An anonymous reader suggests we stop over to ZDNet for a case where Google may be stepping on the wrong side of that famous Don’t Be Evil line. A Google staffer is offering to help the healthcare industry contain the damage that Michael Moore’s film is about to do. (Here is the original Google Health Advertisement blog post by Lauren Turner; in case it disappears, it is reproduced in full in the ZDNet post.) Quoting from the Google post: “Many of our clients face these issues; companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through ‘Get the Facts’ or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them? We can place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding content network. Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message. We help you connect your company’s assets while helping users find the information they seek.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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>>>>The first video includes an iPhone and a Hammer, and speaks for itself.
The Second video shows the iPhone for more academic reasons.Not too surprisingly, the phone has components you’ve seen in other handsets.

>>>>Namely: It has the same processor on the HTC Titan, Same sound quality and storage RAM as the iPod Nano. Balda Touchscreen, known for durability and quality. Bluetooth Bluecore 4 ROM chip by Marvel, same as a Blackberry Pearl. There’s nothing surprising, which brings us back to the argument that design and software are the keys here.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

A couple months ago, we were excited about robotic chickens; now, Sega Toys announced that they’re coming out with three new robotic animal types for their highly popular Dream Pet series: a short-haired cat, an owl, and a parrot.

I can’t wait ’til they all hit the market so I can finish building my robotic animal farm…

More Super Realistic Robotic Animals From Sega Toys [TokyoMango]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

>Following up on the launch difference between AT&T and Apple stores, we’ve got three separate accounts of people reporting that AT&T is forcing them to buy accessories along with their iPhone at three different AT&T stores. This was definitely not the case at Apple stores, and for AT&T to decide this on their own to cash in on the launch is pretty damn shady.

The first comes from the University Village AT&T store at
4626 25th Ave NE, Seattle, WA (Phone 206-729-7184). When buying the iPhone yesterday, the store said all customers must by two accessories with an iPhone, but the accessories could be returned, opened, without a restocking fee. Add to that the fact that the salesman didn’t even know a charger was included and tried to upsell a different charger to the reader.

The second, at the Hawthorne California AT&T Store at 5249 W. Rosecrans in Hawthorne California (Phone 310-725-9902), the store manager said customers were required to buy a “bundle” of accessories. The bundle, written up with magic marker on an unofficial sign, listed the 4GB bundle at $650 and the 8GB bundle at $750. The manager told the customer that they couldn’t buy the phones without the bundle and that they could leave the store if they didn’t want it. When asked if he could return the items, they said yes, but only tomorrow (today).

The third store, at Pike Street in Seattle, forced people to buy $60 worth of accessories (a case and car charger), and if you didn’t, you’d get a voucher and the iPhone would be mailed to you some time next week. The reader eventually went to the Apple Store nearby, and eventually his friend (who stayed at the AT&T store) told him they stopped pushing the accessories.

One is a fluke, two is a coincidence, but three? And possibly more? That, my friends, is ridiculous.

If this happened to you, send a tip to us at tips@gizmodo.com.

Update: Joel says the AT&T store on broadway near city hall in NY was doing the same until some guy told them it was “illegal”.

Scott says the 4th Street store in Santa Ana had 20 phones, and after 10 people went in they announced everything was sold out. They then told the remaining customers that throgh a “special deal”, they could order an iPhone and receive it within 2 business days. The special deal? To buy 3 accessories that night.

Update 2: A reader tells us if an AT&T rep doesn’t sell between $60-$65 worth of accessories for each phone sale and $20-$30 worth of features, he can be written up and terminated if sales don’t improve within 45 days. If customers came and bought iPhones without accessories, this would have caused a big downwards drag on their record. Each accessory sold will count toward a rep’s sales goals, even if it’s returned the next day, plus he gets six cents on the dollar.

Even weirder: regional managers had side bets on Friday with stores and had perks for reps that sold an X amount of accessories. The reader says they basically acted like used car salesmen.

