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LivingSocial expands into merchandise deals

LivingSocial said today it has branched into merchandise, a move that comes as the online daily-deal company tries to keep pace with sector leader Groupon.

Up to now, most of LivingSocial's bargains have been connected to restaurant meals, weekend trips and spa services. From now on, customers can visit the site to buy discounted merchandise. This is the company's first attempt at selling physical products.

The company, based in Washington D.C., is kicking off the offering with a day at the beach theme, offering such goods as tent gazebos, beach toys and towels.

Groupon already sells merchandise, … Read more

The 404 and The Walking Dead Escape

Without a doubt the highlight of our trip to Comic-Con was The Walking Dead Escape takeover of Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres.

Spanning across multiple levels of the stadium, the 45-minute obstacle course led us through a zombie-filled apocalyptic simulation where "survivors" must outrun the living dead or become infected themselves.

This event was no joke. We were told to stretch out before, wear gym clothes, and be sure to not leave anyone behind. Armed with our head- and chest-mounted GoPros, we documented the entire experience. Of course, not everyone could survive. So who made … Read more

NBC Olympics to stream games live on mobile devices

NBC Sports and Adobe Systems have teamed up to give fans two apps that stream the Olympics live on mobile devices, record footage for playback, and share the experience through social media.

The apps -- a live-streaming app for the more than 3,500 hours of content, and a companion app loaded with additional content launched today. The apps are now available for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch via Apple's App Store, and select Android handset and tablet devices within Google Play. (For Apple users, the apps seems a bit hard to find in iTunes. Get them here and … Read more

Kinect PlayFit counts your calories as you play Kinect games

Xbox Kinect users can now see how many calories they're actually shedding as they jump, dance, and shake to their favorite games.

Available today as a free download for Xbox Live subscribers, Kinect PlayFit is a fitness dashboard that counts the calories you burn as you play certain Kinect games, including Dance Central 2, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012, and even Kinect Star Wars.

You can also follow your calorie count over time to see how much you're losing as you do the Zumba or swing that lightsaber.

You can even get credit depending on how many calories … Read more

Xbox Live comes back online

After being down this morning, Microsoft's Xbox Live is back online, according to Microsoft's support team and its status page.

"Xbox LIVE should be back up and running. Thank you for your patience. Game on!" a member of the Xbox Support crew tweeted at about 1:30 p.m. PT.

CNET employees who are subscribers have confirmed that have been able to log on to their account, meaning they can access at least part of the service.

The gaming service was experiencing "difficulties" this morning, with users taking to Twitter to complain around 8:… Read more

Xbox Live down; Microsoft at work on a fix

Xbox Live users are unable to access the online-gaming service, Microsoft has confirmed.

The software company has taken to both its Twitter account and its Service Status page to inform users that Xbox Live is experiencing "difficulties." The Xbox Live Status page specifically says that users are currently unable to sign in to Xbox Live from their Xbox 360 or via Xbox.com.

"We are aware of the problem and are working to resolve the issue," Microsoft wrote on the Status page. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your … Read more

The 404 1,087: Where we talk about it without ruining it (podcast)

With Justin Yu still under the weather, The 404 Show once again experiments with Joe Kaminski filling in. We consider ourselves very lucky to have a guest with super-powers on our program. The first power is his knack for going on obscenely long tangents about the most meaningless of topics. The second is the ability to give spoiler-free movie reviews, more specifically of The Amazing Spiderman, which was just released.

Next it's off to a discussion on Android and the fact that only 10-percent of those devices have Ice Cream Sandwich running on them. What's even more confusing is that Jelly Bean (ICS' successor) was just released last week. It's arguably the most annoying Android reality, so we weigh its pros and cons.

Finally, we touch on EA's recent statement that the company will soon be distributing games 100-percent digitally. This shouldn't be much of a surprise, since EA already goes out of the way to combat used game sales (see EA Online Pass).

But perhaps the most exciting news of the day is the introduction of the official 404 trucker hat (pictured above). These bad boys will be available should you come and hang out with us at ComicCon 2012. All the info you need is here. We also highly recommend participating on CNET's ComicCon Twitter Contest for your chance to win a game console. … Read more

Charting the ripple effects of Sony's cloud-gaming acquisition

It happened a little later than the rumors predicted, but Sony has indeed gone shopping for a cloud gaming service. With its purchase of Gaikai, announced this morning, Sony has potentially disrupted the nascent cloud gaming market, and also added an interesting wrinkle to its own competitive fortunes across platforms.

A few thoughts on how this acquisition will affect the various players.

OnLive The other, arguably better-known cloud gaming service, OnLive was another rumored Sony target. Presumably Sony's done cloud shopping, but other suitors, namely Microsoft, could still be interested.

17 months ago, VentureBeat reported analyst valuations around $1.… Read more

Five essential Android apps for concertgoers

School's out for summer, which means barbecues, swimming pools, and summer concert tours from many of your favorite bands. There's nothing quite like the experience of live music, so in this post, we've put together a list of five essential Android apps for concertgoers.

Find concerts Don't miss shows from your favorite bands because you didn't know they were in town. Gigbeat is a nice music listing app that can scan your Last.fm, Rdio, and Songkick accounts, to come up with a list of your favorite artists to track. You can also have it … Read more