Hasta La Gadget!

After 8 long years, Sony has finally given in, offering music from its Japanese artists on iTunes in Japan. This comes after the company’s addition of Western artists to the iTunes store earlier this year. Sony has been experiencing low earnings and is a rival to Apple, which no doubt makes this a bit like salt in the company’s ever-growing wound.

The music is already available, and includes Japanese artists like Ikimonogakari and Toshinobu Kubota, which were previously offered via Recochoku. The music is not DRM’d, which means users can freely swap it amongst all of their devices. The tracks can be downloaded for about $3 each, or $25 for an album. The audio is rated at 256kbps.

This comes after Sony picked up Recochoku, a distributor it used to makes its tracks available to Japanese customers. Perhaps not surprisingly, Sony hasn’t issued any statement or announcement in regards to this change in stance. One must commend the company – ever stubborn and staunchly opposed to using its rival for sales – for holding out as long as it did.

Some analysts believe this move is part of Sony’s overall efforts to gain traction after experiencing its recent losses. Per its last quarter earnings report, the company brought in $20 billion in earnings, a drop of $158 million. Last month, we reported on Sony’s plans to lay off about 2,000 of its workers by the end of this year.

[via TNW]

Sony gives in, adds its music to iTunes in Japan is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Marshall is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year with another set of headphones, only these are lined with gold trimmings. The Major 50 FX headphones are similar to the Major Pitch Black headphones that we reviewed over the summer, only these new ones comes with a few upgrades inside and out.

The Major 50 FX headphones are made for big sound (obviously), and the technology inside has received a slight boost from the previous Marshall Major headphones. The new headphones come with gold trimmings on the outside. The outer ear caps are lined with gold, and the Marshall logo in the center of the caps are gold as well.

The headband is made of vinyl and features the inscription “London England 1962″, which is the birth place and birth year of the Marshall amplifier brand. On top of the gold trimming and inscriptions, the Major 50 FX headphones are Apple certified, and include an inline microphone and remote, so they’ll work seamlessly with Apple’s numerous products.

The headphones also come with a canvas carrying bag — perfect for on-the-go audiophiles. The Marshall Major 50 FX headphones are available right now at a cost of $170. That’s definitely not a bad price to pay for top-quality headphones. Plus, if you like bling (and who doesn’t), then it’s practically a two-for-one deal.

Marshall Major 50 FX headphones marks 50th anniversary is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

At this point every city has a facility that will process all of your old electronics. But instead of doing the responsible thing and recycling your unwanted gear, it turns out you can turn it into a giant electronic symphony specializing in Bob Dylan’s hits. More »

You might recall musician Diwa de Leon from his entertaining and amusing performances of the Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Galaxy music. Well, Diwa is back, and this time he’s formed a new musical group – the Mini Mario Orchestra.

And the first performance of the Mini Mario Orchestra? Well, you’d think he’d play a bunch of music from platformers, but to keep us on our toes, Diwa has decided to do an awesome medley of RPG themes instead – all while dressed up as Mario, and playing each and every instrument himself:

Now wasn’t that special? Mario playing the Dragonborn theme from Skyrim and the Main theme from Mass Effect seems a little out of place, but it’s still pretty great. I only wish he would have played some more tracks from the Paper Mario series. I’d think that would be more appropriate.

If you liked what you saw (and heard,) be sure to swing by and comment on the video’s YouTube page, and let Diwa know what other tunes you’d like to hear from the Mini Mario Orchestra. Personally, I’d like to hear the Casino Night theme from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Last month, we heard that Apple was planning to roll out a pretty big update for iTunes. That update was scheduled to land sometime this month, but with October ending tomorrow, it’s become pretty clear that the iTunes refresh probably won’t make it out the door before November arrives. Sure enough, Apple confirmed today that it has delayed this major iTunes update, and now the company is saying that it should be available before the end of next month.

Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr confirmed the delay of the update to All Things D today, though sadly, he didn’t get too specific about why it was pushed back. “The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right,” Neumayr said. “We look forward to releasing this new version of iTunes with its dramatically simpler and cleaner interface and seamless integration with iCloud before the end of November.”

There could be any number of reasons for this delay – including, as All Things D points out, Apple’s recent management shake up – but we’re tempted to take Apple at its word when it says that needs more time to iron out the kinks. Remember, Apple doesn’t have the best history with these iTunes updates after all. In any case, once the update does finally arrive, it will come sporting a bunch of new features, including the iCloud improvements Neumayr mentioned.

There are also improvements to the user interface and playlist creation to get excited about, as well as general boosts to performance. Sadly, the iTunes faithful will have to a wait a few more weeks before they can put this update through its paces, but it’s better for Apple push it back than release it on time with a bunch of bugs. Stay tuned, because we’ll probably hear more about this iTunes update as we draw closer to its yet-unknown November release date.

iTunes overhaul pushed back to November is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.