Macworld reports on Apple's forthcoming iPhone 4 press conference which will be held this Friday, 16 July 2010, at 10:00 AM Pacific time. While the company has given no details regarding who will be speaking or what exactly will be discussed, it's clear Apple is trying to get a handle on the very public controversies surrounding the iPhone 4's antenna problems. It's likely the recent Consumer Reports retracted recommendation increased the pressure on Apple to comment more directly on the iPhone 4's problems and what the company is doing to address them.

Consumer Reports has often taken flack for their coverage of the Macintosh, and that trend may be continuing into the iPhone world. On his blog, electromagnetic engineer Bob Egan claims that the RF testing that Consumer Reports did with regard to the iPhone 4 antenna issue was seriously flawed.

If you missed the two-week window for free Macworld Expo 2011 registration earlier this year, you have another chance. Through 25 July 2010, you can sign up for a free Expo Only pass at the Macworld Expo Web site. The show floor will be open from 27 January 2011 through 29 January 2011.

The redoubtable Consumer Reports says the iPhone 4 can drop connections in weak signal areas when you hold the phone with your skin covering the antenna gap on the lower left side. The non-profit organization tested three separately purchased iPhone 4s in a radio-frequency isolation chamber. The group says a little tape over the gap eliminates the problem (or you could, as Steve Jobs suggests, just not hold the phone like that). As a result of these tests, Consumer Reports does not recommend the purchase of an iPhone 4 at this time. Ouch.

Apple has announced that it is now replacing or repairing, free of charge, Time Capsules purchased roughly between February 2008 and June 2008 that exhibit certain power failures. These failures include not powering on, or shutting down unexpectedly after startup. A recent Knowledge Base article has more information on how to identify whether your Time Capsule has a qualifying serial number, how to arrange for Apple to retrieve data from your device, and how to receive a refund for a previously paid repair or replacement.

The New York Times uses a discussion of the iPhone 4's supply chain as a springboard to discuss how rising labor, currency, and housing costs in China may result in increased prices for consumer electronics. Though the actual assembly of a product like the iPhone makes up only a fraction of its total cost, prices of commodity parts such as circuit boards and batteries also reflect fluctuations in labor costs. And while Apple's wide profit margins may provide some insulation from these pressures, other electronics companies that compete largely on price could be hard hit.

Ars Technica has received confirmation from the horse's mouth that AT&T is not capping data speeds for iPhone 4 users, as recent rumors have suggested. AT&T said that what some users are experiencing - a degradation in upload speeds to as low as 100 Kbps - is the result of a software defect in the Alcatel-Lucent equipment that AT&T uses in some of its cell towers. AT&T noted that the defect should affect only about 2 percent of users, and that Alcatel-Lucent is working on a fix.

Apple is now offering a beta preview of its revamped MobileMe Calendar. The latest version includes the capability to share and edit calendars with other MobileMe members, and to publish read-only calendars that can be viewed by anyone. Email event invitations can also be sent to any contact through the new Web application interface. The latest version of MobileMe Calendar is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6.4, iOS 4 (for iPhone and iPod touch), and iOS 3.2 (for iPad). To try out the new service, log in at www.me.com and click the Request an Invitation link; one will be sent to you shortly in email.

Barnes & Noble started it, by cutting the price of the Nook from $259 to $199, prompting Amazon to drop the Kindle 2's price to $189 and the Kindle DX's price to $379. Now Sony is following suit, cutting prices on its Reader Daily Edition to $299, the Reader Touch Edition to $169, and the Reader Pocket Edition to $149. Only the Reader Daily Edition has wireless capabilities, though, so Sony may have more work (or price cutting) to do before its products can compete with the Kindle and Nook, much less the iPad.

Glenn Fleishman appears on this week's TechFlash podcast. Glenn talks about Apple's odd open letter on antennas, the potential for an iPhone that works with Verizon Wireless's network, and the place of the Kindle in the tablet future. TechFlash is a Seattle technology news site with a strong focus on original reporting.

Blogger Mike Cane has a thought-provoking post about the move away from "thingness," whether you're talking about physical or electronic objects. As thingness becomes less important, he suggests, online access becomes far more important. After all, do people who have Netflix subscriptions still buy as many DVDs? We certainly don't. Worth a read - even if this isn't true of you now, we agree that the world is moving in this direction.

Do you read faster or slower on a device like an iPad or Kindle, in comparison with a physical book? The overall answer, according to usability expert Jakob Nielsen, is about 5 to 10 percent slower (with the same comprehension of what was read). That's statistically significant, though not all that much slower. (We suspect it may have to do with years of familiarity with the form factor of the book.) More interesting was that on a 1 to 7 scale, users rated their satisfaction at 5.8 for the iPad, 5.7 for the Kindle, and 5.6 for the physical book, with the traditional PC trailing behind at only 3.6.

If you recently updated to iOS 4 you may find you're having trouble completing syncs with Exchange ActiveSync Mail, Contacts, or Calendars. Similarly, Exchange server administrators may see their servers running more slowly than usual. To address these issues Apple has posted a Knowledge Base article on its Web site, detailing instructions for the download and installation of a configuration file that will extend the amount of time iOS 4 devices will wait for a sync to complete. Hopefully Apple will incorporate this fix in its next iOS update, but for those having trouble in the meantime it is nice to see a solution immediately available.

Apple has announced that it has sold over 1.7 million units of the iPhone 4 in the first three days. Describing it as "the most successful product launch in Apple’s history," Steve Jobs also apologized to customers who were turned away because of Apple's inability to meet the unanticipated demand.

Spencer Webb, president of antenna design and consulting firm AntennaSys, has written a nice explanation of how cell phone antennas are designed and tested, and how this may play into the reception problems iPhone 4 users are experiencing when holding the phone in certain ways.