Update 3:Not forcing the accessories on people, but the store on Bridford Parkway in Greensboro, NC sealed the phones in with the accessories anyone purchased so they could charge the 10% restocking fee even if the iPhone box was unopened.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Minutes after the first time I typed on an iPhone, I realized a trick that bumped accuracy to almost 99%. Instead of hunting and pecking, I’ve been sliding into place, letting the popups tell me what letter I’m on before releasing the key and triggering the keystroke. It’s been good training. I’m still not typing that fast, at this point, but the video was shot last night before I passed out from exhaustion — that’s 3 minutes after I started typing on the iPhone. I can’t believe that after days with the iPhone, the first reviewers didn’t figure this trick out.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

cagrin writes “On Tuesday the UN’s World Heritage Committee added the Galapagos Islands to the list of sites in danger from environmental threats or overuse. From the article: ‘The Galapagos Islands, an Ecuadorian territory situated in the Pacific Ocean some 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) from South America, helped shape Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and in 1978 was the first site placed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.’ Here is some background from Sea Shepherd on the insults facing the Galapagos.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Here are the top five most useful iPhone apps we’ve come across so far.

• iPhone AIM Chat: No iChat? Use Web-based iChat. AIM only.
• The Gas finder app and OneTrip shopping list: Save money and time
• Digg: An interface to browse digg. Great until Digg makes an iPhone-friendly version of their site.
• Chess: No games on the iPhone means this bandwidth light app will occupy you on the bus, plus make you look like a pseud-intellectual if you play this instead of Bejewelled.
• LivePhone: Look up Xbox Live profiles. Great for gamerscore nerds like us. Ok, me.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

MBCook tips an article at Gizmodo that begins with a reader’s experiences trying to buy an iPhone yesterday at an AT&T store and an Apple store. Many, but not all, of the comments on the post echo this reader’s experience: Apple good, AT&T bad. “Day one revealed what all Apple aficionados fear. That AT&T, through the depths of its incompetence, could derail the iPhone.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Get ready for an onslaught of LG Prada vs iPhone comparisons. They’re both touch screens, but the only way an LG Prada phone can beat an iPhone is if the iPhone is a papercraft model. I’m not going to honor it by doing a side by side. My comparison last month, based off of previous iPhone use, still stands. [LG Prada vs iPhone Papercraft]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

tom_evil notes a story up on Infoshop.org about a parody site and the lack of a sense of humor in a large multinational. “One day after the Yes Men made a joke announcement of ExxonMobil’s plans to turn billions of climate-change victims into a brand-new fuel called Vivoleum, the Yes Men’s upstream internet service provider shut down Vivoleum.com and cut off the Yes Men’s email service, in reaction to a complaint whose source they will not identify. ‘Since parody is protected under US law, Exxon must think that people seeing the site will think Vivoleum’s a real Exxon product, not just a parody,’ said Yes Man Mike Bonanno. Exxon’s policies do already contribute to 150,000 climate-change related deaths each year,’ added Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum. ‘So maybe it really is credible. What a resource!’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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There are Apple fanboys—they run around with mommy and daddy’s credit card, wear earbuds, occasionally write for Gizmodo and will defend touchscreen typing to the death minor injury. Then there are the superfans—these Great Beings will go months without food or water, living off of the occasional sprays of Jobsonian phlegm that’s carefully rationed between keynotes. This gallery is to them.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Mitechsi writes “Dell has struck a deal with Emerson to sell advanced liquid cooling systems and services to data center owners. One type of supplemental cooling technology is called the Liebert XD. The XD consists of refrigerant-filled pipes that snake around the server racks in a data center. The liquid system cuts the cooling power load by about 30%–50% compared to other types of cooling systems.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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One of our readers, Frank Beacham, wrote in this morning after experiencing the iPhone launch first-hand in lines at both AT&T and the Apple. We thought his piece was well-written and quite telling about the difference in customer service between the two companies, so we posted it after the jump.

