Summary: News: Uber: Roll out with Optimus Prime http://blog.uber.com/UberTRANSFORMERS World’s largest video game collection sells for over $750,000 When we first stumbled upon the auction for the Guinness-certified "World's Largest Video Game Collection" a few weeks ago, bidding had only reached $50,000, short of the auction reserve price. When the GameGavel auction came to a close late Sunday night, though, the price was significantly higher: $750,250 to be exact. According to the GameGavel price history, the bulk of the bidding action took place last Wednesday, as users "catch123" and "peeps_10091970" rapidly outbid one another from a starting point of $150,000. The final bid has yet to be publicly verified, though, so it's still possible this could be another hoax bidding situation similar to the one surrounding a $100,000 Nintendo World Championship cartridge auction earlier this year. If the sale goes through at this price, though, it will be among the largest single sales of video game items in history. It won't be the largest, though; a 7,000-game set, including "complete" game collections for 22 popular systems, reportedly sold for more than $1.2 million last year. Seller Michael Thomasson has said in interviews that he set a "regimented budget" averaging about $3,000 a year for the past 20 years to build up his collection of more than 11,000 games and 100 consoles. That's a pretty good return on investment for a part-time hobby and should hopefully go a long way toward helping Thomasson with the unspecified "family obligations" that led to the sale in the first place. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/06/worlds-largest-video-game-collection-sells-for-over-750000/ Amazon's big bet: How a smartphone intensifies war with Apple, Google The online retailer treads into new territory that will test its strategy of selling products at cost. When the Seattle e-commerce giant introduces its smartphone -- which is widely expected to happen at a company-hosted event on Wednesday -- it will be only Amazon's fourth device in the last seven years. But where its first three products have skirted the edges of mainstream consumer electronic devices -- an e-reader, a budget-priced tablet, and a streaming Internet TV box -- Amazon is now jumping straight into the heart of an industry with the most personal and critical of tech gadgets. In doing so, Bezos is escalating Amazon's fight against Apple and Google for control of the hearts and minds of consumers by combining a branded smartphone with a set of services available through its Prime premium membership. Amazon's anticipated foray into the smartphone world comes as its fellow tech titans have steadily expanded their own reach beyond devices such as PCs and smartphones, with Apple and Google -- as well as Microsoft and Samsung -- introducing an array of services. Their common goal: to power everything from thermostats to medical equipment to automobiles. "The great ecosystem war has begun," said Ben Schacter, an analyst with Macquarie Research. "This is going to be a long, hard war with many battles." For Amazon, it comes back to the smartphone, the one device many people won't leave home without, and its potential to be the remote control for all the other devices in our lives. The company likely sees it as the ultimate hook for its $99-a-year Prime service, which offers members two-day shipping, e-books, movie, and as of last week, a streaming music service. Bezos' bet is that Prime is more effective in keeping customers coming back to Amazon than any single device. http://www.cnet.com/news/amazons-big-bet-how-a-smartphone-intensifies-the-war-with-apple-google/ Nest Protect smoke detector returns from recall with a lower price Nest Labs’ Protect smoke detector is returning to store shelves two months after the company halted sales due to safety concerns. New Nest Protect devices will now be sold for $99,
