Target’s first foray into Canada, with 21 more store openings just announced, is striking some eager shoppers as off the mark.

The Minneapolis-based retailing giant surprised southern Ontario consumers a couple of weeks ago opening its first three stores north of the border earlier than expected. People lined up in anticipation of the highest-profile retail arrival since Walmart entered the market nearly 20 years ago, but once they got inside, many were disappointed.

Despite Target's efforts to embrace Canadian culture, including a design partnership with Canadiana chic brand Roots as well as an entertainment partnership with Vancouver-born crooner Michael Buble, there were a number of product shortages. This would be excusable in a newly-minted store that’s getting the kinks out—but perhaps most importantly, the low prices on which Target had built its reputation and brand weren’t there, or at least not to the extent that cross-border and online Canadian shoppers expected.Continue reading...

Warby Parker upended the eye glass business and have now set their sights on shaving with their second start-up, Harry’s.  

Warby Parker co-founder Jeff Raider is relying on his first start-up's magic elixir—“a direct-to-consumer boutique experience for mass-retail prices,"—to make Harry's a runaway hit, FastCompany reports.Continue reading...

After 16 years, Microsoft is kissing Hotmail goodbye and putting its Internet-mail energy behind the brand-new Outlook.com.

The 300 million folks who use Hotmail—which Microsoft acquired back in 1997 when it was just a year old—will be able to keep their current email addresses, but the brand is disappearing and all of those users will be switched over to the new site by summer’s end. 

CNN reports that Microsoft plans to put some big advertising dollars into the new site. That push began Tuesday with the release of two commercials that both highlight how sweet a consumer’s life can be if he or she is using Outlook. This is a shift from Microsoft’s Scroogled campaign, which has aimed to get the 425 million Gmail users around the globe to feel irritated at Google and make the switch to Outlook. Scroogled worked effectively for Microsoft when it initially used it to help expose consumers to the plusses of its Bing search engine compared to Google’s. Continue reading...

Looking forward to the launch of #BlackBerry10? To follow the launch details see bbry.lv/XPm63T to keep up with the latest info! ^HF

— Research In Motion (@BlackBerryHelp) January 30, 2013

The New York Times calls the new BlackBerry 10, which Research in Motion is revealing in a New York as part of a global event on Wednesday and during the Super Bowl on Sunday, "worth the wait."

It's a critical launch for RIM, which states on its blog, "We’ve re-designed, re-engineered and re-invented our products with BlackBerry 10 – and we can’t wait to share it all with you." Are you as excited as BlackBerry's brand stewards? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Hostess brands reportedly attract bids from Walmart and Kroger.

LinkedIn gains job-recruiting edge over Monster, reveals most-liked brands of 2012.

Nissan begins turning out Leaf batteries at new U.S. plant.

Apple dominates tablet-purchase intent, survey says, but loses patent case to licensing firm.

Build-A-Bear considers change at top.

Fox News leads cable segment while CNN dips.

GM revamps MyLink system.

Jaguar drops plan to build supercar.Continue reading...

Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed the one-hand-ready iPad mini today, prompting fans of the brand to ponder whether they need one, while investors seemed to make up their minds, as the company's stock dropped after the reveal.

Bigger than an iPhone and smaller than an iPad, at 7.9 inches and starting at $329, it's lighter but costlier than its 7-inch, $199 rivals, the Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7 tablets. It's being marketed as "the full iPad experience — there's less of it, but no less to it," and may appeal to, for instance, the education market. It also marks a reversal of Steve Jobs's (initial) opposition to the 7-inch tablet size.

Why is smaller now better for Apple? Design head Jony Ive commented in the launch video, "Our goal was to take all the amazing things you could do with a full-size iPad, but pack them into a product that was so much smaller."

“iPad mini is every inch an iPad. With its gorgeous 7.9-inch display, iPad mini features the same number of pixels as the original iPad and iPad 2, so you can run more than 275,000 apps designed specifically for iPad,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing, in a press release.

“iPad mini is as thin as a pencil and as light as a pad of paper" he added, "yet packs a fast A5 chip, FaceTime HD and 5 megapixel iSight cameras and ultrafast wireless―all while delivering up to 10 hours of battery life.”Continue reading...

Everyone wants to tear down the guy at the top. But in a matter of a month, Apple has made that work a lot easier. And for once, it has nothing to do with China. Well, not Foxconn anyway.

First, Apple's court win over Samsung for patent infringements met with "rounded corner" derision with the brand seen as an anti-innovation patent bully (a German court ruling today puts the patent wars ball back in Samsung's court). Then, there is the ongoing iOS 6 Google Mapsgate. And now, Apple has been accused of jobbing its fans to promote the iPhone 5 release.

But really, it's all about the maps. The stupid, stupid maps.Continue reading...

As iPhone 5 fever is upon us, it's hard not to think of The Jetsons. The series debuted in 1962, but its creators vision of video phones (as well as tanning beds and robot vacuums) seemed pretty far down the line. After all, the series was set in the year 2062, but who knew the video phone would be so ingrained in our lives 50 years ahead of that schedule.

Apple is having a banner week as fans await the release of the phone that has been getting rave reviews for its larger screen, lighter body, improved camera and speakers, and faster downloads. And its iOS 6 software powering the new phone is winning accolades, if irking some for dropping Google Maps.Continue reading...