friday

If you'd have told me a year ago that late 2009 would see a new format war brewing, I would have said, "Great, I love a good format war!"

If you'd have told me it would be an e-book format war, though, I might have laughed at you and made fun of your stupid Christmas sweater. Because a year ago the Kindle was the only game in town, and by the looks of it you shop at the Mervyns outlet.

This week we got our hands on the Nook, the tight little e-book reader from Barnes &… Read more

Shoppers were out in force during the week of Black Friday, but price cuts brought in less revenue than last year's recession-mired sales, according to a new report.

Retail analyst firm the NPD Group on Wednesday released its yearly accounting of technology sales during the week of Black Friday. More than $2.7 billion was spent on TVs, PCs, video game consoles, cameras, and more in the first burst of holiday shopping, but it represented a 1.2 percent decline compared to the same period a year ago. Still, it's better than the previous year's 3.4 … Read more

Sometimes, readers write to me. Sometimes, a couple of their words begin with an "f" or a "b." However, on Friday it was just "b"s. "Best Buy," "Best Buy," they said, along with one or two other words beginning with "b."

The customers' simmering frustration seemed to be directed at a Black Friday offer of a spectacular deal on an HP Pavilion P6214y package. I am sure this was a very fine offer. Unfortunately, Best Buy kept taking orders for it after it didn't have any … Read more

This week we told you about a couple of breakthroughs in bionics, including a Luke Skywalker-like artificial hand controlled by the brain, and a bionic larynx that uses a speech synthesizer to let people who've had their voice boxes removed speak more realistically. Those are both awesome.

They also hint that we may be on the threshold of a new wave of bionic devices that will boost the quality of life for people around the world. But what's next? What bionic science will most wow us in coming years?

Vote in our poll, and be sure to leave … Read more

The day's not yet over, and already there are more Cyber Monday shoppers than last year.

Although information on how much money people are spending and what they're buying Monday won't be available until Tuesday afternoon at the earliest, we know just from traffic to retail Web sites that shoppers are out in force. According to Akamai's Net Usage Index for Retail, which tracks traffic to a representative set of more than 270 global e-commerce sites in real time, that global traffic as of noon Monday is already surging past last year's peak.

Global traffic … Read more

One thing Droid users can lord over iPhone fanatics is the new porn app. Yes, with no Apple adult minding its app catalog, Android users can go adult. We also debate the reality of Cyber Monday and congratulate Twitter on being word of the year. Plus, we know you're all wishing for Macs for Christmas, but you're going to get a Netbook. Amazon doesn't lie.

Black Friday boasts $595 million in U.S. online holiday spending, up 11 percent … Read more

If you're cursing yourself for sleeping through Black Friday, you can still indulge your inner cheapskate today on Cyber Monday! No, it's not what you're thinking, dirty birdy--Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Thanksgiving when all the vendors come together to tempt you with online deals and take whatever coins are left in your bank account.

Since it's our first day back, we take the first half to update each other on our holiday festivities: Jeff visited the Norman Rockwell Museum, Justin is missing an arm after shooting guns in the Garden State, and Wilson stuffed himself silly with a batch of be-deviled eggs. I also suffered through "Twilight: New Moon" and "Ninja Assassin" over the weekend. Which movie deserves the award for least entertaining flick of the year? Check out our full review!

And speaking of Cyber Monday, Wilson digs up a controversial story about an "Adult-only" app arriving on the Android marketplace. The steamy app is pseudo-cleverly called "MiKandi" and according to Phandroid, the app only works with the Android. Sorry, iPhone users, your Web browser will have to do.

We're super excited to be back and ready to tackle the rest of 2009 with more giveaways, surprise guests, and a series of year-end wrap-up episodes coming your way, so don't miss an episode of CNET's The 404 Podcast. While you're listening, leave us a voice-mail at 1-866-404-CNET and give us your two cents. You can also send us an e-mail at the404(at)cnet[dot]com or just leave a comment on this blog!

Hopefully by now you've figured out that all this Black Friday and Cyber Monday hype is a bit overblown, and that the busiest shopping days of the year are still to come in mid-to-late December.

That said, there are still some decent deals to be found if you missed those hard-to-snag Black Friday doorbusters. We've handpicked a few Cyber Monday laptops to check out if you're returning to work on Monday and looking to get as much holiday shopping as possible done online.

Acer Aspire AS5534-1121 $399, Best Buy AMD Athlon dual-core L310; 4GB RAM; 320GB HDD; … Read more

I don't get "Black Friday," and I don't get the people who actually spend Black Friday at the mall. (Also, when did "doorbuster" become part of the argot? I missed the memo on that one). I do get the people who do their holiday shopping online, though, and there are more of them every day.

Here are the latest numbers from ComScore, which says that online holiday shopping is up a bit this year. That's not saying a lot, since last year's sales were soft. But for the record, sales are up … Read more