dropped calls

The use of cellphones is soaring, but very few people like the towers needed to make them work. Alcatel-Lucent may have a solution. Its small, boxy cellular antenna and base station system is part of a growing trend towards shrinking traditional cellular towers.

Mark Papermaster, Apple's senior executive for iPhone hardware, has left the company, leaving behind a firestorm of controversy surrounding the iPhone 4 and its antenna problems, and the resultant complaints about reception.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs received a heads-up warning from the company's senior antenna expert early in the planning process that using a bezel antenna design on the iPhone 4 could lead to exactly the reception problems that now plague the smartphone.

It took just one week for the wrath of Apple's new iPhone 4 owners to translate into legal action: Two separate lawsuits were filed Wednesday over the newly released smartphone's reception problem. The claim: Apple knew about it beforehand.

All "i"s today were on Apple's Steve Jobs, as he made the announcement everyone in Techland pretty much expected for weeks now at WWDC 2010: the new iPhone 4 is coming. And yes, as an Apple guy, I'm fairly excited by all the new bells and whistles, as reported by our sister site Engadget: a larger...