In case you haven’t gone into a Starbucks [SBUX] store lately, there’s been a change to the look of the joint media offering card format.

Not to be outdone by other e-tailers and even brick-and-mortar retailers, Amazon.com [AMZN] has furthered its reach, since the “online” Black Friday deals and yesterday’s Cyber Monday sale… by adding yet more deals as the winter holiday sales season rages onward, toward the inevitable Christmas splurginess (yeah, not really a universally recognized term yet, but since it’s coined here: it means the act of generating excess or overwhelming abundance) of sales attempts.

Cyber Monday’s momentum is being carried forward by Cyber Week, which is Amazon’s extension of their Lightning sales offers until the end of this week.

And for the video gaming crowd, there are the Seventeen Days of Deals in Video Games, leading up to that unofficial shipping cutoff deadline date of December 16, 2010, when it will be ostensibly very difficult to guarantee a decent delivery on Christmas Day.

And these are in addition to the other promotions that Amazon regularly runs, like the Gold Box deals, for instance.

Good times, folks, good times… Just make sure your credit card is ready to roll!

“What?!? An Xbox 360 for serious business use?”

Yep, that’s right, gentle readers: a Microsoft [MSFT] Xbox 360 with a properly configured Kinect sensor… for use by businesses.

While this may not be the disruptive change leader for 2010 (although, then again… maybe it is), this certainly is an attractive video conferencing option for business and at the least, it may be a disruptive game changer.

Problems for Home, Advantages for Business

While home use for Kinect may be problematic, especially for the hardcore gamers who have been wondering whether there will be any play (literally and figuratively) for them, some of those same issues seen by potential home users may be benefits to business users. Here are some reasons:

Space, Space, Space…

A big requirement for Kinect is the need for the sensor array to map out a sizable floor space grid. In many living rooms, this is a problem, particularly for potential users who live in apartments and small homes. This is not a matter of total floor space, but clear floor space.

But many businesses have meeting rooms that may be easily cleared to allow the Kinect sensors to properly calibrate itself.

What’s That Racket?

The audio requirements for Kinect may be problematic in noisy households. But, again, calibrating for businesses can easily be accomplished in a quiet conference room, or as is typical for many IT departments, performed overnight or after-hours when the majority of office workers are gone (and it makes additionally a convenient time to hop online to do some mega-multi-player deathmatches, since the Xbox 360 is sitting there anyway).

An early press image of the preliminary "Project Natal" form of the Kinect sensor. In the background is an earlier version of the Xbox 360 White console.

Motion Tracking and Presentations

This feature may or may not be as important for some businesses, but the ability for the Kinect sensor to pan somewhat may be quite favorable for many business purposes, especially for presentations and large gatherings. While privacy and convenience issues may arise for home/gaming uses (after all, who wants to see that naked roommate wandering around in the background as your buddy is chatting with you?), having the sensor track your business presenter and capture all of the nuances of his or her presentation skills and style may help your company successfully close a deal or effectively collaborate on team projects.

Cost: The BIG Deal

While it is up for debate whether $150 for a full motion tracking device accessory fits in a household’s affordability range, especially in these dire financial times, it is quite another matter for businesses, who have been confronted with expensive, videoconferencing “solutions” from various vendors. Contrast those multi-thousand-dollar options, sometimes requiring dealing with multiple vendors to get a “complete” solution, with a $400 USD package with a Xbox 360 console and a Kinect sensor from a well-known single manufacturer, with a simple do-it-yourself installation and configuration procedure. Taking these points into account, it is clear that provisioning several remote offices, or even allowing employees to video-commute from home or other locations, becomes several orders of magnitude more economical than other “strictly business” videoconferencing options.

Combining the use of Kinect technology for team-based videoconferencing with more personal or “quicky pickup” video conversations with Apple’s [AAPL] iChat AV and FaceTime technologies makes the potential for a fully distributed workplace even more realizable and cost-effective.

Apple’s [AAPL] lockstep dance with AT&T [T] as its exclusive 3G service provider may be ending, with Verizon [VZ] showing up to the dance hall seemingly first.

So what’s a mobile data services consumer going to do?

Rumors, Lies, and Damn Lies

Like many of you, we’re certainly curious about the outcome next year for the still-as-of-yet-not-finalized-and-publicized Verizon version of Apple’s  iPhone product, which has been heavily rumored to be shipping early 2011. Certainly, this indicates that this coming winter holiday season represents the last time that AT&T will be able to fully capitalize on its exclusivity deal with Apple for the iPhone product.

