Looks like this whole Vodafone and Three merger is starting to heat up. On the back of Vodafone offering free calls to Three customers, Gus over at Lifehacker has gotten his hands on a Vodafone memo which states that as of July, customers will be able to sign up for Vodafone plans at Three retail stores.
Watch out Apple! Sony is clearly gunning for a chunk of your stylish retail business by partnering with a name known for its popularity amongst customers and its excellent support and services: Comcast.
When I visited San Francisco as a young graduate, I saw the Metreon, a building that looked out of a Final Fantasy game, with a store JUST for all things Playstation. It seems silly now, but at the time, it seemed from the future and I decided I had to live in this city. I waited in line for a PS2, and liveblogged the PS3 launch from there. Now they’re shutting down the store. Oh well. [NYT]
To all who’ve parked at a shiny Mac Pro and Cinema Display to lend some Apple retail magic to your 25 Things chain letter: Facebook has been banned from the Apple Store’s networks worldwide. UPDATED
Microsoft’s “Retail Experience Center” is a 20,000 sqft private retail centre at Redmond that Microsoft is fiddling around with new retail tech, like real-time cart info and other POS services. It’s awesome. Here’s why.
It’s official. Circuit City is closing 155 stores, as the Consumerist broke yesterday. They’re also “reducing future store openings,” but whatever, you wanna know if your local Circuit City is gone. Here’s the complete list of stores slotted for obliteration.
Best Buy’s new test logo is more subdued—classier even—than the old honkin’ yellow tag, which I appreciate, but I think the new font looks weird and uncertain, like it can’t quite decide what it wants to be when it grows up. I wonder if it will psychologically condition people to spend more since it’s so much less tacky than the old logo. [Under Consideration via Consumerist]
Good news for BlackBerry users and developers! Research In Motion has just announced an applications store! Bad news for BlackBerry users and developers! It’s not going to be available until March 2009. This sure won’t help the fact that the iPhone is outselling the Blackberry and Android is quickly becoming Apple’s major rival in the public’s eye instead of the new #2 seller. No matter how nice the BlackBerry Storm is, the delay is not good.
