In Finland, your time is split between two things: working for Nokia and enjoying the pungent odours of man-sweat from your colleagues in the local sauna. Now, the mobile phone giant looks to have combined the two and created an online video series of it in an effort to communicate the benefits of their N-Gage platform to developers.
It looks to be an ongoing series, with the first episode showing more nipple-fur and hot engineer bod than I was hoping for, earning it a slightly NSFW rating (if only to protect your reputation among colleagues as a heterosexual male).
Canon has teamed with Amosu to blingify a limited edition series of Powershot cameras with 2.22 carats of diamonds to be pitched by the the lovely Maria Sharapova. They’re not for sale, but you’ll have a chance to win one of the five—which are valued at between US$10,000 and US$12,000 each—at an event Canon is calling “Canon Centre Court” in October. We’re hoping we win and that the tennis champ personally delivers our prize. [Marketing Daily via Born Rich]
The Gadget: Samsung’s 46-inch Series 6 LCD TV. Price: The RRP’s $3,849, although you can pick it up cheaper in the shops.
The lilliputian IdeaPads from Lenovo are coming, as we know, and now they’re a little closer, having passed through the FCC’s certification process. This is the final regulatory hurdle the IdeaPad S9 and S10 faced before going on sale in the US and comes just in time, as the duo of subnotebooks are expected to hit shelves next month. [Engadget via SlashGear]
Apple’s tacking on an addition 60 days to the 30 days it already doled out to MobileMe subscribers, which means you’ve got an entire three months extra to wait out the issues you’ve been having. Apple sent out these emails today to MobileMe subscribers, but if you’re one of the ones with MobileMe mail snags, you might not have gotten it. Well you’ve seen it now! Apple has some more clarifications in case you’re not sure if you qualify. [Apple]
Curbed’s got a complaint report from the residents and visitors near the SoHo Apple store in NY, all of whom are really angry at what the store’s been doing lately in terms of bugging its neighbours. The latest offense–the anvil thrown off a ten story office building onto an already arthritic camel–was the Jonas Brothers event held August 12. According to the complaint, “thousands of young teenage girls…screamed incessantly on the street for hours for their idols, blocking traffic, injuring one resident in the rush, and inconveniencing scores of other people and businesses.” Speaking as a guy who has little kids screaming their faces off outside his window when he’s trying to work, I can sympathise. [Curbed - Thanks BrooklynBum!]
Are you a Three customer? Do you feel inadequate when you travel outside the major metropolitan areas as your phone drops back to Telstra’s 2G network while all your friends boast super-fast 3G speeds on their “other network” phones?
Well, feel inadequate no longer, with Three today announcing that they’re expanding their 3G network to cover 96% of the Australian population by next year.
The expansion looks like it will be a combination of using 3′s own network, plus piggybacking on Telstra’s NextG network as well, although just how much of the latter will be happening is unclear. What is clear is that 3 are already working on the expansion, with 50 new sites, including Newcastle and the Central Coast of NSW, scheduled to go live by the end of the year.
At the moment, Three reaches a paltry 56% of the population with 3G. For me, I just hope they patch up the black spot near Sydney airport for when I’m on the train, so I can spend more time on Giz. Cos I love you guys.
UPDATE: I’ve heard back from 3 on a couple of questions I asked them – turns out that the extra infrastructure they’re building will take them to over 60%. To get up to 96%, they’re jumping in bed with Telstra’s NextG (the 2100MHz network NextG also uses is a 50/50 joint venture with 3).
On top of that, once the ink has dried on their deal with Telstra, it should bring down roaming costs. To what, we’ll have to wait and see, but if it’s cheaper than the current roaming charges, then it’s good news.
Press release is below:
Some medical students have come up with a handy replacement for the EpiPen called the EpiCard. It’s roughly the size of a credit card and has built-in audio instructions on its use to help the patient self-administer the treatment if needed. Those of us with hardcore life threatening allergies have to keep a treatment like the EpiPen around, but they can be cumbersome. Having something like this that you can take anywhere is just what we need. [EpiCard via MedGadget]
newVideoPlayer("/geminivid.flv", 506, 284,""); I think NBC’s web-only Sci Fi series The Gemini Division is about an alien, or a robot, or an alien robot that somehow got Rosario Dawson to be its girlfriend. I like that. I also like the Rosario somehow got her deliciously moisturised hands on what looks like a “Windows Mobile” phone, which Screen Junkies was kind enough to point out. That phone ain’t Windows Mobile. If that phone is Windows Mobile, I’m Diane Keaton. And let me tell you, Diane Keaton is a lot manlier than I can ever claim to be (and looks nicer in a suit). Maybe buff alien robot guy brought it from wherever he came from and gave it to her as a present?
A few years agio at CeBit in Sydney, you could gain entry be scanning a barcode that you’d received via MMS on your phone. It was awesome. Then it disappeared, never to be heard of (by me) again. But now, according to Danny Gorog over at APC, the next generation of that tech is on its way to iPhone users around the country, with Qantas developing ways for you to check in to your flight using your iPhone.
It’s still a little while away yet, so in the meantime you’ll have to settle for just being able to browse the Qantas website in a format especially designed for your iPhone. ANZ and NineMSN are also jumping on the iPhone-friendly website bandwagon, although both only have limited functionality as well at the moment.
The real question is though – is this just a few companies trying to leech some of the iPhone’s neverending hype machine, or are they trying to create a truly convenient service using the iPhone’s impressive feature set? Only time will tell…
[Qantas for iPhone via APC Mag]
