Best Buy is confident that it will kill "showrooming" once and for all beginning March 3.

The electronics retailer has announced that it plans to launch a "Low Price Guarantee" policy under which it will price-match all local retail competitors along with 19 "major online competitors" in all product categories, whenever a customer asks for it. That way, Best Buy's reasoning goes, shoppers will have absolutely no incentive to "showroom" by doing their research in the store and then ordering the merchandise less expensively online.

"There is no doubt that this new policy ends showrooming for Best Buy customers," a company spokesman told Bloomberg. 

That's the hope, at least, although along with the new showrooming policy—or, actually, as part of it—Best Buy now will accept returned merchandise only for 15 days after the date of purchase instead of 30 days. It also will price-match purchases within 15 days if it has lowered its own price for a product in the store or online.Continue reading...

Since MTV aired “Video Killed the Radio Star” back in August of 1981, the company has gotten into plenty of things that haven’t involved music at all, from asking its viewers to “Rock the Vote” to exposing the world to the somehow fascinating mundane dramas of young adults on the Jersey shore. 

Now, Viacom’s MTV Networks International is getting into another business: selling branded tablets in India. Or, as the Telecom Tiger puts it, fablets (presumably, a more fab version of phablets). MTV has announced a partnership with Swipe Telecom to produce a co-branded fablet, MTV Volt.

The 6-inch smartphone features a television screen so people can get their MTV wherever they are. The youth-centric device will also serve as, “a fully functional high-definition Android tablet with Wi-Fi, dual cameras, FM player and GPS functionality,” that weighs half a pound and retails for around 12,999 Rupees or $240, Telecom Tiger reports. And, of course, built-in apps allow users to get right onto Facebook and LinkedIn.Continue reading...

Samsung's latest teaser spot for its 2013 Consumer Electronics Show news has some observers wondering whether the Korean electronics giant plans to turn the TV industry on its side by introducing portrait (instead of landscape) Smart TV monitors. In any event, it's wooing consumers with a smart TV upgrade kit. Look for more clues in the brand's pre-CES videos, below.Continue reading...

As the world’s eyeballs continue to turn toward screens everywhere like flowers to the sun, there are some flights of fancy of yesteryear that don’t involve looking at flat grayness and are surprisingly having a resurgence.

Remember Rubik’s Cube? The simultaneously simple and complex symbol of the 1980s is seeing an uptick in sales, according to the New York Times. The latest wave of speedcubers dominated the attendance of the 2012 World Cube Association’s U.S. National Championship last weekend in Las Vegas. “Anybody blessed with the basic human senses can instantly ‘get it,’ ” said the toy’s creator, Hungarian architecture professor Erno Rubik, to the Times.

While that quality certainly helps the Cube (a brand owned by Seven Towns Ltd.) in its longevity, its appeal transcends play. “You can use Rubik’s Cube to teach engineering, you can use it to teach mathematics, and you can use it to talk about the interplay between design and engineering and mathematics and creativity,” said Paul Hoffman, president of New Jersey's Liberty Science Center, which will mark the Cube’s 40th anniversary in 2014 with an exhibition. “I’m hoping the Rubik’s Cube will excite a new generation and get them into engineering.”Continue reading...

Apple has pulled out of EPEAT, a global non-profit eco-rating service sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and will no longer label its electronic products according to their environmental impact as a result.

In stating its disappointment at the move, EPEAT noted that its certification program is "more than simply a product rating – it is also a community effort by all interested stakeholders to define and maintain best practice in environmental sustainability for electronics."

Tech Week Europe sees it as "a setback to Apple’s green campaign and may have come about because of difficulties in dismantling and recycling new MacBook products."Continue reading...

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze wants to take his company private in the hopes of preserving its value after a tumultuous year, including an internal investigation that revealed his knowledge of an alleged affair involving former CEO Brian Dunn, which he failed to tell other members of the board.

Schulze, the electronic retailer's largest shareholder, with slightly more than a 20% stake valued at $1.4 billion, resigned as chairman and a director of the Richfield, Minn., retailer earlier in June to consider the options and is working with Credit Suisse Group.

“A move to take the company private wouldn't be easy. Best Buy's 'enterprise value,' or stock market value plus its debt, minus any cash on hand, is about $8 billion," the Wall Street Journal reports. "A buyout offer would likely have to approach $11 billion to entice other shareholders to sell, analysts say.”Continue reading...

Sunday's New York Times magazine paid tribute to "32 innovations that will change your tomorrow" (and let designers hack its logo as part of the package). Best Buy's new ad campaign also pays tribute to student innovators, while the electronics retailer tips its hat to phone innovation, below.Continue reading...

Best Buy today released the results of an independent ethics inquiry, confirming that former CEO Brian Dunn, who resigned on April 10th, had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a female staffer. The company also named a new chairman of the board in Hatim Tayabji, chairman and CEO of Bytemobile.

According to the company's press release, "When the Audit Committee was first informed of the allegations in mid-March 2012, it hired outside law firm WilmerHale to conduct an independent investigation. In the interest of transparency and accountability, the board made a commitment to publicly release the findings."

The company is also in the midst of closing 50 of its big box U.S. stores this year.Continue reading...