“This is Steve Jobs. You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.”

What followed was Jobs setting the record straight and spilling the beans about his health.

After agreeing to an off-the-record conversation, Jobs proceeded to tell Nocera that he didn't have cancer. All he had, what made him look thinner than usual, was something else that wasn't threatening his life. Nocera revealed this in a NYT article today, arguing that, while Jobs is not obligated by law to disclose his personal health as CEO of Apple, he should do it, for the interest of investors.

Should he really?

For sure, Steve Jobs' health is extremely important to Wall Street. After all, Jobs' unique vision is credited as the main factor of Apple's success. At least, that's the legend. A legend created by writers and analysts, who love to embellish history and make heroes (and villians) ignoring many other factors and actual history.

The truth is that, while there's no doubt that Steve Jobs is The Man, people should also look at all the facts. Like any complex system, like Apple, there are many variables that have contributed to the company's success during these years, starting with luck but, above all, the talent of the rest of the directors (Schiller, Rubinstein, Ive, to name a few) and, specially, the amazing engineers working at Apple, along with the hard work and dedication of the rest of employees.

But let's forget about the pure facts. Let's trash any logical analysis and assume that Steve is the only guy responsible for Apple success.

Should he disclose his health then, for the sake of the stock?

He doesn't have to.

His health doesn't have to be a public matter because he is perceived as the Hero who resurrected Apple. Not only because that's not entirely true, and Apple is not Steve, but "Steve + A Whole Lot More," but because private health is something that only concerns to the individual and his freedom, independently of his role in companies and societies.

You don't have to go far to see clear examples of this, and how not disclosing a medical condition didn't affect the course of anything (actually, quite the contrary.) Take US presidents, for example. Was FDR less of a president because he hid his medical condition from the American public? What about John F. Kennedy, who never disclosed his Addison's disease, even when asked specifically about it?

The answer is clear. FDR and JFK were in much higher positions, with much greater power, and in extremely difficult situations. Situations that would have really changed the world. Yet, they didn't disclose their medical conditions. They didn't make people lose. On the contrary, they made people win. One won a war and the other took us to the Moon. And what's more, it wasn't—and it isn't—illegal for them to hide it: it's not a crime for a president not to disclose everything about his or her health. In fact, it's their right not to disclose it.

So, if people with a lot more responsibility than Jobs kept their medical life secret, why should the Apple CEO disclose all the details about his, specially when these details are not about a life-threatening illness? Because of the investors? Because of a journalist who wants to tell a BIG story? Nocera argues, like some analysts, that it would be a disaster for Apple's stock and that's why people should be kept on the loop.

I disagree. And I think that anyone who values their private life, the most intimate part of themselves, their own bodies, would agree too, no matter if you are a fanboy, a hateboy, a journalist or an investor.

What's more: the fact is that I don't believe investors would leave Apple if Jobs leaves. Watching the people there now, watching how the iPhone steamrolls the competition, the iPod and iTunes and the Mac keep growing, people will stay. Probably some speculators will sell at first. After all, we are all human and have emotional reactions. But, after a while, it would be just fine. And one day, if thec company as a whole fails, then the company will die. But many companies have survived many CEOs as talented as Jobs. IBM didn't die. Disney didn't die. Sony didn't die.

As brilliant as Steve Jobs is, Apple will survive him. Personally, I just hope that he'll stay for as long as he wants. He's good for the industry and the world, because what Apple does keeps pushing technology forward. Hopefully he'll leave because he wants to, to live a long life, and not because of any illness.

But if he leaves because of a fatal illness, I'm positive that he'll step down and the board will elect someone else. Like they did before. That will be business as usual. Just like business was normal when he was off for cancer surgery and treatment. Nothing happened, everything worked as expected.

Until that day, Steve Jobs has the right to keep his medical records private for as long as he wants. Like FDR. Like JFK. Like any single person in this country and in the world. It's our right, as humans, to do so, as recognized by the United Nations.

And common sense. [NYT]

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All the phones are going to the direct fulfillment program, so don't expect to just walk into a store and buy one. They're not getting them, and won't, until the shortage is over:

We hope to begin re-stocking our stores as soon as we can, but first priority goes to those customers who purchased through direct fulfillment.

