Culture

AOL, here's how you screwed up

Nobody epitomized the AOL of the late 1990s better than David Colburn, the foul-mouthed, bully-boy deal maker who oversaw the company's ad empire. Soon after AOL acquired Time Warner--a deal that was presented to the public as a merger, creating a company with a market cap of $350 billion--a Time Warner executive scolded Colburn for being disrespectful.

"You talk like you're buying us," said the Time Warner exec. Legend has it that Colburn fired back: "We are, you putz!"

Colburn's underlings had T-shirts made with his statement emblazoned on the chest. In … Read more

That's Steve Jobs at Paris Opera store

For some reason, a 7-second YouTube clip of Apple CEO Steve Jobs walking through the company's new Paris Opera store has some online questioning its authenticity.

The clip, embedded below, shows Jobs quietly shuffling past shoppers in the multi-storied retail outlet at 12 rue Halevy, which opened this past weekend. The clip may be brief, but Jobs is clearly videotaped walking through the store behind Steve Cano, Apple's senior director of international retail.

Not much to see here other than Jobs checking out what certainly has to be one of the grandest interiors for any Apple store. Very … Read more

Is the Web outdated, or is it just Prince?

The Internet has suffered a premature death--or at least that's what aging rocker Prince believes has happened.

"The Internet [is] completely over," Prince told U.K. publication The Mirror, which published an interview with the music icon on Monday, the eve of the debut in that country of his latest CD, 20TEN. Perhaps not coincidentally The Mirror plans to soon give away copies of the disc with every purchase of the paper.

"The Internet [is] like MTV," Prince said later in the Interview. "At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.&… Read more

Starbucks' winning combo: Caffeine and Web

NEW YORK--Grabbing a little pick-me-up for those late-night code-writing sessions or World of Warcraft marathons might be about to get a little easier.

The ubiquitous coffee house chain Starbucks started offering free Wi-Fi on Thursday, so I went to go check out the new service. A few people here, at the Starbucks located at the intersection of East 96th Street and Madison Avenue, were trying to log on to the Web with mixed results.

When Web access was actually up and running, pages sometimes took minutes to download. And it's not as if the network appeared overwhelmed. This is … Read more

Why did Dealbreaker freelancer have reader info?

Dealbreaker, a self-described "Wall Street tabloid," is scrambling to answer questions Monday about why it would give a freelancer--especially one with a history of questionable conduct--access to readers' personal information.

Zachery Kouwe, the former New York Times reporter who resigned in February after acknowledging he plagiarized material from competing publications, apparently tried to intimidate readers who made critical comments about his stories by informing them he knew where they worked, according to a report in Reuters.

Managers at Dealbreaker, owned by Breaking Media, told Reuters that they severed ties with Kouwe on Thursday, after learning that he "… Read more

Letterman pokes fun at Gray Powell, iPhone 4G

This is how far the saga of the iPhone 4G has spread into popular culture: David Letterman took time to poke fun at Gray Powell, the Apple engineer who last month lost what could be a prototype iPhone 4G while drinking in a bar.

The phone that Powell misplaced was found at the bar that the 27-year-old had visited to celebrate his birthday. It was picked up by someone who has yet to be identified, and that person sold it to Gizmodo, a gadget blog, for $5,000. Powell's story has been covered extensively by many of the major … Read more

Former Google CIO back with book, start-up

Who better to show people how to handle information in the digital era than a former Google chief information officer?

Douglas Merrill, Google's CIO until leaving in 2008 to steer EMI Music's digital unit, is raising his profile again a year after leaving the record label. He's written a book that he says can help people improve their cognitive skills and he's also founded a new start-up.

Merrill is the co-author of "Getting Organized in the Google Era," a book that offers advice to people who wish to improve their memories and sharpen their … Read more

Teen iPad destruction--'what was the point of that?'

A video of teenagers using a brand new iPad for batting practice is white-hot on YouTube.

The video, which as of early Monday morning had more than 257,400 views, is sort of a send up of the traditional "stress tests" that reviewers sometimes do on gadgets. The teens bought the brand-new device at a Best Buy store and went out to the parking lot to film their demolition. First, they dropped the device on the cement. Then, out came the aluminum baseball bat.

"Batter up, bro," says one teen. "Give it a swing." … Read more

Apple's biggest fan? Maybe not

NEW YORK--Greg Packer's dedication to Apple is under scrutiny.

Packer may be best known to the Apple community for waiting more than 100 hours in front of Apple's Fifth Avenue store in 2007 to ensure he would be first to buy the iPhone. On Thursday evening, he was out there again. With lawn chair and duffel bag in tow, he was amid his latest marathon line-standing campaign to be first to own the iPad.

And unless the poor guy keels over from exhaustion, sometime after 9 a.m. EDT on Saturday, when iPads are due to go on sale, … Read more

France could tax Google to subsidize music

A report financed by the French government recommends that Google, MSN, Yahoo, and other big advertising companies--as well as Internet service providers--be taxed, with the revenue set to help fund the music and publishing sectors.

Google is "profiting without any consideration" for music artists and book publishers, according to the report, written by Jacque Toubon, France's former minister of culture, Patrick Zelnick, a former music executive who produced French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's songs, and Guillaume Cerutti, an executive at Sotheby's France.

There is nothing that requires the French government to adopt any of the … Read more