With the iPhone 3G just around the corner, an online petition was formed regarding Rogers’ iPhone 3G pricing plans which attracted over 41,000 signatures. Service plans were announced to start at $60 for just 150 voice minutes. The gripe is regarding the lack of an unlimited data plan, which is essential for a phone which thrives on data.

Also, unconfirmed rumors say that Apple was so displeased with Rogers’ pricing, they’ve decided to divert some of the Canadian iPhone stock to European launches. Potentially bad news for the Canucks but perhaps some new rate plans may arise from the petition; or it’ll be ignored by anyone who hasn’t signed it.
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Messing with LEGOs is good times, even if you’re 53. That’s why some geek in Germany turned a few 2×2 transparent bricks (of a variety of colors) into high speed Bluetooth adapters. On sale in limited quantity, these bricks are priced at about $50 before shipping and handling. They’ll give you that “I’m an 8-year-old!” look and at the same time, sync your expensive top-of-the-line wireless gadgets together. While there are better ways to call attention to yourself, the LEGO Bluetooth Mini Dongle is ultimately more useful than the alternatives.
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Live in pixelated New York, use T-Mobile and own a UMTS-enabled device unlike your dinky F1 phone? Starting tomorrow, Big-T is rolling out its long overdue 3G network in the US. NYC is the first city to get it and as you can read on this employee e-mail sent to T-Mobile stores across the US. Bitchin’ data transfer speeds, bitchin’ reception. This is the T-Mobile you’ll know as of tomorrow.

Other cities due for a 3G rollout? Austin, Las Vegas, Minneapolis and Miami all make the cut, though no specific dates are given.

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Whether you be a corporate type just trying to find an easy way to share data with employees or really want to pirate loads of Radiohead’s USB albums, the Giant USB Duplicator offers the chance to copy data to 20 USB drives all at once in one illegal shot.

I also wonder if some hardware hacker can mod this device to just be one gigantic USB port, allowing you to plug in 20 different peripherals. Why you’d need that many connections at once is beyond me, but it would be pretty bad ass. — Andrew Dobrow

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When the term “data beaming” was coined, people can’t help but to think that there’s an actual beam between 2 devices that travels and carries the data across. In actual fact this does not happen unless you wear infrared-enabled night spectacles. This morning National (Matsushita) demonstrated the new Visible Light Communications technology (VLC) at the International Lighting Fair.

As the name suggests, instead of using invisible EM wave, visible light is now used to transfer data. The best part about this is that the data projector can also act as an indoor lighting source. You can identify the reception area visually, stand right below the light source and your PDA would start downloading files.

We do not have the exact data for the maximum speed of data transfer, but the VLC Consortium claimed that it is comparable to that on optical fiber (i.e. very fast). The organization also hopes to finalize the standard soon, and apply that to exhibitions (stand close to the display counter to download press release) as well as hospitals. As opposed to WiFi, the VLC would not interfere with pacemakers and other medical equipments. Kudos. — Sam Chan

Lighting Fair 2007 Report [Impress]