Hasta La Gadget!

According to the infamous “people with knowledge of its plans,” cable TV giant Comcast will move from renting video on-demand movies to selling them, in rumors reported by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. Hollywood studios love pushing the digital sales of movies and have recently expanded efforts to release flicks early for purchase on internet services, weeks before they come out on disc. Any offering by Comcast will probably be similar to what’s already out there from stores like iTunes, Walmart’s Vudu and even Target, except that instead of just digital access through the Xfinity website and apps, viewers could watch movies right on their cable boxes as well.

According to the WSJ, the offering will not be tied to other stores using Ultraviolet authentication, at least at first, so any digital collections will have to start fresh — something that may not appeal to end users who could find access restricted if they switch service or move to a non-Comcast neighborhood. Verizon FiOS TV already sells movies to end users through Flex View, while Dish Network is mentioned as considering a similar move. One thing that could make Comcast’s dive into movie sales more interesting however, is if it follows up on a 2011 patent dug up by Fierce Cable, describing a Groupon-style method of adjustable prices that lower if more people rent or purchase first-run movies while they’re still in theaters. Unfortunately, what we’ll probably see is just another video store indifferent clothing, but we’ll know more once it’s officially announced.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Reuters, Wall Street Journal

Apple may indeed have attracted a much broader audience of upgraders for its redesigned 9.7-inch iPad versus last year, according to new early data from mobile app analytics firms. The iPad Air enjoyed somewhere around five times the first weekend adoption of the fourth generation iPad, according to Fiksu, and just under four times that of the iPad mini, which went on sale at the same time as the iPad 4.

Fiksu found that three days after the iPad Air went on sale, it was being used by 0.88 percent of those millions using the apps of its clients – which is much better than either the 0.15 percent who were on iPad 4 three days after its launch, or the 0.22 percent who were on iPad mini at the same time. The iPad Air has attracted more early adopters than both devices combined, in fact, which, if borne out by device sales numbers, will mean a big win for Apple going into this holiday.

Backing up Fiksu’s tail of spiking early adoption are numbers from Mixpanel, which reports that the iPad Air is responsible for 1.54 percent of all iPad traffic to its clients’ applications as of this Monday. The iPad 2 and iPad 1 seem to have suffered the biggest concurrent drops in usage percentage, indicating possibly that Apple has managed to draw in a group of upgraders who were long-time holdouts on older devices with the iPad Air.

Last year, during its launch weekend of both the iPad 4 and the iPad mini, Apple sold a total of 3 million new tablets. This year, if these adoption comparisons are correct, that number should be quite a bit higher, though there’s not always a direct relationship between usage and sales. Apple traditionally issues a release after the opening weekend of a new device to say how many it managed to sell, but with the recent iPhone launch, it waited until both the iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s were launched before revealing numbers, since it rarely breaks out device sales by individual model.

The iPad is a slightly different story, since Apple hasn’t revealed a firm launch date for the iPad mini with Retina display yet, and since these numbers indicate it may be beneficial for it to reveal Air sales independent of the Retina mini, since both appear to be generating strong consumer demand. Either way, we’ll be sure to let you know what, if anything, Apple reveals about unit sales this time around.

Apple may have found the perfect balance with this iPad launch; a lighter, slimmer iPad Air that appeals to those who are fans of the bigger screen but who haven’t seen a real need to upgrade from first- and second-generation devices, and an iPad mini with a screen that could convince many first-gen device owners to upgrade, too. And staggering the release dates may have worked to their benefit, too – there’s less of a dilemma when one’s available on the other isn’t, and some who opted for iPad Air might later give in and find themselves buying a second device, depending on the reviews and reception of the smaller tablet.

The PC shipment numbers have rolled in for the third quarter of the year, tallying up the number of units shipped globally over the last quarter. Not surprisingly given the gradually declining nature of the market, shipment numbers again decreased, but not as much as analysts had expected. The numbers vary a bit depending on […]

This article was written on November 03, 2007 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

There are many stores out there that offer a 30 day price guarantee which means if the price goes down after you’ve bought it, they’ll refund you the difference. The problem with this is that you have to know that the price dropped in the first place before you can get a refund. But who has time to check prices everyday for products they’ve bought in the last 30 days? Luckily, there are several sites out there that are all about helping you save money and letting you know when the price has dropped.  Today we’ll be covering services offered by PriceProtectr and PriceGrabber, two sites that cover multiple retail stores.  We’ll also be covering RefundPlease which focuses solely on Amazon, as well as Kayak which will notify you if the price of an airline ticket has gone down so that you know when to buy it.

