Mr. Elmer-DeWitt (Photo: Twitter.com)

This morning's release of the iPad Mini saw crowds completely forgetting about the hurricane and lining up to score themselves a miniaturized version of their favorite fancy tablet. Apple beat reporter Philip Elmer-DeWitt was covering the release for Fortune/CNN Money. His online bio says that he's been covering Apple for the last 30 years. He described the scene as such:

"Judging from the ethnic makeup of the queue in front of the big glass cube of Apple's (AAPL) Fifth Avenue store, however, most of the customers who made the pilgrimage were coming from the environs of Chinatown.

Apple hasn't yet said when the iPad mini will be available in mainland China, so there's likely to be a market there for units shipped from the U.S."

Since Mr. DeWitt didn't cite a source supporting his Chinatown claim, it seemed like an . . . odd assumption.

The paragraph in question was pulled down, but not before we got a screen shot.

We reached out to Mr. Elmer-Dewitt, who said it was taken down because "some readers complained about ethnic profiling."

Gotcha. But why did he say that the Asian customers in line were from Chinatown?

"It's well documented that there's a steady flow of new Apple products from the Fifth Ave store to Chinatown to Hong Kong to the mainland," said Mr. Elmer-Dewitt. "See my old pieces. See the NY Times. My mistake was assuming that all the Asians in line (some of whom brought their children so they could buy 4 iPads, not just the maximum 2) were Chinese and that just because they were Chinese that they were from Chinatown. But I've reported on a lot of these lines, and this one had a higher percentage of Asians than any I've seen before."

Well, alrighty then, no racism to see here, folks.

[via @Joescoscarelli]

Tekserve's first iPad Mini customer. (Photo: Twitter.com/KJHartNYC)

Though lower Manhattan is still shrouded in darkness, some local businesses have stayed open, serving whatever's left in the kitchen by candlelight. But restaurants and bars aren't the only ones working to return some sense of normalcy to neighborhoods ravaged by Hurricane Sandy. Tekserve, the retail and service store for Apple products in the Flatiron, has remained open throughout the blackout, its customers illuminated only by flashlights.

Tekserve CEO Kevin Hart told Betabeat that he was tired of sitting in the store by himself, and realized that if he used the store's inventory of charged laptops and iPads, they could easily get themselves up and running during the blackout. The store opened Wednesday at 11 a.m. and has been open every day since from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Employees braved two-hour-plus commutes to sell Apple products--the most popular being the Mophie battery pack for iPhone, of course--to customers without power in lower Manhattan. Using iPads equipped with Verizon 4G and Square to complete purchases, the Tekserve team has sold a slew of Apple products to customers, including iPhones, iPads and battery packs.

"We've sold speakers so people can attach them to Apple devices and use them as entertainment system," Mr. Hart said. "We’ve sold whole new system setups. A lot of folks have lost devices due to water or power surge damage. They need to get their lives back to normal, so they come in to buy equipment."

What's it like working in a pitch-black store, we wondered. "They’re having a blast," Mr. Hart said of Tekserve's employees. "It’s like being a kid in a fort you made under your parents’ couch. The customers are impressed with our ingenuity, and people are just so happy to find something that’s open because they’re looking for battery packs for their Apple devices. People are looking for iPads so they can reconnect to the world."

Hurricane Sandy can't deter Apple enthusiasts looking to get their hands on the new iPad Mini, either. The Mini goes on sale today, and Mr. Hart said they sold their first one to a customer at 9:04 a.m.

"On Wednesday we saw just north of 100 customers," Mr. Hart said. "Yesterday we saw about 250 and today I would guess with the new iPad 4 and the Mini, I’m anticipating we’re going to have a brisk day. If we see south of 500 people I’d be surprised."

This guy means business. (Photo: Squarespace)

Wanna see commitment? Employees of Squarespace, Fog Creek and Peer1 kept their data center up and running throughout the disaster by hauling fuel up 17 flights of stairs. [TechCrunch]

Despite the tendency among Mac users to go batshit nuts lining up for every new product, crowds weren't quite as major as usual for the iPad Mini. [TechCrunch]

It's like pulling teeth to get Apple to apologize to Samsung for IP infringement, as the U.K. court of appeals is discovering. [Guardian]

Speaking of the U.K., Kickstarter is now open to projects from across the pond. [Kickstarter]

Popcorn brand Pop Secret has released an app to help you plan movie nights. And let's face it--this weekend, you deserve a movie night. [Fast Company]

Apple.com

Apple's unveiling of its new iPad mini launched in a sedate manner with CEO Tim Cook recapping the successes of iOS 6, the new iPods and the App Store, which has distributed 35 billion apps.

After Mr. Cook and Apple's senior veep of marketing Phil Schiller introduced a new, lighter MacBook and a pair of thinner, lighter iMacs, there came the great unveiling of the iPad Mini.

Apple's smaller iPad is the same--but different.

The Mini has the iPad's signature retina display and will use the same accessories, such as the lightning charger. Light as a pad of paper and thinner than the larger version, the iPad Mini's screen is 7.9 inches diagonally. However, when compared with similiar-sized competitors like the Google Nexus, the iPad Mini has more on-screen space--close to the full-sized iPad.

App makers won't have to redesign their product for the Mini, either--all current iPad apps will function the same on the Mini as they do on the full-size iPad.

Pricing for the iPad Mini is comparable to the larger tablet. Wifi only:

• $329, 16 GB
• $429, 32 GB
• $529, 64 GB

The cellular versions of the iPad Mini will have an option for 4G LTE reception and are, as usual, more expensive:

• $459, 16 GB
• $559, 32 GB
• $659, 64 GB.

Apple is promoting the Mini as a "concentration" of the original iPad, not a reduction.

The Verge has published a brief hands-on demo of the iPad Mini by Josh Topolsky, which you can watch below.

"Every inch." Wink wink, amirite?

Apple's latest press conference slash gadget revival meeting and laying-on of hands just concluded. As expected, the iPad Mini made its grand entrance into the wider world, along with an array of incremental updates to existing product lines.

Only, there's no such thing as an incremental update to an Apple product.

One of the men responsible for whipping the crowd into a frenzy was marketing honcho Phil Schiller, who did his absolutely damnedest to get us all riled up about the latest version of the MacBook and the Mac mini and so forth. Naturally, he sounded a little over-the-top in his loving descriptions of the company's wares. TechCrunch writer John Constine mocked Mr. Schiller's tone with a Lord of the Rings reference: "Phil Schiller on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro: 'So thin, so beautiful, my preciouuuuussss.'"

But as we switched over to the livestream, just in time to catch the introduction of the new 13-inch MacBook pro (with an oh-so-crystal-clear retina display), we couldn't help but characterize Mr. Schiller's tone a little differently. It felt... weirdly intimate.

It sounded a little like Mr. Schiller was rhapsodizing about someone in the nude--specifically, a current or soon-to-be sexual partner.

It's not that he was doing anything so crass as tossing around the word "sexy." No, that would be vulgar, a mere common, empty  tech world trope. Rather, Mr. Schiller used words like "stunning" and "beautiful" to describe the products he was debuting.  Think more along the lines of those courtly older guys who sidle up and start complimenting your blouse and only gradually segue toward asking you upstairs to see their etchings, because they think that's still the way things work.

"It is absolutely beautiful," he said about the iMac, calling it a "fantastic computer" that is "stunning from every side."  The term "mercury-free display" got the kind of caressing tone usually reserved for the phrase "long blonde hair," and "built-in voice dictation" was pronounced like "great gams." Of the new iMac, he exhorted the audience to "look at that edge--just remarkable how thin that design is." Is this a press conference or a threesome?  There's an ad for the 13-inch MacBook Pro ad that's basically the equivalent of a high-end sexy Tumblr. Don't even get me started on the term "dual microphones."

But perhaps the nadir was when he said of the Mac mini: "Let's take the bottom off and take a look inside." Not without buying dinner first, you're not.

By the time he handed it back to Tim Cook, who merely called the new products "really cool," this Betabeat reporter had worked herself into a state of near Victorian-level pearl clutching.

