Hasta La Gadget!

Fans of Captain America will immediately recognize the superhero in this photo as he pops his head out of this deliciously geeky cake. Though his projectile-shaped head reminds me a little bit of Bullet Bill from the Mario games.

But Captain America isn’t the only baked Avenger in this room. No, sirree. Iron Man, Hulk and Thor are ready to be devoured by the masses as well. These whimsical Avengers cakes were posted (and made?) by CakeCentral contributor Vera76 and were made for one very lucky child’s birthday party. Why didn’t my parents ever make me stuff like this when I was growing up?

Avengers, Assemble in my stomach now!

Billboard has been offering up charts that show which songs are the most popular in the country and around the world for decades. The company has had its Hot 100 chart for 55 years and the formula used to determine which songs go on that chart has now been changed. Billboard has announced that it now takes a number of plays a song has had on YouTube into account when figuring Hot 100 rankings.

This change in the formula will have significant impact for a lot of artists and their music. For instance, the song Harlem Shake from Baauer has become a YouTube sensation with thousands and thousands of users each day uploading videos of themselves dancing to the tune. Thanks to the change in the Hot 100 formula, Harlem Shake will debut at number one this week on the chart.

According to the New York Times when Harlem Shake was first released last May as a free download the track received little attention. However, the song and videos of people dancing to it have gone viral via YouTube and its popularity has exploded. Reports indicate that over 4000 videos of people dancing to the song were going up on YouTube every day.

Reports also indicate that download sales and people listening to this track on streaming on services like Spotify have increased massively. According to the New York Times, the incredible online activity for Harlem Shake is what led Billboard to quickly move forward with changing how it ranks songs on the Hot 100 chart. Apparently, Billboard had been talking with YouTube for nearly 2 years on integrating metrics from the video sharing service into its Hot 100.

[via NYT]

Billboard now takes YouTube views into account in its Hot 100 formula is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Thought Google Glass cost a pretty penny? Well, try this head-mounted display on for size. It’s that Mixed Reality wearable from Canon that we’ve been hearing so much about. As previously noted, it’s set to hit the States the first of next month, carrying a decidedly gigantic $125,000 price tag (plus an estimated $25,000 in annual maintenance). But before you go writing a brashly worded letter to the bigwigs at Canon, remember: this isn’t really for you. That is, unless you’re an automotive manufacturer, research university or museum display curator. This is a heavy-duty, industry-facing device.

That said, the camera maker did give a few of us non-industry folks the chance to play around with the display at an event in Manhattan last night, while the rest of the tech world was fawning over that fancy new PlayStation thingamabob. Having spent some time with Sony’s HMZ-T1, we’ve got to say that the experience of wearing this far, far more high-end product wasn’t all that different from a hardware perspective: slip it over your head, place it on the bridge of your nose and tighten. It’s possible to get it snug without being too uncomfortable — and when it’s time to take it off, a flip of the lever will remove it in one go.

Filed under: Cameras, Displays, Wearables, Canon

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The next cycle of home console gaming (the high end side of things, of course, as Nintendo had already rolled out their Nintendo Wii U from last year onwards which frankly, was rather disappointing in terms of specifications as well as performance, once again leaning on the strength of Nintendo’s library and relatively low price point to pull it through the next round of next-gen console gaming) is set to arrive, with Sony throwing down the gauntlet with an announcement of their PlayStation 4, or PS4 for short.

The PS3 has aged gracefully over the past few years of course, but it is time for the old to go, and the new to come. According to Andrew House, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, “The living room is no longer the center of the PlayStation universe, the gamer is. We believe that PlayStation 4 represents a shift from thinking of a box or console.”

PlayStation 4′s lead system architect Mark Cerny has mentioned that Sony, being a company that does not rest on their laurels, have already begun to work on the PS4 shortly after the release of the PlayStation 3, with the ultimate purpose of creating a console for developers, and by developers. You will find a completely updated user interface in addition to a bunch of new features that range from an updated controller to social features which cannot be found on other consoles – or at least, Sony hopes so.

There will be a new and updated DualShock 4 controller, and the PS4 will carry an X86 processor, packed with an enhanced PC GPU, and 8GB of high-speed unified memory. The new DualShock 4 controller sports a touchpad (hmmm, a page from Nintendo’s book?), a share button, and a headphone jack. There is also a light bar located on the back of the controller that will help you identify different players, while a 3D camera on the console is capable of tracking controllers connected to the console.

When can you pick up a PS4? Sony cited a “holiday 2013″ date, so now would be a good time to start saving up for one when the time arrives.

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[ Sony PS4 announced copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Well, someone had to offer a counterpart to the giant donut. NVIDIA has decided that its ongoing success in 3D graphics and mobile processors merits a suitably geometric new headquarters, so it’s upping the stakes among oddly-shaped offices: it’s planning to construct a triangular pair of buildings a stone’s throw away from its existing Santa Clara campus. Like its upcoming parallel at the Fruit Company, the NVIDIA facility will focus on both eco-friendly design and wide open spaces that, officially, are meant to reflect the company’s loves of art, collaboration and science. Of course, the Tegra creator is quick to admit that it really needs the buildings to accommodate its growing staff count — and we imagine that “make it look cool” was also part of the proposal. NVIDIA hasn’t said just when the new headquarters will be ready, although it will have to make up for lost time if it wants to have Silicon Valley’s star attraction.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, NVIDIA

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Source: NVIDIA