GameStop Online Orders

When video game and consumer electronics retailer GameStop Corp. began to test shipping online orders from stores in March 2015 it quickly realized that the new fulfillment option would help drive more online orders by presenting customers—gamers eager to snap up rare, vintage or hard-to-find video games—with a much wider assortment of products, says Richard Armour, senior director of multichannel for GameStop.

Because GameStop, No. 45 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide allows its avid gaming clientele to buy, sell and trade video games at it stores, GameStop stores have greater product variety than its warehouses, Armour says. That includes vintage and rare video games, Armour says.

Once the retailer realized the potential of shipping products from stores, it knew it needed more robust technology to run such a program. The in-house system it used for its test wouldn’t work.

“We started with a homegrown solution,” Armour says. “It was pretty scrappy and we needed something to support [ship from store] on much larger scale. It very quickly became apparent this would be a key pillar of our omnichannel strategy as it significantly increased our online assortment.”

The retailer decided to use a service from vendor eBay Enterprise, an e-commerce services provider that has since been renamed Radial, to implement ship from store at its 4,000 GameStop locations. It began rolling out the fulfillment option to stores in October 2015 and completed the project in February 2016, says Jay Rodriguez, manager of the operations team at the retailer.

New Tesla Battery

Tesla on Tuesday unveiled new versions of its Model S electric vehicle with a larger battery that makes it one of the fastest-accelerating production cars in the market today. Equipped with a 100 kWh battery, it’s said that the Model S P100D with Ludicrous mode will clock 0 to 60 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds, making it slower only than the LaFerrari and the Porsche 918 Spyder.

The company’s newest battery will also be available on the Model X SUV. Based on its tests, Tesla estimates that it both vehicles will have increased ranges, with the Model S getting 315 miles and the Model X going 289 miles.

It’s reported that the Model S P100D will start at $134,500, while the updated Model X will be around $135,500. Furthermore, initial production runs of the updated battery are said to be “limited” to 200 packs per week, meaning that it’ll be a while until Tesla is able to offer the enlarged batteries elsewhere.

Customers who have ordered the Model S P90D with Ludicrous mode, but who haven’t yet taken possession, can upgrade to the 100 kWh battery for $10,000. If you have received your vehicle, you can pay $20,000 for the updated battery, but will also need to recycle your used 90 kWh pack.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Sales

Better-than-expected demand for Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's new Galaxy Note 7 is causing supply constraints globally, the South Korean tech giant said on Wednesday, suggesting strong initial sales for the new premium smartphone.

While robust demand could help deliver another solid quarter of earnings, Samsung also risks missing out on potential sales if it cannot boost supply quickly. Rivals such as Apple Inc are poised to launch new phones which could pull customers away from Samsung if a shortage persists.

"As pre-order results for the Galaxy Note 7 have far exceeded our estimates, its release date in some markets has been adjusted," Samsung told Reuters in a statement without commenting on where launch delays could occur.

Production problems for the curved displays for the Galaxy S6 edge phone resulted in disappointing sales last year, and some investors fear a repeat if the world's top smartphone maker does not move quickly to meet Note 7 demand.

Samsung shares were down 2 percent as of 0339 GMT Wednesday after hitting a record high on Tuesday, while the broader market was down 0.3 percent.

Samsung said it was trying to boost production at the secret locations where the Notes are made, and aimed to meet demand "as early as possible". It gave no further details.

World Pentax Day

Pentax Forums will be celebrating its 10th birthday on September 7th, and next World Pentax Day event will take place at the same time!

We'd like to invite you to go out and shoot between September 6th and 8th, and upload photos to a collective gallery (featuring an inveractive map).  All the details can be found below:

Learn More about World Pentax Day

A Great Offer

If you use a desktop and have a free PCI-e slot then this may be for you.

Rosewill will be offering their RNX-N150PCe Wireless Wi-Fi Adapter on Newegg.com at a discounted price of $8.99 plus free shipping (originally listed for$21.99).  The link is below will take you to the deal. @rosewill @rosewillinc

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166047&Tpk=33-166-047

This offer is only available from August 30th until September 5th.

Amazon Music

Amazon is working on two new music streaming services that could be available as soon as next month, a source told Recode.

One service would be an economical, all-you-can-eat offering: $10 per month to stream from Apple Music, Spotify, and others from any device. Music streaming services like Apple Pay and Spotify ask customers to spend $10 a month to receive unlimited streaming music.

The other — more interesting — service would be available only on the Amazon Echo and cost just $5 per month. While ad-free and providing unlimited access to its music library, the service would not be available from smartphones or other devices. Such an offering speaks to Amazon’s devotion to developing Echo as a platform for new services

Amazon may launch the new services in September, though the company has yet to finalize deals with major music companies, the source said.

The Amazon Echo became available last spring and sold three million units in its first 18 months. Amazon hopes to sell about 10 million of them in 2017, according to The Information.

AMD Zen Chip

AMD knew it needed to make radical changes in its Zen CPU chip to become a force in the PC and server markets again.

So when the chip designers sat down four years ago to etch out the Zen design, they had two things in mind: to drive up CPU performance as much as possible and to keep power efficiency stable.

The company ultimately settled for a 40 percent improvement in Zen over its predecessor, Excavator.

“We had a hard time convincing the team we were going for 40 percent,” said Mike Clark, a senior fellow at AMD. “It was a very aggressive goal, and we knew we had to do it to be competitive.”

AMD first promoted the 40 percent CPU improvement goal when it introduced Zen in 2015 during an overhaul of its chip roadmap. The company recently demonstrated Zen chips to prove it has achieved the goal.

If benchmarks of PCs with Zen hold, a 40 percent boost in CPU performance will be a radical improvement compared to low-double digit improvements claimed by Intel and AMD in recent x86 chips.