shipping

Free shipping for your laptop--handling, however, is $20

We always tell laptop shoppers not to sweat those "This week only!" deals at the online stores of major PC vendors. If you miss this week's free shipping, free hard drive upgrade, or $50-off offer, there'll be an equally good set of deals offered the next week. Like the "call in the next 10 minutes" line used in infomercials, it's just way to push shoppers to make an immediate buying decision.

Still, free shipping is usually a good bonus, but sometimes you have to read the fine print. We saw this bogus deal … Read more

A ship that floats on bubbles, and other green boats

I'd like to thank licensed ship captain and editor of the gCaptain.com blog, John A. Conrad, for this one: a ship that floats on a curtain of bubbles.

The Bubbling Ship is a concept devised by Yoshiaki Kodama, director of the Advanced Maritime Transport Technology Department at Japan's National Maritime Research Institute in Tokyo. The ship would blow bubbles from slits near the bow of the ship. The bubbles would travel along the hull, reduce friction, and hence increase gas mileage.

Is it feasible now? No, but that's what research grants are for. Ships are one … Read more

Amazon to store, ship goods for other merchants

Any mom-and-pop retail operation can now tap into Amazon's logistics and fulfillment expertise.

The Web's largest retailer has launched a fulfillment Web service. Fellow merchants can hire Amazon to store, pick and pack, and then ship products for fellow merchants, according to an announcement on Amazon's Web site. The service is free once a merchant signs up with Fulfillment By Amazon and pays the FBA fees.

Participating retailers use a Web interface to send inbound shipments to Amazon, post and track orders, and attach branding information. The service enables merchants to sell goods on Amazon or their … Read more

Gadgettes 80: The Everything Old is New Again Episode

EPISODE 80

Special report: Are we getting iPhones soon? http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9886460-1.html

Taser party! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19353066

Ford Fiesta! It’s back! http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9887525-1.html

You cook, Readybot cleans http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9887236-1.html

Robo-lawnmower goes hybrid http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9887567-1.html

Rotating Sphere Lounger http://dvice.com/archives/2008/03/claustrophobia.php

Toy for children who want to grow up to work at the TSA http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/ toy_for_children_who_want_to_grow_up_to_work_at_the_tsa_9059.asp

A propos (of) nothing (Oh, my god edition) Squeezebox Duet http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-media-receivers/ logitech-squeezebox-duet/4505-6739_7-32815168.html… Read more

How to get free shipping on almost everything you buy

There's a new Web site in town that has Cheapskate written all over it: Free Shipping On. Terrible name, great service: It enables you to search Amazon and eBay for only those items that have free shipping. It also corrals free-shipping deals from over 500 other stores, from Apple to Home Depot to WebUndies.com.

I particularly like the eBay search tool, as it drives me nuts when I find a seemingly great deal on something and then discover a ridiculously inflated shipping charge. Both the Amazon and eBay tools can be added to your browser's list of … Read more

FedEx delivers AIR package tracking

FedEx was on hand today to show off its new Adobe AIR application for tracking packages.

Similar to tracking widgets you may have seen on tools such as Apple's Dashboard and Yahoo's Widget engine, you can keep small widgets on your desktop that update and let you know when that digital camera you ordered online mistakenly got delivered somewhere three states over. But that's not the sole use. The application doubles as command center for business users and frequent shippers to keep track of what's going on with several of their packages at once.

The company … Read more

Photos: Full speed ahead for SpaceShipTwo

Ready to pony up $200,000 for a ride into space? Virgin Galactic unveiled its final design for SpaceShipTwo, a suborbital spacecraft for private citizens, at an event Wednesday at New York's American Museum of Natural History.

CNET News.com's Caroline McCarthy was on hand to witness Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson and Scaled Composites CEO Burt Rutan show off images and mockups of the spacecraft.

The passenger vehicle will be mounted to WhiteKnightTwo, its "mother ship," which will fly the craft to the upper atmosphere. SpaceShipTwo has a 42-foot wingspan and wide windows so … Read more

Trimaran gets some respect from the Navy

Maybe it's the trimaran's festive appearance that put off the scrambled-egg crowd, but one still wonders why the U.S. Navy took so long to adapt this 4,000-year-old Polynesian technology to its combat ship inventory.

In any case, they're making up for it now with the new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), which promises to deliver more payload per ton of displacement than any previous U.S. warship, all on a high-speed, stealthy trimaran hull made of aluminum and steel.

The LCS is the Navy's response to asymmetric threats in coastal waters. The trimaran hull enables … Read more

Can pirate ships be preppy? Our sources say yes

Motorized pirate ships are all good and fine, but sometimes we need something a little bit classier and old-fashioned to satisfy our high-seas ambitions. Take this toy pirate yacht, for example. It retails for the U.K. equivalent of about $35.

It's a lovely, tasteful little wooden boat, made of plantation-grown wood with genuine sailcloth for the sails, and would look perfect either on the mantelpiece of your expansive parlor's fireplace or gently bobbing in your backyard koi pond as you sit on the porch drinking mimosas after a morning of squash at the local country club. But … Read more