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Blinkbox Music's user database was just sold to... JD Sports
Of Tesco's three ailing digital Blinkbox services, its e-book store appeared to be the only one that would go gently into that good night. Eventually, it did, while Blinkbox Movies found a new owner in TalkTalk (which finally got 'round to rebranding the service earlier this month), and Blinkbox Music was snapped up by appropriate suitor Guvera. Since the Australia-based streaming service took the reins, however, things have gone from bad to worse.
TalkTalk finally rebrands Tesco's old Blinkbox service
A year ago Tesco abandoned its various Blinkbox businesses, which spanned TV, movies, music and ebooks, by either closing them down or selling them off to the highest bidder. The TV and movie streaming portion was acquired by TalkTalk and today, the service is finally taking on a new form. Head over to the Blinkbox website and you'll see the new "TalkTalk TV Store" logo, which Pocket-Lint reports will soon be paired with a matching domain. Likewise, the Blinkbox apps are now TalkTalk TV Player, bringing everything in line with its broader TalkTalk TV branding.
Tesco Direct to charge for smaller Click & Collect orders
If you frequently pop into Tesco, or one just happens to be close to your home, Click & Collect can be a compelling proposition. Instead of waiting in the house for a delivery truck, you can pick up your online orders at a time that's convenient for you. However, one aspect of Tesco's service is about to get a little more expensive. From February 2nd Click & Collect orders under £30 from Tesco Direct, its site for non-food products, will come with a £2 surcharge. It falls in line with Grocery Click & Collect, which already charges (typically £4) for orders under £40.
Amazon tells customers to throw out unsafe 'hoverboards'
As a popular destination for self-balancing "hoverboards," Amazon needs to take its safety responsibilities seriously. The retailer has already pulled some models from its store until it can be proved their batteries and chargers are reliable, but now it's taking the unusual step of telling a small number of owners to throw them out. In an email, Amazon has warned US and UK customers that their hoverboard has been deemed "unsafe" and that they should "dispose" of it immediately.
Tesco puts more vinyl on supermarket shelves
Vinyl's recent resurgence shows no sign of slowing down. In the UK, Tesco has decided to back the format by stocking 20 records in 40 of its supermarkets. These include Coldplay's new album A Head Full Of Dreams, the soundtrack from Guardians of the Galaxy and classic releases such as Nirvana's Nevermind and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It follows a smaller trial earlier this year when Tesco stocked Iron Maiden's The Book Of Souls in 55 of its biggest Tesco Extra stores.
Apple Pay now supports TSB and Tesco Bank in the UK
Apple Pay is now firmly established in the UK, but since the service went live in July, a handful of banks have bided their time and left customers waiting for smartphone payments. Luckily, two more can be ticked off the list today after TSB and Tesco Bank confirmed they have enabled Apple Pay support for their payment cards.
Tesco officially calls time on the Hudl
Last week, it became apparent that Tesco wasn't gearing up to release a new low-cost Hudl tablet, as it had done in October in years past. When asked about the future of the Hudl brand, Tesco confirmed it had no current plans for a third-generation tablet, but it did say: "We continue to sell our Hudl2 and it remains a popular device with our customers." And so it appeared Tesco wasn't quite ready to call it quits on own-brand hardware, even if a new device wasn't in the cards, and probably never would be. A lot can change in a week, however, and it now looks like we've heard the last of Hudl, with Tesco no longer stocking its tablet in bricks-and-mortar and online stores.
Tesco's all but given up on its Hudl tablets
In early October 2013, Tesco launched its first own-brand Android tablet: the Hudl. Despite being deep into uncharted territory, the supermarket succeeded in delivering an extremely affordable, entry-level device. It wasn't a huge surprise, then, when Tesco followed it up a year later with the much-improved Hudl2, which also turned out to be great value for money. Since then, Tesco's kept quiet about its plans for future Hudl hardware, and early October has come and gone without a peep from the company. And while we can't be sure Tesco's completely given up on own-brand tablets -- never say never, after all -- it's looking increasingly likely we'll never see another Hudl tablet again.
