It’s not clear if Netflix’s recent series of snafus are Amazon’s gain or not. But in a just-released report by ForeSee, one went up and one went down.

It’s an easy guess which was which.

In the well-known customer satisfaction survey of the Top 40 online retailers during the holiday season — which ForeSee has been conducting twice a year for the last seven years — Amazon rose to its highest spot ever, while Netflix’s score dropped significantly.

Amazon got an 88 out of 100, up two points, while Netflix dropped seven points to 79. The survey noted that “Netflix saw scores drop in every single element of the website that ForeSee measures, including site content, site functionality, merchandise, and prices.”

Ooops.

(Netflix fared better with customers in another poll last week, conducted by Citigroup. As Peter Kafka noted: “They’re less happy than they used to be. But they don’t seem to be going anywhere.”)

But in the ForeSee survey, Netflix moved from being a consumer darling to just another face in the crowd. It garnered the average score, which is also 79, a number that has risen from 74 since 2005.

But Netflix was not the only online retailer hit. Also down: Gap.com (down 6 percent to 73), and Overstock.com (down 5 percent to 72).

But on the up: TigerDirect.com (up 8 percent to 79) and J.C. Penney (up 6 percent to 83).

In general, ForeSee concluded that consumers are starting to get the hang of this e-commerce thing, and have become less price-sensitive, too.

And here’s a pretty chart explaining it all (click on the image to make it larger):

The company, which sells prepaid phones and service under the Cricket brand, said on Wednesday night that it will soon start selling a variety of phones across the country via Best Buy and other retailers. Among the products it will sell are phones with the company’s unique Muve Music service.

Enabling the expansion is a deal that Leap has with Sprint, allowing it to sell Cricket even in cities where it doesn’t have its own services available.

“This is a significant milestone in the plans we announced last year to create a new, hybrid wholesale and facilities-based model that is unique in the wireless industry,” Leap CEO Doug Hutcheson said in a statement. “We are excited to bring Cricket’s innovative wireless products to a large group of consumers who until now have not been able to take advantage of the tremendous value these products provide.”

Best Buy will start selling devices beginning Sept. 25, with other retailers following over the next two months including select Wal-mart stores, Dollar General stores as well as HSN.

In conjunction with the expansion, Cricket is adding some new phones to its lineup, including the Score, an Android phone from China’s ZTE and, later this year, a Muve-compatible feature phone called the Chorus.

Humanity’s best champions at the game show “Jeopardy”–Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter–are going up against the IBM supercomputer, named Watson, in the first of a three-night televised match.

But new details are starting to emerge about the highly anticipated game. Much was made in the press coverage of a warm-up match witnessed by several reporters last month when it seemed that Watson had won. According to a portion of the final chapter of a book on the match, by technology journalist Stephen Baker, that was not the case.

The assembled reporters saw only 15 clues, not a full game. When the reporters left, Watson was ahead, with a score of $4,400 to $3,400 for Jennings and $1,200 for Rutter. After the reporters left, the match continued. Jennings went on to win the full match, with $50,000 to $39,000 for Watson; Rutter finished third with $10,000. In fact, when it was over, Jennings pointed at the computer and exclaimed, “Game over!” as if he were actually trying to taunt the machine. Baker posted the opening section of the book’s final chapter on his blog today.

Baker’s book also reveals that Watson has a weakness: The Final Jeopardy portion of the game, where players can make bets based on the confidence in their answers, and where speed to the buzzer–where Watson has an advantage during normal clues–doesn’t matter. Jennings figured out this weakness in Watson’s game play and used it to his advantage.

Baker’s book, “Final Jeopardy,” has been coming out in pieces. The first several chapters were released in e-book format last month, and once the match has aired, the final chapter describing the televised match will be released, and then the hardcover version of the book will hit bookstores this Thursday.

How will it all end? You’ll have to watch “Jeopardy” starting tonight–and read Baker’s book–to find out. I’ll be posting more on this after the match airs in the Eastern Time zone tonight.

One area of apps involves gaming. I’m not just referring to the single player, heads-down games that consume a person for hours until she beats her own best score, or the scores of strangers around the Internet—though plenty of those exist for the tablet. I’m talking about old-fashioned board games, the kind that involve sitting around with friends or family and actually having fun together. Some of these apps are purely digital. But one company is bringing real board-like elements to tablet games.