Last night, at the last minute, I succumbed to iPhone lust as I passed a line in front of an AT&T store on Broadway in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The line was less than a hundred, and it seemed for a while that the wait might not be too long. Wrong! The employees at the AT&T store at 2195 Broadway were in no hurry. In fact, a woman employee at the door seemed annoyed by all the people in line and would offer no information about wait times or availability of the iPhones.

But one thing she did make certain, this AT&T location was closing at 11 p.m., line or no line. There were no promises to service those who had been waiting for hours.

A friendly restaurant next door handed free samples of a mango drink and even offered take-out food, but not one AT&T employee ever came outside to interact with waiting customers or to explain the situation.

At about 9 p.m. a customer who finally got in the store spilled the beans that all the 8 GB models were sold out. AT&T remained silent. At this point, several of us hopped cabs to head to the nearby Apple
store on 5th Ave. There, we saw the other side of this take of two American companies.

Even though the line was longer than that at AT&T, the wait was short — less than 15 minutes. Friendly Apple employees stood by with wireless credit card terminals taking orders. The process took only
minutes. Leaving the store, a cheering row of Apple workers high-fived new iPhone owners.

Day one revealed what all Apple aficionados fear. That AT&T, through the depths of its incompetence, could derail the iPhone.

AT&T fanboys, are you just gonna take that smack talk? If you waited in line, shoot a few words on the experience to tips. And maybe we’ll post your experience as well.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Are you pondering a purchase of an iPhone, but all that Day Zero gnashing of teeth and marathon line waiting is holding you back? Well, the experience today, one day later, is quite different.

We departed Gizmodo’s Midwest Test Facility today at 1:15 p.m., heading to the Apple Store at our local mall for an iPhone, and now it’s 2:45, and not only have we made the 45-minute round trip but we’ve brought home the iPhone, synced up our contacts and tunes, and successfully transferred an existing mobile number over to AT&T. We even had time for a quick lunch in the midst of all that.

Talking to the comely lass behind the counter at the Apple Store, she described the scene in the store yesterday as a madhouse, but although there were still a few patrons loitering around today, there was absolutely no wait whatsoever to pick up a 8GB iPhone. The entire purchase process took no longer than two minutes. It reminded me of ordering a burger at McDonald’s.

The young MacLovely handed me the iPhone, which was inside its box, itself inside another object which looked like a black shopping bag (pictured above), but that was more like a box with one open side and a couple of cloth handles.

Our initial impression before even using the iPhone? The unboxing was like undressing a beautiful woman, and the first thing that woman wanted was for us to insert a hard object into her. Well, that would be the included USB sync cable, which we cooperatively slipped into its proper receptacle without incident or complaint.

Holding the iPhone next to our outgoing Motorola Q, they’re actually just about the same size, except the iPhone is slightly narrower. The thickness of the two is roughly comparable, with the iPhone also being slightly slimmer than the Q.

A couple of other quick out-of-box details: We were delighted to see a small piece of microfiber cloth with an embossed iPhone logo packed underneath the colorful instruction leaflet entitled Finger Tips. This sparse documentation is quite a contrast to our Motorola Q’s, which had an instruction manual the size of a mini phonebook tucked inside its dog-ugly packaging.

One of the delights was the ease of opening the iPhone box, where each piece of protective plastic had an easy pull tab that practically showed you what to do, and at the same time had that signature candy wrapper sound when pulled off.

So far, this is a simply gorgeous consumer electronics device. We’ll tell you more as we gain experience with it.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

