Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In the 10 billionth song that Apple sold through iTunes, Johnny Cash's "Guess Things Happen That Way", a man other than Steve Jobs famous for black attire bemoans the happenstance of his romantic misfortune. But nothing could be further from the story of iTunes, in which Apple's meticulously crafted ownership of the end-user experience led to a dominant position in music sales. Now, on the dawn of releasing a new device that could be to television shows what the iPod was to music, Apple has an opportunity to create as commanding a lead in TV distribution -- if it is willing to again capitulate to consumers' media consumption habits.

Apple has enjoyed great success with iTunes in part because it adopted the purchase-to-own model that had been so successful with CDs and records before them. However, Apple didn't simply mirror that model. By allowing consumers to purchase the vast majority of songs as singles, it provided better perceived value, Such an option was also a natural fit for the iPod, where playlists made it trivial to create the digital equivalent of "mix tapes." The iPod's capacity for thousands of songs was also no match for most albums that typically had a dozen or so songs.

Continue reading Switched On: Why it's time for an iTunes TV subscription

Switched On: Why it's time for an iTunes TV subscription originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/lAEXXCYgN7w&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); Ever spiced up Internet poker by busting out a webcam and turning it into a strip game? Yeah? Well, have you ever done it while using a Rock Band drum kit to control the game? Here's how.

Poker Listings' Sean Lind figured out a fairly simple way of turning your Rock Band drum kit into a set of controls for poker. The results are above, but the instructions on setting this up yourself are right here:

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/yseg7C2mzu8&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} );

Great. Now I can blame my poker losses on my miserable drumming skills. [Poker Listing]

A man hassled a neighbor over his Wi-Fi allergies, and we dismissed him as a member of the tin-foil hat brigade. Now we're reading PopSci's look at the Electro-hypersensitivity—the real deal gadget allergy—and we're feeling sorta like assholes.

The article opens with an anecdote of Per Segerbäck, a serious electro-hypersensitive who lives in a cottage north of Stockholm. He can be rendered unconscious by a single cell phone call.

The sickness stems not from the gadgets themselves but from the electromagnetic radiation they produce; it seeps from phones, computers, televisions, and pretty much anything else that you'd say defines our modern society as modern. Making matters even worse for Segerbäck and the similarly afflicted is that the science on electro-hypersensitivity is far from a consensus.

Still, fainting from a phone call is hard to argue with. Check out PopSci's article for the full story of people who really can't stomach gadgets. [PopSci]

Who knows what's actually housed in the device, but judging by the accompanying placard, MSI is playing the aesthetic card with this one. Designed as both a PC and a decoration for the home, it's certainly pleasing on the eye. And like the sign says, "don't try to put in toast" -- cute, but we'd rather that line had a commitment to releasing this sucker. Or a price range. Or some hint as specs. Or anything tangible, really.

MSI Toast PC catches our eye, and that's all she wrote originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Maryland driver and Twitter user Tamast ordered a custom license plate on the DMV website, which was to read '42' (the meaning of life) in binary code. Only problem is, the I's print differently than they look on screen. Per the road rager himself:

well, these plates don't look like the preview! having "42″ in binary is cool. having "IOIOIO" is not.

Oh, come on TaTas, I still think it's pretty cool. Granted not as cool as this new card trick I just mastered, but is THIS your card?! No? F***. Okay who wants to see me cut the IWatchStuff guy in half? Tamast's Twitter via Binary Vanity Plate Fail [albotas] Thanks to GuamOtoko, who got '1 BAMF' on his plate and rightfully so.

Last night here in NYC, British pop singer Little Boots used a huge laser harp on stage. We've seen these things before and I just don't get it. Let's just stick with the normal instruments, shall we? [BrooklynVegan]

So Microsoft's Charlie Kindel posted up a long blog post about Windows Phone 7 Series and app development just now, and we couldn't help but notice the WP7S device mockup he used is noticeably different from the stock press shots we've been seeing and the actual devices we've gotten to play with. That's a totally different hardware trim, for starters, and there's a Zune-like menu on the right-- on the builds we've seen scrolling to the right reveals the app list. And that map on the bottom has been moved up a couple rows from where we've seen it on demo builds -- which is unfortunate because it's so wildly ugly in comparison to the rest of the 7 Series interface. Now, this could actually be an older mockup, not a newer one, so we're not reading too much into this, but it's clear that Microsoft is still making a ton of tweaks to the WP7S interface as time goes on -- hopefully we'll see some final results at MIX.

