Black Friday’s Best Technology Deals

So its that time of year for everyone to eat tons of food, watch football and go nuts shopping the great deals that Black Friday is famous for. Tech-Exposed.com will give you a head start on the advertised tech and gadget deals that retailers are giving.

Best Buy on Tuesday announced that it will bolster its Black Friday deals with a $197 HP laptop.

Available in-store beginning Friday, Nov. 27, the HP laptop features an Intel Celeron 900 processor, 2GB memory and a 160GB hard drive.

It will be featured in Best Buy Black Friday preview ads today.

Best Buy’s Black Friday deals already featured a $249.99 Acer laptop, as well as extremely competitive Windows 7 netbook deals, including a $179.99 Compaq Netbook offering an Intel Atom Processor, 1GB memory and 160GB storage.

Fight Night 4 & Tiger Woods Pro Tour 10 wrecked shop and dominated UK game sales charts for the 2nd week in a row!!

In total, Electronic Arts software accounted for four of the top 10 titles for the week ending July 11, according to Chart Track. EA continues its conquest of the gaming world.

With the official introduction of a couple devices AT&T’s smartphone lineup is now better than ever. The new Nokia E71X brings WiFi, AT&T Navigator, and all of the physical design characteristics you’re used to from the original for just $99.99 with a contract after rebate.

There is also the Samsung Propel Pro, a smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.1. It’s got WiFi, a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard and will be available on April 14 for $149.99 after all your discounts have been applied and your two-year agreement is filed away.

Clear Channel’s own iPhone app, iHeartRadio, was downloaded more than 1 million times in the first 20 weeks it was made available to the public, the company said Monday.

So this Guy Gets Arrested Trying to Sell Paris’s Stolen iPhone

Marc Marrouche’s, a hotel manager, was arrested March 5, after the buyer who offered $5,000 for the phone ended up being an undercover cop, the Post reported.

His ex-girlfriend found the found in a New York nightclub in 2005, apparently left behind by Ms Hilton.

Marrouche could face a year in jail after being charged with criminal possession of stolen property. What a dumb ass.

Even the Mighty Microsoft Is Feeling the Reccession

Microsoft has announced that it will be cutting 5000 jobs in the coming 18 months. 1500 of which, will be cut immediately. They attribute these job loses to the PC market weakness.

Damn, who would have thought that even Microsoft could feel these tough economic times. This just goes to show that no one is safe in these global economic uncertain times. Lower Notebook prices combined with overall global economic hardship has brought about this decison from Microsoft.

stayed tuned for more news on MS reports

30GB Zunes Seem to Have a Bug

It seems that a random bug is affecting a bunch, if not every, 30GB Zunes. Real early this morning, a bunch of Zune 30s just stopped working. No official word from Redmond on this one yet but we might have a gadget Y2K going on here. Fan boards and support forums all have the same mantra saying that at 2:00 AM this morning, the Zune 30s reset on their own and doesn’t fully reboot. We’re sure Microsoft will get flooded with angry Zune owners as soon as the phone lines open up for the last time in 2008. More as we get it.

Windows 7 is more than just a rumor

We all knew it was coming, but now it feels real. With its debut to select developers in November, Windows 7 is no longer just a label but a real OS. And the public beta is expected this spring.

Those expecting a radical redo of Windows will be disappointed; Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and other company executives call it a fixed Vista. And a fixed Vista will be welcome to users who found the operating system’s security controls, new interface, and application compatibilities woes to be very off-putting. (Whether they’ll like the revamped Windows 7 UI remains an open question — it’s already received criticism.)

Your PC will like Windows 7 because by the time it ships in early 2010, the app compatibility issue will have resolved itself (by then, most apps will have been updated for Vista, which should make them work in Windows 7), the underlying platform will be much more stable and proven, and the revamped security interface should make it easier for IT to protect their businesses without worrying about users turning off security in protest — as happens in Vista.

With Windows 7, users can expect essentially the same performance as with Vista SP2, according to InfoWorld Test Center benchmarks. Given how much slower Vista was compared to Windows XP, that’s a positive development. In its “pre-beta” form at least, Windows 7 looks to notably boot faster than Vista does.

Windows 7 is more than just a more-mature Vista. Microsoft plans to add new technology such as yet another version of its taskbar, streamlined file lists called libraries, and touch support, as well as improve some Vista features such as desktop gadgets and its backup facility that could outdo Apple’s beloved Time Machine.

Yahoo Now has new Application for Blackberry Bold

Yahoo! Go, the ‘all-in-one’ application designed by Yahoo! to control your mobile experience, has been updated to version 3.0.47. This new version of Yahoo! Go includes support for the BlackBerry Bold. I’ve never tried Yahoo! Go (more of a Google fan, sorry), but the application allows you to send email, upload photos, check stock quotes, search for answers and get breaking news, so it might be worth checking out. You can download the free software at the link below.

4 Tech predictions to Look Out for in 2009

You can’t really blame technology executives and pundits for not wanting to go too far out on a limb in making prognostications and predictions about 2009.

