people much better.

Alohar ties in to a rich database of locations, which the company's proof-of-concept app, PlaceMe, uses. It tracks where you are at all times, builds a list of the places you visit, and for how long you stay at each one. It's creepy, but it can also be useful. If you stop in at a store or cafe for a bite you can see, later, where it was.

By itself it's perhaps only of interest to those into the quantified self thing. But the technology could be very useful for note-taking or camera apps, many of which already geotag items you create on the run. With Alohar technology the tags could be more accurate.

If you want to experiment with it, I have to warn that PlaceMe, while cool, isn't fully cooked. It does affect battery life; on an iPhone 4 I found the impact noticeable but not bad enough to prevent me from using it. On my Android phone (a Galaxy Nexus), though, it murdered battery life enough to be unusable. Liang says updates are on the way for both platforms.

Liang says that the app respects privacy, by the way. While Alohar's servers do record the location trail of PlaceMe users, location data is tagged with a hash of the phone's hardware ID, not with personally identifiable information. Still, if you have an extralegal side business or a friend you don't want people to know about, I'd recommend against downloading this app.

Liang's goal is to get the location technology out there to developers. PlaceMe is just a demo. He says that potential uses for ambient location sensing include apps that learn where you "dwell," even if you don't check in. For example, your phone could now learn what kind of food you like based on which restaurants you stop at. It can tell how much time you spend walking vs. jogging, which could be useful for new kinds of ambient fitness apps (but see also: Jawbone Up, Fitbit, etc). Liang also said that the technology would be really useful for "double-blind dating apps," but I'll leave interpreting that to the reader.

Over 600 developers have signed up to use or try the Alohar technology, Liang says. The technology library is free, as is use of the service for experimental apps. Alohar will eventually charge a license fee for intense users, just as Google does for those who embed Maps in their online apps.

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Windows 8 Release Preview puts gadgets in the backseat

Nothing is as fascinating as the thing you can't have yet. Between Windows 8 Release Preview and a deafening cavalcade of iPhone 5 rumors, the current gadget crop didn't stand a chance this week.

This week's roundup of top-rated gear includes everything we've awarded three-and-a-half stars or above in our rating scale, and you can browse all of them in our slideshow. But first, read through our unrated Windows 8 Release Preview, written by Seth Rosenblatt. Seth has spent a lot of time with the new Windows preview, and he's played with the two-screen, app-centric experience Microsoft is so bullish on. His verdict so far: It could be great, but the operating system still needs plenty of work over the summer.

The BMW that makes me wish I wanted a BMW

The BMW X5Drive35i is here now, though, and the luxury SUV earned four stars and Wayne Cunningham's grudging respect. Despite some decidedly low-efficiency mileage, this car, as Wayne puts it, "keeps a connectedness to the road that many cars have lost" and sports at engine that's a "high-tech masterpiece with 3 liters of displacement from six inline cylinders." Plus, the iDrive system makes gadget integration easy. I'm not personally a BMW-lover, but this SUV makes me wish I were.

Yes, a four-star iPhone case
Why spend precious time reviewing an iPhone case? Because we can, but also because this case is made from a mysterious-sounding non-Newtonian fluid called D30. Imagine that stuff they teach your kids to make in science camp (some call it Oobleck) fit into the gooey center of an impact-resistant phone case.

Now you understand our fascination with the Tech21 Impact Band for iPhone 4/4S. Turns out, this case isn't just a gimmick. Though the rubbery outside makes it hard to push buttons, Kent German slipped on the case and dropped his phone on a carpet, a sidewalk, and a hardwood floor. Verdict: No cracks, no damage -- except maybe to Kent's blood pressure. Sadly, we haven't found one of these for Android phones yet.

We also spent some time this week with the latest crop of laptops with Intel's Ivy Bridge processors, including the Lenovo ThinkPad X230. Here's the thing about this laptop: It's really pretty good. But with a bulky design, it struggles to compete with a laptop peer group that's moving in toward total ultrabook domination.

Notably missing from our top-reviewed products this week is the new, semi-experimental Chromebox, a $330 Chrome OS-based Samsung computer with the latest build of Google's Web-focused OS. The idea of a computer that's inexpensive and lightweight fascinates me, since I spend almost all my time online and much of it using Google services, so I wanted us to love the Chromebox. But the little machine didn't quite make the cut, no thanks to some hardware compatibility issues.

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For Nokia, it's do or die time with the Lumia 900

There are no second chances for the Finnish handset company, a former titan in the industry now seeking a comeback.

Nokia got its wish and has its best shot to break back into the U.S. market.
So here's some friendly advice to a company that likely won't get another opportunity as good as this: don't blow it.

Not to pile on with more pressure, but the fate of Nokia's future, and possibly that of Windows Phone and Microsoft's ability to remain relevant in the mobile world, rests largely on how successful the Lumia 900 performs.

There are no excuses this time. Nokia has a large U.S. carrier partner in AT&T, which has promised to give the phone a major push, even more so than HTC, which is launching its 4G LTE-enabled Titan II on the same day. At $99.99 with a contract, the phone is among the best deals out there.
The phone launches on April 8, CNET reported earlier today.

