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Posts Tagged “

Gadgets

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early adopters

It's Official: Early Adopters Are Jackasses

A new study by Mindset Media and Nielsen Online has created a better profile of gadget lovers who tend to buy new technology early and often—and it's no longer believed that they're just "wealthy young males." Instead, the early adopter type tends to score high in leadership and assertiveness, but low in modesty.

Avid tech consumers were also likely to be low in modesty and may be perceived as conceited or arrogant by others.

Low levels of modesty also correlate with what Welch calls "badge-buying", or a tendency to buy luxury brands. "So there's an element of pride in being able to have the latest and greatest, not just in the realm of technology, but in all other areas."

More »

8:28 PM on Wed Jun 18 2008
By Chris Walters
5,431 views, 70 comments

deals

Sharper Image Liquidating All Stores

Sharper Image is closing for good starting today and everything at their remaining 86 is on sale from 20-40%. Fine purveyors of vibrating massage chairs and miniature plastic pinball tables, the liquidation is being handled by Gordon Brothers Retail Partners. These are the same guys who did the CompUSA fire sales, so expect similar awesomeness, like marking up merchandise 50%, then taking 20-40% off that...Farewell, Sharper Image, now men will have to find some other place to play while their female halves are in Victoria's Secret.

Sharper Image® Store Closing Sale Now Underway at All Locations [Press Release] (Thanks to Justin!)

10:39 AM on Mon Jun 2 2008
By Ben Popken
7,887 views, 51 comments

Latest by austinchu: I work for a company that manages and tracks gift cards, and I've been following this issue for sometime now on savvywallet.com. Leveragecard.com initialized a bankruptcy policy for consumers that purchased The Sharper Image gift card on our website. more »

travel

Calculate The "Emissions Cost" Of Your Next Flight

Enpalo is an online calculator that lets you estimate the flight emissions of your next airplane jaunt—you choose an airline, enter your origin and destination, then sit back and light up a cigar while you laugh about how many baby polar bears you're drowning. More »

5:55 PM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Chris Walters
1,341 views, 8 comments

customer service

HP Announces Big Fat Tech Support Investment

HP customer service has a bad rep and it seems they finally got around to noticing it. Here's a press release announcing the completion of what they call, "the most substantial investment in consumer technical support in its history." Highlights:

  • New customer support computer system
  • 8 new call centers, including three IN AMERICA
  • 1,000 agents getting new training on common and critical customer issues
  • More "technology tools" (whatever those are)
  • Remote desktop control (they didn't have this before? whoa.)

    • The press release did not mention if customer service reps will be getting paid more, which we think is a key factor in attracting and retaining quality personnel.

    3:00 PM on Mon Mar 3 2008
    By Ben Popken
    2,175 views, 44 comments

    warranties

    Best Buy Overlaps Their Product Service Plans With Manufacturer's Warranty

    Wiliam writes in to point out something he noticed in the fine print of Best Buy's Product Service Plan: it begins as soon as you purchase the item, and doesn't cover anything covered by the manufacturer's warranty. If you have a one-year manufacturer's warranty and a two-year PSP, you effectively get only one year of coverage out of the PSP.
    More »

    5:30 PM on Fri Feb 22 2008
    By Chris Walters
    7,160 views, 84 comments

    photos

    OLPC Spotted In Wild

    Spotted a real OLPC user on the subway this weekend. An OLPC is that funky device that is supposed to be given to poor children in developing countries but the foundation did a "give one, get one" program which explains why this guy has one. Some people on the R train from Manhattan to Brooklyn gave him and his green and white contraption an odd look out the corner of their eye.

