"2012 SXSW Opening Day Bash" Amazon sampler

SXSW in Austin, TX is often thought of as a tech show but there is a huge music component. Every year, up and coming bands play the show in the hopes of getting noticed or getting a wider audience. And every year, Amazon posts a selection of free music from those bands.

This year’s selection is from bands like Pillow fight, Bright Moments, Polica and others.

Vancouver Sun:

Canadian singles who use Android phones are more likely to have sex on a first date and partake in one-night stands, in comparison to those with other types of smartphones, according to a results of a survey.

Mashable:

The Super Bowl isn’t just the biggest day in American football. It’s also the advertising world’s shining moment.Brands and agencies pull out all the stops to make an impression on the game’s captive audience. Most frequently, they turn to the bizarre and the offbeat, seeking to burn messages into viewers’ brains with humor.And the ads had better be funny; commercial slots are going for a whopping $3.5 million a pop this year.

Any list that includes the “Wassup!” ads but doesn’t include the Budweiser frogs can’t possibly be the ten funniest.

TIME:

A Yale lecture capped at 270 students? And no wireless Internet available? Dial up the anger on the New Haven, Conn., campus.After Alexander Nemerov moved his popular “Introduction to the History of Art: Renaissance to the Present” from the Yale Law School auditorium that easily fit about 450 students to the more cramped Yale Art Gallery auditorium, he not only upset some students and alumni by capping the class size at 270 because of the smaller venue, but also shocked some students that walked into a room void of wi-fi or cell service.

Before you scream, “Luddite!”, read the article. The professor seems to have good reasoning for his decision.

Brett Kelly:

Let me restate that I’m not just generally crapping on iBooks, the iBooks Author application or anything else. I’m an eBook author that’s sold a few copies and is pretty happy with how things have gone. If Apple’s wares seem like just the thing for your next eBook project, then I’d suggest you seriously consider employing them.Just make sure you think through all of the possible ramifications of such a decision. That’s all I’m saying.

Brett certainly has some good points. While I’ve been asked many times to write a book, I never have, so I’m not an eBook author. For me, the interactivity that iBooks Author offers would be enough to use it and sell my books through the iBookstore. As Brett said, it’s important to know everything before you jump in.

Helix Nebula, NGC 7293

In a few billion years, our dear Sun will look like this, a beautiful glowing eye of spent starstuff trash in the shape of Sauron’s Eye. And no ring is going to save us from this one.It’s the Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, 700 light-years away from Earth. Once upon a time it was a star like ours.

I’m going to be so bummed when that happens.

New York Times:

In a sharp answer to Amazon and its expanding publishing efforts, Barnes & Noble said on Tuesday that it would not sell books released by Amazon Publishing in its bookstores.The ban includes books released by New Harvest, a new imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that recently struck a deal to publish and distribute books released by Amazon Publishing’s unit based in New York.It also seemed unlikely that many of the 1,900 independent bookstores in the United States would be willing to stock Amazon books.

To be clear, the B&N ban only applies to books from the publishing arm of Amazon – not all books sold through Amazon.com.

GameInformer.com:

At the end of March, Bungie will no longer handle player data for Halo games. The studio issued a statement today saying the transition process between it and 343 Industries, Microsoft’s new internal Halo studio, will be completed March 31. After then, all live Halo data will be managed by 343.

Bungie’s been ready to move on from Halo for some time. The company went private again in 2008 after being part of Microsoft following its acquisition in 2000. While the Halo franchise remains a Microsoft property, Bungie has entered into a 10 year deal with Activision Blizzard and formed Bungie Aerospace, an independent developer studio that has released an iOS game called Crimson: Steam Pirates.

Gamesindustry.biz:

Sony has named Kaz Hirai as the successor to Howard Stringer’s roles as both president and CEO, effective April 1, 2012.Stringer, who has lead the company in the joint role for seven years, will take up the position of chairman of the board, whilst current chairman Yotaro Kobayashi will retire.

Hirai oversees Sony’s PlayStation operations. He’s been the most public face of Sony for gamers for a number of years now.

Crunchie

This year’s fifth annual Crunchies Awards has just finished up at the classy Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and it was a smashing success. We poked fun #humblebraggers, got cussed at by Siri, honored former TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde, and gave wild monkey trophies to tech’s greatest innovators. Check out the full list of nominees and winners.

Apple took a Crunchie for Siri in the “Best Technology Achievement” category and was nominated for “Best Tablet Application” (Garageband) and “Best New Device” (iPad 2) but lost out to Fotopedia and Nest respectively.

