As a musician, this just kills me. If you have any information, please contact the band.

Just an incredible amount of money—$12.8 million all told. I just wish I had enough to bid on some of the products.

Striking images.

This article from MIT Technology Review argues that the near-simultaneous release of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One may mark the last wave of consoles, at least as we know them. Not so sure I agree with that, but the article makes some interesting points. Though this generation of consoles is clearly superior to the ones they replace, the technological leap is clearly much smaller than the previous one. In addition, the gaming market has become fragmented, with smartphone and tablet gaming grabbing a significant and, depending how you calculate things, perhaps majority slice of the pie.

Downloadable games such as Angry Birds and Minecraft, which play on mobile phones and basic PCs, now constitute a major part of the industry (in April this year, Angry Birds developer Rovio estimated that its games have been downloaded 1.7 billion times, while in 2012, Minecraft earned its independent creator, Markus Persson, more than $100 million).

There’s no question that franchises like Call of Duty are still selling big. The argument is that the value perception of each new console release is declining and the number of consoles sold is declining accordingly.

Each new iteration of hardware brings a historical downward trend in console sales. Sony’s wildly successful PlayStation 2 sold 150 million consoles. Its successor sold 80 million. It appears that Sony and Microsoft both lose a lot of money on these devices. For these reasons, some people think this new generation of console hardware (including Nintendo’s beleaguered Wii-U, which has failed to capture consumers’ imaginations) may be the last.

For consumers, the decline in consoles is not only a symptom of broader choice (in the 1990s, consoles and PCs were the only way to play complex screen games) but also one of diminishing returns. Martin Hollis, designer of the seminal Nintendo 64 movie tie-in Goldeneye 007, told me: “With each iteration, the multiple of increased power matters less. Looking back, PlayStation 2 was a huge leap from PlayStation. But PlayStation 3 was a much smaller leap. Each time we climb a curve of diminishing returns.” Hollis, like many others, believes that most people who only casually play video games will remain unconvinced by the difference between the new versions of the consoles and the previous ones.

From a gaming point of view, smartphones, tablets, cloud solutions (like Steam and Gaikai) and consoles are all converging. Just as iOS and Android emerged as the last OS standing in the great smartphone dust-up, I suspect there will be just a few players left standing once the gaming chaos resolves itself.

Om Malik:

Well-placed sources tell us that the company is gearing up to launch new private messaging features inside its still red-hot photo and video sharing service. It is also experimenting with the idea of group messaging, our source tells us. The new features are likely to find home in the next version of Instagram, which is expected before end of the year. An Instagram spokesperson (not surprisingly) declined to comment.

Om knows his stuff.

Many thanks to MightyDeals for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. This week MightyDeals is offering a great deal on MotoPress. It’s a WordPress plugin that replaces the default WP editor and makes content editing a snap. It uses a super easy drag-and-drop method, that works on all devices thanks to its responsive design. If you use WordPress, you’ll love this. See how it works.

If you didn’t get a chance to get to the theater to see Through the Never or want to re-live it a few more times, soon you will be able to watch it in the comfort of your own home. We’re super excited to hit you with the home version details as the film will be released on DVD, Blu-Ray, 3D Blu-Ray, digitally and V.O.D. (Video On Demand) on January 28, 2014 through our very own label, Blackened Recordings.

Apple’s new iPad page. Definitely worth a look to see all of the different ways people are using iPads.

Carmack co-founded id Software in the early 90s. His work at the studio led to the creation of the Doom and Quake franchises, which helped shape the industry as we know it today.

So much respect for John and what he’s accomplished.

I love stories like this.

If you ever wanted to know the thought process and work that goes into revamping an app, you should read this.

When it comes to responsive type on the web, there’s more to do than just resizing the text’s container and having the text reflow inside of it.

Readable font please.

Yesterday, after a period of engagement with the App Review Team from Apple, they informed us that TextExpander’s use of Reminders for shared snippet data storage is not an intended use of Reminders and will no longer be accepted. TextExpander touch will not clear review until this is resolved. Apps which implement the current TextExpander touch SDK may not clear review until their TextExpander touch SDK is updated.

