Apple suspends Pre-Orders for iPhone 4

Earlier this month, Steve Jobs announced the release date of the iPhone 4 as June 24th of this year and the internet went into a frenzy. Two days ago, AT&T began the rollout of pre-orders for the devise and ended up with packed stores, long lines, exposure of credit card information and a lot of unsatisfied customers. Well after that fiasco, AT&T has pulled the plug on pre-orders for the iPhone 4 and the 8 GB iPhone3GS according to a memo obtained by Boy Genius Report:

Pre-orders for iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS 8GB are Temporarily Suspended

Effective close of business on June 15, 2010, the ability to place pre-orders (new activations, upgrades and exchanges) has been temporarily suspended.  There is a special team that will be manually working all pre-orders from June 15th that were held in a pending status.  Under no circumstances should new pre-orders be attempted in the system.

This suspension impacts Phoenix, Premier, OPUS (COR), and System X (DMDR).

Please stay tuned to future bulletin communications for any updates.

So for all you fan-boys and girls who want to be the first to have the newest iPhone in your circle of friends but didn’t make it to the store on the 15th, it will not be happening. It’s smarter to wait for the first gen bugs to pop up and be fixed before purchasing a $300+ device anyway.

Well Shucks, AT&T Apoligizes for C&D Threat

I don’t think AT&T likes bad press. The story reported earlier concerning Girogio Galante’s being threatened with a Cease & Desist letter has concluded with an AT&T senior VP contacting Galante and providing a sincere apology.
Here’s what AT&T has officially released:

We are apologizing to our customer. We’re working with him today to address his questions and concerns. This is not the way we want to treat customers. From Facebook to significant customer service channels, AT&T strives to provide our customers with easy ways to have their questions addressed. Because of this incident, we are reviewing our entire process to ensure a situation like this does not happen again.

Giorgio says he’s still leaving AT&T and switching to the Evo 4G on Sprint’s network. Hopefully for him they aren’t the first to jump on the pay-per-byte bandwagon.

Warner Bros. Being Sued for Piracy – Hello Mr. Pot

After years of chasing down people who’ve illegally downloaded their films, Warner Brothers is being sued for software piracy. Medien Patent Verwaltung, a company based out of Germany, claims they created the method of marking film reels that Warner Bros. uses to discern which theater had played a pirated film originally.

“We disclosed our anti-piracy technology to Warner Bros. in 2003 at their request, under strict confidentiality, expecting to be treated fairly,” MPV says in a statement. “Instead, they started using our technology extensively without our permission and without any accounting to us. However, we had taken care to obtain patents to protect MPV’s technology, and we are now in a position where we must assert our rights.”

In Warner Bros. defense, they are all the way in Germany. Hell, most small businesses I know of pirate the hell out of Microsoft Word and Microsoft is right here. I know this will get settled out of court, but I at least it gets some main stream press too.

(via TowerGaming)

Do You Recognize This Guy?

No? Well you should. His name is Ghyslain Raza and he’s a bad-ass Canadian. Raza is the president of the Patrimoine Trois-Rivieres and holds a law degree from McGill University in Montreal. That isn’t the reason you should know who he is though. Raza’s earliest claim to fame was a low-rez, less than two minute film of him posted to the internet by his so called friends.

Recognize him now?

That’s right kids, Ghyslain Raza was the ‘Star Wars Kid’. Don’t make fun of him though, after the release of that video, Raza, sued the parents of the kids who released the video. Why? Well Ghyslian understandably became depressed – dropped out of school – and entered a psychiatric hospital. It would have been a sad story if he hadn’t gotten his confidence back and returned to school. Good job kid, good job.

You can see the classic YouTube video here.

(via Cinematical)

And Another Tablet Enters The US Market

Today at D8, Dell announced that they will be offering their new portable tablet computer/gadgety-thingy, the Dell Streak – unlocked, via their website in July. If you haven’t heard of this devise at all, Engadget did a review a few months back, here. It’s running Android and seems a bit easier to manage than the iPad or iPed, but still priced at around $500.

(via Reddit)

Who want’s a Lego Printer? I Do I Do

I played with Legos every day when i was a kid. I never got one of those pre-designed kits though. No sir, no directions for me, I used pure creativity, well, that and pictured of what i was attempting to make. Well it seems as though this guy over at B3ta never quite grew out of Legos, (Do any of us? My parent’s just threw them out when they thought I was too old for them), and built himself a printer. Its quite impressive. It’s bricks, a motor or two and a felt tip fraking pen. Ingenious! Not only is it an awesome display piece, it uses the cheapest ink you can get. He’s got it hooked up to a mac, but I won’t take points off for that …this time.

I’m making one for the Linux box.

(via PC Pro)

Knock-Off iPad – I’ll buy that for $150

At Steve Jobs’ last keynote speech, he introduced us to the Apple iPad. It was sleek, mobile, and considerably more than I wanted to pay for a giant iPhone. No longer do I have to worry about buying a big screen iPhone as China Grabber is now selling the iPed here. The iPed is a knock-off product made in Shenzhen, China at the Foxconn plant, which just so happens to be the same place that manufactures the iPhone.

Personally, I’d prefer this to the iPhone as it comes with Android OS installed which keeps Jobs and his cronies from locking out features I’m sure to like. Also, I’m cheap, and being a cheapskate, $150.00 is perfect for this hardware. Check out the video below so see how it works, it’s in Japanese, so good luck understanding the dialogue.