Windows Phone 7 Series mockup changes slightly, Zune menu making a comeback? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One drop. Five minutes in a pocket with your keys. Three months of regular use. This is all it takes for an iPhone's backplate to go from a mirror-like shine to a scratched-to-hell eyesore. Here's how to fix it.

MacRumors forum member Shenaniganz08 salvaged an iPhone 3G from eBay, sanding, buffing and polishing it back from the brink of a life in a case, which would be dumb, because cases are dumb. (I mean, not really, but that's kind of the premise of this whole process, right? Anyway.) Here's what you need:

• Sandpaper 320(or 500),800,1000,1500,2000,2500,3000 grit
• 3M Rubbing compound
• Machine Polisher ( Power Drill or small buffer)
• Microfibers
• Sticky tack and or tape

What's great about this is that you don't need to buy almost anything. Half the stuff you need—the microfibers, the polishing disc and the rubbing compound—is included in a $15 3M headlight restoration kit , and you can use just about any crappy household drill for the buffing stage.

In any case, the results are stunning, and the documentation meticulous, so if you've got a few hours, a few bucks and an iPhone that looks like a piece of shitty sea glass, why not? [Macrumors via Gadget Lab]

Back in 2007, Thodio made the lovingly hand-crafted iBox speakers. But you know what? That was then. In today's rough and tumble world, your iPod needs speakers wrought with freakin kevlar. Welcome, survivalists, to the Thodio A-Box.

The innards are the same as the iBox, with your choice between two 25 watt amplifier or a "heavy duty" 70 watts. But really, the guts aren't the selling point for this bad boy. Heck, even Thodio knows that:

The iPod/mp3 player can be connected on the outside of the A-BOX as well as the inside so you can listen to your tunes while running around with the A-BOX for example or just protecting your iPod from bullets and stuff.

You know, bullets and stuff. What else does the heavy version offer? If the speakers are driven too loud, you get a "funky disco effect."

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Sure, the heavy duty version'll run you $611, but that's a small price to pay for being able to dance under the funky disco lights of your blown-out speakers, firing round after round at it late into the night. [Thodio via The Awesomer]

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/microsoft/Windows_Phone_7_Series_uses_Silverlight_won_t_run_6_5_apps'; Microsoft is keen on unveiling the meat of its developer story around Windows Phone 7 Series at MIX10 in less than two weeks, but with GDC coming up next week, they're figuring that now is a good time to start dropping hints -- they'll want to be capturing the collective imagination of the gaming industry, after all, what with that Xbox Live integration they've got going on. To that end, Charlie Kindel of WinPho's developer experience team has outed a few key items at a reception in San Francisco this evening.

The major points are that Silverlight, XNA, and .NET will figure prominently into the developer story -- not a surprise considering that Microsoft is heavily invested in both, gaming is central to the Windows Phone 7 Series story, XNA is a big deal on Zune HD already, and this all lines up with what we'd heard in the past. In fact, Kindel boldly proclaims that "If you are Silverlight or XNA developer today you're gonna be really happy." On the flipside, it's a bit ironic considering that Silverlight spends much of its existence going head-to-head with Flash, and all indications are that we won't see Flash support on 7 at initial availability (though it's sounding like a lock post-launch).

One final note at today's event is that Microsoft has now officially confirmed for the first time that 7 represents a clean break from Windows Mobile as we know it today; existing apps won't be compatible. Though that's likely to be a pain for existing owners with specialized apps who are looking to stay in the Microsoft ecosystem, Windows Phone 7 Series itself is a very different beast than the operating system it replaces -- it feels different, seeks a different demographic, and symbolically represents a very important clean-slate departure for a company that had lost its way in the mobile space. The bright side for the 6.5 faithful, we suppose, is that Kindel closes by saying that they "will continue to work with our partners to deliver new devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will support those products for many years to come" -- a message Microsoft has been echoing recently.

We expect to hear much, much more on this at MIX -- and we might hear a few more tidbits at GDC as well -- but in the meantime, there's a developer Q&A going down on Twitter around 9:00PM ET (check the #wp7dev tag) where we could get some details. Stay tuned.

Microsoft talks Windows Phone 7 Series development ahead of GDC: Silverlight, XNA, and no backward compatibility originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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