I love the people at Smile Software and hate to see this kind of stuff happen to them. They care about their products and customers.

LETTERS LIVE is a new series of public events organised by Canongate which will bring to life some of the most important, inspiring and entertaining letters ever written.

I would love to go to this event in London.

“The HP Elite Pad has proved to be an unmitigated disaster. We have met with HP representatives on a number of occasions to address the issues.

The story says the switch to e-books was a disaster, but the disaster was HP.

Principal Gleeson said it was “an informed decision” to choose the HP Elite tablet.

“A year and a half’s worth of research was put into choosing the right device for us.

Bullshit. Anyone that did research wouldn’t have chosen an HP tablet—they would have gone with an iPad that is working in classrooms around the world. If I was a parent in this school district, I’d be out for the principal’s head.

Byword is one of my favorite Mac apps—I use it everyday. It was just updated with a number of improvements.

These are fascinating. Here’s the most shared ad. It’s called Dove Beauty Sketches, and it’s from ad agency Ogilvy Mather.

I’m not yet a Box user, but I can see the market niche this company serves. Clearly, they are growing, don’t see a reason this won’t continue. Unless Amazon decides to step on them.

The Safeplug from Pogoplug is a small, cheap (US$49) box you plug into your home router to create a Tor-driven instant proxy server, allowing computers on your network to act as an internet access go-between. The Safeplug also has an ad-blocker, which is disabled by default.

Safeplug is not a panacea for anonymity:

However, Mehmet Güneş, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies anonymity tools, says that users of the Safeplug will only remain truly obscure if they adjust their online behavior in other ways. “Tor provides unlinkability from source to destination, and people confuse that with anonymity,” he says. While using Tor people can easily leak identifying information via the Flash plug-in, other media add-ons, or through information they type or send, says Güneş.

And since the Safeplug uses Tor, that’ll slow down your access, too. Still, this seems like a real value to people determined to do everything they can to stay off the grid.

This evening, massive numbers of Xbox One consoles will arrive on gamers’ doorsteps. At midnight, many more gamers will queue in stores to get their hands on one. Seems an appropriate time to post this story about how Xbox Live came to be.

I will warn you. This story contains graphic Microsoftness. And it takes place, apparently, in a world where Apple does not exist. All that aside, if you are an Xbox fan, you’ll enjoy this.

Seva is a not-for-profit humanitarian foundation best known for their work restoring eyesight to over 3 million blind people suffering from cataract blindness. This is the story about how Steve helped them get their start.

Washington Post:

This has been a big week for Bitcoin. On Monday, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held the first-ever Congressional hearing on Bitcoin. Later in the day, the currency’s value reached an all-time high of more than $800.

That has left a lot of people scratching their heads. What’s Bitcoin? How do you use it? And why would anyone want to? Read on for answers.

Glad somebody asked.

In an interview with Larry King scheduled to run Thursday night, Bob Woodward talked about NSA leaker Edward Snowden. “I wish he’d come to me instead of others, particularly The Guardian, and I would have said to him ‘let’s not reveal who you are. Let’s make you a protected source and give me time with this data and let’s sort it out and present it in a coherent way,’ ” Woodward tells King.

In issue 15 of The Loop Magazine:

Matt Gemmell talks about letting go of distractions and interruptions that cause him to lose focus on what’s important; Kirk McElhearn investigates whether William Shakespeare was a real person or a name used by many different authors; Nick de Souza discusses how the iPad is helping in education in his article “Magical Lessons”; Chris Domico is reminded how a song can take you back in time in “Nostalgia”; and Jim Dalrymple reviews the iPad mini.

The Federal Communications Commission will propose allowing passengers to use their cellphones on airplanes, people familiar with the matter said.

While phone use would still be restricted during takeoff and landing, the proposal would lift an FCC ban on airborne calls and cellular data use by passengers once a flight reaches 10,000 feet, an FCC official said.

I will punch you in the face if you make a loud phone call next to me.

I like these. I use Field Notes all the time.