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AT&T’s preaching about the mucho dinero it’s dropping into renovating its network to pretty much anyone who’ll listen these days, and a veritable cornucopia of press releases this week start to go into detail on some of the upgrades we’ll be seeing over the course of 2010. We’re counting at least a dozen here, covering everything from New York City to Florida to Oklahoma, but the message is basically the same in every one: more cell sites, more 3G coverage, more backhaul. AT&T liberally pimps its nine-figure investments in most states over the past several years, too — but of course, phones need spectrum to communicate, not blank checks and promises. Let’s see…

Even though AT&T’s already committed both carrier and backhaul upgrades in an effort to buck the butt-of-the-joke trend it’s been experiencing for the last couple years, there’s some evidence that it’s a recent trend in the way phone radios operate — not a lack of overall capacity — that should shoulder at least some of the blame for the issues. An O2 staffer (O2 carries the iPhone and has coincidentally experienced many of the same growing pains AT&T has in recent months) that reached out to Ars Technica says that Apple’s baby was one of the first widely popular phones to immediately drop data connections as soon as transfers …

Take the T-Mobile myTouch, and strap on a physical QWERTY keyboard. Give it a light tap with an ugly stick, and then convert the trackball into an optical trackpad. What do you get? The myTouch Slide. Once a figment of our imaginations (and hopes and dreams), the myTouch Slide has been popping up endlessly around the rumor watercooler as of late – and here it is in all of it’s plasticky flesh, according to the gents over at DroidDeveloper . Alas, the rumored specs aren’t all that impressive – they’re pretty close to what the original (and now rather aged) myTouch has been packing since it launched…

Last night, 200 entrepeneurs and investors from around Silicon Valley convened for the Founder Showcase , a quarterly startup event for seed stage companies that’s put together by Adeo Ressi’s TheFunded . The winner of the event, as voted on by the attendees is a new startup called MightyMeeting . MightyMeeting allows you to use your smartphone to host a PowerPoint presentation while you’re on the go, and also lets you manage your library of Office and PDF files from your phone. The application seems best suited for people who often have to give presentations at a moment’s notice, but don’t want to be chained to their desks. Here’s how it works: first, you upload your presentation files to the service, which supports PDF …

When it comes to touchscreens, you just can’t beat the feeling of a nice, high-quality capacitive screen. If you’ve been using an iPhone, Motorola Droid, or any one of many capacitive smartphones made in the past few years, try to hunt down one with a resistive screen; the difference is almost shocking. Touches to a capacitive touchscreen are registered with the lightest tap, while moving things around on a resistive screen requires you to press down so hard that people probably think you’re angry at it. Of course, resistive screens have their benefits; namely, they play friendly with styluses. As predictive text gets better, this isn’t too big of a deal for…

Our buddies over at Phonescoop spotted a handset running a copy of the as-of-yet unreleased Windows Mobile 6.5.3 floating around at CES, and were nice enough to snap some footage for everyone not living in the Las Vegas Convention Center this week. They run through just about everything 6.5.3 has to offer, from the new finger-friendly UI to the brand new, seemingly much improved onscreen keyboard; if Windows Mobile is your thing, be sure to check it out. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

The third annual Crunchies Awards last night were a smashing success , bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, startups, and other members of the tech community to honor the top in their class and enjoy an evening with friends. Thanks to everyone who attended the ceremony and the afterparty across the street at San Francisco’s City Hall, and we hope to see you all next year. We’ve got plenty of photos of the festivities, some of which we’ve embedded below. And there are many, many more photos available at the Crunchies 2009 Flickr Stream . All photos via the Crunchies 2009 Flickr Stream , except for the top

While it’s technically called the “Android Press Gathering,” we all know what’s coming. Today, Google is expected to formally unveil the Nexus One (the device which some have been referring to as the “Google Phone“). The long event taking place today is expected to have both a presentation as well as demonstrations. Follow our coverage below, live. Read the rest of this post > > Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

ESPN has long been the leader in live HDTV and the network is about to stay ahead of the curve yet again by launching its own 3D network early this summer. But this network is just a test and ESPN is only committing to it through June 2011. So if you really want your kids growing up watching live 3D events, you better support ESPN’s effort. The initial broadcast will be a World Cup soccer match, followed later on by the Summer X Games, NBA games, and collegic football and basketball. It seems like ESPN really doesn’t know how this is going to pan out. There are apparently a lot of questions …

While there are well over 100,000 iPhone / iPod Touch applications available in the App Store today, early adopters might remember the “Where To?” application ( iTunes link ), initially developed by tap tap tap , which was one of the first 500 to debut on the platform. It did pretty well, but tap tap tap ended up putting the app up for sale in October 2008 regardless. German startup FutureTap outbid other potential buyers and ultimately purchased the iPhone app from tap tap tap for $70k upfront a couple of months later. In a blog post published earlier today, FutureTap’s Ortwin Gentz looks back at his initial expectations following the acquisition, and the way it…