Here is the new Wireless USB Digital microscope from ThinkGeek that uses a 2.4GHz wireless frequency with a switch on the cradle/wireless receiver for choosing one of 4 channels. The microscope is able to magnify the object from 10x to 200x and comes equipped with 8 white LEDs around the lens for added illumination. Other [...]
The iNo CP09 is a new GSM cell phone for kids and elderly that features only a basic calculator-like screen with a large font display, large buttons, an FM radio, a torch light, a headphone jack, and a text messaging. There is also a SOS button that is useful in an emergency situation. The phone [...]
Frankly, we weren’t sure what to expect when we pitched up in Brighton at the tail end of August for the opening of Apple’s 21st retail store in the UK.
Of course we’d been to the opening of the first – the flagship Regent Street store in London – and had been caught up in the enthusiasm and excitement of staff and punters alike, but surely the fact that a shop is opening somewhere that already sells Apple kit is hardly something to get het up about?
Boy, were we wrong. We set off from Bath at 5:30am in order to arrive in time for a preopening press briefing with Nye Wright, the store’s Manager, but when we rocked up to the new store in Brighton’s Churchill Square shopping centre just after 8am, there was already a queue forming.
(And while this isn’t in the same league as the camping-out-for-days-beforehand stunts that we’ve seen at the opening of, say, the Regent Street and Fifth Avenue stores, we were nevertheless impressed that as the store opened – and even half an hour after it did – the queue was easily a couple of hundred strong.)
Hugs and high-fives
For the traditionally reserved Brits, California-flavoured Apple events are often a little awkward.
You could never accuse an Apple Store employee of being surly or pessimistic, but it has to be said that, in the build-up to the opening – with the team inside the glass-fronted store hugging, swaying around in a ring, and high-fiving – that there were a few raised eyebrows and muttered, puzzled accusations of oddly cult-like behaviour.
The whole morning was one of an odd mix of passion and confusion; most of the folks in the queue, by dint of their very presence, would probably say they were hardcore Apple fans, and they were rightly excited about the opening.
And yet for the rest of the world there in Brighton that day, the whole event was anathema. When people learned that the whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ that accompanied the doors opening marked nothing more than a store opening – and, worse, that the little boxes being given out to the first few through the doors contained not ‘free iPhones’ as the rumour was but mere T-shirts – we were treated to the full gamut of emotions from bafflement to scorn by way of pity.
Just before the doors opened – after being given their final pep talk by the Store Manager – all the T-shirted employees broke out of the store and did a lap of honour around the top level of Churchill Square, high-fiving all the folks in the queue.
THE BOSS: Nye Wright, the store’s Manager, is American, but tells us he loves Brighton
And when the doors did open after an excited countdown, the staff, lined up inside the store on either side of the door, applauded wildly and high-fived the folks in the queue as they streamed into the shop. And for many this was no mere pilgrimage; within minutes of the store opening, people were walking out carrying iMacs, MacBooks and more.
Some told us they’d wanted to buy a Mac but had been waiting until Apple opened a store nearby.
And yet as you might expect for such a creative part of the world, the Mac using populace was already well served, with existing dedicated Apple shops on the high street in both Brighton and Hove.
Martin Mayr, Managing Director of Cancom, told us: “Obviously it’s not the best Christmas present we’ve ever had. However, we’ve known for quite a while that there would be an Apple Store here.”
Indeed, another company that has long served the Brighton community, Solutions Inc, had been even more proactive: “Solutions Inc has always supported the notion of a retail Apple shop,” Richard Furber, its Retail Operations Manager, told us. “We produced a film back in 2000 for Apple UK management highlighting the potential four years before the Regent Street store opened. We filmed it in Churchill Square, Brighton, right where they now have their own store.”
THE GOODS: In typical Apple Store style, all the kit is laid out on blonde wood tables
Surely, though, Apple opening its own store in Brighton is bound to have a detrimental effect on the businesses of Cancom and Solutions Inc? Not so, according to Solution Inc’s Furber:
“The first week really affected the sales in our Brighton and the Hove stores, but we have already seen a great bounce back in week two. The Hove store has free parking on-site – if you are buying an iMac, Mac Pro or even a laptop, do you really want to carry it through the shopping centre back to your car? Our Brighton Store has seen a huge increase in its sales of third-party goods, and with Apple Store increasing the market share of Apple goods in the town then our sales of all digital lifestyle accessories will just get better and better.”
Different league
Cancom is more guarded, however. “[While] we respect greatly their absolute professionalism in the way they developed their retail offering,” Mayr says, “Apple’s huge financial muscle means they are in different league to us when it comes to these kind of investments.”
