Can You Really Buy an iPad for $1.10?, No..

If something sounds too good to be true, it is. So it should come as no surprise that those commercials featuring people who got HDTVs for $50 or iPads for $87.13 don't really tell the whole story.

Auction sites like QuiBids, Beezid, HappyBidDay, and others might sound like they are magically underpriced versions of eBay, but they're not traditional auctions. Rather, they're penny-auction sites, a hybrid of auctions and gambling.

On penny-auction sites, bids cost money and that money is gone whether or not you win. If that sounds a lot like gambling, more than a few have sued claiming that very thing.

"Those opposed to penny auctions believe that they contain the three basic elements typically associated with gambling—prize, chance, and consideration," said Richard B. Newman, a state attorney general investigations lawyer with Hinch Newman LLP. "In order to remove the activity from the realm of gambling, the element of chance needs to not be present. Penny-auction website operators take the position that the service is an exercise based upon skill."

So much about penny auctions is misleading and confusing that the "skill" seems to be just decoding how they work.

A Dollar and a Dream
First there's the word "penny." Each bid on penny-auction sites is said to be 1 cent but that's not its monetary value. Depending on the site, a 1-cent bid costs anywhere from 50 cents to $1. One of the first things to disabuse you of your big-screen, low-price dreams when signing up for QuiBids, for example, is the offer of a bid pack of 100 bids for $60.

Some words of caution from QuiBids before you start. "After you get your first bid pack, a pop-up appears that prompts you to read QuiBids 101," said Blake Brown, social media manager at QuiBids. "There, you'll find all the information you'll need to prepare you to start bidding. Additionally, when a new bidder tries to bid on a big-ticket item, a similar pop-up appears encouraging the new bidder to start on smaller auctions until they get some experience under their belt.

DealDash, meanwhile, offers a second shot if bidders go through their first bid pack without a win.

"If you are still unhappy at this point we'll give you your money back for your first purchase," said Bart Jansen, director of operations at DealDash.

The amount spent on bids is not included in the price when someone wins an item. So if they win a TV for $450, they'll pay that $450, plus however much they spent on bids. The winning bid prices advertised by penny-auction sites, however, do not include the cost of the actual bids.

Time Is Relative
One of the most satisfying or heartbreaking parts of an auction are those last few seconds. Whatever the outcome, the agony or the ecstasy isn't prolonged. On a site like eBay once time has run out, it's out.

But on penny-auction sites, the clock ticks ticks ticks down to a win...and then resets. On QuiBids and many other sites any bid in the last 20 seconds resets the clock to 20 seconds. As those minutes turn into hours, your fellow bidders might seem unrelenting and tireless. There's good reason for that.

Ala Carte television channels on the way via Verizon..

Verizon is looking to roll out its Internet TV service by mid-2015, with an offering that will allow viewers to pick and choose the channels they want.

During a Thursday appearance at a Goldman Sachs technology conference, Verizon Communications chief Lowell McAdam said the service will likely include access to the "big four" broadcast networks, as well as "custom channels."

"No one wants to have 300 channels on your wireless device," McAdam said. "And I think everyone understands. It will go to a la carte."

Major cable and pay TV services have long resisted an "a la carte" approach that would let customers pick and choose the channels they want to pay for rather than pay for a bundle of 300+ channels. For about a decade, they have argued that a la carte would result in increased pricing and less channel diversity.

And while that probably won't change for traditional cable customers anytime soon, McAdam acknowledged that when it comes to the Web and mobile, a different approach is necessary.

"We do see that the millennials really want to look at...content over the iPads and other tablet devices and their smartphones," McAdam said. Attitudes in the industry about accessing content online is "changing dramatically," he said, and execs are more open to the idea now than they were two years ago.

"I don't think there is any one that would stand up here and say the only way it's going to be offered five years from now is linear and it's going to be tied to your TV set because frankly they will miss the market and they will be the ones left behind," McAdam said.

In January, Verizon Communications bought Intel's TV business for an undisclosed sum, picking up the intellectual property rights and other assets that powered Intel's OnCue Cloud TV platform. At the time, Verizon said it planned to integrate IP-based TV services with FiOS video as well as expand its mobile video offerings.

As for what type of custom channels viewers can expect, McAdam pointed to AwesomenessTV, which DreamWorks acquired last year, but didn't delve too much more into possible partners, except to say that they will probably be "out of the West Coast, where a lot of this is more home grown content."

Do's and Don'ts of cleaning your monitor or LCD screen...

Even if you don't have snot-nosed kids or wet-nosed pets, your computer monitor or HDTV panel will eventually accumulate a collection of annoying smudges and stains. My household happens to contain both of the aforementioned creatures and, thus, I've developed a method for wiping down the HDTV in the living room and the LCD monitor in my office, as well as the screen of my laptop and iPad.

