Circuit City: And Now It's Dead

It goes out with a pained mumble—not quite a whisper, definitely not a bang. Today, after 50 years, Circuit City no longer exists. A moment of silence is in order.

We (and others) have already said goodbye quite a bit:

• Best Buy Says Goodbye
• Circuit City Employees' Final Words as Circuit City Employees
• Their Dignity Is Not for Sale... Well, Nevermind
• Why Circuit City Closed (According to Circuit City Employees)
• The Circle of Life: Circuit City Buildings to Become High Schools?
• A Violent Goodbye
• Best Buy Rubs Salt in Circuit City's Gaping Wound
• Why I Shopped at Circuit City (By Choice)
• Even in Death, It Managed to Screw People Over
• The Beginning of the End

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All Circuit City stores closing permanently on March 8th

To an icon in the consumer electronics retail space, we wave goodbye. And for the hordes of employees already / soon to be looking for new uniforms elsewhere, we empathize. Circuit City has just announced that on March 8th, all of its stores will lock up for the last time. Granted, some locations have already shut their doors in permanent fashion due to stock depletion, but regardless of leftover wares, March 8th is the end of the line for the laggards. We'd say you might want to stop by your local outlet to catch any last-last-minute sales, but even at a penny, you're not going to want that open-box 4MB SD card.

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New SportsDawgz Blog

Sports Dawgz is a new sports blog and forum that I helped put together. I helped with the blog, but didn't do anything with the forum. Sports Dawgz has the latest and greatest sports news. Be sure to check it out.

www.sportdawgz.com

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Circuit City Closing

Circuit City (CC) has reached a deal to be fully liquidated after failing to find a buyer or a refinancing deal.

The electronics retailer reached an agreement with liquidators to sell the merchandise in its 567 domestic stores.

"We are extremely disappointed by this outcome. The company had been in continuous negotiations regarding a going concern transaction,” said James Marcum, vice chairman and acting president and chief executive officer, in a statement.

“Regrettably for the more than 30,000 employees of Circuit City and our loyal customers, we were unable to reach an agreement with our creditors and lenders to structure a going-concern transaction in the limited timeframe available, and so this is the only possible path for our company."

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Microsoft Adds SecondLight to its 'Surface'

Over the past couple of years, gadgets have become much more touchy-feely. Apple's iPhone and Microsoft's Surface (an interactive table) are two of the most celebrated examples. Now, Microsoft has added a twist to Surface that makes for an impressive demo.

Microsoft announced the upgrade to Surface, called SecondLight, at the company's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday. As the video above demonstrates, in this new version of Surface, a secondary image is projected above the main display. A person views the second image by holding a semi-opaque object, such as a piece of paper above the display. The idea is to provide a second layer of information: labeled constellations on top of photographs of stars or street names on top of maps, for instance.

SecondLight uses a neat trick to produce this second layer. The original Surface used a projector below a glass tabletop to create an image and infrared cameras underneath to detect fingers and objects in contact with the surface. With SecondLight, Microsoft has replaced the glass top with a liquid crystal display (LCD), but kept the projector underneath. The LCD flickers on an off and, during alternate frames the projector sends the secondary image through the display. This happens too fast for your eyes to catch it unless you hold up an opaque object, like a piece of paper.

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Circuit City Files for Bankruptcy

America’s third largest electronics retailer with 721 stores in the U.S. and 770 in Canada, has petitioned for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond. After losing money in five of the last six quarters and announcing last week it would close 155 stores, Circuit City is seeking bankruptcy protection amidst fears that it would not be able to pay its vendors. The company presently owes Hewlett-Packard Co.$119 Million and Samsung Electronics Co. $116 million.

A deal earlier this year that involved Blockbuster Inc. buying the retailer fell through when a preliminary offer was withdrawn.

"On Sept. 29, Circuit City reported a loss of $239.2 million that was more than triple from a year earlier after sales fell for the sixth straight quarter.

Losing Share ~
Circuit City's rivals gained market share by offering Apple Inc. and Dell Inc. computers. Larger Best Buy and discount retailer Wal-Mart lowered prices on flat-panel televisions to lure U.S. customers, who are limiting spending because of higher food costs, further job losses and declining home values.

The global financial crisis is making it harder for the chain to stock its shelves and for consumers to finance purchases.

The company took on more debt this year, increasing a $500 million revolving credit agreement to $1.3 billion in January, according to its most recent quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As of May 31, Circuit City said it still had $963 million available to borrow."

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Comcast’s 250 GB Cap and Some Inside Info on Network Management

Karl Bode at Broadband Reports broke the news this morning (now confirmed) that Comcast will institute a 250GB bandwidth cap starting on October 1st. Nobody likes a cap, but as far as they go, this one’s pretty generous. It’s also far from unprecedented. Time Warner Cable made a lot of (negative) news when it started trialing a 40GB cap earlier in the year. But some of the smaller cable operators have been capping or metering for years. CableOne, for example, limits downloads and uploads during the time period between Noon and Midnight. The base plan allows for 1.3GB downstream and 131MB upstream in a day, and if you exceed those caps, the operator will slow down your connection. Meanwhile Sunflower Broadband appears to offer only 1GB downstream per month in its base plan. On the other hand, you can add extra gigabytes for only a dollar each in advance or the operator will charge you two dollars after the fact.

