A ten person line has been spotted outside Apple's Fifth Avenue retail store as of this Friday afternoon. As ample supply is expected, it seems unnecessary to be waiting a full week outside the store. However, the lineup is acknowledged by both security and Apple employees, some who have left the store temporarily to talk to those in line. Chairs and other apparel make it clear that they are ready for the seven-day wait. No celebrities have been spotted this time (last year Greg Packer was there). The reason for the early waiting (camping?) could be that customers are required to activate their iPhones in-store this time around, as opposed to walking out quicky with their purchases, it is estimated that the time spent processing each customer will take at least 10 minutes versus a fraction of that time previously. Still, it’s crazy :)

Archos, the French consumer electronics company has announced in a joint statement with SFR that they will be teaming up to offer a 3G-enabled PMP by the end of 2008. The agreement Archos and SFR have signed is to integrate 3G+ HSDPA data modems into Archos players. With WIFI and now 3G, users will have the ability to download music on the move at all times.

Our sister site, UberPhones has come across another one of those copycat phones from China. The victim this time is Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1, and probably the HTC TyTN II as well. This latest copycat looks very much like the XPERIA X1, but also has a tilting screen just like the TyTN II. Its features aren't too shabby either (so we heard), with a 5 megapixel camera, 3-inch touch screen capable of 16 million colors and built-in TV tuner.

There are a number of situations where technology can tilt a tactical situation in favor of Police forces but it’s hard to associate Segways to any kind of tactical situation. In Paris, there are organized Segway tours and it’s not uncommon to see a poor tourist being slapped to the ground by a Segway “gone mad” – that’s my experience, at least. Anyhow, the sight of the picture above is just too ridiculous to skip, but I really hope that these guys won’t have to shoot anyone in this precarious position. Now, is it not as scary as seeing police use a flame thrower in an Olympic terror situation... via Xinhuanet [Thanks Randy for sending this in]

Who knew that somebody would be devious enough to construct a robotic arm that is smart enough to use the keyboard and mouse to autonomously Digg stories around the clock? Well, that has happened in Japan, resulting in the long arm of the law in Nagasaki to catch the culprit. Check out the video of the robotic arm in action here.

It is official - the Firefox 3 browser from Mozilla has set a new Guinness World Record for the largest number of software downloads within 24 hours. More than 8 million people downloaded Firefox 3 on that day, and it could have been more if not for some glitches which resulted in downtime. How will the browser battles pan out in the near future? How much more ground do you think Internet Explorer will cede to Safari and Firefox?

Dr. James Brighton has managed to put his heart and effort into transforming a regular gas guzzling Hummer H3 into a remote controlled vehicle. The entire project took around a month to complete, and it is touted to be the best radio controlled vehicle to date. Of course, you will need to dig deep if you want this since the overall cost has hit the $70,000 mark. Not to mention the crazy amount of dough you've got to splash out for gas these days. Woe to you if you accidentally drive this down a cliff though. Does auto insurance cover a remote controlled accident?

Nvidia has announced that its revenues will be significantly lower than initially thought: $875M to $950M instead of $1.01B expected by the financial community. The company mentioned several problems that it faces: weak markets around the world, delay in the MCP line of products and competitive pressure on the GPU business. As a result, NVIDIA’s shares were down 21% during in after-hours (6:10pm PT). I personally think that competitive pressure in the GPU business is the thing that is the most worrisome. While AMD was working on a new chip, NVIDIA enjoyed great margins as the dominant player, but the new Radeon line up has to put a lot of pricing pressure. That would be the typical effect of a price war. I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, but Intel isn’t even in the enthusiast GPU party… yet.

Note: this is a concept image - not a real device

There have been various “reports” (hear rumors) of an iPhone with a “radically different” appearance in the past, but today the word on the street is that Apple has shown an iPhone with a physical keyboard (hear QWERTY) to key executives representing wireless carriers. This, if it was true, would be a good news for the many who own an iPhone (for the style) and a Blackberry (to get the job done). At least in Silicon Valley, this crowd is getting larger by the day and it can only get worse with a GPS-enabled iPhone in 9 days. The physical keyboard is now the main barrier that prevents Apple from getting into BlackBerry’s market in a big way. Personally, that’s the thing holding me back...

Toshiba might still be smarting from the demise of its HD DVD format in the war with Blu-ray, but they ain't throwing in the towel just yet. The company has just approved the DVD Download/DL logo, which means they will be working on cheaper DVD players that focus more on enhanced image scaling capabilities. No idea on how this technology will work, but many pundits believe that it will be based on the company’s SpursEngine 1000 processor that is able to deliver higher quality video scaling compared to what DVD players offer today. How do you think this will affect Blu-ray sales? Are they jostling for the same market?

What if you could have an all-in-one computer for $500? That’s where ASUS is heading on with the Eee Monitor, the poor man’s version of the iMac. On the back, the presence of an Ethernet port, a Modem port and many other computer plugs are visible. It is even rumored that it has a built-in TV Tuner. If that’s true, it’s not a bad deal, but it remains to be seen how good the user experience is. It should be announced officially soon, so come back to this site. What is your take on this upcoming laptop? Do you believe that it will create a compelling user experience or would it be too weak?

Tom’s Hardware has published an article that establishes that SSDs (Solid state Drives) are not saving battery life (that was already confirmed during the Macbook air tests) or increasing performance. To explain quickly, conventional wisdom would say that SSD drives should be faster because there are no moving parts (faster access time) and they should consume less because they don’t have a motor that spins at several thousand rounds per minute.

While it seems logical to blame the drives themselves for failing to deliver on the hype, there is a need to understand that it’s everything around them that needs to be improved. That means the disk interface, but most importantly the software. Today’s SSDs are built to look just like a mechanical drive to the operating system (OS), and therefore the OS manages it in a sub-optimum manner. That partially explains why SSD drive aren’t as cool as they are supposed to be.

The bottom-line is that today, they are expensive, and for many reasons, you don’t get the benefits that you thought you had paid for. Stay tuned as we will keep an eye on this problem, but we can certainly say that it will take many years before SSD can deliver on its promises.

Photos Gallery: Samsung OMNIA Live

The Samsung OMNIA is the top of the line touch display phone in Samsung’s arsenal and it *might* come to AT&T soon. We recently played with it and we have to say that it is a really nice phone. Oh sure, it does not have mobile OSX, but believe me, it generated much oohhh and aahhhh when it was presented and passed along for people to try. We got our hands on it and found it to be a great device with tactile feedback and every feature that you might want, including push-email, GPS and 3G+ connectivity. Specifications in the full post and stay tuned for the confirmation of this info.

Continue Reading"Samsung OMNIA on AT&T Soon?"

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If you were anxiously waiting to see how expensive your iPhone 3G envy was going to be, here is the answer:

1/ The device

If you sign on for a new 2 year contract, the phone will cost $199 (8GB) or $299 (16GB). According to AT&T here are the three conditions required to get these prices. We quote:

• iPhone customers who purchased before July 11
• Customers activating a new line with AT&T
• Current AT&T customers who are eligible, at the time of purchase, for an upgrade discount

If the above does not fit your situation, you should know that “existing AT&T customers not eligible for an upgrade discount purchase iPhone 3G for $399 for the 8GB model or $499 for the 16GB model. Both options require a new two-year service agreement”. At later, but undisclosed date, AT&T will offer a no-contract-required (that does not mean unlocked) iPhone 3G for $599 or $699, depending on size.