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It looks like Amazon started a trend last week when they announced their “Frustration Free Packaging” initiative, which boils down to the elimination of clamshell-style packaging for a lot of their top-sellers, and the introduction of more eco-friendly materials, like good old-fashioned (recycled) cardboard. According to The New York Times, a number of other companies, including Best Buy, Sony, and Microsoft are joining the club in eschewing heavy duty materials in favor of less aggressive ones. Anything that reduces our level of annoyance with the retail experience while pitching in to help out our increasingly threatened Mother Earth is something we’ll gladly get behind. And we’re pretty sure our dentist will agree.

Wave of mutilation ends as Best Buy, Sony and Microsoft take a stab at clamshell-free packaging initiative originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/valleywag/2008/10/kilar.png” width=”256″ height=”286″ align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ /Jason Kilar, the CEO of online-video site Hulu, has a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/media/29adco.html?_r=1ref=technologyoref=slogin”rediscovered a truism/a: less is more. Hulu, which is mostly owned by NBC and News Corp., runs fewer ads on the TV clips it licenses from its TV-network parents than they air when they broadcast the same shows. And yet the ads are more effective. This could simply be a novelty effect; everything about Hulu is new, so the ads also draw more notice. But Hulu may be onto something. Why don’t networks try running fewer ads on air, too? em(Photo via a href=”http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/06/newco_taps_amaz.html”Alarm:Clock/a)/em/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/valleywag/2008/10/kilar.png” width=”256″ height=”286″ align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ /Jason Kilar, the CEO of online-video site Hulu, has a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/media/29adco.html?_r=1ref=technologyoref=slogin”rediscovered a truism/a: less is more. Hulu, which is mostly owned by NBC and News Corp., runs fewer ads on the TV clips it licenses from its TV-network parents than they air when they broadcast the same shows. And yet the ads are more effective. This could simply be a novelty effect; everything about Hulu is new, so the ads also draw more notice. But Hulu may be onto something. Why don’t networks try running fewer ads on air, too? em(Photo via a href=”http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/06/newco_taps_amaz.html”Alarm:Clock/a)/em/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/commenter/130000/138197_300.jpg” width=”100″ height=”100″ align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″Is hogging elevators evil? a href=”http://valleywag.com/people/rhymephile/”RhymePhile/a is today’s featured commenter for a href=”http://valleywag.com/5070227/google-new-york-hit-by-cost-cuts#c8612730″suggesting/a that Google’s kitchen cutbacks could lessen the environmental impacts on fellow tenants of its New York office building:/p blockquotepGood. Cut down on those damn kitchen hours so those Google bastards don’t clog the elevators ALL DAY every day going between the eighth floor (where the lunchroom is) to their offices on 4, 6, and 10./p pYou can’t get out of this damn building some days!/p/blockquote br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/valleywag/2008/10/cramer-happy.jpg” width=”205″ height=”191″ align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ /Back when Jim Cramer was an active hedge-fund trader, rather than an on-air fit-thrower for CNBC, he kept his distance from TheStreet.com, lest the site be accused of advancing his portfolio. No such distance now: He’s replacing Thomas Clarke as chairman. Clarke remains CEO. [a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/thestreet-com-posts-surprise-loss-names-jim-cramer-chairman"Silicon Alley Insider/a]/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pobject type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” data=”http://how2heroes.com/swf/embed.swf” width=”494″ height=”470″param name=”wmode” value=”transparent” /param name=”movie” value=”http://how2heroes.com/swf/embed.swf” /param name=”FlashVars” value=”xml_file=http2F2F2Ftechniques3Fformat261224940773″ /param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always” //objectWith a focus on culinary arts, instructional video site How2Heroes has a fantastic library of video howtos on everything from a href=”http://how2heroes.com/videos/techniques/how-to-eat-a-lobster”a guide to eating lobster by a marine bioligist/a to this a href=”http://how2heroes.com/videos/techniques/pumpkin-carving-advanced”great primer on “etching” your Halloween pumpkin from user Chris Gould/a (in case you want to wow the neighbors with a href=”http://techyum.com/2008/10/pumpkin_nerd_alert.html”a Death Star Jack O’ Lantern/a). The videos are bright and clear; you can comment, rate and mark your favorites; and of course you can upload your own. div class=”related”a href=”http://how2heroes.com/”How2Heroes/a/div/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pembed src=”http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtvmusic.com:18123″ width=”494″ height=”418″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” flashVars=”dist=http://www.mtvmusic.com” allowFullScreen=”true” AllowScriptAccess=”never”/embedbr / Remember when MTV played music videos almost exclusively? Before the network figured out it was more profitable to run game shows hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and reality television? Those days are back with the new MTV Music site. Dead simple to search, even by music video director (for you a href=”http://www.mtvmusic.com/search/?term=brett%20ratner”Brett Ratner/a, a href=”http://www.mtvmusic.com/search/?term=spike%20jonez”Spike Jonez/a and a href=”http://www.mtvmusic.com/search/?term=michel%20gondry”Michel Gondry/a fans). And if you’ve been frustrated by major labels disabling YouTube embeds for the likes of Rhianna’s “a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8XC7idFyvE”Take a Bow/a,” aspiring Martha Quinns will be pleased to see a href=”http://www.mtvmusic.com/video/?id=229087″you can embed the version from MTV/a. The best part? a href=”http://developer.mtvnservices.com/”An API/a! The worst part? US only. [via a href="http://www.fimoculous.com/archive/post-5310.cfm"Fimoculous/a]/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/2008-10-28_141827.jpg” align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ width=”494″ height=”300″ style=”display:block;float:none;” /br Windows only: LastSharp is .NET based application that helps you download music from Last.fm. The Download Squad blog reports:br/p blockquoteLastSharp has a lot of useful options, including on-the-fly normalization with MP3gain, automatic scrobbling, cover downloading, and filtering. Downloads are automatically filed in a tidy Artist -gt; Album name folder structure./blockquote pOne important caveat, the program is in German but you can switch it to English after the first run. To change it, click the tab marked Erweiterte Einstellungen. Click the drop-down marked Deutsh and change it to English, then close and restart the program. Since the application author’s web site is in German, a href=”http://rapidshare.com/files/153395020/LastSharp037.rar”here is a direct link to the file/a. If you’re looking for a cross platform solution so you can save media streams on you Linux or Mac based box, check out previously reviewed a href=”http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-download/save-lastfm-streams-with-thelaststream-273032.php”The Last Ripper/a. LastSharp is a free download for Windows only./p div class=”related”a href=”http://dev.xscheme.de/lastsharp”LastSharp/a [via a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/10/27/lastsharp-silently-downloads-mp3s-from-last-fm-playlists/"Download Squad/a]/div br style=”clear: both;”/
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Web-video-for-guys startup is “laying off” 11 people, but hiring another 11 with different skills, according to its CEO, Keith Richman. Dude, that’s not a layoff — that’s a classic nutshot.