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Ever wander into one of those Verizon or AT&T stores, attempt to have a conversation with one of the smartly dressed salespeople, and whisper to yourself, "What kind of emotionally awkward humans end up working in a place like this?"

Well, I have good news for you.

Ricky Gervais, who made David Brent perhaps the most painfully sympathetic character in modern television in the original BBC version of "The Office," has been asking himself the very same question. "Phone Shop" a new British sitcom, enjoys Gervais as its script editor (he reportedly took one look at the idea and volunteered his involvement). The pilot airs Friday evening on Channel 4.

"Phone Shop" will explore the life of salespeople in a soul-sucking mall cell phone shop.

(Credit: Channel 4)

Unlike "The Office," which gained existential pleasure from the old-world business of paper manufacture, "Phone Shop" is set in a mall cell phone store.

The pilot episode follows the troubles experienced by trainee salesman Christopher, who has to sell a cell phone by 6 p.m. as part of his one-day trial.

Clearly this series will reside in the emotional halfway house that has just two difficult residents--comedy and tragedy. And one wonders just what impression will be left by the arduous task of pushing yet more portable technology on a populace that bristles with sensory overload.

I am deeply concerned that the cell phone business will not come out so beautifully in "Phone Shop."

You see, The Independent quoted Angela Jain, head of the E4 Channel, which has bought the series. And beneath her words I sense a little cackling: "Everyone's got a mobile phone and has had some encounter in a phone shop. It's also about those difficult dead-end jobs that everyone has at least once in their lives."

So the Droid and the iPhone are being pushed by people in dead-end jobs? What has become of our brave new, smartphoned world?

Calibration on the cheap, fun with focal length and back-to-back black contest photos.

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EPISODE 68

(Credit: CNET)

Last month we blogged about a bug marring Flash playback on the latest 27-inch Apple iMacs. Users on several Web sites, including the Apple Discussion Threads, noticed a problem with the Flash player that caused choppy audio and video playback, but it appears that the newest Mac OS X v10.6.2 update fixes the issue that was apparently caused by a conflict with the Airport driver.

According to Apple, the update "addresses video playback and performance issues for iMac (21.5-inch, late 2009) and iMac (27-inch, late 2009) computers that may occur in some situations while AirPort is turned on." Since our own 27-inch iMac also experienced slow Flash streaming and intermittent sound hiccups with the AirPort turned on, we downloaded the 10.6.2 update and left it to sleep overnight.

Prior to the update, the Flash Player consumed 114.4 percent of system resources, but 24 hours after the update we're happy to report 26.8 percent usage in the activity monitor and smooth performance across all popular streaming video Web sites like YouTube, Hulu, etc.

Much thanks to the Apple Forums and Apple itself for quickly addressing the needs of its community. If you haven't updated yet, simply choose Software Update from the Apple menu to install OS X v10.6.2.

Hive for the iPhone: brilliant fun

(Credit: Scott Stein/CNET)

Back when I used to work at Sony Online Entertainment many, many years ago, I became a board game geek. The game designers and producers gathered once a week to share their sizable collections and obscure finds up in Mira Mesa, Calif., and I got hooked. The fact that the Game Keeper chain of stores was simultaneously going out of business and liquidating their supplies encouraged me to start building my own game cabinet, and I profess without shame that I rapidly became a full-blown board game geek.

I still like hunting for new games, and a few years ago at the New York Toy Fair I came across the brilliant and simple tile-based game called Hive.

Like a cross between chess and dominos, Hive's hexagonal pieces are shaped like insects, each of which can move differently on their mission to surround the opponent's queen bee. I tried to order Hive online but it wasn't available, and no local game retailer would stock it. I finally found the game in a small town in Devon, England, while visiting my in-laws, and paid close to $35 for it.

This long story comes to a quick point: I found Hive on the iPhone App Store last week for $4.99, and instantly bought it. I hope this trend continues, and it should.