The world tech companies will operate in will be pretty awful, but no one knows just how bad things will get: The global nature of the recession - and the dollars, euros and yuan governments are pumping into their local markets - simply is without precedent.

And it isn’t like Internet or even computing companies have a lot of experience with these sort of things: Economists argue that the world hasn’t seen a financial crisis this severe since the Great Depression, and back then, the only “tech” companies were making tabulating machines or selling phone lines.

Of course, every company that hopes to survive the current meltdown has to make some forecasts about the future.

We’ve asked various tech veterans to tell us what to expect in 2009. Not surprisingly, almost everyone believes big-ticket luxury items will suffer, especially in the consumer electronics space. The exception will be so-called “smartphones,” those high-end wireless devices such as Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone and RIM’s (RIMM) line of Blackberry products.

Many consumers in 2009 will upgrade from plain-old cell phones to gadgets that do e-mail and offer Web access, and they’ll increasingly buy special services or software especially designed for the mobile Web (think of the cool games and applications available on the iPhone App Store).

Beyond smartphones, the big sellers in tech will be products and services that help companies and consumers save money or work more efficiently. “Short term,” said Shane Robison, chief strategy and technology officer of Hewlett-Packard. “Everybody is focused on how do I get the most bang for my buck.”

With businesses and consumers adopting more cheapskate ways, here are four tech trends to count on in the new year.

Spiraling netbooks
The computer industry now ships more portable computers such as laptops than desktops, and an increasingly important part of the mix will be mini-notebook computers, known as netbooks. Industry sources say computer makers will sell more than 11 million netbooks worldwide in 2008, up from just around a million in 2007, and netbook sales could easily double in the new year.

The appeal of these stripped-down portables (no DVD drive, a lot less processing power) clearly is their equally stripped-down price. Market leaders ASUS and Acer, both based in Taiwan, offer sub-$300 netbooks, and U.S. manufacturers Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) and HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) have netbook offerings of their own.

The affordability of netbooks makes them an ideal solution in emerging markets, but analysts think the minis will also appeal to cost-conscious consumers in the United States.

Netbooks “are something to watch in a downturn,” said Phil Asmundson, national managing partner of Deloitte’s technology, media and telecom practice. “A lot of functionality of a computer goes unused, and netbooks are a good alternative.”

Hey, you, get onto my cloud
Evangelists such as Salesforce.com (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff have been predicting for years a revolution in so-called cloud services and computing, in which software and other applications are delivered to end-users over networks, or “the cloud.” This may be the year Benioff and the cloud crowd are proven right.

Corporate cloud computing is getting a big boost from consumers who already get a fair number of services via the Net. Photo-sharing sites are great examples of cloud services, as is just about any service that lets consumers store data or information anywhere but their computer or mobile phone. “In the consumer space it isn’t hype,” said HP’s Robison. “It’s actually quite far along.”

Remember how consumers’ adoption of Wi-Fi forced companies to figure out ways to let workers connect to their corporate networks wirelessly? Workers who use lots of cloud services in their personal lives, too, are going to start wondering why software and other applications have to be tied to a specific device, or housed on a database at the company.

The terrible economy will also help. Software-as-a-service companies have long promoted themselves as more capital-efficient alternatives to installed software solutions. Instead of financing a big software purchase and installation, companies can “pay as they go” under the cloud services model.

“The capital crunch of 2009 will put a spotlight on the advantages of cloud computing: less risk, no capital expenditure, predictable operating expenses and fast results,” predicted Salesforce’s Benioff. “I believe that will translate into greater adoption for both cloud computing applications and platforms.”

Virtualization becomes reality
Like cloud computing, “virtualization” helps companies reduce the cost of operating machines such as servers. The technology basically allows a single piece of hardware to run systems or applications that previously had run on multiple machines - essentially allowing companies to squeeze more out of existing hardware and even defer new purchases.

Virtualization has only been around in earnest for about three years, says Dell senior vice president Paul Bell, but he thinks corporate customers are starting to embrace it. (Dell is in the process of virtualizing 9,000 of its own corporate servers, an undertaking that Bell estimates is one of the 10 largest virtualization projects going right now.)

Virtualization also benefits from corporations’ efforts to be more environmentally friendly. Neither companies nor environmentalists are thrilled with the energy consumed by server farms, those sometimes sprawling data centers that house thousands of humming computers. By reducing the need to additional servers, corporations save money and gain some “green” cred, too.

Girls (and guys) just wanna have fun
Yes, the economy is terrible and money is tight, but consumers will spend in 2009 on a few fun games and gadgets, says Kumu Puri, a senior executive with Accenture’s electronics and high-tech practice. New gaming systems such as Nintendo’s Wii have invigorated the console space, but Puri thinks handheld gaming systems like Nintendo’s DS will also do well in the new year.

And no matter how bad things get out there, American consumers are unlikely to part with their broadband connections, an Accenture study found. Indeed, they are more likely to get rid of cable television channels (once considered practically a utility) or their mobile phones than their high-speed Internet connections. “It is absolutely recession-proof,” she said

See the entire story here at CNN