If a blockbuster doesn't emerge, Nokia and Microsoft has got some serious problems. A failure could have some lasting consequences.

AT&T has been a strong supporter of Windows Phone, with more products than any other carrier. But its dedication to the platform won't last forever, and if the phone stumbles out of the gate, look for AT&T to offer discounts to dump its inventory.

Likewise, a poor-selling phone isn't going to endear Nokia or Microsoft to Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, which have only half-heartedly sold Windows Phone devices and aren't in any rush to add new products. With AT&T making such a big deal of the Lumia 900 and its 4G LTE capabilities, rival Verizon Wireless is likely reluctant to jump on to a me-too device, effectively keeping Nokia out of the largest U.S. player.

Sure, Nokia is already at T-Mobile USA, and its Lumia 710 is doing well. But the Lumia 710 is a mass-market device for the budget friendly crowd, and not something you aspire to buy. T-Mobile is no kingmaker as a distant fourth-place carrier, and offers no must-have devices.

While Nokia's brand around the world is strong, its presence here has fallen dramatically over the past few years, to the point where it's virtually meaningless to normal consumers -- at best a remnant of an older era of basic handsets. Yes, Nokia's name still adorns concerts and other buildings, but it barely registers with the consumer.

As a result, the Lumia 900 falling flat on its face would leave Nokia's brand synonymous with failure. Look at Palm. Despite enjoying a reputation for cutting edge smartphones, the last run of its aging Palm OS devices and its new WebOS saw nothing but disappointment, and its brand likewise took a major hit. Remember the Palm Pre? Few do.

Palm never recovered from its initial WebOS stumble, and didn't fare any better when scooped up by Hewlett-Packard.

Still, Lumia 900 definitely has a better chance than Palm ever did. For one, it's got the support of AT&T, one of the two biggest carriers in the U.S. Unlike previous claims that Nokia was "taking the U.S. market seriously," this time it appears to mean business.

The Lumia 900, unlike previous Nokia phones that have made their way here, is actually a good product. The trick is to get people to notice amid a sea of iPhones and Android smartphones.
Because if it doesn't, Nokia can say goodbye to its chances of being a major player in the U.S.

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Anti-SOPA Internet Society under fire for hiring MPAA executive

After warning Web blacklists would end the "viability of the Internet," the Internet Society hires the Hollywood figure who defends them and accuses critics of spreading "misinformation."

The Internet Society is hardly a fan of the Stop Online Piracy Act or the Protect IP Act. The venerable non-profit, which acts as the umbrella organization for the Internet's key standards bodies, bluntly warns that the pair of copyright laws would end the "viability of the Internet."
Which is why ISOC's decision this month to hire a senior executive from the Motion Picture Association of America -- a lawyer who has championed the wildly controversial legislation that would blacklist Web sites that supposedly violate copyright -- is raising eyebrows.

Paul Brigner defended Web blacklist legislation as an MPAA senior vice president. Why did the anti-SOPA Internet Society hire him?

ISOC announced last week that it had hired Paul Brigner, the MPAA's senior vice president and chief technology policy officer, previously of Verizon's D.C. lobby office. Brigner now heads ISOC's North America efforts, a role that includes working with the U.S. Congress and federal agencies on Internet-related laws. (See Brigner's bare-bones Web site here.)

That announcement was particularly striking because it came mere days after the ISOC Board of Trustees adopted a resolution warning of the dangers of Protect IP, SOPA, and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), all of which the MPAA and its overseas associates have lobbied for strenuously.
At a State of the Net discussion in Washington, D.C., in January at which he represented the MPAA, Brigner said that while Internet engineers have raised some valid concerns about SOPA and PIPA, the public debate has been fueled by "misinformation and exaggeration about some of the things that the MPAA and others were trying to accomplish in this legislation."

"Maybe now is the time to take a look at either DNS filtering or other mechanisms that can be a technological impediment to accessing these rogue sites," Brigner added. "There needs to be some indication that when you try to go these rogue sites, you shouldn't be there."

Brigner's blog posts at the MPAA Web site have drawn derision from the reliably anti-SOPA forces at TechDirt. After Brigner argued last year that rogue Web sites can host malware, TechDirt responded by dubbing it "stupid," an "uninformed fear that folks like the MPAA play upon," and warned that the MPAA was inventing a "new holy terror brought down upon us by the likes of zombie bin Laden."

"It seems puzzling that ISOC would make this particular selection for such an important position, given Mr. Brigner's public condemnation of Net neutrality while at Verizon, and his own postings in strong support of Protect IP while at the MPAA," says Lauren Weinstein of People For Internet Responsibility, which has opposed SOPA and favors Net neutrality regulations.

In another post on the MPAA's blog last summer, Brigner wrote that not passing the legislation would cause the Internet to "decay into a lawless Wild West." A third pointed to an paper that, Brigner wrote, "debunks claims Protect IP will break the Internet."

