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The Register: Apple has begun recruiting staff to run its first Australian Apple Store, currently being kitted out in Sydney’s central George Street. It’s also looking for workers for new stores in the UK in Exeter, Milton Keynes, Glasgow, Reading and Brighton.

Apple’s Apple Store line-up runs to over 150 hundred outlets in the US, nine in the UK, eight in Japan, four in Canada and a single store in Rome, Italy.

Apple UK is currently recruiting staff for new stores in Milton Keynes Central shopping mall; Solihull; Exeter’s soon-to-be-completed Princesshay centre; Brighton’s Church Hill Square; Reading’s The Oracle site; Glasgow’s Buchanan Street; and Essex’s Lakeside shopping centre.

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PMP Today: This will be one of the future iPhone’s features without a doubt. This video conferencing application using a periscope-like mirror to redirect the iPhone’s back camera to the front for video conferencing. Most phone’s only have a VGA camera for video conferencing, so the iPhone has one-upped everybody on this technology thanks to the Ken and Greg Aspeslagh. Their iPhone app, by the way, won first place in the Iron Coder Live contest. The two-way video conferencing is still only video at the moment.

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Electronista: Nokia yesterday issued a product advisory for more than 46 million batteries that could potentially explode while being charged. While approximately 100 incidents of overheating reported globally, it claims that no serious injuries or property damage have been reported and is offering free product replacements. The advisory affects Nokia-branded BL-5C battery manufactured by the Japan-based Matsushita Battery Industrial Co., Ltd (a.k.a. Panasonic) between December 2005 and November 2006; none of its other 250 million Nokia-branded BL-5C batteries are affected, the company said. The BL-5C, which is one of 14 different battery models used in Nokia products, is manufactured for Nokia by several suppliers, including Matsushita/Panasonic.”Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the Nokia-branded BL-5C batteries subject to the product advisory could potentially experience overheating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge,” the company wrote in the warning. “Nokia is working closely with Matsushita and will be cooperating with relevant authorities to investigate this situation.”

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Akihabaranews: Dubbed the RX-Z11, Yamaha’s new entrant into the Home Theater business is quite impressive.

Offering an industry-first THX Ultra2 Plus certification along with a full HDMI 1.3a with support for 1080p resolution, the RX-Z11, along with its 11.2-channel surround sound support is awfully nice. Amazingly, the device offers up to five independent zones offering different audio sources along with two zones with visual content, which can be controlled by the zone controller.

The RX-Z11 sports five HDMI inputs with two allowing you to send a full HD signal to a an HDTV. Besides the HDMI, it sports four component inputs with two outputs, along with support for Dolby Digital Plus/True HD and DTS High Resolution Audio/Master Audio.

But wait — that’s not all! The RX-Z11 network capabilities enable access to Internet Radio, music stored on a PC and the included YDS-10S dock gives access to iPod music, images and video files.

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Absolute Gadget: Sennheiser has always had a good reputation when it comes to headphones, now the company want iPod and mp3 users to have the same aural experience as the rest of their customers.

The company claimed that its new CX 300 2.5mm is the first quality in-ear headphone to be made available with a 2.5mm headphone jack. It said the CX 300 series is based on technology from professional in-ear stage monitors and its very high efficiency helps prolong battery life in portable devices.

The CX 300 uses an advanced, miniaturised driver, designed by the company for smooth sounds and has an extended response of 18 Hz- 21 kHz, so you should get good detail as well as thumping bass.

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EETimes: Plasma display makers, facing intense competition from liquid crystal displays (LCDs), will likely see their panel revenue start declining from 2009 on falling prices, U.S. research firm iSuppli Corp. said.

Global plasma display panel (PDP) revenue will rise to $8.6 billion this year, up 12 percent from 2006, and reach a peak of $10.2 billion in 2008, iSuppli said in a report dated Thursday last week.

But annual plasma revenue will then contract to $8.7 billion by 2011, despite growing unit shipments, as makers slash screen prices due to competition with LCD and other technologies.

Supply has been tight in the PDP market as many manufacturers scaled back production earlier this year under the onslaught of LCD televisions.

After losing a price battle with LCDs in the 40-inch-and-larger TV market, plasma makers’ hopes hinge on a shift of consumer preferences to the 50-inch and larger TV sets.

Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic) is the world’s biggest maker of PDPs with a 31.5 percent market share in the first quarter, followed by South Korean rivals LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung SDI Co.

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The Register: Fujitsu Siemens is to pull out of the PDA and GPS business by the end of the year to focus its mobile computing efforts on notebooks and tablets, the company admitted last week.

FS currently offers a range of handhelds under its Pocket Loox brand, the line-up divided into traditional PDAs with integrated GPS and Wi-Fi, and Blackberry-style devices with integrated phones and email-friendly micro-keyboards.

However, the range hasn’t been updated since the July 2006 launch of the N100 and N110 consumer-oriented GPS PDAs. And now further updates are even less likely.

An FS spokeswoman last week confirmed an earlier report from German trade paper Channel Partner that the company will quit the market this year.

The reason? Demand for PDAs is in decline, and FS expects smartphones to deliver all the functionality once provided solely by wireless handelds. Of course, FS’ Pocket Loox T800 series is arguably just such a smartphone, but popular though it may have been, it hasn’t been sufficiently successful for the company to consider retaining it as the basis for a smartphone strategy.

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Electronista: Yamaha yesterday refreshed its Digital Sound Projector line for home theater enthusiasts without the space for hardware surround setups. Each new model refines the company’s spatializing technique to widen the overall sound field and lets users personalize the surround effect beyond the default 5.1-channel Dolby Surround and DTS processing methods. Two new models also add two HDMI inputs and one output for routing audio to an HDTV, with the mid-range YSP-3000 relaying video unchanged and the top YSP-4000 upscaling analog video to either 720p or 1080i.

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Engadget: XM’s new XpressRC radio does look to be fairly impressive as far as satellite radios go, with it boasting a full-color split-screen display among other notable new features. That screen will let you view information for your current channel on the left side, while letting you browse up to three other channels on the right side. Apart from that, the radio will give you a 60-minute buffer to let you pause and replay programming, and you’ll be able to store up to ten of your favorite songs with the new “Songsaver” feature. As with other satellite radios, you’ll also be able to move it between vehicles, and make use of various docks and speaker systems for a little out-of-vehicle listening.

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Mobile Magazine: A set of slides has leaked out on the Internet, revealing several details surrounding the new BlackBerry Pearl successor, the updated BlackBerry Curve 8310, and the WiFi-touting BlackBerry 8820.

Starting with the New Pearl, which will be available in both EDGE and CDMA versions, you’ll get several enhancements over the original. The slide talks about things like an externally accessible microSD slot, a 3.5mm headset jack, 2MP camera, improved mic wind protection, and improved lanyard design. What’s more the EDGE version will get 802.11b/g WiFi, whereas the CDMA handset gets GPS. Scheduled for this Fall.

The BlackBerry Curve 8310 will have all the capabilities of the original 8300 Curve and then some. You still get a big display, a QWERTY keyboard, and a 2MP camera with photo flash, but you’ve also got BlackBerry Fast GPS Fix technology, mapping and navigation, and a hot new titanium color.

Last, but not least is the BlackBerry 8820. Like the 8800 which preceded it, the 8820 will be remarkably thin, boast a full-size QWERTY keyboard and a “great” speakerphone, as well as an enhanced media player, but it’ll also bandy around with built-in 802.11b/g WiFi support and integrated GPS.

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The Register: Nintendo’s Wii is nearing the Xbox 360′s cumulative sales total, despite the year-long availability advantage enjoyed by the Microsoft games consoles. New figures put the Wii at 10.10m units sold to date worldwide, just behind the 360′s 10.32m.

The numbers come from new-to-us website VG Chartz, which claims to base its figures on over-the-counter sales data from a selection of retailers around the world, or when the latest numbers were taken. It doesn’t say how many retailers it uses, or name them, but it claims its estimates are “very accurate projections of the latest console sell through figures worldwide”.

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Slashgear: It’s the full 18 wheels too. The trailer is the iPod dock that features the dock, speakers, and controls.

The cab portion is the transforming Optimus Prime. Apparently the trailer portion even does some transforming of its own, which allows it to conceal the dock and speakers.

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