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I told you it was going to be a Blu-ray Christmas!

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

blu-ray.gifI hate to say I told you so, but today’s PriceGrabber.com gadget report on Black Friday sales, once again proves my opinion that this Christmas will be a “black” Blu-ray Christmas! My opinion goes against conventional wisdom that Blu-ray won’t succeed, and that streaming HD using Roku/Netflix, and cable providers offering HD content is now closing the window of opportunity for Blu-ray. I’m not buying that theory. Additionally, several other articles, including CRN′s Consumers Not Planning a Blu-Ray Christmas article and Register Hardware’s ‘A Blu-ray Christmas? Don’t bank on it′ don′t believe my opinion that it will be a Blu-ray Christmas.

The most popular products on Black Friday - specifically look at #3, the Blu-ray player:

  1. Nintendo Wii Console
  2. Ugg Australia ‘Classic Short’ Boot (how about that!)
  3. Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player
  4. Samsung LẬA650 52″ LCD TV
  5. Nintendo Wii Fit
  6. Panasonic TH-42PX80U 42″ Plasma TV
  7. Sennheiser HD 555 Headphones
  8. Canon EOS Rebel XSi Black SLR Digital Camera Kit
  9. Acer Aspire One AO﹖-1295 Notebook
  10. Canon PowerShot A590 IS Black Digital Camera

Out of all the possible gadgets in the world, a Blu-ray player ranks #3.

Also, as previously blogged, here are the Top 10 categories and percent growth over Black Friday 2007. Once again look at #3, which sports a 147% increase!

  1. Women’s Boots - 203%
  2. Watches - 202%
  3. Blu-ray/HD-DVD Players - 147%
  4. Women’s Sleep & Lounge Wear - 415%
  5. Games & Puzzles - 151%
  6. Women’s Jackets - 110%
  7. Music - 96%
  8. Headphones - 103%
  9. Women’s Dresses - 107%
  10. Women′s Casual Shoes - 143%

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m l keeping my eye on Amazon for any Blu-ray specials. (see: Amazon Blu-ray player special prices). Today, I see a Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player for just $198! I might just get my brother-in-law a nice Blu-ray player after all!

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Original post by nafiz

Posted in Blu-ray Christmas, Christmas, player, Blu-ray Disc Player, Sony BDP-S350, blu-ray player, 1080p, black, News, TMCnet, Gadgets, Video Hardware & Software, black friday, Home Entertainment | No Comments »

Disney World Deal - Buy 4 Nights, Get 3 Free

Monday, December 1st, 2008

disney animal kingdom triceratops spin Knowing I’m a Disney fanatic, Rich just sent me this amazing Disney World deal that gives you 3 nights free and includes Disney World theme park tickets. This deal is via a partnership with American Airlines. You′ll also receive a $200 gift card when you travel January 4 - March 29, 2009.I have a Disney World timeshare that requires I use my points towards my vacation, so this doesn′t help me any, but it might help you, so enjoy!

Here’s the details:

This Deal Will Have You Floating On Air Buy 4 Nights, Get 3 Free Includes Disney Theme Park Tickets

American Airlines Vacations Deal At A Glance

Offer: Buy 4 Nights, Get 3 Free
Book By: December 20, 2008
Travel By: January 4 - June 27, 2009

 

What will you celebrate?

There’s so much in life worth celebrating. So during 2009, the Walt Disney World® Resort will make it easier for you to magnify the moment in wonderful Disney style! This is the year to gather with all the people who make you the happiest and celebrate at the place where dreams come true.

Join us during this very special time at the Walt Disney World® Resort. The hardest thing for you to decide is: What will you celebrate?

