Morning Music Notes – Dinosaurs CAN Use Social Media

Bono Strikes It Rich With Facebook

Middle aged non-social media hip U2 singer, Bono, surprised the masses with his potentially saavy yet risky investment in Facebook a few years ago. From the Guardian:

“U2 frontman Bono’s investment firm could be looking at a profit of almost $800m on its stake in Facebook, it has emerged. The social networking site has just been valued at an eye-popping $65bn – up from $50bn in January – following the sale of a stake by advertising and marketing giant Interpublic Group.

“Interpublic was an early investor in Facebook and has just sold half of its 0.4% share in the group for $133m (£81m), valuing the site at more than $65bn. This values the U2’s Elevation Partners’ stake at $975m – more than four times the $210m it paid in November 2009.

Now Bono, may I direct your attention to MySpace. Don’t wait too long, or your Facebook investment will be less Achtung Baby and more Turn Off The Dark.

Kiss Join Michael Jackson Tribute Concert Line Up

The band that will do anything for a buck, Kiss, joins the Michael Jackson Tribute concert line up, which surprises some fans (via NME). Kiss lead singer Gene Simmons made these interesting comments about Jackson last year to Classic Rock Magazine:

“No matter what my fond memories and fond images of Michael were, with one allegation of paedophilia after another and another and another…Oh dear… The only sexual references ever made about Michael Jackson that were made by anyone, anywhere around the world, have always been made by kids, and specifically males usually 10 to 14 years of age; never females, that age or older, and never grown men.”

Um, ouch?

Robotic Head Can Read Music, Will Take Over World In Near Future

We have a fascination with making robots look like humans, and not the futuristic, cold race that is depicted in movies. With closer human appearance, we also achieve closer human likeness. This is exhibited by the latest creation – a singing robotic head.

“Born in Taiwan from the lab of Chyi-Yeu Lin of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Taipei, the head first takes a photo of written music (it can read notes and words) and then uses an algorithm to send the information to a synthesized voice that operates in concert with the robot’s lips (via Dvice).

First, written music. Next, random notes and terror threats. Judgement day is upon us! Check out the video before we are are robot slaves.