Walmart starts testing same-day delivery with online orders

Definitely useful when holiday shopping at the last minute, Walmart's new same-day delivery service is being tested in select markets.

Covered by Techcrunch earlier today, Walmart has launched a trial same-day delivery service in select areas within the United States. Specifically, the service has already rolled out in northern Virginia around Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Minneapolis. In addition, Walmart plans to add the San Jose / San Francisco market by early November. Rather that attempting to fulfill online orders from a distribution center, all same-day orders will be routed through a customer’s local store. Assuming the test over the holidays is successful, Walmart could make same-day delivery service standard policy due to the significant amount of Walmart locations around the United States.

Detailed on Walmart’s same-day delivery landing page, customers can order a variety of products including computers, televisions, tablets, office equipment, children’s toys, video game consoles and sports equipment as well as home goods like appliances, bedding, furniture, kitchen tools, luggage and outdoor grills.

However, the items available to each customer are specifically limited to the items carried at their local store within the Walmart-To-Go program. Pricing of those items is also dependent on the prices listed at the local stores rather than corporate prices viewed through the main online portal. The launch of this new service was based off the results of a survey in which many customers stated they would use the service at least once a month.

In a partnership with UPS, Walmart is charging a flat rate of $10 to deliver an unlimited number of items per order. With the exception of a $45 minimum purchase within the San Jose / San Francisco market, all other test markets do not require a minimum purchase. Orders have to be placed by noon to qualify for same-day delivery. When an order is placed, the customer selects one of three delivery windows with the earliest between 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and the latest being 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. If a customer changes their mind about the order after it’s been placed, they can simply refuse delivery of the item. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Samsung details new Galaxy Note II features in a lenthy video

Samsung has released a new, almosty eight minute long video to demonstrate all the new features on the Galaxy Note II. The video showcases the large display, the new multitasking options and the built-in applications that you can use with the stylus.

First of all, we see the new Gallery features Samsung has added to the Note II to take advantage of the bigger display. You have two new Gallery views and can now create folders and drag and drop images between them.

Next you see all the cool things you can do with the stylus. You can go through all the images in a folder inside the Gallery and preview videos, simply by hovering the stylus over them. You can also hover the stylus over the progress bar in a video and get a quick preview. Similarly, you can hover over the calendar entries to see more details without opening them and hover over emails to see their contents.

Samsung has also added new multitasking options, with a multitasking tray that you can dock in any side of the screen. You can then bring up applications and have up to two of them on the screen at once and copy paste content between them. The ability to play video over other apps has been carried over from the Galaxy S III.

Lastly, the Galaxy Note II comes with a bunch of applications that let you do stuff like drawing and taking notes on the screen with the stylus. The phone helps you out by offering templates and recognizing your handwriting, as well as shapes and equations.

One last new feature is the ability to bring up a window on the screen where you can scribble a symbol and write your text, and depending upon the application that has been assigned to the symbol, the phone will then open the respective app and enter your handwritten text.

You can catch all the features in action in the video below.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

WeHostels takes on the space between CouchSurfing and Airbnb

Travel app WeHostels has all the app finesse of Airbnb without the high prices. The startup officially launches to target the last-minute backpacking crowd.

Today WeHostels is announcing its public launch, pivoting from its beginnings as Inbed.me. The currently mobile-only app is targeting the space between CouchSurfing and Airbnb — the world of cheap hotel and hostel bookings. The startup is still riding its $1.2 million raised this past spring, and silently added 30,000 downloads in the past three weeks.

Before the WeHostels mobile app, the service existed as Web client Inbed.me – but surprise, we users all have our minds in the gutter and interpreted the name in the most inappropriate way possible. Though there’s been a name change, the concept more or less remains the same: Connect to Facebook and find last-minute affordable last-minute accommodations on-the-go. It’s not all utility, however, and the social link gives you options to connect with other guests so you can, as WeHostels puts it, make friends en route before you even get to your destination.

Of course, the other big switch-up would be that fact that WeHostels is entirely ditching the desktop in favor of a mobile-approach. According to the team, it was a pure logistics decision when they saw traffic from smartphones growing 10 times faster than their Web app.

“We decided to focus only in mobile because it’s a fascinating new arena that requires a very unique set of skills in terms of product design and distribution,” says co-founder Diego Saez-Gil. “By focusing only in mobile, we’re forcing ourselves to become experts on it, and therefore we can outperform any team in any big company working on it.”

Despite that focus, WeHostels sees beyond the smartphone. “In the future we plan to develop solutions for all devices and platforms – we will need to be ubiquitous,” Saez-Gil tells me. “But we prefer to start on the one platform where the new ways of interacting with the Web are happening.”