American Airlines Vacations - Walt Disney World Special Offer

Package includes:

  • 7 nights at a select WALT DISNEY WORLD® Resort Hotel
    (Look for hotels listed as Disney Reduced Rate Special in search results)
  • 7-Day MAGIC YOUR WAY Ticket Park Hopper Option
  • DISNEY MAGICAL EXPRESS Service, which provides complimentary airport transfers and luggage delivery


Featured Hotels Disney's Pop Century Resort

 

Value - Disney’s Pop Century Resort
Whether they′re themed to music, sports, movies or 20th-century pop culture, Disney Value Resorts are big on everything but price! They also offer themed pool areas, food courts, pizza delivery and laundry facilities.

 

Disney's Port Orleans Resort

 

Moderate - Disney’s Port Orleans Resort
They’re the perfect combination of value and amenities. With Disney Moderate Resorts you can choose to be in a variety of imaginatively themed locations, from the colorful Caribbean to the best of the Big Easy. Fantastic themed pools with slides let you soak up some watery fun. Food courts and full-service dining offer all-time favorites.

 

Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge

 

Deluxe - Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
Offering the highest level of quality, convenience and Lobby Concierge services available, Disney Deluxe Resorts immerse you in fantastic worlds and faraway lands. Magical theming is everywhere, from beautiful rooms to elaborately themed pools. Acclaimed restaurants offer award-winning cuisine while others feature enchanting Character Dining.

For more info, go here.

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Original post by nafiz

Posted in vacation, disney, nights, Disney World, american airlines, deal, world, Personal and Humor, News | No Comments »

Cyber Monday Amazon Deals

Monday, December 1st, 2008

amazon-logo.jpg Amazon has a special landing page listing all their Cyber Monday deals. Amazon doesn’t call it “Cyber Monday″ but rather the “Black-Friday-After-Thanksgiving-Sale”, so this landing page should be good until Christmas. Maybe they were afraid Cyber Monday was patented, kinda like their one-click ordering patent.

Anyway, here’s the current category breakdown on the Amazon holiday specials landing page:

There are some Blu-ray DVD players for sale, including a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player for $199. (under $200). Still doesn’t beat the $128 Blu-ray player Wal-Mart was offering on Black Friday (now $199), but it’s the best deal on Amazon today.

For the full listing on Amazon holiday specials, head over here.

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Original post by nafiz

Posted in sale, Video Games & Gaming, deals, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, friday deals, Amazon.com, Friday, black friday, News, TMCnet, Gadgets, Video Hardware & Software, MP3 Players & Digital Audio, Digital Cameras, Home Entertainment | No Comments »

Inside Dean Kamen’s Seceded Island of Geekery

Monday, November 24th, 2008

mattnyc99 writes “The new issue of Esquire has a long, in-depth, intricate profile of Dean Kamen and his quest to invent a better world. Earlier this month, we discussed Kamen’s Sterling-electric car, but this piece goes into much more detail about how that engine works — he got the original idea from the upmodded Henry Ford artifact in the basement of his insane island lab — and about how his inventions often go overlooked, including the Slingshot water purifier that Stephen Colbert made famous but that no one has actually bought yet. Quoting: ‘To get the Slingshot to the 20 percent of the world that doesn’t have electricity, Kamen came up with the idea of splitting it in half. Leaving the Stirling aside, he would try to develop a market for his distiller in parts of the developing world that have electricity but not reliable clean water. “There are five hundred thousand little stores in Mexico,” he says. “If we can put one of these in 10 percent of them, that’s enough to put it in production.” That may be the killer app for the distiller.’ So, is this guy all hype with overpriced devices, or is time for someone to take his genius (Segway aside) to the mass market?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by CmdrTaco

Posted in News | No Comments »

Alan Colmes Leaves Hannity & Colmes

Monday, November 24th, 2008

FOX News Channels’ Alan Colmes is leaving Hannity &amp Colmes (H&ampC) at the end of this year. Well there goes my 9 o′clock nightly timeslot. What the heck am I going to watch now? Reality TV? Ack! Well, the good news is that not watching the at-times heated debates should be good for shaving off a few points off my blood pressure. So you’re probably wondering if Sean Hannity finally got under Alan’s skin, he got tired of debating Sean and he quit as a result. Well, according to the newswires, it was an amicable departure.

