Entertainment

Radiohead has become a verb

" In Rainbows" is out, has reportedly already sold more than 1.2 million copies (which would dwarf sales of each of the past three Radiohead albums), and fans and critics alike are in awe. The music is great, of course, but the band's biggest accomplishment is probably that it has turned music into a global event again. Album releases had become somewhat trivial in the age of iTunes -- and now the buzz around "In Rainbows" created this big, meaningful moment of mass-togetherness.

The Spacelab blog nails it: "So now the world listens. October … Read more

Shawn Fanning's Snocap lays off 60 percent of workforce

UPDATE (12:15 p.m. PDT Friday): CNET News.com interviewed Snocap CEO Rusty Rueff after this story was published. He says the company's music stores just weren't catching on fast enough and its time to sell the company. You can read what he has to say in this story.

Snocap, the music-licensing company best known for being the follow-up act of Napster founder Shawn Fanning, has cut its staff by 60 percent, a spokeswoman for the company said Thursday evening.

Founded in 2002 by Fanning, Jordan Mendelson, and Ron Conway, Snocap started out trying to provide digital-music … Read more

An ode to Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Apple, and Linux zealots

As I'm sure many of you are aware, there are a number of factions in the technology world that seem to share extreme love for one company and severe distaste for another. Some side with Bill Gates and his buddies in Redmond. Of course, that group is met by a fierce resistance that genuflects at the altar of Steve Jobs. On the other hand, there is a cadre of individuals that believe Sony is the greatest company in the world, and still others that put Shigeru Miyamoto and his gang of creations on a pedestal. And yet, no matter what you say, every group will believe you're a member of the competing zealot faction. After a while, it actually becomes quite comical.

Take for example, this article I wrote just yesterday about Sony's desperation. You'll notice that in the comments, I was called all kinds of names. And while you get used to this as a writer, some really blow your socks off. For example, one commenter went so far as to say that I and the rest of the CNET writers are "typical." Why you ask? Because the commenter needed to ask us if "Gate's butt smells fresh today." In essence, I was a Microsoft fanboy for a day -- at least in the words of the cadre of Sony fanboys.

Unfortunately, my love for Microsoft must have been fleeting. For if you read the comments from readers on this day, I am nothing more than an Apple zealot that hates Microsoft. Even better, we even got some extra "typical CNET" comments which, for some reason, didn't reference the same smelling analogy. Can I be both? Can I be all five? Can everyone be all five?

No. And this is the issue we're left with today -- why can't everyone stop being zealots and realize that we all want the same thing -- the very best performance out of every tech company. We shouldn't be apologists -- we should be asking for a company's level best.… Read more

Skip Google Earth for YouTube vids, use Mappeo instead

This morning's addition of a YouTube layer to Google Earth added a whole new dimension of utility to the popular mapping application, but if you're looking to take advantage of some of that geo-tagged video goodness without installing anything, there's Mappeo. This Portugual-based site offers up nearly the same thing as Google Earth, with the addition of a search tool that lets you limit the videos to a specific area by keyword. Admittedly the service falls a little flat when you compare it to the catalog of video clips you're getting with Google Earth. There's … Read more

Video: Two real-world Transformers

They're not 100 feet tall, and the cars they turn into aren't all that aerodynamic, but a couple of real-world Transformers are strutting their stuff over in Japan.

Robots Dreams has up-close and personal videos of WR-07 and Gogic Racer, two humanoid bots that transform into remote-control cars.

Better yet, you'll eventually be able to buy a kit to build your own Gogic Racer from SK-Pang, the Japanese company that created both bots.

Like Optimus Prime to Bumblebee, WR-07 is the bigger and bulkier of the two robots, while Gogic Racer is smaller and less fluid when … Read more

Google Earth gets geotagged YouTube videos

If you were waiting for YouTube to roll out a maps feature to browse geotagged videos, the solution has come in the form of a new Google Earth layer released today. With the layer enabled, videos will pop up anywhere you are on the map and play on the video's page on YouTube if you click the thumbnail. PC users get a slightly better experience than Mac or and Linux users, as the videos will play right inside the application.

Like other layers in Google Earth, you need to turn this one on to start seeing videos. You'll … Read more

Movie studios to judge: TorrentSpy defies court order

To avoid having to turn over user information to the motion picture industry, the BitTorrent indexing service TorrentSpy cut off access to its site in the United States. Apparently, that wasn't enough to satisfy Hollywood.

According to documents filed with the court last week and reviewed by CNET News.com on Wednesday, the studios still want information on the site's visitors. Lawyers representing the studios--armed with a court order--say TorrentSpy has refused to hand over the data. Because of that, the movie sector wants the judge to throw the book at the company.

"(TorrentSpy) took steps to … Read more

Global warming in a virtual world

Whether or not you're one of the few global warming skeptics left, there's no denying that the northeast has been experiencing an unseasonably--up to 85 degrees--warm October.

Now, even when you're playing escapist video games, you'll have to deal with the guilt that your habits have made it too warm to wear autumn tweed.

SimCity Societies (review from CNET Networks' GameSpot), the next generation of the SimCity computer game series that releases November 15, is going to simulate the environmental impact of different types of building and energy choices.

Players who choose inexpensive and "readily-available&… Read more

Michel Gondry's Razr2 ad: Too creative for TV?

Pretty much everyone is aware that Motorola's Razr phones are skinny. Much fewer people know about director Michel Gondry's own skinniness.

But anyone who's seen director Gondry's films (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep), music videos, or straight-to-YouTube clips is aware that his work is exceptionally creative, visual, and artistic.

Gondry was hired to create a TV commercial for Motorola's highly rated Razr2 phone, but apparently, the result was far too interesting to air on TV. See for yourself.

According to AdWeek, Motorola CEO Ed Zander felt the spot didn't … Read more