If you are, you’re probably familiar with the image above. You’ve probably seen it about 100 times while pawing hungrily at your $650 paperweight while waiting for that activation email from iTunes/AT&T. It’s not your fault, it’s AT&T/T-Mobile/Sprint/Verizon’s. Join the club. Post your grief in the comments and we’ll all have a pity party.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

kripkenstein sends us an article by Freeman Dyson in the NY Review of Books, in which the eminent physicist and big thinker takes on the possible end to the Darwinian era of speciation that has endured 3 billion years on this planet. He discusses the history and future of biology in terms that many in this community will find familiar: “[We can speculate about] a golden age… when horizontal gene transfer was universal and separate species did not yet exist. Life was then a community of cells of various kinds, sharing their genetic information… Evolution could be rapid… But then, one evil day, a cell resembling a primitive bacterium happened to find itself one jump ahead of its neighbors in efficiency. That cell, anticipating Bill Gates by three billion years, separated itself from the community and refused to share… [But] now, as Homo sapiens domesticates the new biotechnology, we are reviving the ancient… practice of horizontal gene transfer, moving genes easily from microbes to plants and animals, blurring the boundaries between species. We are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era, when… the rules of Open Source sharing will be extended from the exchange of software to the exchange of genes. Then the evolution of life will once again be communal, as it was in the good old days before separate species and intellectual property were invented.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hit the jump for our complete collection of iPhone launch galleries. Because we love you—even if you are lazy.

Whew, thank goodness for the digital revolution.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Here it is, the Sizemodo you’ve been waiting six months to see. The iPhone vs. other music devices (iPod, Zune) and smartphones (AT&T 8525, Helio Ocean, Sprint Mogul). Which one’s the smallest and thinnest, and which one looks dirtier after months of use? Which do you think?

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Marc Smith writes “‘Answer people,’ the folks who contribute much of the value in the Internet, are a small minority of all online users. According to a recent paper my co-authors and I have published in the Journal of Social Structure, less than 2% of authors in Usenet newsgroups are likely to be the helpful ‘answer person’ type — authors who reply to many other people with brief replies. The paper Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups contains social network visualizations of the ties created when authors reply to one another. These images highlight the difference between these helpful folks and other types of contributors. The findings may apply to other threaded discussions, maybe even here at Slashdot.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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We’ve posted a lot of video in the last 48 hours, but after the jump are our five movies that you absolutely cannot miss. (Well, you can, but you may find yourself to be less of a person.)

What will you do with your iPhone?

The SF Apple Store closes early. People are pissed.

We unbox the iPhone.

We test out the iPhone’s speed on EDGE.

Lam takes his shot at typing for the first time.

Steve Jobs comes in many forms and we love them all.

And we lied, there are six movies here. Suckers!

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

iPhone’s reportedly having some trouble installing/activating on 64-bit Vista and XP systems, thanks to the fact that iTunes isn’t supported. [Apple Discussions Thread]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

At the moment, this is not much more than a website sucking email addresses from innocent victims. But if what they claim is true, iphoneunlocking.com has unlocked 1,917 iPhones from the shackles of AT&T service.

Apparently the company sent out legions of black-shirted employees to Apple launches in NYC. If anyone wants to test the site on a dumby email and a spare iPhone, hit the comments to let us know how it went. And while you’re at it, check out this site that claims to soon be unlocking iPhones for $19 a pop as pointed out by ArsTechnica. Too bad neither of these companies can magically add 3G and EV-DO while they’re at it.

iPhone Unlocking [via NYCtalk]
Unlocking iPhones a Reality? [arstechnica]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Just because the iPhone‘s already out doesn’t mean we’re stopping our iPhone contest! Keep your submissions to our Made in Eureka contest coming, because we’re still giving away a free iPhone. Hit the link below to see how you can win one for yourself.

Contest [Gizmodo]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

44 percent of Brits are getting half the broadband speed they’re paying for. [Inquirer]

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With all the innovations surrounding the iPhone, we didn’t expect a product like the Bona-Phone to come along and steal the limelight. Featuring breakthroughs like “touch-bone” dialing and easy-to-hold shaft design, the learning curve of the $30 Bona-Phone is considered much lower given its organic, intuitive design. Trust us, if Meredith Viera was demoing the Bona-Phone on the Today Show, she would have had no problems “answering” the thing.

