Hasta La Gadget!

Apple closed its Beijing store Wednesday after crowds rushed it to load up on iPhones. Previously, there was a two-per-customer limit on iPhone 4s, which Apple incautiously abolished. The store was overrun with “scalpers”, buying up to 30 handsets at a time – with stacks of cash – to sell on at a profit. According to Chinese blog MIC Gadget, the scalpers were selling these phones right outside the doors of the Apple Store.

The store was closed at noon (or 10AM, depending on the source), after hours of chaos. It seems that the scalpers were not buying the phones to sell later, or to export, but deliberately acquiring the total daily stock to force genuine customers to buy from them at inflated prices. There are only four Apple stores in China, and no online orders for the iPhone. Scalpers were marking up the iPhones from 5000 Yuan ($747) to 5,500 yuan ($822), a profit of $75. The Apple store is the only placed to get an off-contract iPhone.

The trouble started when customers got sick of the scalpers jumping the line and scuffles broke out. The store was closed, and reopened with a new policy: Buyers must now show ID when purchasing, they can only buy one iPhone, and they must un-box and activate it there in the store.

For a full account of the craziness, and a lot of photos (including shots of the evil scalpers), head over to read Chris Chang’s article at MIC Gadget.

Beijing Apple Store Closed Due To Scalpers Reselling iPhone 4 [MIC Gadget]

See Also:

• Chinese iPhone On Sale This Friday with Wi-Fi Intact
• China Gets Android-Based iPhone Clone

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Wireless USB 1.1 is here, whether you like it or not, and we’re betting you’re going to like it if manufacturers make it work. The USB-IF’s new spec, finalized this week, is still capped at the same 480Mbps of its wired cousin USB 2.0, but it reportedly brings with it reduced power consumption and near-field communication for proximity-based pairing. And if the idea of, say, touching your smartphone and a wireless Pixel Qi panel together to automatically connect the twain doesn’t make you jump for joy, we’re not really sure what would. Perhaps you’re still waiting for the one-gigabit-per-second Intel’s Jeff Ravencraft promised three years ago this month? Download the full spec at our more coverage link to see what’s what.

Continue reading Wireless USB reaches revision 1.1, makes for smarter and more efficient toys

Wireless USB reaches revision 1.1, makes for smarter and more efficient toys originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 06:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s something that’ll surely send Birthers and Roswellians into a tizzy. The FCC quietly changed its long-standing recommendation that consumers concerned with cellphone radiation should purchase phones with lower SAR levels — SAR meaning Specific Absorption Rate or the rate at which at which energy is absorbed by the body. The revision to the FCC website was made last week without any formal announcement. Odd, given the brouhaha created when the city of San Francisco passed a law requiring retailers to display SAR values next to cellphones as part of “right to know” safety campaign. A move that caused the CTIA to pull its fall event out of The City only to replace it with a big fat lawsuit. Here’s a snippet from the FCC Consumer Fact sheet about SAR for Cellphones:

Many people mistakenly assume that using a cell phone with a lower reported SAR value necessarily decreases a user’s exposure to RF emissions, or is somehow “safer” than using a cell phone with a high SAR value. While SAR values are an important tool in judging the maximum possible exposure to RF energy from a particular model of cell phone, a single SAR value does not provide sufficient information about the amount of RF exposure under typical usage conditions to reliably compare individual cell phone models. Rather, the SAR values collected by the FCC are intended only to ensure that the cell phone does not exceed the FCC’s maximum permissible exposure levels even when operating in conditions which result in the device’s highest possible – but not its typical – RF energy absorption for a user.

So why the sudden, unannounced change? Collusion between the cellphone industry’s lobbying machine and big gov? Doubtful, the claification certainly makes sense to us. Besides, The Washington Post says no, citing a source familiar with the FCC’s decision. Great, case closed then.

FCC quietly changes guidance on cellphone radiation risks, further isolates San Francisco law originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Crapgadget: ‘cubicle shoot-out’ edition originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 03:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, there you have it, kids. Your new favorite hobby has gone from having a confirmed exploit to a legitimate jailbreak in the space of a mere couple of days. MuscleNerd reports that the Shatter jailbreaking endeavor has claimed its latest iOS victim today, though as you can see for yourself, it’s “not quite ready for prime time yet.” App installations still have to be figured out, but at least the door’s been opened for making some good, if not magical, things happen. You’ll find video evidence of root access after the break.

[Thanks, dsbilling]

Continue reading Apple TV jailbreak complete, next step: figuring out how to run apps (video)

Apple TV jailbreak complete, next step: figuring out how to run apps (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 02:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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