    11:00 AM on Mon Feb 18 2008
    By Ben Popken
    5,094 views, 52 comments

    videos

    Call Center Call Customer "Little Girl" For Not Buying Computer

    In this supposedly real call leaked from a Panamanian call center, a call center rep mocks a customer when he decides not to buy a new computer because it doesn't come with speakers, calling him a "little girl" and a "little pussy girl." Whether it's real or not, it doesn't really matter, it's funny. Transcript inside... More »

    12:12 PM on Fri Feb 15 2008
    By Ben Popken
    12,602 views, 46 comments

    RIM is blaming yesterday's Blackberry outage on a routine upgrade gone wrong. [Gizmodo]

    7 comments

    leaks

    Tiger Direct Sales Contest Thinks Pimps Are Funny

    It's really funny to rape women, beat them, force them to have sex with other men for money, and then take all their money. Which is why this internal sales promotion for gadget seller TigerDirect is so awesome! Start by selling a customer a notebook computer, then PIMP it up with all sorts of accessories. In turn, the more you sell, the more you get entered into a raffle to win some PIMP prizes so you can PIMP out your crib with pimpin' a new computer and a pimp 50" plasma TV with surround sound and a Logitech Harmony 1000 Universal Pimp Remote Control! The promotional flyer proclaims, "Now you have a controller in one hand and a cup full of Gin & Juice in the other. You got the nice gifts and the greens $$$$$$ in your pocket. Now you're OFFICIALLY PIMPING!" Pimps are a hilarious American icon of entrepreneurship! PIMP PIMP PIMP! Full promotional flyer and contest rules, inside... More »

    6:00 PM on Tue Feb 5 2008
    By Ben Popken
    6,315 views, 117 comments

    Latest by n/a: This ad is bad. And I don't like "Pimp My Ride," either. It's not funny when you have fourth grade boys coming in your classroom calling each other pimps, and they don't even know what the words mean. I had more »

    early adopters

    Great Idea: Website To Let You Share The Cost Of Fad Gadgets

    David Pogue thinks the Pleo dinosaur is meh. He's seen it all before with Aibo, and despite all the "it's so lifelike!" ad and editorial copy devoted to it, the charm wears off pretty much the same day you buy it: "My surprise, though, was my kids' reaction. They thought it was really, really cool—for the first half-hour." He's proposed a new website idea where you'd sign up for the latest Hot New Thing coming out of CES, Toy Fair, Macworld, etc., then pay an ever-shrinking percentage of the original sales price to own it when your turn came in line. More »

    7:50 PM on Thu Jan 24 2008
    By Chris Walters
    2,696 views, 22 comments

    Latest by WillScarlett: @lemur: I don't understand what value is added by knowing the chain of ownership anyway. This just seems overly complicated for a problem that really doesn't exist. Methinks Pogue was grasping for a column. more »

    reviews

    In MP3 Showdown, Winners Are iPod Touch And Sansa View

    Okay, so it's not like there aren't 15,000 MP3-player reviews already on the web, but SmartMoney decided to jump on the bandwagon and rate five 8-gigabyte MP3 players. Instead of hard stats and lab tests, they handed the devices to an NYU music instructor and audiophile and asked him to walk around the city playing with them. The Apple iPod Touch—at $300, the most expensive of the lot—came out on top, which probably doesn't surprise anyone, but the SanDisk Sansa View performed well too. More »

    2:02 PM on Thu Jan 24 2008
    By Chris Walters
    3,721 views, 35 comments

    Latest by Git Em SteveDave wants a Lego build buddy: @ekthesy: I went on Ebay and got the "Otterbox" for my shuffle for dirt cheap because they updated the series. True, it's only waterproof to one meter, but still, this thing lets me do my walks in the rain more »

    consumer electronics

    New Service Lets You Resell Your Old Gadgets At A Fixed Price—For A Fee

    TechForward, a new company in Los Angeles, provides fixed buyback prices on used electronics like cell phones and iPods. The catch is you pay up front—it's an added fee when you first buy the device—for the right to resell your gadget to them a year or two down the line, and the amounts they're offering are usually dramatically lower than what you can get if you sell it yourself on Ebay. More »

    3:16 PM on Fri Jan 18 2008
    By Chris Walters
    2,421 views, 12 comments

    gadgets

    Are The New Apple Products Worth Buying?

