It’s weird to see so few stories on the list this week–and to see them confined to three days. That’s what a few days out of town can do.

5/11/2012: Tales From The No-iPhone Zone, Discovery News

My travel involved the CTIA Wireless 2012 trade show in New Orleans; the convention turned out to be an Android-heavy gathering, thanks to the absence of Apple and the near-absence of Research In Motion and Microsoft. This slideshow highlights the more interesting things I saw there–from waterproofing phone innards to an Android LTE phone that may not have terrible battery life.

(Yes, because the slideshow is done in Flash, you couldn’t read it on many of the devices I tried at CTIA. My editors know my thoughts about Adobe’s format.)

5/11/2012: The Shape Of Wireless To Come, CEA Digital Dialogue

I also wrote about CTIA for CEA. (Write about one trade association’s conference for another trade association? Sure, why not?) Here, I draw out four themes from the show and get into more technical details than Discovery’s slideshow format allowed.

5/13/2012: It’s not crazy to pay for an email account, USA Today

A while back, a friend said he wanted to get out of Yahoo Mail but had too many issues with Google’s record on privacy to want to sign up for Gmail. This allowed me to revisit the what-Webmail-service-is-best question and suggest a couple of non-free alternatives to Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail. I also advise against leaving an old address dormant, as opposed to closed or auto-forwaring to an account you check.