friday

Reporters' Roundtable: Holiday tech buying update

We are in the middle of the holiday buying season right now, between the first rush of gift-buying that happened on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and the "Oh, crap, I need to start buying presents!" feeling that happens in about a week.

This is the most important month for the consumer tech economy, but this December will be different from all the ones that came before it.

Why? Mobile devices, online shopping, social networking, improved analytics, changing tax laws, and changing behaviors among both buyers and sellers, among other reasons. Today we are talking about how the gadget economy is evolving.

My guests are: Claire Cain Miller, a reporter at The New York Times who's been writing about this topic, and a returning guest to the Roundtable; and Mike Fridgen, CEO of one of my favorite tech startups, Decide.com. This company runs a service that can tell you if the price of a tech item you're looking at is good today and if it will be going up or down in the near future.

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Friday Poll: Want a Windows 8 tablet?

The iPad may be the world's dominant tablet, but Android devices--especially Amazon's Kindle Fire--are finally making the tablet race a little more interesting.

Now, Windows 8 tablets are limping slowly toward the starting line. Will they have an impact?… Read more

Controversy, confusion over Carrier IQ

week in review Controversy over a mobile data-logger flared this week despite confusion over how the software works and what data it transmits. Some security experts said the privacy threat was overblown and it turns out Carrier IQ was falsely accused of "keylogging" in a rush to virtual judgement.

Carrier IQ, a startup that provides tracking tools to carriers and phone vendors, came under fire for allegedly monitoring Android- and iOS-based smartphones. According to Android researcher Trevor Eckhart, an outspoken critic of the company's technology, the company's software running on Android devices can record and relay … Read more

AT&T enjoys post-Turkey Day sales rush

Once AT&T got past the awkwardness of Thanksgiving, the rest of the weekend went pretty well.

The Dallas telecommunications giant said today that new online orders between Black Friday and Cyber Monday rose 15 percent over a year ago, as traffic to its Web site increased by nearly a third. Traffic in AT&T stores also saw a significant hike as well.

It was a long weekend to be thankful for, particularly after Thanksgiving itself, when AT&T sneaked in its request to the Federal Communications Commission to withdraw its bid to acquire T-Mobile USA and took a $4 billion charge to cover the potential collapse of the deal. … Read more

CNET Labscast 10: Rating Cyber Week laptop and TV deals

We ask the crew what they bought on Black Friday, and then browse a selection of Cyber Monday/Cyber Week deals on laptops and TVs, suggesting which ones to avoid, no matter the price.

The 404 954: Where hey, it's Monday, wanna Cyber? (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 Podcast episode:

Black Friday online shopping actually works, grows 26 percent Best Buy, Verizon, Dell launch Cyber Monday deals. Apple posts Black Friday retail records, despite customers reporting underwhelming discounts. Kindle family soars on Black Friday, but unit sales still elusive.… Read more

Apple posts Black Friday retail record, report says

Although Apple is typically loath to share sales figures until it announces quarterly earnings, a new report has cropped up, suggesting the iPhone maker had a huge day on Black Friday.

Citing a source, 9to5Mac today is reporting that it has obtained a screenshot of Apple's retail inventory system that shows record Black Friday sales. Although the blog didn't divulge exact sales for the day, it did say that, according to its source, Apple had expected sales to be more than four-times greater than on a typical Friday. The company was able to beat that forecast "by … Read more

Black Friday online shopping leaps 26 percent

It appears online retailers will have more to be jolly about this holiday shopping season.

Consumers in the U.S. spent $816 million online on Black Friday, a 26 percent increase over 2010's Black Friday, according to ComScore data released today. The results buttress numbers released Saturday by IBM Coremetrics that showed online sales on Black Friday grew by 24.3 percent compared with the same period last year.

Some 50 million visited online retail sites Friday, a 35 percent increase over last year, ComScore reported. Excluding auction sites such as eBay, the most visited retail site was Amazon, … Read more

When Black Friday Texans went nuts over video games

I've never been tempted to fight the hordes on Black Friday, for I feel sure the hordes would win.

Yet the stories you hear about Black Friday craziness can never match up to the actual footage. So I am grateful to Mashable for discovering this piece of footage from a Wal-Mart in Mesquite, Texas.

These supposedly sane human beings are fighting, clawing, crawling over each other in order to get hold of what seem to be DVDs and video games.

The boxes at which they are grabbing like lions tearing at a deer carcass say "$10 while supplies … Read more

Top 10 music Blu-ray discs

I've received so many great-sounding Blu-rays over the past couple of months, I had to put together a Top 10 list.

A lot of them didn't make the cut; just because a Blu-ray has a high-resolution soundtrack doesn't automatically mean it sounds great; the variables of the original recordings and mixing can make or break the sound. For example, Tom Petty's "Mojo" Blu-ray doesn't sound much better than the CD version of the same music, but it does have an uninspired 5.1 surround mix. All of the following discs are distinctly better … Read more