    The dirty-sounding finance blog "Make Your Nut" works through the pros and cons of the latest Apple products, so that you can "make sure you enter into your purchases with eyes wide open." Up first is the revamped AppleTV, which has a few limitations that weren't mentioned in yesterday's announcement.
    More »

    2:52 PM on Wed Jan 16 2008
    By Chris Walters
    7,471 views, 84 comments

    success stories

    Seagate Issue Resolved After Posting Complaint Along With Executive Email Addresses On Company's Own Site

    Shawn has a nice success story with the Seagate company that provides an interesting twist on the EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) technique that we've been telling you about for months:
    I bought a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB external harddrive about two or three months ago, and backed up several harddrives to it. Everything was going awesome on every computer I had, but then it had an issue on my desktop. "Delayed Write Failure" WHAT? I try to read the information on the drive, it won't allow me.
    More »

    5:47 PM on Fri Jan 11 2008
    By Ben Popken
    6,470 views, 23 comments

    Latest by n/a: I had the problem of "X:\$Mft dalayed write failed" on an external WD drive. The Reg settings were all ok. I found that, with large files (4.7Gb .isos), I was getting the error when the drive was filled to >90% more »

    warnings

    Gadgets Are Great... If Your Customers Can Figure Them Out

    With all the geektastic frenzy of CES going on, one man, Bob Sullivan from the Red Tape Chronicles asks: "But will these things work?"
    In a quiet, nearly empty conference room on the other side of the city from the 140,000 enthusiasts cramming the Las Vegas Convention Center, a roomful of wet blankets was discussing a dirty little secret of the high-tech industry, a small sacrilege during this annual celebration of all things geek.
    More »

    4:55 PM on Tue Jan 8 2008
    By Meg Marco
    4,146 views, 29 comments

    housing

    Build An "Upgradeable" Home

    Wired has a short article subtitled, "How our technolust helped bring down the housing market." The article is more sensible than the headline, however—it really focuses on new developments in the housing market, and how expensive it is to retrofit even newly built homes with new (or future) technology: "'[Remodeling] can be done, but you really need to want it,' says Kermit Baker, a Harvard economist who studies the remodeling market." What's needed, the author argues, is an approach to new home construction that treats homes as dynamic spaces that can be more easily reconfigured to meet the requirements of new owners. Not that anyone is building a home right now, but it's an interesting thing to keep in mind when you're ready to leave your shantytown and re-settle in the suburbs. More »

    8:21 PM on Wed Dec 26 2007
    By Chris Walters
    2,050 views, 12 comments

    Latest by n/a: @Sudonum: I have an older house with plaster/lathe, and I don't have a problem with running anything anywhere. It all depends upon the construction of the individual house, I suppose. Sure, having raised floors and built-in baseboard wire conduits would be great, more »

    deals

    Save Money By Buying Last Year's Gadgets

    The evolutionary cycle of gadgetry is fast enough now that you can score some great deals on last year's products, which are perfectly fine for all but the most technologically literate (or obsessed) people in your life. A perfect example: the first generation Zune, which can be found for as low as $80, has a bigger screen than a non-Touch iPod, and a 30 gigabyte capacity. Yes, it's also got lots of drawbacks. But that's why it's $80, and for the average consumer who just wants a decent mp3 and movie player, it does the job nicely. More »

    2:08 PM on Fri Dec 14 2007
    By Chris Walters
    3,452 views, 19 comments

    Latest by theblackdog: Sirius Satellite Radio is deeply discounting their Stiletto 10's and 100's right now because they just released the Stiletto 2, which is the next generation. more »

    advice

    Cutting Back On Features When Gadget Shopping

    The next time you go shopping for a camera, cell phone, video recorder, or other gadget, you can save money by deciding what features you really need, and moving down the model line instead of up to the most feature-packed gizmo, writes SmartMoney. For example, "Only 31% of cellphone owners actually use their phone to take pictures, while only 15% browse the Internet, and less than 10% listen to music, download games or watch videos." More »

    4:26 PM on Wed Dec 12 2007
    By Chris Walters
    1,158 views, 23 comments

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