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Engadget's Cyber Monday 2014 roundup
So you've finally recovered from Thanksgiving dinner, only to realize that you missed out on some hot Black Friday deals. Are you stuck paying full price for your gifts? Far from it -- a whole host of stores are participating in Cyber Monday, a second round of (usually online-only) sales that are frequently as tempting as what you saw just a few days earlier. There are some particularly juicy bargains this year, ranging from surprisingly affordable 4K TVs and smartwatches to gigantic game console bundles. Check out the gallery below to see some of the bigger Cyber Monday deals we've spotted so far, and be sure to let fellow readers know about other bargains in the comments! [Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
Nordstrom's smart fitting room helps you find fresh outfits
You've probably had that moment in a store fitting room where you realize you're trying the wrong clothes, but would rather not get dressed again just to check out those pants in a different color. If Nordstrom succeeds with its new eBay-designed fitting room, you won't have to. The experimental technology turns mirrors into interactive displays that give you many of the shopping options you'd have if you were browsing the web. You can not only see if the store has clothing in a different size or style, but have staff bring it to you -- handy if you're still half-naked.
eBay retires stand-alone, same-day delivery apps
When eBay Now first surfaced two years ago, it appeared in the guise of an iOS app that promised same-day delivery for products sold by local stores. The service managed to pick up some steam (or at least that's what company execs led us to believe) but after a burst of bad news over the summer, eBay's grand app experiment has finally bit the dust. Over the weekend, the company quietly pulled the eBay Now app from its spots in the iOS and Android app stores, a turn of events that Reuters called well ahead of time. Don't fret, though! The thing is, eBay Now's heart still beats -- it's just being transplanted into a different body.
Excavated E.T. Atari carts fetch more than $1,500 at auction
One man's trash is another man's pricey, crushed game cartridge. Last week's eBay auctions for Atari cartridges unearthed during the production of the Atari: Game Over documentary have concluded, with the top-grossing auction pulling in $1,537 for a mangled, sort-of boxed copy of ET for the Atari 2600. A total of nine ET cartridges sold for more than $1,000 apiece, with copies of Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command and others pulling in hundreds of dollars each in additional auctions. Each game will ship with a certificate of authenticity, an I.D. tag from the City of Alamogordo, and a photo-supplemented narrative detailing the lot's history. Regardless of whether you bought a momento, you can learn more about the context surrounding the excavation when Atari: Game Over premieres on November 20 on Xbox Live. [Image: Atari]
ET and other exhumed Atari games hit eBay
Want to buy some literal garbage? An eBay seller is auctioning off a collection of Atari 2600 cartridges recovered from a recent excavation of a New Mexico landfill, including several crushed copies of the infamous dud ET. An excavation team headed out to Alamogordo, New Mexico, earlier this year in the hopes of discovering the truth behind a reported landfill stuffed with video games and consoles in the months leading up to the video game industry crash of 1983. The venture yielded many shrinkwrapped copies of ET, among other decades-old merchandise abandoned by Atari. A documentary film covering the dig, Atari: Game Over, will launch exclusively for Xbox consoles later this month. Bidding starts at $50 for the unearthed games, which vary in condition but are otherwise remarkably well-preserved, considering they've been sitting in a landfill for more than three decades. Many ET cartridges are already going for hundreds of dollars, but if you're looking to snag a stinky piece of history for yourself, you might be able to pick up a cheap copy of Asteroids, Centipede, Defender or Swordquest EarthWorld. [Image: tbhs575]
Atari 'E.T.' cartridges unearthed in landfill go up for auction on eBay
Normally we'd advise you to avoid terrible games, but here's one you might want to get your (gloved) hands on. E.T., the game that killed Atari and was famously unearthed in April at a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, is now up for auction. To remind you, the existence of the ditched cartridges had been an Atari urban legend until a Microsoft-sponsored dig project proved the rumors true. Alamogordo's Tularosa Basin Historical Society, which arranged the excavation and owns the cartridges, put 99 of them up on eBay, each with a certificate of authenticity.
Burger King is selling mutton Whoppers on eBay
You haven't misread that headline. As it gears up to open its first-ever restaurant in the country, Burger King India is turning to eBay to help drive sales. The world's second-largest burger outlet is hoping to persuade potential customers to pre-order burgers through the popular auction site. For the promotional price of 128 rupees (roughly $2.08), locals can purchase a voucher for one of Burger King's mutton-based Whopper burgers. Due to the large percentage of Indians that don't eat beef, the chain has localized its signature burger by offering mutton-, chicken- and vegetable-based alternatives.
