hilton

Paris Hilton sings about the dangers of drunk texting

Perhaps, like me, your troubled sense of self-worth has been caused by following Paris Hilton's cultural moves too closely.

The iconic heiress seemed once to put the eyes and the tease into "zeitgeist." Now she teeters on the brink of something closer to evanescence.

I am grateful to Mashable, therefore, for discovering this extraordinary music video in which La Hilton suddenly becomes every teenage girl's mom. For in it she accesses her inner Serge Gainsbourg and talks of the dangers of texting while drunk.

The lyrics drift beyond literature into a chasm of ethereal splendor.

Hilton … Read more

The 404 749: Where we trust rodents more than meteorologists (podcast)

Every year the citizens of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania gather around a small hut in Gobbler's Knob (pause) to witness a 100-year old marmot predict the future, and this year it looks like Spring is on its way. Old Phil may be losing his eyesight, because we also happen to be in the middle of the largest storm in the last few decades, according to a less-credible operation called NASA.

Maybe we should shift our focus to a closer weather-predicting rodent at the Staten Island Zoo, Mr. Charles G. Hogg aka Staten Island Chuck, who has accurately predicted winter weather 23 out of the last 30 years.

Still don't trust him? What if we told you that Staten Island Chuck has a Facebook page AND lives in a wireless log cabin adorned with solar-powered weather station panels that allows him to make daily weather predictions using renewable energy from the sun? It's not a joke, this guy is legit.

We can make fun of Groundhog's Day for the next 364 days, but let's move onto our next story about an unfortunate photographer in Zurich who lost over 4,000 puppy photos thanks to a Flickr fumble that accidentally mixed up his account with another scheduled for deletion.

To make up for it, the Yahoo-owned photo uploading service generously offered four years of a Pro account for free, worth about a hundred bucks- sounds fair. Think about this story the next time you can't find the time to back up your data to a physical storage drive.

We also suggest backing up your back ups to a disaster-proof drive, but the truly paranoid should also load their precious data on hidden thumb drives around the office for extra security.

Finally, the big tech story of the day is News Corp. and Apple's latest publication generated specifically for the iPad called The Daily. It's a modern news brand that Apple and News Corp. call the first "all media product" and includes highly interactive and curated text articles, photos, and videos, not to mention text-to-speech audio clips of selected stories.

Unlike most of the news sites on the web , however, The Daily won't be available for free. The publication introduces a new pricing model that costs $0.99 a week or $39.99 for the year. The subscription also includes access to the Web version and users can share articles for free on Facebook and Twitter.

The 404 is truly the Paris Hilton of the Web, so we happen to know the Technology Editor at The Daily. We're hoping Peter Ha can join us on Friday's show to tell us more about the publication, so check our Twitter for the latest updates!

Episode 749 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Paris Hilton hopes to sell you a skirt that doesn't exist

Paris Hilton is the epitome of virtual success.

She has proved that myths can become flesh and flesh can become a myth that becomes a legend.

So who could not but lie back and admire the fact that one of the 21st century's most significant icons is launching a new fashion line in the world of icons?

Yes, together with Mentez, the self-styled "world's leading publisher and developer of social games" on Google-owned Orkut, and Virtual Greats, the self-styled "world's leading virtual goods and sales distribution agency," Hilton is self-styling clothes that don'… Read more

Paris Hilton busted by Twitter pic?

It is not easy being Paris Hilton. You have to spend so much of your time focused on the "being Paris Hilton" part that it leaves very little time for much else. Like considering the state of the nation. Or remembering what pictures you tweeted a month ago.

My fingers flicker with sympathy because Hilton seems to have got herself into a slight pickle. A slight pickle that might be less slight than her much-loved sex video.

An SUV in which she was accompanied by her boyfriend was stopped Friday in Las Vegas when police reportedly detected the … Read more

ChicBuds thinks women need bling-bling

It's once a week I turn away from the monitor and gag at the latest Swarovski crystal-embellished gadget. I think to myself: "Will someone really purchase this bling-bling Hello Kitty camera? If they do, will they take it out in public?"

Well, Paris Hilton would. Or so says the newest company embracing the Swarovski trend, ChicBuds.

ChicBuds prides itself on being what it says is the only electronics company targeting women: "products made by women for women." Their goods are created with a woman's "needs" in mind, and have reached celebrities including … Read more

The 404 Holiday Weekend Throwback: Episode 187, 11/18/08

Have a great Independence Day and enjoy this 404 Throwback episode #187 from September 18, 2008 featuring CNET Smartphones Editor Bonnie "The Bonch" Cha!

We finally get our hands on the much coveted Bonch aka Bonnie Cha, Senior Editor for CNET.com. No, we don't grill her on the latest cell phones at CTIA or the proper way to make a Superman cape. Instead, we try to guess Sarah Palin's e-mail password, run through a list of Jeff's mancrushes, do the Cha Cha on the air, and take a visit to the Sex Museum, aka Wilson's cellar.

