Best Buy remains in MCX group despite move toward Apple Pay

It’s not clear whether the retailer will ever adopt CurrentC mobile payments

Best Buy explained Tuesday that it will support Apple Pay mobile payments, while also remaining a member of the MCX group of retailers that has promoted an alternative payment system called CurrentC.

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"We want to give our customers as many options as possible in how they pay for goods and services at Best Buy," said a Best Buy spokesman.

Best Buy used similar language in its announcement of Apple Pay support yesterday, but it wasn't clear whether the firm would abandon MCX or its CurrentC payment approach.

Asked whether its support for Apple indicated Best Buy won't back MCX and CurrentC, the spokesman said only, "We remain a member in MCX." It isn't clear that remaining an MCX member means Best Buy will ever launch CurrentC.

Playing Switzerland does make the most sense for Best Buy, as Apple Pay has steadily gained prominence, with 67 retailers and more than 700,000 merchant locations, with 14 more retailers on the way.

And, Best Buy evidently wants to continue its allegiance in some form as a founding member of Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), which is comprised of 62 retail chains. The founders, including retail giant WalMart, have been opposed to paying swipe fees of 2% or more to banks that use credit cards. (Apple Pay relies on Visa, MasterCard, American Express and, as of yesterday, Discover as well as the banks associated with those cards.)

Apple Pay relies on Near Field Communications (NFC) technology for mobile payments at both point-of-sale terminals and in its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S phones as well as the new Apple Watch.

CurrentC could eventually use NFC, but trials of the technology have relied on QR codes and Bluetooth. MCX now plans to launch an early version of its CurrentC mobile payment app mid-year in an unnamed, mid-size market.

Best Buy has not turned on NFC payments in newer payment terminals in any of its stores since 2011, the spokesman said Tuesday. "We will have NFC terminals at all 1,400 US stores when we roll out Apple Pay in stores later this year," he explained. He refused to discuss Best Buy's position regarding swipe fees.

In reaction to the move, MCX Chief Operating Officer Scott Rankin said via email that "Best Buy remains a strong MCX partner and supporter of the CurrentC initiative.... We understand, and strongly support, our merchant partners' quest to do what's best for their customers."

Rankin suggested CurrentC can co-exist with Apple Pay, stating, "We are of the firm belief that there needs to be at least two to three major players within the mobile payments ecosystem for it to succeed. We remain steadfast and passionate about CurrentC."

Rankin said that all MCX merchants agree to use CurrentC exclusively, but said those provisions include expiration dates and "are limited in both time and scope."

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Microsoft and Yahoo shake up their search deal

Tweaked agreement gives Yahoo more flexibility, possibly in images or mobile

Nearly six years after Microsoft and Yahoo inked a search partnership, the companies are extending their agreement while changing it up a bit, as well.

The companies announced today that they have amended their search partnership. However, the deal now notes that Yahoo will have more flexibility to update its "search experience" on any platform.

Yahoo reported that it will continue to serve Bing ads and search results for a majority of its desktop search traffic. The company did not specify whether Bing ads and search will be used for the majority of its mobile search traffic.

The new agreement also notes that the two companies' sales teams will be integrated with their engineering teams to better meet advertiser demand.

"Over the past few months, [Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella] and I have worked closely together to establish a revised search agreement that allows us to enhance our user experience and innovate more in our search business," said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. "This renewed agreement opens up significant opportunities in our partnership that I'm very excited to explore."

In 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo launched the initial deal that called for Microsoft's Bing search engine to do all of the search work for Yahoo's site. That agreement also called for Yahoo to sell premium search advertising services for both companies.

Analysts said at the time that the two companies were joining forces to better take on search foe Google, which dominates the market.

Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft Bing have put major dents in Google's search share, however.

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with ZK Research, said the new agreement could give Yahoo the flexibility it needs to try more options that draw in new search users. "It looks like this means Yahoo will be able to take those search results and use them in different ways," he said. "For example, it could potentially sell [results to] another site... or Yahoo could build it into different portals or mobile applications. It could be a way of boosting revenue."

The latest agreement also could allow Yahoo to use Bing for different kinds of searches, according to Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research.

Instead of using Bing for just typical searches --o is Aaron Hernandez?" or "What is a gyrocopter? -- Yahoo could put more focus on image or social searches. And with users increasingly searching on the go, Yahoo could very well be looking to do more for mobile users.

Gottheil also noted that the agreement will benefit Microsoft.
"First, I think Yahoo has something up its sleeve, either in search or packaging of search," he said. "And Microsoft is going to be making Bing kind of ubiquitous on Windows 10. If people like what Bing does there, they may choose Yahoo as a place to leverage what Bing has learned about them on Windows 10. It helps both companies."

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Acer Chromebook 15 review: Massive display, with mixed results overall

I used the Acer Chromebook 15, which boasts the largest screen of any Chromebook, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet.

Over the past few months I've had the opportunity to review two laptops. Both of them being… rather beefy: the Chromebook Pixel and the Dell M3800. These two machines are powerhouses – sporting extremely high-resolution screens and high-end processors – with price tags to match. But then, this past week, the delivery man dropped off an entirely different category of laptop: the Acer Chromebook 15.

