As the dust settles from the last two weeks of mobile madness, one question remains unanswered: Which of the new generation of smartphones should you actually buy? We've collected everything you need to know.
We've selected the five phones that most feel like modern handsets to us—the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, the Palm Pre, the HTC Magic (or, as we soon expect, the T-Mobile G2) and the BlackBerry Storm—and broken them down by hardware, software and cost. This is a guide in the strictest sense, meaning we aren't declaring winners or losers, just giving you the information you need to make your own choice. So! On with the matrices. 
Phones' hardware specs tend to dominate carriers' marketing, but in many cases they just don't mean much, with a few exceptions: screens, storage, graphics performance and input.
The iPhones and Pre hold a sizable advantage in the screen department, trumping the G2, which doesn't have multitouch, and the Storm, which has an ill-conceived pseudo-multitouch clickscreen that left most reviewers at best underwhelmed, and at worst downright frustrated.
In terms of storage, our phones take two fundamentally different approaches. The iPhone and Pre include healthy amounts of nonremovable storage—in the case of the iPhone 3G S, up to 32GB—which makes sense: if we're going to use our phones as they're marketed (as multimedia devices), we need space. The G2, like the G1 before it, depends on a removable microSD card for file storage, since its inbuilt memory is measured in megabytes. So does the Storm. This is fine if the carrier bundles the handset with a capacious card; Verizon is good about this. T-Mobile, on the other hand, shipped the G1 with a pitifully small 1GB card, so we'll just have to hope they're more generous with the G2.
Technical 3D ability is actually fairly uniform across this hardware, with the exception of the iPhone 3G S, which is, in this area, a next-gen product. Only Apple and HTC, though, give developers any meaningful kind of access to their handsets' graphics accelerators, meaning the G2 and iPhones (particularly the bulked-up 3G S) will be the sole options for would-be gamers. And of the two platforms, iPhone OS has amassed plenty of serious gaming titles, while Android, let's be honest, hasn't.
The Pre is an obvious standout in that it has a hardware keyboard in addition to its touchscreen. The hardware QWERTY/onscreen keyboard debate is all about personal preference, so whether this is a boon or a burden is up to you. Typing on a screen is an acquired skill—but much more so on the Storm than the iPhone or G2.
Battery life would seem to be a valuable metric; it's not. The differences in capacity and claimed endurance don't really matter much, since realistically, they all need to be charged nightly.
Note: the Storm is due a minor hardware refresh, possibly quite soon. The main change, it's been rumored, is a different touchscreen.
The greatest hardware in the world couldn't save a phone with shitty software, and your handset's OS is the single largest determining factor in how you'll enjoy your phone. We've explored the differences between the major smartphone platforms at length here, and there's no point getting too far into the specific differences right now.
To summarize: iPhone OS claims advantages in ease of use, its burgeoning App Store, and a respectable core feature set, but falters on multitasking and its lack of ability to install unsanctioned apps. The Pre's WebOS is extremely slick and friendly to multitasking, but its App Catalog is light on content, and its development SDK is somewhat restrictive. Android and BlackBerry OS are both more laissez-faire, letting users install apps from whatever source they choose. Neither of their app stores is spectacular, but Android's is markedly less anemic. More on app stores here.
Carrier preferences will often override prices, but here they are anyway. The Pre and G2 are the most economic options, and the Storm roughly ties the 3G S as the most expensive. (It's easy to underestimate how much a small monthly cost difference can add up over two years.) But again, carrier loyalty (or more likely, disloyalty) and coverage quality is as important as cost. If Sprint's killing your Pre buzz, it could be worth waiting until next year, when Verizon is rumored to pick it up. Likewise, if T-Mobile coverage in your area is patchy, don't worry: by the time T-Mobile actually offers the G2, we'll probably have at least another functionally identical handset lined up for release elsewhere.
So there you have it: everything you need to know about the latest crop of consumer smartphones. Go forth, and be gouged.
Voice Memo, Compass and Autofocus Camera
Chinese Web site UMPCFever leaked some imagery of the new iPhone 3.0 recording and compass apps in action, and a demo of the new autofocus camera.
While the compass and recorder apps look very glitzy, which is a mite un-Apple like, they're definitely highly polished. We hope there's a switch to make it deliver the compass data in numerical format, though: Much more useful if you're trying to do some proper navigation. Meanwhile, the autofocus for the new 3.2-megapixel camera seems to work very intuitively--there's a blue square superimposed on the viewfinder screen. You simply drag it to what you want to focus on.
There are also side-by-side comparison shots taken by the old and new iPhone cameras. if you believe that someone really had a hold of the new hardware to make the shots, then the results make the new phone look pretty impressive.
