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U.S. Best Buy to sell $100 HP TouchPad Sunday

Select Best Buy stores will sell the HP TouchPad tablet for $99.99 on Sunday.

A store manager in suburban Los Angeles said the TouchPad will go on sale when Best Buy opens its doors Sunday at 10 a.m. The sale applies to all Best Buy stores that have stock, but not all stores do, he said.

Stores typically have stock in the tens of units, not hundreds, according to the store manager. "If people start lining up, the stock will go fast," he said.

Both models will be sold: the 16GB and 32GB, for $100 and $150, respectively, he said.

This comes in the wake of fire sales by Hewlett-Packard on its TouchPad site and at Best Buy in Canada, among other U.S. resellers.

HP announced Thursday that it is shuttering the WebOS device business. … Read more

Refurb Kindle drops to $99, new model coming?

Amazon has quietly dropped the price for its refurbished Kindles, with the Wi-Fi-only, ad-free Kindle now at $99 while the 3G ad-free version is down to $129.99.

Big deal, you say. The Wi-Fi-only Kindle with Special Offers is $114. But as the blog Beyond Black Friday points out, the last time Amazon dropped the price on the refurbished versions of its e-readers the Kindle 3 (the current model) arrived soon afterward in late August. To put it more bluntly, Amazon appears to be clearing inventory in advance of a launch.

Unclear speaker

Text-to-speech software is helpful for presenting text to anyone who is visually impaired. It's also helpful for anyone who needs extra editing help and doesn't have an extra set of eyes. As its name suggests, Text to Wav offers a way to convert written text into sound files, but thanks to a vague interface and lack of help, we're reluctant to recommend it.

The program's user interface is pretty bland, with most of the controls crammed into the left corner of the toolbar. There are a few self-explanatory buttons for adjusting your text size and font. … Read more

CNET Roadside Assistance 015: Keep those wipers at mid-stride (podcast)

We debate the robustness of Bluetooth streaming, data plans with new head units, the best 7 passenger vehicle that's not a mini-van. and windshield wipers.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 015 SHOW NOTES

• LOL Cars

iPad game deals for Memorial Day weekend

Updated May 28 with 8 new titles.

The Memorial Day weekend iPad game sale is in full swing, and here's a look at all the current deals we've come across. It's also worth noting that EA has put many of its iPhone games on sale for 99 cents (just look at the top products list and you'll find them).

We'll update the list as more deals crop up. The nonsale price is in parentheses, and we've starred games we think are particularly good buys.

A few of the titles are even on our top 30 iPad games list (below).

Memorial Day weekend iPad game deals:

Assassin's' Creed--Altair's Chronicles: Gameloft title is 99 cents ($6.99) Catan HD: $2.99 ($4.99) Coconut Dodge: A fairly new EA title is on sale for 99 cents ($4.99) City of Secrets HD: Adventure title is now 99 cents ($4.99)… Read more

EA app sale: 99-cent games for Android, iOS

Back in February, EA Mobile (along with a few other publishers) held a huge sale on iOS games. Good news: it's sale time once again, and this time Android users are getting some discount love as well.

From now until Monday, April 25, three dozen games in EA's catalog--including some recent titles that weren't available last time--are on sale for 99 cents each.

Update: It turns out the Android games are $1.99 each. EA's extremely misleading press release and promotional banners (like the one at right) made no mention of this. Dumb, dumb move, EA.… Read more

Amazon running 99-cent Kindle game special

Not too long ago, I wrote about the rise of the 99-cent e-book. Now Amazon's pushing 99-cent Kindle games as part of a special sale.

Amazon lists 12 games as part of the sale and they're climbing the Kindle best seller's list fast. As David Cassel, the editor at the Me and My Kindle blog, points out, "Six of the 10 best-selling items in the Kindle store are now games." Mind you, some of these are merely discounted from $1.99 to 99 cents. But oh what a difference a dollar makes.

Here's the full list of specially discounted games. The offer ends March 27.

Scrabble Chess Sudoku Unbound Solitaire Mahjong Solitaire Texas Hold 'Em New York Times Crossword Puzzles (two sets of "easy" and two sets of "challenging" puzzles) Hangman for Kids Triple Town

Any of you playing games on your Kindle? Any favorites? Let us know.

More: The rise of the 99-cent e-book … Read more

The rise of the 99-cent Kindle e-book

Not long ago I did a story about how e-book piracy was accelerating and that publishers should be concerned. But while piracy is certainly an issue, there's something else lurking out there that may be a bigger problem: e-book price erosion. Or put another way, the blogification of the book industry.

Now, I know what you're saying: that's great news. These publishers have been gouging us with ridiculous pricing for digital files that cost next to nothing to produce (in terms of material costs) and finally we're starting to see lots of deals out there. But … Read more

Sony Music Unlimited makes debut

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Sony launches Sony Music Unlimited, the company's own music store.

The FBI gets ready to outline wire-tapping policies for digital communication.

Google announces Google One Pass, a subscription service for newspapers and magazines that will compete with Apple's recently announced iTunes subscription service.

The iPhone rumor mill is predicting a smaller, $99 version of the iPhone this summer.

Warner Bros. announces App Editions of "Inception" and "The Dark Knight."

Sony announces its zero-tolerance policy for hacking the PlayStation 3.

The more Facebook friends you have, the more … Read more

Fujitsu to debut world's first glasses-free 3D PC

Anyone who's eyeing a 3D PC but doesn't want to wear those glasses may be in luck.

Fujitsu announced yesterday that it will launch an all-in-one desktop PC sporting a 3D display that won't require the familiar but uncomfortable 3D glasses.

Due to launch in Japan on February 25, the Fujitsu Esprimo FH99/CM will offer an 23-inch 1,920x1,080 LCD display and be powered by an Intel i7 processor.

The PC will include 4GB of RAM, up to 2TB of hard-disk space, integrated graphics, and a Blu-ray drive, according to PClaunches.com and other sources. … Read more