Wow, did someone open up a tank of nitrous oxide in here? Today's show is literally 40 minutes of constant laughter, and we owe that to our special guest, Bonnie Cha! She's a Senior Editor of mobile phones at CNET and one of the first people I ever met at the San Francisco office. Please don't be operating heavy machinery while listening to today's show! We do taint, tarnish, and otherwise frack up Bonnie's "innocence" by explaining the science behind "Supermanning that ho," which goes over surprisingly well with her. We also debut a service called Cha Cha that allows you to text or call a 24/7 concierge service that will literally answer any inquiry, such as "Is the 404 going to be taken off the air tomorrow?" or "Why is Bonnie's nickname The Bonch?" Of course, all of these questions can be answered using another service; here in 2008 we call it Google. Furthermore,why would I use the Cha Cha when I know Wilson will always be within arm's length of a computer? The man is physically tethered to the Internet. Finally, we take a look at the NBC fall lineup and Bonnie asks the question that's on all of our minds: Jeff, how can you like Sex and the City and still urinate standing up?

EPISODE 187 Download today's podcast … Read more

Guilty pleasures: 5 celebrity gossip sites revealed

Most folks don't want to admit it, so I'll lead the charge: I can't get enough of celebrity gossip sites.

Each day, I'll surf to my favorites and find out everything I wanted to know about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and other celebs. It's my guilty pleasure. And by the looks of things, especially if we are to believe a post written by Perez Hilton's founder, which claims his site had 13.9 million page views Monday, I'm not alone.

So let's take a look at some of the prominent celebrity gossip sites across the Web and find out why they're so intriguing.

Defamer Although Defamer was originally a separate entity under the Gawker Media umbrella, the company's founder and CEO, Nick Denton, announced recently that the site would become a section on Gawker.com to streamline business operations. And although it's not the most popular of the celebrity gossip sites, it's still worth visiting.

The content on Defamer is interesting, but I've found that it tends to be a little late in its reporting, and it's not nearly as compelling as sites like TMZ or Perez Hilton. In fact, despite its name, Defamer is decidedly "nicer" than the competition, and its tries to be more news-oriented than some sites that simply post pictures and comment on the way a particular celebrity looks.

I don't mind that Defamer has chosen to go that way, but as a major Perez Hilton fan, I enjoy the occasional snark.

Perez Hilton If you haven't been to Perez Hilton to find out all the juicy details on A-list celebs like Angelina Jolie or D-list celebs like LC (Lauren Conrad) from "The Hills," you probably haven't spent enough time on the Web. Believe it or not, this site is, in its own strange way, a Web institution.

Rather than posting videos, a la TMZ, Perez Hilton boasts some of the funniest and most eye-popping stories on celebrities anywhere on the Web. The site is filled with pictures Perez finds of celebrities living their daily lives, which are then edited to include mean-spirited or (at times) nice comments. That said, many of the edits made to the pictures by Perez are adult in nature, so it's best if you read this blog when the kids are asleep.

Perez Hilton has been around for years, and the site's founder, Mario Lavandeira Jr., is one of the most hated people in Hollywood. He doesn't mince any words, and his blog posts, while short, are biting and shoot straight from the hip.

Unlike sites like Defamer, Perez often breaks big stories and has shots of celebrities hours before other gossip sites. Because Perez Hilton is the biggest site in the space, Lavandeira has been cited in a slew of lawsuits, and some celebrities criticize him, saying he goes easy on some and unnecessarily hard on others. He claims that he's tough on everyone.

Regardless, Perez Hilton is a must-see for celebrity watchers. The blog posts are sometimes serious, often funny, and always entertaining. … Read more

The 404 187: Where we're tickling the Bonch

We finally get our hands on the much coveted Bonch aka Bonnie Cha, Senior Editor for CNET.com. No, we don't grill her on the latest cell phones at CTIA or the proper way to make a Superman cape. Instead, we try to guess Sarah Palin's e-mail password, run through a list of Jeff's mancrushes, do the Cha Cha on the air, and take a visit to the Sex Museum, aka Wilson's cellar.

Wow, did someone open up a tank of nitrous oxide in here? Today's show is literally 40 minutes of constant laughter, and we owe that to our special guest, Bonnie Cha! She's a Senior Editor of mobile phones at CNET and one of the first people I ever met at the San Francisco office. Please don't be operating heavy machinery while listening to today's show! We do taint, tarnish, and otherwise frack up Bonnie's "innocence" by explaining the science behind "Supermanning that ho," which goes over surprisingly well with her. We also debut a service called Cha Cha that allows you to text or call a 24/7 concierge service that will literally answer any inquiry, such as "Is the 404 going to be taken off the air tomorrow?" or "Why is Bonnie's nickname The Bonch?" Of course, all of these questions can be answered using another service; here in 2008 we call it Google. Furthermore,why would I use the Cha Cha when I know Wilson will always be within arm's length of a computer? The man is physically tethered to the Internet. Finally, we take a look at the NBC fall lineup and Bonnie asks the question that's on all of our minds: Jeff, how can you like Sex and the City and still urinate standing up?

EPISODE 187 Download today's podcast … Read more

MySpace president is Paris Hilton's latest accessory?

It's not the sort of TechCrunch post you see every day: the Valley blog reported on Friday night that Chris DeWolfe, president of News Corp.'s MySpace, is dating ubiquitous heiress Paris Hilton. It's been going on for a few weeks, editor Michael Arrington wrote, adding that he was tipped off to it when he saw the two together in a video clip from paparazzi site X17.

The gossip column of the New York Post has also mentioned offhand that Hilton has been spotted at parties in a house that DeWolfe has rented in Southampton, N.Y. (That'… Read more