Engadget is reporting that Mercedes-Benz might be tinkering with Google Glass for its future navigation systems. The first, big-name wearable tech item of the 21st century, Google Glass has a huge degree of potential in a number of fields, not the least of which is the auto industry.
Citing the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Engadget mentions that Mercedes is focusing on producing genuine, door-to-door directions that combine the pedestrian and automotive applications that Google Maps has become known for. President and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, Johann Jungwirth, mentioned this seamless integration of directions is the division’s ultimate goal.
The idea is intriguing, but we’re probably going to be waiting on it for some time. Google Glass is still quite expensive and is far from being available at the local Best Buy. Until that day comes, it looks like we’ll just have to make do with going from our car’s navigation to a smartphone.
The HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker coming to Wii U later this year will be priced at $49.99 in the United States and may include a new difficulty mode, according to a listing for the game on Amazon.
Wind Waker HD’s $49.99 price tag is $10 lower than the $59.99 price currently listed on the websites for retailers like GameStop and Best Buy. It’s also $10 lower than the launch price of many of Nintendo’s other Wii U titles, including New Super Mario Bros. U and Pikmin 3.
A lower price for an HD re-release might make sense on the surface, but there are indications more effort is going into Wind Waker HD than previously indicated.
Google’s new Chromecast promises that it’s the “easiest way to enjoy online video and music on your TV.” Given that it’s only $35, hundreds of thousands of people were excited enough by that promise to order one immediately, leading to sellouts at Best Buy, Amazon and Google’s own online store. But while the device is inexpensive and setup is reasonably straightforward, Chromecast is a work in progress and it’s difficult to recommend, even over more expensive devices from Roku and Apple. …read more
Google’s next-generation Nexus 7 tablet is already on online pre-order at Best Buy starting at $229.99 for a 16 GB version, ahead of its official launch by Google later today. …read more
The newest whiz-bang TV will set you back a cool $15,000. South Korean companies LG and Samsung are selling 55-inch curved OLED televisions in the US, reports the Verge . LG is doing so via Best Buy (the rollout will gradually expand to stores across the US) and Samsung only… …read more
If you’ve been waiting patiently since CES to grab a first-of-its-kind HDTV, now’s your chance. During an event in Minnesota today, LG announced its 55-inch curved OLED would begin showing up in select U.S. Best Buy stores over the next several weeks. The $15,000 HDTV launched in Korea back in April, and LG executives feel the move gives the company an “early lead” on the OLED market in the United States. Moreover, Best Buy will also be the first major American retailer to carry OLED sets.
Shopping around at various stores and websites is a great way to make sure you get the best price on everything on your back-to-school shopping list. But just as important as where you shop is when.
Different classes of products rise and fall in price at different points of the year. And since your shopping list might include everything from laptops to pencils to jeans, it’s unlikely that everything on it will be at its cheapest at the same time. So instead of trying get it all done in one weekend, we recommend shopping over the course of the summer as your target items hit their lowest price of the season.
To find out the best way to time your back-to-school shopping, we turned to deal site Dealnews, which pored through its historical data to determine when different merchandise tends to see the biggest discounts. Here’s how the site’s experts recommend you time your shopping.
What to Buy Now:
o. Laptops: Louis Ramirez, who covers technology items for Dealnews, says that the current standard for laptops is a 15-inch screen, a dual-core processor, a 500 GB hard drive and at least 4 GB of RAM. Based on that standard, he says now is a great time to buy: Right now, we’re seeing deals that put those laptops at all-time low prices. For AMD processor laptops, you’re looking at prices at $225 and up; Intel processor computers are starting around $299.
o. Tablets: Tablets are less essential for most college students, but Ramirez says that we’re also in the midst of some great Android tablet deals right now; they can be found at places like Walmart, Best Buy and Staples.
o. Clothing (Especially Jeans): Dealnews staff writer Marcy Bonebright says that sales on clothing have started appearing earlier than usual. “Most back-to-school sales and discounts pop up in August, but last year they began in mid-July and kept appearing until the second week of September,” she says. That’s especially true of jeans: She says the best jeans sales are happening this month, so get moving if you want some fresh denim when school starts this fall.
What to Buy in August:
o. Dorm Furniture: While markdowns on individual furniture items can be found year-round, your best bet is to shop in August. According to Dealnews, last summer’s first big dorm furniture sale took place at Target (TGT) in mid-July — but it was followed by a better sale at the beginning of August. There were also good sales on dorm furniture at OfficeMax (OMX) and Walmart (WMT) in early- to mid-August, so it might be best to wait a few weeks to make the most of your shopping around.
Once you’ve got your futon, here are some tips on <a target=_blank href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/17/from-drab-to-fab-dorm-decorating-on-a-budget/" …read more
Lenovo has discontinued sales of the Yoga 11 convertible with Windows RT on its website, which analysts said was a sign of PC makers moving away from their commitment to the struggling OS.
A page on Lenovo’s website stated the Yoga 11 is no longer being sold through its website, but said consumers “may still buy this product from a Lenovo retailer or reseller.”
The Yoga 11 is being sold by a few retailers such as TigerDirect, which is selling the device for $495. The device is not being sold by Best Buy, which is instead selling the Yoga 11S, a hybrid released earlier this year with Windows 8 and an Intel Core processor.
The Yoga 11 hybrid was one of the handful of computers running Microsoft’s Windows RT, which is designed for tablets. The Yoga 11’s dual functionality allowed it to be laptop, and also a tablet when the screen was folded up.
Stephen Gillett first became a chief information officer in his early 30s. He rose to become a CIO-plus at Starbucks, holding the CIO role in addition to being the executive vice president of Digital Ventures. After a brief stint as president of Digital, Global Marketing & Strategy at Best Buy, he took on his current role as chief operating officer of Symantec. Still in his mid-30s, Gillett embodies the characteristics of that rare but growing number of executives who have risen beyond CIO. Not so typical to the group, however, he was an offensive guard on the University of Oregon football team. During his time as an undergrad, he started a business that provided technology support and consulting. The ambition and drive that were apparent during his time as an undergraduate have served him well, and are behind his meteoric rise through the corporate world. …read more
Microsoft slashed prices on its Surface RT tablets by as much as 30 percent, with the entry-level 32GB model selling for $349 starting July 14.
The 64GB Surface RT was also discounted by $150, and now sells for $449, or 25 percent off its former price.
When Microsoft launched the tablet, it sold the 32GB device for $499 and the 64GB configuration for $599.
Microsoft started selling the Surface RT at the lower prices July 14, as did some of its U.S. retail partners, including Best Buy and Staples. On its website, Staples noted that the discounted prices are valid until July 20, and only while supplies last.
The volume of mobile spam messages touting free gift cards sharply fell after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed complaints in early March against eight companies, according to antispam vendor Cloudmark.
The fraudulent messages told users they could get a free gift card for retailers such as Best Buy, Walmart and Target in exchange for people’s personal information. The messages are illegal under U.S. law.
The FTC filed eight complaints in various U.S. courts against 29 defendants, accusing them of sending upwards of 180 million messages that confused consumers and often asked them to pay in order to receive the gift cards.
Gift card spam comprised more than 50 percent of all mobile spam messages in the U.S. around Feb. 18, according to Cloudmark’s report, which covers the first three months of this year. It sharply dropped to less than 10 percent following the FTC‘s March 7 announcement.
Intel has purchased Mashery, a provider or API management tools, in the chip maker’s latest move to expand into software and services.
The Mashery API management service will become a core element of a suite of cross-platform services that Intel plans to offer to enterprises, an Intel spokesman said Wednesday.
Mashery offers a set of tools for managing APIs (application programming interfaces) that can be deployed on-premise or used as a service in the cloud. The package includes a portal that external parties can use to access APIs, as well as caching, security tools, a user dashboard and usage reports. Mashery products have been used by organizations such as USA Today, Expedia, Aol’s Patch, Aetna and Best Buy.
An API provides a set of machine-readable instructions that one software program can use to interact with another over a network. By providing an API for its services, a company can encourage wider usage of those services by other parties. Most big online companies like Facebook and Twitter expose their APIs, but smaller organizations do not have the expertise to build and maintain a set of APIs for external use.