The model I have here is the CB5-571-C09S, sporting a 15.6-inch display (with a 1080p resolution), an Intel Celeron CPU (at 1.6GHz), 4GB of RAM, and a 32GB SSD. All of which costs $350 retail.

I'm going to come right out and say it – I've had a difficult time figuring out exactly how I feel about this laptop.

On the one hand, it has a huge display, the biggest of any Chromebook ever made. It may not come even close to the resolution of Google's Pixel, which rocks 2560x1700, but the Acer's 15.6-inch screen makes the Pixel's sub-13-inch screen look tiny by comparison. This is a big freaking laptop screen.
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The screen quality, it should be noted, is pretty nice. The viewing angles aren't quite as good as the Pixel (or the Dell M3800's 4K display), but it's not bad either. And, considering the massive price difference between the Acer and those other laptops ($350 for the Acer vs. over $2,000 for the Dell and over $1,000 for the Pixel), that reduction in quality is actually not as dramatic as you might expect.

The guts of the machine (CPU, RAM, and hard drive) are all excellent… for a $350 machine. If you sit down and compare the specs of this relatively gargantuan-sized Chromebook against a Pixel, you will be disappointed. But when you remember that you can buy three of these Acer laptops for the cost of a single Pixel, things start to look (a lot) more interesting.

Is the Acer Chromebook 15 a speed demon? No. It isn't exactly decked out with the latest and greatest i7 processor. But it's no slouch, either. In fact, I very rarely experienced any sluggishness with this machine. Even with a large number of tabs open and Google Play Music streaming some tunes in the background, the entire system was peppy and responsive.
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And, let's be honest, in a Chromebook that's really what you care about: lots of Chrome tabs, background audio, and playing either a YouTube or Netflix HD video clip. This little Acer (did I just call this mega-sized laptop "little"?) can handle all of that without slowing down in the slightest.

The battery life is pretty solid as well. Acer claims around nine hours of battery life. I drained the battery (from completely charged down to nothing) in around eight hours. But that was fairly heavy usage with music playing in the background the majority of the time (one does want to rock out while reviewing hardware, after all). Eight hours of battery life on a gigantic 15.6-inch screen seems really solid to me.

So, what's the problem? It sounds like I've just described a pretty doggone great laptop at a super low price. If I stopped right there, purchasing this Chromebook is a no-brainer.

But, instead of stopping there, let's talk about the build quality for a minute.

When I first unpacked the box, and pulled out this large white laptop, I was struck by something… profound.

This machine is… profoundly plastic.

The model I have here is white. Solid white. With a subtle crisscross embossing patterning covering the entire outside.

The plastic isn't the fancy kind of plastic, either. It's the kind of plastic that many of my toys from the 1980's were made with. The kind where, when you tap on it with your fingernail, it makes that distinct "just tapped on a plastic toy" sound. In other words: it feels cheap.

When you open the lid and look at the keyboard, the initial impression is a positive one. The keyboard is certainly full laptop-sized. Typing on the keys feels good… for the most part. Typing aggressively on the keyboard – which I tend to do – results in a sound not unlike banging on a small plastic drum. Or, if you had an original Nintendo Entertainment System, the sound when you knocked on the top of it. That "hollow plastic shell" sound. That's the sound that banging on this keyboard makes. It's not loud, and it's not obnoxious, by any means. But it sounds cheap.

That's a weird thing to say in a laptop review, I know. "It sounds cheap when you tap on it." But it's true. And it's noteworthy. And it begins to make me realize why this laptop is available at such a cheap price.

Also… the screen bends. A significant amount. And rather easily. If you open the laptop (lift the screen up) and put just a small amount of pressure on the bottom of the bezel around the screen, it bends noticeably. This issue seems to pertain mostly to the display half. The keyboard half feels far sturdier and doesn't seem to suffer from any bending or rigidity issues.

Interestingly, there are two things that do not feel quite as "cheap." The trackpad (which has a good feel and a distinctive "click" to it when pressed) and the speakers (which are large, with visible plastic grating covering them, that produce quite decent sound for this price range of a laptop). Two components that, often, even expensive laptops don't do well. So big high-five to the Acer crew there.

So, to sum up: on the one hand, this laptop sports the largest screen on any Chromebook and packs enough muscle to stand toe-to-toe with most other Chromebooks. But, on the other hand, the build quality reminds you that you only paid a fraction of the price that you would for a "premium laptop."

Would I recommend this laptop to someone? You know what… yes. Yes, I would.

If you want a Linux-powered Chromebook with a big freaking screen… this is the Chromebook for you. I can literally put a Chromebook Pixel in front of the Acer's screen and it doesn't even come close to blocking the view.

It's also an incredibly good deal. For $350, I could lug this laptop around with me and not worry too much about banging it up. I could break one and buy an identical replacement, and still have save several hundred dollars over buying a Pixel.

So, yes. The Acer Chromebook 15 is a good machine with an interesting place in the market. I'm glad Acer is making it and I can think of some people who would truly enjoy using it for the price.

But what would really interest me is if Acer were to come out with a premium version of this Chromebook. Made with metal instead of plastic. With a beefier processor and more storage. But still, of course, keeping a huge (for a laptop) 15.6-inch screen, I could see that machine really turning some heads (including mine). Even if it cost two to three times as much.

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