Archive for November, 2006

Amazon collapses after Xbox promotion

Xbox Controller A Thanksgiving day promotion resulted in an outage for Amazon.com.  The entire site, not just the promotion page, buckled under the pressure after offering 1,000 Xbox 360s for just $100.00.

 

Amazon ran a special promotion this week but under-estimated the demand for the product from users with fast connections. At exactly 2pm EST, the offer was open (an Xbox core system at less than half-price). Unfortunately for Amazon, so many people were waiting for the promotion that the entire Amazon website - not just the promotion page - sank without a trace from just before 2pm, to at least 2:12pm. The home page, the product pages, everything, were unavailable.

 

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Wii Workout

WiiIf you managed to get a Nintendo Wii this holiday season, make sure you warm up before playing it.  Wii gamers are reporting a more physical workout than they expected to get with the new console.  With some describing it as more vigorous than basketball.  But then that wouldn’t take much.

 

 …as players spend more time with the Wii, some are noticing that hours waving the game’s controller around can add up to fairly intense exertion — resulting in aches and pains common in more familiar forms of exercise. They’re reporting aching backs, sore shoulders — even something some have dubbed “Wii elbow.”

Nintendo says players who get aches and pains from playing the Wii may need to get more exercise.

 Doctors advice: Stretch out and be sure to take care of any injuries afterwards. “It’s just like athletic play,” says Lana Kang, an orthopedic hand surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

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