Product Page [via nerdapproved]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

prostoalex writes “Dr. Dobb’s Journal runs an article discussing the tools necessary for fuzzing (testing a system by generating random input in order to cause program failure or crash). Quoting: ‘You are fuzzing a Web server’s capability to handle malformed POST data and discover a potentially exploitable memory corruption condition when the 50th test case you sent that crashes the service. You restart the Web daemon and retransmit your last malicious payload, but nothing happens… The issue must rely on some combination of inputs. Perhaps an earlier packet put the Web server in a state that later allowed the 50th test to trigger the memory corruption. We can’t tell without further analysis and we can’t narrow the possibilities down without the capability of replaying the entire test set in a methodical fashion.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Only Steve Jobs could get people to wait in line for something that, well, you didn’t need to wait in line for. And talking to a bunch of new iPhone owners, most don’t seem to care! Smitten, indeed.

Read More…

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Ars Technica

In a technological leap, Brando has shoved all of your favorite mini storage mediums into can form. Yes. Can form. Supporting SD, XD, MS, Mini SD, *T-flash/Micro SD, the “Canned Shape Card Reader” is also USB 2.0 3-port hub and a perfect subject for your postmodern painting career. But for $17, it’d better beat a can of soup.

Product Page [brando]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

A few good Samaritans from Maya have been working through nights and weekends to bring iPhone owners the ultimate way to display their most prized possession—as a belt buckle. Unabashed in its geekdom, the iPhone Belt is the reason of the season to get hit in the nuts when someone is stealing your new phone.

Pimp Your iPhone [makemaya]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Dan Shearer writes “Three days before GPLv3 was released, Eben Moglen delivered the annual lecture of The Scottish Society of Computers and Law in Edinburgh, Scotland giving his thoughts on ‘The Global Software Industry in Transformation: After GPLv3.’ The text transcription, audio and 384kbit video are up at archive.org. Eben looks back at the ‘legislative action’ achieved by the GPLv3 community over the last 18 months, and also from the 22nd century. A riveting presentation for all present.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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>>>>
What would you do if you opened up your iPhone box and dropped your precious phone before you could even look at it? We’d cry like a toddler that got kicked in the nuts, but Shawn is a braver man than we could ever be. Good on you for keeping a straight face, Shawn.

Thanks Ray!

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

According to Apple‘s availability checker, the iPhone is still in stock at every Apple store in the whole country. Seriously, there’s no place where the iPhone isn’t available.

Either the stores were too busy selling iPhones last night to report in to the availability checker, or Apple really shipped out a bunch of units to all the stores to make sure everyone could get them. Either way, if you want one, feel free to saunter into your local store with a smug look on your face knowing you didn’t have to wait at all.

iPhone Checker [Apple]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

PCWorld is sadistic. To simulate a couple months of usage (read: damage), they threw an iPhone into a plastic bag with a set of keys and jiggled it around like crazy. They then rubbed the two together next to a table, to simulate when you’d go and rub your crotch next to a table—what, you don’t do that?

In addition, they went and dropped the phone on carpet, tile and the concrete. The iPhone pulled through with barely any scratches thanks to the keys and just a little bit of scuffing on metal edges thanks to the concrete.

We cringed at all the tests, but this should give you a semi-accurate view of how the iPhone does after a couple months abuse.

iPhone Stress Tests [PCWorld via PCWorld]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

gurps_npc writes “The explosion of portable electronic devices, can really weigh you down. Carrying a pager, phone, iPod, camera, and game is quite a lot. Worse, it gives you many more such things to misplace or get stolen. This CNN story discusses some of the retrieval services that help you keep what belongs to you. I particularly like the first one, about a new Singapore-based software that when you download it to your phone, messages everyone in your phone’s database whenever a new chip with a new phone number is installed in the phone. This makes it very hard for someone to steal your phone as all your friends get their new phone number.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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It was only a matter of time before the first legitimate iPhone buyer listed their unit on eBay for millions of dollars, but at least seller “ansiv” has an excuse: like a puddle of water forming the Virgin Mary, the serial numbers of his iPhone spell out “toyzsex” in Leetspeak. We love his listing, so here’s our play-by-play:

For the Elite: This IPhone’s serial number translates to Toyzsex (Starting In that order) in Leetspeak.

