Consumerist is investigating a reader’s complaint regarding the inability to purchase an iPhone through AT&T’s website when using an NY zip code. So far they’ve discovered that, according to a CS rep: “New York is not ready for the iPhone.”
The conversation Consumerist’s Laura Northrup had with an AT&T customer service representative after confirming that iPhones could not be purchased online when using any New York zip code almost plays out like an SNL skit:
Daphne: Welcome to AT&T online Sales support. How may I assist you with placing your order today?
Laura: Hi, I was looking at the iPhone 3Gs and the system tells me that I cannot order one in my ZIP code. My zip code is 11231. (Brooklyn, NY) Is this true? Are iPhones no longer available in New York City?
Daphne: I am happy to be helping you today . Yes, this is correct the phone is not offered to you because New York is not ready for the iPhone.
Daphne: You don’t have enough towers to handle the phone.
Laura: Thank you for your help. So the phone is not available to people anywhere in the city?
Daphne: Yes this is correct Laura.
Yikes. We know that AT&T’s aware that it sucks in NY, but is the solution to a localized network strain from heavy data usage to stop online sales of a particular phone? Doesn’t exactly seem like a sensible idea, especially since there are plenty of iPhones in AT&T’s brick-and-mortar New York stores.
Something else that’s peculiar about this “sales ban” is that folks in San Francisco, another spot where data puts a huge strain on AT&T’s network, are able to purchase the iPhone online:
I’m definitely curious to hear if AT&T makes an official statement on this issue and what the, probably innocent, explanation is. Hell, I’d be happy with just another Luke Wilson pep talk. [Consumerist]
The still hypothetical device will be a 10-or-so-inch tablet PC with a full Mac OS X operating system; or it will merely be a larger-screen version of the current iPod Touch.
It’s definitely shaping up to be the year of e-book readers: the Amazon Kindle is flying off (virtual) shelves, and we’d expect the Barnes & Noble Nook to start moving at a decent clip once the kinks get worked out. But any device with an always-on 3G connection to a central server raises some privacy questions, especially when it can broadcast granular, specific data about what you’re reading — data that’s subject to a wide spectrum of privacy laws and regulations when it comes to real books and libraries, but much less so in the digital realm. We’d say it’s going to take a while for all the privacy implications of e-books to be dealt with by formal policy, but in the meantime the best solution is to be informed — which is where this handy chart from our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation comes in. As you’d expect, the more reading you do online, the more you can be tracked — and Google Books, the Kindle, and the Nook all log a ton of data that can be shared with law enforcement and various other third parties if required. Of course, we doubt the cops are too interested in your Twilight reading habits, but honestly, we’d rather users weren’t tracked at all. Check the full chart and more at the read link.
We’d been itching for some video of the mysteriousHTC Espresso’supdated Sense UI ever since we saw those intriguing screenshots last week, and here we go: a leaked version of the ROM has been hacked onto a Hero and given a run-through. Overall, things seem to be slightly cleaner all around, and that new launcher bar at the bottom looks quite handy, but we’re still not totally sold on those translucent app icon surrounds. CES is right around the corner (and MWC is right after that) so we’re hoping to find out more soon — check the video after the break for now.
Nobody likes staring at a boring desktop when they fire up their computer every morning. Keep your wallpaper fresh with the five most popular sites Lifehacker readers use to satisfy their wallpaper needs.
Photo by goincase. Wallpaper on monitor available here.
Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite wallpaper site. We quickly learned that—while not everyone has a strong opinion about Linux distributions or encryption software—everyone has a favorite wallpaper site; readers logged nearly 500 votes for their favorite wallpaper sites. Now we’re back to share the five most popular sites used by Lifehacker readers to dress up their monitors with fresh wallpaper.
Vlad Studio features the work of Russian wallpaper artist Vlad Gerasimov. He cranks out hundreds of great wallpapers, ranging from holiday themes to abstract art. Vlad Studio has wallpaper in a wide range of sizes suited for everything from your mobile phone to a multi-monitor setup. Mobile wallpaper and desktop resolutions at 1600×1200 and below are available for free. Images larger than that are available only to registered users. If you want access to the larger resolutions, now is a great time to pick up a subscription. Vlad is running a Christmas-special where the $30 lifetime membership is available for $20.
4Chan is an image-based forum where anyone can anonymously post and share images and comments. It’s divided into sub-boards devoted to all sorts of topics like Anime, video games, etc., but has gained notoriety for some of its more unsavory sub-boards. The /Wallpaper/ board, nonetheless, is bustling and updated nearly 24/7 with images from around the web. Since the 4Chan boards are a bit kludgy to use if you’re not trying to comment and just looking for images, a variety of scrapers have sprung up to help you pick through all the images in /Wallpaper/. You can visit 4Chan directly at the link above or you can use services like Nik.Bot and 4Walled to browse through the wallpapers available through 4Chan. Be strongly forewarned, however: although the /Wallpaper/ forum is much tamer than other areas of 4Chan, you’ll still find a large number of Maxim-level NSFW wallpaper images and the occasional Playboy-level NSFW images when you’re browsing. If you’re not prepared to explain some really awkward internet memes to your boss, you’d better save 4Chan /Wallpaper/ for home.