Apple stock has taken a drubbing over the past year. In this video, Andrew Tonner offers three reasons he thinks Apple is still a great buy:
It trades at ridiculously low valuations, particularly given its cash reserves.
It will probably launch a low-cost iPhone to finally penetrate emerging markets, which has been a weak spot for the company.
It’s likely to roll out either its iWatch or its iTV next year, in a move that should help boost revenue and profit growth.
Andrew argues that positioning yourself in this company at today’s low valuations could pay off this time next year.
There’s no doubt that Apple is at the center of technology’s largest revolution ever and that longtime shareholders have been handsomely rewarded, with more than 1,000% gains. However, there is a debate raging as to whether Apple remains a buy. The Motley Fool’s senior technology analyst and managing bureau chief, Eric Bleeker, is prepared to fill you in on both reasons to buy and reasons to sell Apple and what opportunities are left for the company (and your portfolio) going forward. To get instant access to his latest thinking on Apple, simply click here now.
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J.C. Penney‘s big turnaround pivoted on the idea of a store-within-a-store shopping experience. The radical shift had Wall Street enamored at first, but the novel concept is far from new. The design has been tried with mixed success across all varieties of bricks-and-mortar retailers.
Best Buy is the most recent dying retailer to attempt such a move after announcing its partnership with Samsung to create retail shops within larger Best Buy stores. There are echoes here not just of J.C. Penney’s attempted strategy, but also of Apple‘s own experience inside Target stores today and Circuit City stores of yesteryear.
Whether Best Buy and Samsung can pull off an Apple retail success will depend on their execution, but what seems on the surface to be a mimicking of J.C. Penney’s ill-fated strategy is actually rather different. Check out the following video for more details.
One thing is for sure: The retail space is in the midst of the biggest paradigm shift since mail order took off at the turn of last century. Only the most forward-looking and capable companies will survive, and they’ll handsomely reward investors who understand the landscape. You can read about the 3 Companies Ready to Rule Retail in The Motley Fool’s special report. Uncovering these top picks is free today; just click here to read more.
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Last year may have been one of the worst ones ever for big-box retailers. Shares of Best Buy , RadioShack, and hhgregg fell 50%, 78%, and 50%, respectively. It would make sense that this might be the case, as more and more people use these companies’ stores simply as a venue to test out new products, before going home to order them cheaper on Amazon.com .
Things were bad enough that in early January, I told investors to stay away from Best Buy, even though it had experienced a slight rally. So far, I’ve been wrong. The stock has more than doubled so far this year. But let me explain why I still think you should stay away from the company’s shares.
Anatomy of a rally, in three phases
Source: YCharts.
The first big bump Best Buy got was at the beginning of the year. Holiday sales, especially through the company’s e-commerce site, were much better than expected. The site, in fact, was the third most visited, coming in behind only Amazon and Wal-Mart.
Source: YCharts.
After a relatively flat February, the good news continued in March. First, founder Richard Schulze decided to forgo a buyout offer — something investors actually liked. That was accompanied by an earnings release that showed positive comparable-store sales in the United States. And even though earnings were down from the year before, they were better than expected.
Source: YCharts.
Finally, the company looked to pull a major coup when Samsung announced that it will open as many as 1,400 “Samsung Experience Shops” within existing Best Buy locations. The move makes a lot of sense for both companies. Samsung is able to gain a retail presence without having to build out its own stores, and Best Buy can capitalize on the popularity of Samsung’s phones by attracting more customers.
But what do things really look like over the long term? Let’s be clear: Best Buy has made a lot of good moves lately. Not only were the company’s e-commerce success and its deal with Samsung encouraging, but it also wowed analysts with the success of its price-match policy.
Still, one needs to take a realistic look at where commerce is heading and where Best Buy stands in the competitive field.
A distribution disadvantage Let’s take Best Buy‘s e-commerce success, for instance: It’s great to see that the company’s site was frequently visited during the holiday season. But even if Amazon, its main competition for e-commerce, is forced to collect sales taxes — thereby lessening its competitive pricing — Best Buy is still at a huge disadvantage.
