For her birthday, a 14-year-old girl from Texas wanted an iPod. So her mother took her to the Target in Fort Worth to buy her one. After surely promising to not load the device with “devil music,” the family purchased the new $350 iPod. And then they opened it. And it was full of rocks. (And not pretty rocks like we used to make this article look better.)
Ahh, but they lied, you say? They went home, took the iPod, grabbed some rocks, refilled the box, high-fived like mofos and cashed in? Not the case. Because when the family returned to Target, they were forced to take in-store credit and so they had to head to another Target to buy another iPod (because apparently the Fort Worth Target store carries one iPod at all times). At the second store, the girl bought another iPod and opened it in front of store employees. What did they find? More rocks.
Lesson of the day? Buy your gadgets online and save tax. [startelegram via ars]
We’ve seen all sorts of iPhone wannabes from China, but this SPhone is made of paper and it will be yours for just 3,999 Taiwanese dollars or $122. You may not want it, however. Not because it’s made of people but because actually, according to a Taiwanese reader, it’s made out of paper so people can burn it at funerals. That way, according to him, dead people will get it in the afterlife. And even while it may be for burning, it comes with specs:
By now you’ve probably seen the ads to go along with the government’s big spend on protecting the kiddies online. There are some scary stats thrown about in these ads to really get you worried… if you have no idea what you’re being told.
There is an excellent analysis in the Sydney Morning Herald of the government’s campaign, beautifully entitled “Ministry’s web of deception needs a virtual reality check”. Gold. Here are a few of the blatant manipulations identified in the story:
A false hacker going by the alias of haRRo has tried to trick everyone by posing as the “sole developer” of a graphical tool to unlock the iPhone. The GUI application is really the work of Erica Sadun, Weblog/TUAW’s writer and one of the brilliant programmers who has been developing iPhone applications since the beginning. Not only that: haRRo tried to convince iPhone Free Sim Unlock reseller iphoneworldwideunlock.com that he was the author to get a donation of $41,560 ($50,000AUD). Now, haRRo has associated himself with another reseller, Aussie iPhone Unlock, to distribute Erica’s application online. iPhone Dev Team denies that haRRo is a part of their group. People have been tricked, including other online tech publications.
AU: Seems Aussie iPhone Unlock has turned into the train wreck I thought it was at the start. I don’t want to say I told you so… trying to get the story from Angus on what has happened there, but things certainly sound like people are not getting what they paid for. -SB
This sounds fishy as the end of day clean out at the fish markets. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a 17 year old has become the licensee for the iPhone software unlock from the US (that has been demo’ed as legit, but has yet to sell due to the companies legal fears).
This kid only spoke to the paper on condition of anonymity. All we know is he’s a schoolboy from Mildura. Huh? He’s taking $59 a pop from Australian’s to pre-order the software and he won’t actually tell us who he is? You can only order through his website that looks as dodgy as a vi@kgra reseller.
Mate, if you read Giz – hope you do – come clean and act like a legit business. And if I were you, I’d be charging more… or you’re going to burn out in a flash and give no extended service should the unlock be killed by an Apple software update.
UPDATE (Sat 12:57): I’ve had an email exchange with Angus, and I’m finding out more about the guy. This isn’t his first gadget biz and it does sound like he’s got things under control. Seems pretty cool. So read on for a rant I no longer stand by… except the part about iPhone unlockers being itchy pants gadget fiends… -SB
Can this be possible? Can this be the fabled iPhone nano? Did someone got into his ninja gear, broke into John Ive’s Secret Lair 1.5 miles below Apple HQ’s at Infinite Loop and escaped alive after being chased by giant killing spider robots with chemical laser eyes?
We don’t have a clue. The fact is that we found this amazing discovery in one of the darkest corners of IFA, a remote area where people wear David Hasselhoff Live in Taipei t-shirts, floggers tried to sell us iPod Terminators (don’t ask) and Addy had to beat some guy’s ass with her kung-fu mojo (video of this later) when he tried to whack me to get my JesusPhone.
What do you get when you take awesome next generation consoles and mix them with a steaming pile of crap? The X-Game 360 and the Powerstation 3! These boxes were spotted in a store in Mexico, fortunately the prices where in pesos, so the $25 asking price may not have been to steep for the novelty value. For anyone laughing their way home after making the purchase, be warned; the boxes contain an 8-bit NES knock off.
The price would not be so bad if it was a genuine NES machine, well it would still be bad, but it would sting slightly less. Frankly, we are quite appalled by the dodgy nature of the counterfeiter’s work. That aside, we want to get some, save them up for Christmas and give them to annoying kids the world over. Ah, the look on their little faces-priceless. [Geekologie] .
Our man in Hong Kong got the inside story on the $1,765 (HK$13,800) completely unlocked phone: like we suspected, the shop is using the the Turbo SIM card method that anyone can do. This is the same people who were trying to sell the “80% unlocked” iPhones —meaning “activated” and no calls— a while back.
This Wiimote knockoff spotted at a local Wal-Mart doesn’t feature IR or accelerometers, but it does have a pretty sweet (.5 inch?) LCD screen for a football game.
“Daddy, why didn’t Santa get me a Wii for Christmas?” “But Joey, Santa did get you a Wii.” “This isn’t a Wii! This is Satan!”
Whatever it costs, it’s too much. [4colorrebellion via technabob]
