Jessops closes for good, 1,370 jobs lost

Sad news: Jessops is to close its doors, leaving 1,370 employees out of a job. Just one day after Jessops went into administration, administrators PriceWaterhouseCoopers announced that all 187 stores would close.

Shops will begin shutting today. 1,370 jobs will go in stores, with more job losses to follow at the company's head office in Leicester. PWC blames a lack of support from suppliers, without which the chain cannot continue to trade, for the death of the 77-year-old company.

The Jessops website is still showing cameras and other products, complete with prices, but you can't buy them. You also can't return goods bought from Jessops. If you do have a problem with a camera or other kit bought from Jessops, try contacting the manufacturer; Nikon told me today that you can return faulty kit for free.

Nikon says it's working on completing outstanding repairs to kit being fixed under Jessops Photo+ extended warranty, and will contact affected customers directly.

The Jessops photo service is still available.

Jessops is the first high-street casualty of 2013, following a raft of closures last year. The biggest gadget shop to go under is Comet, which crashed to Earth leaving a £50m unpaid redundancy bill to be footed by the taxpayer.

Meanwhile, HMV has launched a major sale to raise fast cash as it too struggles to meet debt obligations. It seems unlikely that Jessops will hold a sale.

[Souce: CNET]

Xbox 720 in the next 18 months, job listing divulges

The next Xbox has been pegged to go on sale next Christmas by a revealing Microsoft job listing.

The job details, which were spotted by PCWorld and have since been deleted, explain that "over the next 18 months Microsoft will release new versions of all of our most significant products," going on to list "Windows (Client, Server, Phone and Azure), Office and Xbox." We already know about the new Windows gubbins -- that's Windows 8 of course. But so far Microsoft has remained tight-lipped regarding a new games console.

18 months would see a new system released early in 2014 at the latest, though it's far more likely that Microsoft would try and get the new Xbox -- reportedly codenamed Durango -- on sale in the run up to Christmas next year, giving cash-addled parents the opportunity to stuff their offsprings' stockings with a brand-new console.Microsoft has already stated that there would be no new console out this year, ruling out a surprise 2012 unveiling. Not much is known about what Microsoft's follow-up to the popular Xbox 360 will look like, though rumours tip it to feature a Blu-ray drive and to require a constant web connection in order to play games.

If we're talking about excluding gamers who don't have an Internet connection, then perhaps we could also see Microsoft ditching physical media altogether and having games accessed solely through downloads. Another recent Microsoft job ad spied by Techradar suggests that the company responsible for Clippy is already working on a second round of Surface tablets.

[Source: cnet]