In Russia, Walmart No More

December 14, 2010 | Marco Attard | Retailer NewsPDFPrintE-mail

Walmart closes its Moscow office, even if it says it's still interested in the Russian market.

WalmartThe Us retail giant no longer wants to build its Russian operation-- following nothing coming out of a potential merger with several Russian grocery chains.

Walmart was to enter the Russian market through acquisition, not greenfield development.

Analysts believe Walmart is still sizing up Russian partners as it emphasises on international growth.

Meanwhile it expands its overseas operations in Brazil, China, India and South Africa.

Walmart is not the first retailer to find entering the Russian market a challenge-- Carrefour SA pulled out of Russia after a short while in 2009.

Germany's Metro Group, France's Groupe Auchan and Ikea still continue their operations in the country.

Go Walmart Announces Closure of Moscow Office

Media Markt Goes For Content

December 14, 2010 | Marco Attard | Retailer NewsPDFPrintE-mail

Media Markt goes for the German rental market as it opens a video rental by mail service.

Media MarktThe rental service is the result of cooperation with German rental chain Video Buster and offers around 40000 DVD and blu-ray titles.

Customers get 2 payment options-- either individual movie rentals or monthly subscripiton.

Meanwhile the retailer opens its 4th European digital music shop in Spain, to join its offerings in Austria, Netherlands and Germany.

The online shop says it offers over 9.5 million DRM-free mp3 tracks and expects to also offer audiobooks and videos soon.

Go Media Markt Offers Video Rental by Mail

Go Media Markt Opens Spanish Digital Music shop

Scale VGA Up To HD

December 14, 2010 | Marco Attard | AccessoriesPDFPrintE-mail

GefenGefen announces its VGA to HD scaler, allowing users to connect any device using VGA-format video to their HD TVs.

The device upscales audio/video (from resolutions down to 320x240 resolution) to 1080p HD for any HD display or projector.

Front-panel buttons provide control for dynamic video adjustments (noise reduction and detail anchancement).

It carries x1 VGA, x1 coax, x1 TOSlink and L/R RCA audio inputs.

It also works with iDevice adapters, and supports both digital and analog audio inputs for output in HDMI format.

Go Gefen

DivXTV Launches on LG

December 14, 2010 | Marco Attard | Comms and InternetPDFPrintE-mail

DivXTVDivXTV rolls out-- exclusively on LG blu-ray devices, following its October PC release.

The launch includes an updated media library, with content from online services such as funnyordie.com, New York Financial Press and CNET, amongst others.

For now the service is a LG exclusive. The company's BD550, BD570 and BD590 blu-ray players and LHB335, LHB535 and LHB975 home theatre systems carry DivXTV.

Many LG connected CE devices already feature the company's own Netcast service (with access to Netflix, VUDU, Pandora and other web-based services). There's no mention whether it will be tied to-- or replaced by DivX's service.

Go DivXTV Now Featured on LG Blu-Ray Players

Adam to be Finally Available?

December 14, 2010 | Marco Attard | Laptops & TabletsPDFPrintE-mail

Notion Ink opens pre-orders for its long-delayed tablet, the Adam-- after more than a year's worth of previews.

Notionink AdamThe Pixel Qi screen carrying device was supposed to ship in June, before manufacture hiccups.

Specifications remain the same-- alongside the multi-mode (transmissive, translective and reflective) screen, the Adam carries a dual-core 1GHz ARM processor, NVidia Tegra GPU, 1GB DDR2 RAM and 8GB (or higher) flash storage.

Connections come through wifi, bluetooth and 3G HSPA.

Interesting news come on the OS side-- Notionink's "Eden" interface is to incorporate elements from both Android 2.3 and 3.0 releases.

Pre-orders are expected to start shipping January 6th 2010-- unless another delay rears its ugly head, of course.

Go Notion Ink Adam

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