Since the news broke that O2's exclusivity contract with Apple was up, it's been a matter of time before the iPhone becomes affordable in the UK. That day is officially December 14!

That's right folks, the iPhone 3GS is coming to Tesco mobile! Although not the most 'hip' or 'with-it' carrier, Tesco is by far the cheapest with plans starting from just £20 a month for a one year contract. Other offers include an unlimited calls and texts plan for £60 p/m and free unlimited 3G web and BT Openzone Wifi for a year on Pay As You Go.

 

As the tech world grows impatient for a real-life working next-gen tablet, one ambitious user over at My Dell Mini forums has developed a mutant Mini-9 into a fully functional courier PC. Obviously nothing too ground breaking here from this home-made dual touch-screen setup, but with DIY and small coporate efforts such as this and the Joojoo Tablet clogging the tubes, why are we yet to see a proper example from big cheeses like Apple and Microsoft?

 

We all want a slice of USB 3.0, the blazing fast 4.8gb/s peripheral port of the future. So it makes sense for manufacturers such as StarTech.com to try and cash in on an easy upgrade solution for the most of us snailing behind on 1.0 and 2.0 standards, enter USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter! The perfect resolve for the millions of notebook users desperate to jump on the super-speed bandwagon, but wait a minute, isn't the ExpressCard speed limited? Doh!

 

As the holidays commence iPhone gadgets are splattered throughout the blogosphere and let's be honest, they are all pretty much the same! Enter DLO Walldock for the iPhone!

This cute and simple plug-and-charge wall mount for the iPhone charges your favourite smartphone at a 'higher power' whilst seamlessly hovering in front of your mains power outlet. Okay so a clutter-free way to charge your phone for sure but perhaps not the most practical of phone mounts? Unless you like pinching and scrolling with your feet of course?

Nevertheless, we love it!

Last.fm killers Spotify have submitted their iPhone version of their revolutionary application to the App Store. Spotify is 'a new way to enjoy music' which similarly to Last.fm streams tunes to users for free, but instead you get to select exactly what you want to listen to as opposed to songs you might like.

The Last.fm iPhone application has had a huge reception, so you can only imagine how big this app is going to be. Features include unlimited access to Spotify's entire library and the ability to cache songs on the phone to listen to whilst offline for nothing! If this gets past the app store approval process, it'll be available free to UK iPhoners who are signed up to Spotify's premium service, so there's your catch.. But for unlimited music, an incredible deal.

 

Reports have been coming in over-night that Apple is set for a September event in which it will release its Tablet Device, a new range of iPods, and extra features in iTunes. The iTunes project is reportedly codenamed 'cocktail', and plans to include 'interactive books' with album purchases, thought to spur the market forward in digital downloads. This makes sense as iTunes isn't famous for selling albums as it is individual tracks, but would creating this kind of incentive really make a difference? No doubt they have something up their sleeve.

A report from the L.A. times claims that Apple will finally allow the tools that developers need to produce Augmented Reality applications in the iPhone 3.1 software. Currently developers working on these apps have not been able to publish them to the app store, due to restrictions from Apple. According to the L.A. times, this will change with iPhone 3.1.

"Apple told Acrossair, developer of the Nearest Tube train finder, that the app will be approved for distribution after Apple releases version 3.1 of the iPhone software, which the developer expects will land in early September" 

 

Consumer electronics whizzes Asus are set to be the first manufacturer to feature USB 3.0 technology. The news comes after specs of their 'P6X58' motherboard were made public.

This new 'SuperSpeed' USB 3.0 boats a data transfer rate of a whopping 4.8gb/s as opposed to 480mb/s in USB 2.0 and 12mb/s in 1.0

Official speed benchmarks are yet to be set, along with a release date or price for this early hardware. 

According to a report on MobileToday.co.uk, Apple is to begin rolling out the iPhone on UK carriers Orange and T-Mobile as early as September! This comes at the end of a two-year exclusivity contract with O2, making the iPhone only available for a minimum £30pm contract or £450 handset on Pay & Go.

 

So as far as the tech scene goes in the Middle Kingdom, stuff hasn't been looking good lately! With the government censoring everything from gadgets to Google, the iPhone 3G was obviously not going to get away unscathed. 

Following up to the 'iPhone Suicide' scenario, The Business Insider had put together a report based on several sources, showing the inside workings of a Foxconn factory in China and after reading some of this, you can see why you would be borderline suicidal just working there let alone after you've lost an Apple prototype.

"I was placed in a dormitory that has ten three-level bunk beds, thus accomodating 30 people. While many people refused to stay there at that time, the management said that it is much better than the other dormitories on site that are shared by hundreds of workers. Although I still had some negative feelings towards the dorm room, at the same time, I felt lucky for not having to live in a dorm room shared by hundreds. Just the second day living in the dorm, however, I found my safe box open, and my walkman gone. There was nothing I could do but to try to tell myself that I was lucky because it was not that expensive...

Rumour alert! It's about time for the next-generation iPhone rumours to start rolling in, how about this one to start them off then?

 Although this particular source hasn't brought us anything before, we have looked east previously regarding spy shots of several different Apple products, nearly all to turn out to be the real deal! So if this user has got his facts straight we can be expecting the following in iPhone territory in june: