Apple Store not poop-colored but rather white

Whoa!!!

Taking that risk has paid off handsomely so far. Since it opened its first two stores five years ago today, the Apple chain has become a retailing phenomenon. Necessity and inspiration led Apple to toss out the conventional textbook on computer stores and to ignore the rules of location, design, staffing and services provided.

Revenue for each square foot at Apple stores last year was $2,489, compared with $971 at Best Buy, the big computer and electronics retailer, according to Forrester Research, a market research firm.

This evening, Apple is opening a showcase store in Manhattan that will burnish the company's reputation for clever design. The entrance to the store, on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets, is a glass cube, 32 feet on each side, with a suspended Apple logo inside. Customers walk down a circular staircase — or take a cylindrical glass elevator — to the 10,000-square-foot store below. The store will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week — a first for Apple and an acknowledgment of New York's status as a round-the-clock city.

"We wouldn't do that in Palo Alto, but this is New York," Mr. Jobs remarked in an interview.

European startups to claim some of the spotlight?

Evidently we can expect some nice surpises from Europen firms in the near future, writes Mike Arrington.  Some of these appear to be major the shit, while others mere poop.  Time will tell!!!