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Orange, the exclusive provider of iPhones in France, announced Friday a new deal with Apple that will see it expand distribution and service of the device to additional European countries, the Middle East, and parts of Africa.

Specifically, the French carrier said that later this year it will provide details on availability for Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, and its existing African markets.

A spokesperson for Orange parent company France Telecom told Reuters that the carrier will be the exclusive iPhone provider in Belgium and Romania, with co-exclusive or non-exclusive deals in other countries.

Orange joins Swisscom and SingTel, which also announced iPhone deals this week. Swisscom earned the rights to sell the device later this year in Switzerland, while SingTel through its subsidiaries said it would market the phone in Singapore, India, the Philippines and Australia.

Earlier this month, America Movil said it would offer the Apple handset throughout Latin America, while Vodafone announced deals for Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey.

Telecom Italia Mobile will also be selling the iPhone in Italy, and Rogers will market the device in Canada.

[Via AppleInsider]

Go kick the tires and light the fires of Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1, which is now available for download at the Mozilla Firefox site. The update delivers a few aesthetic changes, as well as what Mozilla is calling major security enhancements. Users should also expect increased performance and stability for applications like Google Mail. There’s an exhaustive list of known bugs to squash too, but that’s par for the course with any software.

[Firefox 3 RC1]

Those of you who own Nintendo Wiis may like to know that Nintendo’s answer to Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network titles goes live today. Called WiiWare, the offerings are smaller, downloadable games (and applications) that currently range from $5 to $15. Formerly, Nintendo has focused on the Wii’s Virtual Console downloads—ports of old Nintendo titles. The difference here is that WiiWare’s content is all original and generally focused at the small developer. Six games are available starting today. They’re listed after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Granted, we haven’t heard anything thus far about which carrier would be offering up the recently-made-official BlackBerry Bold, but we can’t say we’re too shocked to hear that it will indeed be AT&T. In a report highlighting the recent boost in RIM’s stock price, it’s noted that AT&T will be “the exclusive carrier for the Bold in the US,” though we have all ideas the other major US carriers will be following suit shortly, probably with redubbed handsets. We know, you’re hungry for a price to mull over, but sadly, it’s not meal time just yet.

[Via Engadget]

Good news and bad news on the imminent 3G iPhone front. O2 apparently got another batch of 16 giggers in stock, since it’s currently accepting orders, while the 8GB remains out of stock, and both phones remain unavailable on the US and UK Apple Stores. More encouraging, however, is the new listing of an “iPhone Black” model on AT&T’s account management site. There’s nothing else on the site to hint at specs or release or whether this is indeed the upcoming 3G iPhone, but it does fall in line with the word we have on a glossy black back for the much anticipated phone. Whether all this means we have weeks or months to wait is anyone’s guess, but there are plenty of encouraging signs out there for the true believers to cling onto. Telecom Italia Mobile’s Executive VP Luigi Licciardi claims they’ll be selling the iPhone 3G next month. How’s that for clarity?

Q1 2008 wasn’t a pretty one for Sprint. The company lost 1.09 million subscribers to the competition, while also losing a bit of ground on its average revenue per customer, now at $56 a month. Sprint’s got 52.8 subscribers left to work with, so we’ll see if initiatives like a potential Nextel spinoff or the upcoming Samsung Instinct (pictured) can do anything to staunch the bleeding.

[Via Electronista & Engadget]

Following the lead of Google and Apple in providing a hefty chunk of some sort of funding up front for app developers, RIM is teaming up with RBC and Thomson Reuters to provide a $150 million fund to invest in “mobile applications and services.” Interestingly, RIM isn’t limiting those apps and services just to the BlackBerry, and instead the fund is designed to “advance the industry.” The fund will be open to companies from all over the world, and sounds like it’ll be open to pretty much any type of mobile application or service developer that plans on kicking ass in its respective field. We’re curious as to how BlackBerry slanted the fund will end up being, but hey, it’s their money, so we really couldn’t complain either way.

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My father owns an Export Management Company that distributes tons of products into Central and South America and the Caribbean. Recently he went to a show called “FMI” in Las Vegas, NV and while there Disney had a huge booth that took about 1/3 the convention center. While there Disney announced a new line called Disney Garden, a line relating new food products that are healthy and family friendly. Some of the new products they will be making are: Mickey Burgers, Mickey Pizza, Mickey Ravioli, Disney Raisins, Disney Apple Juice, Donald Duck OJ, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Cereal, and tons more. Super Target has already started selling various of these products, but all of them will be making there way officially toward the end of June 2008. Also, while there, Disney released some numbers that “Business Week” released, here they are:

The World’s Most Valuable Brands

1. Coca-Cola
2. Microsoft
3. IBM
4. GE
5. Nokia
6. Toyota
7. Intel
8. McDonald’s
9. Disney
10. Mercedes-Benz

Best Brands

1. Coca-Cola - 99.8
2. Disney - 99.4
3. Kodak - 99.0
4. Johnson & Johnson - 98.9
5. Microsoft - 97.7
6. Sony - 97.6
7. Wal-Mart 97.6
8. Kelloggs - 97.0
9. Nestle - 95.4

Best Brands Families with Kids

1. Disney - 100.0
2. Johnson & Johnson - 100.0
3. Kodak - 99.9
4. Coke - 99.5
5. Sony - 97.2
6. Microsoft - 96.9
7. Wal-Mart - 96.5
8. McDonald’s 96.3
9. Kellogg’s - 94.3

Disney Brand Equities

1. A Leader - 99.9
2. Friendly - 99.8
3. Authentic - 99.8
4. Fun - 99.6
5. Original - 99.5
6. Cares/Customers - 99.4
7. Innovative - 99.4
8. Unique - 98.7
9. Trustworthy - 94.8

When I get my scanner working later today, I will scan and upload the flyers that I was given while at the show. After the jump, you can find more statitics on Disney products and there consumers. Read the rest of this entry »

• Sup yall #

According to cellpassion, AT&T’s pulling a similar move as Apple did last year, disallowing any employee vacations for a period from June 15 to July 12. If this is true, there’s only one reason why AT&T would do this: the 3G iPhone. Why did they pick June 15 when the keynote for WWDC is June 9? Beats me. It seems more and more likely that the phone is coming, however, so don’t buy anything until after June unless you want to be a sad sack. [Cellpassion]