Why it’s pointless to shop on Black Friday

As you all know, yesterday was Black Friday, and what did I get?  7 DVDs from Amazon for the awesome price of $25 with free shipping, and 2 sweaters from Old Navy for $35 + shipping.  Are they good deals? You bet.  But what about those big ticket items from Best Buy, Circuit City, and the mall?  I didn’t even bother.

First of all, I already have a nice 32″ plasma that doesn’t beed replacing, so why spend $699 to upgrade to a 42″?  Besides, when I first saw on Gizmodo that Sears had a 42″ Panasonic Viera plasma for $699, I was giddy with joy, and I was SURE that that was going to be the best deal around.  And then I saw on Amazon that the same TV was on sale for $699 as well.  And that got me thinking.  Why go to a store and brave the crowds on Black Friday when I can sit in the comfort of my home on a chilly night with coffee in my hands and buy the same product online.  Not only that, but Amazon also offered their “White Glove” service for the TV.  Basically, they coordinate the best time to deliver to your house and even set the TV up for you!  That definitely beats me carrying the TV to my car and trying to get it to fit myself.  Why do more than you have to when everything is free?

Yesterday was also Pink Friday brought to you by CompUSA and TigetDirect.  While nobel in their cause to donate to cancer research, the deals were a complete scam.  Phone lines couldn’t get through, and products were gone awfully fast.  After watching for a few hours, I got sick of it and left.  That $99 Xbox 360 Halo edition never materialized.  I’m sure of it: I had my twitter feed set and never saw it pop up.  Towards the end of the night, the whole things crashed!  Talk about one shitty promotion!  I don’t care if the money went to cancer research – it’s a good cause, but what about satisfying the customer?!?

Not only that, 1 Wal-mart worker got trampled to death!  This is the  United States of America people!  Try not to behave like savages while living in this civilized country.  Killing someone to get an awesome deal on TVs and cameras shows your lack of morals.

Monday is Cyber Monday.  What are we going to see then?  More deals?  Absolutely, but to be completely honest, really people, how much tech junk do we really need in our homes?

Microsoft withdraws bid for Yahoo

Software maker walks away after it says it
raised its offer to $46 billion – says economics demanded by Yahoo ‘do
not make sense.’

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Microsoft Corp.’s pursuit of Yahoo Inc.
ended abruptly Saturday when the world’s largest software maker
withdrew a sweetened $46 billion offer and said it would not make a
hostile bid for the Internet company.

Microsoft said the
breakdown came despite having raised the bid to $33 a share, or $5
billion above what it said was the current value of the offer and a 70%
premium compared to its original offer.

The offer was valued at $31 a share when it was made in January. Yahoo stock closed Friday at $28.67 a share.

“After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) do not make sense for us,” said Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) CEO Steve Ballmer.

In
a letter to Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang, Ballmer said that Yahoo
wanted at least another $4 a share, or $5 billion in value, added to
the deal, bringing it to at least $37 a share.

Ballmer also told Yang that taking the offer directly to shareholders would not be “sensible.”

“This
approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and
eventually an exchange offer,” Ballmer wrote. “Our discussions with you
have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that
would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.”

Ballmer said he was concerned that a further collaboration between Yahoo and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) – which he called “the dominant search provider” – would make an acquisition undesirable for several reasons.

Yahoo officials indicated their pleasure with the end of the Microsoft bid.

“Our
independent board and our management have been steadfast in our belief
that Microsoft’s offer undervalued the company and we are pleased that
so many of our shareholders in expressing that view,” Yahoo chairman
Roy Bostock said.

Yang, in the same statement, called the
Microsoft bid a “distraction” and said that Yahoo will now focus “on
executing the most important transition in our history so that we can
maximize our potential.”

Microsoft: We’ll do it without Yahoo

Microsoft indicated that it will proceed with a Web advertising strategy.

“We
have a talented team in place and a compelling plan to grow our
business through innovative new services and strategic transactions
with other business partners,” Ballmer said. “While Yahoo would have
accelerated our strategy, I am confident that we can continue to move
forward toward our goals.”