That's not what the public decided, of course. Protect IP and SOPA were yanked from the House and Senate calendars after January's historic online protest -- which included Wikipedia going dark for a day, alerts appearing on the home page of Google.com and Amazon.com, and so on.

For its part, ISOC chief operating officer Walda Roseman sent CNET a statement downplaying the time Brigner spent at the MPAA:

We can assure you that the Internet Society remains committed to its positions on DNS blocking and draft legislation such as SOPA and PIPA. Our position is publicly well known and remains unchanged. We would not have made this appointment if we had not been certain that Paul is ready to fully support the principles and positions of the Internet Society. Paul is onboard and already working to drive those and other Internet Society positions forward. His knowledge of technology and his insights into the issues related to Internet content will be invaluable in this area.

We are aware of some concern and even criticism around this appointment stemming from Paul's short tenure at MPAA. Paul has a full body of work and a career marked by open communication and bridge building across disparate parties. We observed these skills in Paul first-hand during his short time at the MPAA, where he opened a constructive dialogue between the content and Internet communities.

Translation: Brigner is a hired gun, but now he's our hired gun. Pay no attention to what he was saying before; he's on our side. For now.

SOPA and Protect IP would allow the Justice Department to obtain an order to be served on search engines, Internet service providers, and other companies, forcing them to make a suspected piratical Web site effectively vanish. A letter signed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, among others, warns that SOPA will "give the U.S. government the power to censor the Web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran."

The MPAA, which blasted the anti-SOPA blackouts as mere "stunts," and its allies haven't given up lobbying for similar legislation. "We must take action to stop" online piracy and counterfeiting, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said after the protests, and MPAA chief Chris Dodd warned at the time: "As a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves."

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LG, Samsung: We're not done with 3D yet

3D smartphones may seem like little more than a gimmick, but behind the scenes, smartphone researchers see a very real future.

3D phones may not have exactly caught on like wildfire here in the U.S., but that isn't going to stop engineers at LG and Samsung from innovating around it.

In fact, representatives for the rival Korean manufacturers both had something to say to me about 3D image technology for smartphones, and it doesn't stop at playing 3D golf games or watching "Avatar" on your phone without those dorky 3D glasses.

In fact, those use cases, which formed the cornerstone of the marketing campaigns for the LG Thrill 4G and the HTC Evo 3D, are just the beginning.

Instead, Nick DiCarlo, Samsung's vice president of product planning, sees mobile 3D technology as a gateway to more immersive entertainment in the coming years.

Just think of a smartphone that can simultaneously power 3D HD video streams on different screens, say a monitor and a TV. Sound far-fetched to you? With the ever-growing power of mobile processors, said Samsung's Nick DiCarlo, and smart developers pushing the envelope, there's room for this magnitude of evolution.

More to the point, mobile phones and tablets will quickly become people's primary vehicle for video consumption. You may not watch full movies on the cell phone screen all the time, but more and more features are bound to arise that will have you relying on your device more often.
"There's nothing to keep your phone or tablet from taking over your set-top box," DiCarlo emphasized.
An engineer, Henry Nho, Mobile Platform Architect at LG, also sees the 3D potential that's tied to juiced-up processing power. When you record video and pictures, Nho says, the smartphone camera will have the power to take 2D and 3D images and movies simultaneously, so you can later choose which version you want to view.

Sharing 3D images will also become more important. Many high-end LG TVs already have 3D feature more or less built-in, Nho said. An HDMI cable connection is an extra expense and an unsightly one since it literally tethers your phone with a cord. One day you'll be able to share 3D content with your TV over Wi-Fi, using just a fingers swipe to start playing content.

3D now

Although research and development engineers like Nho's colleagues at LG experiment with 3D new products and use cases, it's up to marketers and managers to work the technology into future products.
With the Optimus 3D Max announced last month at Mobile World Congress, LG is putting some of its 3D R&D to the test. Designed to make lighter, thinner, and faster than last year's Thrill 4G, the Optimus 3D Max is pre-loaded with goodies like a games converter that can render a number of games into 3D -- so long as they're written with OpenGL standards and can play in landscape mode.

 The Optimus 3D Max will also receive a smart focus app, which uses both cameras and some rendering tricks to blurs the photo's background so that the image resembles a DSLR photo. In addition, a later release will include software that promises to smooth out blurred image edges when you connect the phone to a large screen display with a higher resolution. LG demoed the feature at MWC.

Unfortunately, 3D fans in the U.S. won't get a chance to try out the Optimus 3D Max anytime soon, unless they snag it from Europe, where it's headed in April. The handset won't have LTE support.

While LG is actively marketing 3D smartphones, the advances his team will be able to accomplish in the next two or three years is what really excites Nho. It's then that a new type of 3D display technology will enter the smartphone market. "Lenticular lens," are known for adding depth. These lenses steer the light, Nho explained, to brighten the image without consuming more battery power.

"I think that 3D has a very interesting future," Nho told me -- one that promises to be far less one-dimensional than it seems.

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