Walmart has agreed to pay $27.5 million in damages to more than 25 million Netflix customers who subscribed to the service between May 19th, 2005 and September 2nd, 2011, as part of a settlement in a class-action lawsuit. Litigation was levied against the nationwide retailer after Walmart ditched efforts to run a DVD-by-mail business that would compete directly with Netflix. Reportedly, Walmart agreed to bail on its plans provided that Netflix pointed its customers to Walmart to purchase DVDs. Walmart has not...

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing made this past Friday, RadioShack stated that it will be losing more than 400 kiosks located in Sam’s Club stores across the country. The closures will result from an expiring contract between RadioShack and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., owner of the Sam’s Club chain. Sam’s Club will take over the operation of the kiosks by June 30th, when the contract is set to expire. RadioShack currently sells cell phones and service contracts through the aforementio...

It’s not exactly a mystery that Microsoft’s upcoming Kinect sensor is highly anticipated — Kinect is expected to be the hottest gaming accessory to launch ahead of the holidays this year. Interested gamers (and friends or relatives of interested gamers) might want to scoop one up as early as possible because demand is already quite high. Business Insider reports that pre-orders for the Microsoft Kinect standalone sensor are already sold out at both Best Buy and Amazon.com. Console bundles are st...

Today, Walmart announced that it would be launching a self-branded wireless service titled Walmart Family Mobile. The new wireless service will utilize T-Mobile USA’s GSM network and will offer unlimited calling and texting for $45 per month; additional unlimited lines can be added for $25. Data usage can be pre-purchased at the rate of $40 per gigabyte and unused megabytes roll over from month to month. The Motorola Cliq XT will be Family Mobile’s high-end offering at launch ($249) and the cheap...

Many of you have been on the edge of your seats and sofas waiting for anxiously for the BlackBerry 9700 to drop. We already know it’s being released on November 16 on T-Mobile, but now you have a killer incentive to pick one up from Walmart. From November 14th to the 20th, Walmart is offering a $100 Walmart gift card with a new BlackBerry purchase — the only thing is it takes four to six weeks to get that card in the mail. It’s not exactly the same as getting a new BlackBerry 9700 for $99.99...

After Mr. Epstein attended the RIM event on Tuesday for the BlackBerry Curve 8520, I promptly snatched the review unit he received out of his hands when he got back to the office. Let’s not beat around the bush: a BlackBerry is going to either me or Michael and I was closest. It’s not the first time we’ve been fondling the BlackBerry 8520 but hey, we won’t complain. Available as of yesterday, the Curve 8520 throws the Curve lineup forward with a speedier processor, improved keyboard, m...

Not to get too in-ya-face about it, but man… we knocked this crap out the park. One of our ninjas hit us up last night and gave us the heads up on this information. As predicted, Palm has just gone ahead and announced the Palm Pre release date and pricing information for the device’s debut on Sprint. It’s $199.99 after a $100 MIR on a 2-year agreement (copying Apple, much?) and will indeed be released on Saturday June 6th online and in Sprint stores in addition to Best Buy, Radio Shack and W...

Despite the contrary wisdom of the current economic crisis, Microsoft appears to be moving ahead with plans to open a series of retail stores. The company has hired a former Wal-Mart corporate hound as their corporate VP of retail stores, which probably doesn’t bode well for anyone expecting an intimate, customer-focused retail experience ala your local neighborhood Apple store. Little has been set in stone, but the company is currently scouting out retail locations and attempting to codify its retail s...

Yesterday we broke the news of a massive AT&T network outage that came at one of the worst possible times – right smack in the middle of Wal-Mart’s iPhone 3G launch. Users from various regions throughout the eastern United States were reporting communication interruptions ranging from dropped calls to the complete inability to send/receive any voice or data. According to a later report from Chicago’s Sun Times, the cause of the massive network trauma was a power outage originating in Blo...

Oops. Murphy’s Law may be in full swing today for the country’s largest GSM carrier at the worst-possible time – iPhone 3G / Wal-Mart launch day. We’ve yet to have any issues in the New York area but emails are hitting us en masse from AT&T customers reporting network outages across the east coast and beyond. Most reports recount difficulties with connecting via AT&T’s 3G network but some go further to detail voicemail difficulties, BlackBerry service outages and even com...

Wal-Mart, the nationwide mega-retailer known for low prices and lower employee relations, finally confirmed this past Friday that it would be offering the iPhone 3G for sale beginning today. As promised, locations around the country started setting up new displays last night and low and behold, the iPhone 3G is ready to rumble as of this morning. This brings us to the end of a long and winding road recounted in this post, and as we’ve said before, positions Apple’s next handset perfectly. Many har...

It took a while, but Wal-Mart has finally gotten around to confirming what we’ve all known for over a month now: the iPhone 3G will be sold at Wal-Mart beginning this Sunday. Thanks to the Wal-Mart deal, Apple now has a direct avenue into a host of new markets thanks to stock on its way to more than 2,500 Wal-Mart locations along with 69 Sam’s Club locations. It this big news? Of course it is – but the real news will surely come when Apple’s next handset announcements are made sometime...

We’re now just over a week away from the culmination of an ongoing saga that has been the iPhone 3G’s dance over to Wal-Mart. Whew! For a bit of background in case you’ve been hiding from the economy in your basement for the past few months, BGR scooped it back in October, served it in November and then stirred it up a little in December. So far it’s looking like everything is falling right into place as a new letter emerges, essentially reaffirming everything we told you. This letter ...

Shortly after we posted about the iPhone coming to Wal-Mart this morning, it seemed like all of our ninjas came out of the woodwork to bombard us with info. Rather than post an update, we want to lay out what is now confirmed info. First and foremost, it looks like Wal-Mart will indeed begin selling the iPhone 3G on December 28th in select locations only. When all is said and done, about 2,500 locations will offer the iPhone 3G. Some stores will also be getting live demo units to display just like Best Buy Mo...