Our advice? If you've gotta have one NOW, take Friday off, drive to an Apple Store before it opens, and make an urban camping trip out of it—bring beef jerky, a fishing pole (to fend off panhandlers) and guitar to sing Kumbaya, which, with any luck, will drive people out of line. [AT&T]

AT&T is not currently planning to use this tech to manipulate current iPhone apps (Contacts? Maps? Mail?) but instead will deploy it in web services for a number of net-enabled handsets. This is a somewhat curious choice for AT&T, but it would be difficult to implement system-wide speech recognition without either modifying existing apps or running a (currently disallowed) background service to catch commands. Speech Mashups will be an interesting service for the other handsets it shows up on, but they already have simple voice commands. By building secondary voice capabilities like this for a phone without basic ones, AT&T has inadvertently highlighted one of Apple's most irritating restrictions on iPhone development. [Gadget Lab]

It makes sense that Microsoft is going for a more conceptual ad here, rather than tick off a list of everything that people should perceive Vista is good at (they already do that on the page the ad points to). I can think of a lot of other future installments, like "At one point, everyone thought witches walked among us" or "At one point, people thought they could turn lead into gold," or "At one point, people thought that it was a good idea to shit into ditches alongside the city streets." The campaign basically writes itself—why don't you guys give is a whirl. [ZDNet via CrunchGear]

"We have not made any announcement regarding free Wi-Fi and iPhone. The webpage was posted in error and is being removed. Wi-Fi is a real differentiator for AT&T and it is our intention to make it available to as many customers as possible, but we have no announcement at this time."

Can you just make up your mind then? [GigaOm]

Nice. I called the manager whose name is listed at the bottom of the documents, and he told me that he had emailed the articles to his employees but in no way intended for them to copy them and hand them out to customers. Instead, they were meant to be used as talking points for getting sales in stores where the iPhone wasn't available.

It's understandable for a retail operation to try to get sales when what the customer came in for isn't available. What's less understandable is laughing at customers and handing this kind of thing out to try to discourage them from buying their carrier's flagship phone.

If there's anything that we can learn from this, it's this: AT&T won't ever have the unified face that Apple store employees do if they're going to have third party stands with third party phone lineups. Also, don't buy phones from stands in malls in New Jersey.

Garmin’s Touchscreen Oregon™ Series Gives
Outdoor Enthusiasts the World at their Fingertips

OLATHE, Kan./July 10, 2008/PR Newswire — Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd.
(NASDAQ: GRMN), the global leader in satellite navigation, today introduced the Oregon series of
handheld GPS devices for outdoor, marine and fitness enthusiasts, combining an intuitive
touchscreen interface, rugged, resilient design and a variety of preloaded mapping options.

“The Oregon’s vibrant screen is responsive to the touch of your finger, yet resistant to the forces of
nature,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “Combining the touchscreen
interface of our iconic automotive devices with the preloaded features of the acclaimed Colorado
series makes this the ultimate outdoor handheld.”

Easy to learn and simple to use, the waterproof Oregon features a high-sensitivity GPS receiver,
preloaded mapping and a high-resolution, color 3-inch screen that reacts as users tap or drag
through menus and options. On a mountain or an ocean, satellite reception is even faster than
before thanks to Garmin’s new HotFixTM feature, which automatically calculates and stores critical
satellite information and can use that information to quickly calculate a position without waiting for
data collection from the satellites.

The Oregon 400t gives hikers preloaded U.S. topographic maps in state-of-the-art 3D elevation
perspective. The Oregon 400i offers anglers shoreline details, depth contours and boat ramps for
U.S. inland lakes and navigable rivers. The Oregon 400c is a saltwater specialist, providing chart
coverage for the coastal U.S. and Bahamas. The Oregon 300 features a worldwide basemap with
shaded relief. The Oregon 200 provides a basemap that can be easily supplemented with
additional mapping or charts for your adventures on land or at sea.

