Summary: Enjoy TWO episodes of The Geekcast! Show Notes for #343: News: Target reportedly signs on with rumored Google Shopping Express same-day delivery service Google's rumored same-day delivery service may already have one major partner on board. In an alleged internal letter printed by TechCrunch, Google says that it is "excited to open Google Shopping Express to every Googler in the Bay Area," listing partnerships with "Target, Nob Hill Foods, Babies 'R' Us, and more." TechCrunch has previously said that Google Shopping Express will be priced at $69 a year, and this email says that test subscriptions will include free same-day delivery for a year for Googlers, with deliveries priced at $4.99 apiece for non-members. Google has said it has nothing to announce at this time about Shopping Express, and we still don't know when the service might launch if it is indeed in testing. It has, however, openly made several moves towards bolstering its shopping services in the past year, and something like Shopping Express would help it compete with Amazon — it's said to have started testing same-day delivery late last year. Target, meanwhile, was a launch partner with eBay Now, another same-day delivery service that recently began expanding outside San Francisco. http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/12/4093974/target-reportedly-signs-on-with-google-shopping-express Sony retail stores slash Vita 3G price in the US After Sony officially dropped the price of the PlayStation Vita by about a third in Japan last month, Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida came out and said the US shouldn't expect a similar price drop. But US Sony retail stores seem to have a different idea about that, lowering the price of the more expensive 3G system by $100, to $199, ahead of a possible discontinuation of the cellular model. Joystiq was among the first to notice the price drop, which seems to be limited to a dozen or so of Sony's retail locations throughout the US. Store representatives at locations in Denver, New Jersey and Las Vegas told Joystiq the 3G unit was being discontinued, but other stores had not even registered the price drop yet. Sony's own online store is now showing a reduced price of $249, down from the original $299 price from just last night. Comparative sales for the 3G and Wi-Fi-only units aren't available for the US, but in Japan, the 3G model of the system is slightly more popular, according to recent data from Media Create. That may be due to both official and unofficial discounts provided by Sony and retailers on the 3G unit, which currently sells for the same suggested price as the Wi-Fi model in Japan. Sony has publicly admitted multiple times that overall Vita sales have been below expectations. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/sony-retail-stores-slash-vita-3g-price-in-the-us/ Microsoft backs away from Flash ban in IE10 Arguing that support for Adobe's browser plug-in is an advantage, Microsoft now permits Flash by default on Windows 8 and Windows RT. Tablets that can't run Flash are merely "a companion to a PC." An about-face in Internet Explorer 10 shows Microsoft is not merely backing off from its hostility toward Flash Player, but actually warming up to the Adobe Systems browser plug-in for competitive reasons. In September 2011, Microsoft declared that browser plug-ins are a relic from the Internet's early days, calling them bad for battery life, security, reliability, and privacy, and said that it would ban them when IE10 was running withWindows 8's Metro user interface, now called the "immersive UI." But Microsoft gave Flash a reprieve in May 2012 by building a special version of Adobe's plug-in directly into IE10. It only worked, though, on sites that were specifically authorized through a Microsoft whitelist when browsing with the immersive UI on Windows 8 and on either the immersive or traditional "desktop" interface on Windows RT. Yesterday,
