So apparently these folks at Polyphonic HMI have come up with a program which uses Artificial Intelligence to determine ahead of release whether a pop song is a potential hit. ‘Polyphonic’s HSS [Hit Song Science] analyzes the underlying mathematical patterns in unreleased music and compares them to the patterns in recent hit songs. The new technology can isolate individual patterns in key aspects of the music that humans detect and that help determine whether or not they like a given…

I received an interesting little email the other day from Warners cinemas here in sunny London. They were trying to get me to download and install a new gidget (!) which they called a Pager. This is a service which offers me news, reviews and special offers using multicast technology from a company called Skinkers. Video, text, hyperlinks et al delivered directly to the user at any time. So push (and pull) is back. But are we ready for it…

Ta-da! Ladies n’genlemen, may we present – the Google Weblogs Directory. Fascinating development.

Wow, suddenly there’s a rash of these networking services springing up. The Friendster beta site offers a ‘an online community that connects people through networks of friends for dating or making new friends.’ Well I still think that they’re a bit weird. But hey, what do I know?

The Radio Your Way is a sort of Tivo for radio. It lets you record up to 4 hours of radio goodies at will, and even includes unattended recording. It is also USB friendly and has an SD card slot. Will cost around $149.99 when it is released later this month. Nice one.

Andilinks.com is a cool and very useful looking page full of reference sources and other information. Definitely worth a bookmark. [via mikeslist]

A Mr Henry La has filed a class action suit in the US against Nokia, claiming that the company knowingly sold mobile phone handsets with dodgy screens. I sympathise. I have a Nokia 8890 which is a great phone, except that it has been through two of the so-called ‘dodgy’ screens and still plays up with monotonous regularity. This really is a case of an otherwise OK company blowing their customer goodwill through a stupid ‘head in the sand’ attitude….

From the ‘how small can they go?’ dept. The Sony DCR-PC105 is a very very small camcorder. Did I mention small? About $1000.00. Which is not so small. [via gizmodo]

5inch.com sells a range of really funky looking CD designs to complement your tastes and budget. They also supply these groovy Verbatim CDs that look like 45 rpm vinyl singles. Cool. [via metafilter]

Matsushita has announced a new eBook that will last up to 6 months on two AA sized batteries. Expected to cost around $250.00 when launched. Looks quite cool, although I’m a bit doubtful as to whether people really want to carry around something of this size. The new iPod’s text reading feature seem a much more significant eBook development as far as I can see.

Some guys in the US have produced a piece of software that ‘allows data to be transferred up to 3500 times faster than normal over broadband connections.’ That’s apparently equal to downloading a DVD movie in less than 5 seconds. Whoosh!

The FlashLink PhotoZen gizmo from SimpleTech is a $79.00 combined memory card reader and TV Image viewer. Plug it into your PC or TV to show off digital image slideshows or even JPEG Powerpoint presentations.