The event is set to kick off shortly and Mobilized will have live coverage here.

1:05 pm: Well, despite timely warnings to get in our seats beginning at 12:45, it’s now five minutes after and the techno is still pumping.

1:11 pm: Okay. Getting started. Loud music gets louder. Cue video.

Tony Melone and Marni Walden take the stage and CEO Daniel Mead (at least I think it is Mead) is doing an intro.

1:15 pm: Another video now playing with partners. Since HTC CEO Peter Chou is in there, I think it is probably safe to say their oft-rumored LTE smartphone will make an appearance.

1:16 pm: Samsung and Ericsson execs also in the video.

1:17 pm: Verizon exec now touting the advantages of its 4G network including its spectrum, which it says will give it the best in-building coverage.

Also talking about how it is sharing its spectrum with rural service providers.

1:18 pm: Mead: “We’re very pleased to be part of bringing broadband to rural America.”

1:21 pm: Mead hands off to CTO Tony Melone to talk 4G and LTE.

Melone says that the company knows there is a lot of skepticism of the company’s move to go straight to LTE but that the bet is paying off with more networks and running faster than planned.

“The customer feedback we are getting is everything we had hoped for and then some,” Melone says.

Melone talks about 4G LTE plans.

Thirty-six months from now we will have the nation covered with LTE, Melone says. Two-thirds of the population will be covered in 2012. This year alone, he says, Verizon will add 140 new markets, including places like Little Rock, Detroit and Sioux Falls.

1:26 pm: On to devices.

Ten devices coming by mid-year being shown on stage: Four smartphones, two tablets, two notebooks and two mobile hotspots.

1:33 pm: LG CEO shows off the LG Revolution, what appears to be a slimmish smartphone.

Next up, Skype’s CEO talks about a new partnership that will allow for Skype to be always on and integrated into the address book of all of Verizon’s LTE smartphones,

1:34 pm: He’s followed by HTC CEO Peter Chou, who introduces the HTC Thunderbolt.

Chou says he’s been personally testing and using the Thunderbolt, which features the new Skype video chatting along with HTC’s Sense user interface.

“Let me tell you, it’s blazing fast,” Chou says.

Other features include a built-in 4G hotspot and a 4.3-inch Super LCD screen.

1:37 pm: He thanks Qualcomm and Google engineers that worked together to create the device, so guessing this one isn’t using Nvidia’s Tegra chip.

Next up is Electronic Arts VP Travis Boatman. EA’s mobile games lineup ranges from Monopoly and Tetris to Need for Speed and the FIFA 11 soccer game.

The new mobile version of Rock Band for Verizon’s LTE network lets people form a band and remotely jam over the network.

Samsung executive goes onstage to show off three devices for the LTE network, One is a mobile hotspot, one is a smartphone and the other is a 4G version of the Galaxy Tab.

Phone packs 4.3-inch Super Amoled Plus display, which is said to boost colors and offer improved display. It’s got an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with HD video and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat.

The tablet has a 1.2GHz processor developed by Samsung, while the hotspots provide connections to up to five users at a time.

Most impressive is the fact that the Samsung executive pulled all three devices out of various pockets.

Marni Walden shows off the remaining devices–a Novatel MiFi hotpot that works with both 3G and 4G networks.

There is also a Compaq Netbook, an HP notebook, as well as the previously announced Motorola Xoom and Motorola Droid Bionic.

1:47 pm: On to Q&A (hoping laptop No. 2 holds out through the end of question time.)

First question has to do with LTE speeds, which often exceed the 5- to 12-megabit speeds promised. Mead says that the company’s goal is to meet the promised speed range once the network is fully loaded, something that is not the case today.

Next question is on battery life. Melone says the company believes it will be able to meet customer expectations in that regard.

The company says it won’t announce pricing or rate plans for the 4G products, beyond noting its current prices for 4G laptop cards and service.

As for simultaneous voice and data, Walden says the company intends that at least some of its 4G launch devices will support talking and accessing data at the same time.

“It could be on some devices and not all,” Walden says.

Walden also confirms all the phones it showed Thursday are running Android.

1:55 pm: Asked about net neutrality, Mead says that what the industry needs is “unfettered development.”

“We think the free market system works very well, and we don’t need a lot of heavy intervention.”

Why not bring your own Wi-Fi? I’m not talking about stuffing a cumbersome router and cables into a backpack with hopes of setting up shop wherever you go. I’m referring to a new product called MiFi. It is what it sounds like: a private Wi-Fi network for you. It’s a one-button gadget that measures about the surface size of an Altoids tin, only thinner and lighter.