PriceProtectr

PriceProtectr will check a stores’ website for price reductions for 30 days after you’ve purchased the product if they offer a 30 day price guarantee. It’s a fairly new service and they’re always adding new stores to their list.

Stores or services: In all,there are 58 supported sites. Some of them include (in alphabetical order):

Abercrombie & Fitch, Altrec.com, Amazon, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, American Eagle Outfitters, American Musical Supply, Ann Taylor, The Apple Store, Backcountry.com, Banana Republic, Barnes and Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, Best Buy Canada, Bike Nashbar, BJ’s Wholesale Club, bloomingdale’s, Circuit City, Comp USA, Cooking.com, Costco, Costco Canada, Crutchfield, Fry’s Electronics, Future Shop, Gap, J&R Computer World, Jenson USA, J. Crew, KB Toys, Kohls, Lacks Home Furnishings, Lamps Plus, Linens ‘N Things, London Drugs, Lowes, Music123, Musicians’ Friend, Nordstrom, Office Depot, Office Max, Old Navy, Petco, Radio Shack, Rooms To Go, Sears, The Sharper Image, 6th Avenue Electronics, Staples, Staples Canada, Swim Outlet, Target, Tiffany Lamps, White House – Black Market, Zappos.com, zZounds

Type of Notifications: Email (they promise not to spam you!)

Good/Bad: They offer a wide variety of stores that they can watch for dropping prices, unfortunately they don’t have an RSS feature so that you can be notified by a method other than email. It’s simple and easy to use, and can save you quite a bit of money.

RefundPlease.com

Much like PriceProtectr, RefundPlease.com is all about saving you money by notifying you when something you’ve purchased has gone down in price within 30 days of purchase. All you’ll need is the ISBN (of it’s a book) or the ASIN# for non-books, and they’ll be able to track the price of the item for you.

Stores or services: Amazon only

Type of Notifications: email

Good/Bad:The fact that they only offer this service for Amazon is disappointing, however the good news is that they plan to expand this service to include other online shopping retailers. Another great thing about this site is that they show you what the top five price changes were from the day prior.

PriceGrabber.com

PriceGrabber is better known as a comparison shopping tool and a place to get merchant reviews, or get notified of rebates or find coupons, but it too has a great feature that can be used for Price Drop Notifications. You’ll have to have an account, but once you do, you can use the ‘set price alert’ feature. To use it as a price drop notification service, just find the product you bought, select to filter by merchant, and then set the target price to what you paid for it.  Once it drops below the price you paid for it, you’ll get an alert.
 

Stores or services: Many, many stores in categories like:

Applicances, Auto parts, Barbies & Kids, Books & Magazines, Cameras, Cell Phones, Plans, & Accessories, Clothing, Computers, Consumer Electronics, Flowers & Gourmet, Furniture, Health & Beauty, Indoor Living, Jewelry & Watches, Movies (DVD & VHS), Music, Musical Instruments, Office Products, Outdoor Living, Software, Sporting Goods, Toys, Video Games

Type of Notifications:Email

Good/Bad: The good and bad happens to be their selection of merchants.  The list of supported merchants is HUGE, yet they’re lacking some of the major ones.

Kayak

Kayak is best known as a travel search engine, but they offer so much more than just a search engine. One of their features called Fare “Buzz” is especially helpful because you can set a Maximmum Price for an airline ticket, and once it drops below that price, you’ll be notified so that you can go buy the tickets while they’re being sold at a great price.

Stores or services: Airline Tickets

Type of Notifications:Email

Good/Bad:You select how often you want an email – either weekly, daily (or never) for the fare alert feature, which is nice. It would be great to see them add a “buzz” feature (or a notification service) for some of the other travel options like a hotel, a cruise, a rental car, etc.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

The numbers are in for the launch of Rockstar North’s and Take-Two Interactive’s video game Grand Theft Auto V. The numbers show that during the first 24 hours of availability GTA V had sales of more than $800 million worldwide. That was enough to make it the best selling game in the first 24 hours in the history of Take-Two Interactive.

The $800 million haul also made GTA V the fastest selling game in franchise history. The game launched on September 17 for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 game console. It’s also worth noting that sales tally doesn’t count Japan and Brazil.

As always, GTA V has polarized critics who blame game for inciting violence among children and ruining morals around the world. It certainly hasn’t stopped gamers from buying the game in droves.

[via MarketWatch]