The one bit of good news around the fact that the big cablecos are getting into the capping game is that at least now we’re having a discussion about what’s reasonable. For example, should network management include caps, or slowed access for heavy users during peak times, or both? (I know “neither” is the ideal answer, but it’s also impractical.)

And, how much bandwidth is really enough? Keep in mind that the operators themselves don’t want to limit bandwidth too much because of the revenue potential from new services. As more IP devices hit the market, there are more opportunities for cable companies to sell broadband apps and even hardware/software bundles. Limitations on consumers are also limitations on cable revenue.

Which brings us around to the most important point. Capping and metering do not increase bandwidth capacity. Even as they set management policies for Internet use, operators still have to work continually to increase overall bandwidth availability. Good for the consumer, good for the cable company. Hell, it’s good for the country too.

Now one little extra tidbit. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that bandwidth management is more important in some places than in others. Apparently network management technology gets turned off by accident on occasion, and in one instance I heard about just this week, a not-to-be-named operator had network management accidentally turned off for two weeks before anybody noticed! I’m thinking the operator is probably not based in a college town.

Comcast’s 250 GB Cap and Some Inside Info on Network Management

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Ad wars: Microsoft takes a bite out of Apple; Hires comedian Jerry Seinfeld to promote Vista - MAC.BLORGE

Tired of taking the beating from Apple in its Mac vs. PC commercials, Microsoft has decided to put on the gloves and fight back. The ad campaign is being created by MDC Partners’ Crispin Porter + Bogusky.According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, the software giant, has a new 300 million dollar advertising campaign and it has hired comedian Jerry Seinfeld to help it take a bite out of Apple. The commercials theme will be “Windows, not Walls” a dig at Apple’s closed environment. At the moment, not too much is known about what the commercials will involve since Microsoft is keeping this information closely guarded. Seinfeld will be appearing alongside Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in the upcoming ads and he will be paid $10 million dollars for the work. It will be interesting to see what the ads involve.Seinfeld is an interesting choice for the upcoming commercials, Jerry Seinfeld had an extremely popular show named Seinfeld in the 90’s. The show originally aired from July 5, 1989 to May 14, 1998. According to the Arthur Nielsen Media Research Ratings it finished among the top two every year from 1994 to 1998. I think I’ve seen every episode of Seinfeld and one thing that was seen in the far corner of Seinfeld’s apartment was a Macintosh computer. Over the years, it got upgraded to a newer Mac. In fact, at one point during the series he even had a 20th anniversary Mac on his desktop.Seinfeld also appeared in Apple’s Think Big commercials. It sort of makes you wonder if Microsoft knew this before hiring him. Perhaps the angle they are going for is views from a Mac switcher? Then again John Hodgman, the man who plays PC in the Apple commercials, is an Apple user. Hodgman spilled the beans to the New York Daily News a few months ago.Although Microsoft has sold more than 180 million Vista licenses since its release in 2007. Critics claim that it still continues to suffer largely due in part to the perception that its release was a flap. Apple’s commercials which constantly poke fun at Vista just ads fuel to the fire. Microsoft has said that the early problems many experienced with the operating system has been resolved.It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will unveil with the upcoming ads. One of the reasons that the Apple ads have been so popular is that Apple has pointed out the flaws that we as computer owners occasionally experience. I really liked the fact that Apple focused on that the computer can be the problem, not the owner. A lot of Apple’s ads have focused on Vista.It’s not surprising that Microsoft has finally decided to target Apple in its upcoming campaign. Apple’s recent success has been phenomenal and even though Microsoft is still the reigning champ I imagine Apple’s success along with the Mac vs. Pc commercials aren’t so funny anymore. So when will the ads appear? WSJ reports that we can expect to see them in early September. WSJ also stated that Chris Rock and Will Ferrel (Ferrel starred in Mac switcher ads years ago) might also appear in some of the ads.BLORGE writer, John Lister, has covered this on Vista.Blorge.com.

Ad wars: Microsoft takes a bite out of Apple; Hires comedian Jerry Seinfeld to promote Vista - MAC.BLORGE

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Report: Microsoft and Yahoo executives meet again

Microsoft and Yahoo executives took another run at trying to ignite formal merger talks this week, but failed to kick it into gear, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Apparently, Microsoft says no dice to raising its buyout bid and Yahoo remains hesitant to open its books ...

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Robot babysitter keeps kids occupied in Japanese store

Filed under: Robots

Inhuman babysitters aren't all that uncommon around the world, but a new creature recently placed in a Japanese department store is a godsend for shopaholics with rugrats in tow. Developed by Tmsuk, the 1.4-meter tall bot is employed at a Fukuoka retailer in order to keep watch over rambunctious youngsters that are dropped off by their overworked parents. Reportedly, said critter boasts an integrated projector and camera, a colorful yellow / white outfit and the ability to identify children by name based on a special tag that each kiddo wears while playing. Of course, the manufacturer isn't looking to just shove one or two of these into every store in Japan -- oh no, it's hoping to create similar robots that could one day "guide customers through the aisles of a store," fill their carts or whisper the joke of the day in a French accent into their ears.

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