What will it take to get people onboard the Google TV train? Well, if a software update to fix early bugs and annoying habits isn’t enough, what about a free television? Google-owned YouTube has launched what it’s calling the “I Want My Google TV! contest,” in which users have until December 22nd to submit videos demonstrating how …
Apps & Web
Does America Spend More Time Online Or Watching TV?
Do you spend as much time watching television as you do online? Apparently, it depends on who you ask. A survey released by Forrester Research earlier this week got a lot of attention for its claim that the average American spends an equal time – around 13 hours per week – doing both, the first time that the two have reached parity – but …
Viral Videos For Dummies: YouTube Gets Scientific
YouTube is getting into the forecast business.
With new analytics hub YouTube Trends, user-generated is getting a long awaited ranking system. Intended a zeigeist of viral videos, Trends will essentially function as a blog that highlights YouTube uploads with viral potential – not unlike the hundreds of feeds doing just that on a …
Exclusive Preview: Stan Lee’s The Traveler #2
The first issue of Stan Lee’s The Traveler introduced one of Lee’s new superheroes–a masked man who calls himself Kronus and possesses some degree of power over the flow of time–and the end of the issue saw him witnessing the death of Agent Julia Martin. But not everything is as it seems, as we find out in this exclusive preview of …
ESRB App Lets Parents Read About The Violence in Video Games
It can be tricky picking what video games are appropriate for certain age groups without trying the game for yourself. While the Electronic Safety Ratings Board (ESRB) isn’t giving out free demos, their updated app might make it a little easier to figure out if that first-person shooter is appropriate for a 10 year-old. The non-profit …
Mark Zuckerberg Named TIME Person of the Year
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
Facebook head honcho Mark Zuckerberg has been named Person of the Year. At age 26, Zuckerberg is the second youngest person to receive the honors—Charles Lindbergh was the youngest at 25.
Runners up this year:
4. Hamid Karzai
5. The Chilean …
Is “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” an Amazing Fantasy?
Comic-book scholars and creators often refer to superhero stories as modern-day myths. Like the fables of ancient civilizations, the adventures of larger-than-life figures like Superman, the Hulk or Swamp Thing can be used as lens to help us understand the world and ourselves. Superhero characters can be rich metaphors, whether it’s for …
Meet The Psycho-Acoustic Beatles
The era of psycho-acoustic simulation is over. I know, I know; you weren’t even aware that it had begun.
The term referred to the legal defense offered by a website called BlueBeat.com, which claimed that it was able to sell Beatles tracks online (for just 25 cents) because it was actually selling “simulations” of the original songs, …
What’s the Deal with Marvel’s “Fear” Teasers?
Marvel has released a handful of teasers this week for some sort of event that’s happening in April. “Do you fear… tomorrow?” is the caption on the first image, which shows Spider-Man in front of a tableau of scary newspaper headlines and a Homeland Security travel-alert color chart on red alert. (Never mind that the Homeland Security …
The Tweets Of 2010: Brought To You By Corporate Sponsorship
Can we consider our conversations sponsored? It’s easy to argue that hot topics have always been spurred in one way or another by advertisers who attempt to bend public groupthink to their advantage, but in the past it’s been done by way of billboards, print advertisements or commercials. Now, a nice slice of our online banter has …
Fox Tries To Shut Down Script-Sharing Websites
As the 2010 Black List – a collection of this year’s best unproduced screenplays, as decided by movie industry insiders – was released yesterday, movie studio 20th Century Fox was already doing its best to make sure that as many of those screenplays as possible would go unread by anyone outside of the industry. The studio is targeting …
Can a New Supercomputer Beat Jeopardy!’s Best?
Beating a human at chess – a game largely dependent on probability and more algorithmic forms of strategy – is one thing, but can a new supercomputer developed by IBM win at a game that requires deeper levels of critical thinking? In particular, can a specialized machine beat the human mind at …