Tesco wants you to buy vinyl records with your milk
Music headlines are often dominated by which albums are (or aren't) on popular streaming services, but an older music format is quietly making a comeback: vinyl. After the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) announced that annual UK album record sales passed the one-million mark last year, Tesco has confirmed that it will back the format when Iron Maiden's The Book Of Souls goes on sale next week. In doing so, it will become the first UK supermarket to enter the vinyl market.
Tesco's self-service checkouts are getting a lot less irritating
You don't step up to a self-service supermarket checkout unless you're ready to gamble. Either you hit the jackpot and escape in record time, or you end up wildly hailing the nearest assistant while the infernal machine's repetitive accusations slowly chip away at your sanity. While Tesco can't make its automated checkouts any better at weighing up your loose veg, it can train them to be less annoying. So, for the first time since Tesco introduced self-service checkouts over a decade ago, it's changing their voice alerts, which the supermarket admits "has become a source of frustration for customers." Most importantly, you'll never have to listen to chants of "unexpected item in bagging area" ever again, as well as six other "unhelpful phrases" like "please take your items."
Tesco trials app for donating unsold food to charity
It's strange to think that in an affluent nation like the UK, there are people going hungry while shops and eateries throw out masses of perfectly good food every day. Charity organisation FareShare has tasked itself with saving this unwanted food from the bin out back and distributing it to other charities that can use it, and under a new partnership with Tesco, it's turned to technology to grease the wheels. With the FoodCloud mobile app, Tesco store managers can log items earmarked for disposal, informing FareShare of the potential donation which the charity can then arrange to collect. Born from ongoing partnerships with FareShare and FoodCloud, Tesco's kicked off the UK pilot in its Surrey Quays store, and will expand it to a further nine locations in four cities under a wider trial. FoodCloud is already in use across all of Tesco's supermarkets in Ireland, so there's definite scope for the pilot to become a widespread initiative. And hopefully, Tesco will inspire other businesses to take part, too.
Tesco taps Kobo to offer Binkbox Books libraries when it closes
Unlike Blinkbox Movies and Blinkbox Music, Tesco hasn't found a buyer for its underperforming Blinkbox Books service. We expected the e-book platform to quietly fade into the night, along with customers' purchases, but it seems Tesco has a parting gift for bookworms that embraced its Kindle alternative. The beleaguered supermarket is teaming up with Kobo so that users can transition their Blinkbox libraries to the rival platform, free of charge. Tesco says it'll email users in the next two to three weeks with a special code for unlocking their purchases inside Kobo; the latter's library should also mirror Blinkbox's exactly, so readers won't lose any books in the move. At this stage it's not clear if any money is changing hands, but there are obvious benefits for both parties; Tesco now has a better chance of avoiding customer backlash, while Kobo gets to pick up a wave of new users. Of course, Kobo already has an Android app too, so it should be a fairly easy transition for Hudl owners who want to keep Tesco's tablet as their primary e-reader.
What is Guvera and what does it have planned for Blinkbox Music?
Tesco has had a tough old time of late, with falling sales and a fresh investigation into its accounts. The battered supermarket needs to turn itself around, and fast, so it's been looking to offload any nonessential services that may have been dragging down its balance sheet. Unsurprisingly, that means its various Blinkbox offerings have been some of the first to face the chop. After selling Blinkbox Movies to TalkTalk, Tesco announced yesterday it had auctioned off Blinkbox Music and plans to close Blinkbox Books. The supermarket still has its Hudl tablets, of course, but some of the more interesting services that come pre-installed are now no longer under its control. Clearly, Tesco just couldn't make enough money from them, but any chance it had of fixing the problem has now been lost.
Tesco has given up on Blinkbox
Since October 2014, Tesco has done all it can to rid itself of its loss-making digital download service Blinkbox. TalkTalk came to its rescue, picking up Blinkbox Movies and its broadband services earlier this month, but the fate of its Music and Books businesses remained unclear -- until today. In an announcement this morning, the supermarket giant confirmed it has offloaded Blinkbox Music to Guvera, a music streaming company that has offered users access to its free ad-supported service since 2008.