Alan Colmes said, “I approached Bill Shine (FNC’s Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network. Although it’s bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I′m proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years.”

Colmes will continue to have a presence on FNC as he will serve as a liberal commentator on a variety of FOX News programming, including Foxnews.com’s The Strategy Room and continue hosting his radio program, The Alan Colmes Show on FOX Talk, a division of FOX News Radio. He will also begin developing a weekend program.

celebrity-deathmatch.jpgIt’s too bad Alan couldn’t have the 9pm timeslot currently occupied by H&C, since then he’d be going against Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. It would be a lib-on-lib ratings deathmatch!

Shine said, “We’re very sorry to see Alan reach this decision but we understand his desire to seek other creative challenges in his career. We value his incredible hard work in making Hannity &amp Colmes the most successful debate program on cable news and we’re going to miss him on the show. Thankfully, he will begin developing a weekend pilot for us.”

FOX News Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Roger Ailes added, “Alan is one of the key reasons why FOX News has been such a remarkable success. We’re sad to see him leave the program but we look forward to his ongoing contributions to the network.”

Hannity &amp Colmes is the only FNC program which has remained in the same timeslot for 12 years, catapulting to number one in 2003 and never relinquishing the top spot. The second highest-rated program in cable news behind only The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity &amp Colmes averaged 3.3 million viewers nightly for the Nielsen month of October and is poised to mark 60 consecutive months at number one at the end of November.

Hannity added, “Not only has Alan been a remarkable co-host, he’s been a great friend which is rare in this industry — I’ll genuinely miss sparring with such a skillful debate partner.”

Throughout his 12 year tenure on Hannity & Colmes, Colmes has interviewed numerous key political figures, including: President Elect Barack Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), DNC Chairman Howard Dean and former Vice President Al Gore.

FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour general news service covering breaking news as well as political, entertainment and business news. For nearly seven years, FNC has been the most watched cable news channel in the nation. Owned by News Corp., FNC is available in more than 90 million homes.

Read

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Original post by nafiz

Posted in hannity colmes, Sean Hannity, colmes, hannity, program, Hannity & Colmes, FOX News, TMCnet, News, Alan Colmes, FNC, Home Entertainment | No Comments »

Single Texting Addicts - Meet Speed SMS Dating

Monday, November 24th, 2008

Texting (SMS) is certainly popular, especially amongst the younger crowd. In fact, one teenaged girl sends more than 600 text messages in a day — almost double what an average American sends/receives in a month. A 29-year-old man travelled from San Francisco to Green Bay to meet a woman he met via text message. It was love at first texting.

We′ve all heard of the term “speed dating”, which allows you to meet many people on several mini-dates usually lasting from 3 to 8 minutes. Well, how bout speed SMS dating, where you meet other texters with common interests simply using your mobile phone and Bouncephone. Bouncephone is free (standard carrier texting rates apply) and it’s accessible entirely from your mobile phone.

bouncephone-architecture.gif
Here’s how it works.

Continue reading Single Texting Addicts - Meet Speed SMS Dating…

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Original post by nafiz

Posted in dating, texting, speed, Bouncephone, SMS, News, Internet, Mobile Phones, TMCnet | No Comments »

PC Magazine Stops the Presses - Online Only

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

pc-magazine.pngI grew up reading PC Magazine and I looked forward each couple weeks to picking up my copy of PC Magazine at the local grocery store. But today, Ziff Davis has announced that the legendary PC Magazine print publication is shutting down its print publication and focusing exclusively on online content. This is truly a sad day… Hold on while I grab some tissues…

PC Magazine started the whole in-depth comparative reviews of PCs and Microsoft software. They expanded later to including gadgets, MP3 players, mobile phones, GPS, and other technology. PC Magazine offered insightful tech tips and great columnists like John C. Dvorak. Back in the 80s and 90s the print publication was 400-500 pages, making for hours of tech- reading pleasure. Today, it’s down to 150 pages and soon to be 0 (January 2009).

