Fake queues to build hype over iPhone 3G

Claims that Orange paid people to create fake queues outside their stores to drum up interest over iphone freak.

iPhone 3G reaches supply demand equilibrium

Analyst Ben Reitzes of Lehman Brothers reports that the supply of the iPhone 3G has essentially reached an equilibrium with demand - and for the first time all US stores now have stock.

Gameloft’s Asphalt 4 Elite Racing available now

Tagged: Uncategorized

Gameloft has released their Asphalt 4 Elite Racing App Store game to the app store tonight. This accelerometer-based racing title is an iPhone-enhanced port of the publisher’s original mobile phone version of the game. Pocket Gamer recently had the opportunity to take the iPhone version for a quick test drive. the game looks pretty nice, According to Pocket Gamer, the control sensitivity is excellent and the iPhone’s controls make drifting (a critical component of the game) much easier than in the mobile version.

Other features claimed by the developer include:

- 28 licensed rides from the world's most prestigious manufacturers: Ferrari, Bugatti, Aston Martin, Chevrolet Corvette, and more.
- Use your phone as a steering wheel thanks to the accelerometer controls
- The best 3D graphics available on iPhone
- Hours of high-speed entertainment: 5 racing modes, 9 cities such as new York, Shanghai, Dubai, and Paris

iPhone Girl

Tagged: Uncategorized

A Chinese factory worker has become a celebrity after her smiling face was accidentally loaded onto an Apple iPhone and shipped to the other side of the world. Dressed in a pink striped outfit and hat and wearing white gloves with yellow fingertips, the young woman now known on the Web as the "iPhone Girl" is shown smiling and making victory signs as she poses next to an iPhone. The MacRumors.com user who posted the photos last week, identified as only "markm49uk" from Kingston-upon-Hull, England, said in a posting that one of the pictures showed up on a new 3G iPhone when the iTunes program was launched.

Pic:AFP-Getty Images

iPhone security flaw

Tagged: Uncategorized

As first discovered by Apple enthusiast sites including MacRumors, even when an iPhone is password protected, anyone can gain access to the Favorites page by pressing the emergency call button, followed by two presses of the home screen button.
Officials say that anyone concerned with the possible security hole can set the 'double click' button to just take the user to the Home screen. This simply takes the device back to the unlock screen is password protection is turned on.
Popular technology blog Gizmodo and an online forum run by the Mac Rumors site showed that it took only three taps to gain access to locked iPhones, which run the latest 2.02 iPhone software. Apple, which started selling the new 3G iPhone on July 11, has said it expected to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.

Debt and the Changing Face of the Credit Market

Tagged: Debt, Loan, Loans

Food prices up, repossessions up, house prices down… these are troublesome times, especially for people whose monthly debt repayments are taking up valuable funds they need to cope with the ever-increasing cost of living.

After years of easy access to credit, many households have grown used to the idea that they can consolidate their debts, effectively spreading their repayments out over a number of years to reduce their monthly repayments. It may end up costing more, but it’s a tried-and-tested way of making debt repayments more manageable, keeping debts from snowballing into a serious debt problem.

Today, however, the credit market has changed, as the Bank of England’s latest Credit Conditions Survey proves. Covering (among other things) secured and unsecured lending to households, the Survey shows what lenders in the UK have noticed in the last three months, and what they expect to see in the next three.

In 2008’s Q2 Survey, lenders revealed that they’d reduced the availability of both secured credit (from secured loans to mortgages) and unsecured credit (from credit cards to unsecured loans). What’s more, they expected to see further declines in the availability of both secured and unsecured credit in the next three months.

For secured loans and other secured credit, Q2 seems to have seen the worst actual reduction in availability (around 45%). Availability is expected to go down in Q3 as well, but by only about half as much.

The availability of unsecured loans and other forms of unsecured credit came down by around 25% in Q2, and it’s expected to drop slightly more than that in Q3.

For secured loans and unsecured loans alike, lenders are basically tightening their credit scoring criteria, which means they may well refuse loans which they would have granted a year or so ago.

When it comes to secured loans, they’re also ‘decreasing maximum loan to value (LTV) ratios’, which means they’re being more cautious about securing loans against the value of a property. According to the Nationwide House Price Index, the typical house is worth £15,000 less than it was a year ago, so it’s difficult to be sure how much equity a homeowner will actually own 12 months from now.

There’s no question that this is worrying news for people who were thinking of consolidating their debts. Now that lenders have become so much more cautious about lending money, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to get a consolidation loan (either secured or unsecured).

However, it’s important to realise that loans – both secured and unsecured – are by no means unavailable. It’s true that some people may find it difficult to find the debt consolidation loan they need, but it’s often a case of finding a loan provider who specialises in helping people in their financial situation.

Plus, a consolidation loan isn’t always the best debt solution anyway. Many people in debt would be better off with a debt management plan, an IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement) or a protected Trust Deed (for residents of Scotland only).

Each debt solution comes with its own distinct benefits and drawbacks, and identifying the most appropriate solution requires an in-depth understanding of the credit market, as well as the of debt solutions themselves. It’s never advisable to choose a debt solution without first talking to an impartial debt adviser who can explain the details of each and recommend the most appropriate one(s).

To read more about different debt solutions such as debt consolidation & IVAs, visit www.thinkmoney.com