FROM GAMERTELL - Meijer’s Black Friday 2009 ad has been leaked. If you need a DSi, iPod Touch, PS3, Wii or Xbox 360, then you may want to check out their doorbusters. Also, all games priced $19.99 and under will be half off. MORE »
Japanese electronics giant Pioneer has filed suit against Garmin claiming the company is infringing on some of its patents that cover in car navigation technology. Pioneer has asked the International Trade Commission to block Garmin from importing the products that use the allegedly infringing technology.
“Pioneer has been negotiating in good faith also with Garmin for a license to Pioneer’s navigation patent portfolio,” it said in a statement issued on Monday. “However, since the value of the portfolio has not been fairly evaluated by Garmin, Pioneer determined that litigation is necessary in order to protect its intellectual property in the navigation product field.”
This is the second complaint Pioneer has filed against Garmin. In October they filed a lawsuit in Germany over the contested patents, which involve various aspects of in car navigation systems. Pioneer said it feels it has no choice after talks with Garmin broke down.
If you've got a GPS system on your Christmas list, don't worry. Should U.S. imports of Garmin systems be blocked there will still be plenty to chose from from rivals Magellan and Tom Tom, and lots of deals to be had. Check out our Black Friday ad coverage for the scoop!
FROM GAMERTELL - The 2009 Toys R Us Black Friday has been leaked onto the internet. There are a number of great video game deals, including the cheapest DS bundles yet, an iPod Touch with $50 gift card and lots of $9.99 games. MORE »
As of this morning, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 is now available with T-Mobile. Price wise, the Bold 9700 will set you back $199.99 on a two-year agreement. Of course, T-Mobile also has the new Even More Plus plans which let you go contract free, but that means you will be paying retail for the handset, which in this case means $449.99.
For the price, you will get the first 3G-capable BlackBerry on the T-Mobile network. But you will also have a device that offers Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera and an optical trackpad.
Interestingly enough, this release has come in ahead of the AT&T release.
FROM APPLETELL - What exactly is Konnet’s iCrado? It’s an iPod cradle. Nothing more, nothing less. It holds your iPod and little else. Thankfully, it does this with a touch of style. MORE »
FROM APPLETELL - The New York Times is reporting that Apple has filed a patent for a new advertising technology that will make commercials impossible to ignore by freezing the user’s device. MORE »
If you are spec’ing out a serious camera this holiday season, it is worth looking at the weather sealed, magnesium/steel alloy Pentax K-7. The camera looks to have serious chops but it’s the deal on the lenses that will get you excited. From now until January 15th, Pentax will reward lens purchasers with $100 Visa gift cards good for anything where Visa is accepted.
The gift cards are awarded only when purchased at the same time as the K-7, sorry existing owners! For new buyers, there are over 20 lenses to choose from. From the release: “The PENTAX K-7 features 14.6 megapixels, widescreen HD Movie Capture, and a weather, dust, and cold resistant magnesium alloy body. More information about the K-7 and PENTAX lenses is available here: www.pentaximaging.com. ” Up to five rebates may be claimed per household provided they are all on the same receipt as the K7
Interestingly, purchases from Best Buy do not qualify for this promotion.
We know that the Barnes & Noble Nook will be shipping pretty soon, and for some it may be an early holiday gift. But with that comes a little warning about an item that may have seemed like a perfect side gift for the Nook—gift cards.
Sure, that sounds like a perfect match, you have the Nook and now you have something to purchase a few ebooks with. Think again, according to the fine price on the Barnes & Noble website;
“Gift Cards can be redeemed for any product sold at Barnes & Noble.com, except for the purchase of eBooks.”
Of course, this is in no way a bad reflection of the Nook, it still looks like a nice choice for an ebook reader. It is just a little disappointing that you cannot use a gift card to make an ebook purchase. But in reality I am just upset because I was planning to give a gift card to a friend as a Christmas gift because they pre-ordered a Nook and now I will have to rethink that idea.
