If you missed out on Wal-Mart's "PS3 plus US$ 100 gift card" deal last week, you have a second shot at it. Wal-Mart corporate confirmed recently that Wal-Mart stores would be giving out US$ 100 gift cards this week with the purchase of any Blu-ray player, including the PlayStation 3. Learn more after the jump!

HD DVD is taking yet another blow in the format war as Wal-Mart has announced that it will be going Blu-ray, and will be phasing out their HD DVD line of discs and players. More in the full article.

Stand-alone Blu-ray players may shave 20 percent off their price tags this holiday season to bring retail prices down to US$ 399. This is according to Sony Electronics president Steve Glasgow who spoke in a twice-a-year media round table meeting in New York as he answered speculative questions concerning the company's next-generation media format.

The rest of the news at the full article!

If you're looking for a sweet deal that will give you the last push you need to get an HD-DVD player, shopping moguls at Wal-Mart just might have the bargain for you this Friday. Toshiba's HD-DVD player, the HD-A3, will be on sale for US$ 199! A holiday season promo also puts Toshiba's HD-A2 DVD player at US$ 99, too.

Deal details follow at the full article.

Nintendo is king when it comes to innovation, what with the ingenious workings of the DS and the groundbreaking Wii. Behind the lines though are some other innovators that have their own quirky ideas of making a gaming device. What we found from website 4 color rebellion is a Wiimote that plays games. That's right, a stand-alone Wiimote gaming device.

Okay, so it's not exactly the Wiimote, but it's pretty much identical - notwithstanding the mini screen. This gizmo supposedly found in Wal-Mart's toy section plays a little football game on the LED screen. Apparently, the packaging even mentions motion controls - of course, we're not sure how that'd work, considering that the game screen is on the "Wiimote" itself...

Hot news yesterday, debunked rumor today. PC Magazine reports that Wal-Mart has denied rumors that it placed a substantial order with a Taiwan supplier for ultra-cheap HD-DVD players. The rumors, which centered on Taiwan-based consumer electronics manufacturer Fuh Yuan partnering with TDK in China to manufacture US$ 250 HD-DVD players surfaced earlier this week.

In an e-mail to PC Magazine, a Wal-Mart spokesman said that the rumor, which first appeared in AVS Forums and was picked up by other websites, "was full of inaccuracies and we had no participation in it. Most of the facts, including the purchase, were untrue."

The spokesman also added that she was "not sure how it originated," but declined to comment when asked about a statement appearing on Fuh Yuan's site, which, according to PC Magazine, implies the retailer is at least interested in ordering the players. Fuh Yuan, on the other hand, released the following statement in their website on Thursday:

We are sorry to correct the statement that we have two million HD-DVD players order from Wal-Mart and manufactured by China Great Wall Group. The actuality is that we had not received yet. We are asked to provide the schedule to Wal-Mart and cost to determine the quantity even more than two million, if the cost is good enough and timing is correct. So the capacity is under consideration. Any qualified manufactured base group will be welcome.

Wal-Mart is currently selling both Blu-ray and HD-DVD in their approximately 750 stores nationwide. If the retail giant decides to choose one format, though, it could very well be the death knell for the other.

Vilhelm sends us a tip about an intriguing little bit of information that could force retailers to turn the tide over to HD DVD as the winner of the format wars. Apparently, Wal-Mart leaked plans to bring in a large number of low-cost HD DVD players for Christmas.

The large shift towards selling low-cost HD DVD players for Christmas could increase HD DVD sales by a staggering amount. Given that studios count on support from huge retailers like Wal-Mart, it stands to reason that if Wal-Mart puts it foot down and chooses one format above the other, then studios will be increasingly pressured to adopt the retailer's choice or stand to lose money by supporting multiple formats.

Why the choice of HD DVD, however, when Blu-ray seems to be selling more? Rob Enderle of Digital Trends weighs in with this important insight:

For Wal-Mart the only real metric is cost... They needed something that could sell for under US$ 200 soon and they needed the lowest cost of the new formats. This is where HD DVD shines, not only had Toshiba agreed to license to low cost manufacturers early on, but HD DVDs are pressed on the same lines that regular DVDs are, they require no major equipment change out and the blanks, when compared to Blu-Ray are less expensive as well.

This made the decision simple, Blu-Ray was just too expensive to make this work and any technical advantages were insignificant against Wal-Mart’s need for the lowest cost offering. For them it is about price and that is where HD DVD clearly has the sustainable advantage.

Looks like the format wars are getting more interesting. As for which one's going to win, it's definitely going to be up to consumers like you to help influence that outcome.

If you're a collector and you have  model planes 4153 and 4161, you might end up seeing your RC plane burn up in mid-air and crash in a blaze of glory. 

Okay, maybe that's not so glorious, but the good news is it will happen less now as the manufacturers along with distributors Wal-Mart and Radio Shack are ordering a recall of 66,000 of the units.

To date, nine separate reports of these mishaps have been received and one injury was noted. Apparently, the rechargeable Lithium battery used to power the craft has some ion issues similar to laptop batteries. The results are sometimes explosive and always scary.

If you own one of these planes, immediately stop using them and call 800-576-5811, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (MT), from Monday to Friday. Estes-Cox will be happy to replace your model with a new and hopefully less explosive model.

Uh-oh. First it was the case of the porn-fied refurbished memory sticks, now it's the mystery of the supposedly-new-MP3-player.

A little boo-boo has happened recently: a Wal-Mart branch sold a Zune MP3 player to a couple. It all sounds innocent enough until the said couple gave the Zune to their 12-year-old daughter and the daughter told them that the player was loaded with almost two hour's worth of gay porn.

Okay, so maybe it's not such a little slip-up as we might want to think it is, as the incident was apparently deemed bad enough to earn coverage on Fox News. As stated in the news segment, another bad thing is that the couple paid for what they thought was a brand new device, until the daughter opened up the present and found out that someone had used it before her.

According to the couple, "The package looked like it had been opened before and the charger was missing." Wal-mart, on the otherhand, blames Microsoft for the incident, and has offered an investigation, a full refund, and a US$ 25 gift card, but the parents still seem pretty unhappy with the offer.

We know that there are limited edition Pink Zunes which are out there as a surprise for consumers, but we're wondering if the porn is part of Wal-Mart's Christmas surprise promo as well.

Yesterday, we reported that Wal-Mart inadvertently listed the price of Zune in their website for $ 284. Those who are actually planning to buy Zune might get a little bit confused on the pricing. But according to Gizmodo, the 30GB Zune will be available for for $ 229.99, slightly cheaper than Apple's iPod price of $ 249.

If this turns out to be true, then Zune may just become appealing to consumers. But more than the lower price, Zune does have some features that iPod currently doesn't have. One of which is the wireless connectivity. Still, we're not sure if the lower price can boost Zune's sales on the market. But whatever the outcome, one thing holds true, competition does drive down prices.