Garmin knows its users have many interests, so the Oregon lets you customize five profiles —
automotive, marine, recreation, fitness or geocaching — making the most beneficial features for
each activity the easiest to access through quick shortcuts.

The Oregon series plays well with others, as the 400t, 400c, 400i and 300 allow for wireless
exchange of tracks, waypoints and geocaches between other Oregon units and Colorado models.
Each of these models is equipped with a barometric altimeter and electronic compass and is
compatible with Garmin’s heart-rate monitors and speed/cadence sensors.

Geocaching is even easier with the Oregon, which quickly downloads online information for every
cache, such as location, terrain, difficulty, hints and description, so that you don’t have to tote
printouts with you. Cachers and collectors will be hunting for a limited-edition geocoin minted to
commemorate the launch of the Oregon series. Oregon users can experience Wherigo™, the
newest GPS-based activity from Groundspeak, the people who made geocaching a worldwide
phenomenon. Wherigo (pronounced "where I go") is a toolset for creating and completing
adventure games, historical tours or other innovative activities in the real world.

Weighing only 6.8 ounces with 16 hours of life from two AA batteries, the Oregon has a microSD
card slot that is ideal for loading additional MapSource detail. For more about the Oregon’s
features, pricing and availability, go to www.garmin.com and www.garmin.blogs.com.

[GPSTracklog]

Ooohh, skins! [cellphonesignal]

[AT&T Video Log]

We just learned that AT&T's policy of allowing current iPhone owners a subsidized upgrade—even though they're only as most one year into their two-year contracts—quite literally applies to current iPhone owners. That means that if you sold your iPhones recently in order to raise money for the new one, you might be out of luck. And by out of luck, we mean you have to pay the unsubsidized price ($399 for 8GB and $499 for 16GB) in order to upgrade to the iPhone 3G, not the $199 and $299 you thought you were going to pay. Let us explain.

We've confirmed from an AT&T rep that if you aren't using the iPhone, then by definition you aren't an iPhone customer. That makes you a regular AT&T customer with regular upgrade qualifications. How does AT&T know whether or not you're using the iPhone currently? Well, when you stick your old SIM into a new phone, they can detect exactly what you're using even if you haven't switched your plan to something else besides the iPhone plan. Bottom line is, you should go to AT&T and use their eligibility checker to see if you qualify. If you're really lucky, you only sold your phone recently and you haven't gotten around to sticking your SIM into something else.

First dilemma: Apple Store or AT&T?
The Apple Store is way cooler than any AT&T shop, so that's where the zealots, cool kids and attention whores will be lining up. But according to Gary at the ultimate Apple retail blog ifoAppleStore, they're also going to have the most stock (logically). His guess is that, based on the original iPhone's first three days of sales, "each of Apple's 217 stores should be receiving between 750 and 1,000 handsets for sale this time." Happily, you'll be able to check a store's next-day stock every night after 9PM.

If you're getting an enterprise plan, your choice is made for you too: You have to hit an AT&T store. But there may be other reasons to go to AT&T instead of Apple. AT&T's stock per store won't be as heavy as Apple's (Apple's controlling distribution, so they're going to favor themselves, naturally) but Gary says AT&T's allotment will be better than last time. AT&T wouldn't comment on how many per store, but Gary thinks north of 50-75, even in the boondocks, and another source tells us 100-250. Though AT&T wouldn't comment on the spread, logically, stores in more populated areas are going to get more. Our advice here is to plan and scout ahead: Drive by on the night before, or just early in the morning, and see if there are lines. If the AT&T store is surrounded by coffee shops and boutiques and has a line running down the block, maybe try one in a sketchier neighborhood. Oh, and no, you can't just skip the lines and order it online, at least for now. There's no word on when you'll be able to, either.

If you want a white iPhone, you may be out of luck: AT&T confirmed they would have both 8GB and 16GB models, but could not confirm they will have the white iPhone 3G. In fact, based on the fact that UK reports say there isn't a white iPhone in the whole of the British Isles, we're gonna go on a limb and say that either a) the white iPhone isn't available at launch, or b) it's going to be a devil to track down, like those pink iPod minis way back when. Best bet there is to hit the biggest Apple Store you can find, and sweet talk your way towards the front of the line. But there's no guarantee. We asked Apple, but predictably we have not heard back on this matter.

