Do you know what does "MDA" mean? For some, "MDA" may stand for "Missile Defence Agency," for others - MacDonald Dettwiler, a Canadian company, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Manufacturing Defect Analyzer, and I could go on for a while, but I won't. Why? Well, we're here to talk about the Mobile Data Association and the iPhone. To be more precise, the iPhone just got a prize for its design from MDA, and that's something to talk about, for sure!

To get an MDA Award is not such a minor achievement, but it shouldn't come as a surprise the fact that Apple's Senior VP of Industrial Design got one. The product designed to get this prize? The iPhone, of course! I know it may not sound as expected, but I am not quite happy with this. For me, the iPhone is an innovative product, but its design is not that out-of-this-world. Anyway, let's get to it, shall we?
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For its "outstanding contribution to the uptake and success of mobile data over the last 12 months," Apple's Jonathan Ive won the MDA Personal Achievement Award. To be more accurate, this was a recognition of his effort in creating the "design of the Apple iPhone and its user interface," which "sets the bar very high for all present and future competitors and as such, is shaking the mobile phone industry."

Well, no matter what I think, the only thing I can say is "Congratulations!" If you have any other design in mind, that should have got the prize, please step forward and let us all know!

The closer we get to the iPhone 3G release date, the better we can get an idea on the service prices all over the world, as new information keeps popping up. After we found out what's the cheapest iPhone 3G plan, as well as pricing for Canada, Sweden and Norway, now the time has come to hear about Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark and Finland. Are you ready? Let's go!

Since I don't want to spoil the surprise of the best iPhone plan today, I'll start with Netherlands and Denmark, leaving Switzerland and Finland for later. Which one of those two has the cheapest iPhone 3G plan, that's what remains to be seen, but now...

...let's see what's in for those in Netherlands, first of all. T-Mobile, the local service provider for Apple's iPhone 3G, has come up with 3 plans, starting with a $48 one, including 150 minutes, 150 SMS messages and unlimited data. With it, you can get the 8GB iPhone for $127, or the 16GB model, for $254. The $71 plan gives you twice as more minutes and text messages, and the iPhones are priced at $1.58 and $127, for the 8GB and 16GB models, of course. The high-end plan is worth $103, offering the 8GB iPhone for the same price, the 16GB one for only $32, and including 500 minutes, 500 SMS messages and unlimited data.<-120x240 Vertical Banner - right->

In Denmark, Telia made things very simple, but also pretty expensive, having only one iPhone 3G plan, priced at $128. For this amount, you will get 300 minutes, unlimited SMS messages, unlimited calls to other Telia subscribers, and 300MB of data, and the 8GB iPhone 3G for $298, while the 16GB model comes for $426. Ouch! The "good" part is that, after six months, you can cancel the contract, and if you want to keep it, you will get a discount for the monthly fee, taking it down to $85. Still too much, in my opinion...way too much!

Now, the best plan today - Switzerland's Swisscom offers a $25 service plan, with the 8GB iPhone 3G coming for $245, and the 16GB one, for $343. For this price, you get only 100MB of data, and you should pay 68 cents for each hour of talk time. There are also two other plans available, for $34 and $54, all of the three ones available requiring a 24-month contract, and including visual voicemail and free access to over 1,100 hotspots across the country.

At last, we have Finland's Sonera, with plans starting at $50, up to $142. The low-end one includes 100 minutes, 100 SMS messages and 100 MB of data, and gives you the 8GB iPhone 3G for $250, and the 16GB one for $385, while the most expensive plan available comes with 1000 minutes, 1000 SMS messages, and 1000MB of data, and $1.58/$134 for the two iPhone 3G models.

These being said, we're one step closer to the iPhone 3G already...less than 9 days remaining!

When talking about mobile news, it's funny to see that, basically, we have "iPhone news," and "the others." Ok, I may be exaggerating here, but don't you think there's simply too much noise about the iPhone and the upcoming iPhone 3G? After all, this is only a phone! Yes, a phone, but not just another phone - an iPhone, so here's what we have on it, and a few related things, today...

One interesting thing is that, if your friends want to send you get some iPhones for them, too, that won't be possible. According to AT&T, only one iPhone 3G per person in line. What a pity!

