The world’s largest retailer is expanding a new feature to more stores that enables customers to scan items as they shop with their iPhone and pay at a self-checkout station. Read more »
Straight Talk, the $45 a month no-contract provider that resells wireless service from major U.S. carriers, has finally embraced the iPhone 5. Walmart is selling the phone with Straight Talk service and $25 a month no-interest financing. But there’s one major caveat to the deal. Read more »
Many of the biggest stories in the connected consumer space occurred mostly offstage in 2012, from Apple’s new media services to policymakers in Washington. Overall, the past 12 months have laid important groundwork for significant advances in the connected consumer space. The year 2013 should be eventful. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Boxee’s new device, the Boxee TV streaming box with cloud DVR, will start selling exclusively at Walmart beginning November 1. This retail partnership is a big deal for Boxee, as Walmart will promote the device with display stations and additional marketing material. Read more »
SolarCity publicly disclosed its documents for its planned IPO on Friday, giving us a look at some of its risk factors. Those include that the company is being investigated by the Inspector General about the Treasury Grant program. Read more »
Walmart has announced that it will stop selling Kindles in its stores and on its website, suggesting that as it beefs up its own e-commerce strategy it does not want to turn sales over to a competitor. Target also stopped carrying Kindles in May. Read more »
One less reason to hate Walmart — the retail behemoth uses the most solar panel systems out of any other company in the U.S. Collectively companies and governments in the U.S. are delivering 2.3 GW of solar power, mostly on the rooftops of their buildings. Read more »
Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web that you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: The significance of iPhone naming, nano SIM cards on delivery, Steve Jobs’ effect on tech company slogans, and the world’s largest retailer looks to incorporate the iPhone. Read more »
Walmart is now relying on its own search engine called Polaris to help guide shoppers to the right products. The search engine was created out of @WalmartLabs and incorporates semantic technology acquired through Walmart’s purchase of Kosmix. Read more »
Walmart will be getting battery storage combined with its solar panels, courtesy of SolarCity. It’s a big deal because battery grid storage has been prohibitively expensive and is still in an early stage. Read more »
In a new twist on old pre-paid data plans, WalMart and TruConnect have partnered to offer “Internet on the Go.” The service offers pre-paid 3G data in small buckets for use with a MiFi. The data you purchase never expires, so it’s attractive for occasional use. Read more »
Eight months after launching, and two months since Walmart started pushing the cloud-based movie locker in its stores, the studio-backed UltraViolet program has signed up 3 million users. Read more at paidContent »
For many people without a credit or debit card, it has been hard to make online purchases from Walmart.com. Now, the retailer is taking a big step to address this audience by accepting cash payments for online goods, letting people come into the stores to pay. Read more »
There are only around 200,000 people out there using a Boxee Box, according to numbers released by the company this week. That’s low, but it’s also part of a bigger trend: Consumers still have to warm up to the idea of buying connected devices. Read more »
If you can’t wait until 8 a.m. to get your hands on the new iPad, Walmart has some good news for you: the retailer says that its stores will open at 12:01 a.m. local time to sell the new iPad on Friday morning, March 16. Read more »
WalmartLabs, the new commerce research lab created out of Walmart’s acquisition of Kosmix, is formally launching its first product, a gift-finding Facebook app called Shopycat. The app enables users to take the likes, shares and interests of friends and turn them into intelligent gift recommendations. Read more »
The GigaOM RoadMap conference on Nov. 10 gathered leaders and visionaries to discuss how, thanks to technological and generational shifts, society as a whole is becoming more connected — not only in the media we consume and the social networks we use but also in the way we interact with devices and manage our resources. This research note takes a look back on the event in order to analyze this new era of connectivity across various industries, from Jack Dorsey’s idea of becoming “more human,” not less, to the concept of “invisible technology” and data, the fuel of the new century. Companies mentioned in this report include Airbnb, Netflix and Twitter. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The traditional ways that retailers and merchants reach out to users and how they expect them to discover, shop and pay are getting disrupted by mobile and social. And that’s created really empowered shoppers, who are using these tools to augment and alter their buying patterns. Read more »
The store of the future has yet to be imagined if Venky Harinarayan, SVP Walmart Global eCommerce and Head, @WalmartLabs, is correct. His organization is experimenting with integrating social, search and shopping experiences for both retailers and consumers. Read more »
Walmart is ramping up its mobile strategy and releasing a new iPhone app that provides new smart shopping lists, a budgeting tool and access to manufacturers coupons. It comes on the heels of Walmart’s first iPad app released late last month. Read more »
T-Mobile announced Monday that it would begin to sell $30 monthly unlimited text and data plans in a partnership with Walmart, beginning on Oct. 16. The no-contract plan only offers 100 voice minutes, but consumers are slowly shifting from voice calls to data services. Read more »
What drove Walmart to acquire OneRiot and make it part of Walmart Labs is the same thing plenty of other companies — particularly media entities — should be interested in: namely, making sense of all the data that is coming in from users on social networks. Read more »
Vudu is finally making its streaming VOD store available on the iPad. But while most streaming video services have launched apps on the tablet, Vudu is coming to market with a mobile web experience, in part so that it doesn’t have to share revenues with Apple. Read more »
