By CrunchGear, on 2009.11.17, 10:30.33 am
Thieves in Willebroek, Antwerp cut a hole in the roof of an electronics warehouse and stole 3,000 to 4,000 iPhones, one of the greatest heists of its kind in history. The phones were headed to Belgian Mobistar and are estimated to be worth $3 million.
The news article noted that the thieves made a hole directly over the iPhones which suggests they knew exactly where the phones were being kept.
The phones can be feasibly tracked and can only be activated through jailbreaking, which could put a damper on their online sales. Also, this comment was funny:
Haha, geen medelijden mee. Mobistar is zelf een dief als het op abonementen aankomt.
Which roughly translates to “Don’t pity them. Mobistar is the thief when it comes to subscriptions.”
via Fortune
By CrunchGear, on 2009.10.31, 08:39.19 pm
Sorry to put a damper on your night, but it looks like the artist who provided the amazing cover art for Doom has died. Don Ivan Punchatz provided illustrations for a number of publications, but perhaps no single piece of his is as widely recognized as the Space Marine gunning down that demonic horde, combined with the mechanized lettering we all know so well. The best we can do is say “Thanks, man” and display this awesome piece of video game history on the front page here for a while.
Be safe tonight, kiddies, and raise a glass for Don.
By PC World, on 2009.10.21, 03:15.00 pm
By CrunchGear, on 2009.09.30, 12:52.20 pm
So Apple wasn’t so integral in that whole Light Peak thing after all. Rumors that Apple was integral in the design Light Peak process seem to be false which could put a damper on Apple’s plans to implement the technology in its new hardware.
CNET is reporting that Light Peak seems to have come out of Intel Labs and the technology will carry data at 10 gigabits per second. Intel seems to have been shopping the technology for a while before Apple came into the picture. Foxconn, Foxlink, Avago, and a number of other major players will be working on producing the hardware.
“All of these components will be available next year,” Ziller said. “The product that we’re developing now, that we’re ready to ship next year is based on our current specification. Because there is customer demand for that,” he said.
Ziller said initially that products may appear that have both Light Peak and other connectors, such as USB, but that the ultimate goal is to have one single connector technology. “It doesn’t change the track that electrical USB 3.0 is on. That’s going to continue going forward. What Light Peak allows is that USB 3.0 and, or, other protocols could, down the road, be run over optical in this fashion,” he said. USB 3.0 is the next-generation USB technology that would replace the current USB 2.X technology found on virtually all PCs today.
By CrunchGear, on 2009.08.31, 10:02.34 am
Oh, Gene Munster. You keep popping up like the loose Cheerios my nine-month-old daughter drops at breakfast. What are you up to this time, you little scamp?
Munster of Piper Jaffray “predicts” that AT&T will lose its iPhone exclusivity by the end of 2010, thereby rendering the company impotent and insolvent. Some contenders for the iPhone throne include Verizon. This ignores the fact that AT&T is fighting like a champ to keep the iPhone until 2011 but it seems the popular perception of AT&T as a pile of fail may put a damper on Apple’s wish to stay put.
Is Munster right? Well there has been a little discussion of a non-GSM iPhone on the Internets. Look at the logistics: Sprint isn’t going to take the phone - they’re wrapped up in Palm right now - and T-Mobile is busy with Android. That leaves behemoth Verizon. Quoth Munster:
“We believe Apple is unhappy with the current status of video on the iTunes Store and is working to change it,” Munster said. “These changes, however, will take time, in the form of lengthy negotiations, in order to bring the rights for TV and movies up to speed in a digital world.”
I think a CDMA iPhone is in the cards, certainly, and I suspect they’ll try something like Blackberry and add a SIM card slot for international roaming. iPhone users are a nomadic lot and I can only imagine the outrage when a bunch of study abroad students turn on their Verizon iPhones and find they don’t work in Florence. As for the CDMA model coming “within the year?” Eh. Don’t hold your breath. The iPhone is selling pretty briskly right now and ramping up production of a CDMA model would be difficult at best.
Take all this with a grain of salt, though. Analysts are notoriously, well, wrong. Rob at BBG said it best when commenting on the AppleTVTV:
Their clients gamble that analysts know more. And sometimes, they do. As often as not, however, analyst clients end up paying someone with few real contacts to tell them the same thing that bloggers with few real contacts have already told the whole world, for the lulz.
Yes, friends, we work for the lulz.
Image from this funny dude
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