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How Walmart is going all out with mobile

TUSCON, Ariz.-- Here's the takeaway from a panel called, "Shopping Outside the Box: The Intersection of Data and Dollars," that took place at the Techonomy conference: For all retailers -- that means brick-and-mortar giants -- it's all about the data.

"Data is the weapon," said Dan Schulman, the Group President of Enterprise Growth at American Express.

And, increasingly, that data is coming from mobile devices. The challenges facing brick-and-mortar stores are only growing as online shopping moves from the desktop to smartphones. People look up prices online while they're inside a store. … Read more

Here come the humanoids. There go U.S. jobs

TUCSON, Ariz.--Rethink Robotics founder Rodney Brooks took to the stage at the Techonomy conference here to talk about the wonders of his new robot, Baxter, which is designed to work on factory floors doing dull and necessary tasks. He costs just $22,000 and works for what amounts to $4 an hour.

Baxter is a step forward in robotics with mass potential. It has a face and sensors to tell it when people are near. It's about as close to a humanoid robot as we can get, and Brooks said it's just the beginning.

"Within 10 … Read more

There's a killer on the loose and you have to find them

Who Is the Killer (Episode One) is the first of a series of mini games representing a detective game. As each day passes, someone dies, and your job is to figure out who is the killer. Who Is the Killer installs easily and is free.

Who Is the Killer is a fairly straightforward game graphically, with limited screen displays. You start with an image of people sitting around, and you can click on people or items to interact with them. A set of mini games adds to the puzzle, but the goal is to figure out which character is the … Read more

Create folders with Desktop Groups

Desktop Groups is a simple app you can use to create folders on your desktop that can contain any number of files. Designed to help clean up the clutter on your desktop, Desktop Groups lets you create as many folders as you wish, add or delete files in a folder, and move the folder and all its contents around as you need. There is a free version of the app called Desktop Groups Lite, while the full version is sold for $5.99.

Installing Desktop Groups is easy and the app runs cleanly. You can create folders with any title … Read more

Unblock your car with Unblock Car, a free Android game

Sliding-block puzzles have been popular for ages, even in the computer age. With a simple 2D layout and limited motion, they're perfect for software, and you can play all kinds of free Flash versions online. But the Android incarnation of the ancient favorite may be the best one yet: Small, easy to play, and perfect for thumb-swiping. Unblock Car is a free Android app that puts an all-too-familiar spin on the classic sliding-block puzzle game: an overfilled parking lot with your car at the very back. Your task is to move as few cars in as few steps as … Read more

Tiny Flashlight + LED is a bunch of cool lights in one Android app

Most Android flashlight apps are extremely simple: on and off. Some add battery meters. Then there's Nikolay Ananiev's Tiny Flashlight + LED. Like most of the others, it's free, though it does have ad banners. No big deal, because it's way more than just an LED flashlight for your smartphone. Like what? For starters, it includes a prominent battery meter. The illuminated, color-coded Power button glows green for on and blue for off. But tap the Options button, and Tiny Flashlight's awesome extras come to light.

We installed Tiny Flashlight in a new smartphone running Android … Read more

Side scrolling coin collection game surprisingly well done

Lep's World is a gold accumulation game for Mac OS X. You guide a leprechaun (Lep) through a side scrolling world, collecting gold and avoiding nasty monsters. Sounds like a lot of other games, but there's a cute aspect to Lep's World that some will find addictive. Lep's World installs quickly and easily on Mac OS X 10.6 and higher.

There are four levels to the free version of Lep's World (28 in the paid version), all with good graphics that are very reminiscent of a popular video game platform with plumbers running around! … Read more

Simple grouping game for the Mac

Bubble Free is a Mac OS X bubble-grouping game. It is identical to the Bubble MegaShift iOS game from the same publisher (99 cents for iOS; no free version listed in the App Store). Like so many other grouping games, it opens with a mix of colored bubbles that you remove by clicking on groups of two or more, causing the rest to shift down and fill the void. The larger the group you remove, the higher the score, until you can't remove any more.

Bubble Free installs easily enough and takes a second or two to learn. The … Read more

Play and rip DVDs for Apple devices

Favor DVD Player for Mac is a utility for playing and ripping DVDs. Supporting all DVD formats, Favor DVD Player for Mac lets you watch your DVDs on your MacBook or iMac. Even better, Favor DVD Player for Mac lets you rip DVDs to formats for your Mac or portable iDevice, as well as Apple TV.

Favor DVD Player for Mac downloads and installs easily. The interface has preset defaults for the most common settings, and a simple interface for watching DVDs. We watched a wide variety of disks, in numerous formats, and all played properly. We also ripped a … Read more

Dell joins the parade of Windows 8 systems

Dell is joining the ranks of PC companies making system announcements before the official October 26 release of Windows 8.

The following products are available for preorder today, according to Dell:

XPS 12 convertible -- starting at $1,199.99 XPS One 27 with touch -- starting at $1,599.99 Inspiron One 23 AIO with touch -- starting at $779.99 XPS 13 ultrabook -- starting at $999.99

Dell is also offering Windows 8 as an option on its current XPS, Inspiron, Latitude, OptiPlex and Precision brands -- which covers virtually all the company's major product brands. … Read more