This week, I tested a game that successfully marries digital and analog games by using the first physical device to digitally interact with the Apple iPad screen. The $40 Duo by Discovery Bay Games (yoomigame.com) doesn’t plug into the iPad, nor does it connect to the iPad via Bluetooth or other means. It sits on the iPad screen in a specific spot and uses a built-in light sensor on its underbelly to interpret light signals displayed on the iPad screen during a game.

To play the Yoomi game with Discovery Bay Games’ Duo, players drop jewel-like tokens onto the top of the device to vote on possible answers to questions.

The first accompanying game app to use the Duo, called Yoomi, is free from the Apple App Store and can be played by kids as young as 3 years old. It simply asks players to guess what one person would choose between two possible answers, or options, both of which are displayed as digital cards with text and images on the iPad screen. Cards include options like, “dig a hole to China” or “find buried treasure.” Up to six people or teams can play, and each receives a set of jewel-toned tokens that they’ll try to get rid of before the other players by guessing each person’s choice. Playful music and sound effects accompany each game.

Players cast their votes by placing tokens on one of two spaces atop the Duo, a plastic hollow device with clear sides and a tiny black switch. Each space represents an answer, and the person about whom everyone else guesses privately chooses one answer by reaching into the Duo and touching the iPad screen to select the answer.

After the other players cast their votes, a Reveal button on the iPad screen uncovers the chosen answer. Suddenly, the space at the top of the Duo representing the correct chosen answer drops like a trap door, collecting all tokens that were there. The iPad is passed to the next person and play continues, with each person selecting an answer for others to guess until one person or team is out of tokens.

At first, I was skeptical that the Duo and the Yoomi game could replicate playing with traditional board games. Since so few aspects of my life aren’t touched by digital technology, putting down my laptop, iPad or BlackBerry to play a board game always feels like a treat. But I found that while playing Yoomi, the iPad becomes the game board, stationed in the center of a table or circle of friends and passed around for each person to cast a vote.

Since the iPad has plenty of additional functions, playing a game on it may invite distractions from the outside world. Other apps continued to work in the background on my iPad, like my Facebook and Entertainment Weekly apps, which send occasional pop-up notifications onto the screen. The thought of personal Facebook messages popping up would be enough to embarrass any teen into not wanting to use his or her iPad to play with family members. On a good note, the chime indicating I received a new email on the iPad was automatically silenced during game play.

And of course, the iPad costs at least $500, so even though the $40 Duo is relatively affordable, the whole set won’t fit most family budgets.

Still, several advantages come from using a digital game that incorporates physical components, like tokens and a device that collects those tokens. Instead of holding a controller and staring at a TV, like with video games, players need to look up at one another to see how many tokens each person has and who’s winning. And the Yoomi game questions are provocative enough that people will want to ask one another why they chose their answers or voted a certain way.

One of the most exciting things about this technology is its ability to use a light sensor for communication between the iPad screen and another object. Discovery Bay Games CEO Craig Olson said the company might consider using this technology for other products such as a health-related device that, when placed on the iPad screen, allows data to be automatically recognized and recorded.

Like other digital apps, Yoomi can be updated with new content to replenish the 150 pairs of digital cards that come loaded with this free game; another 150 pairs will be sent in an update later this year. Mr. Olson said people tend to burn through digital games much faster than traditional board games, and the ability to send new game material without manufacturing and delivering physical parts is a real boon.

The people working at Discovery Bay Games know a thing or two about traditional board games: Numerous Discovery Bay Games employees worked at Cranium, the charades-esque game that gets people humming, whistling, drawing with closed eyes and miming. Duo is likewise deliberately designed to encourage interaction with others.

In the next nine months, some 12 to 15 other iPad app games will be released for use with Duo, including a $2.99 Smithsonian Fact or Fiction game and a $2.99 Discovery for Kids–Astonishing Comparisons game.