Sure, there are Best Buy locations throughout North America. But those are stores, and not warehouses or fulfillment centers. Stores alone could never meet the demands of distributing products that Best Buy customers buy online. It would cost billions to build out an infrastructure of
Recently, brand consultancy Interbrand came out with its report on the 50 most valuable U.S. retail brands of 2013. Read on to find out the top 10.
So how did Interbrand determine their value? In short, Interbrand looks at three key aspects. First is the financial performance of the branded products or services. Interbrand only considers companies with publicly available data that are creating economic value (meaning a positive EBITDA) and generating a minimum of 50% of their sales from their retail stores (this excludes Apple).
The other two aspects Interbrand considers are the role of the brand in the purchase decision process and the strength of the brand — meaning, “the ability of the brand to create loyalty and, therefore, to keep generating demand and profit into the future.”
Here are Interbrand’s 10 most valuable U.S. retail brands of 2013:
Rank
Company
Brand Value (in billions)
Change From 2012
1
Wal-Mart
$141.0
1%
2
Target
$25.0
7%
3
Home Depot
$22.9
4%
4
Amazon.com
$18.6
46%
5
CVS
$15.9
(8%)
6
Coach
$14.6
8%
7
Walgreen
$14.4
(4%)
8
Sam’s Club(a subsidiary of Wal-Mart)
$13.5
5%
9
eBay
$10.9
12%
10
Nordstrom
$10.1
7%
Source: Interbrand.
Wal-Mart is the most valuable retail brand in the U.S. by a factor of five. Remarkably, Wal-Mart subsidiary Sam’s Club is the eighth most valuable retail brand in the U.S. Wal-Mart established itself as the dominant low-cost retailer over decades by constantly improving on its processes and supply chain skills under the leadership of Sam Walton. While Sam is no longer with us, Wal-Mart continues to thrive and his family leadership continues today under Chairman S. Robson Walton.
Many people don’t realize the difference in size between Wal-Mart and other retailers. The company’s sales for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2013, were $275 billion in the U.S. Compare that to the second most valuable retail brand in the U.S., Target , with sales of just $72 billion. Even Amazon.com , 2013’s fastest-growing major brand, only did $35 billion in sales in the U.S. in the past year.
Notably absent from the top 10 this year is Best Buy , which moved from fifth in 2012 to 13th in 2013 as the company’s brand value dropped 52% to $8 billion. The electronics retailer had a tough 2012 as shoppers treated its stores as showrooms and then used apps to buy goods cheaper online from Amazon and eBay. In the past, both online retailers benefited from not having to collect state sales taxes, but that advantage is slowly ending.
A company’s reputation is one of its most valuable assets. And while a reputation can take years to build, it can be battered or ruined in an instant. Consider what happened to JPMorgan Chase after the London Whale trading debacle, or Hyundai after it overstated the gas mileage for many of its cars.
Ethical lapses like those can be a major cause of a brand’s collapse-the consequence of a breach of trust between a company and the public. So can flawed product design (the burning battery in Boeing’s Dreamliner) or failure to meet a challenge from the competition (Apple’s iPhone, rapidly losing ground to Samsung’s Galaxy line).
More commonly, though, a company’s reputation erodes because of a failure in its core strategy. Take Blackberry, for example. Time after time it created products that led the global smartphone industry, but it never managed to move its reputation from being a successful manufacturer of smartphones for business to one for consumers.
The nine companies on this list severely damaged their brands in one of two ways: by aggressively promoting a product or a business strategy and failing badly; or being involved in a corporate or personal scandal. Click through the gallery to see America’s nine most damaged brands.
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Methodology: To identify the most damaged brands, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed large, publicly traded companies that offer products or services in the United States. These companies had to be among the largest brands in the world, as measured by Corebrand, or command an especially large amount of media attention in their industry.
Do you remember much from the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show?
Yeah, me neither. The one thing I do remember, however, is that 3-D television was heralded as the next big thing.
Of course, we all know how that turned out: Despite the best efforts of such retailers as Best Buy to stir demand for the latest and greatest 3-D sets from the likes of Sony and Panasonic , the technology fell flat as consumers were largely resistant to wearing the expensive glasses required to make it work.
Even then, after Toshiba introduced one of the first glasses-free 3-D TVs to the market, the product was still prohibitively expensive and, simply put, not compelling enough to convince the masses it was worth their money.
