Well, now I’m not shopping at CircuitCity.com or Best Buy. Seriously. The new CircuitCity.com launched under new management last week we found the following statement within the return policy section.
Some manufacturers have implemented returns restrictions that prevent CircuitCity.com from being able to accept returns or offer exchanges, replacements or credits on their products for any reason. Products from manufacturers such as Compaq, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, Epson, and others are not returnable to CircuitCity.com FOR ANY REASON. All support as well as exchanges or replacements for DEFECTIVE merchandise, including within the first 30 days of ownership, must be handled directly with the product manufacturer. CircuitCity.com cannot accept any returns nor offer replacement, exchanges or credit for ANY product missing the UPC code. Only the product manufacturer can replace any DEFECTIVE item missing the UPC sticker.
Activision has declared war against the most popular band of all freakin’ time. The fifth installment in the Guitar Hero franchise (aside from the band specific titles) goes on sale September 1st, which is eight days before The Beatles: Rock Band hits store shelves. Oh boy! If I were a betting man, I’d say the The Beatles are going to sweep this round. → Read More
Google Earth has proven to be a powerful and useful tool for combing the Earth. The virtual-earth application has helped solve a plane crash mystery, was used for a marijuana bust and lets you explore Disneyland Paris. Now, Google Earth is adding something more practical It will let you see businesses and related information on both its desktop and iPhone apps.
By adding a “Businesses” layer to Google Earth, you’ll be able to see businesses by default when you start the application. Google Earth will list businesses like restaurants, bars, banks, gas stations, and grocery stores. As you zoom in further to the map, you’ll see more businesses. When you click on the icons, you’ll get additional information like the address. telephone number, reviews, and hours. → Read More
The WowWee Hoverpod is a completely self-contained foam hovercraft that is charged and controlled via a small IR unit. You can swoosh this little buddy all around your house without fear because the main fan is hidden under the body. → Read More
There is a heated competition taking place for which Twitter/Facebook desktop client is the fairest of them all. We’ve written about about TweetDeck, Twhirl / Seesmic Desktop, AlertThingy, Sobees, and the clients that focus only on Twitter (Tweetie, Nambu, Twitterific, etc.). Now, PeopleBrowsr, is entering beta with a free Adobe AIR-powered desktop app that integrates Twitter, Facebook and other social networks into one platform.
While in alpha, PeopleBrowsr was able to differentiate itself because it was a web browser based dashboard for social networks, sort of like what Streamy is now. Similar to Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop, PeopleBrowsr uses stacks. To add content, you add different stacks for each social network, including Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and your RSS feeds. Similar to all the Twitter clients mentioned above, Peoplebrowsr lets you do all the normal twitter activities (read, post, follow/unfollow, DM and reply). And you can update your Facebook status and engage in FriendFeed conversations from the dashboard. → Read More
I’m writing this up because of how delightfully ham-handed it is, which suggests their tactic worked. Basically, some “gadget matchmaker” service called Retrevo ran a study asking newlyweds what gadgets they wanted as wedding gifts. 38% wanted a camcorder, 24% wanted a digitial camera, and 2% wanted an MP3 player. I suspect thats because anyone at marriageable age right now – including those weird states where you can marry your cousin at 16 (looking at you, Delaware!) – already has an MP3 player.
Note there is no sample size mentioned so they probably asked their immediate family, making the entire process slightly statistically unsavory. → Read More
You guys down with Wii Fit or what? Loose talk around the internet seems to indicate that we’ll all be hearing about something called Wii Fit Plus at E3 next week. → Read More
We’re here at Google I/O, the search giant’s annual developer event in San Francisco. The first day’s keynote address is happening right now, and we’re covering it live.
The theme of today is pretty clear: The time for development on the web has arrived. With HTML 5, the ability to create rich browser-based applications is here. Google’s Vic Gundotra has laid out the five key things for HTML 5 that will change things: Canvas, Video, Geolocation, Database and App Cache, and Web Workers. More details on all of those in my live notes below. → Read More
Have you ever been annoyed by the fact that Wikipedia has a wealth of textual information but no videos and hardly any pictures? Take the Wikipedia article for Sony’s Rolly, for example, where the device is depicted as “an egg-shaped digital robotic music player.” If you have never seen a Rolly before, this cryptic description won’t help much. After reading about it in Wikipedia, you’ll then need to look it up on YouTube or Google Image Search to see what it actually looks like.
This is where a new service called Navify comes in. Launched in public beta today, Navify intends to enrich Wikipedia by adding pictures, videos and user comments to each article. And it actually works pretty well. Look up “Sony Rolly” using Navify and you not only get the original Wikipedia text but also hundreds of related pictures and videos (pulled in from Flickr and YouTube) by clicking on the tabs Navify puts on top of each article. Look up “Pulp Fiction” and the service retrieves the Wikipedia article itself plus screenshots, covers, posters and trailers from the movie. You get the picture. → Read More
The Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition can be had for $46.98 at Amazon (today only). That’s down from the regular price of $77.99. → Read More
Weebly, a popular WYSIWYG webpage maker, is launching a new feature today that will allow users to quickly make fully customized web stores using the Weebly interface they’re already familiar with.