Starts confident. Solid intro.

The exact Translation is “T(_)YZSEX” with more digits behind that, yes I know “(_)” is a “u”..But after all it’s slang and that’s close enough for me.

Uh oh, starting to hedge a bit. Is something that’s “close enough” to such perversion really worth $5 million?

For the Rich and Famous: If you don’t understand the above, don’t worry you will make out the word sex in the S#, its listed as “5EX” but even without using LeetSpeek, from 12 inches away (NO Pun Intended) the font makes the “5″(The Five) look 99.999% like an “S”, spelling.

Sex? 12-inch pun? Sold!

Listing [ebay]
Thanks Visna, we want ten percent!

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

ATVHD has a comprehensive list of HD podcast content for your HD-capable AppleTV. [ATVHD]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “The RIAA is opposing Ms. Lindor’s request for discovery into the agreements among the record company competitors by which they have agreed to settle and prosecute their cases together, by which she seeks to support her Fourth Affirmative Defense (pdf) alleging that ‘The plaintiffs, who are competitors, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and of public policy, by tying their copyrights to each other, collusively litigating and settling all cases together, and by entering into an unlawful agreement among themselves to prosecute and to dispose of all cases in accordance with a uniform agreement, and through common lawyers, thus overreaching the bounds and scope of whatever copyrights they might have. …As such, they are guilty of misuse of their copyrights.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Meizu has confirmed that their MiniOne will be released early next year. Meanwhile, importers like Negri Electronics are still listing a December 7th launch date (which looks to be jumping the gun at this point) along with their revealed price of $989. So much for our New Year’s resolution of picking up a cheap iPhone knock-off and bragging to everyone that we’re better than them. Instead we’ll have to rely on booze for feelings of self-worth, just like last year. CORRECTION: Meizu’s formerly announced price is $450 for this model. Don’t buy from Negri.

iPhone Rival Coming… [pmptoday]
Negri Electronics

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

mrdirkdiggler writes “ArsTechnica’s Hannibal takes a look at how the power concerns that currently plague datacenters are shaping next-generation computing technologies at the levels of the microchip, the board-level interconnect, and the datacenter. In a nutshell, engineers are now willing to take on a lot more hardware overhead in their designs (thermal sensors, transistors that put components into sleep states, buffers and filters at the ends of links, etc.) in order to get maximum power efficiency. The article, which has lots of nice graphics to illustrate the main points, mostly focuses on the specific technologies that Intel has in the pipeline to address these issues.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Yesterday we told you that AT&T would be performing credit checks with the purchase of an iPhone to warn those with bad credit. What we didn’t know at the time, however, is that these credit checks weren’t to penalize potential iPhone buyers with bad credit, but to draw in their business.

Because to those with BAD CREDIT, WORSE CREDIT, OR NO CREDIT AT ALL!!! AT&T was offering buyers a slightly more expensive month-by-month payment plan with no strings on cancellation. To activate the iPhone, AT&T provided these customers with a special code to enter during iTunes setup, bypassing the standard subscription selection. Such customers didn’t receive any subsidizing on their expensive iPhone purchase, but as AT&T was quoted, “That’s Visa’s problem.” OK, that quote may be completely made up.

