This past Saturday Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) has ended the restocking fee on electronics. The electronics includes notebooks, tablets, iPads, GPS, digital camera, and camcorders. Best Buy’s restocking fees used to be about 10-15%. According to SlashGear, Best Buy has eliminated the restocking fees charged to customers since November 17th too. [SlashGear]
Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) has filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission against Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) over its Xbox business. Motorola is claiming patent infringement against Microsoft. On October 1st, Microsoft had sued Motorola over patent infringement and filed a trade complaint as well. Microsoft said that Motorola was hiking royalty rates for parts that go into the Xbox. [SeattlePi]
Oliver Kreylos of University of California-Davis has been actively hacking away at the Microsoft Kinect to come up with some cool stuff. In this demonstration, Oliver used the output from two Kinects in a remote office to beam a 3D representation of another person. He then navigates around using a Wiimote. In the video above, you can see how Oliver put his Kinect hack to good use: a virtual light saber battle. [Engadget]
cshimala is a Flickr user that mounted a GoPro Hero HD camera on his windshield and then drove around Chicago. This is the outcome of that video with a mirror effect added to it. It almost feels like you are driving around a Chicago waterworld. [Gizmodo]
If you have a lot of money to blow on your photography addiction, the Leaf Aptus-II 12 80-megapixel camera is for you. The Aptus-II 12 was originally announced back in September and is now shipping. The Aptus-II 12 has a 53.7×40.3 mm sensor that is capable of 80-800 ISO range and 1.5 fps. On the back of the camera, there is a 3.5 touchscreen. The camera can take photos at 10,320 x 7,752 pixels. [Leaf Photography via Slashgear]
Samsung and Cricket has announced a new touchscreen device called the Suede. The Suede (SCH-r710) will have unlimited Muve Music Service. This phone will be available in January 2011 at a cost of $199. The unlimited Muve Music Service means that users will have unlimited access to songs, ringtones, and ringback tones. The Suede has a 3-inch touchscreen display, virtual QWERTY keyboard, HTML web browser, 3 megapixel camera, music player, and a 16GB microSD card slot. [Samsung Hub]
CityVille, the social game created by Zynga, has hit 47.9 million monthly active users in about 18 days. At this rate, CityVille may surpass FarmVille as the largest social game in a few days. FarmVille currently has 56.3 million monthly active users.
Peek develops handheld devices that lets you check e-mail, text, Facebook/Twitter, check RSS feeds, etc. Rather than from staying in the standalone hardware business, Peek is now getting into the software game. Peek CEO Amol Sarva said that their power-frugal software supports push-email and location-based services. Peek’s operating system is going to arrive on five phones next month. They are expecting to have their operating system on thirty more phones by next year. [GigaOM]