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The Humble Bundle folks are back with a new bundle, but this time around, they aren't offering any games. The first-ever Humble Music Bundle launched earlier today, offering prospective buyers the chance to name their own price for six albums related to video games and nerd culture in general. Other than that, the idea is generally the same, with buyers still getting bonuses for paying more than the average amount and still able to customize where their money goes.

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Band members of the legendary metal band Def Leppard have announced that they've reached an impasse with their record label and will be freezing sales of all original recordings of their music. What they've done instead of accepting an unfair amount of royalties, so they say, they've decided to record what are effectively covers of all their original songs that'll then be pushed to iTunes et all in a much more direct way that'll have them cashing in as much as possible. One would hope that they'll do a bit better than KISS did with their latest double-album (one of which was all covers of old songs too) Sonic Boom.

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The analytics group Pew have done a study with a massive amount of people responding to one question: which gadgets do you own? Over the course of five years, 2006 up to 2012, their respondent gave a cross-section of gadget use which shows the amazing changes in adult (18 years of age or older) owners of gadgets over the past few years. The categories we've got here are cell phones, desktop computers, laptop computers, mp3 players, game consoles, e-book readers, and tablets - can you guess which one has the most clout?

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Finally you can have the ringtone you've always wanted - attached to your front door. This new gadget from Swann has you able to customize and arrange a set of MP3 audio files as a who's who of notifications that someone is at the door trying to get in. Imagine your delight when the pizza you just ordered is ushered in by Usher, think of the excellence of having your auntie visit with the sounds of the White Stripes ringing her in!

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There's a tiny audio distorting monster on the block, and it's name is Kaoss, Kork Mini Kaoss Pad 2 Dynamic Effect Processor for short, and it comes complete with the features you need to turn your DJ station into a massive fingertip express. What this device does it takes your finger tapping, pressing, pushing, and pulling into its tiny computer brain and makes your motions into beautiful noises on the fly. You'll be following in the steps of such fabulous devices as the Kaoss Pad Quad and the Kaoss Pad KP3 with this most lovely of pocketable tappers.

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There are rumors circulating around the tech world today that Google may be getting ready to launch its own MP3 store reports the NYT. We already have some giant MP3 stores to choose from with iTunes being the top for people that are on the iPhone platform. When it comes to getting music onto your Android smartphone many people use Amazon's music store. There are also a wealth of other music stores on the market to choose from.

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It is with an online publication by the name of Magnifier that Google and their currently titled "Music Beta" program will test their strength as a music promoter, this Blogspot blog one where Google will submit to you some choices for what they see as great music every day of the year. Obviously this blog will also serve as one of the places Google's "music" app will be spoken about here and there, but for the most part it appears that Google giving away free music each and every day of the week should be doing the trick just fine.

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Oh dear god WHY?! My favorite of all formats, the MiniDisk, will be officially shunned by Sony starting in September of 2011. This news comes as a shock to absolutely noone, or at least it should, since this format has been essentially on a downward spiral into obscurity since the 90's when it first started taking a foothold. As I'm sure you've already guessed, the advent of the MP3 being played on the now still gigantic iPod line all but signed a death warrant for this mystical, magical format, and Sony's stopping production of the MiniDisk compatible Walkman will certainly knock in the last nail in the coffin.

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Despite Lady Gaga having "melted some servers" - or at least thousands of her little monsters did, in the rush to take advantage of the $0.99 album offer on Monday this week, Amazon is offering a repeat of the promotion today with the promise that "this time we're ready." The "Born This Way" deal is likely to keep Gaga's album at the top spot in the MP3 bestsellers chart.

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Amazon is really vying for attention in the music downloading arena. Despite having launched its Cloud Player last month, Amazon still doesn't generate as much interest as do the upcoming cloud music services of Apple and Google. And despite selling music at prices generally lower than those at iTunes, Amazon still ranks a distant number two as a retailer of mp3s. In a bid to get folks to switch over from iTunes, Amazon is now extending their 69-cent offerings to chart topping songs.

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If listening to music is something you like to do, but telling those around you (who ask) what you're listening to isn't, then the Playbutton could be the next MP3 player for you. Especially if you only want to listen to one album at a time, and show off to the world who you're listening to. While most MP3 players are meant to let you have plenty of artists, or individual songs, ready to go at all times, the designer of the Playbutton believes that having one album, on an MP3 player as small as a button, may be the future of music.

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Amazon's MP3 download ambitions continue to fall short of Apple's iTunes behemoth, with even heavy discounts and loss-leading sales failing to claw away significantly at their rival's market lead. According to the latest stats from NPD Group, Amazon clinched just 13.3-percent of the paid digital download market in Q3 2010, a 2.3-percent rise over the previous year, while iTunes' share climbed three points to 66.2-percent. However, Amazon has been forced to stomach expensive loss-leaders in order to make that increase: while Apple negotiates wholesale prices to suit its download deals, insiders tell the WSJ, Amazon generally pays around $7-8 wholesale for music it offers at around the $3.99 price point.

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