Today’s installment in the ongoing iPhone 5 release date guestimation saga: It’s beginning to look a lot like mid-October. Apple Insider is reporting that Apple has been “quietly denying” employee vacation requests for two periods in the middle of October, suggesting that it might be expecting a lot of demand from customers around that …
Gadgets
Shock Drop in iPad 2 Demand? Not So Fast, Say Analysts
Word is the iPad 2 may be selling less, shall we say vigorously, than Apple hoped, that Cupertino is cutting orders by an astonishing 25% to compensate and that, yep, we could be looking at our first iPad 2 price drop.
The folks claiming as much have a name for a change: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. told investors that Apple has slashed …
Time to Kiss the Compact Disc Goodbye (Thanks, Netflix!)
It’s not something you think about most days. In fact, it’s almost taken for granted: The compact disc’s days as a viable medium for music are nearly over. Oh, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. You use iTunes, or something like it. You’ve probably purchased music online and know, for better or worse, what music-related torrent …
Amazon and Fox Make Streaming Deal (Take That, Netflix!)
Amazon’s Prime instant video service will soon stream classic Fox TV shows including Arrested Development, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and — for the first time on digital video — The Wonder Years.
Fox shows and movies will be available for unlimited streaming later this fall through Amazon Prime, which costs $79 per year …
BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Hits $299 at Staples, Office Depot
BlackBerry’s 7-inch PlayBook tablet launched to mostly lackluster reviews back in April. It was the same old story: buggy software, tumbleweed in the app store and, most importantly, an uncompetitive price tag.
The intersection of supply and demand may be moving a tad closer to equilibrium on the PlayBook’s retail graph, though, as …
Paycheck Friday! Purchasing Suggestions for Your Perusal
It’s Friday! Maybe you just got paid. You could use that money for boring stuff like bills, rent, and food, or you could act like a wonderfully impulsive consumer and spend it on any number of products. Here are some ideas to get you started based on your taxable income bracket.
10% ($0 to $8,500)
Inflatable Fire Hydrant: …
Stadium-Size Angry Birds Game Controlled by Crowd Noise
Given their meteoric success on mobile devices so far, it’s no surprise that Rovio’s Angry Birds franchise is headed for bigger things. But it’s possible that no one really expected those bigger things to mean a giant version of the game played by crowds at a Formula One racetrack this weekend.
The big-screen version of the game, …
Amazon’s Surprise Wednesday Press Conference to Unveil 7-Inch Tablet?
Amazon just sent out a memo for a press conference to be held next Wednesday, September 28. If the rumors are true, it’s to announce their much-hyped 7-inch tablet—less an “iPad killer” than a competitor to Barnes & Noble’s Nook.
The tablet, which was revealed in a hands-on TechCrunch post, will reportedly be priced at $250 and run …
Dish-Blockbuster Deal a ‘Stream Come True’ Only for Existing Customers
For those expecting Dish Network to roll out a Netflix competitor during today’s “A Stream Come True” press conference, the announcement of the company’s “Blockbuster Movie Pass” offering will come as a disappointment.
Instead of being a streaming or rental service for the general public, the new offering is available only to Dish …
Sell Netflix to Amazon? That Might Be Crazy Enough to Work
This whole Netflix-Qwikster split had a fair number of people wondering if Reed Hastings had lost his mind. Hastings is no dummy, though, so there’s got to be some sort of method to the perceived madness.
Industry analyst Michael Pachter wrote in a note to clients the very same thing; that there’s “a method to their madness,” reports …
Scientists Can (Almost) Read Your Mind, Turn Thoughts into Movies
Mind, prepare to be blown—and scanned, by a device that can almost read thoughts, or at least digitize them into almost-identifiable images. No, it’s not some artsy video project, it’s for real: a system developed by University of California Berkeley scientists to capture visual activity in our brains and reassemble it as recognizable …
Report: Production Defect ‘May Influence Initial iPhone 5 Shipments’
Finding an iPhone 5 might be a bit trickier after launch, thanks to a rumored manufacturing defect that could reduce initial shipments.
Anonymous sources told DigiTimes that touch panel manufacturer Wintek discovered a “delayed bubble” defect during production. The defect occurs when gas gets trapped between thin film coatings in the …