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Posts with tag wal-mart

Apple iTunes to compete "day-and-date" with DVD releases -- Wal-Mart weeps (now official)

by Thomas Ricker, posted May 1st 2008 at 8:33AM Breaking News

Hollywood Reporter says that Apple is expected to announce today an across-the-board deal to sell new release films at its iTunes Store. The deal is said to allow Apple to offer a "broad slate of top-shelf films" day-and-date with home video releases -- a long time sticking point with brick-and-mortar interests who want to keep their early-release edge on digital downloads. The deal includes Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, New Line and more -- all of which are currently inked to deliver rentals through iTunes. MGM is not part of the deal. That puts Apple in direct competition with Wal-Mart's DVD empire after having pushed Wal-Mart from the top spot in music sales for the first two months of the year.

Update: It's official. New releases will cost $15 and catalog titles will cost $10 -- US only for now. Full press release after the break.

Continue reading Apple iTunes to compete "day-and-date" with DVD releases -- Wal-Mart weeps (now official)

Break the FCC's digital transition rules? That's a $6 million finin'

by Richard Lawler, posted Apr 11th 2008 at 12:45AM Breaking News

As seen previously, the FCC isn't scared to put the financial smackdown on anyone it finds not playing up to the rules of the digital transition, and has dropped about $6 million in fines on 11 companies. Several of the companies fined were retailers it says did not properly mark TVs that had only analog tuners and won't get OTA TV after it's shut off next year. Wal-Mart got dinged for $992k, $1.1 million went against Sears, $712k for Circuit City, $296k against Target and $280k against Best Buy. Syntax-Brillian was one of two companies that caught a charge for importing TVs without a digital tuner after the deadline, two more were fined for V-chip violations, while Panasonic and Philips were among seven others that settled to avoid fines. That probably won't cover all those $40 coupons, but it can't hurt.

[Via Zatz Not Funny & Cable Digital News]

Apple officially says it's the #1 music retailer in the US

by Nilay Patel, posted Apr 3rd 2008 at 3:29PM

Based on today's earlier leak of some weekly NPD marketshare data, we had our doubts that Apple had actually overtaken Wal-Mart as the number one music retailer in the US, but it looks like that January surge of iTunes gift cards and new iPod owners pushed it over the top for good -- and now we've got the PR to prove it. Apple's giving out the same "4 billion songs to 50 million customers" numbers as it has for a while now, but it says iTunes was the biggest game in town in January and February. Of course, there's a lot of 2008 left to go, so Wally might make a comeback -- it was the overall champ last year -- but Apple's achievement is still a major milestone for digitally distributed content, and we hope to see a lot more iTunes-like services on that list soon.

Gibson fires Guitar Hero lawsuit at Wal-Mart, other retailers

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 21st 2008 at 10:02AM


Last we checked we actually weren't in the Twilight Zone, but quite frankly, the bigwigs at Gibson just might be. Seemingly out of nowhere, the famed guitar manufacturer sparked up a lawsuit against Activision claiming that Guitar Hero titles violate one of its patents. Now the company appears to be on the warpath, suing Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, Amazon, Toys 'R' Us and Kmart in an attempt to get the game off of store shelves. Reportedly, Gibson took "this action reluctantly, but is required to protect its intellectual property." For the retailers that did comment, they chimed in only to say "we aren't commenting," and judging by the looks of things, the games are still widely available -- for now.

Wal-Mart is pulling plug on in-store gPC "experiment"

by Paul Miller, posted Mar 10th 2008 at 7:20PM


It's hard to know the real story here -- we'd hate to think of a bunch of Mr. and Mrs. Nice Persons taking home a gPC just to find it can't run that copy of Office or Half-Life 2 they were hoping to install -- but for whatever reason Wal-Mart is dropping its Linux "experiment" from store shelves and going back to selling the systems solely online. Apparently Wal-Mart did manage to sell out its entire stock of gPCs in the 600 stores that got them before pulling the plug, but the $199 computer just "wasn't what our customers were looking for," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien. Everex spokesman Paul Kim says that online gPC sales were "significantly more effective," so apparently there aren't any hard feelings here.