This summer, Discovery Bay Games will start releasing other physical devices that will work with the iPad and range in price from $30 to $60. Some will use the light-sensor technology while others will use different signaling methods to communicate with the iPad. These will launch in conjunction with lead titles, like a Highlights for Children game and a Saturday Night Live game. Mr. Olson said the company is developing for the Android platform as well as for Windows 7 devices.

For now, the Duo and Yoomi are a fun way to add technology into family game night, with continuously updated content keeping game material fresh. As games improve to take full advantage of the other tablet functions, they’ll become even more enjoyable and interactive.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

Notice to Readers

Starting today, The Mossberg Solution column becomes The Digital Solution. It will still be written by Katherine Boehret and edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, Dr. James D. Eason, the chief of transplantation at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, said that Jobs did in fact receive a new liver at his transplant facility and is now recovering well. He also dismisses speculation that the Apple CEO’s wealth and celebrity may have afforded him early access to the organ, noting that Jobs qualified for the donor liver when he did because he was the sickest patient of his blood type at the time it became available. Below, the statement in full:

James D. Eason, M.D., program director at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute and chief of transplantation confirmed today, with the patient’s permission, that Steve Jobs received a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in partnership with the University of Tennessee in Memphis.

Mr. Jobs underwent a complete transplant evaluation and was listed for transplantation for an approved indication in accordance with the Transplant Institute policies and United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) policies.

He received a liver transplant because he was the patient with the highest MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) of his blood type and, therefore, the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available. Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.

The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute performed 120 liver transplants in 2008 making it one of the ten largest liver transplant centers in the United States. We provide transplants to patients regardless of race, sex, age, financial status, or place of residence. Our one year patient and graft survival rates are among the best in the nation and were a dominant reason in Mr. Jobs’s choice of transplant centers. We respect and protect every patient’s private health information and cannot reveal any further information on the specifics of Mr. Jobs’s case.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, Dr. James D. Eason, the chief of transplantation at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, said that Jobs did in fact receive a new liver at his transplant facility and is now recovering well. He also dismisses speculation that the Apple CEO’s wealth and celebrity may have afforded him early access to the organ, noting that Jobs qualified for the donor liver when he did because he was the sickest patient of his blood type at the time it became available. Below, the statement in full:

James D. Eason, M.D., program director at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute and chief of transplantation confirmed today, with the patient’s permission, that Steve Jobs received a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in partnership with the University of Tennessee in Memphis.

Mr. Jobs underwent a complete transplant evaluation and was listed for transplantation for an approved indication in accordance with the Transplant Institute policies and United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) policies.

He received a liver transplant because he was the patient with the highest MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) of his blood type and, therefore, the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available. Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.

The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute performed 120 liver transplants in 2008 making it one of the ten largest liver transplant centers in the United States. We provide transplants to patients regardless of race, sex, age, financial status, or place of residence. Our one year patient and graft survival rates are among the best in the nation and were a dominant reason in Mr. Jobs’s choice of transplant centers. We respect and protect every patient’s private health information and cannot reveal any further information on the specifics of Mr. Jobs’s case.

But Microsoft’s (MSFT) latest campaign, which features documentary-like tales of  youngish people priced out by Apple (AAPL), may actually be working. At least when it comes to youngish people’s perceptions of the two brands. So says tracking service BrandIndex. More from AdAge:

The perceptions of value the two brands offer has shifted dramatically in the eyes of 18- to 34-years-olds since Microsoft began running its “Laptop Hunters” campaign in late March. Apple’s “value perception” has fallen considerably, while Microsoft’s has risen…

Based on daily interviews of 5,000 people, BrandIndex found the age group gave Apple its highest rating in late winter, when it notched a value score of 70 on a scale of -100 to 100 (a score of zero means that people are giving equal amounts of positive and negative feedback about a brand). But its score began to fall shortly after and, despite brief rallies, hovers around 12.4 today.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has risen from near zero in early February to a value-perception score of 46.2.

The real test, of course will be actual sales data, and we won’t see anything resembling official numbers for this period until several months from now. But for the record, tracking service NPD says that overall PC sales dropped seven percent in the first three months of this year, while Apple’s Mac shipments dropped 1.8 percent.

Here’s the Microsoft ad starring “Lauren,” which kicked off the latest campaign:

And here’s Apple’s sort-of response: