TUAW fan George sent us a link to some video he shot earlier today at the grand opening of the Apple Store Union Square in Aberdeen, Scotland.

The video is fun; not only is there the usual high-fiving and applause as customers enter the new store, but one of the Apple employees is wearing a kilt and there was a kilted piper entertaining the folks in line.

In other Apple Store news, reader Christophe pointed us to exclusive photos on Macgeneration of the interior of the new Louvre store in Paris, France, which is scheduled to open on November 7th, 2009. That store will be the first Apple Store in France.

Apple's plans to dominate the European computer and consumer electronics market continue to bear watching, as these new Apple Stores are bound to increase international sales to impressive new levels.

The day is Thursday, October 22nd. You're in Scottsdale, Arizona, and you walk into a brand new store being opened by a multinational corporation that produces technology products, including popular operating systems for computers and mobile phones, music/media players, and 'cloud' email and storage services for consumers.

As you walk into the store, employees in brightly-colored t-shirts cheer and applaud. The store is spacious, with large wooden tables placed far enough apart that the opening-day crowd, standing on a hardwood floor, isn't packed into the place. At the back of the store is an "Answer Bar," where you can ask questions about the operating system on your computer.

No, Apple didn't open a new Apple Store in Scottsdale on the 22nd. Instead, this was the opening of the first Microsoft Store. As expected, the stores draw heavily on the highly successful Apple Store concept; the stores are opening near Apple Stores, the former real estate chief for Apple (George Blankenship) was hired to consult on location and placement of the stores, and Microsoft has even attempted to hire away Apple Store managers to run their retail outlets.

The personal shoppers are a blatant rip-off of Apple's Concierge concept, and Personal Training is an echo of Apple's One-to-One training. The Microsoft Store website has similarities to the pages for individual Apple Stores, down to a scrolling list of in-store classes and events (the list for the Scottsdale store is empty at this time).

It's fascinating to see that Microsoft has decided to copycat the Apple Store concept, but it remains to be seen if the execution will be as successful for Microsoft as it has been for Apple.

[via MacRumors]

Remember Pete's FishCam? Just before Christmas of 2008, we did a short post about Pete Raumann's web app that he developed that allowed him to watch his fish tank, turn the light on and off, and even open and close a treasure chest in the tank.

Pete's now presenting the newly renamed TankedCam to the world, and you get to be in control! While he still won't let you feed his fish (he doesn't want them floating upside down in the tank), you can now get in on the fun of watching and annoying the tank population by heading to either http://www.tankedcam.com or the iPhone / iPod touch-friendly http://m.tankedcam.com.

In his latest hit video, Pete uses an iPod touch and the latter link to control the tank that's in the background. I was playing with this last night while watching TV and trust me, the fish tank was much more interesting than the show. Pete has added an air stone that you can turn on and off, a dinosaur tank ornament with a mouth you can open and close, and one cam that you can pan left and right. A tap on your iPhone screen brings you to a stationary upper camera with a scuba diver that you can control in real time, another air stone controller, and a water pump that you can use to add water to the tank.

If you think that the latter control is going to let you flood Pete's office from your iPhone, you're wrong -- the system is set up with a level controller so you won't be able to add water beyond a certain level in the tank. This is a fun demonstration of remote control via iPhone, so be sure to give it a try. I've included some screenshots from last night's eerily-lit iPhone fish-bothering session, as well as some shots in the light of day. Enjoy!

Here's an earworm for you; hip-hop group FattySpins recorded a love song to ladies and to all things Apple, and filmed the video (above) at the landmark Apple Store Fifth Avenue.

The song manages to not only encompass a lot of Apple products in its lyrics, but also manages to poke some good fun at Microsoft. I mean, you've gotta love lyrics like:

"I know how to treat you – this ain't a reboot
I'll never find the need to Control ALT Delete you
I see no reason to mess with these slobs
Cause they're like Bill Gates... and I'm Steve Jobs"

The Apple Store Love Song was written and produced by Ray William Johnson, the likable nebbish with the glasses in the video. There's no word on whether or not Apple is going to hire him to produce catchy viral raps for future ads.

[via CrunchGear]

Were you watching the two-hour season premiere of House last night on Fox? Maybe you were watching one of the other prime-time shows, but if you had your eyes on the screen during some of the commercial breaks, you probably saw at least one of the three new iPhone ads that hit the airwaves last night.

