Giving the bubble a squeeze

The Northern Rock debacle of last week reminded me of my blog post in March, where I pondered the possibility of a large bank running into debt problems leading to a nationwide mortgage crisis and a house price recession. Sound familiar? Now I admit that I wasn't spot on, and I made no mention of the complicated US subprime mortgage issue. However, the bank didn't run into a major incident, and there has been no lasting effect on house prices or mortgage rates.

Of course the main reason for this was a massive injection of cash to support the business whilst loans between international banks are going through a bit of a stroppy phase. If the market had been left to its own devices, as I'm sure some people would argue to be the best solution, things could have been a lot worse, as their customers seemed pretty desperate to take their money elsewhere.

Elsewhere, the dollar continues to plunge against every other world currency, interest rates are becoming an increasingly weak economic control, oil producing countries are switching to trade in Euros. Every indicator seems to be pointing towards... "something". Whether that something resembles the economic equivalent of a Die Hard 4 or pathetically "collapsing like a flan in a cupboard" depends on the attitude and arrogance of financial leaders. Does that instill you with confidence?

The iPhone dilemma

The million-selling success story of the summer has, for the most part, lived up to the hype. In the last hour, the UK iPhone announcement was made, with O2 confirmed as the network. It's priced at £269 for the 8GB model, with an 18 month contract for £35-55 a month including unlimited, but relatively slow data plus access to 7,000 WiFi hotspots that usually require a subscription.

The alternative for the same £269 price is the 16GB iPod Touch, featuring WiFi but none of the other iPhone features. However, the reviews for this new iPod are disappointing, with some software and hardware improvements required in the coming months to bring it up to the quality of iPhone.

There is a middle ground though. The US carrier, AT&T, has a reputation for poor service and support, which only made the home coders more determined to get the iPhone unlocked for use on all networks. This month saw the tools surface, first for $100, then for free, then as easier as running a small program and clicking 'OK'. This is possible because of the way Apple does business – O2 will be a distributor as it is for all other phones through its normal channels, but Apple will also sell the iPhone at its shops and online store. The device requires activation on the corresponding network with a contract before becoming functional, hence the loophole that has been exploited. What you will lose of course is the unlimited data from O2, and quite probably, the free WiFi access.

Apple isn't usually a company to confuse its range of products by offering such similar lines with so many overlapping features, or one to be hit with consistently poor reviews for a new release. As the hype dies down the negative details will begin to surface, such as in this morning's Q&A, where the head of O2 described "unlimited" data as 1,400 web pages in a month. This may sound like a lot, until you consider that this figure is probably generous to start with, and then the phone’s ability to purchase downloaded music, and it starts to look a lot less attractive.

No doubt Apple will make plenty of money, and O2 won't do badly, despite handing the manufacturer a massive 40% of all iPhone contract revenues. Steve Jobs clearly banked on the phone's huge success, making deals with non-US service providers late enough to have a much stronger bargaining position, not to mention convincing all four of the major UK networks that they had the deal before dropping all except O2. It's not hard to see where Apple's reputation comes from.

New Video iPod: obvious, no?

A full-screen, touch-screen video-playing iPod. Something the gadget community has lusted over the thought and faked images of for a good couple of years now. Their wishes came true, sort of, when Apple announced the iPhone (below), which features the full screen and not just touch but multi-touch technology in one beautifully designed package. The only problem however, is that the package also includes a phone. This, amongst other reasons, means the phone is priced somewhere in the region of $600-700, and that's with a contract. So not only is this a high price for a video iPod, it also means that a lot of people who already have a phone or just don't want one with this kind of functionality or size won't want to make the purchase.

Being a full-on geek, I've been reading and listening to various sources talking about the iPhone since it was announced four months ago, well before its launch in June this year. The one thing that hasn't been mentioned is how Apple should, or even might, release a dedicated Video iPod based on the amazing design and technology of the iPhone. This is one thing that's seemed obvious to me from the start - that this product is a no-brainer, and there are plenty of things pointing towards this. The iPod with video is in serious need of an extension of its life cycle, with the few improvements in September added probably just to maintain sales in competition with Microsoft's Zune. Even more importantly, all the hard work is over! The fact that Apple have made a product that does all the things that a video iPod should means they are 90% of the way towards something that has more mass-market appeal and can be priced lower.

One reason why this isn't being talked about might be due to the ultra-high level of secrecy that Apple acts under. Perhaps no-one is talking about this product because it is real? As soon as someone knows it is, they'll be under strict, legally-binding secrecy not to reveal any details... but I don't think this is the case. The only way I'll find out if I was even half-right will be to wait until June.

Since when was information bad?

Walking around, especially in London, I have seen a range of "Information Revolution" posters like the image to the left declaring that something like "89% of all online information goes through one company". I was reasonably intrigued, and predicted that it would be some kind of activist campaign against the government holding so much information. However, by the time I'd seen at least 10 posters I knew it had to be a commercial venture.

It turned out I was right to be sceptical, since a quick visit to the website revealed that it was nothing more than an advertising campaign for Ask.com. Their argument was that Google has so much information, that perhaps it should not be trusted. It seems they've missed the point a little. What's Google's main product? SEARCH. What helps searches? INFORMATION. In my mind, they'd just made Google sound a little better, seeing as it's covering a huge majority of the web with the aim of giving the best results possible. There seems to be quite a lot of bad press with regards to privacy and security recently, but this just seems silly.

The website's quite a laugh if you look around, although the campaign can't be doing very well, as "information revolution" doesn't reveal any other sites or stories about it... not even on Ask.com.

Short: Man cuts off own penis in aptly named restaurant

A man cut off his own penis in the Zizzi restaurant on The Strand in London yesterday, after grabbing a knife from the kitchen. He was later restrained by police using CS gas.

This strange incident is made only more peculiar when considering the restaurant's name is French for the now-removed organ. No comment has been made as to whether the chain feels partly responsible after choosing to write 'Penis' above the door.