This guy wants $164,000 for his gigantic video game collection
Do you have $164,000 handy? If so, you can snag nearly every retro console game since the beginning of the NES era. Ebay seller "reel.big.fish," also known as Nintendo Twizer, is selling a positively massive collection of games and consoles, spanning everything from the NES to Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Game Boy and much more. He claims to have complete sets of every single game for Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Virtual Boy, 32X, Sega Master System, Game Gear and NES (except for Stadium Events), in addition to several incomplete sets for other consoles, notably a hefty Sega Genesis collection. On top of all the games, there are also multiple variants of various consoles, including every single N64 color. There's far too much to list here – almost 6,000 games – so you may as well watch the video above, and you can also peruse the master list of every single game in the collection. The catch is that it's all being sold as a single lot, with a $164,000 asking price. That's pretty steep, to be sure, but before you scoff at the price, don't forget the crown jewel of the collection, a framed copy of "No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford," signed by artist Brandon Bird.
eBayer selling alleged iPhone 6 Prototype for over $90,000
eBay seller kimberlyk1018 is auctioning an iPhone 6 model that appears to be a prototype device. The auction for the phone was posted last week and has more than US$94,000 in bids from 36 bidders. According to the auction description, the seller claims to have received the prototype iPhone 6 instead of a consumer model from Verizon Wireless. The prototype is a 64 GB iPhone 6 model and contains a pre-installed suite of testing and developer apps that are similar to previously leaked prototypes. Apple does NOT let these phones out of their possession yet I was accidentally sent one upon renewing my contract. As you can see from the photos, iOS 8 has not been placed on this device, rather it is in the true developer mode. There are no FCC markings on the rear of the device or a model number. This is the real deal!!! The auction still has three days left to accept bids, but it may not be allowed to finish if Apple decides to put a halt on the auction as it has done in the past. [Via The Guardian]
eBay and PayPal will part ways in 2015
Despite spending most of 2014 arguing the opposite, eBay has today decided it will divide its popular payment and auction properties in two. Next year, the company will split PayPal away from its embattled auction site, and as a result of the restructuring eBay's current CEO and CFO will step down from their roles, although both will take board positions. Dan Schulman, currently an executive at American Express, will become CEO of the new PayPal in 2015. [Image credit: Steve Ganz / Flickr]
Watch out: eBay vulnerability leads to phishing log-in page
Thinking about picking up a used iPhone on eBay? Shop carefully, friends: it's apparently phishing season. The BBC is reporting some auction listings are redirecting to counterfeit eBay login pages -- fronts for phishing scams designed to steal customer usernames and credit card information. The good news is that eBay isn't technically hacked. The online marketplace allows sellers to use scripting to gussy up item listings. Cross-site scripting is generally not allowed, but these scammers are doing it anyway.
Don't buy an iPhone 6 on eBay for $1,000
The iPhone 6 is currently selling for over $1,000 on eBay right now, despite not having been released yet. Initial supplies are limited so it's understandable that some people are excitedly exploring the possibilities for getting one. Still, $1,000? We're sure our readers don't need to be told this, but maybe you have a friend who needs to hear it. Don't buy an iPhone 6 on eBay for $1,000. Even if your local store is sold out until November, just wait. The amount of time you'll be able to enjoy being the only person with an iPhone 6 is insanely limited, while the things you could do with $1,000 are nearly limitless. Start a business. Take a class. Buy a beat up car and enter a demolition derby. Create a piece of art. Go out for the best meal of your life. Do anything, but don't buy an iPhone 6 for $1,000. The depreciation on the worth of an iPhone is stunning. When the iPhone 5 cost $199 for a 16GB version of the phone, $299 for a 32GB version and $399 for a 64GB version. The same cost at the iPhone 6 today with a carrier plan. Imagine telling your friends at the bar today, looking down at your iPhone 5 with lust in your heart for the iPhone 6, that you paid $1,000 for the iPhone 5 because you just couldn't wait a month. Imagine the looks on their face. Dwell on the mental image. Think of their mocking laugher. Then close that eBay window, call your local store, and ask then they'll have your model in stock. You'll feel better about it in 2015.
