Holy smoke: Second iPhone catches fire     

IT seems Australia isn’t the only country to have experienced a combustible iPhone 4 this week with Brazil reporting a similar incident.

Reports say a device plugged in for overnight charging began emitting smoke and sparks less than 30cm from its sleeping owner’s face.
The iPhone’s owner was unhurt but flustered, according to Brazilian media.
The device was made in France, where in 2009 a teenager claimed to have been hit in the eye with a glass splinter when his girlfriend’s iPhone began hissing and its glass screen exploded.
The 8GB iPhone 4, new in Brazil, is believed to have the world’s heftiest price tag for the model, with devices reportedly going for more than $U900, data plan not included, Mashable reported.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the iPhone 4 that began emitting smoke and glowing red aboard a domestic flight from Lismore to Sydney.
The cause has not been confirmed.

Read more:http://www.news.com.au/technology/smartphones/holy-smoke-second-iphone-catches-fire/story-fn6vihic-1226211095586#ixzz1fFxdJMfk

                    

Galaxy wait not over yet

December 1, 2011 – 3:43PM

Samsung’s highly-anticipated Galaxy tablet will not be available in Australia tomorrow despite a court order this week overturning a ban on the device’s sale.
A Samsung executive said today it would not be possible to sell the device as soon as the ban was lifted at 4pm tomorrow because the electronics maker was not allowed to ship the tablet into the country until after that deadline.
But he said Samsung was preparing for all scenarios so it could get the gadget on the shelves as quickly as possible, and would make a further announcement on pricing and availability tomorrow. It’s understood many retailers have reaffirmed their commitment to Samsung to sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 since this week’s judgment.

“The way you can get product from one part of the world to another … [there isn’t] a huge issue on where it is from [from] the perspective of sending it to be on sale,” said Samsung Australia vice president of telecommunications, Tyler McGee.
“We can obviously move fairly quickly once we see what we can or cannot do.”
The full bench of the Federal Court yesterday reversed an earlier judge’s ruling in Apple’s favour which blocked Samsung’s tablet from going on sale in Australia
But sales of the Samsung tablet have been delayed because Apple was granted an extension of the ban for a further two days to allow it time to prepare a High Court appeal in the patent infringement case.
“From our perspective we’re waiting to see what Apple’s next step is in regards to [that High Court] process and we hope that we will prevail,” Mr McGee said. Samsung had seen a “huge amount of demand from consumers wanting the device” and was “looking forward to the opportunity to provide the device to them”, he said.
After the ruling, a senior law lecturer said he would be “astonished” if the High Court heard Apple’s appeal.
Peter Black, IP law lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, said he doubted whether the High Court would grant Apple special leave to appeal the case, let alone grant a further ban on the tablet’s sale, because the judgment did not raise a “novel question of law”.
“When the stay is lifted on Friday, Samsung will be free to sell their Galaxy Tab,” he said.
More than 15,000 readers have voted in a poll on Fairfax websites over the past 24 hours, with nearly 11,000 saying they would buy the Samsung tablet when it is available.
Mr McGee said: “It just reaffirms our belief that we have a fantastic device in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and we’re very proud that there are consumers out there that have stood beside us in this long process and I look forward to being able to give them the opportunity to purchase the device and to use the device.”

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/tablets/galaxy-wait-not-over-yet-20111201-1o8il.html#ixzz1fFynmWj8
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/tablets/galaxy-wait-not-over-yet-20111201-1o8il.html#ixzz1fFy
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Apple moves to repair its reputation

December 1, 2011

APPLE, ranked the least green of the big tech companies earlier this year, is moving quietly to repair its reputation by switching its vast US east coast data centre from coal to solar power.
Officials in North Carolina say the company is preparing to build a solar farm next to its $1 billion data centre in Maiden.
The facility could help Apple recover from a Greenpeace report earlier this year that said its cloud-computing operations – run from centres such as the one in North Carolina – were reliant on dirty energy such as coal.
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Tech companies are notoriously secretive about their data centres and the energy that powers them. A spokeswoman for Apple would confirm only that the company was preparing the ground next to its centre.
But the project became public knowledge in the town when work crews began burning the cleared brush from the 50-hectare site in mid-October. Neighbours complained about the smoke billowing into their homes. ”They decided after that, since it was annoying the neighbours, to bring in a chipper and shred and mulch all the wood,” a Catawba County engineer Toni Norton says.
With the expansion of cloud computing, companies such as Apple have invested heavily in large data centres for their web-based services – often in areas promising cheap electricity, such as North Carolina. Google, American Express and Facebook have also built data centres in North Carolina. Apple’s is one of the largest, about 46,000 square metres, according to Maiden planning director Sam Schultz.
Data centres currently consume about 3 per cent of US power supply, according to Greenpeace. North Carolina gets most of its electricity from coal and nuclear. It’s not even clear when Apple intends to break ground on the solar facility. Maiden town manager Todd Herms says the company still had not approached the town for a building permit.
”The plans say solar farm but for all the permits show they could be putting a big mobile home park there,” Norton says.
GUARDIAN

