Today, All Things Digital debuts a new feature called “Almost Famous” in our Voices section.
No, it is not about Kate Hudson and nascent rock stars.
Well, you might meet geek rock stars to be.
Focused on innovative, interesting or just plain odd start-ups, we thought it was a good way for our readers to get a gander at some up-and-coming ideas and trends. It will be penned by Drake Martinet every Friday.
For many years now, one of our regular attendees at the D: All Things Digital conference has been award-winning movie and television director, producer and writer Barry Sonnenfeld, who is–as it turns out–a not-so-closeted geek in his spare time with a gadget column for Esquire magazine called “The Digital Man.”
Now he is branching out to a vlog about his geek passions on Crackle, which will appear every two weeks from wherever he is–either from his homes in East Hampton, N.Y. or Telluride, Colo., or from Hollywood sets.
Memo to all Cyborg Geeks:
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology….We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.”
Wait, that’s “The Six Million Dollar Man” motto!
But it might as well apply to the Hollywood outfit that owns the “Terminator” movie franchise.
Time Inc.’s Fortune magazine–which never met a list it did not like to make–had a solid group of women tech types on its “50 Most Powerful Women 2009” roster, the annual survey that it posted yesterday.
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz made the Top Ten this year, clocking in at No. 8, along with a lot of other tech-savvy women in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
Hey, politicians aren’t the only ones who get to do fancy polls!
Walt and I had a bunch of them about a variety of tech topics that we pulled out to ambush, ooops, pose to speakers at our seventh D: All Things Digital conference last week, which we commissioned from Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates.
Check our our lovely graphs here.
Was it more than a month ago that the Google was rumored to be in “late-stage negotiations to acquire Twitter”?
Not so much late-stage, I guess. So, I guess it should come as no surprise that it was time to fob yet another rumor that yet another moneybags of a company–this time, Apple–is in “late-stage negotiations to buy Twitter.”
But despite very serious interest in the hot microblogging service by every company that can afford considering such a thing, including Apple, getting across that late-stage line would require major investors in the hot start-up to be very involved, and they are not as yet.
So, rather than be on the edge of your seat about all these endless, alleged late-stage high jinks, here is a five-step list to cut out and keep when the questionable rumors of “late-stage negotiations” with Microsoft, News Corp., Verizon, Cisco and more inevitably show up.
With bootleg copies ripped on the Internet or not and with an $87 million opening weekend for “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” it looks like the nerdiest summer movie season ever is off the races.
Hollywood, caught in the digital maelstrom, certainly is fine and dandy making bank by co-opting all the techie themes, gadgets and special effects, with a slate of movies over the next months that are like catnip to geeks of all kinds.
Including BoomTown, for example, which plans to fork over a lot of dough to pay for all the techtastic entertainment that those old media moguls can dish out before they collapse.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak revved his damn-the-judges juggernaut into high gear this week with yet another low-scoring performance on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and a full-bore mangle of the Argentine tango last night.
Interestingly, as the trio of judges dinged him for the fourth week in a row, they also tried to compliment Wozniak at the same time, telling him they loved his spirit.
Oh, these judges know that a Silicon Valley mob riding Segways could run them down at any minute if they got too mean.
“The judges have forsaken me,” said Woz, sounding more and more like a very appealing nerd cult leader. “But the geeks shall inherit the earth.”
Doing the quickstep and wearing taped nerd glasses to the tune of Buddy Holly’s “Oh, Boy,” Steve Wozniak’s dance stylings on “Dancing With the Stars” this week was more like “Oh, Brother!”
Nonetheless, support of geeks world-wide and an infectious spirit kept the Apple co-founder in the running on the ABC television competition, besting former Go-Go Belinda Carlisle in dance-off elimination.
Woz is dancing as badly as he can with a pink boa, Silicon Valley, so get out there and make your 13 votes count!
With the naming of Oracle President Charles Phillips to President Barack Obama’s 16-Member Economic Recovery Advisory Board a few days ago, another Silicon Valley tech mandarin fell off the list to become America’s first chief technology officer.
The job–which was promised by President Barack Obama during his campaign and underscored when he released a memorandum on transparency and open government that outlined some of the CTO duties the day after he was sworn in–remains unfilled.
While everyone is rightly focusing on the economic crisis, inquiring minds still want to know who is getting the job as head geek.
Besides getting, well, the whole country to run today, President Barack Obama is now taking a geek-tastic new ride down Pennsylvania Avenue to his new home, which should more than satisfy his clearly gadget-loving persona.
Say hello to the spanking new Presidential limo, which the Secret Service is calling the “Beast.”
The last time General Motors improved on the car was at outgoing President George W. Bush’s 2005 inauguration, which means the struggling automaker is faster at upgrading than Microsoft is with Windows!
One of our favorite D: All Things Digital speakers, and now a regular attendee, has been Hollywood director, producer, writer and big-cowboy-hat-about-town, Barry Sonnenfeld (pictured here at D6).
So, BoomTown extends belated but Texas-sized congratulations to Sonnenfeld for winning an Emmy earlier this week for directing the pilot of “Pushing Daisies” on ABC.
I’ll admit, if asked and my life depended on it, BoomTown could not tell you what the bizarre Web 2.0 phenomenon of Julia Allison is exactly.
I would hazard a guess, if pressed, which would be: Geek- pretending “Gossip Girl.”
Hey, I am not trying to be snotty either, as I totally get the pretty girl flouncing about and giggling in an online video thing, especially if you throw in an iPhone or two.
But this spoof video about her is definitely entertaining.
AOL=Ads Online Loser?
What can we say about AOL’s ad miss, reported in the New York Times today by Miguel Helft, except to quote an email I got from a former AOL executive today: “Ad sales and no surprises were the reason these guys were supposedly brought in.”
Oops. Indeed, more analysis of this issue tomorrow, but [...]
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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