Even so, wildly popular 3-D movies like Avatar proved audiences are more than willing to watch good 3-D content if the venue is right. From an investors’ standpoint, then, many of us couldn’t help but wonder what it would take for 3-D viewing to actually succeed on a wider scale in our homes.
Enter Dolby 3D That’s why I’m so intrigued by Monday’s news that Dolby and Philips have collaborated in a joint project to create a new content delivery specification for the Dolby 3D format, which will be part of a “suite of technologies” to more easily allow content creators the ability to make, deliver, and play back glasses-free 3-D content.
To help pitch the use of Dolby 3D, Dolby and Philips enlisted content creation specialist The Foundry, who will integrate the format into its widely used postproduction software products NUKE and OCULA. Incidentally, those products are the same ones behind Avatar‘s ridiculously cool 3-D effects, so it’s telling that The Foundry is willing to open the door to Dolby 3D in its own solution.
In addition, Dolby management claims the new Dolby 3D format is “a crucial milestone in clearing the hurdles to easy and customizable 3-D viewing on TVs, tablets, smartphones, and laptops.” With that in mind, while the tech isn’t quite there yet, it’s reassuring that Dolby and Philips seem to have the right idea. So, if glasses-free 3-D viewing does eventually find a place in consumers’ homes, Dolby 3D’s head start will go a long way toward ensuring it will play a big part.
Another dimension for Dolby While this can’t be bad for Philips, I’m sure I can’t be alone in appreciating this as yet another way Dolby is working to diversify its operations away from its former core business in the relatively stagnant audio format market for PCs and other consumer electronics.
Couple that with the fact that Dolby is currently trading at just 14.6 times trailing earnings, boasts a decent return on capital of 18.3%, and had $743 million in cash reserves with no debt at the end of its most recent quarter, the stock is starting to look like too good a deal to pass up.
Best Buy is the top-performing stock on the S&P 500 this year, up more than 117% since the beginning of January. But don’t let that performance fool you. This is an ailing retailer to avoid like the plague.
Shares have rallied since last week’s announcement that Samsung is installing semi-autonomous stores within each of the electronic retailer’s big-box locations. The thought process here is simple: Best Buy has struggled over the past few years with lagging sales, and it needed some type of lift.
As an analyst told Forbesmagazine: “[T]he Samsung partnership may boost Best Buy‘s service experience to electronics customers and help to eventually increase profit margins. If the combined service with Samsung increases customer traffic, it could help Best Buy win back leverage from suppliers such as Apple, boosting overall profits.”
That’s a big “if,” particularly given Best Buy‘s track record when it comes to customer service.
More importantly, however, neither the Samsung agreement nor investors’ mercy on its stock since the beginning of the year changes one critical fact: For most consumers, electronics are a commodity. As a result, price is the primary factor that dictates where people purchase them, and that accordingly channels potential Best Buy customers to the likes of Amazon.com and Costco.
It’s true that Best Buy is now offering to match online prices. But all that does is transfer the pain from its top line down to its bottom line by way of the profit margin — not something that would help Best Buystock in any way, shape, or form.
Beyond all this, the executive leadership has been in a state of flux for some time now. A year ago this month, CEO Brian Dunn “resigned” after the head of human resources was said to have uncovered an affair between Dunn and a younger employee. The following month, its founder and chairman, Richard Schulze, was forced out for his failure to take action. Schulze subsequently mounted a failed attempt to take the company private before being invited back as chairman emeritus. And in the midst of all of this, the remaining board members hired a replacement CEO with no discernible retail experience.
Suffice it to say, this doesn’t paint a pretty picture for the future success of Best Buystock regardless of its recent performance. If you’re looking for odds like these, in other words, you’re better off going to Vegas, where at least you get free drinks.
Want to learn more about Best Buy? The battle between bricks-and-mortar stores and e-commerce rages on, with Best Buy caught in the middle. After what might have been its most tumultuous year in history, there are now even more unanswered questions about the future for the big-box electronics retailer. How will new leadership perform? Will old leadership take the company private? Will a smaller store format work out for both the company and its brave investors? Should you