Each of the new ads highlights a total of six apps, up from the three that were formerly the focus of the older ads. The first ad I saw last night, "Dine," looks at Zagat to Go, QuickOffice, TripCase, New York Subway 09, Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List, and Gap Style Mixer. [Note: all app links will open the iTunes App Store]

The next ad I viewed was "Nature," featuring iXpenseIt, Daily Finance, Guitar Toolkit, Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook, iBird Explorer Plus, and the ever-popular Pizza Hut app. I didn't get a chance to see the third advertisement, "Pass," until I visited the Apple website this morning. It's a 30-second quick look at Fandango, G-Park, VocabWiz College Vocabulary, 365 Crosswords, Classics, and ABC Animals.

I'm happy to see that Apple is maintaining focus on the number and variety of apps in the App Store, instead of resorting to the narcissistic, touchy-feely, celebrity-filled tripe that T-Mobile has been using for their Android-based MyTouch 3G ads.

Think Apple's products are "really great," "incredible," "amazing," "really easy" to use, "awesome," "terrific," "incredible," "great," and "amazing"? If so, it's probably because Apple told you that's what they were in last week's presentation. The above video's been making the rounds -- it's all of the adjectives cut out of the recent Apple event, and compiled together into a machine-gun lineup of just how Apple sets up their products.

Now, just because these words kept showing up and being used doesn't mean there's some malicious brainwashing going on here -- it's probably true that Apple really does think that their products are "incredible," and "amazing," and "really great." And let's face it, they've never really been real up-to-date on the language anyway. They probably could use a thesaurus: maybe at the next event, the new MacBooks could be "marvelous," "extraordinary," or "glorious."

But it does show you just how much we're shaped by what we see at these events -- Steve's and Apple's enthusiasm for these things is infectious. Apple's products really are amazing, but it doesn't hurt that most of us sit down to watch, read, or listen to an hour or two of them telling us just how "amazing," "incredible," and "really great" they are.

Matt Fisher is a 16 year old high school junior and Apple enthusiast who has been putting up tutorial videos on all things Macintosh since December of 2008. I just saw one that is so good I wanted to bring it to your attention.

Matt has created a video on hidden features in Snow Leopard and although we have covered some of these before, this you have to see. In four minutes and twenty-nine seconds Matt covers more content than most people can cover in an hour, and he does it with grace and total clarity.

Matt found hidden features in:

• Coverflow
• Spotlight
• Resizing of icons
• Preview viewing modes
• Hiding windows in dock icons
• More organized keyboard shortcuts
• Location based setting of time and date
• Showing the date in the menubar
• Stacks
• Text and symbol substitution
• The re-emergence of the trash 'put back' feature.

Take a look and I think you'll not only be impressed, but pick up a few things you didn't know.

Thanks go out to Mustafa Histoni for sending in this tip.

It's not that we have anything against the Flash plugin for Mac browsers. Well, other than the fact that it's crashy, and slow, and makes our laptop fans spin up like we're doing wind tunnel testing for the Air Force. But other than that, we have nothing against it -- and it's lovely that the new 64-bit version of Safari in Snow Leopard can isolate Flash-related stalls and hiccups from the main browser process for enhanced crash protection. Very nice.

Unfortunately, as pointed out initially by Graham Cluley over at the security and anti-virus vendor Sophos, the version of the Flash plugin that Apple bundles with Snow Leopard is old. It's the 10.0.23.1 version, old enough that it has some notable vulnerabilities versus the currently shipping 10.0.32.18 version. You can check which version of the plugin you have by visiting this Adobe check page. Even if you had the current build on your machine before upgrading to Snow Leopard, the upgrade process replaces your Flash with the vintage Flash instead -- poor form! Cluley recommends, and Adobe concurs, that the best thing to do is head over to Adobe's download site and get the most up-to-date version instead.

It's understandable that Apple had to lock down a version of the Flash plugin for inclusion in the OS golden master, but if you're gonna do that then you've got to provide an integrated method for users to update to the current build when the time comes (like, say, via an OS-wide Software Update utility). Downgrading user security while upgrading OS versions is a rotten way to run a railroad.

[Side note, does Cluley's narration in the video above make you wonder if, just maybe, he's moonlighting as Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw over at The Escapist? NSFW!]

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Up to this point in time, if you wanted to "sign" an electronic document (other than a secure PDF), you either had to scan your signature with a scanner and import the resulting graphic into your document, or purchase a digitizing tablet. Ten One Design, the same folks who brought us the Pogo Sketch stylus, have come up with a way for anyone with Snow Leopard and a MacBook that supports multi-touch gestures to sign documents.

