schwarz

Facebook kicks off holidays with Gifts expansion

Facebook made a big commercial splash in New York City this evening, announcing several new partnerships for its gifting service in time for the holiday shopping season.

The social network wanted to create some buzz and used a press event at the FAO Schwarz in New York today to highlight the new retailers coming on board for Facebook Gifts.

"Facebook gifts is a combination of real moments with real gifts," Lee Linden, head of product for Gifts, told the room of reporters.

Linden told CNET that the new gifts will be available throughout the U.S. in the … Read more

iPad sales to hit 22 million over holiday quarter, says analyst

Facing sluggish competition from laptops and rival tablets, Apple could sell as many as 22 million iPads during this year's holiday-shopping quarter, says investment analyst Jason Schwarz.

In an article for Seeking Alpha, Schwarz declared late last week that the "era of the laptop is over" and that Apple is the sole beneficiary of the trend away from portable PCs in favor of tablets.

The analyst offered an anecdote of a businessperson who used to carry a MacBook Air everywhere but now relies just on a desktop and iPad. Schwarz also pointed to specific studies showing weaker … Read more

Schwartz: JavaFX can take on Flash

SAN FRANCISCO--When Sun announced its new JavaFX scripting language Tuesday at the JavaOne trade show here, it looked to some like the company was trying to re-create what's already being done more widely with Adobe Systems' Flash and that Microsoft hopes to accomplish with its Silverlight software.

But JavaFX, which is geared to make it easier to build flashy Web sites and Java desktop applications but which isn't yet released as a final product, stands out from those competitors, Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz argued at a news conference.

Java is already used on the servers that power … Read more

The ultimate motion simulator

We've seen simulators in all shapes and sizes, from racing systems to cockpits that control unmanned aircraft. But nothing compares with this "Morphis ESP" personal motion simulator that seats eight people from, of all places, FAO Schwarz.

Luxurylaunches says the simulator comes with aviation-quality motion, a library of 3D adventures on CD-ROMs and a customizable exterior to "relive the thrills that you used to seek at the amusement parks." We don't know about you, but whatever thrills we experienced didn't come anywhere near the $300,000 this thing costs. That's right, $300,… Read more