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Don't call it a fire sale: Amazon's Phone is now $199
When we reviewed Amazon's Fire Phone, we said that you'd better off waiting for the sequel. That's good advice for you, but not ideal for the company, since it ate a $170 million loss and has $83 million worth of unsold devices piled high in warehouses. It's probably for that reason that the company has, once again, slashed the off-contract price of the handset down from $449 to $199. Technically, of course, since the device comes with a year's free Prime subscription (worth $99), you're only really paying $100, which you have to admit is pretty damn cheap. You're still probably better to wait for the follow-up, though.
Nokia ends European, Mexican production: it's all Asia now (Updated)
Nokia's wielding another axe to its operations, cleaving away a further 4,000 employees from its operations in Finland, Hungary and Mexico. It follows a shedding of roughly 10,000 employees and a troubled withdrawal from Romania as the company pushes more operations towards Asia in an attempt to compete with its competitors. Whilst no more phones will be assembled in Europe, the company isn't closing the facilities outright, they'll be retained for "high value activities" (presumably R&D and other big-ticket projects). Whatever comes of Steven Elop's reign of the world's number one handset maker, it's clear to see that he's got a plan and he's sticking to it.Update: Nokia got in touch to clarify that the factory in Manaus, Brazil is unaffected by these cuts. The three factories mentioned (in Salo, Reynosa and Komarom) will furthermore be used for the software-portion of production, including installing carrier-and-region-specific features in the Americas, Europe and Eurasia. Hardware assembly will now take place at the company's existing facilities in Beijing (China) and Masan (South Korea).
Gold Capped: How to do the jewelcrafting shuffle
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! You've bought your ore at a discount, you've prospected it all, and now you're trying to decide how to make your money back. Like in Wrath of the Lich King, we have the ability to process all of these raw gems in some way in order to make more money. This is usually called a "shuffle"; it amounts to common sense and knowing what the gems can be used for. Let's start with the basics. Each of the three modern ores prospects slightly differently. Obsidium Ore prospects into six green-quality gems per stack and a residual number of blue-quality gems. Elementium Ore prospects four green-quality gems per stack and one blue-quality gem. Pyrite Ore prospects into four green-quality gems, one and a half blue-quality gems, and an average of eight Volatile Earths per stack.
Gold Capped: The first player to have a new trade skill
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, hate mail, or guild applications! Everyone is going wild about the new meta gems and bracer enchants. They're all clearly better than what people are currently using, and logically, since the demand for these will be high, the recipes (which are completely random world drops) should be very valuable. The question is how valuable.
T-Mobile UK cuts 'fair use' allowance to 500MB, sends you home to watch online video
In one of the most insensitive announcements in recent PR history, T-Mobile UK is telling its customers who want to download or stream online video to their mobile devices to "save that stuff for [their] home broadband." The carrier, one half of the UK's biggest operator Everything Everywhere, had up until now offered one of the better monthly allowance deals with a 3GB data consumption limit on Android phones. It still is, in fact, since its new changes aren't coming into effect until February 1st, but come that fateful Tuesday, T-Mo's understanding of "fair use" will shrink down to 500MB each month -- after which point you'll still get to browse the web and email for free, but any video content will presumably be subject to an extra charge. It's not clear how "that stuff" will be handled by T-Mobile once you cross the frugal new threshold, nor is it clear whether customers who signed up for big bodacious 3GB of data will be set free once this new lockdown on mobile video is in effect. Godspeed to you all. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Update: T-Mobile has responded with a clarifying statement we've added after the break. There will be no surcharges for use over 500MB per month, but once you cross that line, any downloading activity will be "restricted." By which the company seems to mean "restricted to whatever WiFi connection you can scrounge up," because its 3G airwaves will be off-limits.
Visualized: Apple's finest products destroyed in the name of art
What happens when you burn an iPad? Take a sledgehammer to an iPhone 4? Leave a stack of iPod nanos on the train tracks? Shoot a iPhone 3GS with a 9MM handgun? Carve up a Magic Mouse into sushi-sized chunks? Artist (and former Apple graphics designer) Michael Tompert strove for the beautiful, horrific truth. You'll find his answer to one of these questions above, and eleven others at our source link below.
PSP Go price cut to $200 in the US and Japan
Sony just slashed ¥10k off the price of the PSP Go in Japan (effective starting Tuesday). That brings the price down to ¥16,800 or right around $200 -- a more reasonable price point Sony has been toying with in the US for awhile. A quick search online shows a $199 listing on Amazon and Gamestop while Sony's US PlayStation site still has it listed at $249.99. That'll likely change any minute now. Update: US price cut confirmed.