Well, I guess it’s “greener” that way. But I for one will miss my print copy of PC Magazine.

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Original post by nafiz

Posted in print, magazine, Video Games & Gaming, John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine, publication, print publication, Computer Software, Computer Hardware, News, TMCnet, Gadgets, Microsoft, Mobile Phones, Video Hardware & Software, Home Entertainment | No Comments »

Calling All Bloggers! Free Blogging on TMCnet.com

Friday, November 14th, 2008

This is a call out to all bloggers out there - Rich Tehrani, my boss has extended an open invitation to bloggers interested in blogging for TMCnet.com, a leading communications/telecom site according to Alexa, Quantcast, and others.

Today, TMC launches its Blog Aid program to help people out of work stay in the public eye - in order to improve their hiring prospects in a tough economy. In the last few months, many good marketers, PR people, engineers and others who have been laid off. These potential Blog Aid bloggers have a good deal of quality commentary and information to share which could be very useful to the TMC community of online readers.

TMC is offering these new bloggers - especially those working in the communications and technology industries, a venue to voice their thoughts on the spaces where they have expertise so as to allow them access to the 2-3 million global visitors who come to TMCnet on a monthly basis.

So if you enjoy writing about communications, telecom, VoIP, wireless, unified communications, mobile, etc. and want a wide audience, go check out Rich′s blog for more details.

p.s. The blogging platform is Movable Type 4.21.

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Original post by nafiz

Posted in blog, MovableType, Rich Tehrani, blogging, movable type 4.21, bloggers, telecom, communications, Unified Communications, Skype, VoIP, TMCnet, News, Internet, SIP, Mobile Phones, Wireless | No Comments »

Cash Lifeline For Bletchley Park

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Smivs writes “Bletchley Park, the home to the allied codebreakers during WWII, and a major computing heritage centre, has been given a financial lifeline, reports the BBC.The grant of £330,000 will be used to undertake urgent roof works as the rooms of the Grade II-listed mansion, replete with painted ceilings, timber panelling, and ornate plasterwork, are at risk because the roof has been patched rather than renovated so many times during the 130 years of the mansion’s history. The donation follows efforts to highlight the dilapidated state of the huts and other buildings at Bletchley. Discussions are also in progress on a further three-year, £600,000 funding programme for the historic site. “Bletchley Park played a fundamental role in the Allies winning the Second World War and is of great importance to the history of Europe,” said Dr Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by CmdrTaco

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Circuit City Dimming Its Lights

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

circuit city logo2.gif Circuit City will close 155 stores and lay off 7,200 employees, or 17% of its workforce, as it continues to restructure its business. These closings represent more than 20% of U.S. stores and includes the exiting of 12 markets.

The store closings will shrink the number of locations the chain operates in the U.S. to 566. 

The chain also faces credit issues with its vendors. Circuit City said certain vendors have changed payment terms, including demanding cash for inventory before shipping merchandise, as the all-important holiday shopping season approaches. Vendors also have limited the credit available to the company for purchases, including in some cases not providing customary increases in credit lines for holiday purchases.

We just hope that Best Buy and other more general retailers (Target, Wal-Mart) will take up the slack. While we all love to shop and buy online, there’s nothing quite like walking into a huge gadgets retailer and touching and feeling all of these gadgets before buying them. Don’t you think?

More at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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Original post by nafiz

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Sarah Palin Eyeglasses Best Sellers?

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

sarah-palin.jpgI was in Pearle Vision today looking to buy some new glasses with my new prescription, when I overheard two female customers asking about Sarah Palin’s trendy eyewear. The lightweight, titanium, rimless rectangular frames were made for her by Home Optics, a retailer in Chugiak, Alaska. Sarah Palin’s eyeglasses are custom made, but based on the Kawasaki 704 series and the color is 34 gray, if you’re interested in owning your own pair.

I asked the Pearle Vision employee if they get a lot of requests for Sarah Palin glasses and she said, “Yes, quite a bit, but most aren’t serious once they hear the sticker shock of $400.”

