friday

The truth about Black Friday

Black Friday is coming! Black Friday is coming!

Meh.

This is the time of year when Black Friday ads are leaked weeks in advanced, pre-Black Friday sales emerge on a daily basis, and the media goes hog-wild about Black Friday ads, apps, sales, and people willing to stand in line at 4 a.m.

If you'll pardon the expression, I'm not buying it. Much as I understand the importance of this day to American retail's bottom line, I just can't muster much enthusiasm.

See, as a 365-days-a-year cheapskate, I see killer deals all the time. … Read more

PlayBook dropping to $199 in Staples Black Friday deal?

The discounts keep coming for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

The latest comes from a leaked Staples ad found by TechCrunch. The office-supply retailer appears to be offering the 16GB PlayBook for $199 as part of its Black Friday special. A full listing of Staples' Black Friday specials can be found here.

This marks the steepest price cut yet for the PlayBook, which stumbled out of the gate and hasn't sold particularly well despite a spate of recent discounts. RIM has seeded the developer community with thousands of PlayBook tablets and is pushing heavy promotions to move its inventory. More importantly, it wants more consumers using its next-generation operating system, which will eventually power its high-end smartphones. … Read more

Amazon's early Black Friday bounty the pilgrims' pride

Black Friday is coming more than three weeks early to Amazon this year.

The world's most ginormous online retailer got a head start today on hijacking our national--and my family's personal--heritage. I'm a direct descendant of those poor souls who 400 years ago stepped off the Mayflower, which was definitely not smelling like flowers anymore after a long trans-Atlantic journey, and said, "This has got to be better than England--we'll take it."

So I guess it's in the same spirit that Amazon today offers a bamboo cutting board at 40 percent off--in the hopes that an exhausted and desperate population will say, "That's gotta be better than what we'd normally pay at Crate and Barrel in early November--we'll take it."… Read more

Friday Poll: Are Android phones upgradeable enough?

Android's latest dessert-themed operating system is coming out soon in the form of Ice Cream Sandwich. Some existing Android phones may be left out in the cold, though.… Read more

Friday Poll: No iPhone 5; so now what?

Apple's much-anticipated "Let's Talk iPhone" event came and went this week without the appearance of an iPhone 5. Some consumers expressed no uncertain disappointment about this development ("The S in iPhone 4S stands for Same," one commenter said, echoing other observers' expressions of letdown at not seeing a complete revamp of the smartphone).

Others, such as CNET's Dan Ackerman, took the position that the iPhone 4S essentially is an iPhone 5. Yes, it may be wearing the same outfit as the iPhone 4, but with a dual-core processor, upgraded camera, voice-activated personal assistant, and improved battery life, Dan argues, it is, in fact, almost an entirely new device.

So, here's what we want to know, readers. Now that the mystery's over, you've familiarized yourself with the iPhone 4S' features, and you know we won't be seeing an iPhone 5 just yet, how (if at all) does this impact your phone plans for the near future? Vote in our poll, and be sure to elaborate in the comments section.

… Read more

Friday Poll: Is Kindle Fire really an iPad slayer?

We've been keeping an eagle eye out for a tablet in shining armor that can truly take on Apple's fire-breathing iPad. It now looks like Amazon will fight fire with Kindle Fire.

The Kindle Fire couldn't be much more different than the iPad. It has a 7-inch screen, runs a version of Android, doesn't have a camera, and can't connect to a 3G network.

The Fire's biggest selling point is its selling point: $199. Golly, that's a cheap tablet. At that price, a lot of people might be willing to pass on the luxuries of 3G, lots of local storage, a microphone, and extra screen real estate.

Amazon's large store of available content in the form of books, videos, and music may well keep customers busy enough to forget about iTunes.

The term "iPad killer" is popping up everywhere, but the real truth is likely to be much more complex than one or the other winning out in a bloody sales war.

There are still plenty of unanswered questions about the Kindle Fire, but that's not going to stop us from asking the Big One. Is the Kindle Fire a true iPad competitor? We know you've got an opinion. Vote in our poll and tell us more in the comments.… Read more

Friday Poll: Favorite new Facebook feature?

We now know that Americans blow billions of minutes each month on Facebook. It's no wonder folks get in a tizzy when a new feature rolls out.

This week has been a particularly busy one when it comes to Facebook-related improvements. Which of these shiny new features are you most enamored by?

Subscribe option: The subscribe button makes it easier to get just the information you want. Click on it and get updates from that profile in your news feed. This will even work for public updates from some profiles that you're not directly friends with.

Smart Lists: Smart Lists will automatically shuffle your gazillions of friends into groups related to school, work, city, and family. You can then make manual adjustments.

Skype adds Facebook for Mac: Mac users finally get the full Skype-loves-Facebook treatment that Windows users had already been enjoying. The Skype 5.4 for Mac beta lets you message friends, update your status, and read posts from within the program.

Less frequent e-mail alerts: Facebook e-mailed some users telling them to start expecting fewer e-mail notifications from the company. If you prefer to keep your e-mail alerts just the way they are, however, you can turn this new feature off.

Take a moment from updating your status to let us know what floats your social-networking boat. Which new Facebook feature are you most excited about? Vote in our poll and be sure to elaborate in the comments section.… Read more

Friday Poll: What was Steve Jobs' greatest hit?

Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple CEO this week, prompting a flood of retrospectives about the legendary businessman who rewrote the rules of the game for entire industries.

Many waxed nostalgic over the brilliant arc of Jobs' career, which has been brought low by health problems. Heck, it even made me want to dig out my Apple IIc, my first computer, and see if it can still boot Beyond Castle Wolfenstein.

From the co-founding of Apple in 1976 to the launch of the iPad in 2010, Jobs redefined our relationship to technology by introducing innovative products that have become intuitive and indispensable everyday tools.

Who would have thought that people actually wanted to own computers? And carry them around in their pockets, no less?

Apart from Apple, his achievements include the acquisition of what became Pixar, as well as the object-oriented software development model that changed the OS landscape.

"I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it," Jobs wrote in his announcement this week. If that's true, Apple will continue to change our lives profoundly.

What do you think is Jobs' greatest legacy? Vote in our poll and leave your comments below. … Read more

Friday Poll: Worried about phones zapping sperm?

As Monty Python reminds us, every sperm is sacred. So why are guys putting potentially hazardous objects so close to the family jewels?

I'm talking about cell phones. This week, we told you about a recent report in the Journal of Andrology that suggested cell phone radiation can reduce sperm count and damage sperm quality.

The report reviewed the existing medical literature about phone radiation on the male reproductive system, and found that men who use cell phones have decreased sperm concentration and motility.

"These abnormalities seem to be directly related with the length of mobile phone use," the authors from Italy's University of Catania noted.

The researchers also considered a study in which rats were put in special Plexiglas cages with cell phones just 0.2 inch underneath the cage bottom. The animals were exposed to to cell phone emissions for six hours per day for more than four months.

The researchers found a 25 percent drop in the rats' live sperm. The cells also tended to adhere to one another, which would reducing their chances of fertilizing an egg. … Read more