It's not entirely fair to pick on just Mr. Schiller. Mr. Cook closed with an invitation for IRL attendees to go over to a product demo area and "get your hands on 'em," as though he were the madam of a house of ill repute catering to an especially discerning-but-grabby clientele.

Mr. Schiller went above and beyond, though, and once you started listening it was impossible not to hear a double entendre in every third sentence. We couldn't even be surprised when New York Times reporter Nick Bilton got a little swept up. Here's what he tweeted (then promptly deleted):

Busted. (Photo: flickr.com/photos/kodomut)

Bad news, everyone: Researchers are claiming the smart-but-neglected nerds don't actually win in the end. It turns out that, in the long run, the more popular kids actually make more money.  No word on how a makeover changes things. [The Atlantic Wire]

A Norwegian woman who somehow angered Amazon found her Kindle account frozen and access to her ebooks blocked, for an unexplained infraction. This serves as a nice reminder that unless you own something IRL, you only kinda own it. [GigaOm]

In what's likely evidence of testing going on at Twitter HQ, some users are reporting seeing the terms "star" and "like" pop up in the place of "favorite." [TheNextWeb]

Wal-Mart is investing quite a substantial bit of time, money and effort in its Facebook marketing efforts this holiday season. So don't fuck up, Zuck. [Wired]

Small businesses, unfortunately, can't quite count on flying under the radar so as to avoid cybercriminals. [ReadWrite]

Apple is livestreaming today's press conference, which is likely to be the occasion for the unveiling of the iPad Mini. [TheNextWeb]

Pretty. (Photo: flickr.com/jaxed)

We all know that Apple is probably announcing an iPad Mini later this week. But how do we know that? Who snitched? That's the subject of a long piece from Ars Technica. Turns out that it's not so much disgruntled engineers as it's a function of the long, winding road that is the company's global supply chain.

Ars Technica makes working at 1 Infinite Loop sound like a cross between working at the CIA and Hogwarts:

Prototypes have to be carried around on company grounds while covered in a black cloth so other employees can't sneak a peek. Those who take prerelease products off campus are heavily restricted when using them with other people (even other Apple employees) in the vicinity. Internal security teams covertly monitor which IRC channels employees like to hang out in.

As you might imagine from such intense security measures, it's probably not the California kids tipping all your favorite gadget blogs. Rather, the leaks are produced the same place as everything else except American Apparel tube socks and artisanal Brooklyn cheese:

"Apple's security practices are targeted at making sure US employees don't leak stuff, but everything comes out of China now," one employee told Ars. "I think Apple's secrecy mode is really outdated."

"Clearly, the people who need the security training are not here" said another. "They're not getting the same level of scrutiny as we are, and it shows."

Then again, if working on a Foxconn assembly line were our lot in life, we'd probably be leaking product specs left and right.

FullContact's CEO Bart Lorang: unable to unplug. (Photo: FullContact)

Here are alleged "engineering samples" of the iPad Mini. [Apple Insider]

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is in L.A. bragging that the company has a "truckload of money." How...dickish. [Los Angeles Times]

Working at a startup is prettttty sweet. FullContact is now doing paid paid vacations, giving employees $7,500 each for their vacations. Sigh. [FullContact, via Hacker News]

Amazon is officially testing a smartphone. [Wall Street Journal]

Here's a preview of some cool stuff that's slated to hit Comic-Con. [Wired]

(Photo: Game Informer)

The Oatmeal is finally free of Charles Carreon's bizarre legal machinations. Mr. Carreon decided to drop his case against Matthew Inman, who apparently was represented by the EFF. Everything about this was weird. [EFF]

Porn producers are all about Project Glass. We're sure you can guess why. [PC Mag]

Apple is reportedly planning to debut a smaller, cheaper iPad--terrible news for the Nexus 7. [Bloomberg]

Kim Dotcom has a grudge against vice president Joe Biden. [TorrentFreak]

Airport security apparently stole the Nexus Q used at Google I/O. [Dan Ellis]