Interesting enough a couple of days before the new Apple event in SF last week, HMV Japan closed its flagship store in trendy Shibuya.  Why? Because of plummeting CD sales.

Apple now has 160 milion users with credit card accounts. 160 million!

The Apple event launched new iPods, a new Apple TV media player (just $99!) and iTunes 10.  iTunes 10 now includes “Ping”, a Social Network for Music.

Lots more on new iTunes and Ping below.

Me?  I was most excited about the new iPod Touch. At an entry price of about 1/4 that of the iPhone 4 but including FaceTime and the new retina display.  That seems like “must have” to me. 

Here’s a demo.

Enjoy…. and hope to see you on FaceTime soon.

Interesting article here on the latest entitled “Billboards That Can See You” from the Wall Street Journal.

A traditional vending machine is replaced by a giant touch sensitive screen.  A camera captures their image and a sensor determines the person’s gender and approximate age.

With that the technology can recommend what drink the thirsty would-be customer might like as well as record what they actually bought.

Might be a few concerns about privacy in some countries, but apparently no complains, at least yet, in Japan.

Simple, fun, loads quickly.

Click here for some light exercise.

Heard of Chatroulette?  The random webcam social media, where you don’t know who you might be paired with?

The Last Exorcism (new) movie used it to launch their film.

Viewers are filmed reacting to the viral …. of a pretty girl they think they are about to chat with.

In its first six days this got 1.3 million YouTube views.

Shocking indeed.

Simply awesome!

The Wilderness Downtown

RAK stands for “Random Act of Kindness”, doing something for someone you don’t know, out of a warm heart, randomly (eg like paying the toll fee for the car behind you, carrying someones groceries etc).

Some of the Australian media is getting behind this and encouraging people to join in, creating and sharing their RAK stories, the idea being to unite people in goodwill (website here).  In NZ RAK day has been celebrated since 2005.

In the USA, three similar days are:

Pay It Forward Day
2010: April 29
www.payitforwardday.com

World Kindness Day
2010: November 13

Random Acts of Kindness Week
2011: February 14-20

On the one hand it feels abit of a shame that we need to create a day, to remind ourselves to act the way we all should, daily.  On the other hand, every little bit helps and the good feelings  received hopefully carry over throughout the year reminding us and others of our humanity.

Tomorrow is September 1st.  May all readers, and non-readers, have a good month and good  last third of the  year.

Last year Mother took a Cannes Gold for this piece of nostalgia, a “Smooth  Original”.

But I confess, I’m still a big fan of their old work from Lowe, “Reassuringly Expensive”. Here’s a couple of spots.

Though this one takes the prize for bizarre!

Interesting how many commercials, even in media “expensive” countries are now long-format. With the rise of the internet and the power of sharing something we can expect more and more of.

Cute in fact.

And here’s Honda’s spot from a couple of so years back.