Verizon’s unassuming MiFi weighs just over two ounces.

This week, while I was traveling, I used Verizon Wireless’s MiFi 2200, made for the phone carrier by Novatel Wireless. The MiFi brings in the Internet using Verizon’s 3G network and creates a Wi-Fi zone that can be reached from up to 50 feet away, even through thick hotel walls. Its connection can be used by up to five devices at once. At one point, I had a Lenovo ThinkPad, Apple MacBook, iPhone, Palm Pre and iPod Touch simultaneously using the Web via the MiFi’s connection. Although video playback stuttered under these busy conditions, other tasks did well. And with just three devices using the connection at once, the connection worked normally.

The luxury of MiFi doesn’t come cheap. The device itself costs $100 with a two-year service agreement and after a $50 rebate. Two monthly plan options are available: $40 buys 250 megabytes with a charge of 10 cents per megabyte over that allotment; and $60 buys five gigabytes with a five-cent charge per megabyte of overage. Users who don’t want to mess with the monthly service plan can buy the device at its full retail price of $400 and pay $15 per 24-hour access period, which is called a Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband DayPass.

Of course, you already can get online over cellphone networks for similar monthly fees and at similar speeds, with external or internal laptop cards that usually cost less upfront. So why would anyone want or need MiFi? The answer is that it serves multiple devices at once, without requiring you to buy multiple cards or pay a separate fee for each.

I can imagine plenty of scenarios where the MiFi would come in handy, including colleagues traveling together, college students studying together with laptops on a campus lawn and families riding in a car with multiple laptops and/or portable game devices. In my trip alone, I used my MiFi and avoided paying for wireless Internet fees in the airport and four days of my hotel’s expensive in-room Internet charges. As long as there’s a Verizon network in the area, the MiFi will work.

MiFi is so small it could easily fit in your pocket.

Last week, Sprint Nextel entered the MiFi fray by offering its own MiFi 2200, also from Novatel Wireless. Like Verizon’s MiFi, Sprint’s costs $100 after a rebate and with a two-year contract. While Verizon offers all-data plans, Sprint offers a monthly plan of broadband-only for $60 as well as a $150 monthly Simply Everything Plan + Mobile Broadband for data and phone use. Both of these plans include five gigabytes a month with a five-cents-a-megabyte charge for overage. Sprint’s device isn’t available with pay-as-you-go options, like Verizon’s MiFi. Unlike Verizon’s MiFi, the Sprint device has built-in GPS.

The Verizon MiFi looks unassuming. It weighs just over two ounces, so it really could be held unnoticed in a pocket. In fact, it’s so small, you could easily misplace it. Its glossy black exterior is interrupted only by a Verizon Wireless logo and a power button, which changes colors to indicate different things, like red for low battery and blue for when it’s on. A separate indicator light blinks green when the MiFi is transmitting or receiving data. The MiFi runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery; spare batteries cost $40. Its battery charges when MiFi plugs into a Windows PC or Mac using a USB cable or plugs into a wall adapter.

After the initial registration of the MiFi device, which happens the first time you plug it into a Mac or Windows PC and takes just five minutes, the device is set to work without any wires simply by pressing its power button on. The personal Wi-Fi network shows up in a list of available networks on your device and requires a password, which is written on the back of each MiFi. Users can change this password to something more memorable by adjusting wireless security settings in a browser menu.

Verizon estimates that if just one device is tapped into a fully charged MiFi, the tiny gadget’s battery will last for about four hours, and this was the case in my tests. The battery is designed to last 40 hours in standby, a plus for busy travelers who might not think to charge the MiFi each night.

Even when two laptops and a Palm Pre were connected to the MiFi, speed tests showed positive results of about 1.4 megabytes per second for downloads and roughly 500 kilobits per second for uploads. Verizon says its device uses something called NovaSpeed, which enhances upload and download performance.

The MiFi offers reliable Web access for you and the four lucky souls who are sitting near you, if you’re feeling generous. Its ease of use — take out, turn on, start surfing the Web — means there aren’t any excuses for not hopping online from anywhere at any time. And it comes just in time for those summer vacations that were meant to let you get away from it all.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

For the year through yesterday, Novatel shares had rallied 34.7 percent; Wilson notes that the wireless networking equipment company has gotten a boost from its role providing components to the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle 2 e-book reader. But Wilson says the Kindle 2 will contribute at most $10 million a quarter to Novatel’s revenue, “not enough to fill the hole left by the drop in demand in the PC and USB adapter business.” Novatel declined to talk about the Kindle on its post-earnings conference call last night, but did say that Foxconn, which manufactures the Kindle, was a 10 percent customer in Q4.