But, there’s another portable IT device that has really captured the hearts and imaginations of the computing public: Apple’s iPad. Initially seen as just a “toy” or a trivial curiosity by many of the so-called industry pundits as well as Apple’s perceived competitors, the iPad is now identified as a serious contender as both a mainstream consumer and business mobile device. Even in certain industry segments, like medical and legal specialties, the iPad has made significant inroads in adoption and acceptance, given its form factor and feature set.

But, like the iPhone before it, the iPad has been locked into a 3G wireless net by AT&T. However, unlike the iPhone, the iPad also has Wi-Fi versions that has proven wildly popular, and given a lot of people’s avoidance of the AT&T network and the increasing ubiquity of Wi-Fi coverage by various vendors and free coverage areas sponsored by various organizations, it is this variant of the iPad that may prove to be the best option for the majority of interested parties.

Verizon: Enter, Stage Left

So, many of you have heard about the recent Verizon offering for the iPad, and that the iPad would be sold starting on October 28, 2010. But you may be wondering why Apple bothered to squeeze CDMA-style 3G into the iPad but not the iPhone, at least not as its first device with Verizon.

Answer: Apple didn’t.

Instead, Verizon is offering one of its MiFi pocket routers with any of the different capacity Wi-Fi iPads (with a service plan to boot, ‘natch).

Of course, this means that if you are interested in adding a “take-it-with-you” Wi-Fi capability to your iPad, you probably can just get a MiFi router and service plan from Verizon. The question is, of course, whether it makes sense for Verizon to bother subsidizing the cost of the iPad in order to sell more plans and MiFi routers… Business-wise, to garner a significant mind- and user-share of current and future iPad users, the solution to be to merely give the iPads away for $0.00, once some sort of multi-year commitment for the MiFi data plan was established, or even bundle it with an existing smartphone plan.

AT&T: Enter, Stage Right

Not to be outdone, AT&T has announced that it will also start selling iPads in their stores on October 28, 2010. But since Apple has already been offering both the Wi-Fi only and the 3G+Wi-Fi versions of the iPad online and via its retail stores, there does not appear to be any significant improvements in service. So, unlike the Verizon offering, the AT&T offering does not offer the consumer any way to share a Wi-Fi connection with other devices, despite the cost of the service plans available.

Conclusion: The Management Perspective

This is one of those developing stories that may have an unexpected twist, in a matter of days or even weeks. Since the iPad is a Wi-Fi capable device, any service provider or alternative offering a compelling mobile Wi-Fi hotspot feature at an outrageously reasonable price point would easily become the darling of mobile digital consumers. Since the market, domestically and worldwide, is in such critical demand for a reasonable data service plan to match the iPad and the upcoming lineup of its potential competitors, this is an area where the service provider that re-scales data transfer pricing down to a realistic, affordable level and initiates the customer conversion to its network will be the winner.

In tandem with many Apple [AAPL] product announcements, especially in a live conference format, the online Apple Store tends to be taken offline. When it comes back online, it tends to have the new product SKUs, detail pages, and order pages (or in some cases, pre-order pages).

This time, it appears that it is following tradition for today’s product announcement:

Yep, the Apple Store appears to be offline...

At this time, about 0.5 hours before today’s media event, the Apple Store is– you guessed it– offline.

N.B.

So you want to check to see if you can get into the Apple Store? Okay, try this link.

The Setup

For a few years now, Starbucks [SBUX] has been offering free Wi-Fi access to two groups of people: qualified AT&T wireless customers, and Starbucks Card holders. While it has worked well for the “in” people, it has been a point of mild consternation for those who have not been inclined to get a Starbucks Card or become an AT&T customer. Over the course of the years since the free Wi-Fi service was unveiled (and the switch from T-Mobile [DT] to AT&T as the wireless provider), I’ve noticed people approaching the Starbucks staff asking how they can get access to the Wi-Fi router, to be told that they need to sign up for the Starbucks Card and register online to get it. Of course, for many of these otherwise-Starbucks customers, signing up for the Starbucks Card has– for a variety of unspecified options– just not been an option, and so they’ve left the premises after making their latte purchases.

The Premise

But as more retail chains offer free Wi-Fi, like Panera [PNRA] and McDonald’s [MCD] and Borders [BGP], and even AT&T stalwarts like Barnes & Noble [BN], it has become increasingly obvious that keeping a cohort of customers happy and connected on-premises translates to a variety of upsells and continued purchases, depending on the locale and customer demographics. And perhaps even more important, retaining the casual customers and converting them to regulars in the ever-tightening coffee wars is crucial to Starbucks’ continued success, so finally broadening their free Wi-Fi access to all customers is a necessity.