The fast and quiet growth that WeHostels experiencd over the last few weeks saw the userbase grow largely in the United States, with Europe coming in second, and from there travelers in South America and Australia getting on board with the network. The current version of WeHostels has 80 cities available, but new partnerships with Hostelworld and Expedia will hugely increase those options worldwide.

“We will keep growing in terms of cities and accommodations, and we will develop for other devices,” says Saez-Gil, who mentions that iPad and Android are up next. “In the longer future we consider expanding to other verticals in the travel space and becoming the one-stop-shop where young travelers plan and book their trips from mobile devices.” 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Watch a 13-minute promotional short for 1982′s Blade Runner

In an effort to promote Blade Runner, the producers had this 13-minute short created for distribution at sci-fi conventions.

Let’s say you’ve been tasked with marketing a movie. It’s an ambitious film, one that simultaneously hopes to live up to the lofty standards of one of Philip K. Dick’s most beloved novels while also creating a vast, dystopian world that is equal parts unimaginably different from our own and a logical extension of current and near-future technology. In 2012 that wouldn’t be too difficult — just capture a few seconds of bombastic CGI, hire a deep-voiced narrator and cut a TV commercial that may or may not accurately reflect the film (but who cares as long as it puts people in the seats?) — but way back in 1982 it was a whole lot more difficult to entice notoriously picky sci-fi fans into the theater.

Thus, when faced by a similar situation for Ridley Scott’s phenomenal Blade Runner, the crew at M.K. Productions opted to put together a short, promotional movie to be distributed at various conventions around the country. According to Open Culture the short was a hit, and was widely circulated among sci-fi, horror and fantasy fan groups prior to Blade Runner’s theatrical debut. Whether or not it directly contributed to the movie’s success and current status as one of the all-time greatest sci-fi films Hollywood has ever created is debatable, but the vignette does serve as an undeniably cool look back at the creation of the film, and that’s a solid enough reason for us to embed the clip at the bottom of this post.

Along with the expected images and footage from Blade Runner, the short includes interviews with director Ridley Scott, special effects artist Douglas Trumbull and “futurist designer” Syd Mead. Normally we wouldn’t be this excited about what we now call a “behind the scenes featurette,” but in this case we’re utterly stoked to hear what these people have to say. If you’ve seen Blade Runner you know how masterfully crafted its futuristic world is, and there’s a very good reason why so many sci-fi movies, novels and video games created since 1982 have blatantly lifted ideas from Ridley Scott’s film.

More impressively, Blade Runner was created in an era where computer generated graphics weren’t really something Hollywood studios could use. They existed, certainly, but any CGI work was exorbitantly expensive, and few people had any idea how to effectively use the technology for making films. Thus, when you’re watching Blade Runner and being drawn in by the hyper-detailed detritus of that cyberpunk universe, everything you’re seeing was created by old-school practical visual effects work, making the film that much more stunning a feat.

Before you hit play on the embed below, we will give you a heads up that the footage is not exactly crystal-clear, 1080p HD quality. It is, after all, a 16mm movie from three decades ago, that was never really intended for public consumption. Thus, just be happy that this thing still exists, and that we can all use it to avoid dirtying our hands with any actual work on a lazy Tuesday afternoon.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Smartype – the key(s) to faster typing?

Are you more of a 40-words-per-hour typist than 40-a-minute? If so, the Smartype keyboard, with its built-in screen, could help you work more efficiently.

If you’re a two-fingered typist who spends more time looking for letters than actually hitting them, then a new kind of keyboard from KeyView may be able to help.

The keyboard, called the Smartype, features a narrow screen located just above the top row of keys, which displays what you’re typing as you type. Its maker claims the Smartype keyboard reduces typing errors, helps users type faster, and reduces eye and neck strain. And because you’re not constantly searching for letters or correcting mistakes, it should also help you to concentrate better on the task in hand.

The screen can also be used to display information such as your Facebook or Twitter feed. Email notifications, weather data and even stats relating to your computer’s performance can also be shown.

For beginner typists, the Smartype could well provide a path to faster typing, as presumably you’d get a better feel for the keys more quickly than if you’re always glancing up at the screen and back down again at the keyboard.

Touch typists, on the other hand, will probably find it of limited use, unless the idea of using the screen as an information portal appeals.

The Smartype keyboard isn’t yet available, though according to its website, it’s coming soon. No price is stated either.

If you’re the kind of person who yearns to be more Usain Bolt than Timmy the tortoise when it comes to bashing the keys, do you think the Smartype might be the answer?

[via The Verge]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com