Both Microsoft and Yahoo have struggled to compete with Google for billions of advertising dollars shifting to the Web.

A
marriage between Microsoft and Yahoo had been widely considered by
analysts as inevitable. “As we have indicated since 2/1, we think MSFT
will eventually acquire YHOO at a price not materially above the value
of its initial offer,” wrote Scott Kessler, an analyst with Standard
& Poor’s, in a report earlier this week.

Microsoft fears that
Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick – the world’s biggest online ad
server company and big player in the increasingly lucrative market for
online display ads – will allow the search giant to seize an even
bigger portion of the ad market as Microsoft’s MSN falls further behind.

Microsoft
made a public offer to buy Yahoo on Jan. 31, two days after the
Internet portal reported weak quarterly earnings and a disappointing
outlook for 2008.

Yahoo was an impressive target. It is one of
the last independent Internet companies with massive scale. In March,
it was the top-ranked site in the United States with 139 million unique
visitors, according to comScore, which tracks Web audiences. Google was
second and Microsoft was third.

What might have been

A Microsoft-Yahoo combo could have offered even greater scale and attracted more advertisers.

None
of that persuaded Yahoo, however. Though the value of the company’s
stock has risen more than 40% since Microsoft made its offer, its board
said the proposal “substantially undervalues” the company.

Throughout
the past three months, Yahoo had said it was not opposed to a merger if
Microsoft offered the right price. But it also sought alternatives.
When no white knights came to the rescue, Yahoo in recent months
pursued other tieups with Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500) (parent of CNNMoney.com), News Corp. (NWS, Fortune 500) and Google.

But any involvement with Google could raise antitrust issues.

Yahoo’s
two-week test running Google’s search ads caught the attention of the
U.S. Justice Department. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said a
Yahoo-Google collaboration would “consolidate over 90% of the search
advertising market in Google’s hand.”

Sen. Herbert Kohl, D-Wis.,
the chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, said last
month that “should there be moves to make this agreement permanent, we
will examine it closely … to ensure that it does not harm
competition.”

On Saturday, Ballmer struck a generally cordial tone with Yang, even as he criticized Yahoo for rejecting Microsoft’s offer.

“I
still believe even today that our offer remains the only alternative
put forward that provides your stockholders full and fair value for
their shares,” Ballmer wrote. “By failing to reach an agreement with
us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the
table.”

“But clearly a deal is not to be,” Ballmer added. “Thank you again for the time we have spent together discussing this.”

Scott Moritz and Yi-Wyn Yen of Fortune contributed to this article.

Suzuki offers up Garmin GPS on all 2009 SX4 vehicles

Back in the day, integrated GPS units were the stuff of luxury cars, gargantuan SUV cruisers, and lost old ladies. Suzuki is looking to change all of that by including the Garmin T.R.I.P. on all 2009 SX4 Sport and SX4 Crossover vehicles — at no extra charge. As Suzuki gleefully points out, this marks the first time a sub-$16,000 car has included a GPS unit as standard equipment. The T.R.I.P. (Travel, Real-time traffic, Information and Play) sports a flip-up 4.3-inch screen and Bluetooth connectivity. As for software, it will include real-time traffic, weather forecasts, local event listings, community-based recommendations, and a gas station finder that can filter based on fuel prices.

-engadget.com

Seriously, how long has it taken for American vehicles to finally get GPS as standard?  Japanese, and for that matter, most Asian autos have had high-tech equipment come as standard on almost all of their vehicles.  We have to buy a Ford Focus with SYNC at an extra cost.  And people question why American cars are going down the drain?  We just can’t (or won’t) keep pace with Asian economies.