We were reassured to see both companies recognise the strength of the Apple retail experience. “Apple Stores are the new benchmark for retailing worldwide,” says Furber, “a real blessing compared to the Dixon’s shopping experience of the past.”
THE PUNTERS: Apple fans young and old flocked to the new store, which will offer free summer camps
Cancom’s Mayr seems to speak for many of the high-street Apple specialist we speak to when he says: “For us, we wish they’d stayed at Regent Street and nowhere else.”
Nevertheless, third-party stores have their own strengths. “Apple retail stores are good at what they do, but they fall a long way short of being a one-stop shop for everything. They don’t sell servers or network systems, or support business users with visits to the client. The same is true for schools interested in Macs,” says Furber, and Mayr is keen to stress the long-term relationships companies like his can develop with the community.
It’s a sentiment that’s echoed by Farpoint in Bath, MacFormat’s own local Apple Premium Reseller. “Our offer to businesses includes free consultations, full IT support, replacement machines during repairs, on-site training and support packages tailored to suit each business’s individual needs and budget,” says Liz Hyde, its Marketing and PR Manager.
“We also have a rental service for businesses that allow more flexibility for our clients and the chance to try before you buy for new users. And you don’t have to be a business to reap all of these benefits. We are also an Apple Authorised Service Provider and carry out repairs on-site here at Walcot Street. Our customers don’t have to book their machines in first like you do at an Apple Store.”
THE RESULT: High street stores let you get hands-on with new kit
There’s little doubt, though, that no matter how solid the service and broad the range of products offered by the traditional high-street Apple specialists, they just haven’t got the magic touch that Apple seems to have when it opens a store itself.
Through a strange alchemy of stellar products, peerless stage management and just a soupçon of wide-eyed cultism, there’s nothing quite like the opening of an Apple Store. See you at the next one?
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Akasa has rolled out its latest mid-tower PC case for the mass market called the Freedom Xone. Measuring 445mm x 200mm x 482mm, this steel case features a mesh front panel, four exposed 5.25-inch bays, a top-placed I/O panel with audio, eSATA and USB ports and provides tool free installation and easy access to components. [...]
Taiwan’s AU Optronics have showcased their latest 14-inch OLED panel at this year’s FPD International show in Japan. Unlike most 14-inch OLED panels, this particular panel provides 1920 x 1080 FULL HD resolution and is capable of displaying 16 million colors and 72% of the NTSC color gamut. The panel also offers 157ppi density, 100,000:1 [...]
The internet has gotten out of hand and the problem is one of inboxes. Even just a decade ago, you were less likely to receive electronic mail as frequently as actual letters through your front door.
Today, though, email floods in, and most of us have more than one address. (Just counting those that I check regularly, I have four email addresses.)
But here’s the thing: email addresses tell only part of the story.
You have other ‘inboxes’ too – if we accept that an inbox is something you check to see if there are new messages.
If you use Twitter, you can think of Mentions and Direct Messages as two discrete inboxes (that’s my total up to six); Facebook adds its own inbox (seven), and your Wall is another (eight). Flickr has its own messaging system (nine), plus notifications of comments, favourites and the like (10).
eBay and LinkedIn have mail systems (12), forums usually feature thread notifications and private messages (taking my total to 16, when I add my regular forums), and banks lock correspondence with you away behind logins (20).
Even just looking at services I use regularly, I’ve managed to get my total inbox count to 20 – and that’s an astonishing figure when you consider both how long you’ll spend logging into these services over your lifetime, and how much brainspace you’ll use up mentally corralling and digesting the information they contain.
I realised I was suffering from a background ‘inbox stress’ after doing this exercise. There are some ways to mitigate these concerns; many sites allow alerts to be pushed to email, where they can be managed with rules and Smart Mailboxes, and apps such as EventBox and services such as PeopleBrowsr help to aggregate social networking sites in increasingly useful ways.
But it’s still a heterogeneous mess. In the meantime, though, here’s a public safety announcement: your mental tranquillity decreases with every inbox, so beware. And stop signing up to new social networking sites…
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Here is a portable pocket light that you can bring wherever you go. Designed by Harc Lee, the Foldable Pocket Light comes with a cell at its back providing power. There is also a Back Light Unit that makes the lamp shines brighter.
[Likecool]
Chinese-based company Soyea has recently released a new mobile internet device (MID) for the Chinese market called the Z5. The device sports a 5-inch WVGA 480 x 800 touchscreen display, a 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z515 processor, an 8GB SSD, a microSD card slot, a webcam, stereo speakers, a touchpad, WiFi, Bluetooth, a miniUSB port, a [...]
