Recently in Gadgets Category

Thanks to recent changes in government regulations, a reliable, long-lasting fuel cell to power today's electronic gadgets may be right around the corner.

"We are closer, much closer, than even two years ago in terms of the companies' internal designs, how they've met their milestones and just the amount of testing and evaluation that's going on right now," said Sara Bradford, an energy and power systems consultant for Frost & Sullivan.

Now wouldn't that be nice!

Cars next, please!

Google/The Associated Press has more.

Despite one of the worst economic climates in decades, consumer spending on Black Friday hit $10.6 billion, 3% higher than the day after Thanksgiving in 2007, according to researcher ShopperTrak.

Gadgets accounted for nine of the top 10 most popular Black Friday products, PriceGrabber said.

Data from PriceGrabber.com shows that online consumers are taking advantage of promotions on popular electronics, including LCD and plasma TVs, Blu-ray disc players, digital SLR cameras, laptops and video game consoles.

The most popular products on Black Friday: And while we are at it, here are the Top 10 categories and percent growth over Black Friday 2007: More at PriceGrabber.com and The Washington Post.

It appears it just might be a Merry Christmas even with the doom & gloom surrounding the economy. I guess President-elect Barack Obama must be the Messiah, since he's already creating miracles and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. Or it could just be that credit card loving Americans just don't know when to quit spending & charging.

Check this out:

NRF Survey Finds Black Friday Gets Holiday Season Off to Energetic Start
-- Great Bargains, Pent-Up Demand Drove Shoppers to Stores, Web

Though the holiday season is far from over, retailers across the country are breathing a collective sigh of relief after shoppers headed to stores and websites in droves over the weekend. According to the National Retail Federation's 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey, conducted by BIGresearch, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 147 million shoppers last year.*

Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 this weekend*, up 7.2 percent over last year's $347.55. Total spending reached an estimated $41.0 billion.

"Pent-up demand on electronics and clothing, plus unparalleled bargains on this season's hottest items helped drive shopping all weekend," said NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin. "Holiday sales are not expected to continue at this brisk pace, but it is encouraging that Americans seem excited to go shopping again."

Friday was clearly the busiest day of the weekend with 73.6 million people hitting stores and websites for doorbuster sales. Though traffic did subside after Friday, retailers were also buoyed by two-day sales as 56.9 million people shopped on Saturday, up from 48.3 million last year, while another 26.2 million people planned to shop on Sunday. Thanksgiving Day also continues to increase in importance as the number of people who shopped on Thursday was up 48 percent over last year (16.2 million people vs. 10.9 million people).

Those who shopped on Friday lived by the adage that the early bird catches the worm. The survey found that 23.3 percent of shoppers were at stores by 5 a.m. while more than half (57.6%) were at stores by 9 a.m. Bargains appeared to be so good that people have more of a jumpstart on shopping.

According to the findings, Americans have completed slightly more shopping than they had one year ago (39.3% vs. 36.4%), indicating that traffic and sales over the next several weeks will moderate.

"Though retailers should be encouraged by strong traffic and sales over the weekend, consumers are still being cautious," said Phil Rist, Executive Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, BIGresearch. "Weekend shoppers indicated that they are still sticking to a budget and thinking carefully before making any holiday purchases."

Though retailers in all categories were featuring big bargains, a majority of shoppers visited discount stores for holiday deals. According to the survey, more than half (54.7%) of this weekend's shoppers visited discount stores. Nearly half (43.0%) shopped at a traditional department store, up 11.1 percent from 38.7 percent last year. About one-third of shoppers visited specialty stores like clothing or electronics stores (36.0%) and shopped online (34.0%).

As expected, many shoppers (50.9%) purchased clothing and accessories over the weekend while 39.0 percent bought books, DVDs, CDs and video games and 35.9 percent purchased consumer electronics. Toys were also big sellers, as 28.5 percent of shoppers bought a toy. Gift card purchasing dropped ten percent with 18.7 percent of shoppers purchasing a gift card over the weekend, down from 21.0 percent last year.

NRF continues to project that holiday sales will rise 2.2 percent this year to $470.4 billion.

About the Survey

The NRF 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey was designed to gauge consumer behavior and shopping trends related to the winter holidays. NRF defines the weekend as sales from Thursday, November 27 to Sunday, November 30. The survey, which polled 3,370 consumers, was conducted for NRF by BIGresearch from November 27-29, 2008. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 percent.

BIGresearch is a consumer market intelligence firm that provides unique consumer insights that are gathered online utilizing very large sample sizes. BIGresearch's syndicated Consumer Intentions and Actions survey monitors the pulse of more than 8,000 consumers each month to empower its clients with unique insights for identifying opportunities in a fragmented and changing marketplace.

The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.6 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 24 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2007 sales of $4.5 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com

Via NRF

Amazon has a special landing page listing all their Cyber Monday deals. Amazon doesn't call it "Cyber Monday" but rather the "Black-Friday-After-Thanksgiving-Sale", so this landing page should be good until Christmas. Maybe they were afraid Cyber Monday was patented, kinda like their one-click ordering patent.

Anyway, here's the current category breakdown on the Amazon holiday specials landing page:

There are some Blu-ray DVD players for sale, including a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player for $199. (under $200). Still doesn't beat the $128 Blu-ray player Wal-Mart was offering on Black Friday (now $199), but it's the best deal on Amazon today.

For the full listing on Amazon holiday specials, head over here.