Excavated ET cartridges will be sold, distributed to museums
Remember when Xbox Entertainment Studios and Lightbox Entertainment spent a weekend digging up a bunch of Atari cartridges from a landfill? Both studios may have gotten the documentary footage they were looking for, but what do you do with the cartridges after the joy of proving an urban tale fades? In the case of Alamogordo, the town that has jurisdiction over said landfill, you sell more than half of them. Reuters reports that the Alamogordo City Council voted 7-0 on Tuesday to sell around 800 of the 1,300 excavated games, with listings to be hosted on eBay and the council's website. The haul includes hundreds of copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the keystone of Atari's video game burial story. Joe Lewandowski, who served as dig site supervisor when Microsoft, Lightbox and a small crowd watched excavators dig up trash in the desert, told Retuers that sales should begin in two weeks and wrap by Christmas. As for the 500 other cartridges, the City of Alamogordo intends to keep some as mementos, with the rest being donated to museums worldwide. You know what they say: One city's trash is another museum's piece of video game history. [Image: Microsoft]
YouTube Find: Very enthusisatic dumpster diver pulls MacBook out of the trash
While dumpster diving last year, "Mom the Ebayer" found a stash of electronics that housed a rare find -- a working MacBook notebook. Regardless of what you think about dumpster diving, you just gotta love this enthusiastic reaction to Apple hardware.
PayPal's One Touch wants to power your in-app mobile purchases
It's a pretty common thing to see in an online store: pay with PayPal -- but what about on mobile devices? Well, the eBay-owned company is working on that. The company just announced PayPal One Touch, a new system that (as the name implies) hopes to make paying of items in mobile apps a one-touch affair. The feature isn't an app itself, but rather a service that can be embedded in other apps. Users will log into their PayPal account one time, and subsequently be able to pay for products in supported apps with a single click.
eBay is winning at gender diversity in technology
Online auction service eBay has followed in the footsteps of other tech companies and published a diversity report of its own -- one that indicates that it's winning at gender diversity in the workplace. According to the report, 42 percent of its 33,000 employees all over the globe are women. Among those firms that shared their diversity percentages recently, Pinterest comes the closest with a 40 percent female workforce, and then Yahoo whose female employees make up 37 percent of the total. Google and Twitter tie for the last place, as women make up 30 percent of all employees in both companies (though to be fair, Google has projects to encourage more women to take up careers in technology).
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for July 25, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. Be sure that your podcast software is set up to subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
eBay sold almost $2 billion in Apple products last year alone
Apple just announced its earning results for the third quarter of their 2014 fiscal year, but it is not the only one raking in cash via sales of its products. According to information acquired by Computer World, eBay also is profiting, selling almost $2 billion in Apple products in 2013 in the U.S. alone. What's interesting is where the two company's sales diverge: iPod sales, for example, only account for 1% of Apple's sales, while they make up 7% of eBay's total sales of Apple products. The biggest earner for both companies when it comes to Apple hardware, however, is the iPhone, accounting for 55% of eBay's sales and 53% for Apple. eBay mostly profited off Apple products that are in the obsolete or retired hardware department. Thanks to sales in the "Mac Laptop, All" category, the retailer was able to earn $161 million from legacy PowerBook, iBook, and PowerPC Macs. When it comes to selling old tech gear, eBay is still a powerful force in the market. For Computer World's complete coverage of eBay's Apple numbers, head over here.
eBay's ticket site StubHub says it's the victim of a 'global fraud ring'
StubHub has revealed that it's been the victim of a global fraud operation that's lasted longer than a year. Rather than being hacked, however, criminals obtained user details from other websites and keylogging software, then proceeded to make purchases on the eBay-owned ticket site. Company official Glenn Lehrman has told Reuters that authorities in the US, Canada and the UK will conduct arrests later today, at which point more details will be released. Worried users of the service should relax, for the moment at least, since the company has promised that any unauthorized transactions were spotted and refunded back in 2013.
eBay brings its RedLaser barcode-scanner app to Google Glass
You might know eBay as the website where you can buy a rare NES game for a hundred grand, but the company also has its own barcode scanner, called RedLaser. It's been out on Android and iOS for a while, and now the company is bringing it to Google Glass, allowing you to quite literally buy whatever you set your sights on. Like the existing app, the Glass version scans barcodes and spits back a list of current prices at different retailers. From there, you can find a brick-and-mortar store nearby, complete with directions, if you need them. And, of course, like any good online retailer, eBay will show a list of related products, similar to whatever it is you just searched for. All told, we're guessing you can probably spare a few minutes to stop what you're doing and use the phone app instead, but let's be honest: Scanning stuff with your eye sounds pretty fun. Just be aware, though, that if you want to purchase something, you will in fact have to pick up your phone -- the app will send an email notification to your mobile device so you can complete the transaction. [Image credit: Angel Navarrete/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