To buy or not to buy: the Apple Macbook

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 1420 after my Acer Aspire 5100 finally coughed and started BSODing on my every few minutes.  For $780 including tax, I thought I got a great deal on my Dell.  Here’s a run down of the specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0 GHz 667MHz FSB 2MB L2 Cache
• 3 GB 667MHz RAM
• 120 GB 5400 RPM HD
• 14.1″ 1440×900 WXGA+ TruLife display
• 2.0 MP webcam
• Dual Layer DVD-RW
• Intel X3100 IGP
• Intel 4965N wireless
• Expresso Brown Lid color
• 4 USB ports
• 6 cell battery
• Dell Travel Remote Control
• 5.2 lbs
• Windows Vista Home Premium

The cheapest Apple Macbook, starting at $1099, has the following specs:

• White color
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1 GHz 800MHz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache
• 1 GB of 667 MHz memory
• 120 GB 5400 RPM HD
• Combo DVD/CD-RW drive (cannot burn DVDs)
• Intel X3100 IGP
• i-Sight camera
• 13.3″ WXGA 1280×800 resolution screen
• 2 USB ports
• Airport Extreme N wireless
• Mac OS X Leopard
• 5.0 lbs

Now, comparing these specs, I believe that my Dell is superior both in terms of price and specs to the Mac.  The only difference worth the price increase is OS X, but even then, it does NOT command a (including tax) $400 premium over my Dell.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Apple products and would love to work on Leopard, but since technology increases at such a fast rate, I don’t see the point of spending thousands on something I can get for a better price in 2-3 years.  Windows Vista works well enough for day to day tasks that I don’t need to pay extra for Leopard.

World’s First Commercial Flight Powered by Biofuel

Virgin Atlantic carried out the world’s first flight of a commercial aircraft powered with biofuel on Sunday in an effort to show it can produce less carbon dioxide than normal jet fuels.

Some analysts praised the jumbo jet test flight from London to Amsterdam as a potentially useful experiment. But others criticized it as a publicity stunt and noted scientists are questioning the environmental benefits of biofuels.

“This breakthrough will help Virgin Atlantic to fly its planes using clean fuel sooner than expected,” Sir Richard Branson, the airline’s president, said before the Boeing 747 flew from London’s Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

He said the flight would provide “crucial knowledge that we can use to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint,” he said.

Sunday’s flight was partially fueled with a biofuel mixture of coconut and babassu oil in one of its four main fuel tanks. The jet carried pilots and several technicians, but no passengers.

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Virgin Atlantic spokesman Paul Charles predicted this biofuel would produce much less CO2 than regular jet fuel, but said it will take weeks to analyze the data from Sunday’s flight.

“It’s great that somebody like Richard is willing to put some of his billions into an experiment aimed at reducing the climate change impact of aviation,” said James Halstead, an airline analyst at the London stockbroker Dawnay Day Lochart.

“But there are a lot of unanswered questions about the usefulness of biofuels in the battle against global warming,” he said.

The flight is the latest example of how the world’s airlines are jumping on the environmental bandwagon by trying to find ways of reducing aviation’s carbon footprint.

These efforts have included finding alternative jet fuels, developing engines that burn existing fuels more slowly, and changing the way planes land.

The experiment by Virgin Atlantic and its partners — Boeing, General Electric and Imperium Renewables — also comes at a time when high oil prices and the U.S. economic slowdown are promoting consolidation in the airline industry.

Aircraft engines cause noise pollution and emit gases and particulates that reduce air quality and contribute to global warming and global dimming, where dust and ash from natural and industrial sources block the sun to create a cooling effect.

About a year ago, the European Commission, the executive of the European Union, said greenhouse gas emissions from aviation account for about 3 percent of the total in the EU and have increased by 87 percent since 1990 as air travel cheapened.

Charles said Virgin’s Boeing 747-400 jet and its engines did not have to be redesigned to use biofuel on the test flight.

He said CO2 emissions on a normal flight are generally three times the fuel burned, and that technical engineers on the test flight would take readings and analyze data to estimate its greenhouse gas emissions.

-from FoxNews.com

Official: 16GB iPhone available and 32GB iPod touch — both $499

Out of the rumor mill comes the 16GB iPhone, now official. Ever since the 16GB iPod touch was announced in September, we all knew it was just a matter of time until Apple could bung the same NAND capacity into their chubbier iPhone. The surprise is a new 32GB iPod touch for the same $499. No other changes and certainly not 3G. Both are available immediately.

