It could easily just be that Bill Keller reads rumors, too. But what if that was a whoopsie letting loose a secret that Bill knows with first hand knowledge? So what? We already know it's coming, having talked to people who have seen and heard things first hand. And we do know the NYTimes is involved with the project. So that's just more of what we already know, but in a way that's not really more proof.

Silly. [gawker]

The gist of today's NYT piece, "Why Japan's Cellphones Haven't Gone Global," will sound familiar: Japanese cellphones feature impressive technology that isn't seen elsewhere; Japanese mobile users are more avid, age-diverse and common than American ones; and an assortment of barriers—including language-tied interface rules, a fundamentally different design philosophy, and entrenched consumer preferences—are keeping them from leaving the island. But for the first time in recent history, this is a good thing. Japanese cellphones, as they are, sound absolutely fucking terrible.

Over-the-air mobile TV is interesting, but can—and will—be replaced by internet-based video services, and cellphone payment systems, though great, are by no means impossible here—in fact, they're on their way. Scanning the article for other futuristic features I'd like, I come up dry: Barcode scanning? Any phone with a decent camera and an appropriate app can do that. Waterproofing and solar power? For most these are gimmicks. Facial recognition unlocking? Please, no.

What you're left with now is something of a superduperdumbphone: a bulky clamshell handset with an internet connection that relies on what amounts to a glorified WAP service, and a bloated, marginally useful list of features and, most importantly, a horribly convoluted, underdesigned proprietary OS. (A situation which Lisa wonderfully explained—along with a lot of other material rehashed in this piece—here). This kind of thing was impressive, but things have changed: We've got HTC Heroes, Palm Pres, iPhones and BlackBerrys. We have full-fledged, user-friendly operating systems, and flourishing app stores. We have phones that, despite lacking swiveling screens, experimental RFID technologies and barometers, are actually usable.

The article invokes an evolutionary metaphor:

Japan's cellphones are like the endemic species that Darwin encountered on the Galápagos Islands - fantastically evolved and divergent from their mainland cousins.

I'm not sure about "fantastically," but the divergent bit is spot on. By means of different—and not necessarily favorable— consumer and industry habits and preferences, decked-out KDDI handsets and the like are in a completely different genus than the phones the rest of the world cares about, so much so that they can't leave home; not because they wouldn't be received well, or because the environment wouldn't support it, but because they'd get eaten alive. [NYT]

As usual, this matrix is just the tip of the molehill—if you want to really get in deep with these colorful characters, here's where to look:

• NYT - David Pogue

• WSJ - Walt Mossberg

• USA Today - Ed Baig

• Wired - Steven Levy

• Cnet - Kent German

• Engadget - Josh Topolsky

• Ars Technica

• Laptop

• Crunchgear

• Gear Live

• Gizmodo - Jason Chen

And if we've missed your review, send it in: we'll add it to the list.

Ward is a photographer of pets for Fat Orange Cat Studios. The photos are ok. But she's got some good advice over there:

I also almost always shoot in burst mode, usually in slow burst at 2 to 3 frames per second.

I end up doing a lot of gymnastics during a shoot. I'm crouching, kneeling, on my back, on my side, waking up sore the next morning.

I sort of treat my still camera as a video camera. Even if I'm not actively shooting, and even if the subject is not doing something "capture-worthy," I continue tracking through the viewfinder and recomposing. Because soon enough they will do something capture-worthy, and I'll be ready to press the shutter the second it happens.

Treats, ham, roast beef, squeaky toys, patience. With dogs, I like making meowing sounds. Seems to get their attention every time, and as a bonus, they give the quizzical head tilt. It's a little trickier with cats because if you make an attention-making noise more than even once, they will ignore you thereafter.

Damn cats.

I am reminded, reading all of this, of how insane pet owners are, and how a the professional pet photographer is an unsung hero of portraiture. Their subjects are only somewhat less difficult than what Annie Leibovitz has to deal with when photographing rock and movie stars.

There is the greater question of why people don't just buy nice DSLRs and take photos of their own pets. But I suppose all the tricks and tips in here—far greater in number and substance than you'd assume a list could be for mere humans—are the answer. [NYT]

While the Kindle may be good for magazines and journals—although the lack of color is a major drawback for me—it will be difficult for it to compete with the pleasure of having yourself buried under that five tons of giantastic paper sheets that some people like to call the New York Times. But then again, newspapers and magazines are dying, aren't they?

What do you think? Would you change your Sunday paper for a Kindle? What about your favorite bathroom magazine?

The idea of a larger, newspaper-oriented reader (including a Kindle) has been floated before, most publicly by Hearst, who proposed a 8.5x11-inch reader in February. This report revisits that plan, pegging Plastic Logic as the manufacturer of the device. But that stuff is decidedly future tense ("by the end of the year"), and digital access to Hearst titles is only exciting if you live in one of their papers' markets. (You probably don't.)

