FYI: As a whole Asian cultures are quite flashy, showy and status oriented.

Texting while driving is pretty dumb actually and I've seen many people do it here in NZ. So is trying to talk on the phone, without a hands-free device, even though I have done it on the rare occasion.

I agree, Haywood, a lot of fashion is total crap these days; putting outlandish clothing on pale, sickly looking stick-children, and marching them down the runway without a smile on their faces, isn't really helping the situation either.

Nice! Once they work the battery life, and noise issues out, then all they need do is come up with a way for this thing to fire Cyanide micro-darts. This little birdy would be the prefect assassin bot!

Although his posing is a bit goofy at times, I do like James' dress sense.

Hi Chris,

I'm an American living in New Zealand also. And, I've been here for the last ten years.

In a lot of ways NZ is a bit behind in terms of infrastructure. I'll agree with you on that. We pay shocking prices, for what we get, when it comes to Internet services. And, don't even get me started about cellular services pricing down here - it's ridiculous.

To that person that was going on about being able to buy a big house by the sea for what one would pay for a 1 room flat in other major cities: Not in Auckland you can't. The average house price seems to hovering at ~$400K(NZ) at the moment.

Oh, great! Just what I've always wanted: glass sperm swimming around in my bloodstream!

All hail our new nanite overlords!

I just wanted to add: Although Rihanna probably has millions in the bank now, she wont work forever. Also, management fees, music production cost and touring cost are all paid for by her - through recoupment - not the record companies. So, if she's not very careful, she could find herself being flat broke once she falls out of favour with the public and her career ends. And, it's not a question of "if" this is going to happen to her, but "when".

I have to agree with you, Global. The place is nice, but not $20K/month nice! However, with it being on Manhattan, I understand how they can get away with charging that much for it.

Anyway, at 20K/month that would be 240K/year for the rental. I wonder how much the place would cost to buy outright? If I were Rihanna, I would be thinking along those lines instead, as it would be a better use of the money.

I agree with you 100%, Economyst. Apple's reasons for not implementing 3rd party app multitasking sound like a con job to me. And, I'm pretty sure that their Push system is indeed another way for them to generate revenue and maintain total control over the iPhone ecosystem.

I have a Symbian S60 phone here (128 MB RAM/330 MHz ARM 11) and it handles 3rd party app multitasking just fine without any serious impact on battery life; unless I'm doing some comms related like 3G streaming, Wifi and GPS or heavy A/V processing like watching a high-res movie. I've had the thing loaded up with 10+ apps running in the background and it just keeps on going without breaking a sweat.