TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPICS: IPHONE / INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE

Howdy, y'all, from deep behind the orange curtain in beautiful Irvine, California, where "so many lives are on the breeze even the stars are ill at ease." [I know I am going to serve time in purgatory for this, but the first thing I thought of when I learned that four mansions in Malibu were on fire -- see http://tinyurl.com/tpws2 -- was Bad Religion's song "Los Angeles is Burning".]

On with the show...

The iPhone Audience: People interested in new cell phones

Earlier this week, Apple entered the cell phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a combination iPod, phone, digital camera, dessert topping, floor wax, and mobile internet communicator all running on a portable OS X platform. The phones drop in the US in June and will be sold at both Cingular/AT&T and Apple retail outlets for between US$499 [4 GB] and $599 [8 GB] with a two year contract.

Between you, me, and the fencepost, this thing is pretty darned sexy. Check out Apple's new iPhone page at

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

for more information and a demo of the iPhone's new features. Even if you aren't remotely interested in buying an iPhone, visit Apple's page and take a look at some of the iPhone's features. Why? Well, I'm pretty certain you're going to see a LOT of these features in other consumer electronic products in the years to come. Think of this as a sneak peek at what's just around the tech corner.

For more in-depth information about the iPhone, Engadget has a minute by minute recap of Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote presentation at http://tinyurl.com/yyfb9f and Apple has posted a video of Steve Jobs' keynote at http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/

International Tracing Service Audience: Everyone

Late Last Year, the CBS' news magazine 60 Minutes gave viewers a never before seen look into the International Tracing Service [ http://www.its-arolsen.org ] in Bad Arolsen, Germany. Created by the Red Cross shortly after World War II, the International Tracing Service is the largest Holocaust archive in the world. On its 16 miles of shelves are 50 million documents holding the stories of 17 million victims of the Holocaust, including

* The paper trail for "Frank, Annaliese Marie" as she was sent from Amsterdam to her eventual death at Bergen-Beslen. Annaliese is known today as "Anne Frank."

* A list of 700 men and 300 women needed to work in a munitions factory in Brnenec-Brunnlitz in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The factory was owned by Oskar Schindler.

* An April 20 "Totenbuch" [or "death book"] recording the execution of one prisoner every two minutes.

The most moving and fascinating part of 60 Minutes' piece is that the show invited Walter Feiden, Miki Schwartz, and Jack Rosenthal to visit Bad Arolsen. The three men are the first Holocaust survivors to enter the archive, and the Red Cross located documents for each.

You can watch the 60 Minutes story, in its entirety, online at http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2274705n

This link will open a new browser window and resize it to the width of CBS' embedded video player, so be ready for that. The video is just under 13 minutes long.

Wii Replacement Strap Audience: All Nintendo Wii Owners

Finally, if you were fortunate enough to snag a new Nintendo Wii game console this past holiday season, you need to know that Nintendo is offering to replace the strap on your Wii remote ["wiimote?"] for free. Apparently, the strap breaks kind of easily, causing the Wii remote to become a potentially destructive projectile.

Just fill out a form at

http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/strapreplace.jsp

and Nintendo will snail mail you a new strap at no cost. Play safe. That's it for today. Have a safe and happy week, and we'll talk again soon.