Amazon's device would have access to the same wide range of publications as the current Kindle, and likely a few more, but a larger screen could mean content will be formatted differently. Hilariously, the Times reports that they are "expected to be involved in the introduction of the device", but couldn't extract a comment (revealing!) from anyone in their cubicle farm who is allegedly involved in the project. But this naturally Times-centric report kind of dilutes the significant of such a device: Amazon will likely carry titles from a vast number of news providers, and if the E ink experience becomes enough like newspaper reading—in term of news choice as well as literal usability—then this product could represent the newspaper and magazine industries' first financially viable step away from dead trees.

As sanguine as newspaper folks might be, magazine publishers are, predictably, a little less optimistic. Conde Nast's editorial director said, "I don't think we would be anywhere near as excited about anything in black and white as we would about high-definition color", hinting that even a mondo-Kindle wouldn't be a game-changer for their richly visual magazine stable.

The NYT report doesn't mention the most obvious possible fault with these plans: despite the fact that a larger screen would be better suited to displaying newspaper content, it might make the device kind of impractical. The current Kindle is small enough to chuck into a bag or briefcase, and carrying one around isn't much more of a burden than toting a weekday newspaper or single magazine. Using a larger reader, on the other hand, would be more akin to carrying a clipboard than an iPhone—fine when you're reading, but a pain in the ass when you've got to leave the subway.

Update: Amazon has sent out an invitations for a press event in NYC in Wednesday. No new details on the device, but it looks like it's definitely coming. [NYT--Image courtesy of BoingBoing]

The article goes into depth about how text messages are transmitted. In short, texts are unsurprisingly transmitted between towers over the main, wired network in the same way as cellular data, a portion of the journey that, considering the tiny amount of information in a 160-character text, costs very close to nothing.

Surely then, the carrier incurs costs to transmit the messages from towers to handsets. After all, this is the wireless part of the journey, and wireless costs lotsa $$$, right? No:

Text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

You read that right: for carriers, sending a text message from an extant wireless tower to your handset is more or less free. If it's any consolation, the article also mentions that the Senate Antitrust Committee is kind of looking into the matter, so we may see relief (or even retribution) within the next 10-40 years. [NYT via BB Gadgets]

It works by recording a soundbite, uploading it to Google's servers, which will crunch the data and return an answer "within seconds on a fast wireless network". Saul compared the function to that offered on Yahoo's, and found Google's to be more accurate, but still return junk results sometimes. AT&T and Microsoft also have handset voice recognition beyond simple dialing that many other phones offer. The app will be free and might be available to download as soon as Friday. [NYT]

Related: Gizmodo's Essential Iphone Apps

While he doesn't actually say the word "Dell" in the spot, at the bottom of the DigitalNomads site is a small sign of who's backing it: "Powered by Dell," so it's an implicit endorsement that, as Valleywag says, "suggests a New York Times reporter has endorsed its vision of mobile technology."

Santora says his involvement was unwitting and unpaid, and it's unlikely the NYT gave permission for an endorsement like this either, so it looks like he got played here. Apparently the people behind the ad have a particularly shady history anyway—last summer, that advertiser stirred up a wicked brouhaha by paying bloggers to recite sponsor slogans. Moral of the story: Don't trust sponsors, endorsements or anything that looks remotely cushy. [Valleywag]

If you need more gritty and less nitty, check out Chen's rundown of the reviews. Or, if you have some spare time, read the Three Amigos' own unexpurgated scribblings. [USA Today, WSJ/AllThingsD, NYT]

Walt Mossberg of the WSJ has been testing it "for a couple of weeks" and sees that surfing on the faster 3G is between three and five times the speed of the original iPhone. However, Moss found that browsing on the 3G network drained his battery much faster than browsing on the original. Externally, he says the speaker was "much louder" (YES!) for both music and speakerphone, but otherwise pretty much the same as the original. One bug/feature he ran into was that you can only sync your calendar and contacts with either Exchange or your personal accounts, not both.

In Mossberg's own battery tests, he got 4 hours and 27 minutes (short of 5 hours) of talk time, which is three hours less than his test on the original iPhone. Using 3G, he got 5 hours and 49 minutes, which is slightly better than Apple's own claim. He couldn't test any apps on his iPhone 3G, but did on his old iPhone—they worked pretty much as advertised. He concludes with pretty much what we've all known: it's slightly more expensive on AT&T due to the higher price plan, but satisfies people who really need that 3G speed. What's weird is that Mossberg didn't test the GPS functionality at all, so we're left wondering how that is. [All Things D]

Ed Baig of USA Today also tested the iPhone 3G and claims both that it was worth the wait, but still not perfect. His complaints of the first one—no video capture, no Bluetooth stereo and no voice dialing—are still there. Also, AT&T's 3G coverage was nonexistent in his New Jersey home, which kinda negates the whole "iPhone 3G" thing. He notes that the new plastic backing helps reception, and the new flush headphone jack is "a welcome development." Unlike Mossberg, Baig does have something to note on the GPS. He says he was quite impressed by its accuracy when searching for pizza places while driving, and hopes that there will be a third-party add-on for turn-by-turn live directions.