Diamaze diamond-tipped razor blades can literally split hairs (video)
At last, a sign that we're advancing from our caveman heritage into a brave new world. Gone are the days of rough-hewn blades, the world of modernity does its cutting with "plasma-sharpened" implements polished off with a layer of synthetic, industrial-grade diamonds. Okay, we're not quite there yet, but we're en route, thanks to a small German outfit named GFD, which has recently debuted a diamond-tipped, tungsten carbide razor blade that promises to retain its sharpness 1,000 times as long as regular steel and to be precise enough to slice a human hair in half. Hell, that latter bit isn't even a promise, it's a fact, which you can verify in the video after the break. GFD is looking for a manufacturing partner to bring this ingenious prototype to market, and given its years of experience applying the technology to industrial uses, we reckon it has enough of a pedigree to stand a decent chance of success.
A less-than-graceful keynote
We've seen the keynote in 60 seconds, and we've seen the "only the adjectives" 'approach before. Here's a slightly less complimentary way to show off the keynote, though, with all of the "ums," "aahs," and other interjections that popped up during the iPhone OS 4.0 keynote a while back. Far be it from us to make fun of Mr. Steven P. Jobs, of course, but something funny like this actually shows off how good he really is at doing it right. Seeing him up there on stage with his turtleneck and jeans, all enthusiastic about whatever "magical and revolutionary" device they've cooked up this time, is half the fun of a new Apple product announcement. If Steve were any less eloquent and smooth than he is, you might end up with something like this: a guy desperately trying to put a few words together about his new product. It's not nearly as effective, but it's much funnier. [via MacStories]
iPhone finally gets copy and paste!
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/iPhone_finally_gets_copy_and_paste'; No surprises here: Apple just announced that iPhone OS 3.0 will support copy and paste. A double-tap auto-selects the text you want with movable "grab points," and a pop-up edit bar display buttons for cut, copy, and paste. Finally! It works in every major app, including SMS and Safari, and what's more, there's also "shake to undo," which is exactly what it sounds like: a quick shake brings up a box that allows you to undo and redo c/p actions. It's a pretty nifty implementation, sure, but it's a little silly we've had to wait this long for it, don't you think?
Samsung scales back flat-screen output by 5% to fight bulging inventories
Ah, how quickly things can change in this volatile, volatile world. At the tail-end of June, Samsung seemed pretty adamant that it would be keeping its flat-panel production lines humming along as usual. Enter a tiny factor called the worldwide credit crisis, and that plan begins to look terrible. In an effort to "cope with excess inventory amid lackluster demand from global markets," Sammy has decided to lower its panel output by about 5% (which it has been doing since August, actually), though it is keeping a close eye on demand in case it needs to ramp back up in short order. Whatever happens, we're just hoping for lower prices for consumers come Black Friday (and beyond).
German users claim MacBook Air can cut through bread, flesh
Now, we know that the MacBook Air is one thin laptop, but some Apple forum members in Germany are claiming that the edge of the laptop is not only sharp -- but downright dangerous. According to "Apple Talk" reader Bajuware, his MBA went kill-crazy all over his elbow while he was cold-chillin' on his couch. The details are a little hard to suss out due to the language barrier (and machine translation), but it would appear the Air's bottom edge made nasty work of the human flesh like someone had insulted its mother. Another MBA owner claims his computer is sharp enough to slice bread, though we assume it's not used for buttering. Honestly, we're not sure what kind of danger an innocent MacBook Air could really pose besides causing you to throw out your back constantly plugging in the AC to charge that not-quite-as-advertised battery.
GameSetWatch breaks down XBLA royalties cut
With the news that the 70 percent royalties cut for independent developers of Xbox Live Arcade titles had been cut in half, the indie gaming community was irrevocably up in arms, with some XBLA devs even threatening to switch platforms. However, the reasoning behind the cut is not as cut-and-dry as "M$ jus wants moar money" -- according to a recent GameSetWatch report, a number of factors led to the royalty shrinkage. After a bit of Michael Clayton-esque fact finding, they discovered that the cut only affects first-party indie developers (that is, devs that publish their games directly through Microsoft's XBLA department), and while the returns from their product will indeed be half their original value, Microsoft will now cover many of the fees that the developer must address before their product can be sold -- such as ESRB certification, and localization. Ultimately, this means that their games will cost less to produce, but make less after retail -- slightly better than a flat-out cut, but not much consolation to the Ramen-fueled indie developer.
Motorola cuts another 4,000 jobs
Recognizing that its first round of 3,500 job cuts wasn't enough to bring it back into the black, Moto has announced -- as expected -- a second round of layoffs to the tune of 4,000 axed positions. Ultimately, the company expects to save $600 million from the new cuts after they've been bunched in with "prioritization of investments, continuing discretionary-spending controls, general and administrative expenses and site rationalization" (whether any of that verbage actually means anything, we don't know, but it certainly sounds frugal). For the record, the first 3,500 cuts are apparently on track to be completed by June 30, but with newly-announced "restructuring charges" totalling $300 million, it's anybody's guess whether these moves are ultimately going to make America's only top five manufacturer profitable again.
