In a rough economic climate where many of its competitors are closing stores, Best Buy may downsize some of its stores, redirecting attention to online retailing.
That doesn't mean Best Buy is giving up on its brick-and-mortar stores, which allow consumers such niceties as salespeople and the ability to pick up items purchased online. But the store is reconsidering its square-footage requirements and "redefining the optimal big-box store size," CEO Brian Dunn said in a phone conference with analysts.
The iPad is cool for a lot of things, but does it work for music? Various opinions came from the SXSW Music Festival, and together they're an interesting follow-up to Michael Berk's earlier post here on the concept of the iPad Album.
Back in NYC - after 9 days and nights of SXSW Music, Film, and Interactive in Austin, Texas - I finally have time to mull over the 21 acts I managed to see during the music portion of the festival.
That perfect 21 might suggest that I had a lucky hand at SXSW this year. But as is the case every year, I heard much that was good and some that was . . . not.
Apple's AirPlay wireless audio streaming technology is finding its way into an increasing number and variety of products. What next? Possibly video streaming.
An unconfirmed report in the business press says Apple is in talks to license AirPlay to consumer electronics manufacturers for video streaming. AirPlay is already capable of video streaming but so far has been licensed only for audio streaming.
Since it appeared in the seventeenth century, the guitar has been a work of visual art in its own right, as well as a powerful influence on artists in other media.
Via adafruit...Berlin-based photographer Stephan Tillmans has a new show up, Luminant Point Arrays, consisting entirely of photographs capturing CRTs as they're shut off.
A new form of digital rights management from Microsoft has been adopted by Sony and Samsung, among others. Its first high-profile use is in the Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray player, available since February.
PlayReady DRM allows downloading and streaming of video, audio, games, and images on multiple home and mobile devices. Supported formats include MPEG Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), AAC+, Enhanced AAC+, H.264, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Windows Media Video (WMV). Embedded licenses allow content to play without a constantly active broadband connection.
Over the past several years several major TV makers have discontinued their rear-projection TVs to concentrate on flat panel TVs. Mitsubishi is going in the opposite direction, dumping its LCD line in favor of rear-projection sets.
Mitsubishi's RPTVs use both Texas Instruments DLP technology and its own Laservue technology.
Reports about Japanese manufacturing disruptions continue to trickle in and an early casualty may be Apple's just-launched iPad 2. Japan supplies no fewer than five key parts for the tablet everyone desires.
Missing pieces include flash memory, random access memory, electronic compass, touchscreen glass, and battery, the latter from Apple's own Japanese factory.
As noted by HDGuru over the weekend, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America has confirmed that it will indeed "exit the LCD-TV market entirely" by the end of 2011, concentrating from here on out on its consumer rear-projection televisions (including its highly regarded
Movies get torrented. However illegal that may be, it's just a fact of life. Now get ready for the curveball: An Australian horror film is about to be legally distributed by BitTorrent as a means of getting people interested in the Paramount DVD release.
The film in question is The Tunnel, produced by Distracted Media. It will be released as both BitTorrent and Paramount DVD on May 19. The disc will have two hours of content not found in the torrent including an alternative ending and a making-of documentary.