What's next for Blinkbox?
Tesco has been struggling of late, so its decision to sell Blinkbox to TalkTalk was hardly a shock. The supermarket giant isn't a technology company, at least not traditionally, and the video streaming service never really struck a chord with the British public. However, TalkTalk reportedly spent a smooth £5 million for the platform, so clearly it thinks the service still has some potential. If that's the case, what exactly is next for Blinkbox?
TalkTalk buys Tesco's Blinkbox and broadband services
It's been a long time coming, but Tesco has finally offloaded its loss-making streaming service Blinkbox. At the end of the last year, it looked increasingly likely that TalkTalk has positioned itself as the favourite to buy the service, and today the quad-play provider confirmed a deal has been reached. According to TalkTalk, Blinkbox's integration with its existing TV business will "begin immediately," with the benefits of the merger expected to show themselves by the end of the year.
TalkTalk is also in talks to buy Tesco's Blinkbox streaming service
It's no secret that Tesco is looking to offload Blinkbox, its loss-making streaming service, but it looks like the struggling supermarket giant may have finally found a buyer. According to the Financial Times, TalkTalk is now favourite to relieve Tesco of its movie rental platform, and while talks are still ongoing, a deal could be announced as soon as next week. The news comes almost a month after it emerged Vodafone was looking to buy Blinkbox, which would have allowed the carrier to move beyond its current partnerships with Sky and Netflix. With hundreds of thousands more customers on its books, TalkTalk would instantly gain a hold in the UK streaming market if it can reach an agreement, giving it more leverage against Sky, Virgin Media and what becomes of the potential £12.5 billion merger between BT and EE.
Blinkbox extends offline movie and TV playback to Android tablets
When offline playback arrived for Blinkbox's video streaming service on the iPad, we knew that Android support couldn't be far behind. After all, Tesco has plenty of Hudl 2 tablets to sell this Christmas, which all heavily promote its services. So for your next commute or agonising car journey with the little ones, Blinkbox now lets you queue up some sweet flicks in advance. Unlike Apple's tablets, you can both purchase titles and manage your downloads from inside the Blinkbox app, although offline playback isn't supported on Android 4.4.3 and higher. Early Lollipop adopters might be left out in the cold, but Tesco hopes to make amends with new movies via Entertainment Film Distributors, including American Hustle, Transcendence and Her -- plenty to keep you occupied during the wet and chilly winter months.
Tesco teams up with BT to make its free in-store WiFi faster
Tesco's finances might not be holding up too well as of late, but from technological standpoint, the company is certainly ticking all the right boxes. After it debuted the impressive Hudl2 tablet last month, the supermarket giant is now switching its focus to better connecting its customers. Today, Tesco switched live free superfast BT WiFi inside 806 of its stores, replacing the old service powered by O2 and ramping up speeds to 76Mb in available areas. By upgrading its connectivity, the company hopes you'll download more Clubcard vouchers, obtain product information and look up recipes while doing your weekly shop. More importantly, it could also provide a welcome backup for when you encounter those dreaded mobile signal blackspots in some of its branches.
Tesco Hudl2 review: The UK's best value tablet
A supermarket turned tablet maker doesn't sound like the wisest of career progressions. Tesco's not your average supermarket, though. When you consider the Tesco machine also operates video- and music-streaming services, an e-book store and an online emporium selling everything from garden furniture to jewelry, having a low-cost, own-brand tablet to publicise them on makes a considerable amount of sense. Amazon makes it work with a similar potpourri of digital properties, after all. Tesco first explored the idea with its £119 Hudl tablet, launched around this time last year. And, having shifted over three quarters of a million units during that period, it's hoping to keep the ball rolling with the new Hudl2, which boasts a bigger display, upgraded hardware, a more refined look and a similarly wallet-friendly £129 price tag. Tesco's still a fish in the tablet game, and yet, with the Hudl2, it's managed to deliver not just another great value product, but also the best affordable slate on the market right now.
