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US retailers stop selling security cameras made by some Chinese companies
Home Depot and Best Buy have pulled the products of Chinese tech surveillance makers linked to human rights abuses from their shelves.
Avast packaged detailed user data to be sold for millions of dollars
The popular antivirus program Avast has been selling users data to giant companies like Google, Home Depot, Microsoft and Pepsi, a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag found. Avast reportedly scraped data from its antivirus software and handed it off to its subsidiary Jumpshot, which repackaged the data and sold it, sometimes for millions of dollars. While Avast required users to opt-in to this data sharing, the investigation found that many were unaware that Jumpshot was selling their data.
PayPal lines up 15 retailers for mobile payments, will let you buy Jamba Juice smoothies with a smartphone
Although PayPal's mobile payment system started out small with a Home Depot deal, that snowball is quickly rolling itself into a boulder. Starting next month, 15 extra US retailers will be happy to see you slap down your smartphone (not literally, we hope) instead of a credit card. The selection leads us to think a lot of smartphone owners like to shop for wearables -- Aéropostale, Foot Locker and JC Penney are in the batch, along with others -- but there's a few useful exceptions, like Barnes & Noble, Jamba Juice and TigerDirect. At least a total of 20 merchants are expected by the end of year, and as with Home Depot, you won't need special hardware besides an Android or iOS device to spend your hard-earned cash. We'll just be thankful we won't have to buy our yogurt with actual cash, like savages.
Philips' L Prize-winning light bulb goes on sale Sunday, priced between $20 and $60
It's a little strange crowning a "winner" when only a single company enters the contest, but that's exactly what happened during the L Prize celebration in August of last year. Philips was the only outfit to take the US Department of Energy up on its offer, earning some $10 million to develop what might go down as the most radically designed, wildly expensive bulb your table lamp has ever seen. That said, the victorious bulb is a big fan of Ma Earth (and her of him), using just 10 watts of energy while outputting light similar to that of a 60 watt incandescent. It'll hit retailers like Home Depot this Sunday (Earth Day) for around $50 a pop, while some utility companies may subsidize 'em in an effort to hit the magical $20 price point. Hey, no one said saving energy would be remotely affordable, right?
eBay, PayPal, Opera announce mobile payment innovations at MWC
Nope, "Grease" isn't the word, it's "Mobile Payments," or at least it would be if it wasn't technically two words. Still, eBay, PayPal and Opera have used the fiesta atmosphere at MWC to promote their services, as you do. eBay's partnered with UK carrier Three, which will now pre-install the auction site's apps on all the Android phones it sells. It's also teamed up with hotelier Yotel and Iberian ticketing service Entradas to offer quick-and-easy payments for the same. Meanwhile, Opera has launched the Opera Payment Exchange (OPX), aiming to democratize the space by making secure commerce available on any form of feature phone, rather than just top-level smartphones. Finally, PayPal has rolled out a new payments system to Home Depot nationwide. Every branch will be equipped to handle payments from the online agency using a card or cellphone and PIN combination. After the break we've got the details for all three, suffice to say it won't be long before you can spend every penny you've earned without having to get out of bed.
Mobislyder offers low-level roll track for filming, gleams the cube
You tried to shoot a quick handheld movie with your smartphone the other night. And it wound up looking like you shot it in the middle of an earthquake. Before putting your video editing application's "Analyze for Stabilization" feature to the test, have a gander at Glidetrack's Mobislyder. Essentially a combination of a roll track and a skateboard, the Mobislyder ships with a variety of mounts to fit a selection of smartphones, camcorders and compact cameras. This, combined with four non-rolling feet and a swivel mount, allow the Mobislyder to be used at almost any low angle. That thing you're peering at above is available for $135, which could be a solid deal for a good, steady, sliding platform to shoot from. Or, it could be $96 more than the parts you picked up from Radio Shack and Home Depot to perform the exact same function. A full video demo awaits after the break.
Big US retailers adopting Apple products: Say goodbye to the cash register
Earlier today TUAW reported on how one New York City restaurant has adopted the iPad as a menu and point of sale system replacement. Now All Things D is reporting that Apple products -- predominantly the iPad -- are being purchased in droves by major retailers across the country. Home improvement chain Lowes is reportedly deploying 42,000 handheld devices to stores in the U.S. and Canada. Other major deployments have been announced by rival Home Depot, Nordstrom, and Urban Outfitters. As noted by All Things D's Tricia Duryee, some of the retailers haven't spilled the beans on what devices they're actually fielding, but it's anticipated that they'll be Apple devices -- iPhones, iPads, or iPod touches. While the devices can be easily set up to accept payments, many of the retailers are initially using the devices for customer service use cases: looking up answers to customer questions or checking availability of products. Pacific Sunwear, AKA PacSun, will be rolling out iPads in 300 of its stores, and plans to increase the distribution of the tablets to up to 600 more locations by next year. PacSun is using an application by developer Global Bay to assist customers in ordering items that are out of stock in the stores. Global Bay CEO Sandeep Bhanote mentioned that one retailer it helped has seen a 12 percent increase in average order transaction when customers receive service from associates carrying in-store Apple devices. For PacSun, the iPads are anticipated to let store associates close five more transactions a day -- and that's more than enough to cover the cost of the equipment and software. How about you, TUAW readers? Other than at Apple Store retail locations, have you started seeing a lot of Apple products at your favorite retailer? Let us know in the comments.