And it appears that Starbucks will execute on this requirement shortly.

The Action

So, when does the new Wi-Fi policy at Starbucks start?

July 1, 2010.

So, folks, get your Wi-Fi antennae revved up on your MacBooks, MBPs, netbooks, iPod touches, and iPads!

N.B.

Here are other Javamancy related posts, in reverse chronological order:

• Quest for Fire and Wi-Fi Access
• Overwhelming Response to Starbucks Free Wi-Fi Deal
• Starbucks Card

In the wake of the FTC approval coming down the ‘pike for Google’s [GOOG] deal to acquire AdMob, Google changes its main page to include a functional online Pac-Man game in place of its customary Google logo. This commemorates Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary, and curiously, the game map spells out “Google”…

You just want to do some quick googling, and this is what you see today...

... But wait! The game looks like it just refreshed with the "Start" message. Is it really the game?

Oh, yeah! It's a live online Pac-Man! Let's get those pellets! And those ghosts! Yum!

So if you’re in the mood to play a bit o’ Pac-Man, give it a whirl… on Google’s quarter.

Ooh, it's General Knoxx calling-- er, tweeting... hmm...

Just when you thought you’d be able to keep your fictitious game characters separate from your, ahem, characters, there’s a bit of bleedthrough, as reported at Destructoid, about General Knoxx and his newly discovered Twitter account.

It looks like he’ll be taking a bit of a tweeting breather for an unspecified bit. It’s likely that the activity will resume as the launch date for “his” content approaches.

N.B.

Yes, yes, we know: it’s a good way to drum up interest in the third Borderlands DLC, which still hasn’t materialized yet.

Still, getting a Twitter account for one of your game’s NPCs… Is this just a fad, or a new trend? And who is “alphonso”, again?

• General Knoxx’ Twitter page (as “GeneralKnoXX”, or Alfie to his buddies)

And what is Gearbox Software’s fascination with two X’s in names, anyway?

As I’m tracking a variety of media channels at the same time as the Apple [AAPL] iPad announcement, I find it curious as to how the human condition, and certainly all of these so-called tech pundits, keeps wanting to compare new tech with old tech.

When I’ve been using the iPod touch in the practice, I kept thinking, “Yeah, the iPod touch is nice, but I really could use a larger touchscreen, and some more compute power”. But all of these “pundits” keep talking about netbooks and cheap 13″ notebooks and iPhones and BlackBerry devices… But given that my needs are more specialized (and some of you will call them “advanced”), the iPad may be the missing link in my product usage roster.

Something that fits the 8.5″x11″ form factor with a much thinner profile. Something that allows me to use my hands, enclosed in disposable nitrile and latex gloves, along the touchscreen. Something that does not require me to have an attached, or even wireless, keyboard and mouse to manipulate the viewpane and enter data. Something that allows me to quickly retrieve data from the Internet as well as my LANs, wirelessly. Something that lets me manage scheduling and patient data quickly and conveniently.

I’m not looking for a Kindle or mere e-reader. I’m not looking for a BlackBerry. I don’t need an iPhone in my office, or my lab, or my practice rooms. I don’t need yet another notebook with the keyboard and mouse/touchpad.

Certainly, I need to get a hold of an iPad to see if it really lives up to my requirements. But next to the Axiotron Modbook, this may be the frontrunner.

During the holiday season, there’s always that frantic search for that cool, new gadget to give your friend or significant other, who happens to be a technical bent.

And, like it or not, there is always that discussion about what should be the “latest and greatest” from Apple [AAPL]… It seems to have escalated during the holiday season, despite the typical timeframe for Apple product announcements starting in mid-Januarys (generally at least twice a year, sometime in January and in September). There was quite some frustration and confusion this past September, since there was no news about a Mac tablet.

But never fear: if you want/need a tablet-based Mac, there’s still Axiotron’s Modbook. For many folks who are getting a new Mac or MacBook this holiday season who already have a MacBook, this may be a pleasant extra gift for yourself: transforming your MacBook into a Modbook.

One thing you should consider, however, is that you are exchanging a “regular” notebook for a tablet notebook. Although the display surface now becomes your main input interface as well, it shares many common characteristics with a portable computer. If you are looking for something significantly different, in terms of functionality, you may be forced to consider an iPod touch (despite its much smaller size factor) instead.