Gadgets Future

Apple’s iTunes marketplace has achieved its latest milestone, smashing the 5 billion songs mark - just four months after it surpassed the 4 billion songs in terms of sales. This is definitely a phenomenal achievement, adding more weight to the argument that traditional CDs are definitely on the wane, and artists who want to make money had best hop onto the digital virtual bandwagon instead of relying on record sales at stores. This huge shift in sales is also attributed to the phenomenal success of the ipod from Apple. The 5 billion mark was reached after the iTunes store opened for business back in 2003 - who wants to wager when the 10th billion song will be sold? Sometime in 2009?

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 11:07AM
Sure, you love your iphone, but did you ever feel like there was just one application missing from the home screen… besides MMS, IM, or a video recorder? If you’re like us, that missing application was a full-featured Packbot control program replete with streaming POV video and a standalone, direct WiFi connection that doesn’t require a proxy machine to pass along commands. Rodrigo Guiterrez and Jeff Craighead — the brains behind this operation — claim that next up they plan to utilize the phone’s accelerometers and a fullscreen video display to deliver a “you are there” experience for bot-steering. Engadget and its team of armed Packbots can hardly wait. Check the video after the break to see it in action.

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Filed under: cellphones, Robots

Apple recently claimed iTunes was now the number one music retailer in the U.S. and have backed that position up further with news that the servce has served over 5 billion songs to users this week.

Some other interesting facts released about the iTunes store include:

• There are now over 8 million songs in its catalog
• There are over 20,000 TV episodes and over 2,000 films available (350 of which are HD)
• Films are currently being rented or purchased at a rate of 50,000 a day

It has taken Apple just 27 months to go from 1 billion to 5 billion songs served and just 10 months from 3 to 5 billion. This shows you just how quickly digital music is catching on and with iTunes having the lion’s share of the market their figures are a very good indication of the market trends.

The downloads of films are also impressive and should demonstrate to Hollywood that the consumer does want downloadable film content made available.

I also think this bodes well for competing online music services. 5 billion is a lot of songs and even getting a small percentage of that is going to bring in enough revenue to warrant a service running in the first place.

Read more at Apple, found via Vnunet.com

by Ryan Block, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 12:31PM
It ain’t over until it’s over, but we just got word that Helio store managers received notification this week that the axe is finally falling: (at least some of) the nationwide chain of retail stores will be shuttered during Virgin’s takeover of Helio. As we’ve heard, “there is no ‘merge’ in this merger,” so it sounds like after this year’s big executive reshuffle, SK Telecom is bailing on their half-billion dollar enterprise a big way. No word if the fabled Ocean 2 will make it — or if Virgin will even let Helio customers keep their phones.

Alongside Helio — more or less the last man standing — the great MVNO goldrush also dies. Unfortunate that besides Virgin and a few local and M2M providers (like Amazon’s Whispernet), pretty much no one was able to make it work. Then again, no one ever never said making cellphones and running any kind of carrier was easy.

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Filed under: cellphones

The sun is deadly hot, and a number of brilliant MIT students (are there non-brilliant ones around?) took time off the past few weeks to come up with a 12-foot mirrored dish which is able to concentrate sunlight 1,000 times over, making it extremely potent to turn just about any household items into a ball of flame. The whole idea would be to use this “solar dish” to create electricity, and it does so by holding a water-filled 12′ black coil in front of the dish. The focused sunlight will vaporize water into steam, which will subsequently be used to create electricity. What about those of us living in apartments who do not have the luxury of a lawn to place this Solar Dish? Do we place it on the roof instead?

Thank you superhero fanboys and fangirls. Time is up for getting entries in for the Great Gadget Lab’s DIY Superhero Suit Contest. We’ve gotten the whole gamut of submissions: everything from the fantastic to the uncanny to the downright diabolical. Just like we thought, you readers have some serious DIY talent.

Now it’s time for you to get out there and rock our vote. Think a costume deserves a bump up? Hit the reddit widget and vote it higher. Think a get-up is the very definition of teh suck? Knock that image down to the darkest depths of the intertubes. Remember, unlike the US electoral process, your vote actually counts — the power is all yours. And just as a certain superhero once heard, “with great power comes great responsibility," remember, it can sometimes come with a two thousand dollar cell phone too.

(Photo by Jon Snyder for Wired.com)

Yesterday we mentioned Firefox 3 being downloaded more than 8 million times in 24 hours. While that’s great news for standard Firefox users, people concerned with protecting their browsing history have something else to cheer about.

According to Jkontherun the Mozilla folks also updated the Firefox Portable Edition to version 3. If you’re not familiar with the portable edition, it allows you to take the entire browser with you on a USB stick. This includes all of your personal information, including bookmarks, extensions and even browsing history.

I’m going to download it later today and put it on a stick in my gear bag. You never know when you might have to look something up on another computer, and if all it takes is a quick plug-in of a USB drive to not leave your history behind, it’s a no-brainer.

Read more at Jkontherun

by Paul Miller, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 12:15PM
This probably won’t be ruining anybody’s day, but if you were hoping to buy a Lenovo laptop with 3000 scrawled somewhere on it, you’re pretty much out of luck. Lenovo has apparently killed off the entirety of its budget-friendly 3000 lineups, both laptop and desktop. The Y Series 3000 laptops are now gone in place Y710 and 7510 Series IdeaPads, and the fugly old 3000 K100 desktops gone, with only K210 IdeaCentre desktops available in their place. Not earth-shattering, but the IdeaPad and IdeaCentre brands are already off to a strong start, with much better design than the 3000 series, but similarly low prices. And besides, we suppose they needed all those excess 0’s for the Olympics. You know, for the rings. No? You always hate our jokes. Die in a fire.

[Thanks, Ian]

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 10:46AM
Leave it to QSTARZ to innovate so dramatically upon the tried-and-true Bluetooth GPS receiver design. Okay, so maybe it just created two new 66-channel ones that are exceptionally small. Up first is the new BT-Q1300, a “miniature” device that’s dubbed the world’s smallest travel recorder. Continuing on with superlatives, we see “the best” of the best in the BT-Q890, which measures in at 60- x 40- x 7-millimeters and is somehow also the “world’s smallest GPS receiver.” We’re on to your fuzzy math, QSTARZ, and we don’t like it one bit.

[Via NaviGadget]

Read - BT-Q1300
Read - BT-Q890

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Filed under: GPS

Did they mean for this how to play Guitar Hero: On Tour video to be so bad? What’s with the guy screaming in the background?

I had to turn it off when he screamed:

“Sometimes you can’t yell!”

I have loved playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band this past year. It has been the number one party game in my life, but this video is just EMBARRASSING! I wasn’t planning on buying Guitar Hero: On Tour, but now, I’m wishing it didn’t shame me with its sheer corniness.

If Guitar Hero jumped the shark with its Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker, then it is wailing its final death knell with On Tour.