Baig also says that the speaker is improved, but notes strangely that you can't directly charge the new iPhone 3G in some old accessories, such as a Bose SoundDock or a Belkin car kit. There's actually an adapter coming that will enable charging on those. Weird. He finishes up with his wishes for the next generation: Flash, Java and WMV support, removable battery and an expandable memory slot. All in all, a pretty positive review. [USA Today]

David Pogue of the NYT says that the audio quality is much improved, and notes that both incoming and outgoing sound is better than before. "In fact, few cellphones sound this good." The curved back makes the phone feel better in your hand, which is a definite plus. However, he says, the missing "standard cellphone features" from the first generation are also missing from this one. He hopes that the third-party Apps from the iPhone App Store will help fill in the gaps, but some of the ones we've seen—finding parking spots, free phone calls at Wi-Fi hotspots, random restaurant recommender, expense tracker, Etch-a-Sketch and tip calculator—don't exactly make up for the missing MMS, video recording and cut and paste features. Pogue also noticed the GPS does not support turn-by-turn navigation.

Pogue doesn't have much else in the way of benchmarks or impressions, but comes off seeming like he really likes the phone because of the iPhone 2.0 software; something old iPhone owners will be able to get for free. [NYT]

Notes: We have to say that Mossberg's review was the best in terms of completeness (save for the GPS omission). Normally, Newsweek would have a review up for the iPhone along with these three guys, but both they and Wired don't have an early review. This, we think, is because Steven Levy (the old Newsweek guy) at Wired, and Fake Steve Jobs (who hasn't quite started at Newsweek) didn't get the nod from Apple. We had our own hands on with the phone back at WWDC, which covers a lot of the exterior hardware elements as well as some of the software details.

Obviously fighting words, but they still make us more eager than ever to see their efforts on the touchscreen front—especially given how much RIM's CEO dislikes touchscreen keyboards. Can they make a touchscreen phone that'll satisfy hardcore Crackberry addicts weaned on a physical keyboard and swipe some of the iPhone's cachet at the same time?

The other morsel is that one of their major strategies is to stick close to carriers, rather than the odd frenemy relationship Apple and Google have with them, even if it winds up killing RIM. Its other CEO, Jim Balsillie, says that "It may be a better strategy to fight the carrier. We may be wrong. The carrier may get disintermediated, in which case we fade with them." Guess he's not of the "better to burn out" philosophy—though a hot new Blackberry wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for RIM right now. [NYT]

• It navigated seemingly challenging terrain with relative ease, even if the ride was not so smooth for the passenger.
• The motion of the vehicle was a little disconcerting, as it didn't move in a conventional manner; climbing, sliding and dropping in an apparent erratic manner.
• The six wheels could be controlled independently to navigate really, really challenging space spots.
• The suspension is souped up to the galactic brim; the chassis can be raised a whopping, 28-inches in height.
• It's freaking mahoosive, weighing in at 4,500 pounds it is far too large to make it to the moon in its current state.
• The Lunar Chariot is using commercial parts—a cheap webcam and Earth-car grade tires that would never make the final draft, and neither would they survive out in the big old vacuum.

So, the Chariot is a long way off being the cruiser of choice for space travelers. Nevertheless, the test proves it is bad-ass; we're thinking we could use one right here on Earth. Now, to raise that $2 million purchase fee, as well as a ten-man design crew. Hmm, it's back to our crapmobile, me thinks. [NYT]

Thanks to the dedicated second image sensor, it:

"focuses quickly as you aim the lens, without ever blacking out the screen...the screen doesn't go on-off-on, there's no loud clacking, and there's no baffling exhibition of mirror calisthenics inside the camera."

While most of the additional material covered in the reviews is basically factual stuff that you've already been agonizing over for a week or more, they're all decent reads if you have the time.

• Pogue's preview-review from 1/17 New York Times

• Ed Baig's story in USA Today

• Steven Levy's piece from Newsweek's website

• Walt Mossberg's review from Wall Street Journal and allthingd.com

Of course, if you don't have the time for those, pop over to Chen's superfast big-shot review summary and then, well, get about your business. [All About MacBook Air]

• Pogue's NYT review
• Ed Baig's USA Today review
• Mossy's WSJ review