This is not your grandfather’s retail environment.

In fact, with Target joining the likes of Nike, BMW and Mondelez in launching a mobile incubator/accelerator and funding developers to come up with apps that will take shopping into the future, it might seem more like your grandkids’. Target announced a contest earlier this month called “Co. Labs & Target Retail Accelerator,” that dangles a $75,000 prize to whoever develops the best new mobile experience for the company.

Target is looking for “transformative, technology-driven” ideas that should incorporate at least one of the company’s four priorities:Continue reading...

Nike is engaging its legions of devoted FuelBand-sporting devotees with NikeFuel Missions, billed as "the first game powered by your all-day activity."

The Facebook app goes live on Dec. 11th, picking up on its "Game On, World" theme by inviting fans of the almost one-year-old digital monitor to come and play: "In a world conquered by cold, you'll have to earn your way out with the help of Calvin Johnson, Alex Morgan, Allyson Felix and Neymar Jr. Do more with your Nike+ Fuelband. Advance your avatar. Stand out on the leaderboard."

Watch the "In a world..." movie-style trailer (complete with Inception-style soundtrack) and find out more about Nike's other new digital push, below.Continue reading...

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a rare appearance today, speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in a "fireside chat," marking his first public remarks since his company's disappointing IPO in May. In a bid for transparency and humility, Zuckerberg said he's "ready to double down" on the company's future. He also admitted making mistakes, including betting too much on HTML5, and talked up his focus on mobile and advertising as a way to bolster revenue and FB's stock price. He also denied rumors of a Facebook phone being in the works while confirming new product development including a search engine. He even gave a shout-out to other tech brands he thinks are "killing it" right now: Spotify, Airbnbn, Nike+ and Runkeeper. Read more on TechCrunch.

At the start of the year, the folks at Nike and a few of its star athletes it supports made a very big deal about the new FuelBand, a digital wristband that keeps track of every piece of data you could possibly imagine while you’re working out. Since then, Nike has added the ability to “keep track of the sights they've visited while out for a jog or a bike ride and share said moments / achievements with their mates,” according to Engadget.com.

FuelBand also is getting some love for its latest campaign, while landing Nike and W+K a Grand Prix at the recent Cannes Lions ad festival for its digital efforts to launch and make FuelBand a must-have item. 

Now collectors and fans will be falling over themselves to get their hands on the latest iteration of FuelBand — the limited-edition Ice Fuelband model, shown at top, which Serena Williams debuted at Wimbledon and launches July 27th in London (just in time for Olympics fever), San Francisco and New York at select retail locations, and on Aug. 12th at nikestore.com — marking the first new colorway since the original FuelBand debuted in January.Continue reading...

Nike execs must think that they don’t have enough market share or aren’t known by enough consumers or need more clout with the digerati. Unthinkable, we know. Be that as it may, the sporting-goods maker announced at the E3 video-game conference this week a partnership with Microsoft to get into the video-game business together. 

“We’ve moved from being a product company to a services and product company,” commented Stefan Olander, Nike’s VP of digital sport. "Nike+ Kinect Training’ gives everyone access to the same training we give professional athletes. It combines our unique understanding of the greatest athletes in the world with the amazing sensor technology of Kinect for Xbox 360.”

The new product, Nike+ Kinect Training, will hit store shelves before the 2012 holiday shopping season and will only be able to be played on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect. The new add-on, Bloomberg reports, will allow “users to receive feedback from on-screen personal trainers and have a workout designed for them."Continue reading...

It's been a big year for Nike, between the release of the FuelBand and Linsanity (yes, Nike is giving Jeremy Lin his own shoe already, the Nike Hyperfuse 2011 Linsanity PE). The brand continues to impress with a slew of announcements this week, unveiling innovations for basketball and summer sports.Continue reading...

While the large majority of athletic gear is segmented for each specific sports market, Nike announced a product Thursday that sweeps across the entire sporting landscape and can be used by any athlete at any level: the Nike+ FuelBand, a rubber bracelet worn on the wrist during exercise and sports activities to measure “steps, calories, time & Fuel metric (currency measured by oxygen kinetics)."

According to its press release (titled "Nike+ FuelBand Makes Life a Sport") the company sees it as a tech-driven game-changer that unifies products, sports and fans' interests, with the sub-headline: "Nike innovates at the intersection of sport and data with a wristband that measures movement to motivate people to be more active."Continue reading...

Motorola Mobility today unveiled its biggest news since being sold to Google in August — the return of the RAZR, which launched in 2004 and became (as CNN notes) "the best-selling cell phone brand of all time — until the iPhone came along" in 2007.

Unveiled at a press event with Verizon Wireless, the $299 (with a two-year contract) Droid RAZR smartphone will be offered exclusively by Verizon starting in early November.Continue reading...