eBay Nutcase of the Week: Man wants £744,000 for half his future earnings

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Following the hot, international news sensation that was the life-selling nutcase, we brings news of a new eBay nutcase.

The nutcase in question is 33-year-old Canadian musician Ashley MacIssac, who rather worryingly decalred himself bankrupt in 2000, and has stuck his potential future earnings up for auction. And he wants quite a bit of money…

iPhone 3G mobiles already being sold on eBay for £500

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The iPhone 3G was announced just 36 hours ago, but already eBay has several auctions for people who can’t be bothered waiting in line on July 11th. At the time of writing, there are eight auctions worldwide, with prices ranging from US$350 to £500 (around US$1,000) for the 16GB version.

Each seller promises the handset will be sent to the winning bidder after July 11th, and will come unlocked, which is still an illegal act. Stories have been spreading of Carphone Warehouse and O2 requiring you to sign a contract before you buy an iPhone, instead of signing up for one at home, which looks like it could decrease the amount of jailbroken phones. However, it’s believed iPhones bought on PAYG, or from the Apple stores, need not require a contract signed there and then…

Exposé! eBay UK not as Blu-ray friendly as other eBay sites

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It’s come to my attention, through a recent attempt at flogging my copy of Casino Royale (every Blu-ray player owner has at least six copies), that eBay UK is not anywhere near as Blu-ray friendly as the US, or even Australia, Canada, or France. I’d test more sites, but that’s about the limit to my bilingualism.

Ever tried selling a Blu-ray on eBay UK? Ever other country’s site seems to have Blu-ray listed in the categories field, however not us in Blighty, who’re forced to lump it into the ‘DVD, Film & TV > DVDs’ or ‘DVD, Film & TV > Other Film Formats’ fields.

The winning HD format is not mentioned anywhere, and neither is HD DVD, which is also mentioned on all the aforementioned sites. Although dead formats such as MiniDisc have their very own boxes for you to tick, along with SACD, DAT, audio cassettes, floppy discs and VHS.

So can we cut to the chase already and label eBay UK as being a non-embracing technological Luddite?..

MySpace to share your details with eBay, Twitter and Yahoo but only if you want

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It’s funny, isn’t it? On the one hand we have infinite remote security where you have to tell someone the middle name of the first person you snogged before you can buy an ice-cream over the phone and then online we’re chucking personal information about like there’s no tomorrow.

Sites like Facebook have seen us divulge everything short of our bank details – although I’m sure an application for that is on its way – and now it seems they’re going to share their info with each other – with our consent of course.

MySpace has launched MySpace Data Availability as part the Yahoo Open Social Foundation

eBay reaches settlement over Buy It Now lawsuit

eBay has just forked out some of its own hard-earned cash, buying three patents due to their ongoing lawsuit with MercExchange over the Buy It Now service.

MercExchange claims eBay was infringing on their patents, and filed a lawsuit against the company in September 2001, which has now been dropped reportedly.

“We’re pleased to have been able to reach a settlement with MercExchange. In addition to resolving the litigation, this settlement…