Social media and video sharing sites such as MySpace and YouTube have bridged the distance between independent music makers and major record labels significantly over the past few years, and now aspiring musicians have yet another new channel to distribute their music - gaming.

Harmonix has publicly released the Rock Band Network (beta) last month, which lets musicians submit their music to be recreated as a fully-playable track in the popular video game Rockband. The artist can dictate the price point at either US$1, $2, or $3, and will even be able to take home 70% of the revenue.

This week is the week of the Mobile World Congress, so as expected a lot of big things happening with the mobile industry. For one, Microsoft has finally unveiled its heavily delayed new mobile platform with a rather confusing name - Windows Phone 7 Series. (Seriously, why not just call it Windows Mobile 7?) And let's not forget Samsung's Bada OS that came to light not too long ago, and no one had much information on just a few days ago. Now, there are already videos of both of their prototypes in action. Videos after the break.

Bada, which means "ocean" in Korean, was first announced in November 2009. Samsung is going to kick Symbian aside on their new mid-to-low end devices in favor of Bada as early as late March (When they will be available to Canadians is a separate matter).

Bada handsets will be 3G enabled, with Wi-Fi, GPS and multitouch screens. Bada will also release an SDK, enabling developers and operators to create and customize for it.

Details on Bada at the moment are extremely vague - all we know is that it will offer "flash control, web control, motion sensing, fine-tuned vibration control, and face detection. Also, it supports sensor-based, context-aware applications. By using various sensors such as accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity, and activity sensors, application developers can easily implement context-aware interactive applications"

There has been a lot hype and speculation surrounding the Apple tablet for months leading up to its launch, but is the Apple iPad the device that everyone was expecting it to be? The device that would change the mobile computing landscape as we know it?

Turns out, it is neither of the above. The iPad, from the information we have now, is nothing more than a giant iPhone, sans a camera, and the ability to make phone calls.

Sure, it's equipped with a 1GHz chip - a significant upgrade from the 512MB chip that the iPhone 3G S sports - but its potential cannot be fully realized since it's stuck with the same iPhone OS, which means you are incapable of doing any multitasking with it and can have only one app open at a time. A few other things that would have made the iPad infinitely better would be an HDMI port, USB ports, and Flash support.