walmart

First, Paramount and DreamWorks Animation get bought off to go HD DVD exclusive. Now word is Toshiba's trying to romance Warner into flipping. The only problem is Sony's doing its best to seduce the last dual-format studio into exclusively shacking up with Blu-ray.

This lurid next chapter in our favorite little tech soap opera comes to us by way of The Digital Bits, which links to an L.A. Times story (also printed in Newsday) that suggest serious bucks are being dangled by both Toshiba and Sony to win Warner's affections. Wal-Mart's in the mix, too, … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Though he was in town to discuss Dell's new storage products for small and medium-size business customers, company founder and CEO Michael Dell also took time to answer questions about the company's main business, PC sales, which is also an area in which it's recently struggled.

Dell reiterated his company's assertion that there will be more to come of its recent dabblings in selling desktops and notebooks through retail channels.

"We're going to expand to a number of places," he said. "I would expect over the next quarters you'll see … Read more

Carl Howe at Blackfriar's Marketing points out the problems with Wal-Mart's supposed bid to unseat iTunes.

The result: customers are likely to cherry-pick low-cost tracks at Wal-Mart when they can, but any large-scale defections from iTunes or even Amazon just aren't going to happen without a lot more marketing work.

Howe notes that Wal-Mart has a thinner selection and requires Windows Media to even browse its collection but he doesn't mention the biggest problem, possibly just because it's so obvious.

It's just not a convenient way to get songs onto your iPod.

As Michael Gartenberg says:… Read more

Pentax very quietly announced two new cameras late yesterday. The first, an 8MP model called the Optio Z10, marks new territory for Pentax with a sliding lens cover that moves sideways and, like the sliding covers on Sony cameras, turns the camera on and off. Sony often gets credit for the sliding lens cover design in digital cameras, but many compact film cameras incorporated sliding lens covers years before Sony started using them in its digital cameras.

While those film cameras often had mechanical issues due to their extending zoom lenses, this Pentax has an internally zooming refraction lens. The … Read more

As expected, Sony is selling exclusive models of its LCD televisions through discount retailer Target right now.

Though not available in stores until mid-September, Target.com shows a 26-inch and 32-inch Bravia 720p LCD on its site right now for $799 and $899, respectively. Both are significantly cheaper (and smaller) than the other Sony TVs Target carries.

Walmart.com is next, followed by availability in Wal-Mart Stores next month, according to a Sony representative.

The electronics maker revealed its discount retailer plan in June. Randy Waynick, senior vice president of marketing, said Sony would supply a unique series of models … Read more

E3 came and went, and while another company announced a "price drop," the Internet-wide speculation of Microsoft doing the same at the big show went unmentioned.

Well it seems that these Xbox 360 price-drop suspicions were not completely unfounded; over the weekend it was discovered that multiple retailers will have the Xbox 360 premium listed at $350 beginning in early August--most likely to coincide with the release of Madden 08.

Thanks to Cheap Ass Gamer, we have two scans of predated ads from Wal-Mart and Toys R Us displaying the $50 price cut. It is unclear, however, about whether this will affect the Elite and Core versions of the console as well.

Check out the Wal-Mart ad scan after the jump.… Read more

Strong holiday sales helped Apple's iTunes push past Amazon and take third place in overall music sales during the first quarter, according to a new report.

A spike in iPod sales over Christmas drove new device owners to iTunes, and helped Apple grab 9.8 percent of the overall music market, according to the report, issued Friday by the NPD Group.

Amazon came in fourth with a 6.7 share, according to NPD's figures. Wal-Mart was tops in the quarter with 15.8 percent and runner-up Best Buy snagged 13.8 percent.

Apple managed to capture a larger … Read more

Dell made waves in the PC industry last month when it announced it would sell two of its desktop computers in Wal-Mart stores. On Friday, the company said Sam's Club would carry two Dell models, a desktop and notebook.

Beginning in mid-June, 580 Sam's Club stores will stock Dell's Inspiron E1501 Notebook, which will sell for $899, and Dimension E521 Multimedia Desktop for $829. More than 3,000 Wal-Marts will have two versions of the Dell Dimension E521 Multimedia desktops--for $698 and $498--on its shelves starting this Sunday.

All models will ship with Windows Vista Home Premium … Read more

Wal-Mart is joining the fray of movie download services today. Its new store (which is mysteriously unfriendly to Firefox) features movies from all six major studios including Disney and Sony--two studios that have a long history of proprietary use and ties to competing download services.

Films range from about $13 to $20 and can be watched almost immediately depending on your connection. Movies are managed and played through a custom player that runs only on Windows PCs. You also can watch the movies in Windows Media Player. Like the iTunes Movie Store, titles released on DVD will be available … Read more