If you take a quick survey of LCD or HDTV manufacturers about the recommended method for cleaning the surface of your monitor or TV screen, you'll discover more don'ts than dos, often in conflict with one another.

In the don't column:

• Don't use aerosol sprays, solvents, or abrasives. (This means don't reach for the Windex under the kitchen sink, as tempting as it may be.)
• Don't use anything other than warm water.
• Don't use any liquid at all.
• Don't spray a liquid directly on the screen.
• Don't use a hard cloth.
• Don't use your fingernail or a sharp object to remove stubborn stains.

In the do column:

• Use a dry, soft, lint-free cloth, preferably the micro-fiber cleaning cloth that may have come with your TV or monitor.
• Use a solution of mild soap and water, if needed.

Taking all of the above advice into consideration and speaking from my own experience, the following is my recommendation:

First, attempt to clean your screen with a dry, lint-free cloth. If you can't find the cleaning cloth that came with your screen in question, then it's likely you have one laying around from a laptop, iPad, or iPhone purchase.

If a dry cloth doesn't remove the smudges and stains on your screen, then get yourself two cloths and a solution of diluted dish soap and warm water. (I use Dawn dish soap, and just a drop.)

Matt Elliott/CNET After removing any dust from your screen with a dry cloth, dip the other cloth in your dish soap solution, wring it out, and gently wipe your display. Next, rinse out your soapy cloth, wring it out again, and wipe your display to remove any soap residue. Finally, take your dry cloth and wipe the display to remove any streaking

For Netflix users, better late than never...

Months after Comcast upgraded its subscribers' Netflix performance, AT&T and Verizon have finally followed suit.

The average Netflix stream on Verizon FiOS hit 2.41Mbps in August, up from 1.61Mbps in July, Netflix said today in its monthly speed test update. AT&T's U-verse service offered average Netflix performance of 2.61Mbps in August, up from 1.44Mbps in July.

Comcast spent months preparing network connections with Netflix—Verizon didn't. 

Netflix recommends 5Mbps for high-definition quality, but there is a lot of lower quality Netflix content that requires less throughput. The boost in the averages indicates that customers are getting high-quality streams more often.

AT&T and Verizon DSL improved, too, but still lag behind. Netflix on Verizon DSL only streamed at an average of 1.31Mbps in August, compared to 0.97Mbps in July. AT&T's DSL average was 1.81Mbps in August, up from 1.11Mbps in July.

Time Warner Cable improved from 2.16Mbps in July to 2.59Mbps in August. Comcast streams averaged 2.9Mbps in August, up from 2.82Mbps in July.

Cablevision led the way among the biggest US ISPs in August with a Netflix average of 3.11Mbps, while Google Fiber led all listed ISPs with a 3.53Mbps average.

Netflix video struggled for months on Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable while the companies argued over whether Netflix should have to pay the ISPs for direct connections to their networks. Netflix says these are the only four companies that demanded payment and that 99 percent of its links to ISPs are unpaid.

Although Netflix struck paid agreements with the ISPs months ago, it took some longer than others to set up the necessary infrastructure.

Amazon cuts Fire Phone price to 99 cents just two months after launch

Two months after launch, Amazon has cut the price of its flagship Fire Phone by nearly $200. The phone now costs just 99 cents with a two-year contract, complete with a year of Amazon Prime membership and various other cloud services included. Anyone who bought the phone at launch would have paid $199. The company is also expanding availability to the UK and Germany, for zero pounds and one euro respectively.

The motive behind the price drop is unclear, but many analysts have raised doubts about the Fire Phone's sales performance. As usual, Amazon has declined to release official sales figures for the Fire Phone, but one observer estimated that fewer than 50,000 of the phones are currently in use, which could explain the sudden drop in price. Some reviewers, including our own David Pierce, were skeptical of new Fire Phone features like Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, adding fuel to the speculation over sales. The timing of the announcement is also notable, coming just a day before a major Apple event at which the company is expected to reveal the iPhone 6.

How to records your cellular phone calls

With all the recent kerfuffle over Comcast's horrendous customer service (and the recorded calls that let the world share in the unpleasantness), it stands to reason you might wonder how to record a phone call of your own.

After all, if you're on the receiving end of such disastrously bad service, you might want audio proof.

Of course, there are other, more innocuous, reasons for recording calls, like if you're interviewing someone for a story. Whatever your plans, there are plenty of tools available. Before you use any of them, however, make sure you're legally allowed to do so.  For more on the legality and tools available to record them, click here for the CNET article.