Harmonix is confirming that Rock Star will be available for the Wii on June 22, 2008. Rad!
You won’t be able to play against your cousin Marco in Buenos Aires though (unless you go to Buenos Aires) since the game won’t include online multiplayer functionality. Also, you won’t be able to download tunes like you can on XBOX 360 and PS3. You’ll just have to put a cassette tape in your tape deck and hit record, I guess.
Here’s a real brain racker: Let’s say your corporate nemesis just won the format war making Blu-Ray the new VHS. Would you adopt the technology into your video game console?
That’s what Micro$oft is asking themselves. Or, not asking themselves. Execs at MS say they aren’t in talks with Sony to bring Blu-Ray technology to the XBOX 360 any time soon. Hard to say if this will affect sale immediately, but if Blu-Ray is the future (for a limited time only!) then that’s a bus that the XBOX will likely have to catch.
Some people find it neat. I find it creepy. You decide. Click here.
I’m not going to clutter this blog with products you won’t be able to use or buy, but I’m a sucker for irony and had to share this seemingly useless product with you. (Come to think of it, useless things is a pretty good category.)
Shark Shield is billed as an electronic shark deterrent. You can strap it onto your surfboard, kayak, scuba gear, etc. and it will emit a three dimensional electronic waveform that is supposed to give sharks muscle convulsions.
While testing the device (on an inanimate buoy, thankfully) the waveform actually attracted a 12-foot Great White shark with a confused appetite. The shark shield was eaten… becoming a shark snack.
We recommend you wait for Shark Shield 2.0 to complete testing before you consider this as an investment in your safety.
Regardless of how you feel about the music downloading debate, one thing is clear: Music’s future is on the internet.
Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails have just put out some brand new material on the band’s website, www.NIN.com. The new project is called Ghosts I-IV and you’ll be able to listen to, download, and own (yup… OWN!) the first nine songs online for FREE. While there, you’ll also be able to spend anywhere between $10 and $300 on various packages for the albums.
Reznor has gone so far as to upload some of the songs to BitTorrent sites because he feels that BitTorrent is a “revolutionary digital distribution method.” So do millions and millions of music fans world wide.
Nine Inch Nails is the second major group to take marketing matters into their own hands. Radiohead launched In Rainbows in October 2007 and allowed fans to pay what they choose for the album.
You were the first in the Starbucks with the pristine white MacBook humming next to your Vente Chai. Now, every “writer” and Facebooker in the joint has one. You need to hop on a new trent and the over-priced thinness of the “Air” isn’t going to cut it.
Sony to the rescue! Shipping in March, it’s the Graphic Splash Expressions Collection. Three styles. Three colours. Three keyboard fonts. All bold, new, and… kinda girly. They do look pretty slick, though.
Sony also wins with competitive pricing. The base model (Intel Core 2 Duo [2.1GHz], 2 GB memory, 120 GB hard drive, wireless and Bluetooth, plus Vista, Works, Quickbooks) come in any colour and pattern configuration for just $1279.99US. At that price, the plain white (or black) plastic of the MacBook might have some fashionable competition in the paper cup kingdom. Naturally, Sony wants you to soup up your Vaio with upgrades for the processor, memory, hard drive, etc. 
They also offer free engraving which will make stolen laptops a little easier to identify at your local pawn shop.
All in all, pretty sexy new way to mooch off your neighbours WiFi signal.
It turns out that Apple has some bragging rights to claim after last Sunday’s Oscars.
The Coen brothers won Best Picture for ‘No Country for Old Men’ (on DVD and BluRay March 11) and that was also a victory for Apple. The film was edited using Final Edit Pro. Joel and Ethan claim that the software makes it easy and similar to cutting on film, but “hugely faster.”
The duo are currently working on ‘Burn After Reading’ starring Brad Pitt and will be using Final Cut Pro 6.0 for the editing.
Apple must be thrilled with the endorsement. AAPL is up $2.32 to $121.47 at the time of this posting.
Thanks to Susie at Creative, I just got a set of the new AurvanaLive headphones. If Aurvana is supposed to be some hybrid of Aural Nirvana… then Creative has hit the mark.
I’ve been using the same set of Sony MDR-V900s for about a decade now and I’ve never found anything that comes close for broadcast purposes. For starters, the MDR-V900 is a real tank of a headset with a big headband and large wrap around ear pieces. They are comfortable, loud, crisp, and have virtually no bleed around the microphone.
Creative’s Aurvana Live headphones don’t quite fit my requirements for broadcast, but that really only speaks to my nitpicky requirements for portability. They don’t collapse like the Sonys do. You don’t really care about that, though. Do you? Moving on…
I’ve probably wrapped my head in a few dozen headphones in my time and I’ve never heard anything quite as brilliant as these ones. They are crystal clear and transmitted a lot of sounds I hadn’t noticed before. The headset is lightweight, sleek, sexy, and shiny. (Nice touch!) I’m not expert enough to pretend to explain the hi-fidelity metrics to you. You’ll have to check out the AurvanaLive page on Creative’s website for that. To put it simply, Creative has made a business out of making things sound awesome. This is another bullseye.
The Aurvana Live headphones are awesome. I give it two ears perked. Buy these if you need a bitchin’ set of headphones for computer or other audio production purposes. I’ll use them with my personal media device (which Creative also carries on the website). If you’re looking for something to use with the home theatre, this model ships with an extension for the cord, but I’d strongly consider dropping an extra $50 and going wireless.
Leapfrog will be introducing a new reading tool for kids this summer. Children 4 to 8 will be able to use the Leapfrog pen equipped with a tiny infrared camera to read lines and words off the pages of books in the special Leapfrog TAG reader collection. Kids can read line-by-line or just individual words as the learn to be better readers.
The pen itself will debut for about $49.99 with activity books reasonably priced at about $13.99 (wherever smart toys are sold.) The pen has 16MB of memory on board and can manage about five books at a time with a simple drag-and-drop interface once connected to either a Mac or PC.
Parents can monitor their child’s progress using a free web application available from Leapfrog.
I like it, but it doesn’t come close to the value of sitting down and reading with your kids.
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