Black Friday at Best Buy: What’s the big deal?
An early morning visit to a Best Buy in Marin City, Calif., reveals no lines, no craziness, and some fairly sleepy Best Buy employees.
Originally posted at Technically Incorrect
AMD simplifies its brand again with “Vision”
AMD is sort of becoming the Mac of PC hardware. That is to say, they perform well, but in the end want it to be about a final user experience, not a piecemeal selection of parts and capabilities. In this spirit of simplicity, they’re shifting the bulk of their merchandising over from Turion and X4 and all that to three labels under the brand name “Vision.”
It reminds me of when they simplified their gaming line under “Game!” On that note, it’s not clear what the fate of Game! was, but it doesn’t seem to be present in the current lineup. It’s more of a desktop thing, really, so I’m not surprised either way.
Just as “Game!” had plain Game and Game Ultra, Vision will be divided into three parts, from basic to enthusiast to advanced: Plain, “Premium,” and “Ultimate.” Those particular epithets don’t have the greatest track record (they call Vista to mind primarily), but they do bespeak the small-medium-large idea going on here. There’s also a Vision Black, but we don’t talk about that.
The features differentiating the three levels are mostly video-related. Plain Vision promises dynamic contrast and improved video quality — essentially leveraging the GPU for video enhancement. Vision Premium adds better transcoding, and Ultimate supports improved HD video editing. These rely on packaged utilities like Cyberlink’s Power Director and ArcSoft’s upscaling technology — a necessary evil until GPU acceleration can be better implemented with any app you choose.
The new stuff is looking solid, and I wish them the best of luck with it. They’re also pushing that all their platforms support everything Windows 7 will throw at them (virtualization, hardware effects), so that’s one less thing for Best Buy employees to worry about.
Microsoft hatin’ on Linux, now at Best Buy!
Microsoft, will you stop at nothing to protect your hegemony? Your “Linux Facts” campaign from a couple years ago was poorly executed, and trumped up a bunch of selective information to make Windows look better than Linux. You killed that, and replaced it with a Windows Server “compare” site, but it’s still a bunch of selective data points that don’t tell the whole story. Now, you’re even trying to get the sales drones at Best Buy to steer folks away from Linux!
Leaked memos are making their way around the Internets today, revealing what claim to be Microsoft propaganda attempting to “educate” Best Buy employees on all the problems with Linux. For each problem, Microsoft suggests that their products are vastly superior!
Here’s an idea: instead of spending so much money on advertising, why not make a better mousetrap, rather than re-introducing ancient bugs?
The Seven Types of Employees You Meet at Best Buy [Satire]
Windows 7 guarantee program starting June 26 at Best Buy
A leaked memo has outed June 26 as the starting date when Best Buy (and possibly other places, if this is a Microsoft-blessed program) will guarantee a free copy of Windows 7 at its launch if you buy a Vista-based system immediately. The memo itself is actually a bit catty, saying that Windows 7 isn’t just a “Vista that works” — cold as ice, Best Buy. But the point of that little crack is more that Best Buy employees should really be pushing this as a major update, to allay the fears of people who might be afraid 7 is just an updated Vista. Still, ouch.
In addition to the guarantee program, Best Buy will also be selling upgrades to 7 Home premium for $50 and 7 Pro for $100. I swear, it’d be a lot simpler to sell this OS if there was just one version.