Microsoft has taken the unusual step of promoting Windows 7 in Japan with Burger King’s launch of a Windows 7 Whopper. Fitting in with the software theme, the burger stacks seven patties in an otherwise normal Whopper and measures 5.1 inches tall. It also has an appropriate 777 yen ($8.53) price….

MySpace has expanded its music-oriented services to include a new Artist Dashboard utility and Music Video portal, while users can now download tracks directly from iTunes, Amazon or Jamster. The new Music Video hub provides recommendations, browsing tools, and a new video player with “Buy” buttons for ads….

Filed under: Gaming, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Disgruntled TUAW commenters, I’ll save you some time: “OMG Mike of course a game powered by EA and one of the most popular franchises of all time is a hit. Try reporting some real news!” But not so fast — Rock Band, which hit the App Store top 10 and conquered the Top Grossing list just days after its release this week, is actually a more unlikely hit than you think. For one thing, it sold at a price of $9.99 only — no free versions, no trials, no pricing sales or schemes that have become the rule rather than the exception on the App Store lately. And for another thing, it had a comparable competitor in Tap Tap Revenge 3, selling for just 99 cents. TTR3 is a hit as well — it’s topping the list of paid apps that Rock Band is on — but many people figured consumers would pass on the $10 app for the 99 cent one, and many people were wrong.

In short, even though, yes, Rock Band has EA’s power behind it and it’s based on an already popular game, it actually has bucked what we’ve seen so far: prices racing to the bottom, and tough chances of making a hit game, much less a profitable one, at the $9.99 price point. We don’t yet know whether the game is profitable (or how either Rock Band’s or TTR3’s microtransaction models will do in the future), as it’s just too soon.

But Rock Band is already seen as a game that stands as a shining example of what many were thinking wasn’t true: big publishers with big name titles can put out big games at (relatively — $10 is still cheap when you’re talking about Rock Band at large) high price points and see them sell.

TUAWRock Band on iPhone is a hit originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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"Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), a holding on our recommended buy list, delivered another blowout quarter, driven by booming sales of both the iPhone and its Macintosh computers," notes analyst Geoffrey Seiler. In his BullMarket.com advisory, …

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Hi. Mark Crisp here. 21st October 2009. Right now it looks like the only stock going up is AAPL. Many of my other leading stocks have started to stall. Remember the leading stocks always leads the averages. so the leading stocks could …

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Sinecure Industries has launched its first iPhone app, How Am I Feeling? ñ The Mood Analyzer. The program allegedly uses a mood algorithm based on the “war-era Mooreefocical Bafflegab prototype”, which is designed to pinpoint and display the userís current emotion. The developer claims the app works by analyzing physical contact with the mobile device, preferably with the finger or nose, and then presents an animated punch-card machine until a result is displayed….

Filed under: Rumors, Apple

Speculation based on rumor can be frustrating. But when the rumor is of Apple’s fabled tablet, and the speculation is of a new golden age for comics, the 13-year-old kid in me comes alive.

Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Andy Ihnatko says there are hints that Apple is getting into the digital comic book market, a statement he likens to saying “Apple is helping to create the digital comic book market.” Digital comics today, he argues, are where digital music was in 2002. Legitimate businesses are so fractured, clumsy, and behind the times that pirated comics (online illegally one day after hitting store shelves) provide the best user experience.

Enter LongBox, a company that has made the rounds at comic book conventions this year pitching an iTunes-like store for buying and selling digital comic books. Ihnatko talked with LongBox CEO Rantz Hoseley, peppering him with questions and looking for reasons that LongBox was doomed to failure. What he found instead was a company that respects the comic book as a medium, that has made publishing to the LongBox format (.LBX) as simple as adding a plug-in to the software publishers already use, and that has plans for outfits as big as Marvel or DC all the way down to the lone artists publishing on their own.

Continue reading Ihnatko says Apple tablet could play hero to comic books

TUAWIhnatko says Apple tablet could play hero to comic books originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Comcast is continuing to expand its On Demand Online portal for streaming TV shows, although the service will only be available to the company’s own broadband subscribers, according to the Associated Press. The web-based content is said to eventually match the on-demand capabilities available through certain set-top boxes….