PSP price cut U.S. only, includes Entertainment Pack
So, you want to buy the PSP, only have $220 and you're a big fan of Lords of Dogtown. Well, you're in luck! The PSP Entertainment Pack, which includes the UMD skate film, a 1 GB memory stick and ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails, has received the same $30 price cut as its little brother, the $169.99 Core Pack.But let's say that you want to buy the PSP, but you live in Europe. In that case, Sony has told GamesIndustry.biz that you're out of luck, as there's no European price cut at the moment. Yikes, Europe. Sony's retaliation for this little stunt was pretty swift and terrible, huh? This seems a little harsh, did you do something else to upset them? Just remember this lesson: If you buy a PS3, you get a free TV and a taxi ride home. If those 100 dudes are the only ones to buy it though, you keep paying €150/£100 for your PSP.[Via Engadget]
Xbox, Xbox 360 taken to console heaven by water jet cutter
While there's no shortage of interesting ways to dissect (or completely obliterate) your favorite gizmo, this one came straight out of left field but still manages to impress. If you've never been around a pressure washer and had vivid thoughts of cutting up your precious Microsoft console with it, you're probably in the (vast) majority, but the zany folks over at Waterjets fulfilled their own fantasies. Offered a bunch of malfunctioning Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, they put their laser water cutting skills to the test by making an "X" out of an original Xbox, carving out Xbox logos from the circuit boards, and creating a hole in the middle of an Xbox 360. Sure, the utility here is questionable, and the methods are most certainly unorthodox, but we can't deny the wow-factor. So if you're interested in seeing just what else happens when that oh-so-powerful jet gets fired up, be sure to hit the read link for the full rundown of slicing and dicing.[Via MAKE]
Water cuts through 360 and metal bearings
When you have a high pressured waterjet sitting at home you just have to cut up some electronics, it's a given. But not our beloved white box of love! Over at Water Jets they had a friend from Microsoft stop by with an old Xbox to, what else, cut it into pieces. They also cut out a perfect 360 circle from our white box (pictured above) and made some really awesome desk toys out of aluminum and steel bearings (picture after the break). I bet you can't guess what we're putting on our Christmas wish list this year ... high pressured waterjet FTW![Via Digg]
Wii-related injury roundup
It didn't take too long for the first Wii-related injury to surface, and it was even shorter before Wiimotes folks starting breaking things with their wild flinging antics, but when your product spurns the creation of an entire website devoted to users getting banged up when misusing the controller, now that's an accomplishment. Of course, it's probably safe to assume that at least half these Wiinjuries are nothing more than backyard boo-boos that folks translated into Wiincidents to get their 15 minutes of fame, but regardless, when Nintendo sends out emails and offers beefier Wiimote straps to those having problems, at least some of this stuff has to be legitimate. First up is a high-heel-wearing dame who apparently dislocated her knee while going for the smash in Wii Tennis, but the remedy to this happening again should really be quite apparent. Next we've got a rowdy customer service guru who actually swung the Wii-bat so hard, it purportedly snapped something within his arm. Lastly, we've got a Agassi wannabe who didn't exactly pay attention to the overhead (glass) light fixture before serving an ace, and now he's reportedly got the bloodshed (and repair bills) to show for it. The moral of the story is that the Wiimote can be a potent weapon and injury liaison if not used properly, but hey, we can't deny the humor in folks taking themselves out when going FTW.Read - Dislocated Knee, via JoystiqRead - Broken ArmRead - Sliced HandRead - More Examples of Wiimote carelessness
Apple slashes Cinema display prices, too
A number of observant TUAW readers have also noticed that Apple has (quietly) slashes Cinema display prices with the introduction of the Mac Pro. There were rumors of Cinema updates before WWDC, but it seems that Apple simply wanted to give our pocketbooks a break with the $500 increase in the Mac Pro's price. Cinema display prices now look a little something like this: 20-inch: $699 23-inch: $999 30-inch: $1999 (what a drop!) Unfortunately, I can't even get into the EDU store so I'm not sure how much better prices are for students yet. Ultimately, these prices should look a bit more appealing amidst criticism of what some say are slightly overpriced LCDs.
Surprise, surprise, no price cut expected
Next Generation more or less shot down yesterday's rumored price cut for the 360. Basically all they did was reiterate everything we said, only more elaborately and eloquently (we're still flattered though). Michael Pachter of Morgan Securities breaks it down old-school analyst style:" ... The company plans to sell 10 million Xbox 360 hardware units over the next year, so a price cut in November would likely impact 8 million of these, costing the company $800 million. At a software royalty profit of around $10 per unit, the company would have to sell 80 million incremental software units in order to be in the same place as without a price cut." ... Our model has Microsoft selling only around 60 million total units of software this fiscal year, so in order to break even on a price cut, they would have to sell 140 million pieces of software. Remember, we're talking about profitability for FY:07, not over the life of the 360."That's a lot of software. Next Gen even mentions Peter Moore's comments to Joystiq during E3: "We had a price drop ... when Sony announced their price."So, don't expect a price drop before next year. Do expect a software bundle instead.[Thanks, Thomas Crymes]
