One of the main selling points for Apple’s iPhone was the YouTube application and it made other cell phone companys quiver.  Well, Samsung is up for the battle and the war over easy accessibility has just begun.  Samsung is introducing the SGH-L760, a 3G phone that allows you to record video from the phone itself and upload it directly to YouTube, uBlog and Buzznet.  It should be decent enough for all you YouTube fanatics to upload random videos throughout the day. 

The phone is a slider, featuring a 2 megapixel camera, FM radio, Bluetooth, MP3 Player, web browser, and an expandable memory card slot for your microSD card.  The bad news, it’s being released to the European market first. 

By the way, LG just announced a partnership with Google for YouTube enabled phones. These two companies are tag teaming against Apple, putting them against the ropes. 

Code Name: Milan is the top secret name for the table top computer called Microsoft Surface. It looks like a glass coffee table, but its actually a computer with an interactive surface in disguise.

The most exciting thing about this computer, other than its top secret status, is its ability to connect to and manipulate the data on wireless devices such as cameras and cell phones. The fact that this technology will lead to other types of surface computing is pretty darn exciting too.

The Microsoft Surface will make its debut at the end of 2007 and will cost $5,000 to $10,000.

I’ve always loved Nokia and its simplicity.  It pretty much jump-started the cell phone industry with its candy bar style phones that seem hard to part with.  When Nokia came out with their flip phones, it wasn’t that impressive or even nice to look at.  Now, Nokia is fighting back and getting smart with their very own, stylish and very functional smartphone, the N76.

 At $500 a pop, I think they need to try a bit harder.  Hey, at least they’re trying right?

After reports of a man dying in China as a cause of his cellphone batteries exploding, China has been cracking down on safety regulations, starting at the core of the problem: Motorola and Nokia.

Motorola and Nokia phone batteries were shown to have failed any safety tests administered on them and were prone to explosion on certain conditions. Funnily enough, both companies denied the batteries were theirs, hinting that the batteries ere counterfeit.

Cao Wenzhuang, a high-ranking official, was given the death penalty for accepting over $300,000 in bribes and approving counterfeit items. Counterfeit products have been distributed in China since the 1980’s, but have become increasingly more dangerous and erratic. This includes the lithium-based batteries found in cellphones computers. Even certain brands of Chinese toothpaste could be dangerous, which has shown to contain traces of diethylene glycol, a chemical responsible for 200 deaths in Haiti and Panama.

Over 30,000 inspectors were sent nationwide to find substandard foods, drugs and consumer products. As of this week, the reports shown that nearly 20 percent of the nation’s food and consumer products were found to be substandard or tainted. Nokia insists that its products are still appropriate for recreational use and there will be efforts to crack down on counterfeiting.

Source

A couple of people from IFixIt bought two 8GB iPhones for the strict purpose of taking them apart. They have every step documented on their page along with pictures, so if you want to follow along and rip into your new phone, literally, go by their instruction.

While viewing this page, the geek in me said "Awesome!" while the logical and thrifty part of me says "My GOD, man! What are you doing?" I guess I’m just no fun.