Google Latitude
Developers have known that location-based service hooks are hidden throughout the upcoming iPhone firmware, and that's enabled Google to run a demo of Latitude that runs in an HTML frame in a browser. It works just as expected, and apparently it'll be released soon after the new phone firmware appears. We expect a demo at WWDC too.
Re-downloading Apps to Cost You?
The iPhoneBlog has found some evidence that re-downloading an app wirelessly over 3G may incur an extra charge when you're using the new firmware. It may be a move to prevent users sharing their app purchases with someone else--pretty easy if you just reconfigure their phone to use your iTunes account. But you can still re-download for free from a computer.
Matte Black Case
There have been a number of rumblings that the new iPhone will have a less-scratchable matte plastic case back than the current shiny plastic one. It would seem to be a good decision: Just the next step in the design evolution, which started with an aluminum back.
New Case Design?
There doesn't seem to be much speculation on the net about whether the new iPhone will sport a new design. That leaked case photograph makes it look like the new phone is incredibly close in shape to the existing iPhone 3G, and that tallies with what some rumors are saying.
But the person who leaked the UI photos to UMPCFever apparently insisted that he couldn't show images of the phone's case, as it was a prototype and still unreleased. That suggests there might be some significant changes on the way. After all, we've heard that there may be three main hardware variations due. That matte black casing could be for the special China version, which could adopt much of the existing 3G hardware since it's limited to meet China Mobile's requirements. That still leaves room for the other iPhone 2009's to have a different case, or at least some serious differences to the current 3G one. Will we wave goodbye to the physical home button, perhaps?
[UMPC Fever, iPhoneBlog via MacRumors Forum]
The most widely discussed design book published last year was The Architecture of Happiness, a meditation on beauty and well-being by the British writer Alain de Botton.
Great buildings, he wrote, are like mirrors that reflect our greatest aspirations and "speak of visions of happiness." Thus a Gothic arch pleases our inner selves by conveying "ardor and intensity" and Richard Neutra's early modern homes in California, like the Kauffmann house (above) express "honesty and ease...a lack of inhibition and a faith in the future." In other words, architecture pleases us by expressing how we feel.
This, of course, is what classicism was about. Vitruvius, and later Palladio, believed that people and society would be enriched by following the ideals of symmetry and proportion.
Can a building really make a profound psychological difference? Can it lead to anything more than the same passing pleasure you might get from, say, a sunset? Probably not. At least that's the consensus found in Building Happiness, a new collection of essays by Richard Rogers, Will Alsop, and other British creative types edited by Jane Wernick. The book results from a study called Building Futures on what influences happiness and whether it can be designed into a place.
Asked to name their favorite places, the contributors cited, among other things, a power station, a house by by Luis Barragán, and the Burrell Museum in Glasgow (above). Having made their picks, many of the essayists debunk the idea that design influences our psychology in any lasting way, except in those cases, like the most felicitous dormitories and office buildings, where architecture encourages a sociable mingling of residents.
Is a building more likely to make us happy if it functions well? Not necessarily. As Julia Galef recently pointed out, Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier's masterpiece, leaked prolifically, and it was deemed "uninhabitable" by the couple who lived there.
(fastcompany.com)Here's how it works. First "hygroscopic brine"--a saline solution which absorbs moisture--runs down a tower, soaking water from the air as it moves along. It's then sucked into a vacuum-sealed tank. There, solar collectors heat up the brine. Thanks to the vacuum, the solution's boiling point is relatively low--so it's easy to create steam that then condenses into drinkable water. Presto! The remaining solution then runs down the tower, and the process repeats itself. The entire assembly is powered by the aforementioned solar collectors and solar panels, so that all of its energy needs are self contained.
The scientists have already tested the basic concept in the lab, and they're now trying to assemble a test facility. They think it could be particularly useful in places like Israel's Negev desert, where, even despite the parched conditions, the air's humidity is 64%--meaning that every cubic meter of air contains 11.5 millileters of water. But there are obvious challenges ahead. We're thinking the real secret sauce is how to keep the hygroscopic brine itself from evaporating as it runs down the tower--and that the biggest challenge will be running a facility like this which needs much less water added to it than it ultimately produces. Moreover, how do you force enough air across the surface of the tower, to produce a sizable enough water harvest? That problem of getting enough air exposure has bedeviled open-air carbon-capture systems--though water is admittedly an order of magnitude more plentiful in air than carbon dioxide.
Solving all those problems would be the equivalent of creating a perpetual motion machine for water generation.
Gizmodo 