Hive joins my collection of Settlers of Catan, Go, Mancala, and what I'm sure will be many, many more board games shrunken to pocket-size on my iPhone. It's wonderful, and I feel like it's groundbreaking, too.

Board games on the iPhone

While game systems like the Nintendo DS and PSP have had a variety of fantastic titles, they'd certainly never proceed into European board games. The low overhead and microprices on Apple's ever-enormous App Store becomes, for both developers and consumers, a great live petri dish to grow a new legion of board game fans.

If you erase and restore your iPhone, does performance improve?

I won't bore you with the gory details, but recently I had cause to erase my iPhone. And by "erase," I mean venture into the Reset menu and tap "Erase All Content and Settings."

Leading up to this, my iPhone 3G was running like a snail through molasses. In recent months it had grown weirdly sluggish. I'd pick up my daughter's iPod Touch and be shocked at how much faster it was.

After the nerve-racking process of wiping the 3G and letting iTunes restore the backup (it was the first time in a year of iPhone ownership that I'd had to do this), I noticed something: It seemed peppier. A lot peppier.

I'm not sure why, but this definitely begs the question: Should iPhone owners perform this step every few months? Does the wipe-restore process somehow defrag the device and thereby optimize performance?

I honestly don't know, but I reckon you, our brilliant readers, can offer some insight. Am I crazy? Imagining things? Or right on the money? (That'd be nice for a change.) Share your thoughts in the comments.

No, no, no. This isn't some Dan Brown-inspired homage to products attributed to Lucifer or some such crazy thing. We mean autumn. You know, when the leaves change. We went through all the reviews we did over the past three months and ordered them by rating. So these are the best products we've reviewed so far this fall.

And as usual there's a prize. A lame prize. And you can win it by watching the video, then coming back to this blog post and answering the question in the comments below. Be one of the first 10 to answer correctly, and you could be randomly chosen to win.

Last week's answer: HTC Dream T-Mobile G1

T-Mobile G1

(Credit: Corinne Schulze)

With the recent flood of new Google Android phones, some of you may be thinking of making the switch. You're right to consider it, as there are many advantages to the operating system, not the least of which is the growing line of attractive handsets. But for the uninitiated, Android can be a bit of a mess. It's supposed to be a uniform operating system across all devices, but in practice, the user interface on each device varies. It offers third-party applications, e-mail syncing, and a media player; however, the capabilities of those features will differ by handset. Lastly, while Android promises a high degree of user customization, that may not mean a whole lot to the average person.

Understanding the operating system
Fear not, as Android takes only a brief period of acclimation. Even after a few minutes, you'll get the hang of the interface and you'll be able to navigate your way through your phone. Even so, you need to know a few things about Android before making the jump. Below I've told you what to expect, because I'd hate for you to be surprised by what you find. And equally as important, because your Android experience will vary by device, I'll break down the current U.S. handsets and give you the basic scoop of the Android features on each device. ... Read more

A leaked screenshot of the HTC Passion?

(Credit: Boy Genius Report)

We've seen the Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris from Verizon Wireless so far, but apparently there is a third Verizon Android handset waiting in the wings, if rumors are to be believed.

Rumors are that it will be the HTC Passion, which is supposedly powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon chipset (the Passion might also be called the Dragon). The rumor mill (from Boy Genius, Phone Arena, and elsewhere) claims that the HTC Passion will feature a 5-megapixel camera, a large WVGA-resolution screen with multitouch, a 3.5mm headset jack, 256MB RAM, and it's said to run Android 2.0 with the HTC Sense overlay.

We have heard nothing about this through official channels, so this is strictly rumor territory here, but we can't help but be intrigued by this mythical phone. The Android 2.0 with multitouch and the Snapdragon processor certainly puts it just a notch above the Droid. Perhaps that's why Verizon is keeping mum about the device for now. Still, the rumor mill claims we'll see an announcement about the Passion/Dragon in mid-December, so we'll definitely keep an eye for that.