Sears and Kmart are launching Alphaline Entertainment, a new venture to sell downloadable movies online. It’s powered by Sonic’s RoxioNow backend just like Best Buy and Blockbuster, and the price is $3.99 rent / $19.99 new release.

There are plans to embed the service in a variety of connected Blu-ray players, mobile devices, TVs and more. So, would you use this service? Or are you happy with the one you are currently using?

The future of Augen’s $150 tablet and $100 smartbook isn’t looking as bright as we had hoped. They have slow processors and resistive touchscreens and now their official Google app privileges have just been revoked.

Augen has confirmed that the entire proprietary suite (including Market, Gmail and more) was preloaded on the devices without Google’s permission, and won’t appear on new batches that make it to store shelves. Augen says it’s working with Google to secure rights to these apps for new products down the road. Hopefully it gets sorted out quickly.

Augen is offering its $149.99 7-inch Android tablet at Kmart. It just hit the circulars. It’s an Android 2.1 tablet with WiFi, 2GB of storage and 256MB of RAM for just 150 bucks. Augen says that it will have access to the Android “Market App Store.”

The price is certainly right and if you want to pick one up the device should be hitting shelves later this week, though the company was unsure it would ever be on Kmart’s online store. At that price it should have no problems finding buyers.

Is it too early to talk Christmas? Not for Kmart and Sears. As physical media sales continue to drop, these two names are looking toward streaming content, with the Alphaline Entertainment service. Alphaline is powered Sonic’s RoxioNow and will be available on TVs and Blu-ray players manufactured by Sharp, LG, Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, and RCA.

Setup of the device is included in the sale price, should you find your DIY skills lacking. The service will arrive this holiday season.

Those rumors of a price cut coming from Sony on the PS3 have been swirling for months. There have even been lots of game developers that have pressed Sony to cut the price of tits console but Sony has kept insisting no price cuts were coming.

Sony is expected to make a big announcement at Gamescon today. The expectation is that the PS3 Slim will be unveiled and the PS3 will get a price cut. Kmart has jumped the gun, placed the PS3 slim up for preorder, and has run an ad that talks about the new lower price PS3.