Weekly Highlights: Apple's Retail Problem, WWE Network's New Free Trial And More

Apple is one of the world's most successful tech companies, but its retail outlets could be in danger.

Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry recently visited several Apple Store locations and discovered a troubling trend: there were more employees than customers in each store.

"We have not experienced such a phenomenon [for] probably five or six years," Chowdhry told Benzinga. "It could be an aberration only for the last two weeks. [But] it's not very encouraging."

Consumers have reported similar experiences.

DRAM and NAND flash chip supplies may not meet demand in the second half of the year.

This is critical for two reasons. It will likely mean higher prices (which could be passed on to the consumer), but it may also prevent manufacturers from delivering enough products to retailers.

Samsung promoted its newest smartwatch by giving it away to select Google IO attendees.

This gave developers the chance to begin working with the watch before it was released this month.

Unfortunately, some of those developers encountered one massive flaw: the USB charging mechanism is easy to break.

Not every user has reported an issue, but the problem has gained some traction in the press and could deter some consumers from buying the device before these issues are ironed out.

Cloudian, an Intel and Goldman Sachs-backed startup, made a big announcement this week.

The company revealed that it has raised an additional $24 million from INCJ and Fidelity Growth Partners and its existing pool of investors.

"If you look at storage, it's been kind of boring for the last 10 years," Michael Tso, co-founder and CEO of Cloudian, told Benzinga. "It's starting to get really exciting again."

All told, Cloudian has raised $44 million from investors.

Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI) has made millions from the Skylanders franchise. Disney (NYSE: DIS) made millions from Disney Infinity.

Both properties feature smart toys that interact with their respective games.

In theory, this idea makes perfect sense: kids love toys and video games, so developers might as well put them together.

A new study shows that 72 million children are interested in playing with smart toys.

Supercell may not be a household name like Sony, but its brand is getting stronger.

According to iSpot (a real-time TV advertising intelligence platform), Supercell surpassed Sony and became the number-one video game brand.

This is based on the level of engagement from users after an ad has aired on TV, so this doesn't mean that Supercell is actually performing better than Sony.

But from a mainstream ad perspective, Supercell has grown a lot over the past six months.

Activision spared no expense in promoting the last Call of Duty game.

The company spent $58 million on domestic TV ads over the last 12 months alone. Most of those funds were used last fall to promote Call of Duty: Ghosts.

This fall, Activision will have another new franchise to promote: Destiny. If the company spend an equal amount on Destiny and Call of Duty, its TV ad expenditures will easily surpass the $100 million mark.

WWE Network was, for a brief time, the second most popular live streaming site in America.

The service now ranks fourth behind Justin.TV (third), ESPN (second), and Twitch (first).

To combat this decline -- and lure fans to the service before its next major event -- WWE is offering a one-week free trial. New customers can sign up without a credit card.

The preceding slideshow was just the beginning. Check out these other hot stories right here on Benzinga.

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