Starting Black Friday, November 26th 2010, CONVERSE will open their first specialty store in Manhattan New York City. In addition to the wide range of Converse sneakers and apparel the store will also stock a number of  NYC store exclusive sneakers and t-shirts as well. Converse has designed over 20 exclusive footwear styles and limited edition “I Star Chevron” graphic tees featuring New York City’s iconic boroughs and neighborhoods. Along with NYC, the five boroughs some of the neighborhoods included are SoHo, L.E.S., Williamsburg, Coney Island and Hell’s Kitchen to name a few.

CONVERSE SoHo Store
560 Broadway | Map
New York, NY, 10012

Opening Date: November 26th (Black Friday)

Brooklynite newcomers Activist Eyewear give us a look at one of the many ill features offered in their Activizm Lens Technology.  The first in a series, this video demos the ‘Oleophobic Seal’ that coats the entire outside of their lenses.  The title “Untaggable” pretty much says it all, as it repels mad scribbling with a Sharpie like it’s nothing.  Good for those mid-day bombing sessions in the hot sun!

More technical specs from the AE website:  “In the final stage of creating each Activizm lens, we cover all outer surfaces with our ultra-high performance Oleophobic Seal.  Applied in a vacuum chamber, this coating is one of the most advanced components of the Activizm system.  Its remarkable ability to repel both oil- and water-based substances means fingerprints, sweat, grease, water, ocean spray, whatever – it beads up and is easily wiped away.  All to ensure that the unparalleled optics of your Activizm lenses stay totally pure.”

Starting this Thursday, November 18th to Sunday November 21st, ALIFE/A.R.C. is having their infamous Courtyard Sale featuring Alife footwear, Alife apparel, Nike, Jordan, Adidas and Fila.

Thursday November 18th to Sunday November 21st.
NOON to 8 PM daily.
Up to 50% off of select items.

ALIFE | A.R.C.
158 Rivington Street | Map
New York, NY 10002
TEL #: 212-375-8116

While it may seem that Blackberry is take a few jabs at Apple and their iPad, it may also be that there is currently no other mass market tablet available. Either way, Blackberry is taking a step forward by comparing their yet to be released Playbook to the iPad in a browser rendering demo. A few things to note, the Blackberry Playbook has only been announced, with out tech specs and have never been demoed by anyone outside of RIM. It seems that Blackberry is the clear winner here in these controlled tests on loading websites but it is also exciting to see a tablet loading Adobe Flash based websites. As of today, there is still no release date announced for the Blackberry Playbook but take a look at the original announcement post for some more details on the device and check the Playbook vs iPad browser demo below.

Last night, Heineken brought their Inspire concert series back to New York City after a popular demand poll. The concert features the likes of Cee Lo Green, J. Cole and was headlined by NAS and many of New York’s influential in attendance. There were over 1200 fans in attendance who soaked in the music, some Heinekens and collaborative products from Gourmet Quattro C, Goodwood and Hot Air in the gallery installation at this event.

For the investment, you might as well just get an iPhone, but what if you already have an iPod Touch and are already locked into a contract else where. Sprint just introduced a slip on case called the ZTE Peel (one might confuse it as an extended battery pack) that will turn a second or third generation iPod Touch into a pseudo iPhone. The product is pretty genius for the price of $80 plus a $30 a month 1GB allowance (contract free), it’s basically a MiFi unit that’s been sculpted into a wrap around case for an iPod Touch so yes, you can use the Peel as a portable WiFi device as well. While most will opt of a real iPhone 4 with its sleek and slim size for those who already have an iPod Touch and want the ability to make calls from it and have a portable WiFi device the ZTE Peel is a pretty cool add on option. Look for the ZTE Peel from Sprint starting November 14th.

For those of you who follow @freshnessmag on twitter or were checking out Freshness Live already saw some live updates from the Windows Phone Launch Concert last night. (We sent the live updates to Freshness Live with our HTC Surround Windows Phone.)  For the launch new Windows Phone 7 operating system and smartphones, Microsoft brought out Katy Perry for a live concert in New York. And in San Francisco, a similar launch event featured a concert from Maroon 5. Ms. Perry decked out a number of her recent hits in the seventy plus minute concert and even came out for an additional encore performance. Check out some photos below along with three videos from the concert…

Last month in New York, Microsoft officially unveiled their new mobile OS, Windows Phone 7, today customers will be able to purchase Windows Phone 7 smartphones through AT&T. In celebration of the launch of this new operating system and mobile devices, Microsoft is putting on two launch concerts in New York and San Francisco. The New York Windows Phone 7 launch concert will feature Katy Perry while the San Francisco Windows Phone 7 launch concert will feature Maroon 5. Both concerts are free and tickets will be available at select New York and San Francisco AT&T stores, click below for more info on ticket availability. Keep your eyes on Freshness Live as we’ll be covering the New York Katy Perry concert.

The Lanvin For H&M collection is perhaps one of the most anticipated from the Swedish fast fashion company but images of the collection has been kept mostly out of public view except for a few promos. Early this morning, H&M will officially release imagery to the public of the Lanvin For H&M Collection. Below you’ll find seven of the men’s looks from the collection.

With the holidays creeping closer each day, T-Mobile is making it easier for families to stay connected with a number of affordable smartphones and low cost data service plans. The T-Mobile Comet is one of the newest smartphones created specifically for T-Mobile with a price of just $9.99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate and two-year service agreement. While it won’t be the speediest on the market it does feature most of what you’ll find in most Android phones. The Comet includes Android 2.2, a 3.2-megapixel camera, FM radio, portable WiFi hotspot, USB tethering, and a 2.8 inch touch screen display (additional features below). One new data plan will make it more affordable to keep connected, light users will be able to get a 200MB plan for $10 a month with a 2 year contract ($15.00 no contract) and the $30.00 unlimited data plan will continue to be available for heavy users. From our experience, most people checking email and web browsing will be fine with just the 200MB plan. Look for the T-Mobile Comet along with the new data plans in store and online starting November 3rd, 2010.

Over the Summer Heineken toured some of the major cities in the US with their Heineken Inspire music events, in July the tour stopped in New York City with a concert from Rick Ross, Wale and J.Cole. Just last month, Gourmet announced their collaboration with Heineken on the Heineken x Gourmet Quattro C. And due to popular demand, Heineken Inspire will make its way back to New York City on November 13th with an exclusive Heineken Inspire Encore concert. The collaborative Gourmet Quattro C along with collab products from Goodwood and Hot Air will be part of a gallery installation at this event. Details on the event will follow but Freshness will also have a number of spots on our guest list so make sure to keep up with Freshness on Facebook and Twitter.

Update: If you want to go to the event text encore1 to 35047

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Early November is adding up to be a huge month for mobile with Facebook being the latest to tease a mobile related project. There have been rumors floating regarding a potential Facebook mobile phone with Facebook integration but nothing has been confirmed. On November 3rd, Facebook is holding a “Mobile Event” at the Facebook HQ in California but has announced no other details. This should be another interesting entry into mobile as Facebook is another mammoth of a company joining the mobile race. As we’ve mentioned, Microsoft is set to unleash their Windows Phone 7 to the US public on November 8th.