Everex's Cloudbook now in stock at Wal-Mart, finally

by Donald Melanson, posted Feb 26th 2008 at 1:08PM

It's been a long time coming, but after some confusion and a few false starts, Everex's Eee PC-competing Cloudbook is now finally available to order from Wal-Mart's website. As we've mentioned, now that ZaReason has dropped it, Wal-Mart is also now the only place you can get your hands on the budget-priced laptop, at least for the time being (though you can get the identical Packard Bell-branded model in the UK). Hit up the read link below if you're ready to part with that $400, just be sure you know what you're getting yourself into.

[Via Laptoping]

Cloudbook shows up on Wal-Mart's website, ZaReason drops it

by Donald Melanson, posted Feb 21st 2008 at 1:32PM

Everex's Cloudbook hasn't exactly seen the smoothest of launches, and now that the official launch date has come and gone, it seems that things just keeping getting curiouser and curiouser. For starters, the budget-priced laptop has now finally shown up on Wal-Mart's website, but it's already out of stock, and it's not clear if it was ever in stock to begin with. In other non-availability news, retailer ZaReason (which has actually shipped a few Cloudbooks) has announced that it's ditching the laptop altogether, stating only that "due to the amount of money we have lost granting refunds (due to bank transaction fees) we can no longer sell the Cloudbook." Needless to say, some are speculating that Everex's deal with Wal-Mart is the primary cause for the troubles at ZaReason, but either way, it seems that anyone actually looking to get their hands on a Cloudbook is out of luck, at least at the moment.

Read - Wal-Mart
Read - CloudBooker, "ZaReason drops the Cloudbook"

[Via Eee Site, Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Wal-Mart to officially discontinue HD DVD sales by June

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Feb 15th 2008 at 11:39AM Breaking News


With HD DVD, things are just going from bad, to really bad, to worse, to car-crash-you-can't-stop-looking-at. You can file this one under that latter category, as Wal-Mart has officially announced its intentions to stop stocking HD DVD players and movies by June. According to reports, the retailer came to the decision after Netflix and Best Buy made announcements concerning their position in the HD format war. Susan Chronister of Wal-Mart wrote on the company's blog, "By June Wal-Mart will only be carrying Blu-ray movies and hardware machines, and of course standard-def movies, DVD players, and up-convert players." Susan went on to deliver what we consider a total burn by adding, "if you bought the HD [DVD] player like me, I'd retire it to the bedroom, kid's playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard-def movies, and make space for a BD player." Look, we're not gonna say that this is it for HD DVD, but... uh, it doesn't look real great.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Wal-Mart gets dirt cheap on digital-to-analog TV converters

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Feb 11th 2008 at 10:05AM


Attention Wal-Mart shoppers -- you're about to get a sweet deal on a digital-to-analog TV converter box. According to an excited press release from the company, your local stores are now stocked from floor to ceiling with an ultra-cheap Magnavox converter, selling for the shockingly low price of $49.87. Of course, since households across the US are about to get those succulent $40 coupons for converters, this little puppy won't cost much more than about two gallons of gas. We kid, we kid. But seriously, they're pretty cheap.

Dell shuttering mall kiosks?

by Thomas Ricker, posted Jan 30th 2008 at 3:06AM Breaking News


Sad news brewing in Round Rock this morning. After slashing "dozens" of call center employees in Ottawa yesterday (and scrapping plans for 1,200 more), it looks like Dell is taking its cost cutting initiatives retail. Unfortunately, we're not talking lower prices here. We have word from a number of sources that Dell's 150+ Dell Direct Stores are about to meet the business end of the corporate axe. Whether that be in full or a partial reduction we don't know. Nevertheless, with Dell now firmly entrenched in Wal-mart, Staples, and Best Buy, the mall kiosks sure seem redundant. Expect more on this later in the AM after Michael Dell's had a chance to address the troops.