Camping out
If you're deadset on purchasing the JesusPhone 3G under the warm glow of the divine, you might just have to camp it out. Here's Giz's list of essentials:
• Laptop with lots of spare batteries (a solar generator if you can hack it) and a 3G card
• Beef jerky and Cliff bars (compact, easy energy)
• Adult diaper
• A friend you can pay to wait in line for you
• Patience, deodorant (more for us, than for you)

You made it inside!
AT&T has confirmed it's one per customer, period. No official word from Apple, but since they're actually sort of in sync here, we expect it'll be the same. Here's what you'll need when you get to the counter, straight from Apple: credit card, social security number, valid government-issued photo ID and, if you're new to AT&T, your current wireless account number and PIN. That's right boys and girls, no cash. And don't forget to sync your old iPhone one last time before you roll in.

Despite reports suggesting the contrary, AT&T has reiterated to us that you will have to activate in store. Like really, it don't get much plainer: "YOU MUST LEAVE THE STORE WITH THE PHONE ACTIVATED." They estimate it'll take 15 minutes. Apple's page also refers only to in-store activation, which they say will be mercifully over "in just a few minutes." Update: Apple retail chief Ron Johnson confirms in-store activation only at Apple Stores, while shattering our nimbler expectations by repeating the 10-15 minute blurb.

If you get there too late and it's sold out, don't hurt yourself (or others). At least at AT&T stores, you can go ahead and pay for the iPhone 3G, and they'll call you when it comes in. Then you can go to the store and activate it. Last year after the initial stock ran out, most people got their phone by the following Wednesday via 2nd day air, so we expect this year there will probably a fresh shipment pretty soon after initial run.

Don't fall for this stuff:
AT&T has told us they've taken steps to ensure you won't be forced by a rogue manager to buy an accessory bundle to get your iPhone 3G. You never have to buy an accessory pack. If someone pulls that on you, call them on it. If they insist, back out, report their ass to corporate and let us know. It's BS, so don't get screwed. Also, there isn't an iPhone insurance plan from AT&T. If they offer to protect your iPhone 3G for $100, it's a scam. Period.

Something we left out? Let us know and we'll update (they'll be at the bottom). Good luck and godspeed!

Update 1, Re: Family Plans: AT&T tells us that "the person in line who is buying the device must be the person who is paying for the device. If the person in line is buying for a FamilyTalk plan, the people who will get the device must be in line."

Update 2: You'll be able to check an Apple Store's next-day stock every night at 9PM.

[Yanko Design]

There's a chance you won't, actually, see this TV in a few years, at least served up from AT&T. Only 379,000 subscribers are currently hooked up to U-Verse TV, and it's not available to a whole lot more than that. Rollout is slow. But listening to Peter Hill, VP of voice and converged services, talk about what the company is working on for U-verse, you'd never know that everything he was showing me was just for a tiny, privileged sliver of TV viewers. (BTW, for a great hands-on cable vs. U-verse review to see what they're getting, check out this piece.)

The first thing I spot—and ask about—when I walk in is the Xbox 360 on the shelf, a ghostly reminder of the promise of a ubiquitous IPTV box. The status? Microsoft and AT&T have to "come to terms" on it. Whatever that means, but the shaky laughter dotting our exchange implies you'll probably never see it in the States. On to the real show.

Integration is the key to AT&T's IPTV vision—integration with the internet, with your home network and media, integration with AT&T's services. But that doesn't mean TV itself is taking a backseat. Whole home DVR is arriving soon, so that one DVR box will stream content to any and every TV on the network (currently, only the TV directly jacked into the DVR can play back DVR content). You'll totally be able to pause something in one room, and pick it back up in another. With whole-home DVR, the box will be able to simultaneously stream eight feeds to every TV in your house: Three hi-def plus one standard-def stream from the DVR, plus 2 HD and 2 SD streams of live programming. All those TVs are getting all that content from one box. (For the nerds, each HD stream is encoded in MPEG-4, running at a variable bit rate that hovers around 6.5Mbps. The U-verse pipe is built on a 25Mbps profile, which is divvied up by high-end QoS for TV and your internet.)

