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It's a good day for pinning photos, protecting privacy and paying your taxes:

Yet another social network joins the billionaires club. The social photo-sharing network Pinterest has been valued at $1.5 billion. The valuation comes after it received a $50 million investment from a Japanese e-commerce site. Pinterest makes no money, but you can bet that investors will push to change that by integrating e-commerce tools. And if you want to see what all the fuss is about, here are some tips and tricks to getting started on Pinterest.

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin is under fire for dropping … Read more

At the end of May, Onkyo will start selling Dolby TrueHD 5.1-channel music downloads, first in Japan, and by the fall of this year worldwide. That's either a brave or foolhardy move.

Multichannel music formats -- starting with quadraphonic LPs and tapes in the early 1970s, DTS encoded surround CDs in the 1990s, and DVD Audio and SACD in the early 2000s -- have all suffered from a lack of consumer demand. Very, very few surround releases were initially recorded in surround; most rock and jazz titles are remixed from older stereo recordings. The Blu-ray format has now … Read more

Discovery Media today said it's acquiring Web video company Revision3.

As part of the deal, Revision3 will continue under its same management structure, the two companies said, however no details have been provided about if and when Revision3 video content will end up on Discovery's TV channel lineup.

"Discovery's mission to ignite viewers' curiosity and its history of pioneering new platforms -- from cable to HD to 3D -- make it the logical leader in this explosive new wave of digital video growth," said JB Perrette, Discovery's chief digital officer in a statement.

"… Read more

When Google bought YouTube in 2006, CEO Eric Schmidt described it as "the beginning of an Internet video revolution." At the time, there was no shortage of skepticism over whether Google had instead just committed a $1.6 billion mistake.

Some say there's still no clear answer. Google has never said whether YouTube is profitable. A couple of years ago, Schmidt said he believed that YouTube would be profitable that year, but there's been not a peep since.

But that focus may be unduly narrow, especially considering YouTube's explosive growth. A recent report out of Comscore … Read more

It is always a little frightening to see a plane plummet towards Earth, especially if you're often forced to travel in one.

What might it have looked like for those who, last Friday, watched a 727 crashing in the Mexican desert -- with the full knowledge and co-operation of the pilot?

I am grateful to the Daily Mail for making my Monday so much more exciting with this information.

According to a Discovery Channel press release, this was done in the service of "an unprecedented international television documentary for Discovery Channel, Channel 4 in the UK, plus Pro … Read more

It wasn't that long ago that Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and Onkyo were locked in a fierce competition in the home theater in a box (HTIB) market. Every year I'd report about the latest advances in their systems in my CNET reviews. These days, fewer people want to deal with all of the wires and setup requirements of a five-speaker, subwoofer, receiver, and Blu-ray player based system. Skinny sound bars that sit under a TV are now more popular than HTIB systems. Most sound bars are 2.0- or 2.1-channel stereo systems, though some promise a "virtual&… Read more

Talk radio is careening toward a technology revolution and tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson may be the man to lead it.

Six months after launching Dar.fm, billed as a TiVo for radio, Robertson's startup has expanded the number of stations it offers listeners access to from 100 to 5,000. The company enables subscribers to record, in a way similar to TV DVRs, from among more than 20,000 radio shows, including Rush Limbaugh, and NPR's Fresh Air and Car Talk. The service then streams or downloads the shows to PCs, mobile phones, or set-top boxes.

Robertson has … Read more

For years, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman were known for one thing: being the "MythBusters."

But now, the two have launched a new show, Discovery Channel's "Unchained Reaction," "a new six-part series that pits two teams of varying backgrounds against each other to build an elaborate chain-reaction contraption."

Think giant Rube Goldberg machines--balls falling and knocking things into other things. Seesaws going up and throwing things into the air, each step in the process impacting the next, with each team vying to build the most impressive contraption in five tension-packed days. The … Read more

In these Facebook days, our obsession with what others think of us can only increase.

We want them to want us. We want them to love us. We want them to love themselves for loving us.

Which leads us to wondering what aliens might think of us. Stephen Hawking, for his part, worried that they might actually hate us with a fervor last experienced when Mike Tyson espied Evander Holyfield's ear.

However, the experts on a two-part Science Channel series called "Alien Encounters" speculate with a rather more positive spirit.

I am grateful to The New York Times … Read more