The Perfect Ten: Weird staples of every fantasy MMO
If you take some weird, outlandish, or out-of-the-ordinary item and then saturate your life with it, sooner or later the bizarre becomes the accepted norm. So much so, in fact, that you'd cease to even think about it. I mean, do we ever question those magic boxes known as "microwaves" that mysteriously heat up our foods? Does anyone blink twice anymore when small computers tell us how to drive instead of nagging spouses? What about Carrot Top? Likewise, fantasy MMORPGs have erected trope after trope that we no longer question -- or even notice. Actually, the only time we'd notice one of these is if a game failed to include it. No matter how illogical and sometimes silly these MMO staples are when you think about them, we've been around them so long that we would no more notice them as we would the individual keyboard buttons that we type on daily. Still... you're thinking about them right now, aren't you? Those keys, cruelly dominated by your pecking fingers, pushing them back into place. What a techno-bully you are! In any case, come with us as we count down 10 weird staples that every fantasy MMO seems to include.
DIY Steadicam for the iPhone
This is really awesome. While there are rumors that an iPhone 4 Steadicam is in production, Spencer Watson didn't wait -- as you can see above, he went ahead and built a Steadicam-type rig for his own iPhone out of some parts he had sitting around. As you can see from the video it takes, it works pretty well. While you probably wouldn't want to use it in place of a professional rig (the iPhone isn't really meant for high-motion video, and it looks like he's applied some other stabilization filters), it definitely looks better than if the iPhone was on its own. You can pick up some of the parts he used in his online store, but it all looks pretty easy to put together. All together, he says it was about $40 of parts from Home Depot or a skate store, and I'm betting it's about a weekend of work. Very cool. [via Make]
The Home Depot takes LED lighting mainstream with $20 bulbs
Slowly but surely, LED light bulbs have been getting brighter and more efficient, but price has always been a major factor staying their adoption. Back in 2007, a single 308 lumen bulb cost $65, and the more things changed, the more they've stayed the same. Now, out of the blue, The Home Depot has stepped forward with a cost-effective alternative. For $20, the new EcoSmart LED bulb promises a 429 lumen, 40W equivalent with a 50,000 hour expected lifetime, making it cheaper and nearly as powerful as the 450 lumen, $40-50 design industry heavyweight GE unveiled last month. Best of all, it's already available for purchase (though backordered) at our source link. Honestly, we're starting to wonder what the catch is. PR after the break.
Klipsch headquarters walkthrough: behind the scenes and between the ears
Every time trade shows such as CES and CEDIA open their doors, the collective masses are flooded with headphone after headphone, speaker after speaker. After awhile, one driver looks just as round as the next, and frankly, you start to take for granted what all goes into bringing the tunes we all dig to our ears, dens and underutilized kitchens. One of the mainstays in the audio industry opened their doors up to us this past weekend, and it didn't take much arm pulling to get us inside. We've generally found the design and sound qualities associated with Klipsch gear to be top-shelf, and we've struggled in the past to find too many gripes with the headphones and sound systems we've had the opportunity to review. Needless to say, we were quite curious to hear about (and see) what all goes into imagining, designing, testing and qualifying the 'buds and speakers that we've enjoyed for so many years, and if you share that same level of curiosity, join us after the break for the full walkthrough (and a few heretofore unreleased secrets, to boot).
Tweeter stores streamlining stores/operations
Life can be hard for upper-end electronic relaters these days. Well with Walmart poking fun at 'em in commercials and Home Depot contemplating getting into flat screen sales but we strongly feel that stores like Tweeters will find that niche they need to survive. They will not, and shouldn't, compete with big box pushers like Best Buy and Circuit City's but rather focus in on custom installations and competent salesmen. Their restructuring plan includes shutting the doors of 49 stores, two regional locations and exiting certain regions of the country. The company is closing all the stores in California, Tennessee, Alabama, New York, and most of Georgia within two to three months. While we don't understand how some of those states are not preforming for Tweeter, they know their company a whole lot better than we do. The rest of the plan includes retooling other stores into their Digital Playground layout and "significant reinvestment in its people." Hopefully Tweeter can survive these low price/low revenue days cause as nice as it is to get a low price, it's almost as nice as shopping in a professional, knowledgeable atmosphere.[via CE Pro]
Have 360, will travel. DIY 360 travel case
A dedicated 360 Fanboy at Frag-X has made himself a rugged carrying case for his Xbox 360 "in about 30 minutes for well under 40 dollars." He used a Husky aluminum toolbox, available at Home Depot for $20, black foam available at a fabric or craft store, spray adhesive, a CD wallet, and some Velcro. Everything said and done, the real catch here is the toolbox, which happens to fit the 360, power supply, cords, and controllers perfectly. Maybe even too perfectly... Now I'm trying to think of a reason to haul the 360 around. [Via MAKE]UPDATE: I just noticed how similar this case is to Antec's "Pro Gamer's Case." They're about the same price, although this one gives you that "I made this" warm inside feeling. Oh yeah, and that Antec one looks really flimsy. I wouldn't trust my Xbox 180 in that thing... and I'm pretty sure it alone could withstand a ten foot drop onto concrete.
