The Library of Congress has announced the latest batch of 25 recordings joining the National Recording Registry. Alongside songs like “Like a Virgin,” “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and “Stairway To Heaven,” Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. theme becomes the first piece of video game music to enter the registry. According to the Library of Congress, the Mario overworld music, officially titled “Ground Theme,” is “perhaps the most recognizable video game theme in history.”
“The amount of data that we could use for music and sound effects was extremely small, so I really had to be very innovative and make full use of the musical and programming ingenuity that we had at the time,” Kondo told the Library of Congress. He apparently drew from Japanese jazz fusion and Latin music to create the melody on the Nintendo Entertainment System’s five-channel sound chip. And now there’s a (second) Hollywood movie featuring his work.
– Mat Smith
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The bulbs may even outlive you.
Signify
Signify has announced its Philips Ultra Efficient LED bulbs that, as the name implies, use 40 percent less energy than the brand’s usual LEDs. The “advanced” LEDs and optics reduce the yearly energy cost to between 55 cents and $1.03 per bulb, and Signify claims the Ultra Efficient line has an average lifespan of 50 years, or more than three times of Philips’ standard LED bulbs. The range is available now as a Walmart exclusive, starting at $10 for a 60W-equivalent A19 bulb.
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Merged companies will tweak Intel’s 18A fabrication process for use with ARM designs.
Intel and ARM, arguably two of the most important players in modern chipmaking, are joining forces. The companies announced a “multigeneration” agreement to optimize Intel’s upcoming 18A fabrication process for use with ARM designs and intellectual property. To clarify, the deal won’t mean Intel’s Foundry Services produces chipsets for ARM, but the likes of Qualcomm and MediaTek will be able to tap Intel to make its ARM-based chips in the future.
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The retailer disputes the analysis of federal labor data.
Nearly two years after Jeff Bezos said Amazon would spend $300 million to improve workplace safety, a coalition of labor unions claims the company was responsible for a heady 53 percent of all serious warehouse injuries recorded in the US last year. A report from the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC)t said data from US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) showed Amazon warehouse workers were injured more frequently than their non-Amazon counterparts – and they were often injured worse. Amazon disputes the Strategic Organizing Center’s interpretation of the data – specifically with SOC’s use of “serious injury rate,” noting it’s not an official OSHA metric.
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The broadcaster says the label is ‘inaccurate and misleading.’
After a week-long tussle with Twitter and owner Elon Musk over labels the company applied to its accounts, NPR said it’ll no longer use the platform at all. The organization criticized Twitter over a “state-affiliated media” label placed on its main account last week. NPR said the latest incarnation of the label is “inaccurate and misleading,” pointing out that federal funding accounts for less than one percent of its $300 million annual budget. NPR CEO John Lansing said, as a result of the label, the broadcaster is abandoning Twitter to protect its credibility.
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