Licensing agreements are what’s keeping Spotify from becoming available sooner in the U.S. and other major markets. The company, which employs about 90, expects to launch in the U.S. by the end of the year or early 2010.
]]>“Don’t Copy That Floppy’s” aesthetic — think “Saved By the Bell” — and bubblegum hip-hop track ensured that it would be on YouTube when such a thing came into existence more than a decade later. The official original video has gotten more than 50,000 hits, and it’s spawned a remix and spoofs such as “Don’t Copy That Spaghetti” and “Don’t Copy That Dinner.”
]]>
Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes talked with me about his
new video series for Teva (and then blogged about the stuff we discussed that didn’t make it into the story, as well as Gawker’s reaction).
Then I wrote a story, blog post and follow-up blog post about texting while driving — the emerging category of services that prevent it, the workaround services, the debate over the risks and the growing support for a ban on the practice.
]]>And this is the latest study to light up the blogosphere — lots of stats on Wikipedia participation, but the most striking is the low percentage of female contributors. Former Lifehacker Gina Trapani follows up with her tips on changing that.
“I very much hope the song does justice to his memory as the last survivor. It would be very easy for our generation to forget the true horror of war, without the likes of Harry to remind us,” Thom Yorke said.
The two of them nailed down a first draft of the story in two months, which posed some challenges considering the site on which it’s based is essentially a collection of funny cat photos. “The Web site’s really plotless,” Ms. Steinberg said.
Or is it? “The through line is that all cats want cheese, and all LOLruses want buckets,” Ms. Pomranz said.
“Then it became a story of a quest. These cats are on their search for the Holy Grail,” Ms. Steinberg added.
“It’s your classic story quest arc,” Ms. Pomranz said. “The question is, what should you do or not do?”
“How do you pursue your dreams, and how does that journey affect your character,” Ms. Steinberg said.
The explanation was getting weighty. “It’s really full of LOLs,” she said.
]]>He receives frequent emails from satisfied customers and has seen Grindr in use in dozens of countries, including Iran, Israel and Kazakhstan. One user told him he used the app to chat with a fellow passenger while flying over Dallas, using Virgin America’s Wi-Fi service.
So many straight people have requested their own version of Grindr that it is now in development, Mr. Simkhai said. It will launch as a separate app and most likely with different branding, in coming weeks, he said (a lesbian version is also a possibility, though he hasn’t seen as much demand).
Though Grindr lends itself to hook-ups and casual dating, he sees its potential as something more. “As it grows, people will find that, ‘Oh, there’s someone in the café with me,’” he said. “It’s not like you’re going to jump in and have sex right then and there. I think as it evolves and matures, I think the usage of it will also mature and evolve.”
Mr. Penn, who played Kumar in “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” and starred in “The Namesake,” ended his run on the medical drama “House” as his character, Lawrence Kutner, committed suicide. “House” star Hugh Laurie had hinted at a major shakeup on the show, and Fox created a “memorial” for Dr. Kutner, complete with a tribute video and Facebook fan page.
But the fictional death also sparked a flurry of Internet searches from people unsure whether the character or Mr. Penn himself was dead. Several queries, including “kal penn death” and “did kal penn die” landed on Google Trends earlier today, indicating how frequently Internet surfers have been searching those phrases. Yahoo Answers also features a few questions from confused viewers, as do Mahalo and WikiAnswers.
Allison Puccioni, an imagery analyst at Jane’s Information Group, said Musudan had been largely dormant for about two years until January. Since then, as satellites have photographed people and vehicles moving outside the rocket facility, she has been studying it as activity picked up. “We knew the thread would be test, assemble and launch,” she said.
Days before the launch, she said, photos showed black sedans, an indication that VIPs were been driven in to see the missile.
“At this point, we have so many images, we could practically do a flipbook animation sequence of the entire thing,” Ms. Puccioni added. “You can’t get the whole story, but if you know enough about the features of the area, little things can tip you off.”
]]>The song’s pro-labor lyrics include “Get ready to strike, get ready to walk the line” and “Protect my health care, don’t lower my wages / Realize, recognize, mobilize, stay alive” and even a shout-out to technicians who support U-verse, AT&T’s TV service.
It was co-written by Ray and Rachael Rodriguez, AT&T employees who are active in the Communications Workers of America Local 6222, as well as Riley Wallace, a Toronto hip-hop artist whose stage name is Special.
Ms. Rodriguez, who works as a customer service representative in AT&T’s Houston office, said the idea struck as she and her husband realized that most of the U-verse technicians he works with have been with the company for fewer than two years. “We just felt we had to come up with a creative way to reach this next generation of union workers,” she said.
]]>Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr made a rare joint appearance, in which they reminisced about meeting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and meditating in India. They were followed by Donovan, Paul Horn (”You guys haven’t changed a bit in 40 years!”), Mike Love of the Beach Boys (”We came after the Beatles. We’re used to that, particularly on the charts”) and Moby (”I do feel like I’m at a meeting of Meditators Anonymous”).
Woz and a Pink Boa Hit the Dance Floor
]]>The results showed that greater Internet use correlates with a greater acceptance of “Internet harm,” which included threatening others over email and reading other people’s emails without asking. And overall, while the findings indicate that real-world morality hinted at how children view questionable online behavior, the relationship was weak, says Linda A. Jackson, a psychology professor at Michigan State and the principal investigator for the study.
That suggests that other factors are influencing online morality, she says. “There’s a disparity in the ways kids think about morality or virtue in the virtual world and the real world. There’s something else that goes on.”
What the “something else” is still isn’t clear. “We have to better understand how they conceptualize that world, whether they really think it is separate in some way. You can imagine how a child would develop that sense, because nine times out of 10, they know more about that world than their parents do,” Ms. Jackson says. “It might give them a sense that ‘Maybe parents know a lot in the real world, but when I get online, it’s my world.’ And they mistakenly believe that there’s privacy, especially among middle-class and upper-class kids who have their own computers.”
]]>Terry Mulcahy wrote:
I will give up my car before I give up broadband. I remember downloading a service pack for Windows 95 on dial-up and it took six hours! My point is that OS and applications now require updates that can only be accessed from a CD or broadband.Gen Why wrote:
SO funny! We just read about dial-up Internet in history class.Steve wrote:
I neeeeeed the speeeeed. Not that long ago I was at a friend’s house who had dial-up. I was able to check my e-mail and check out a couple websites without too much of a problem. I can definitely see it as an option for those who don’t rely too heavily on the internet, but since I’m glued to a computer most of the day I couldn’t give up broadband.Marlon Hollis wrote:
Speed! Speed! Speed! While walking is great exercise, I still would want to fly when traveling from east coast to west coast. Similarly, while I can technically get on the “Internet” with dial-up, it’s a different experience altogether than broadband. Downloads take hours, not minutes, so keeping Windows or Mac OS X updated will be a problem. No iTunes Store. No Hulu. Graphics heavy sites take longer to load, or don’t load at all. Publishing my podcasts, photos, video and other content to my websites will be problematic at best on a slow connection. What about posting photos on Flickr or Facebook? I use MobileMe to synchronize information and settings between my two computers. If you actively live the digital life provided by a high speed connection, be prepared for a drastic change on how you use the Internet if you switch back to dial-up.Tina wrote:
I do not think I would go back to dial-up. With the speed, I can finish what I need to faster and more efficiently. This is even more important if a person is unemployed. Imagine sending resume emails all day over a dial-up. That would be a perfect rx for depression.Benjitek wrote:
Very depressing that advertising campaigns like this one have become so commonplace