Sharper Image will continue to hawk crap, only as a brand

Sharper Image died an inglorious death in February and then went through some embarrassingdeathspasms, but it sounds like liquidators Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners have realized that there's still some value in the Sharper Image name -- they've just announced a plan to rent the name out to other companies looking to spruce up their knockoff crap. The idea is for the Sharper Image name to lend credibility to infomercial and catalog products, and there's even talk of wholesaling to Target and Best Buy, with the goal of reaching annual sales of $1B. That's a lot of air purifiers -- let's hope America's late-night TV shoppers think more highly of Sharper Image than pretty much everyone else we know.