Social Wallpapering borrows the vote up/down model used by many social aggregators (Reddit, Digg, etc.) and applies it to desktop wallpaper. Users vote up their favorite, vote down their least favorites, and upload their own images to be ranked by other users. You can browse by rank, category, view random images, and sort by screen size to help you drill down through the huge collection to find the wallpaper you want. Prefer to grab everything and sort it out later? Social Wallpaper makes their entire wallpaper collection available for download via BitTorrent. If you’re looking for a site where you can not only find fresh wallpaper but participate in helping your fellow wallpaper lovers find the best images, Social Wallpapering is a solid choice.
Interfacelift is an enormous repository of wallpaper images. Thanks to the button-based layout at the top of the screen, you can easily drill down through wallpapers using factors like rating, number of comments, screen type, and so on. Once you select your screen type—widescreen, full screen, dual monitors, etc.—you can pick from available resolutions so you never end up clicking on an image and finding out it’s not available in the resolution you want. Every search result gives you information about the image plus a drop down menu for size selection and a quick download. Interfacelift has recently added a feature called “The Loupe” which allows users to vote on incoming submissions to accelerate the process of new materials being added to the database.
If you’ve visited your fair share of wallpaper sites and gotten tired of the endless stream of glowing line-art and video-game wallpapers, then you’ll enjoy browsing the wallpaper archives of DeviantART—a subdivision of the artist-centric site. You’ll find everything at DeviantART from the more common glow-lines variety of abstract wallpaper to quirky paintings, photographs, and computer-rendered images. Most of the users at DeviantART are prolific contributors, so if you find a wallpaper you really like, make sure to check out the user’s gallery to see if they have any other gems to share. DeviantART doesn’t have the advanced wallpaper-oriented search features that many of the other wallpaper sites have, but you can still search by image size and sort by popularity.
Now that you’ve had a chance to look over Lifehacker readers’ favorite wallpaper sites, it’s time to cast a vote for your favorite:
We have two honorary mentions to hand out this week to extremely deserving sites that have contributed a multitude of awesome wallpapers over the years: Digital Blasphemy and Mandolux. Got more to say about your favorite (or a favorite that didn’t make the list)? Let’s hear it in the comments.
We’re still not about say the e-book reader industry has branched out beyond the infancy stage, but one of its flagship products certainly has reason to celebrate. Amazon has announced it’s hit some pretty big milestones with the Kindle. The two bullet points it’s currently touting loudest is that the reader has become “the most gifted item” in the company’s history — quite an achievement given the size of the online retailer, but what’s missing here is any quantitative sales data to give us even a ballpark of the number of units sold. The other big news is that on Christmas Day (we’re guessing not Christmas Eve, else the press release surely would’ve mentioned it, too), e-book sales actually outsold physical books. Those brand new Kindle owners needed something to read, right? It’ll be interesting to see if that momentum is maintained through next year, especially with some majorpublishers starting to show some teeth with digital delays.
The Kindle bits were all part of Amazon’s annual post-holiday statistical breakdown, so in case you’re wondering, besides Kindle, the company is claiming its other top-selling electronics were the 8GB iPod Touch and Garmin nuvi260W, and in the wireless department the honor goes to Nokia’s unlocked 5800 XpressMusic, Plantronic’s 510 Bluetooth headset, and AT&T’s edition of the BlackBerry Bold 9700.
There’s really only two things you need to know about the iToos M6HD PMP, and at the risk of repeating the headline: it can output 1080i via HDMI and its price is pretty hard to argue with. As for the fine print, we’re looking at a 4.3-inch TFT screen with 480 x 272 resolution, 4GB internal memory upgradeable via memory card, and the usual variety of codecs you’ve come to expect from Asian PMPs, including FLAC audio and H.264 video. According to Akihabara News, it technically retails for only $58.50, but for the moment the best we’ve seen is online retailer Ownta for pocket change under $87.
Every year in Japan many retail shops offer “Fukubukuro” (lucky bags) filled with unknown, quality contents sold at a discount price. It’s quite a sight to behold in major shopping areas as folks line up hours beforehand just to get a fukubukuro from a specific shop.
In a clever play on words, the appropriately-named online electronics retailer Clevery put together a “Fukyoubako“, meaning “recession box”, filled with all sorts of depressing products that just couldn’t be sold in these cash-strapped times. In this case, instead of getting a discount on products you probably would like, most buyers of the box end up with random stuff that Cleverly has lying in stock. However, by making it possible to randomly receive higher-value items such as PCs there’s an aspect of gambling that made the campaign a success.
Despite not having much of an idea as to what’s going to be in the recession boxes, within 22 hours of going on sale, all 200 fukyoubako were sold out!
What’s the best complement to a trial run of plug-in hybrids? Why, matching solar stations, of course! Toyota Industries Corp has announced that it’s been developing solar charging stations for its new Prius models. The first place to test out the chargers is unsurprisingly Toyota City in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, where 21 stations will be built across 11 locales including government offices and train depots. Probably not worth planning a trip around, but if you want to be that extra special sort of tourist, schedule your vacation for sometime after April 2010.
We don’t know where this is coming from so take it with a grain of salt, but rumor has it from AndroidSPIN that the progenitor Android device, the T-Mobile G1, is destined to officially get an over-the-air update for an Eclair build, Android 2-point-something. Hey T-Mo, we know the holidays are pretty much over, but could you validate these whispers for us? Thanks!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Consumerist is investigating a reader’s complaint regarding the inability to purchase an iPhone through AT&T’s website when using an NY zip code. So far they’ve discovered that, according to a CS rep: “New York is not ready for the iPhone.”
Nobody likes staring at a boring desktop when they fire up their computer every morning. Keep your wallpaper fresh with the five most popular sites Lifehacker readers use to satisfy their wallpaper needs.