The signature as a means to identify transactions is going the way of the Dodo bird. Presented with difficult identity confirmation brought about by online purchasing, credit card companies are scrambling for a solution to the fraud the new world presents. MasterCard Europe believes they’ve a nifty solution.
Actually, MasterCard has two solutions. By harnessing the power of the ubiquitous mobile phone, MasterCard will SMS customers an authentication password for a card-not-present transaction. These are the transactions where you are not face to face with the merchant and you are simply entering in your credit card number. This password will be unique to the purchase at hand, your next intended purchase would yield another SMS and another password.
The other solution is an app that resides on smartphones or java based phones. The app would generate the password for authentication purposes after the customers PIN is entered. By self serving themselves, customers would be able to control the experience a bit more instead of relying on a response.
The solutions do come with some concerns. The first is SMS delivery needs to be speedy. Those of us in the US know that sometimes, SMS messages take a while to filter through the system and get to us. Perhaps it is different in Europe. The second solution is a bit more involved as MasterCard would have to develop apps for different OS and connectivity issues.
Either way, these look to advance identity theft prevention. Just don’t keep your wallet and and phone in the same purse, huh?
FROM APPLETELL - FourSquare—available for iPhone/iPod touch, Blackberry, and Google Android— is designed to bring people together in the real world, using geolocation and other social media apps. MORE »
Experience what it’s like to download at unlimited speeds from a massive collection of over 800 Terabytes of user uploads. You’ll max out your Internet connection downloading a file in minutes that would take hours using other technologies.
Binverse utilizes 256-bit SSL encryption (the same encryption used by banks) to protect your privacy and security. Easy-to-use downloading software with a powerful built in search engine makes Binverse so easy that even a novice internet user can harness the awesome power of Usenet. Just try it once and you’ll be begging for more.
The quirky AT&T Reveal features a slider form factor and is a quick messaging phone. I got some hands on time with the phone and wanted to share my evaluation. The Reveal currently costs $79 with a two year contract.
Hands on:
With the keyboard tucked up or unslid, if you will, the phone is a simple, well, phone. You’ve access to numbers and basic phone function. Pantech did a great job on the feel of this phone, even though it’s plastic the materials feel high-end. The phone is relatively narrow and feels good in hand.
The keyboard what separates this phone. The number keys on the main part of the phone stay active even while the qwerty keyboard is slid down. I found the keys to be too small and too close to the main part of the phone for my large fingers to reach. In short, I wasn’t a fan.
Enter the preteen.
Figuring I wasn’t the target market for this phone, I let my daughter give it a go. She normally uses the Pantech Slate, a super-thin quick messaging phone. She found the Reveal to be fantastic.
She raved about the Reveals many background choices and better ringtones than the Slate. She found the number pad to be a huge help when texting and she even found she was a faster typist on the Reveal because of it.
She also found the Reveal fits better in jeans than the Slate. I am guessing width had something to do with this comment. She also mentioned the camera has more zoom capabilities over the Slate.
Summary
We both found the operating system to be equally simple. The Reveal does have GPS which might be nice for some. The form factor worked for both me and my preteen. I’ll defer to her recommendation as I am sure Pantech was thinking more about the youth of America than a jaded, smartphone wielding blogger. We give this one a thumbs up.
I am assured (wink, wink) that this would make an excellent holiday present for a teen or preteen.
Although we were unsure of an exact release date, we did expect it to happen soon, that said, the FLO TV has officially gone on sale. And yes, the retail price is still set at $249.99, and with that comes the monthly subscription which will be as low as $8.99 a month. Of course, in order to see that $8.99 monthly price you will need to agree to a three-year commitment. But thinking positive, 9 bucks a month could be worth it for the simple reason that this little device could serve as a nice entertainment device for the child in your back seat. As long as you do not mind handing them a $250 gadget to play with. Anyway, in terms of availability, the FLO TV can be purchased at Amazon, Best Buy and Radio Shack. Also as an added bonus, for an unspecified “limited time” those that make a purchase will get the first 6-months of service for free.
Now preferred to be known as the Shack, Radio shack is offering the Acer Aspire One, A0751h-1279, for $100 less on Black Friday. This netbook will sell for $249 instead of $349. This model has some noteworthy upgrades over other notebooks.