Autograph (US$6.95) is a signature capture application that works with your MacBook and a finger or stylus to make signing your name a snap. If you don't know if your MacBook will work with Autograph, you can download a trial copy that adds a watermark to the signature just to try it out.

To add your John Hancock to an email or document when Autograph is running (I have it set up to launch at startup), you can either select the menu bar icon or press control-option-A, and then a semi-transparent gray window appears. Using your finger or a stylus on your trackpad like a pen, you can write your name or draw a little picture. Pressing return embeds the signature or sketch into your document.

Autograph works great! I was able to use it in Mail, Word, Keynote, and Pages, and I'm assuming that it will work fine in any Mac application that lets you paste in a graphic. I know I'll be using this handy little program to add a personal touch to my documents. The short silent video below demonstrates Autograph in action.

Albuquerque TV Reporter Jeremy Jojola recently used a jailbroken iPhone and Qik [iTunes link] to broadcast a story live for KOB-TV.

It's a far cry from the big trucks with microwave antennas and satellite dishes that are usually seen where news stories are broadcast.

The audio and video quality isn't perfect, but it shows how fast the technology is moving. Jeremy told me he used the AT&T 3G network for the connection.

We've already reported on the Qik app which was recently updated to allow uploading of video using the 3G network, but so far, the live capability has been nixed by Apple/AT&T. The only way to get the full benefit of live streaming is by jailbreaking the iPhone.

Qik runs on a huge variety of other smartphones with full live capability, even on the AT&T network.

If you'd like to see Jeremy's story, it's available by clicking the Read More link below. The actual story is about iPhone developers who live in the area. Here's Jeremy's blog with some more info.

[Via Poynter Institute online]

What do you get when you mix a MacBook, a US$99 printer, some Ikea shower curtains, and lot of wedding guests?

In the case of Mac user David Cline, you end up with a very happy sister! During planning for his sister Helen's recent wedding, Cline looked into renting a wedding photo booth that would take pictures of guests, save a digital copy, and then print out a strip of photos for the guests to take home as a keepsake. The cost for the rental was prohibitively expensive -- about US$2,000 a day.

David quickly decided that by combining his Mac, a special Automator workflow that he created, an Epson PictureMate Dash printer, an old wardrobe frame, and colorful shower curtains from Ikea, he could inexpensively re-create the functionality of the expensive rental.

His Automator script prompted wedding guests for their names, took 3 photos, arranged the photos in a vertical strip, displayed the photos on the screen for the guests to view, printed out the photo strip, and then saved the individual photos and photo strips in digital form onto the Mac. After the wedding, the photos were uploaded to an online photo album.

From the looks of the happy wedding guests, the Do-It-Yourself Photo Booth was a success. I'd venture to say that David Cline is ranking high in the standings for the "Brother of the Year Award."

Back in May, our own Steven Sande reported on a robot with an iPod touch for a head. At the time, Robochan was pretty limited in capability and could only mimic back taught poses and stumble around drunkenly.

A lot has happened in two short months. Robochan has received a brain-transplant courtesy of the iPhone 3GS as well as other software changes. He's been given alarm functionality to wake you up at a specified time, basic human interaction, and motion teaching and playback. But most importantly, Robochan can now dance around drunkenly to match his drunken walking.

As a robot fanatic I can only hope we see a more sober version of this robot on store shelves everywhere, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm sure it's not going to be to everyone's taste, but I think this video is really cute and it made me smile. Happy Monday!

YouTuber CBGFilms put together a great compilation of why his generation uses a Mac. Interestingly, these are the same reasons I use a Mac. Stability, usability, tight product integration and elegant design are reasons why Mac users of all all ages drink the Kool-Aid (or the unicorn tears, as it were).

Great job, Charlie!

So why do you use a Mac?

[H/T Chris Pirillo]

I've got a soft spot in my comedy heart for The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac, one of the newer correspondents on the program; he often manages to give interview subjects just enough Colbertian leeway to wander into the danger zone, then lets them blunder about, bumping into the awkward silences to excellent effect.

That's exactly what Cenac did this week when he interviewed the creators of iPhone fart apps Pull My Finger and iFart, who have a long-simmering feud over who gassed whom on the fart-app frontier. The whole thing is fine and funny... right up until the point that Pull My Finger developer Eric Stratton compares his app's struggle against injustice to Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball. That's when it becomes deliciously, painfully hilarious. For the record, Stratton claims he was joking.

You can check out the video in the second half of the post. Nice work, Wyatt.

[via Mac OS Ken and AllThingsD]