In 1991, Walmart reported revenue of over $44B, an increase of 35% over the prior year. In 2011 Amazon.com will report revenue of $49B, an increase of 43% over the prior year. Amazon.com is the Walmart of our era (vendor dislikes and all.) Read more »
Vudu’s streaming-video-on-demand service is about to get a big boost, as it’s being integrated with the website of parent company Walmart. That will introduce millions of new “every day low price” shoppers to the joy of online video through the Vudu service. Read more »
Eco labels have worked well in some cases, such as organic food, but will they work for renewable energy? The wind energy industry thinks so and proposed a program Wednesday to encourage companies to invest in wind and display their eco-friendly cred. Read more »
Roku has confirmed that it’s struck a retail partnership to sell its broadband set-top boxes in Walmart stores. But the deal comes without the help of Netgear, whom Roku had partnered with last year to extend its reach into major retail outlets. Read more »
Vizio is adding a Vudu button to remote controls for its connected TVs and Blu-ray players. The button provides easier navigation to the service, but it also highlights the struggle publishers face when trying to reach viewers on connected devices where dozens of apps compete. Read more »
After a year in which over-the-top video services grabbed most of the media’s attention, some of the online video headlines shifted back to traditional pay-TV providers in the first quarter of 2011. Device manufacturers rolled out new offerings, while cable-TV providers moved to expand their in-home footprint beyond the TV itself. But over-the-top continued to encroach, with Roku adding its first linear channels to the Roku store and Netflix acquiring exclusive rights to high-profile original series House of Cards. Finally, traditional web powers like Google, Yahoo and Apple made moves to reassert their presence in the living room after their early stumbles. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Comcast, Cablevision, Viacom and VUDU. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Business and IT leaders now face significant opportunities and challenges with big data — that is data sets that are so large they are difficult to store, manage and analyze. This report explores the rapidly evolving big data business and technology ecosystem. It examines big data in the context of several different industries: financial services, health care, sports, travel and media. We explore the different big data technologies — from Hadoop and NoSQL derivatives to cloud-based collaboration tools — and their various benefits for enterprises. And we examine some of the existing challenges big data poses, and what enterprise IT leaders can do to overcome them. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon Web Services, Google, Teradata, IBM and Cloudera. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Around 6 a.m. on April 3, 2010, prospective iPad buyers began lining up at the Apple Store in Durham, N.C., with simliar lines forming across the U.S. Nearly a year and 20 million iPads later, history is about to repeat itself with the iPad 2 launch. Read more »
Greentech marked its best year ever in 2010, and part of that is thanks to the wealth of activity across sectors during the fourth quarter. Global investment in clean energy surged, and while wind power remained the biggest greentech area, solar power saw the fastest growth. The energy efficiency sector appears to have more room for smaller players to make their mark amidst a rapidly maturing market. Meanwhile, China’s stance as a growing greentech giant continued to complicate its relationship with the United States. Companies mentioned in this report include General Electric, Intel, ZigBee, iControl, People Power and EnerNOC. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
First Solar Chairman and former CEO Michael Ahearn is raising a $300 million venture fund, according to an SEC filing. Will the money be going to solar startups, or even cleantech? Read more »
Once an isolated world dominated by network operators and their manufacturer partners, mobile is now a space where “outsiders” are some of the most powerful players. In 2010, companies like Google, Apple, MetroPCS, Huawei and Foursquare were among those who made the most impact in mobile ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Groupon is growing faster than virtually any other tech-related company in history, including Google and Facebook, and is expected to close the year with revenue of more than $500 million. What then, are the lessons retailers and other companies can learn from the such incredible ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The television business is on the cusp of the biggest technological upheaval since the introduction of cable TV. The addition of Internet connectivity to living room devices will enable new functionality around programming services, program discovery, social networking, ad targeting and measurement — aspects of the TV viewing experience that have remained largely unchanged for decades. These trends have the potential to become the foundation for new economic models around how viewers pay for video service and how program creation is financed. In this report, we examine the leading contenders’ strategic positioning, relative strengths and weaknesses, and provide the early line on their odds of success. Companies mentioned include Google, Apple, Boxee, Roku, Vudu, Samsung, Microsoft and Sony. To see a full list of companies and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon is expanding its Disc+ On Demand program and now making it available for more than 10,000 titles, just a day after Walmart dipped its toes in the optical-plus-digital pool with a promotion that allows Toy Story 3 buyers to stream the movie on Vudu. Read more »
U.S. retail giant Walmart confirmed that it will be offering the Apple iPad at hundreds of its stores beginning Friday, Oct. 15. Despite the small initial launch pool, by the time Black Friday rolls around, that number is expected to grow to 2,300 nationwide. Read more »
When Walmart decides to invest in emerging green technologies it offers considerable validation. That’s certainly the intention behind Walmart’s announcement that it will pay for solar electricity from installations that use thin film solar panels from MiaSole and First Solar and are installed by SolarCity. Read more »
If there’s even been a more sure sign that new iPhones are coming in the immediate future, it’s the fact that Walmart slashed the price of Apple’s iPhone to $97, representing a savings of $100 if you’d purchased it from them last week. Read more »