After the close yesterday, Novatel reported Q4 revenue of $65.1 million, slightly above the Street at $64.9 million, but down from $118 million a year ago. The company posted a non-GAAP loss of six cents a share, a penny worse than expected.

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Dede notes that investment presentations by both Novatel and rival wireless broadband card maker Sierra Wireless (SWIR) “included the point that June quarter product sales have remained at solid levels.”

He says that Novatel will introduce two new USB modems in the third quarter, one each for customers at Sprint (S) and Verizon (VZ).
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We need a new DVD player but are completely confused about the Blu-Ray versus HD DVD war. We want to purchase something that will last us many years, but I’m afraid to splurge on it when it’s still unclear what the preferred format will be. One option looks to be buying a DVD player that can “upscale” to high definition. How much worse is this in terms of quality?

The good news is that the war appears to be winding down. Because I never saw any significant quality difference between the two high-definition formats, I never recommended one over the other. But most of the major studios have defected to Blu-Ray, so industry experts believe HD DVD is likely to recede as a movie format, though it may find a market as a data format for computers. However, the companies backing HD DVD haven’t given up, so the battle isn’t formally over.

Meanwhile, I have found that, for everyone but videophiles, “upscaling” DVD players are effective at making most regular DVDs look better on high-definition TV sets. And name-brand models can be found for as little as $45, which is less than Blu-Ray players are likely to commonly cost for quite awhile.

In your review of the new MacBook Air laptop, you said it lacked a wired Internet jack but that Apple plans to sell an adapter. Did you test this? When will it be available? And is there any way to use the MacBook Air with a cellphone network for Internet access?

Apple says the $30 wired Internet adapter will ship when the laptop does. I tested an early unit and found it worked fine. As for working on the cellphone data networks, you can use a cellphone modem from one of the network operators that connects via USB instead of a card slot. Unfortunately, I tested one of these, the Novatel USB727 from Verizon, and found that it was too wide to fit in the cramped space around the MacBook Air’s USB adapter. So you will need an extension cable, making for an ungainly attachment.

There are two other options. If you already own a cellphone data modem meant to fit a PC Card or ExpressCard slot, you can buy an adapter that allows these cards to work via a USB port. I tested such an adapter, a $40 model from a company called Siig that allowed me to use my older Novatel V640 ExpressCard modem with the MacBook Air. It worked well but is relatively large and is attached by a cable, so it is also bulky and ungainly.

The final option would be to pair the MacBook Air with a Bluetooth-equipped cellphone that is able to act as a wireless modem. No cables are required for this, but there is some setup. Ironically, one of the phones that lacks this capability is Apple’s own iPhone.

What happened to the Tablet PC version of Windows? Since Vista has come out, I can’t find a Tablet edition.

Microsoft decided to drop the separate tablet edition it produced for Windows XP and build its capabilities into Vista. Unless you have the least expensive version of Vista, called Home Basic, the full Tablet PC capability should be usable on any tablet PC running Vista. But there’s no longer a specific edition labeled that way.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about external modems for a MacBook, resizing photos for email, and using the forthcoming iPhone in Europe.

In your laptop buying guide, you mentioned that the MacBook from Apple lacks both an internal cellphone modem and an external slot in which to insert one. Is there a way to hook up a cellphone modem via a USB port?

Yes, several cellphone carriers offer external modems that plug into USB ports. I haven’t tested these, but have no reason to doubt that they work. However, if you are buying a MacBook, make sure any such modem you buy is Mac-compatible. Both Verizon and Sprint carry a Novatel model that plugs into a USB port and is listed as being compatible with the Mac.

When I email pictures to my sister, she has to scroll up, down, and across to see the whole thing. What can I do to my computer or to hers?

You can make the picture smaller before emailing it. Both Windows and Macintosh computers offer you the option of shrinking the size of photos you email. For instance, in the My Pictures folder in Windows XP, if you select a photo and then choose “Email this file” from the menu at the left, you will be asked if you want to make the picture smaller. On the Mac, in the built-in iPhoto program, when you select a photo and click on the Email icon at the bottom, you are offered a choice of sizes for the picture.

