I’ve decided to add a section to Random Ramblings for ‘quick news,’ which will consist of short posts of links to news found on other blogs.  This is a quick and easy way to spread news on things I/we find interesting, without doing a full write-up.

The first Quick News post covers various topics such as the iPhone’s new operating system, George Strait winning Artist of the Decade, and Microsoft’s Project Natal.  Check it out!

Quick News: Technology

Live from Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 preview event.

Apple is upgrading the iPhone operating system with some major re-hauls, and it bound to please users and developers.  Having been an iPhone owner since around the 3G launch, I’m looking forward to see if any of my previous headaches with the old operating system have been solved.  It looks like there will be a lot of great new features.

Apple Closes App Store to Non-OS 3.0 Apps (appscout.com)

It also looks like Apple will be cracking down on compatibility to ensure that users with the new OS won’t have a headache when downloading applications for their phone.  You won’t have to worry about getting ‘sorry, this won’t work with 3.0’ messages when searching for apps.

Quick News: Music

New Jay Z track: Death of the Autotune

Brand new track off of Blueprint 3.  I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the autotune has been used to death these days.  The instrumentals in this are great, but the guitar could get annoying quickly…

Response to Death of the Autotune

In response to Death of the Autotune, I stumbled across a cover of T.I.’s “Whatever You Like” re-recorded using ONLY autotune.  Pretty funny.

George Strait ACM Artist of the Decade All-star Concert

If you missed the star-studded concert here’s a link to check it out if you are newsgroups-savvy.  Strait was recently honored with the Artist of the Decade award, following Marty Robbins, Loretta Lynn, Alabama, and Garth Brooks.  Garth Brooks presented the award to Strait.

Artist of the Decade: Who’s Next? (countrystandardtime.com)

After the award for the ‘00’ decade was given, I too was wondering who could win for the ‘10’ decade.  My money is on Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Alan Jackson, George Strait again, or maybe even Garth Brooks again if he really does decide to come out of retirement.  It’s all about who can consistently release hit albums.  Explanation for these choices aren’t really necessary if you are familiar with each.  If Garth records again he will still have a gigantic fan base, and he could possibly reach even newer crowds if he approached Harmonix to put “Double Live” into Rock Band…

Garth Brooks - The Entertainer (5 Disc Music DVD Box Set)

I’m not sure if this is new news or not, but it was to me.  At $10, this set is a steal.  I found it yesterday in-store, however, and it turned out that the register thinks it’s $5.  Five bucks for five DVDs.  If you are a Brooks fan and see this in Wal-Mart, check it out.  The set has four concert discs and a disc of music videos and comes in a nice tin.  The link isn’t exactly a blog post, but I think it’s worth pointing out that such a steal is available.

Quick News: Gaming

Rock Band: The Beatles

Speaking of Rock Band…  Game-play footage and screenshots of Rock Band: Beatles was unveiled at E3 this past weekend, and it honestly looks like one of the best games ever made.  We will see of course once it comes out, but it’s looking great.

E3 2009: Project Natal hands-on preview

Jeff sent me this the other day.  I’m surprised they didn’t do this sooner, since cameras have been around since Playstation 2, (unless you count the GameBoy Camera; I don’t.) and it was inevitable that cameras would be used as a controller.  Project Natal is likely to blow Wii and PS3 clear out of the water…

That’s all for now.