Lion promo materials spotted in third-party stores as launch looms

Italian site Macitynet.it (via MacRumors) snapped nice shots depicting in-store Lion materials and signage in third-party retail stores, indicating the official launch could be due in hours, not days. Both small table-top signage and tall free-standing banners captured on these shots showcase Lion’s focus on multitouch gestures. MacRumors discovered standard App Store gift cards redeemable against OS X Lion purchases in at least one store of Dutch retail chain Dixons, depicted in a promo material above:

Gift cards not only allow customers to effectively purchase OS X Lion for others, but also provide those without a credit card with a means to purchase content from the Mac App Store and Apple’s other digital stores.

Go past the break for two more shots…

Sources told 9to5Mac that Apple is holding employee overnights today in anticipation of the Lion launch tomorrow. In addition, AppleCare reps have received their Lion training and upgraded their workstations to Lion. Leaked training material obtained by9to5Mac this morning reveals that Lion will be able to reinstall itself over the Internet directly from the all-new recovery partition, without even needing to boot the operating system and launch the Mac App Store.