After Sandy, even Apple is giving to the Big Apple. The Cupertino, CA-based tech giant is giving generously to New York City and Northeast residents who were hard hit by Hurricane Sandy, as reported by 9to5Mac: “We just got the above email via an Apple employee from CEO Tim Cook showing the Cupertino company is looking after those on the other coast of the U.S. Apple will donate $2.5 million to the Red Cross to benefit Hurricane Sandy victims.”

The donation comes on top of an iTunes page for the Red Cross, where 100% of value is passed on to relief efforts. Apple’s recent link on their homepage that directs traffic to the Red Cross iTunes page is a major move as their site garners close to 35 million unique visitors monthly, placing it #23 in Compete’s popularity rank of websites. “It’s a prime bit of real-estate and it’s nice to see one of the five major links on the page go to relief in the wake of Sandy’s devastation of the eastern seaboard,” notes TheNextWeb.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is being praised for boosting Apple’s charitable giving, ad being seen as “determined to change the company’s stingy reputation — as one of the few major American corporations that before had barely donated to charity,” reports the New York Post. “Tech titan Apple at last donated something to charity worth talking about: $100 million… [which] still leaves Apple in an unusual spot — far behind its peers.”Continue reading...

Now that Disney has agreed to spend big bucks to own Lucasfilm and all of its Star Wars goodies, the corporation is losing little time working the big brand into its plans.

DisneyParks released an amusing video on Halloween showing Darth Vader and a couple of his stormtroopers hanging out at Disneyland: riding a Dumbo ride, buying some popcorn, enjoying the fireworks. It has since racked up more than 3.2 million views on YouTube.

It is passion like that that Disney is hoping will make for excellent return on investment for its big purchase. Even without the Star Wars brand in its back pocket, Disney just reported a pretty good fiscal year, going up 3% to $42 billion in revenue while its profits went up 18% to almost $5.7 billion, Variety reports.

"We're entering a phase-out of investment mode and transitioning into more compelling growth mode," Disney chairman-CEO Bob Iger told analysts. "We're seeing a ramping down of capital spending." He went on to say that the addition of Lucasfilm “will further fuel Disney's creative engine across our company to create additional value for our shareholders.” And attention holiday shoppes: Iger noted that Star Wars merchandise would be found soon in Disney stores and online. Continue reading...

There’s lots of hoopla going around to celebrate the Rolling Stones turning 50. Concerts are coming up next week in London and in early December in Newark, New Jersey. A new 3-disc, 50-song greatest-hits box set, GRRR!, comes out next week as well. A new documentary about the band, Crossfire Hurricane, is hitting HBO and the BBC and theaters next week, joining another documentary on the band that's now playing theaters, Charlie Is My Darling.

And keep your eyes peeled for the massive Stones coffee-table book. Right about now, you can’t escape the Stones — heck, you can even drink up to Mick, Keith and the boys with a special line of drinks being sold in Japan.Continue reading...

Tesco made headlines a year ago when its HomePlus retail subsidiary in South Korea tested a virtual store in a Seoul subway station, showcasing items that could be scanned and ordered by smartphone for home delivery, while Peapod is testing virtual grocery shopping in the U.S.

Now Walmart is testing a similar idea in Toronto in partnership with Mattel. The retail and toy giants are teaming up on what's described as Canada's first pop-up virtual toy store, enabling QR code-based shopping of Mattel brands — including hot toys from Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price and Thomas & Friends brands — to holiday shoppers.

The pop-up is located in the city's massive PATH underground walkway, a retail concouse that connects downtown buildings and and an array of businesses to Toronto's Union Station rail commuter hub. It may find a ready pool of virtual shoppers, as it will run for four weeks in the same location where Wells.ca tested a QR-enabled store in April.Continue reading...

In the challenging world of gaming console marketing, American Express has launched a co-branded experience that combines activity-based advertising and digital partnerships, building on AMEX's success with Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter.

The blue chip brand is taking its Card Sync technology to Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE’s “Halo 4” to unlock content and offers for U.S. cardmembers and for U.K. cardmembers.

Cardmembers can sync their Card to their Xbox LIVE Gamertag on their Xbox 360 console by logging in here (U.S.) and here (U.K.) to receive an Access Code, real-time, to enter in the American Express digital experience tile in the Game Marketplace in the Games section of the Xbox 360 dashboard, then share their Xbox LIVE Gamertag to be directed to the offer dashboard.Continue reading...

The Huffington Post Media Group and OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) have launched HuffPost OWN, a vertical focused on motivation, inspiration and fulfillment.

Selections will include this year’s crowd- and brand-pleaser, Oprah’s Favorite Things, a franchise that was a gift-tastic Super Bowl for Oprah's fans when she had her daytime talk show. The tradition returns with a holiday gift guide featured in the December issue of O magazine, along with Favorite Things trivia, a video montage of the best Favorite Things moments from “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and an inside look at Oprah’s celebrity gifts short list.Continue reading...

The Walt Disney Company's announcement that it's buying Lucasfilm — the production company owned by producer/director George Lucas — for $4.05 billion means every last bit of the Star Wars franchise is now part of the Mickey Mouse Empire. The deal shouldn't come as a huge surprise, given the success of Star Wars-themed weekends luring amateur Jedi warriors and Darth Vaders to Disney parks.

Even though series creator Lucas says that there is such “a large group of ideas and characters and books and all kinds of things” that new Star Wars movies could be coming out for the next 100 years, fans of the franchise are a little confused that their cinnamon-roll-haired Princess Leia is now on the same squad with such gals as Pocahontas, Snow White, Ariel, and Cinderella.

Fans won’t have to wait 100 years for the next film, however. The first one under new ownership, Star Wars VII, will hit screens in 2015. Some, though, are not happy about the news.Continue reading...

The Chevy Camaro hit America’s streets in 1967 and has been getting the nation’s hearts racing ever since, appearing in a ton of films and television shows as the ultimate in cool and, of course, being forever inked onto the musical landscape in the Dead Milkmen’s famed “Bitchin’ Camaro.”

Perhaps a little better known than the Dead Milkmen’s ode to the car’s coolness, though, is the Hot Wheels version of the car. When the first 16 Hot Wheels cars hit the streets (and family rooms) of America back in 1968, a tiny Camaro was one of the mix (and is now one of its most collected).

Last year, the folks at Chevy decided to pay tribute to Hot Wheels and made a life-size version of the car to show off at the Specialty Equipment Market Association auto show in Vegas. In the first few hours the show was open, the car attracted heavy crowds and Chevy knew it had a hit, USA Today reports.Continue reading...