Some experts are skeptical about whether consumers will buy Blu-ray DVD players this Christmas - I am not one of them. Many are saying it's going to be a "blue" Blu-ray Christmas. I disagree. I went shopping for a cheap Blu-ray DVD player on Black Friday, with one bargain special at Wal-Mart offering a $128 Blu-ray player. This was one of the biggest deals offered by Wal-Mart on Black Friday, and one was to wonder if this deal was part of the draw for the raucous crowd that stampeded and killed a Wal-Mart employee.

When I went to one Wal-Mart, then told me they sold out in 2 hours. I tried another one and they told me I just missed the last unit by less than an hour.


Wal-Mart was offering the Magnavox NB500MG9 Blu-ray Disc Player, a mid-range Blu-ray player. Today (Cyber Monday), that same Blu Ray player is going for $199 online.

Features of the Magnavox NB500MG9 Blu-ray player include Full-HD 1080 output (24 or 60p), 1080p DVD upconversion, Composite video output Component video output, Progressive scan video output for HDTVs, HDMI with audio output for Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound, Digital audio output (coaxial), Analog audio output (left and right), CD support, Jpeg photo viewer, screen saver and surround sound effects. However, the Magnavox NB500MG9 Blu-ray player only supports Blu-ray profile 1.1 and not the current Blu-ray 2.0 version. Thus, no BD-Live support for access to more special content via the Internet. Still, this was a bargain Blu-ray player coming closest to breaking the $100 barrier. I planned on giving it to my brother-in-law for Christmas since he was looking at upgrading to a 42" HDTV flat screen.

If the two Wal-Marts I visited are any indication that this will be a "Blu-ray Christmas", then retailers that sell Blu-ray players and Blu-ray discs should be very happy. In fact, I'm surprised with retailers haven't offered a $99 Blu-ray player for sale. Yes, they'd be taking a loss, but perhaps they could offer it as part of a bundle, such as buy 5 Blu-ray movies at $24.99 and get a $99 Blu-ray DVD player plus a coupon for 50% off your next Blu-ray purchase. They'll entice them to come back and purchase more Blu-ray titles, which should more than offset any profits lost on the low-priced Blu-ray player. Once they get consumers hooked on Blu-ray, they'll be paying nearly double what regular DVDs cost.

Retailers need a shot in the arm and one way of doing that is by getting a Blu-ray player in as many homes as possible and as quickly as possible - before HD-on-demand starts to take off. Personally, I prefer to own my movies rather than rent/PPV/video-on-demand. I like to build my movie library so I can watch any of my 500+ movies anytime I want without paying another dime. I think consumers are looking to escape today's harsh economic climate. Watching movies is a heck of a lot cheaper than going to the movies. People are going out a lot less, eating out less, but they still want some form of escapism and quality entertainment. For that reason, I think it's going to be a very "black" Blu-ray Christmas. I have a Blu-ray player on my Christmas wish-list. Crossing fingers Santa Claus thinks I've been good this year.

Also, since today is Cyber Monday, I'm keeping my eye on Amazon for any Blu-ray specials (see: Amazon Blu-ray player special prices). You should as well.

So you want Skype High Quality (HQ) video, but aren't willing to shell out for a nice dual-core processor and a high-end Logitech camera, eh? Well, no worries - Nodewave has a Force 'Skype' HQ Video app that allows you to Enable/Disable (and even configure) High-Quality Video in Skype, and even High-Definition Video regardless of your camera or processor.

So if Santa doesn't stick a high-end Logitech Orb AF webcam (my favorite webcam) in your stocking for Christmas, then this hack might just be the way to go!

It's been called both "vampire power" and "phantom load" -- likened to the power-hungry HAL 9000 computer (at left) in Stanley Kubrick's classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It's the little unblinking red light on the television set that is silently drawing energy from the grid; studies have shown it can add 10% or more to a household energy bill.

Now Spanish entrepreneurs claim to have invented a way to end the problem that has bedeviled energy regulators, environmentalists and appliance manufacturers. They have patented an algorithm that can detect when an appliance is in standby mode and automatically switch it off completely.

The standby-mode killer has yet to be proven commercially and must contend with other new products designed to tackle the same problem. But, despite some doubters, the Spanish inventors say theirs is the only product able to completely do away with a large, and growing, world-wide problem.

Now how about that!

Get more at the Wall Street Journal.

Yes, Black Friday it is!

(And did you know about Black Friday the movie?)

And gadget retailers (and all others, too!) are looking for you to make your contribution to their coffers!

Now, I know it may have been hard (very hard), even too hard, to get up before the rising sun to hit those eager merchants at 5 AM when the best (very best) deals could be had, but there is still plenty of time today to either hit the pavement for a real physical visit or simply click the keyboard to do some stylish online shopping.

Whatever your choice, get out there and do it!

You know I scoured all of the flyers and online ads to put together a great list of Black Friday deals,  but seems Gizmodo has just plain beat me to it!

So just like last year, they have rounded up and sorted through all of the real deals for you, broken down by category and merchant.

If you know how to survive, this is the only Black Friday deal list you need.

Get it all here. 

Looking for a faster, bigger hard drive this Christmas? (Two days till Black Friday sales by the way) Well, I came across this funny Youtube video of the day - filmed at famous Mac Store Tekserve in Manhattan, New York and paid for by drive manufacturer Seagate. It's a tad long, but it features a hip-hop office drama and the desire for "A new disk drive. 1.5 Terabytes...." (don't let that little jingle get stuck in your head) Just in time for the Christmas holiday season.

Via 9to5mac.com