One billion dollars in 3 days. Wow. For comparison, it took Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 16 days to hit $1B, back in January 2012. Then Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 hit $1B in 15 days this past December. 3 days is astonishing.

Grand Theft Auto has been keeping Take-Two afloat during the down times, as the series has an extremely long tail (the volume of sales over time following release). Not only does a new release spike revenues, but it also incentivizes gamers to investigate the back catalog (sometimes spurring purchases of already owned games on new platforms). GTA V will be even more significant should the title see staggered releases on PC and next-generation platforms (as I suspect it will). At this point, Call of Duty is going to have a nearly impossible time beating GTA’s sales this year, ending a four-year streak.

With numbers like these, it is no wonder that Apple has added support for game controllers into iOS 7. Will game controller support be the force that erodes the chasm between iOS devices and traditional consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation? Time will tell.

An annual gathering of technologists passionate about creating great things.

I’ll be speaking at this conference next week in Chicago. Join me and a lot of other great speakers—tickets are on sale until midnight tonight Pacific time.

I love that Tim Cook did this. What a great surprise for folks queueing up to buy the iPhone 5s. Phil Schiller and Eddie Cue also made the rounds of the Palo Alto area stores. Fantastic.

This week, Jim is joined by Back to Work’s Merlin Mann to talk about hands-on experiences with Apple’s new iPhone 5s and 5c and iOS 7.

Including a deep dive on Touch ID; how easier security measures could boost iTunes sales; Jim’s new-found photo skills with the 5s camera; what Jim looks for in the wiring under his wood; and more.

Time is running out for BlackBerry. The company announced on Friday that it is cutting 4,500 jobs and that it will report a net operating loss of roughly $1 billion in its next quarterly earnings report.

I certainly feel bad for the people that lost their jobs, but we all knew this was coming.

Seriously, everyone wants an iPhone.

This is cool. It shows you one word at a time, so you can increase your speed over time.

Back in June, at WWDC, Apple first announced iOS 7, detailing a host of new technologies. Hidden among them, with the barest of mentions, was the iBeacon.

Think of an iBeacon as a tiny radio you can put almost anywhere. When your iPhone or other iOS device gets within range (a few dozen feet or so), it detects the iBeacon and can estimate how far away it is. Each iBeacon has its own identifier, too, so if your iPhone is within range of more than one iBeacon, it can tell them apart.

One company that is hard at work making their own brand of iBeacon sensor is estimote. From their web site:

Simply stick our tiny sensors in any physical place — such as your retail store — and your app users will benefit from personalized micro-location based notifications and actions when they walk in to your venue or interact with your products.

Roximity is another company that makes iBeacons. From their website:

Manage your beacons and triggers from a simple yet powerful web based dashboard. View detailed analytics about your campaigns, in store foot traffic, busiest times of day, and much much more!

I think this technology has incredible potential.

Daniel Rachel just released the book Isle of Noises: Conversations with Great British Songwriters.

Inspired by Paul Zollo’s seminal Songwriters on Songwriting, Rachel has managed to bring together a truly impressive ensemble of British tunesmiths, including Ray Davies, Jarvis Cocker, Mick Jones, Robin Gibb (why the hell not!) and Johnny Marr, among others. The results are hugely enjoyable, and the mind veritably boggles imagining the kind of cajoling and legwork Rachel must have put in to coax this rich and eclectic ensemble out of their country piles—not least the notoriously taciturn, the notoriously notorious Jimmy Page…

I love interviews where musicians talk about their craft (as opposed to their personal lives). Really looking forward to getting my copy. Follow the link above to get to an excerpt of the Jimmy Page interview.

Here’s a tasty bit of Page playing Chopin. The audio is a little out of sync (I think they captured the echo), but yum, nonetheless.

Go get ’em.

I had a lot of fun joining John Gruber on The Talk Show this week where we discussed the iPhone 5s and 5c, among other things.

Dow Jones & Co. won’t renew its partnership with AllThingsD, the technology news website that rose to prominence covering the players of the high-tech industry and reviewing their products.

As part of the separation, announced Thursday by Dow Jones editor-in-chief and Wall Street Journal managing editor Gerard Baker, longtime Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg will leave the paper.

Wow.

GigaOM:

Low broadband caps in Canada put that country close to third-world countries, and overage charges almost amount to human rights violations: Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos blasted broadband caps and usage-based-billing employed by Canadian ISPs during an investor event Thursday afternoon.

Well, That’s embarrassing for us.

There are so many good pieces in this story. You just have to read the whole thing.

Updated with all the iOS 7 trimmings. I downloaded and it works great.

When I encounter a story on the net that just seems too outlandish to be true, the first thing I do is turn to Snopes.com. Nine times out of ten, I’ll find the questionable story on Snopes, with some background on the origins of the story and a big green or red graphic that says true or false.

Snopes is a great resource. But the site is seeded with a few stories that are just not true. Follow the link above to read the background. Or follow this link for the Snopes lost legends page.

Tim O’Reilly has long been one of my heroes. He’s one of the leading lights in all manner of publishing, and a major force behind the maker movement (people learning how to build things, teaching others). A righteous dude.

This blog post is a thoughtful look back at his successes and his failures. An important read, especially if you are building a business.

I love Breaking Bad. Thank you The Oatmeal for your insight. Heh.

Here are a few more tips and tricks for the new iOS.

Speak of busy, Rene Ritchie wrote almost 14,000 words on iOS 7.

Federico Viticci and Chris Herbert have been busy. Much respect.

The major changes in iOS 7 have been written about for a few months, but Dave Hamilton focused his attention on some lesser known settings that could be helpful to you.

I don’t think there is anyone more qualified to do this type of high-end technical review.

Two things that I thought were particularly interesting in John’s review: the part about innovation and the section on 64-bit. Definitely worth a read.

Screens allows you to control your computer remotely from your iOS device. I’ve been using this app since it first came out and it just keeps getting better.