Using the new feature is simple. Weebly has added a handful of new ‘revenue’ elements to its main menubar, which allows you to drag-and-drop items onto your page. Simply drag one of the four available ‘Product’ elements onto your page, and you’ll be presented with a small box where you can describe your product, add a photo, and set a price (you can easily create a new item in less than a minute). After creating a product once, you can add it to your other pages without having to recreate it.
The store supports both PayPal and Google Checkout accounts, and allows users to add items to a virtual shopping cart as they browse (you don’t have to buy one item at a time). → Read More
Just in time for graduation shopping, the $999 white 13-inch MacBook is now a bit more powerful. This is the second time that Apple has updated the least expensive Mac notebook. This round of updates isn’t as impressive, but we’ll take anything we can get. → Read More
Editor’s note: The following guest post was written by Nova Spivack, CEO of of Radar Networks, the company behind Twine
A new paradigm for using the Internet is about to begin: Virtual Assistants (VA’s) are coming to a mobile device near you.
This week, a stealth startup will demonstrate the first public version of their mobile virtual assistant, Siri. This may mark the beginning of the era of consumer-grade virtual assistants on the Web.
Siri is focused on mobile devices – particularly the iPhone and other smart phones, it has an unusually productive interface and user experience, and it is super useful – it is something I would really use every day. As a result I would not be surprised if Siri becomes one of the top iPhone applications within a few months after their launch. (Disclosure: In the past, I worked on the DARPA-funded CALO project from which Siri sprung).
The team at Siri has given me a sneak-preview of their technology and product, and here I will dive deep to try to uncover the real significance and technical underpinnings of what they are doing. In addition, I’ll delve into the implications of the virtual assistant (VA) trend and what it might mean for us in the future. → Read More
Zensify is a new lifestreaming iPhone app which lets you update, discover and track pictures, videos and comments across multiple social networks. Other apps have tried to do similar things. But what sets Zensify apart is that it shows the user trends within your social graph in the form of a tag cloud of key words. In other words it brings a lot more intelligence to your social graph. Suddenly, you can see a big trending topic amongst people you follow. I’ve been wanting something similar for a while and I’m not alone. David Winer recently Tweeted: “Wouldn’t it be cool if “trending topics” were localized to the people who are followed by the people you follow.” Well Zensify does this. And it doesn’t just do it across Twitter. It does it also does it across updates from Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, Photobucket and 12seconds. For that reason it is my new favourite app, bar none, and it’s available for free from the app store here. Zensify is also reminiscent of some desktop apps in that it allows you to view all your social networks in one timeline, and update Twitter and Facebook at the same time. You can upload and share mobile photos, and share content from all those networks directly back into to Twitter. You can also set up and save regular search terms across your social graph. The app will also play videos from YouTube and 12seconds. The first version of Zensify is called “Zensify Preview”, so this is not the full app just yet. Even so it’s still pretty awesome. For instance, this morning I could see that among the people I am following (which is pretty much all the startups CEOs across Europe) that, just amongst my Twitter friends, people were talking a lot about “funding”. Each time I click a topic it takes me deeper into who is talking about that topic. Plus the search facilities on the app are pretty good as well, allowing you to search across Twitter, videos, Facebook, and many other content types. However, one drawback comes not from the app itself but from the fact that many people have linked their Twitter account with Facebook, so you get their status updates twice. There’s been a general trend away from doing this and Zenify, and other apps like it, will probably accelerate this as people realise how much it → Read More
Humanoid robots are being developed all over the world (but especially in Japan) with many purposes in mind, with assistance to the sick and elderly as two of the most important areas. The problem is that sick and elderly people are usually confronted with robots having a cold, emotionless aura. And this is where a new robot called KOBIAN comes in. → Read More
Semantic ad technology provider Peer39 is announcing the closing of its Series C round to the tune of $10.5M, pushing the total amount of funding raised to over $22M. The round was led by Israeli VC Evergreen Venture Partners and was joined by the company’s existing investors Canaan Partners, Dawntreader Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, and JP Morgan.
Since taking an in-depth look at Peer39 nearly a year ago, the company has shifted its focus from developing its own ad network to leveraging its semantic ad platform to transform publishers’ remnant ad inventory into a premium one. → Read More
LG has launched an amusing (and for some, useful) application that enables you to translate over 2000 words teens tend to use when they’re sending text messages to regular English, and the other way around. The tool is called DTXTR and the aim is to let is keep you in the know of what these kids are txting bout these days, xactli.
Frankly, there are a lot of basic words that can’t be converted to ‘teen text’ with the tool yet, but you can always submit a term for inclusion in the glossary. And if you want to test your own mad txt skills, you can do a little quiz on the site to see if you’re up with the times or not. → Read More
Good Technology has acquired Intercasting, a mobile social networking connectivity company based out of San Diego, CA, for an undisclosed sum. Good, which markets a number of mobility solutions primarily geared towards businesses, is looking to broaden its customer base beyond smartphone users and picks up Intercasting to expand its product line aimed at end consumers.
Intercasting Corporation is mostly known for its ANTHEM technology platform, which spans an entire communication ecosystem comprised of social networks, email services, IM providers, content owners, application developers, wireless carriers and device manufacturers. → Read More
