Target has joined a list of major retailers offering discounts and perks to consumers who use a mobile app called Shopkick. The iPhone app allows users to collect points called “kickbucks” for checking into stores, scanning products and participating in special promotions. The points can be redeemed for gift cards at the retailers and other items such as music downloads. Get the full story »
Filed under: Consumer news
Visit our Filed page for categories. To browse by specific topic, see our Inside page. For a list of companies covered on this site, visit our Companies page.
Discover, carriers partner on mobile payments
Riverwoods-based Discover Financial Services is working with a new joint venture, created by three national wireless carriers, to develop a national network for payments via mobile phones.
AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless announced the joint venture, called Isis, on Tuesday. The group named Michael Abbott, a former executive at GE Capital, as its CEO. Get the full story »
Nov. 16, 2010 at 6:38 a.m.
Comments Off
Filed under: Cell phones, Consumer news, Internet, Technology, Telecommunications, Wireless Google working on phone with built-in payment tool
Google Inc. is taking another stab at designing a game-changing mobile phone, this time by including a built-in payment system that could eventually enable the devices to replace credit cards. The new phone got a brief preview Monday when Google CEO Eric Schmidt took the stage to kick off the Web 2.0 summit, a technology conference held annually in San Francisco.
Schmidt confirmed that Google has been working on a sophisticated new computer chip and an upgrade of its Android mobile operating system that will include a payment processing tool. He showed off the new phone with the device’s name and manufacturer concealed. Get the full story »
Consumer Reports says ‘happy’ back in holidays
It looks like Scrooge will have time on his hands this Christmas.
At least, that is the word from Consumer Reports, which reports that the holidays are getting happier.
Indeed, 40 percent of adults say they expect the upcoming holiday season to be “happier” than last year’s, according to the Consumer Reports National Research Center, a unit of Consumers Union, a watchdog organization. Get the full story »
CPSC orders huge recall of window shades, blinds
The death of a toddler who strangled in a window shade cord spurred a huge recall Wednesday, even as the industry crafts a better standard to make window coverings in American homes safer for children.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says Hanover Direct Inc., of Weehawken, N.J., has agreed to recall about 495,000 roman shades and some 28,500 blinds. Hanover is the parent company for Domestications, The Company Store, and Company Kids.
Elizabeth Warren confident after investor meetings
White House adviser Elizabeth Warren said her meetings with investors and bank executives are going well, helping to give the financial industry a better sense of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s direction and priorities.
“I have really been on the road,” Warren told CNBC, noting that she’s been traveling the country meeting with community bankers, consumer advocates, chief executives of the largest financial firms and buy-side investors. Warren said she has discussed the agency’s approach to regulation and outlined its likely first steps “to make it really clear where we’re headed.” Get the full story »
Nov. 10, 2010 at 1:58 p.m.
Comments Off
Filed under: Advertising/Marketing, Consumer news, Government, Policy FDA’s proposed cigarette warnings get graphic
Proposed changes for cigarette packaging under new FDA rules.
Graphic images depicting dead bodies and diseased lungs were unveiled by federal health officials Wednesday as part of a move to require bolder health warnings on cigarettes and advertising.
A 2009 law requires larger and more graphic health warnings on cigarettes as part of an effort to discourage people from starting to smoke and to lower current smoking rates. Currently, 20.6 percent adults and 19.5 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, according to government figures. Get the full story »
Nov. 3, 2010 at 8:34 a.m.
Filed under: Cell phones, Consumer electronics, Consumer news, Hotels, Travel Hotel replaces room keys with cell phones
Visitors to a Stockholm hotel will be able to use mobile phones instead of keys to unlock the doors to their rooms. Assa Abloy AB, the world’s largest maker of door locks, has launched a pilot in which Clarion Hotel Stockholm will lend customers mobile phones with close-range radio chips, much like devices used for contact-less payments at gas stations. Get the full story »
Nov. 2, 2010 at 2:33 p.m.
Filed under: Consumer electronics, Consumer news, Entertainment, Technology Will Microsoft’s game controller connect?
Two boys play the Kinect for Xbox 360 at a Charlotte, N.C. Gamestop store, Oct. 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
Caryn Bailey, a 32-year-old blogger and mother of two, is impressed with Microsoft’s new Kinect game-control system. But she already owns the Wii from rival Nintendo, and she’s not ready to shell out hundreds of dollars to switch.
That’s the challenge Microsoft Corp. faces as it begins selling the long-awaited system on Thursday ahead of the lucrative holiday season. To succeed, Kinect will need to exude the kind of iPad-like magic that defies frugality and gets people spending to experience something new, even as they cut back elsewhere in the uncertain economy. Get the full story »
Wal-Mart tweaks holiday toy strategy
Wal-Mart shoppers wait in line on Dec. 21, 2009, at one of the retailer's stores in Ocoee, Fla., for Zhu Zhu toys. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT)
After last Christmas, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. turned to its customers to find out how it could improve toy shopping this holiday season.
Moms told the nation’s largest retailer not to push Christmas toys until after Halloween passed and to give them more, not just $10 specials.
That was a price Wal-Mart promoted early and big in 2008 and 2009 in toys, books and DVDs, starting price wars in early October the last two years. Get the full story »
Consumer czar: Financial industry still aims to block
The financial industry continues trying to thwart the Obama administration’s effort to set up an effective consumer protection agency, though one is needed now more than ever, new consumer czar Elizabeth Warren charged on Thursday.
“We fought hard to get here, and those who tried to block the agency’s creation have already said that they will be back,” Warren said in remarks prepared for delivery at the University of California in Berkeley,
“Every day, they spend money to find a way to cut back the agency’s power — even before its work has begun,” she added. A text of her remarks was issued in advance in Washington. Get the full story »
Tubeless toilet paper test coming to stores
From USA Today | Kimberly-Clark on Monday will begin testing a tubeless toilet paper roll, selling Scott Naturals Tube-Free toilet paper at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the Northeast. If sales take off, it may introduce the line nationally globally — and even take the tubes out of paper towel brands too.Get the full story>>
Sony to stop making Walkman cassette player
The Sony Walkman. (Sony)
Sony is sending its cassette tape Walkman into retirement in Japan as demand for a music player that was ground-breaking in its day dwindles to a tiny niche in the era of digital technology.
Sony stopped Japanese production of the portable music player in April and sales will end once the last batch disappears from stores, company spokeswoman Hiroko Nakamura said Monday. Get the full story »
40,000 drop-side cribs recalled
By Kristin Samuelson | The Consumer Product Safety Commission and three U.S. cribmakers on Friday announced voluntary recalls of approximately 40,650 drop-side cribs after receiving reports of six child injuries from the cribs.
Halloween spending trends: Less trick, more treat
Chicago Costume has a wide array of items for Halloween, for which people are expected to spend an average of $73, according to an American Express survey. (Alex Garcia/Tribune)
By Dawn Rhodes | Ankit Patel and Valerie Loborec were scouring the aisles at the cavernous Chicago Costume in Lincoln Park, hoping to find the perfect Halloween costume.
Patel, 26, of Lakeview, didn’t want to spend more than $60 and came away empty-handed.
“I just don’t think it’s worth it,” he said, standing next to a display of accessories for two of the hottest themes: Lady Gaga and Jersey Shore cast members. “It’s just one day and you don’t want to wear the same thing over again.” Get the full story »