Next, we go into some of the media sharing stuff, which probably looks familiar to anyone with an Xbox 360 or media extender since U-Verse uses Microsoft's IPTV platform. Music, movies, pictures, streamed to your TV from a standard Windows Vista or Media Center PC on the network—basic, but nice, since this is all just pumping into your set-top box. They've also got TVersity running off their network, which basically will stream anything to any device with a web browser, be it PSP or iPhone. It's running over Wi-Fi and it's actually damn snappy. I'm not really sure how this fits into the IPTV platform, other than their vision of a totally networked home.

All of this is "six to nine months" ahead of the field now. So, you could expect this stuff in the next year, though it's not officially announced yet. It's all about mainstreaming media streaming and sharing—a baby step, but probably necessarily to get, say, your parents ready for what's coming after it. This is when Peter pops on the "ultra-bleeding edge box" though he warns me none of this is actually guaranteed to become a TV reality.

Fire up the box. Welcome to Peter's favorites. Yep, like Sezmi, everyone gets their own personalized TV setup, with recommendations, favorites, etc. You can also log in and control the set-top box from the iPhone, like a sweet multi-touch remote. It's running over Wi-Fi and it's as responsive as any other remote control. But you know, sexier. An app for streaming to the iPhone? Not yet, I'm told, since there are "certain areas of the iPhone" where "Apple is keeping the experience..." "Controlled?" I volunteered.

It's a good transition to the more internet-y stuff they've got going on. Integrated RSS feeds—you can read Giz on your TV and have it not look like crap! Video RSS feeds are where it's at though, like a feed of CNN clips that constantly refreshes. It's like Headline News, without the waiting. Course, it can also pull in YouTube, though I'm more interested in Hulu.

Here's where AT&T benefits from being AT&T here, with your phone jacked into your set-top box. Maybe more "cool" than critical. A message asking for a video share call from a local Atlanta 404 number appears on the screen. Caller ID on the TV. We smack yes, and we're looking through the eyes of an LG Glimmer on our TV. Yeah, it looks like shit on the 60-inch DLP set, but it really works. Next, I call Peter's cell and leave a voice mail. A few seconds later, we're informed by the TV we've got a new voicemail waiting, so we flip over to a list of incoming calls. We can remotely check out the voicemail or add the contact to our address book.

The finale: It's basically Twitter TV. You jump into a chat room with your friends (or invite them) and you can bleat out IMs that are collected on a timeline as you watch Leonidas atomically kick effeminate Persians into bottomless pits. And lest you were worried about text-typing via a crappy remote control, I actually used an iPhone to input the text. Later you can go back and scour the conversation timeline like regular IM, looking for a nugget of insight that might've accidentally slipped out during the orgy of violence (or whatever else you and your friends are simultaneously watching). BTW, the cheesy avatars will be updated to look less like late-'90s Messenger, I'm told.

While these are all, by themselves, just little bits of coolness, taken together, it is a shift from the mostly passive way we watch TV. We actively time and place-shift now, but once we're plopped in front of the screen, input from us stops, despite decades of prediction that TV would become more and more interactive. U-Verse is not wholly revolutionary, but it's a stride toward true TV 2.0, with content from multiple sources, fueled by the internet. TV's got to do something, after all—there's less and less reason to be drawn to that particular idiot box, when there are so many boxes out there for so many different kinds of idiots. Of course, cable's got its own ideas about the future of TV, and soon we'll be looking into that too.

Actually, AT&T has told us that there will be no limiting difference between the two stores, except one thing. If you are a business or enterprise customer, then you should buy your iPhone from AT&T. Here are the full details on business scenarios:

For those business, or enterprise customers, they will get their iPhone 3Gs through their normal IT processes. This will ensure that their business can take advantage of any corporate discounts that may apply.

Activation will work [one of two] ways:

— If your company pays the bill for your iPhone 3G: Your IT department will provide you with iPhone 3G, just as it does any other device. Then, all you need to do is sync it to iTunes from your computer and it will be good to go. You do not need to go to an AT&T retail store.

— If you pay the bill and are reimbursed for it by your company: Buy the iPhone in an AT&T retail store. Give the salesperson your company's contract number with AT&T and the device will be activated.

And if you're still wondering about details like pricing, be sure to hit up the FAQ.

But first, the basics. The difference between the TV you're used to and this fancy IPFreelyTV stuff is that IPTV is delivered to you like any other data sent over the internet—in data packets. You even plug an Ethernet cable into your receiver box/DVR. Of course, the internet's a messy place with lots of muck bouncing around the pipes and you'd be really pissed if the Yankees game stuttered or crapped out, so this is all running on the telco's "walled garden" network with a fat, dedicated lane for video. (Your internet service, which is bundled since it's running on the same network, runs on a different lane, delineated by quality-of-service, or QoS, protocols.)

Now that that's out of the way, back to why its good for HD. With a standard cable setup, the channels are basically always being piped into your home, whether you're watching or not. To add more channels, they've gotta compress 'em down farther or open the pipe up, especially since HD eats up a lot of bandwidth. Since IPTV is sent in regular ol' data packets and the system is two-way (the nature of internet protocol), they're basically only sending what you ask for, when you ask for it. So theoretically, they could offer way more HD channels than cable, since they're not as limited here. Also, like that mythical Xbox 360 IPTV box, the number of streams you can watch/record simultaneously is basically only limited by your bandwidth.

The two-wayness of the infrastructure is another point of awesomeness. It can be used for actually useful interactivity—one of AT&T's apps for the Olympics can bring in a stats feed you can check out while watching the game. Or regular internet video, like YouTube, can be piped in and integrated with the other video on your box. It's all just regular data over standard internet protocols, so there's a lot of flexibility to do stuff you simply can't with a traditional setup.

The problem is that building the infrastructure necessary for IPTV service is slow and expensive, largely cause it requires a heavy fiber optic component. Verizon runs fiber all the way to your door (which is why it can offer those crazy FiOS internet speeds), while AT&T runs it to the node, which you're then connected to with copper and (which is why U-Verse internet is slower). So right now, both have puny subscriber numbers—1.2 million FiOS TV customers, and a scant 379,000 on U-Verse TV.

Still, there's a lot of potential in IPTV, even if it's taking forever to get to your doorstep. AT&T actually showed me some of the stuff that could be at your door in the 6-9 months—and beyond—and it's definitely worth getting excited about. We'll be telling you all about it later.

Something we missed, or you still wanna know? Send any questions about IPs, TVs, chewing gum or anything else to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

The mini-notebook market is heating up, with today bringing stats and shots of the Asus's latest Eee PC with its tiny screen and keys that might work with normal hands. Then later, we get news of a leak about Everex, Asus's competitor in this market, about its next Cloudbooks, including one with a 10.2-inch screen and 3G connectivity, and another with an 8.9-inch screen and WiMax.

No definite word on if they'll be using Intel's Atom processors or competitors from Via, or if they'll be XP or Linux machines, but the makers of the reference design, FIC, would confirm a screen resolution on the 10.2-inch model at 1024x600. It will also feature a 1.3-Megapixel camera, 2GB RAM, card reader, dual USB 2.0 and an express card slot.

Less details are known of the 8.9-inch model, though the specs should be similar, including resolution. The devices might be subsidized by 3G carriers like AT&T or Sprint—if they ever hit the US shores, which there's no promise of.

We liked the Cloudbooks we've seen so far, and we can't wait to see if a slightly larger model will actually be usable for those of us with big, bear-like hands. [PC Advisor, via Slashgear]

$299 - 16GB iPhone w/contract
$36 - Activation
$175 - Early Termination Fee
$70 - One month of service

Total Price Using The Shady Method: $580

So...

8GB iPhone Canceled: $480
16GB iPhone Canceled: $580
8GB iPhone Unlocked from AT&T: $599
16GB iPhone Unlocked from AT&T: $699

Are we missing something?