In a couple of unexpected moves, O2 has today opened up its online shop doors to iPhone 3G pre-orders and updated its pay-as-you-go (PAYG) tariff page to state that this price plan will now not be available until later this year.

In a apostrophe-starved email sent this morning to those who had previously registered their interest on the O2 website, the company said:

iPhone 3G is here and its [sic] free*.

The iPhone you've been waiting for. Order from 8am today.

As promised we are writing to you to keep you updated on the next steps to getting an iPhone 3G. We do, however, expect demand for iPhone 3G to be very high so orders will be processed on a first come, first served basis so that we can be fair to all customers. Orders will be limited to one iPhone 3G per customer.

So what does that asterisk after the 'free' mean? Explanation after the jump.

We've had the HTC Touch Diamond Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone in the Mobile Computer office for just over a week now and I'll be posting a full review in the next couple of days. In the meantime, I made a hands-on video report earlier today to show what the Touch Diamond looks like in a better context than a photo on a white background.

In the video I talk a little about the Touch Diamond's design (this is HTC's attempt to compete head-on with the iPhone) and more importantly, its TouchFLO 3D user interface. Now this slick Windows Mobile 'skin' has been widely criticised for being slow and HTC recently released a ROM update intended to fix it. So is Touch FLO 3D any snappier as a result? In a word, no...

An MSI Wind-a-like has turned up on PC World's website sporting an identical chassis and near identical specs. 

Customers are reporting that the only difference between the own-brand Advent 4211 and the MSI Wind is the battery. That and the price - a full £70 cheaper than the Wind U100!

At £279 with Windows XP it could be the bargain 10in UMPC of choice - especially as Asus's competing 10-incher, the Eee PC 1000, is also expected to be well over £300.

We've a full review of the MSI Wind here, and will be getting our hands on the Advent in a few days. Meanwhile click through for the full specs:

One week from today (11 July), the iPhone 3G will launch worldwide. In the UK the carrier will be O2, and it is offering a choice of tariffs – both monthly-subscription contracts and pay-as-you-go (PAYG). We know in fine detail the pricing of the various subscription plans and, thanks to an apparent cock-up last week by an O2 employee, we also have a good idea what the PAYG charges will be.

So why is O2 still being so coy about its PAYG plans? What is preventing the company from confirming (or indeed denying) the details of the leaked pricing structure? It’s not like such details pose a threat to national security, after all.

Well, because it’s a slow news day, we put in a call to O2 to see if it would finally admit that the pricing information was accurate. Its intriguing response is after the jump.

We've had what appear to be official quotes and even official looking pics, but nothing on what'll be going inside the Asus Eee 904 – the little laptop in a bigger laptop's body.

Now, though, What Laptop has come up with 'official' details on the specifications – and a launch price: £269, including VAT. That would make it a good deal cheaper than the same-size, but larger screened Eee PC 1000 , which is expected to cost well over £300 when it goes on sale later in the year.

The wind seems to have dropped out of the MacBook Air's sails, despite its status as the slimmest laptop currently on the shelves. A price cut could be just the thing to give it its puff back and so, with SSD prices tumbling, Apple's taking a cool £300 off.

Taking a red pen to the 1.8GHz 64GB SSD model's old £2,028 price tag, it'll now sell at a more comfortable £1,719 with all its original specs intact. The 1.6GHz 80GB hard drive model stays fast, though, at £1,199.

There's no doubt that SSDs are falling faster than house prices so we wouldn't be surprised to see a few more price chops before the year is out.

[The Register]

Okay, not quite but if you’re looking to pick up a new smartphone in the next three months, the odds are better than evens that you’ll plump for Apple’s new toy – at least according to a survey conducted by RBC Capital Markets.

When asked, 56% of around 3,600 members of RBC’s Technology Adoption Panel expressed a preference for the iPhone 3G. This contrasts with a figure of just 35% that emerged from a similar survey conducted by RBC before the announcement of the 3G model.

You’ll find more fun iPhone 3G forecasts after the jump.

You could soon be using your mobile to pay for a loaf of bread or a newspaper, instead of fumbling for change or breaking into a twenty.

The GSM Association and the European Payments Council, which does the job of speaking for 8000 banks across the EU, have vowed to work together to bring micro payments to mobiles.

The technology, which could use the Near Field Communication technology already cropping up in handsets and trialled by companies such as Vivo Tech (picured), would likely work on a touch-to-pay basis. That would make it similar to London Transport's Oyster system or Barclaycard's OnePulse, which works with small purchases in shops in the capital.

Currently called Pay-Buy-Mobile, the GSM Association's initiative could potentially be a far larger Europe-wide system. It would be hoping to emulate the success of mobile phone payments in Japan, which have already taken off.

[The Register]

If such things excite you – and because it’s Apple, we imagine some folks will get far too excited by this – then here’s a nice picture of what appears to be a MobileMe consumer box.

It was posted by user MeckiM@c over at Flickr and is, according MeckiM@c, a snap of a MobileMe box sent by Apple to a friend. When this acquaintance called Apple’s support people to find out what it was all about, he was apparently told that it was sent by mistake and that a courier would be calling the next day to pick it up again. It wouldn't do to have such a mission-critical product out in the wild before time, after all. MobileMe isn't set to launch until next week.

That’s it really but, if you’re interested in some MobileMe background, there’s more about MobileMe after the jump.

Firefox's record for the number of downloads in a day as now been given official recognition from the people at Guinness.

It means the Guinness World Record for software downloads in a 24-hour period now stands at 8,002,530.

Gareth Deaves of Guinness World Records told the BBC it was "an extremely impressive accomplishment." The fact that no previous record ever actually existed didn't seem to dampen the mood at Firefox, with marketing head, Paul Kim praising the "enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans".

Firefox Download Day on 17th June marked the launch of the new Firefox 3. Since then it's been downloaded a total of 29 million times, which should help Firefox break through the 20% mark for share of browser users by the end of the month.

[BBC]