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Best Buy ads a-poppin' in 3D via your webcam
For those of us who are bleary-eyed on Sunday mornings, this Best Buy "3D" ad was an eye-opener. After beckoning you to its special website, first it asks for permission to access your webcam (you do have a webcam, don't you? Best Buy can help you with that. Ah, the wonders of advertising).
Once that gets straightened out, you hold the front page of Best Buy's Sunday newspaper ad up to your webcam's lens, and it appears that the Toshiba laptop pictured on the front jumps off the page. When you tilt the page from side to side or from front to back, the laptop appears to move around in different angles.
While this is a clever toy to play with on a Sunday morning, it sure as hell didn't make us want to buy a laptop from Best Buy. However, it did get us to write about it, so there's that. Maybe this is Best Buy's ham-handed way of fending off the buzz from its competitor, Radio Shack, which reportedly is in the midst of changing its name to "Shack" (look out Radio Shack, we think there's a basketball player already named that, unless you count off for spelling).
Anyway, maybe for its next trick, Best Buy will advertise its overpriced HDMI cables in 3D! And we won't buy those, either.
Via Best Buy in 3D
By Old Man Dotes at 12:35 PM ON 08/03/09
Having done business with Best Buy about 15 years ago, there's no f---ing way I would let them access my Webcam or anything else on my computers. I don't trust them even as far as I trust Steve Ballmer. What *else* were they ferreting out while you were letting them acces your Webcam?
By Giggity at 2:01 PM ON 08/03/09
Damn that was funny OldMan!
True..but funny!
By Dvice Reader at 4:02 PM ON 08/03/09
The Nissan cube has an ad you can send out for that does the same; also Popular Science had a cover with that kinda tech.
By PTRICKY at 10:35 PM ON 08/03/09
How I hate Best Buy. They lie, cheat, and steal.
By Giggity at 11:23 AM ON 08/04/09
@PTRICKY... did you date them or something?
How did they lie, cheat and steal from you?
Just curious so that I dont get taken.
By SmartShopper at 8:10 PM ON 08/07/09
I'm sure everyone has had a bad experience with a retailer, but they wouldn't have stayed in business for lying, cheating or stealing. Every store policy is written in black and white, and if you cant understand why they wont return your money on your broken MP3 player after the return date, then you probably shouldn't do business with anyone. I'd be willing to bet if you didn't act a fool in their store and treated them as if you wanted to help find a solution instead of demanding they fix something that may have been an honest mistake, they would go beyond store policy to help you.
By swirvbox at 12:51 PM ON 08/08/09
"Bummer you don't have a Webcam. Go get one at Best Buy!" Yeah.. right..
By bgilmore at 12:02 AM ON 08/09/09
Popular Science did something like this recently. Thier front cover made a wnd turbine pop out and you could move it around.
on your cellphone!
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bgilmore:
Popular Science did something like this recently. Thier front cover made a wnd turbine pop out and you could move i...More »