Say what you will about Sarah Palin, but it appears Palinmania is live and well, even here in Connecticut, which is solid Blue Democrat territory. Of course, women buying the designer glasses could just as easily be huge SNL Tina Fey fans (anti-Palin) as well. So the trendy glasses could be a political statement for either side of the political fence. Or they could just be nice looking glasses is all — and the customer could careless one way or the other the political leanings of Sarah Palin.

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Posted in , , , , , , , , PC World, News, Senate, 2012, Ericsson, TMCnet | No Comments »

Hikers May Have Found Fossett Items

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Anonymous Coward writes “CNN is reporting ‘A weathered sweat shirt, cash and a pilot license with Fossett’s name were found Tuesday near Mammoth Lakes, police Chief Randy Schienle said.’ The license did not have a photo. ‘”We’re not certain that it belongs to Steve Fossett, but it certainly has his name on the ID,” Schienle said.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by samzenpus

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Amazon EC2 running Windows Server and SQL Server

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

amazon-aws-logo.jpgAmazon just announced that Amazon EC2 will soon run Windows Server and SQL Server. The announcement was made to Amazon Web Services developers this morning. This announcement may be partly in response to Microsoft who has been building a hosted development platform of their own. In fact, Microsoft is expected to announce the hosted platform officially at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. Bob Muglia, Senior Vice President of Microsoft’s Server and Tools Business, will keynote and is expected to unveil Microsoft’s cloud computing solution.

According to an Amazon representative, starting later this Fall, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) will offer you the ability to run Microsoft Windows Server or Microsoft SQL Server. Today, you can choose from a variety of Unix-based operating systems, and soon you will be able to configure your instances to run the Windows Server operating system. In addition, you will be able to use SQL Server as another option within Amazon EC2 for running relational databases.

Amazon EC2 running Windows Server or SQL Server will allow you to deploy ASP.NET web sites, high performance computing clusters, and other Windows-based applications. Amazon said, “By choosing Amazon EC2 as the deployment environment for your Windows-based applications, you will be able to take advantage of Amazon’s proven scalability and reliability, as well as the cost-effective, pay-as-you-go pricing model offered by Amazon Web Services.”

They added, “Our goal is to support any and all of the programming models, operating systems and database servers that you need for building applications on our cloud computing platform. The ability to run a Windows environment within Amazon EC2 has been one of our most requested features, and we are excited to be able to provide this capability. We are currently operating a private beta of Amazon EC2 running Windows Server and SQL Server.”

Check out http://aws.amazon.com/windows if you are interested in being notified later this Fall when the offering is released.

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Personal news - wife is pregnant

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

Just a break from your daily VoIP and gadgets news fix to announce my wife is pregnant with our second child.

And in case you were wondering what our first child looks like, here’s a few photos of our 2.5 year old daughter Megan, who has perhaps the brightest bluest eyes I’ve seen in my life - not that I’m biased or anything…

Disney 251.JPG

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Sarah Palin email hacked, posted to Wikileaks & Wikileaks goes down

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

sarah-palin.jpgIn case you haven’t heard, some hackers hacked into Governor Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account. Some of the emails were posted to Wikileaks.org, a site that posts leaked information. Well, apparently the popularity of Sarah Palin must have brought down Wikileaks, since I can’t get to their website.

I’m guessing all the media coverage and pointing to the Wikileaks site must have overwhelmed their website with too much traffic. The Palin Phenomenon continues! Whether you love or hate Sarah, there is no doubt that she has changed the political landscape for this election cycle and perhaps forever. It’s quite apparent that conservative women can now also make the national spotlight previously held only by moderate to liberal women (aka Democrats).

here’s the URL if you want to be a voyeur and read Sarah’s emails. (when the site comes back up that is)

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_account_2008

Of course, if you’re a conspiracy theorist then President George Bush, the CIA, or the FBI shut down Wikileaks.

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