The guys in the marketing department at Nokia have gone overboard on their latest cellphone, the 8600. With such adlines as ‘Inspired by moonlight, it pulsates with allure.’ and ‘Dark brillance’ you just gotta wonder what they are smoking. However the phone does look pretty damn sexy with its smoked glass slider over the keyboard and stainless steel back. If you don’t believe me check out this video - one quick note on the video for the UK viewers I’m not totally convinced by the GBP79.99 label at the end of the clip as this puppy is advertised at $800 in the US. Check out the video anyway.
For those of us more interested in hard facts than snazzy marketing spiel here’s some raw data to get your teeth into
MicroUSB connector
MP3 Player with 1GB memory
2MP camera
Quad band
Actually the phone’s spec isn’t necessarily that impressive but you’re sure gonna look the part making ‘business’ calls on this puppy at your local up-market eatery.
On Wednesday KOTV posted a report on its website that a lightening strike had caused a fire at an oil refinery in Oklahoma. The company that owned the oil refinery announced that there had been no fire and the report was wrong. KOTV removed the story from its site but meanwhile the price of crude oil had increased by 40 cents a barrel. Now admittedly that was a less than 1% increase but after the finger of bad journalism was pointed at engadget recently, you think that the mainstream media would get this kind of thing right.
As an aside, oil prices had dropped by US$2 the day before after expectations that a new president in Nigeria would stablise the supply from the country. The more cynical amongst us may think that a greedy oil baron had phoned in with the news of the fire to KOTV.
As reported by InfoWorld it appears as if someone in the Zune team is having a bit of joke by setting up an amnesty bin for team member’s to deposit their iPods! This image was posted on flickr supposedly taken at Zune HQ. The bin’s probably a bit of a joke as Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, points out
“Most of the people [working on] Zune would want to have an iPod to keep track of the competition,” he said. “On that team, they’re all into digital music, so all of them probably have a bunch of players.”
Not a new concept, having a sex toy hooked up to an iPod, but Ann Summers’ iGasm has certainly ruffled some feathers at Apple if only for the ads. The promotional posters for the iGasm are similar in style to the iconic iPod adverts, with a silhouetted character and bright background. According to the British newspaper News of the World this has caused Apple to send a letter to Ann Summers demanding the posters be removed or else.
“We hope this request to remove it immediately will prevent us having to consider further action.”
The response from Ann Summers CEO Jacqueline Gold is playful to say the least!
“Perhaps I can send them an iGasm to put a smile back on their faces!”
Hopefully Apple will see the funny side of this and lighten up a little bit, and anyway you have to have bought an iPod to use the iGasm. I would have thought that was a win-win situation for all concerned. Oh well, here’s the ad to brighten up your day.
Three days away from the start of June and the rumours are flying around about when the iPhone will hit the shelves of your nearest AT&T store. The truth is nobody really knows, at any rate those who are blogging and reporting about it don’t really know. Here’s a list of the current suspects and the source of the rumour
June 20th - made popular in Google Groups as being reported on CNBC’s ‘On The Money’ program. Check out the video at Gizmodo. CNBC had contacted an AT&T store to obtain the date, yet the same store stated that there are no pre-orders yet there may be a waiting list?
June 12th - Gizmodo were informed that’s when their iPhone would be available by a Cingular rep.
June 11th to 22nd - AP contacted eight AT&T stores to obtain this range of dates
So what does this prove? As we said at the beginning of the post no one really knows and more importantly your local AT&T certainly doesn’t appear to know either! So we can all continue guessing when the launch will be or get back to doing something slightly more rewarding ;o)
As an aside, the opening paragraphs of the AP article
Shares of Apple Inc. rose Friday after a media report stated the company’s much-anticipated iPhone will be released June 20.
Apple shares added $1.83 to $112.52 in afternoon trading. Apple’s shares have been rising steadily over the past year, hitting an all-time high of $115 on Wednesday. Growth in recent months has been fueled by speculation and consumer excitement over the hybrid phone and media player.
At least everyone has made back their losses from the tumble a couple of weeks ago.
In what would be quite an about face on the copying of movie media, the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) Licensing Administrator has put forward an agreement to companies using AACS that consumers would be allowed to make a number of copies of their HD DVD or Blu ray movies. The agreement defines the term ‘managed copy’ where by companies using AACS could add an extra charge to the cost of their product iof the consumer wished to be able to make copies.
As Michael Ayers, a representative of an industry group that licenses the AACS, points out
It remains a possibility that consumers, if given the chance to make three copies of “Spider-man 2” could give those copies to their neighbors, which technically would qualify as low-volume piracy.
So we shall wait and see how the companies using AACS (inclduing movie makers) respond. Hopefully it will be positively, as I believe this is a decent compromise between the two parties, especially between movie makers and movie viewers.
Dell will start to sell its PCs via Wal-Mart retail stores in the US from June 10. This is a major shift for the manufacturer which relied on direct sales throughout its 23 year existence.
Consumers will be able to buy a $700 PC with accessories through Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores in the US and Canada. Dell were unable to provide details of what was included in the accessories package.
Dell PCs will cozy up along side PCs from HP, Acer and Gateway on the shelves at Wal-Mart which are already sold by the chain.
According to PC World there appears to be two main reasons for the shift
But the direct-sales business model is no longer such an advantage, since competing PC vendors say they have learned their lesson and trimmed their own costs. And critics note that buyers in developing countries don’t trust their postal systems enough to purchase expensive PCs through the mail.
Hopefully this should be good news for all PC consumers.
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As reported by InfoWorld it appears as if someone in the Zune team is having a bit of joke by setting up an amnesty bin for team member’s to deposit their iPods! This image was posted on flickr supposedly taken at Zune HQ. The bin’s probably a bit of a joke as Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, points out
Dell will start to sell its PCs via Wal-Mart retail stores in the US from June 10. This is a major shift for the manufacturer which relied on direct sales throughout its 23 year existence.