Tony Hart:

Tony,I talked to many people and John was the best by far. I think you will be as pleased as I am. His role isn’t to bring Dixons to Apple, [it’s] to bring Apple to an even higher level of customer service and satisfaction.Tim

If nothing else, Cook’s emails to customers are longer than Jobs’ ever were.

DesignModo:

The role of minimalism is very strong in web design with the help of companies like Apple. Apple has helped expose minimalism in to the 20th century by the way their website, branding and devices were stripped down to show only its necessary elements, the less is more statement has never been so popular.

Clearly I’m a big fan of minimalist designs, but I like functionality and coolness too.

David Boles:

I was having such a good day today. Then Apple threatened me in a nasty email.

The question is, are those footers we see in some emails – the ones like “This transmission may be privileged and may contain confidential information intended only for the person(s) named above” – legally binding and/or actionable? Many of us have always assumed they are put there just to satisfy some corporate weenie and can be safely ignored.

In 1970, at the height of his career, Cash needed a personal limousine. He turned to Rolls-Royce where he acquired a long-wheelbase Silver Shadow Saloon. At the time the Crewe factory did not produce a limousine, so Cash turned to a local Nashville coachbuilder, gave them his specifications and this is the final product. Cash used this limousine up through 1977 when it was sold to another private owner prior to coming to the Burdick collection.

Longform delivers all of the latest in-depth articles from the world’s best magazines, plus unmissable reads curated from across the web by the editors of Longform.org. Perfect for commutes, flights, or Sunday afternoons.

I expect this will be quite popular.

Dexigner:

Nestle is the first food and beverage company to adopt this method following its partnership with the university in 2009. Inclusive Design is a process which seeks to develop product design to meet the needs of more people. Companies can use a number of specialist Inclusive Design tools to determine how they can make products easier to use.

Interesting article on how product design is helping people with arthritis and other physical problems.

Love this.

BGR:

I’m tired of reading nonsense and of interacting with people that solely troll this site just to get a rise out of other commenters and start a holy war in the comments section. I’m tired of having to delete crap and I’m tired of people complaining that a few thousand people ruin it for millions. Maybe I’m just tired of you.

Another site turns off story comments. BGR is one of the biggest in recent months to do it though.

There are a handful of musicians that really push the boundaries. For anyone that knows Jordan Rudess, it will come as no surprise that he is one of them! In this exclusive interview with MPVHub Jordan reveals the inspiration behind his popular iOS apps, talks candidly about Dream Theater’s creative process, and explores how music technology has changed the way he approaches the music making process.

I’ve known Jordan for a number of years and have a tremendous amount of respect for him.

BGR:

The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Samsung Electronics has abusively, and in contravention of a commitment it gave to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets, in breach of EU antitrust rules.

If you click the “view demo” button, you can see how they will look. I like the cutout style.

Good to see the new RIM CEO isn’t wasting his time on things that won’t make a difference.

Dave Caolo:

This got me thinking of “profiles” for the app, or how individuals might set the app up, based on occupation or interest. Launch Center does not offer a profiles feature, but it doesn’t really have to. Instead, a person’s interests or occupation naturally creates a certain list of of tasks.

Tools for increasing productivity are getting better, but a lot times it’s how we use them that make the apps truly great.

If you plan on giving that special someone an Apple gift for Valentine’s Day, you can now check to see when it needs to be ordered.

CNN:

Jobs was personally involved in the high-def initiative, speaking directly to Young about it, the 66-year-old musician recalled. Improving the quality of digital music is a personal mission for Young, who has evangelized for it before.“Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music,” Young said. “But when he went home, he listened to vinyl.”

Larry Dignan, ZDNET:

Amazon’s fourth quarter sales missed projections, but earnings were ahead. The big wild card was Kindle device sales, which tripled over the holidays.The e-commerce giant reported earnings of $177 million in the fourth quarter, or 38 cents a share, on revenue of $17.43 billion, up 35 percent from a year ago. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $18.25 billion.

Larry says “Kindle sales surged” and “Kindle sales tripled over the holidays.” But then Larry points out that “As per Amazon custom, no hard numbers were disclosed.” So how do you know sales have surged and tripled?

Adam Davidson, The Atlantic:

In the 10 years ending in 2009, factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs—about 6 million in total—disappeared. About as many people work in manufacturing now as did at the end of the Depression, even though the American population is more than twice as large today.I came here to find answers to questions that arise from the data. How, exactly, have some American manufacturers continued to survive, and even thrive, as global competition has intensified? What, if anything, should be done to halt the collapse of manufacturing employment? And what does the disappearance of factory work mean for the rest of us?

In light of the discussion about Apple and overseas jobs, this is an interesting article about manufacturing in America.

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