Read more:http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/apple-moves-to-repair-its-reputation-20111130-1o5ln.html#ixzz1fFzGH7FK

ISPs hold out on NBN Co contracts

The National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) has issued its final wholesale broadband agreement (WBA), but internet service providers are still holding out on signing on the dotted line.
The WBA document outlines the types of products and services that retail service providers can access on the NBN, as well as the terms and conditions for those services. NBN Co has been working on the document for over a year in consultation with the industry. There have been five iterations of the WBA, with the last version shortening the length of the agreement to one year. However, NBN Co has now announced that the document released yesterday will be the final version.
According to the NBN Co, this version includes new service level targets and a new operations manual. NBN Co head of product development and industry engagement, Jim Hassell, said that the company believed it was a good deal for the industry and consumers.
“The Wholesale Broadband Agreement strikes a fair balance between our customers’ need for certainty and the flexibility we need, including to accommodate any further regulatory requirements,” Hassell said in a statement.
But internet service providers appear to be far from pleased at the announcement. iiNet’s chief regulatory officer, Steve Dalby, told ZDNet Australia that iiNet still had concerns over NBN Co not willing to accept liability for network outages, and that NBN Co had become a “true incumbent” in adopting the “take it or leave it” approach with the final document.
“It disallows ACCC or regulatory oversight, accepts no liability for [customer service guarantee], negligence or network outages,” he said.
“We’ve discussed and documented these and other concerns with NBN Co and it would appear to have been a waste of breath. The certainty that they offer is that they will do very little to produce it,” he added. “We won’t be signing that.”
Optus’ general manager of interconnect and economic regulation, Andrew Sheridan, had similar concerns over service assurance levels, and said it was concerning that NBN Co was intending to go ahead with the WBA in this form without addressing all of the industry’s concerns.
“While some progress has been made, it remains disappointing that a number of material concerns such as regulatory oversight and service assurance levels have still not been addressed adequately in the document released today,” he said.
“A fundamental element of the NBN policy is that NBN Co be tightly regulated. As it stands the WBA moves away from this commitment and seeks to limit the role of the ACCC,” he said.
Internode’s carrier relations manager, John Lindsay, said that the ISP was still negotiating with NBN Co over the agreement, and Telstra said that it was reviewing the document and would discuss any concerns with NBN Co.
NBN Co said that it planned to continue to consult with industry on the WBA while the ACCC is considering the special access undertaking (SAU) that sets out the regulatory framework for NBN pricing over the next 30 years. NBN Co said amendments can be made to the document to align it with the SAU as it is accepted by the ACCC.

Original Apple contract may sell at auction for $150K

(CNN) — Forgive the pun: Want a slice of early Apple history?
Three of the legal documents that detail the founding of the revolutionary computer company are going up for auction soon — some two months after the death of co-founder Steve Jobs.
Sotheby’s, the auction house that’s hosting the sale, expects the legal papers to sell for $100,000 to $150,000.
“The 1976 document, which once belonged to Ronald G. Wayne, one of Apple’s founders along with Steven P. Jobs and Stephen G. Wozniak, is the first chapter in the story of one of America’s most important companies,” Sotheby’s says in a press release.
Isaacson gives insight into Jobs’ life
Here’s a list of what’s included in the auction:
— Apple’s original partnership agreement, signed on April 1, 1976, by Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Apple’s “forgotten founder,” Ron Wayne. According to Walter Isaacson in his new “Steve Jobs” biography, Jobs signed the document in lower-case letters, “Wozniak in careful cursive and Wayne in an illegible squiggle.” The trio signed the document in Wayne’s apartment and split their stakes in the company unevenly: Jobs and Wozniak both got 45%; Wayne, who came to the confab late as a consultant of sorts, got a 10% share.
— A dissolution of contract, in which Wayne excused himself from the company for $800. He later received an additional $1,500 payment. Bad move, right? His stock options today would be worth more than $30 billion. But Wayne told CNN in 2010 that he doesn’t regret the decision, which he based on the fact that another company he founded had gone poorly. “What can I say? You make a decision based on your understanding of the circumstances and you live with it,” he said.
— And a second founding agreement, in which Jobs, the marketing master, and Wozniak, the coding genius, outlined their plans for the company that would help bring about the personal computer revolution and create the iPod, iPhone and, most recently, the iPad.
The documents originally belonged to Wayne and were given to Sotheby’s through a university archives, the auction house’s website says. A Sotheby’s spokesman said the company could not provide more information but emphasized that Wayne had not sold the documents directly to the auction house.
“The consigner bought the documents in the mid-1990s from a manuscript dealer who had acquired them from Wayne,” Bloomberg reports, citing Richard Austin, head of manuscripts at Sotheby’s in New York. Austin told that news organization: “It was right before Jobs rejoined Apple. At the time, everyone thought that Apple was pretty much finished.”
The auction will be held on December 13 in New York. People can also bid on the documents simultaneously online.

So far, Twitter chatter about the sale is mostly positive, with online pundits joking that they want to add the documents to their holiday shopping lists and pondering what will be the ultimate sticker price of these bits of history.