Stories about: eToys

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project is asking software coders to develop free, open-source educational computer games for the XO laptop, continuing its push toward a September launch date.

Jim Gettys has been a software pioneer on open source systems for over 20 years. From his role as a primary developer of the X Window System at MIT in 1984 (which forms the basis of Linux and Unix graphical interfaces), through to editing the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) HTTP/1.1 protocol and founding the handhelds.org project (from which all Linux handheld and mobile phone development stems from), the only thing Gettys hasn't tried his hand at is solving world hunger. But he decided to start with the developing world's education crisis first, and now finds himself as Vice President of Software for the One Laptop per Child project.

Chris Blizzard has been involved in the open source software community for over a decade. He has worked extensively on Mozilla's Firefox browser from the time it was open sourced by Netscape in 1998. He then joined Red Hat in 1999 because he "thought it was going to be interesting". At Red Hat he has been in a number of roles - initially building its next generation of support tools, then in its desktop group supporting and promoting its web browser solutions through to today's effort where he has worked on the customised operating system and Sugar User Interface for the One Laptop per Child project.

Amazon.com has launched new toy and baby stores that feature tens of thousands of products, including hard-to-find items from specialty retailers.

Scholastic has backed away from plans to purchase Web technology, toys, customer lists and other inventory from defunct online retailer eToys.

The publisher of the Harry Potter series and other children's books placed the winning auction bid for the product inventory of defunct online toy retailer eToys, but the purchase is contingent on also getting Web-related technology and other assets in a separate bidding process this week.

The e-commerce shakeout continues as online pet site Petopia.com Inc. and beleaguered Internet toy retailer eToys Inc. close their virtual doors.

Looking to avoid last year's holiday-season mistakes, online toy retailers are busily beefing up their supply-chain capabilities in an effort to make this Christmas a merrier one from a business standpoint.

Lack of clear-cut, understandable privacy policies could be the biggest impediment to online retailers this year as they gear up for the hectic fourth-quarter, holiday-buying season.

Online retail sales are projected to surpass the $US9 billion mark this holiday season, but almost half of all Web shoppers could abandon their virtual shopping carts at the checkout counter if Web stores fail to simplify the online buying process.

Wedged between Appalachia and the Great Smoky Mountains, Kingsport, Tenn., doesn't look like ground zero in the new economy. But it's as good a place as any to see that e-commerce isn't just about selling books.