iTunes conquer 26% of USA Music Sales

Apple’s stronghold on the music industry is greater than once thought. After knocking Walmart off the top of the ladder back in 2008, iTunes now sells more music than both Walmart and Best Buy put together these days.

In fact, iTunes’ share of music sales has increased from 21.4 per cent in 2008, to 26.7 per cent last year—making them the top retailer for music in the US, according to Billboard.

While digital sales of music soared from 2008’s 42.5 per cent ..read more

Wii Vitality Sensor announcement on Monday?

So Nintendo has announced a “special joint announcement” with the American Heart Association for Monday. What could it be? Well, let’s see here — which of Nintendo’s products directly measures your vital signs and seem to have been invented strictly for Iwata’s twisted health purposes? Ah yes, the Vitality Sensor we saw at last year’s E3.

The announcement that there will be an announcement is really the only information out there right now, so I’ll leave you to your thoughts and ..read more

8-bit Starcraft: I would have played this

This prototype for Starcraft was found by the son of an old-school Blizzard programmer — it dates from the early ’80s. Really quite shocking how advanced it is for the time! Check out this footage of a PvT game! Heh. Yeah, of course it’s not real. But with Starcraft II’s release date only about two months out, I figure we may as well grease up the ol’ hype machine. Of course, the game has been out in beta for so long ..read more

Not everyone wants their hand held when PC gaming

One of the bigger stories this past week was OnLive heading to the UK. The service promises to make PC gaming more accessible by hosting all of the hardware—you simply supply a broadband connection and a Web browser, and you’ll be playing the likes of Mass Effect 2 in no time. If it works as described, great. There’s nothing wrong with exposing PC gaming to more people.

What concerns me, and maybe “concerns” isn’t even the right word, is that ..read more

Zelle 1337 jewelry, for the lady who pwn3d ur lyf

I’m not so sure the average non-geek girl would love necklaces and earrings made of resistors, fuses, and floppy disk parts but there’s no harm in trying. Besides, I suspect real geek girls would definitely squeeeeeee at these.

All of these handmade pieces are created out of used electronics and are actually quite striking. The best part? Each comes with an offical “Certificate of Autheticity” that looks like the EULA that came with Windows 95.

Zelle, the elegantly minimal tech jewelry brand ..read more

Review: Canon T2i DSLR camera

Short version: An outstanding consumer DSLR and liberating video recorder, the T2i is a powerhouse media device in a small and relatively affordable package. What I think of as killer features, however, may not be viewed as such by the buying population at large. Features:

18-megapixel images/up to 1080p video ISO 100-6400 3″ high-resolution LCD (1040K dots/720×480px) Mic in and HDMI out ports MSRP: $800 (body only)

Pros:

Great image and video quality A better camcorder than “real” camcorders at similar prices Beautiful LCD

Cons:

Compact body isn’t for ..read more

“Balancing Cube” robot balances well enough – but is not a cube

What qualifies as a robot, exactly? This thing appears to be a sort of polyhedron that stands on its tiptoes. Sure, it’s impressive — but “robot?” But that’s neither here nor there. This project, called the “Balancing Cube,” is an experiment in distributed computing, as each of the counterbalancing “modules” is self-contained in its movements, though it has access to the others’ data. The sum of all of the modules’ movements keeps the cube balanced, even with a gentle push. ..read more

YouTube takes down video taken of Transformers 3 set on public street

So imagine you head into your office one day, and find that an alley outside your window has been turned into a set for Transformers 3 — there are cameras and booms and you can hear Michael Bay yelling. They’re about to pneumatically fire a car down the street (it’s been Transformer-punched, you presume) so you whip out your iPhone and start recording. Up it goes on YouTube and… down it comes off YouTube after Viacom instructs it to be ..read more

In Communist Russia, vending machine dispenses caviar

If you’re a bigwig in Moscow you may have a caviar machine in your office. New machines in the Moscow’s mayor’s office has one of the machines that doles out sweet, sweet caviar for about 3.50 Euro.

Shown here is a caviar burger, which just sounds gross.

Sadly, according to the Telegraph, the machine is so popular that it is currently broken.

Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial – The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full ..read more

Gadzooks! Why, this miniature cannon is most delightful!

Ah, parlour cannon. Who among us has not built one in the idle hours between chase and whist? I myself have fashioned one out of the mouthpiece of an Oriental “Hou-kah” and the base of a common telegraph console. It absolutely devastated the jellied quail I had brought for supper. But this is the tiniest parlour cannon of them all — yet still packs a ruddy knuckle, what? That ale receptacle was quite disintegrated. Yes; capital.

[via Reddit]

Five Filters featured article: ..read more