When it comes to synchronizing your information, iTunes can take care of moving stuff from your old iPhone to the new one. Just be sure to sync the one you have now with iTunes, then sync the new one with iTunes, to get things moving.<-125x125 Button - right->

Existing voicemails will probably be lost, so be careful to record those you want to keep for eternity before switching. According to AT&T, "Any existing voicemail messages will be lost once your new phone is activated."

Rumors regarding the imminent arrival of the new iPhone 3G are also leading us into thinking that the iPod line will get a refresh these days, because iPod stocks seem to be running low, and since the products are not discontinued, probably new models are waiting to jump in, as soon as the iPhone 3G frenzy calms down a bit. Lehman Brothers analyst Ben Reizes claims no less than 3.6 million iPhone 3Gs will be sold this summer, and no less than 23 million for the entire 2009.

To close this article and get to a different story while doing it, I will say that a small patent holding firm, Saxon Innovations LLC, just filed a lawsuit accusing Apple, Acer, Dell, Gateway and HP of knowingly treading on 4 of their patents for encrypted wireless signals and other things. Apple didn't comment anything yet...

I always enjoy well done product presentations and hands-on reviews. When talking about Apple's iPhone, it's always a pleasure to watch it in action. Now, everyone is waiting to see the iPhone 3G in action, obviously. Since we're getting closer and closer to the official release date, there's no surprise to see Apple showing up with new materials related to the iPhone 3G, and what could be better than a video guided tour?

Anyway, until we get to Apple's guided tour, let's see what happens in AT&T's back yard, shall we? First, you should check the AT&T YouTube video channel. The reason will reveal itself as soon as you have loaded the page, but you should also spend a few minutes checking the iPhone 3G pricing page on their site, just to make sure everything's official...

Now, to the Apple iPhone 3G guided tours(yeah, there are two of them, not only one!)... The last one was added less than a day ago, and I think best thing to do now is go through the highlights of the tours, since they answer some frequently asked questions about the iPhone 3G.

- The iPhone 3G comes with GPS, new metal buttons, upgraded speakers and microphone, all mentioned in the videos.<-125x125 Button - right->

- When talking about software, the "Interactive City Guides" is the best part for now, but I am sure we'll get a bunch of games to makes us forget about that PSP...

- Unfortunately for those hoping that this may be possible, the iPhone 3G won't be available online from the Apple Store. The official Apple website will offer a list of retail stores for those interested, and that's all.

Well, that's all for now. Less than 10 days remaining to the official release in the wild of the iPhone 3G...

The Mac Pros are very  powerful machines, and their design won't ever make you ashamed of the animal below(or ON) your desk. The Mac Pro has always been a great rig to own, even back in the day when it was known as the Power Mac G5, and used the PowerPC 970 CPU. Anyway, today they are using Intel processors, just like the other Macs Apple has in the portfolio, but one thing has been missing in the last years - a Blu-Ray drive. The good part is that now, this issue has just been left behind!

Currently, the Mac Pro computers available feature one optical drive, the 16× SuperDrive (multiple DVD write formats), and to be more accurate, the Pioneer DVR-111D or Sony DW-D150A are the only choices available. Fortunately, a second optical drive is optional. Thanks to MCE Technologies, the Blu-Ray for Mac is finally here!

Since the name is not quite an original one - SuperDrive...another SuperDrive? Well, that could surely cause some confusion! Why not...BlueDrive? Well, whatever, let's see what this beauty can do, apart from - as you can see in the picture - being blue, shall we?<-125x125 Button - left->

Able to burn 25GB single layer and 50GB dual-layer Blu-Ray discs, the MCE Super Drive features 6X Blu-Ray write speeds and 16X DVD recording speed. It fully supports Lightscribe, and can play both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD media.

All fine, until we get to the painful part of the whole deal - the price. I know it comes with Toast 8 Titanium and a 25GB Blu-Ray rewritable disc, but a SRP of $699??? Not my thing, thank you! Anyway, I am sure that, if you really need a Blu-Ray unit on your Mac Pro, $699 won't be that much, after all, but for me, the DVD is still the right path to follow.