Introduced back in May of this year, the Aspire One A0751h-1279 comes close to meeting the expectations of a typical laptop. The screen on the A0751h-1279 is 11.1 inches vs. 10 inches for most netbooks. Pre-loaded with Windows Vista, users will find 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive.
David Coursey of PCMag reviewed the Aspire One and had this to say on the form factor: “The larger keyboard works for my large hands while the bigger screen may be easier on my post-age-40 eyes. The weight and battery life are important too, as I can carry this machine in my briefcase without a heavy power supply, in many cases, and not notice the added load. Again, what’s not to like?”
Coursey goes on to lament netbook makers place as they up-end the laptop market by providing machines for what people do most: web surf, easy word processing, one task at a time use. Users who stick to these tasks might fall in love with the Aspire One. For users demanding more power, look elsewhere.
The news breaks from notebooks.com but offers not sources for the info.
I cannot stress one device enough—a MiFi. They allow you to take a 3G connection with you and share it with up to 5 devices at any time and they can be found with Verizon Wireless and Sprint.
That said, there must be something to these 3G-enabled netbooks because the new offerings keep coming in.
The latest is the Samsung Go netbook, which is heading to AT&T on November 22.
As of now, neither Samsung or AT&T have announced the pricing, but feature wise the Samsung Go will offer users a 10.1-inch display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.
Additionally, the Samsung Go netbook weighs in at 2.8-pounds and will come with a 4-cell battery that is said to offer up to 4 hours of battery life. Finally, the Samsung Go will be available with the midnight blue exterior.
The last we heard, the CrunchPad seemed to have been killed off by higher than expected manufacturing costs, but as the Internet goes—things change and change quickly.
With that, the subject of the Crunchpad came up during a recent Gillmore Gang videocast and according to Michael Arrington, "the CrunchPad is steamrolling along."
With that he also went on to mention that they have been working on the software for the past month trying to make it perfect to get it to market." And in terms of price, as of now it is looking at making a debut between $300 and $400. But it was also mentioned that the Crunchpad could become sponsorship supported. In other words, there will be ads on the device, but according to Michael Arrington, they will have little impact on the user experience.
Unfortunately, there is still nothing in terms of a release date, well, aside from a mention that “big news” will be coming soon. That said, we are not sure if that big news is going to be a release date or just an official set of specs and price. Either way, I am looking forward to seeing what comes of the Crunchpad.
FROM APPLETELL - The judge in the Apple vs. Psystar California lawsuit has granted all of Apple’s summary decision requests, and denied all of Pystar’s. MORE »
As of this morning, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 is now available with T-Mobile. Price wise, the Bold 9700 will set you back $199.99 on a two-year agreement. Of course, T-Mobile also has the new Even More Plus plans which let you go contract free, but that means you will be paying retail for the handset, which in this case means $449.99.
If you are spec’ing out a serious camera this holiday season, it is worth looking at the weather sealed, magnesium/steel alloy Pentax K-7. The camera looks to have serious chops but it’s the deal on the lenses that will get you excited. From now until January 15th, Pentax will reward lens purchasers with $100 Visa gift cards good for anything where Visa is accepted.
The signature as a means to identify transactions is going the way of the Dodo bird. Presented with difficult identity confirmation brought about by online purchasing, credit card companies are scrambling for a solution to the fraud the new world presents. MasterCard Europe believes they’ve a nifty solution.
Experience what it’s like to download at unlimited speeds from a massive collection of over 800 Terabytes of user uploads. You’ll max out your Internet connection downloading a file in minutes that would take hours using other technologies. 
The quirky AT&T Reveal features a slider form factor and is a quick messaging phone. I got some hands on time with the phone and wanted to share my evaluation. The Reveal currently costs $79 with a two year contract.
I cannot stress one device enough—a MiFi. They allow you to take a 3G connection with you and share it with up to 5 devices at any time and they can be found with Verizon Wireless and Sprint. 
The last we heard, the 
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