Tag: ECONOMY

Gamers might be a little lighter in their wallets these days, but that's not stopping them from playing till their fingers fall off. Not only are gamers spending more time in front of the television, they're getting more bang for their buck, too. A recent Nielsen study, called 'The Value Gamer: Play and Purchase Behavior in a Recession,' found that the number of hours people have spent playing ...

An easy equation: Weak economy means less disposable income, and less disposable income means less cash to spend on recreation, like video games. Don't forget the extraneous money pits, like add-ons, extras, and retreaded games. Defending the joystick jockeys, Wired has compiled ten ways that gamers get the 'financial shaft.' How can a developer offer in-game abilities only to gamers who ...

When times are tough, people turn to schemes and scams to solve their money woes. And as drivers are having an increasingly hard time dealing with gas-consuming vehicles that require monthly payments and insurance fees, some have fallen back on a good old-fashioned solution: insurance fraud by setting fire to, intentionally crashing, or ditching their own rides. The Los Angeles Times reports ...

Well, folks, the recession is officially in full swing. You know we're living in tough times when a full-grown man can no longer afford to indulge in his childhood fantasies (in this case, wearing a handmade costume and spending six figures on a matching airplane). That's just the situation Jay Maynard, a.k.a. Tron Guy, is facing, according to Wired. Maynard recently posted to eBay his ...

Frequent fliers, get back in line. Verified Identity Pass's (VIP) Clear, a subscription service that amazingly allowed travelers to bypass security checkpoints for a yearly fee, recently announced that yesterday would be its last day of operation. Despite having pulled in nearly 260,000 users at $199 each, Clear has shut down all 18 of its hubs, citing financial strain as its rationale. If that ...

If you're worried that your employer might be going belly up, check your e-mail. According to a report from New Scientist, companies facing economic struggles experience a boom in e-mail frequency about a month before they close up shop, a new study done at the Florida Institute of Technology claims. Researchers Ben Collingsworth and Ronaldo Menezes studied e-mail logs obtained by the Feds after ...

Microsoft has been trimming the fat recently, and not just by laying off employees. The company is ending entire product lines; 'Encarta,' 'Flight Simulator,' and 'Windows OneCare' have all bitten the dust, and now joining the list of deceased software packages is 'Money.' The personal finance program, which has been available online since last year, will be taken off the market at the end of ...

While humanity is increasingly living in urban areas, rural communities are still catching up when it comes to high-speed Web access. After all, being left out of the digital revolution isn't easy when it seems like everyone around the world is experiencing the wonder of online social networks and e-commerce. According to USA Today, farmers in Plains, Texas for instance want better broadband ...

If you've ever booked a flight through a site like Expedia or Orbitz, you're used to the unavoidable booking fees that get tacked on to the cost of your airline ticket. But everyone is hurting in this economy, including bargain-hunting, online travel agencies. According to Reuters, sites like Travelocity are attempting to lure back customers (who are cutting back on business and leisure travel) ...

Times are tough and the markets are way down. People are losing jobs, industries are collapsing, and nobody knows when it all will end. That's not stopping people from upgrading televisions, though; a newly published report covered by the AP shows that HDTV sales are soaring, despite all the economic uncertainty. According to sales figures released by iSuppli Corporation, 7.8 million flat-panel ...

According to Bill Gates, the key to digging the U.S. out of the recession is technology. Reuters reports that the former head of Microsoft told a group of high-level executives gathered at Microsoft's annual CEO summit, "the opportunities for innovation are stronger today than ever." Gates believes that the software and IT revolution are still in their formative stages -- and that it's up to IT ...

Apparently there is no recession at Pets Palace, an Australian pet store that specializes in high-end pet products such as plush beds, denim sneakers, and "doggy bling." Launched only two months ago, Reuters is reporting that the site's business has skyrocketed all the way up to at least 15 orders a day. Say what? Diana Costa, marketing director and founder of the site, attributes this success ...

Bad news for traditional phone companies: Apparently, the recession has only accelerated the move away from landline phones. Now, one in every five American homes has ditched their landline all together, and cellular-only households outnumber those relying exclusively on traditional phones. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of cell phone only homes jumped ...

Computing giant Microsoft has found itself at the center of a controversy surrounding the spending of federal stimulus money. Washington governor, Chris Gregoire, OK'd $11 million of stimulus money for a bridge in the town of Redmond that would connect two Microsoft campuses across a six-lane highway. Redmond Mayor John Marchione applied for the stimulus funds after the cost of the project ...

The Opinion Research Corporation recently released details of a survey that indicate that a previously unaffected industry -- the wireless industry -- may soon be feeling effects of the current recession. According to the survey, 39-percent of responders admitted that they will be "likely to cut back" on their cell phone activities over the next six months -- unwelcome news to wireless carriers ...