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World's Largest Record Collection is Worth US$50 Million; No One Wants it for US$3 Million
Posted by Adam Frucci at 12:45 AM on August 20, 2008
If you're looking for a sign that we live in a digital world that cares not for the physical manifestations of our analogue past, you need only look at Paul Mawhinney's record collection. At over 3 million records, it's the largest in the world. He's trying to sell it due to his advancing age and health problems. Unfortunately, as he puts it, "no one gives a damn."
Got a lot of money to spend and a fetish for obsolete technology? The Certus Turntable by Teres Audio will play whatever records you still own for the hefty price of between US$13,900 and US$25,500. For the annual wage of a migrant farmer, you get a "magnetic damped multi-phase synchronous drive system to directly drive a massive, heavily damped brass and hardwood platter"—supposedly some kind of technology that makes music sound amazing. Right. Call me a plebeian, but I think I'll stick with some lossless audio format and my iPod, thanks. [
This is a story of a not so environmentally friendly, but rather groovy repurposing idea: reusing CDs as records (remember them?) At the UK's Futuresonic festival last week, a guy named Aleks Kolkowski had his vintage record-cutting machine ready to carve sound tracks into old CDs and DVDs. People simply had to turn up with an old disc and a sound file and he'd "overwrite" the CD with a track ready to be played on a turntable. Neat! I'd have been there asking Aleks for a copy of my first ever record (that'll be the theme to Watership Down— I know, I know) on a crappy old AOL CD I found recently. [
Once again, the record for the world's largest 
Think you've got what it takes to out-do Wing Commander Andy Green and the 1,228 kph land speed World-record set by Thrust SSC? Well, the team at North American Eagle may have a spot behind the controls for you: they've launched an open contest for the driver of their vehicle. The crazy red car looks a shade like an F-104 Starfighter, you say? Well, that's because it actually is one. With wheels. For going along the ground, faster than the speed of sound.
When a team of Cornell students put Ranger to work tottering around the running track it just kept on walking, eventually achieving 45 laps before its batteries died and the poor thing toppled backwards. This 9 km hike smashed the previous 20-lap record. The kneeless Ranger is designed to investigate aspects of locomotion so that robot walking can be improved, and hopefully prosthetics for humans too.
Either Sony's trying to tell us that vinyl will never die, or that vinyl is finally dead. After years of quietly selling regular old turntables, Sony is now offering what some niche brands already sell: a USB-connected turntable for converting records to MP3s. We don't have a lot of detail on the PS-LX300USB, except for the fact that it comes with Sound Forge Audio Studio and will cost US$150, placing it performance-wise somewhere between the $100 LX250 and $150 LX350 non-USB players. I don't know—it almost makes more sense for Sony to have gone whole hog like Teac, and built an all-in-one vinyl-to-CD machine.
That dude who drove 
The folks at G4 networks Attack of the Show are vying for a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records tonight with a 13 foot arcade console that they believe is the world's biggest. Is that big enough to set a world record? You can find out tonight when AOTS airs at 7pm and 11pm EST. With any luck the segment will reveal some more specs on the machine —and if you are really lucky Oliva Munn will flip out and start 