Read -- Dell Ottawa closures

Everex's Cloudbook postponed for "tweaks"

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jan 25th 2008 at 1:02PM


Remember how we told you Everex's little gOS-sporting Cloudbook was headed to Wal-Mart this month (today, to be specific)? Well hold your check book, friend-o -- they ain't done with it. According to the company's director of marketing, Paul Kim, the system requires, "A couple of last minute software tweaks," before it's ready for prime-time. There's no word on when it will make an appearance, though we're inclined to think this won't be a major delay... but you never know. Should shipments alight, we'll be the first to share the good news.

Everex to stun the world with 9-inch CloudBook, DevBook, mini desktop

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jan 17th 2008 at 12:47AM

According to rumblings on the internet, the new Cloudbook from Everex that's worming its way into Wal-Marts across the US this weekend will be getting a big brother soon. If you believe what they say (they being Paul Kim, director of marketing at Everex), we can expect a 9-inch version of the Eee-competitor to make an appearance in June, boasting a larger keyboard, more memory, and possibly new "skins" (but please, no tattoos). The Linux-equipped computer will clock in around $500, and will be part of the Ubuntu-based gOS family. The company also has plans to introduce a variant of the smaller CloudBook called the DevBook, a $400-500 laptop aimed at developers with a touchscreen and swappable side-panel accessories, plus a $399 standard size 15.4-inch laptop, and a "mini" desktop with a dual-layer DVD drive, as well as DVI and S-Video outputs for $499.

[Via Eee Site]

Girl unwraps iPod, finds heavy-handed social commentary instead

by Darren Murph, posted Dec 29th 2007 at 7:58PM


As the unfortunate trend continues, yet another kiddo has found their Christmas PMP replaced with something that's, well, not a PMP. In today's episode, we find a Washington, D.C. girl that unwrapped an iPod earlier this week and discovered that the only Apple product tucked within was the inner packaging. Instead, a clever note was stashed inside (presumably with a paperweight of some sort) that read: "Reclaim your mind from the media shackles. Read a book and resurrect yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage go to your nearest Apple store." Oh, and just in case you really needed more than one guess as to where this thing came from, here's a hint: it was sold by the same retailer who passed on Wii demo units due to "safety" concerns.

[Via TUAW]

Returned DAP gets resold with loads of porn

by Darren Murph, posted Dec 28th 2007 at 10:31PM

We've seen returned / resold DAPs (among other things) ruin celebrations before, but we're inclined to say that this episode is a tad more disheartening than receiving a couple of rock-filled iPod boxes. Reportedly, an unspecified MP3 player purchased in a Tennessee Wal-Mart was wrapped and given as a Christmas present to a 10-year old daughter, but upon connecting said player to a computer, heaps of pornographic material and explicit songs were discovered. According to a Wally World spokesperson, stores aren't supposed to "return opened packages to the sales floor," but given that it already happened, the matter will purportedly be "investigated."

[Via TGDaily]

Wal-Mart shuts down video downloads after a year in service

by Ryan Block, posted Dec 27th 2007 at 8:57PM Breaking News


Sounds like the video download game isn't as easy as the biggies make it out to be. Wal-Mart, whose download store has been open all of a year and a couple of weeks is already shutting down, apparently abandoning the effort after its tech partner HP discontinued whatever technology it was running the thing. Bonus for (former) Wal-Mart Video Downloads though: according to the FAQ, all downloaded videos are users' to keep, and no one's bound to keep the Wal-Mart Video Download Manager on their machine anymore. Of course, it's still DRMed to hell, so short of stripping the copy protection, you'll only be able to play "your" purchased videos with the machine on which you bought it -- and nothing else.

[Via Reuters]



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