A lot of people are writing up this video of the NYTimes Editor “leaking” the Apple Tablet (see 8:20 in the video) in this supposedly off record talk. But this isn’t proof of anything.

It could easily just be that Bill Keller reads rumours, 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. [Defamer]

The gist of today’s NYT piece, “Why Japan’s mobile phones Haven’t Gone Global,” will sound familiar: Japanese mobile phones 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 mobile phones, 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 mobile phone 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. (Much more on that 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 mobile phones 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 favourable— 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 colourful 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

• Gizmodo – Jason Chen

The Kindle’s voice feature works like any other, so pronunciation foibles are expected, and even predictable. Says the developer Nuance, the technology licensed by Amazon:

It’s not even considered a bug. If it encounters a word it has never seen, it approaches it almost like a kid, phonetically.

But for the speech feature to be useful in a newspaper context, as Amazon wishes it to be, its library will have to be constantly updated—over the air, presumably—with pronunciation overrides for whatever weird names or places are in the news at a given time.

Of course, this would be extremely unwieldy and only marginally effective, so Amazon probably won’t do it. Good luck with today’s leading NYT story, Kindle owners. You might even have to read it. [NYT]

While the Kindle may be good for magazines and journals—although the lack of colour 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 favourite bathroom magazine?

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]

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]