williams

Audio: What Trent Reznor said to News.com

Rocker Trent Reznor is angry with CNET News.com.

On Monday afternoon, the leader of the band Nine Inch Nails posted a blog at NIN.com and accused me of misquoting him in a question-and-answer interview titled: "Trent Reznor: Why won't people pay $5." He suggests in his post that he did not make statements supporting a music tax on ISPs that appeared in the January 10 article. He also implies that CNET had some kind of hidden agenda when he writes in his post that the story was "written before I was involved."

It'… Read more

The MacBook Air is the Cube 2.0

When I saw the MacBook Air in person this week at Macworld Expo, I was having a hard time figuring out what about it seemed so familiar. Then I remembered. The G4 Cube. "Overpriced and underconfigured" were the words we used to describe it in our review in 2000, and many of the same complaints could be applied directly to the MacBook Air.

Where the Cube had no PCI slots or additional drive bays, no standard audio input or output jacks, and wouldn't accept full-length graphics cards because of its diminutive size, the Air has no Ethernet … Read more

Unlike Trent Reznor, Saul Williams isn't disheartened

Saul Williams chuckles when asked about the word "disheartening."

That's the word Trent Reznor chose to describe the sales generated by William's new album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust, which the two men collaborated on.

The public has the choice of obtaining the digital release for free or pay $5 for a higher quality download. Reznor, the artist behind the band Nine Inch Nails, ignited wide debate about the effectiveness of Radiohead-esque giveaways and the value of music when he revealed last week that 80 percent of those who downloaded the album were unwilling … Read more

Trent Reznor: Why won't people pay $5?

UPDATE (1-22-08) at 2:25 p.m.: More than a week after this story was published, Trent Reznor accused CNET News.com of misquoting him about the issue of a music tax on ISPs. We have posted an audio excerpt of the Reznor interview here. For the sake of full disclosure, we have also updated this story to include the text of what he said following his remarks about the ISP tax.

Very early in a discussion with Trent Reznor, the front man for the band Nine Inch Nails, it's obvious how highly he prizes his collaboration with musician … Read more

NBC shifts CES newscast to Wednesday

Maybe Brian Williams just needed a better GPS system. Or maybe, after appearing in Bill Gates' keynote video, he was busy hanging out with the Microsoft chairman.

In any case, NBC Nightly News has postponed its live broadcast from the Consumer Electronics Show, originally scheduled for Monday, until Wednesday, a show representative said in an e-mail.

The actual reason for the switch was not immediately available.

Radiohead criticized as band shuts down 'In Rainbows' promotion

One of the recording industry's most daring experiments ended on Monday. Three months after Radiohead stunned the music industry by allowing fans to pay whatever they wanted for the album, In Rainbows, the band has now opted for a more traditional sales approach.

That was fast.

Just weeks ago, the group was being congratulated for laying the groundwork for a new business model that pundits said could one day save the music industry. But as Radiohead prepares to distribute songs the old-fashion way--selling CDs out of retail stores--not everybody is cheering.

Nicky Wire, a member of the Manic Street … Read more

Is MySpace the new Whiskey A Go Go?

Could John Hammond have discovered Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, or Bruce Springsteen by scrolling through MySpace pages?

The Babe Ruth of talent scouts, Hammond made Artists & Repertoire guys famous. These music-label reps have a storied history of haunting backwater honkey tonks, nightclubs, and dive bars in a quest for hot new acts. In the future, some may be asked to forget the clubs and restrict their searches to the Web.

Private-equity firm Terra Firma, the company that acquired record company EMI in May, is now trying to attract investors by floating a plan that includes drastic cost cuts at … Read more

Trent Reznor: Take my music, please

Correction: Saul Williams' album debuts Thursday and is available for free or a $5 donation.

Rocker Trent Reznor doesn't pretend to know the answers to what ails the music industry.

But that hasn't stopped the iconoclastic front man for the band Nine Inch Nails from marching to the front lines--in lock step with British band Radiohead--in an assault on the traditional music business.

Reznor, who made news earlier this month when he left his record label, spoke Tuesday with CNET News.com about the decision. He also bashed the music industry, detailed how he persuaded performer Saul … Read more

Photos: Pharell Williams plays Halo 3 on IMAX at UK launch

Surely the most eagerly anticipated game of the year hit the U.K. last night, with a massive celebrity-studded launch event at London's IMAX cinema for Halo 3.

Rapper Pharell Williams, of The Neptunes and N*E*R*D fame, was on hand to show off his fragging skills--or lack of them, as it turned out--on the vast IMAX screen.

Showcasing the game's online multiplayer capabilities, Williams took on other celebrities and competition winners from around Europe. Click here for more of the night's escapades.

(Source: Crave UK)

William Gibson: 'Cyber' is going away

Speaking before a standing-room-only crowd at Stacey's Bookstore in San Francisco on Wednesday, William Gibson, the man generally credited with coining the term "cyberspace" in 1982, said the prefix cyber is going away. He said "it's going away like the word 'electro' or 'electra' was used to modify products." He also said the word "digital" is rapidly becoming obsolete as well.

Gibson is on tour for his new, present-day novel Spook Country. The book includes high-tech international terrorism among its many threaded plots. He also makes fun of the word cyberspace within … Read more