The ‘Will it Blend’ Guy Puts New iPhone 3G in the Blender

This gives a new meaning to ‘Apple sauce’. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this guy’s other ‘Will it Blend’ videos, but he basically takes stuff like tin cans full of pork and beans (like, the entire can) and sticks it in his blender to see if it will work. It’s all part of a viral marketing campaign for Blendtec, and I must say, the blender is obviously pretty powerful. Watch the video below:

So, Mr. Will it Blend, Tom Dickson, stood in line to get a brand new iPhone 3G and dropped that baby in his blender to see what would happen. It was completely obliterated, and when Tom peeled the lid off the blender, a nasty puff of smoke and tiny particles of who knows what wafted in front of his nose. Let’s analyze what was in that toxic burst of air that he just inhaled. How much time will that knock off his life?

InfoWorld kindly provided us with a breakdown of some of the nastiest materials in the iPhone:

According to Greenpeace, an independent lab tested 18 internal and external components of the iPhone and confirmed the presence of brominated compounds in half the samples, including in the phone’s antenna. A mixture of toxic phthalate esters was found to make up 1.5 per cent of the plastic (PVC) coating of the headphone cables.

“Two of the phthalate plasticisers found at high levels in the headphone cable are classified as ‘toxic to reproduction, category 2′ because of their long-recognized ability to interfere with sexual development in mammals,” said Dr. David Santillo, senior scientist at the Greenpeace Research Laboratories, who coordinated the project and deconstructed the iPhone for analysis. “While they are not prohibited in mobile phones, these phthalates are banned from use in all toys or childcare articles sold in Europe. Apple should eliminate the use of these chemicals from its products range.”

Gross. I hope Tom’s not planning on having any more children. Obviously, most of us are not going to be in a situation where we’ll be inhaling iPhone dust anytime soon, but it still makes you wonder about putting that thing next to your head and mouth every day.

Link [Neatorama] + [InfoWorld]

Edible Landscaping Advocates Wait a Week in Line for iPhone 3G

If you’re wondering what edible landscaping has to do with the iPhone, you’re not alone. Undoubtedly, people who were waiting in line for the iPhone 3G were wondering the same thing about the group of five activists who were first in line when the phones went on sale last Friday. They had been there for seven days and seven nights, seeking the Guinness World Record for “longest time waiting in line” and also a little publicity for their cause.

From Fortune:

Who’s crazy enough to camp out for a week on the streets of New York City for a chance to be first to buy an iPhone 3G?

TheWhoFarm, that’s who, a newly minted publicity-seeking environmental collective with an agrico-political mission: to persuade the 44th President of the U.S. — whoever that turns out to be — to transform the White House’s 17-acre lawn into an organic farm.

“We’re here to restore the edible landscape,” says Daniel Bowman Simon, 28, the group’s organizer and spokesperson and a young man given to making grand pronouncements. “We want to bring seeds of change back to the White House.”

Nice green activism publicity hack. In an open letter to several leaders including Sen. Hillary Clinton and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, TheWhoFarm listed the tasks it wished to accomplish during their week waiting on line, which included using mobile solar power, drinking NYC’s tap water, eating local food delivered by NYC community gardeners and talking to anyone who would listen about local organic farming. And, they got iPhones out of it as well. Not bad, not bad.

Link [Fortune]

The ‘King of All Stupidly Unnecessary Packaging Award’ Goes to AT&T

There’s unnecessary packaging, and then there is STUPIDLY unnecessary packaging. This lands firmly in the latter category.

Brett from TUAW was recently on the receiving end of a shipment from AT&T that stretches the imagination. His package from AT&T was shipped via DHL 2-day and came with a plastic bag and an invoice for “75011 MISC iPhone PPA BAG … $0.00.”

Was that box and bag packaged by robots? Are AT&T box packers so numb to their job that they don’t actually notice what they are working on? How did this dumbass trip up happen?

I’m gonna order me 30 or so of those MISC iPhone PPA Bags, they’ll come in handy the next time I have to move.

Eco Fail.

Link [TUAW] via [Gizmodo]