This week saw Sky launch its service on Xbox – and then launch it again when the first attempt didn’t go especially well, and phone speculation pointed at an imminent Orange iPhone launch and Google launching a branded mobile.
Our guide to Sky on Xbox proved popular as did our Windows 7 tips, while bargain hunters loved the selection of laptops for under £500.
In reviews, the BlackBerry Storm 2 and Samsung Genio Touch were two of the hot handsets, and Apple’s Magic Mouse proved that mice don’t have to be boring.
Top five news stories
Sky tries again with Xbox launch
After an aborted launch on Tuesday, Sky and Xbox are hoping that they can finally allow the public onto the eagerly anticipated Sky Player for Xbox 360 24 hours later.
Orange to launch iPhone in UK on 10 November
Orange looks set to release its version of Apple’s iPhone 3GS from 10 November, according to industry sources.
Nokia N900 UK release pushed back to November?
The Nokia N900, which many of use were hoping to be released in October, seems to have been pushed back to November. The news came from Peter Schneider, head of Maemo marketing for Nokia, when pointing out that the phone had been well received by members of the developer community.
Google to rival Apple with own mobile?
Analysts are predicting that Google is planning to create a branded mobile phone in the coming months. Ashok Kumar, an analyst from Northeast Securities in the US, says he has seen design plans between Google and HTC that show the search provider’s new vision.
Tilera launches ultra-powerful 100-core processor
Semiconductor company Tilera is manufacturing a 100-core computer processor that offers four times the power of Intel’s Nehalem-Ex, while using a third of the power. Tilera’s new 100-core processor is set for a commercial release early in 2010, with the processor being based around 40-nanometer technology.
Top five in-depth articles
Sky on Xbox: All your questions answered
Sky Player on Xbox has arrived, and TechRadar has had plenty of time on the service, as well as speaking to the key people behind the streaming and VOD television service.
6 awesome laptops all for under £500
Tumbling prices have seen laptops becoming increasingly accessible, and this group test reveals just how much you can actually get for a relatively small amount of money these days. If you’re in the market for a budget laptop, none of these machines will disappoint when it comes to performing regular home and office tasks, and they provide an almost unrivalled amount of choice at amazing prices.
10 brilliant iPhone apps for commuters
Commuting is undoubtedly the most frustrating aspect of working life for many people. Getting stuck in traffic jams or hit by delays to trains can be a major headache, but these things are avoidable if you have access to the right information.
62 Windows 7 tips, tricks and secrets
To celebrate the launch of Windows 7, we’ve updated our Windows 7 tips with a bunch of new ones. Here are 62 ways in which Windows 7 will make a real difference to your PC.
How to create your best website layouts ever
Ah, the blank canvas: probably my favourite part of the design process. What I love about it is the multitude of opportunities it represents: free rein to create without being encumbered by any of the restrictions that come into play further down the line. Anything can happen!
Top five reviews
RIM has rebooted its touchscreen range with the Storm 2 9520, featuring re-tooled clickable touchscreen technology and new, intuitive text input options. It’s still going to be seen as RIM’s attempt to rival the likes of the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and HTC Hero, but are the updates on the Storm 2 enough to fix the issues that were so widely condemned on the original Storm?
Pull the Samsung Genio touch out of its packaging and you could be forgiven for mistaking it, at first glance, for the Palm Pre. The gentle curves, the 2.8-inch touchscreen and the rounded button in the middle of the face are all heavily reminiscent of Palm’s new baby.
Alongside the T-Mobile Pulse, the Tattoo is all about catering for the more budget-conscious phone user who wants to utilise Android, but not pay over the odds for the privilege. We’re not talking about masses of money saved – a tenner a month off a contract here, a £100 off a handset there – but the arrival of the OS on the HTC Tattoo does point to a bright future for mid-range devices sporting Android.
With the Android smartphone platform gaining momentum as the number of handsets available expands, T-Mobile has introduced its own-brand low-cost touchscreen alternative – the T-Mobile Pulse.
Let’s be clear about this from the start - Apple does not have a good track record with mice. Fast forward to 2009 and Apple has re-invented the whole concept of mice (again) with the Magic Mouse.
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Teclast comes back with the new Teclast X23 USB MP3 player that is encased with a stylish metal-look design with a reflective, shiny trim around the edges. What makes this MP3 player special is that it features Microsoft PlayFX sound effects and the latest Rockchip technology. The gadget also has a simple OLED display and [...]
