Apple Inc. has officially unveiled its Black Friday sales for its online and retail stores in the US for the turkey-tired customers. As buyers venture on a shopping spree, Apple has slashed prices on some of its products, by around 15%. Apple announced the sale in a straightforward manner on its website saying that they are holding a ''one-day-only holiday shopping event.'' The announcement further says, ''You’ll find dozens of great iPod, iPhone, and Mac gift ideas.'' The only two Mac models on sale are the iMac and MacBook with discounts of up to $101, with no discount on MacBook Pro. Meanwhile, iPods are seeing $11-$21 discounts and a number of accessories are also on sale. Black Friday follows Thanksgiving Day and marks the advent of the holiday season in the US. However, this year the downturn is forcing many vendors to offer tasty discounts to customers who are wary of parting with their cash.
Blockbuster Emulates Netflix; Offers Direct-to-TV Movies
Blockbuster launched its own homespun direct-to-TV player, taking on Netflix and Apple with the start of the shopping holiday season. Blockbuster has built the player in partnership with Internet-connected set top box provider 2Wire MediaPoint. The company has a sharp edge over its rival Netflix as the player comes with no charge, but the customer has to compulsorily rent 25 Blockbuster OnDemand movies in advance, at a cost of $99. The movie rentals commence at $1.99 each after the initial 25 rentals. Movies stay in the player for 30 days but should be viewed within 24 hours, once started. On the other hand, Netflix has a ''Watch instantly'' feature which streams movies to subscribers TVs or PCs after the user has subscribed to the unlimited monthly service. Netflix has a collection of 12,000 titles but they are relatively older films including some foreign and independent titles. Blockbuster, on the other hand has a large collection of new movies, with fewer classics in their store.
Sling Announces Its Hulu Competitor
Sling Media, the maker of the popular Slingbox TV-streaming hardware devices, has announced its video portal Sling.com open. Sling now comes in direct competition with Joost.com and Hulu.com, though Hulu is a Sling partner, in viewing of free video content. Sling is now a well-stocked video portal to streaming TV content from a plethora of partners, including: Hulu, CBS (for long form and clipped content), Discovery, Warner Bros, Sony, MGM, A&E, Reuters, AP, CollegeHumor, and Comcast. The best feature which Sling.com offers is its Live TV feature that works with a Slingbox. One can view pre-recorded video content through the Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox browser under Windows XP and Vista. Meanwhile, sources agree that Sling.com should have cleared off a few kinks before going public beta, but also term that it would prove to be a tough nut to crack for Hulu-like video sharing sites in the days to come.
