Have You Got One Yet? I Mean The Apple iPhone!

This is what every Apple aficionado is looking forward to - the iPhone which went on sale initially in the U.S. on Friday (June 29).

What's so great about the iPhone that people would want to cough up $499USD for this much-hyped gadget? By now most of you would know that this device has all the bells and whistles you would want in your mobile phone.

Here are some of the main features: it's a quad-band mobile phone, has 4 to 8GB of memory depending on which model you go for, has internet access, an MP3 music player, a 2 megapixel digital camera, and more.

The iPhone is not a cheapo gadget just like most of Apple's products. But you can give a hat tip to Steve Jobs for his usual flair in selling Apple's stuff.

The best news related to the iPhone launch is that every Apple employee with more than one year's service in the company will get one free.

The iPhone will only go on sale in Europe later this year. Apple said they expected to sell more than 10 million iPhones by next year when it hit the Asian market.

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Going gaga over Apple's iPhone

The Day Paris Hilton Smiled Again

American heiress Paris Hilton is smiling again. No more the screaming and crying when she was taken to jail. She has been released from jail in Los Angeles on Tuesday after serving 24 days.

No doubt, it was a media hoopla, as she waved at photographers and shook hands with well-wishers. Her parents, Kathy and Rick, were there to fetch their celebrity daughter home. Time for some bubbly and caviar.

Pro Wrestler Chris Benoit's Death Shock

The unexpected and bizzare death of pro wrestler Chris Benoit will come as a shock for his fans worldwide.

Benoit was found dead with his wife, Nancy, and seven-year-old son, Daniel, at their Fayetteville home on Monday (June 25). According to the World Wrestling Entertainment website, police have ruled the deaths as a double-murder suicide.

The WiredHound used to watch Benoit in action on SmackDown, RAW, WrestleMania and other wrestling circuits. It's a sad day, indeed.

Making Handbags From Old Newspapers

Wow! Bow wow! This Wiredhound is very, very impressed by this little piece of infonews. These handbags look good on the video clip. If they are as good as they come, who needs Gucci and all those other big names?

Wonder how much a handbag like this will cost?

Can Jerry Yang Turn Around Troubled Yahoo?

Jerry Yang: Taking the reins

Come to think of it, people don't "yahoo" for something on the Internet, instead they "google" for something on the Net.

That just about sums up why Yahoo is playing second fiddle to Google.

That's why Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel has been axed for not being able to take the company, founded by Jerry Yang and fellow-student David Filo 13 years ago, to the next level.

So now former Stanford University undergraduate student Jerry is taking over as CEO. The company has a reported turnover of $3.2b.

It has 12,000 employees on its payroll and its Internet portal attracts more than 500 million users.

But still, Yahoo is just an also-ran compared to Google, the market leader with sales that's 50% higher and its profits four times that of its older rival.


Semel: Dismissed

Where Semel has failed thus far, the question being asked in the industry is: Can the 38-year-old Yang pull all the stops and revitalize Yahoo?


Related article:
Can Yahoo revive its digital dreams?
(An analysis by Tim Webber, Business editor, BBC News website)

Author Salman Rushdie Gets A KnightHood

Sir Salman and actress wife Padma Lakshmi



The man who wrote the book, "The Satanic Verses," which offended Muslims worldwide and had a bounty placed on his head in 1989 has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Indian-born author Salman Rushdie returned to public life in 1999 following a 1998 announcement by the Iranian government that it would no longer support the fatwa against the author.

Rushdie, who is a devout secularist, went into hiding under threat of death after the fatwa. Some groups still insisted that the fatwa is irrevocable.

Sir Salman was born into a Muslim family in Mumbai, India, in 1947, the son of a businessman. He had his education in England at Rugby School and studied history at Cambridge University.

He published his first novel, "Grimus", in 1975 but was generally ignored by the book-buying public and literary establishment. But his second book - the magic realist novel "Midnight's Children" - catapulted him to literary fame and winning him the Booker Prize in 1981. The novel was also awarded the Booker of Bookers in 1993.

Sir Salman turns 60 on June 19 (Tuesday). He was married to author Marianne Wiggins in 1988. They were divorced in 1993. He is now married to Indian actress Padma Lakshmi. (Sources: BBC and Wikipedia)

Watch It Bush! Now You See It, Now You Don't!

Clipping from NST,
Malaysia





President George W. Bush was certainly delighted by the tumultuous welcome he received from the Albanians on his visit to Tirana on Sunday. There was no stopping him glad-handing the joyous crowd in the Albanian capital.

As the crowd bustled about excitingly, even the most powerful man in the world has to keep a watch on his watch. As this photo sequence shows in this newspaper clipping from the New Straits Times, it was a case of Bush's watch going, going, and gone!

Did it really happen? I mean, did someone artfully removed his expensive watch?

Why not watch this video news clip from Reuters for the answer...

Chill Out: Cheers To Red, Red Wine!

Sometimes we do need to chill out like taking a break from blogging and pampering ourselves with a glass of wine and watching a good DVD movie.

Normally, coffee is my poison of choice while I blog late into the night. So once in a while I'll sit back and relax with my favorite Cabernet Sauvignon. This red wine is generally full-flavoured and has a smooth, lingering "finish".

I prefer red wine because numerous studies have indicated that it appears to protect the heart. No harm following doctor's order.

I have bookmarked a few interesting wine websites for personal information on the great varieties. And the latest one that was pointed out to me is Just Vineyards.com - a comprehensive and elegant website based on a nearly 5,000 record database of vineyards and wineries in all 50 U.S. states.



The site contains links to individual vineyards throughout the U.S. and also links to upcoming events, blogs and a wine search engine.

If you like your bubbly and want to know more about wine, you will not be disappointed by visiting this website which was launched recently at a time when the US wine industry is undergoing sweeping changes.

According to Wine Business Magazine, the American wine industry represents more than $162 billion in 2005.

According to the latest data from ACNielsen, American consumers are buying higher-priced wine than ever in the last 34 months.

Related post:
White Wine Fans, Raise Your Glasses!

From The NewsRoom: More Than A Music Store

How much do you know about the Apple iTunes platform? Okay, the iTunes Store site is one of the biggest repositories of songs, albums and music videos from major and Indie music labels, plus individual artists.

But do you know it's more than a music store? Here on this video, Wall Street Journal personal technology columnist Walt Mossberg talks about one of the least-understood aspects of Apple's iTunes software.

Why You And I Walk On Two Feet

Have you ever wondered why we, homo sapiens, walk on two feet?

Why aren't we like our four-legged friends, for example, like King, my neighbour's pet alsatian.

According to a study published in the journal Science, it says that upright walking was always a feature of ape behaviour.

British authors Susannah Thorpe, Robin Crompton and Roger Holder arrived at this conclusion after analysing the movement of wild orangutans. As we all know, these apes spend most of their lives in trees, unless they are from another planet.

These authors believe that knuckle-walking is a recent evolution - a way to get around the forest floor. The new theory suggests that our ancestors began walking upright while they were still living in trees.

On the study, Prof Daniel Lieberman, a biological anthropologist from Harvard University, told BBC News: "I think it's a neat paper; it's always terrific when people think creatively about the origins of human bipedalism. But it's not going to be the last word."

Related Topic:
Upright Walking "Began In Trees"