-Engadget.com

Dell Latitude E-series leaked

We’ve got a bit of preliminary dirt on Dell’s new, soon-to-be-announced Latitude E-series machines, and we’re liking what we see. So far we know there will be a 4.25 pound / 14.1-inch and 5 pound / 15.4-inch version, both with WXGA and WXGA+ LED backlit displays, as well as a 12-inch (pictured above) and 13.3-inch version for road warrior types. Expect DisplayPort, eSATA, plenty of USB ports, and PC or ExpressCard slots in the larger models.

-Engadget.com

Google Introduces New Views for Searches

Google Inc. is giving users the opportunity to try new ways of using its search engine, according to Andrew Hogue, Tech Lead on the project.

“There have been a lot of recent improvements to Web search, but the appearance of results themselves has been pretty constant — 10 or so Web pages in a vertical list,” Hogue said in a blog post. “Frequently this is exactly the right format, but for some searches you need more options and more control. That’s why we’ve created our experimental search page to let you try out some of our newest ideas.”

The company announced three experimental ways to conduct searches that alter the way results are shown. The company is asking users to provide feedback on its new alternative views.

Map View

The first option, called “map view,” typically displays information about a location if one of the Web pages contains a map.

For example, say you’re searching for information about environmental conferences in your state, or maybe you want to find out where your favorite movie is playing. Although that information is on the Web and accessible via a regular Web search, it’s probably spread out over many sites and pages, Hogue said in the blog. Unless one of the pages that the search engine serves up has a map on it, you might have a hard time visualizing all the locations at once.

The new map view feature plots some of the key locations from the results of your Web search and displays them on a map, according to the blog.

Timeline View

The “timeline view” does the same thing for dates found on the Web as the map view does for locations. The timeline includes dates of historic events, or biographical information that are automatically generated from a user’s search results, Hogue said.

Info View

The third option, called “info view,” works in a slightly different way, he said. This view doesn’t change the way search results are displayed, but it adds a small box, or control panel, on the right side of the page that contains dates, locations, measurements or images.

“For example, selecting ‘dates’ from the control panel reveals the date of the Sputnik launch in the first result for ’space exploration,’ according to the blog. “If you run a search and find many of your results are looking similar, try using info view. It may highlight the differences between results and help you select the best page for your needs.”

Google is asking users to provide feedback on its new alternative views.

-PCWorld.com

Garmin gets official with its nuvifone

We know, it’s not like the nüvifone is a total surprise any longer, but just in case you tend to rest easier after digesting information straight from the source, here goes. Garmin’s recently (and abruptly) announced handset obviously marks the firm’s first solo foray into the cellphone arena, and according to Cliff Pemble, the firm’s president and COO, it’s the “breakthrough product that cellphone and GPS users around the world have been longing for.” That being said, the unit will feature a 3.5-inch touchscreen with a trio of primary icons — Call, Search and View Map — along with an internet browser, HSDPA support and preloaded maps of North America and / or Eastern and Western Europe. Furthermore, it houses “millions” of POIs, doles out turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions and becomes Garmin’s first device to include Google’s local search capability. As for pricing and availability? We’re looking at a Q3 2008 release, but we’ll have to wait things out before finding out a price and who exactly will be carrying it.

-Engadget.com

Intel buys up 1.3 billion kilowatts of Renewable Energy Certificates

Say what you will about Renewable Energy Certificates, Green Tags, carbon offsets and the like, but Intel sure does own a lot of them. Intel just became the largest purchaser of Renewable Energy Certificates in the US, with a commitment to snapping up 1.3 billion kilowatt hours a year of the stuff. RECs act as a sort of green “currency,” allowing a company invest in renewable energy sources, instead of the pollution-ridden plant up the river fueled by the blood of innocents. Not a bad PR move, but the investment should make renewable energy sources more affordable down the line, so it’s hard to fault them there.

-from Engadget.com