shipping

The quirky e-commerce site Fab is giving its customers free shipping just as the holidays approach.

A fast-growing startup -- the 17-month-old company counted its 9 millionth user earlier this month -- Fab launched the new promotion today. The company will pay for shipping for orders that total $75 or more, but only on certain products.

The free shipping counts toward 98 percent of all of Fab's products, all of which are identified by a truck icon, Fab CEO Jason Goldberg wrote in a note to users.

After transforming from a gay social network into flash sales retail site … Read more

The wait for iPhone 5 purchases to ship has shortened by a full week today, nearly two months after the product's initial release.

New buyers from Apple's online store now face a two- to three-week wait before their phones ship, down from the three to four weeks that began stacking up in the days after pre-orders for the device began in mid-September, MacRumors notes.

The iPhone 5 launched in nine countries, including the U.S. and Europe, on September 21, and a week later in an additional 22 countries. During Apple's quarterly earnings call last month, the … Read more

Facebook members who use FedEx might want to check out a new app that makes it easier to send items to your friends.

Dubbed "Ship to Friends," the new Facebook app lets you handle the entire shipping process without leaving Facebook. You can ship a package to anyone. But the process is a bit quicker if you're sending something to a Facebook friend since you can select the person from your friends list.

Here's how it works:

Launch the app's Facebook page. Click on the Start shipping button. Like all Facebook apps, this one will … Read more

Many shipping companies are experimenting with adding sails to cargo vessels. Here's a design in which the sails are also solar panels.

EnergySail is a concept by Japan's Eco Marine Power that harnesses and stores wind and solar power to reduce fuel costs and pollution. It would work as an additional source of power to a ship's main engines.

The devices would be fitted on anything from large bulk ore carriers to cable-laying ships, ferries, and coast guard patrol vessels, according to the company. An automatic control system would orient the sails and panels to catch the … Read more

If you're in the group of shoppers expecting Apple's new iPhone to be delivered to your door this Friday, UPS would prefer it if you don't call them to finagle an early delivery date.

A note on the shipper's Web site, which went up yesterday, kindly asks customers not to bother service representatives about changing the delivery date of their iPhone, saying the time is set in stone.

"Apple has required that UPS deliver iPhone shipments to customers on and not before Friday, September 21, 2012," the message reads.

Another part of the message … Read more

Avid jet-setters aspiring for something more should check out Virgin America's new Mission: Galactic contest. Whoever earns the most status points with their Elevate loyalty program by August 7, 2013 earns a Virgin Galactic suborbital space flight aboard SpaceShipTwo spaceplane. … Read more

Monday's tech news roundup translates the Apple v. Samsung legalese:

MOJAVE DESERT, Calif.--It's hard to imagine a more complete -- and impressive -- collection of aviation facilities and aircraft anywhere on the planet than the one in this vast, arid, wide-open wasteland northeast of Los Angeles.

Thanks to its endless amounts of dry, flat terrain, useless to most people, and the fact that there are only a few ways in -- vital for security -- the Mojave is, and has long been, the beating heart of the aviation world. It's here that Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier. And where Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne ushered in … Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The U.S. Navy spends a fortune every year on energy, so for a ship to complete a deployment having burned through just half the cash it had available for fuel is a very good sign of things to come.

For some time, the Navy has been saying many of the right things about its plans to go green, starting with a major biofuels initiative. And though a recent Wired report claims that the servicewide efforts have lost steam, the performance of the USS Makin Island could well be a bright spot.

As part of Road Trip 2012, … Read more