Some People Can Buy iPhone Without 2 Year… [via I4U]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Conch writes “Only hours after the launch, the Apple iPhone has been dissected. The good folks at AnandTech violated one of the first iPhones to still our curiosity about whats inside the aluminum shell. ‘Please note that we’re doing this so you are not tempted to on your recent $500/$600 expenditure, while it is quite possible to take apart using easy to find tools we’d recommend against it as it will undoubtedly void your warranty and will most likely mar up the beautiful gadget’s exterior.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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G4Cube passed us a link to a New York Times article about a troubling development in public photography rights. New York City is considering requiring a permit for photographers, film-makers, and even possibly tourists who want to shoot imagery in the Big Apple. “New rules being considered by the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting would require any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to get a city permit and insurance. The same requirements would apply to any group of five or more people who plan to use a tripod in a public location for more than 10 minutes, including the time it takes to set up the equipment. Julianne Cho, assistant commissioner of the film office, said the rules were not intended to apply to families on vacation or amateur filmmakers or photographers. Nevertheless, the New York Civil Liberties Union says the proposed rules, as strictly interpreted, could have that effect. The group also warns that the rules set the stage for selective and perhaps discriminatory enforcement by police.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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gertvs writes “According to the BBC scientists in the US have taken a step towards producing life from scratch in the laboratory by having successfully transplanted an entire genome from one bacterium cell to another. This technique could possibly lead to the creation of ‘designer’ microbes producing fuel or help cleaning toxic waste. ‘The ultimate plan is to stitch together artificial chromosomes, proteins and other building blocks with the aim of jumpstarting their designer microbe to life. But Dr. [Craig] Venter concedes that this may be a long way away, but he says he has taken an important key step towards that goal. His team, essentially, snatched the body of another life-form and invaded it with a new genetic code. This, he says, will be a key tool in testing the artificial chromosomes – or DNA bundles – he plans to make. ‘”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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goombah99 writes “John Edwards, the presidential candidate and lawyer, is standing out from the pack by showing himself to be a bit tech savvy. In 2003 he was a guest host on Lawrence Lessig’s Blog, giving his view on the imbalance between property right protection and the good of public access. As of this week he has become the first presidential candidate to support ‘open source code’ for election systems in addition to voter verified paper records. He’s even personally using Twitter. ‘Currently, software used in election systems remains the proprietary property of vendors. This situation has created a continual problem when anomalous results have been reported and independent experts are denied the ability to review how the systems work. A growing body of critics oppose this privatization of the voting system.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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mytrip writes with a Reuters article about a new, unusual insurance requirement for drivers in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Apparently Winnipeg is one of the worst cities in Canada for auto thefts. New and ‘high-risk’ cars will now be required to install an electronic immobilizers in order to qualify for car insurance. “Chomiak said cars are stolen twice as often in Winnipeg as in other Manitoba cities, while a 2005 report from Statistics Canada said the city had a higher per-capita car theft rate than larger cities like Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. The province, where cars are insured through Manitoba Public Insurance, will fork over C$15 million ($14 million) so that owners without immobilizers can have them installed.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Don’t ask how we know, but if you happen to be using a copy of Leopard you found on the internet, you’re probably having some trouble activating your iPhone. iTunes updates and installs to 7.3, but hangs on the first activation screen when the iPhone’s plugged in.

Anyone else have similar experiences? Similar to this theoretical person, that is.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

All the people who camped out for over 24 hours—ahem Greg Packer—should feel really foolish right about now. As of 9:17 PM PDT (12:17 AM EDT), the San Francisco store has both 4GB and 8GB iPhones in stock. The New York 5th Avenue Store? The same. If you still want one, head on down and grab it.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

You think CNBC‘s not bitter because they didn’t get an iPhone? Think again. Watch as solemn TV news voiceover meets an impudent teenage girl whose parents won’t…uh…give her an iPhone. Yeah, we didn’t think that metaphor through.

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Wirelessinfo knows what they’re talking about when it comes to cellphone calls. They’re the Mythbusters of cellphones, pulling out all sorts of scientific equipment to determine whether call quality is good—not just doing a “oh, this sounds good” test. Their results for the iPhone? Best they’ve seen.

It scores higher on the frequency response test compared to the BlackBerry 8800, Helio Ocean, LG Prada, Nokia N95 and the Treo 750. The audio quality is great as well, as is the send frequency response. The iPhone did have a bit of “side tone”, which is the amount that you hear yourself in a conversation.

Wireless Info

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo

Early reports are coming in that some iPhones are bricking during activation. [MacDailyNews]

Originally Syndicated via RSS from Gizmodo