Will the forthcoming Apple iPhone be usable in Europe with a SIM card, and will it be based on a Palm platform or a Microsoft one?

Nothing about any future product can be certain until it is released, but Apple officials have said that the iPhone will be usable in Europe if you insert into it a SIM card from a European carrier. However, it won’t have one of its touted features, “visual voicemail,” which depends upon AT&T, the iPhone’s U.S. carrier.

* * *

Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

And the cellular broadband services, such as Verizon Wireless’s BroadbandAccess, can operate at speeds roughly equivalent to, and sometimes well beyond, the speed of basic wired home DSL service. That means you can surf the Web, and get email and large attachments pretty efficiently.

The card for the Verizon network

A small percentage of users hook up to these cellular broadband networks using laptops that have the necessary gear built in. Another small group uses a cellphone as a modem. But most users of these networks use external cellular-modem cards that plug into a standard slot on the side of their laptops. Therein lies a problem.

The computer industry is in the process of dumping that standard slot, called a PC Card slot, for a new, incompatible slot called ExpressCard. So, buyers of many new laptops are finding their cellphone modems are obsolete.

Now, Novatel, a leading maker of these cards, has come out with a couple of new ExpressCard versions for cellular broadband networks. One, which works on Verizon Wireless’s network, is already on the market, sold by Verizon and by Dell. The second, which works on Cingular’s BroadbandConnect high-speed network, will go on sale from Dell and possibly Cingular later this year, likely late November.

I have been testing the Verizon version of the card, called the V640, as well as a pre-release model of the version that works with Cingular, which Novatel calls the Merlin XU870. The tests not only gave me a chance to evaluate the cards themselves, but also to compare the Verizon and Cingular high-speed networks.

My verdict: The cards were easy to set up and use, and worked well. But the two high-speed networks are very different. While Cingular gave me higher speeds than Verizon in a couple of locations, the Verizon Wireless BroadbandAccess network crushed Cingular’s BroadbandConnect in most places I compared them.

This wasn’t a rigorous scientific test. I used two different laptops, an Apple MacBook Pro and a Dell Latitude D820. The Cingular tests were all conducted on the Dell, because the Mac software for the Cingular card won’t be ready until the card goes on sale. The Verizon tests were all conducted on the Mac. On both machines, I used the test service at speakeasy.net, accessed via the Firefox Web browser.

Also, I tested the cards in only Washington and New York City, and on Amtrak’s Acela Express trains in between. That is a heavily populated region; it’s also Verizon’s home territory, and Cingular might have done better in other parts of the country. Verizon has been rolling out its high-speed network since 2003; Cingular is well behind. Verizon offers the service in 185 metro areas; Cingular is in just 75.

Both cellphone carriers charge $60 a month for unlimited data service using the cards, if you have a voice plan with them. The new Verizon card costs $180. The new Cingular-compatible card is likely to cost $50 more.

The cards look nearly identical, and each works on both Windows and Macintosh computers. On Windows, you must connect using special software. On the Mac, you can simply use integrated software from Apple, if you choose. Both cards have small flip-up antennas and indicator lights. Both worked fine.

Verizon’s high-speed service is often called EVDO, for its underlying technology. Cingular’s service uses a technology called HSDPA.

In my tests, which involved about 20 head-to-head comparisons, the Verizon card and network averaged 818 kilobits per second “downstream” (to get Web pages, and to receive email and attachments) and 113 kbps “upstream” (to send email and files).

By contrast, the Cingular-compatible card averaged just 463 kbps downstream and 77 kbps upstream. Plus, during the three-hour train trip, Cingular disconnected me, or simply had no coverage at all, eight times. Verizon did so only once. Verizon has a deal with Amtrak that supplies data service inside the trains, which helped, but this in-train signal doesn’t include the high-speed EVDO service.

Cingular did beat Verizon in two places: my hotel in New York’s financial district and my office in downtown Washington. In the hotel, the Cingular service got a downstream speed of 1753 kbps — its highest in my tests — versus 888 kbps for Verizon and just 747 kbps for the hotel’s expensive wired Internet service. In my office, Cingular got 1133 kbps downstream versus 644 kbps for Verizon.

But the downstream speeds varied wildly. In Trenton, N.J., the Cingular service managed just 16 kbps. The best for Verizon was 1366 kbps in New York’s Penn Station, while its worst was 132 kbps between big cities in New Jersey.

I recommend both new cards. But unless you live, work and travel in very strong Cingular coverage areas, Verizon is the better choice for high-speed wireless data, at least today.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.