I will show you some of the good, the bad and the ugly that is going on in the world today. I will bring you some of the most popular, hot button topics and videos of the day.
As shares of Eastman Kodak tumble, some big investors are taking it on the chin.
The Journal reported that Kodak has hired restructuring advisers — a possible path to a bankruptcy filing. The disclosure — along with a story from Bloomberg News — is killing Kodak’s stock price. Recently, shares had lost more than half of their market value in minutes, down to a mere 69 cents.
The decline may be eating into two legendary men. Bill Miller is Kodak’s biggest stockholder. But Bill Gates’s charitable foundation is the ninth-biggest holder of Kodak stock as of June 30.
According to FactSet Lionshares, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has owned Kodak shares since 2004, but only 100,000 shares. In recent years, the foundation has gradually been building its exposure, up to 5.75 million shares of Kodak stock at June 30, according to FactSet.
It’s not clear how much the Gates foundation paid for its stock, but Kodak shares have never been as low as they are this afternoon. We’re not talking about a huge amount of money on the Bill Gates scale. The foundation’s holdings in Kodak were valued at $20.6 million at the end of June. Now, the stock is worth $4.6 million.
If he’s lucky, Gates may have rid himself of Kodak stock between the end of the second quarter and today. Otherwise, his foundation is slightly less loaded.
President Obama applauds the U.S. action as 'a major blow' against al-Qaida
The U.S. drone killing of American-born and -raised Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a major figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has re-energized a national debate over the legal and moral quandaries of a government deliberately killing a citizen.
The issue has been roiling throughout the U.S. campaign against terrorism, but Friday's drone missile killing of al-Awlaki and a second American, Samir Khan, provided a stark, concrete case of a U.S. policy that authorizes death for terrorists, even when they're Americans, analysts said.
A government source who was briefed Friday morning by the CIA confirmed the U.S. missile strike, which killed two other people in a car in Yemen.
While President Obama on Friday applauded the U.S. action as "a major blow" against al Qaeda, civil libertarians assailed the U.S. decision to kill a citizen.
"The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law," ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said in a statement. "As we've seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts."
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul denounced Obama for "assassinating" al-Awlaki, saying that the American cleric should have been tried in a U.S. court.
"If the American people accept this blindly and casually, that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys. I think it's sad," Paul told reporters after a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire, Friday.
"Al-Awlaki was born here, he's an American citizen, he was never tried or charged for any crimes," Paul said. "To start assassinating American citizens without charges - we should think very seriously about this."
But U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-New York, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the lethal strike was lawful.
"It was entirely legal. If a citizen takes up arms against his own country, he becomes an enemy of the country. The president was acting entirely within his rights and I fully support the president," King said.
Al-Awlaki was believed by U.S. authorities to have inspired acts of terrorism against the United States, including a fatal shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, and the December 25 bombing attempt to bring down an airliner flying to Detroit.
His facility with English and technology made him one of the top terrorist recruiters in the world, and he was considered the public face of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.
Al-Awlaki was killed about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the Yemeni town of Khashef, east of the capital, Sanaa, said Mohammed Basha, a spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington.
In what one source called a joint U.S. military-intelligence operation, the strike was launched at 9:55 a.m. Friday, officials said.
Also killed was Khan, an American of Pakistani origin, who specialized in computer programming for al Qaeda and authored the terrorist network's online magazine, Inspire, officials said.
Much controversy preceded the fatal drone strike.
Al-Awlaki's father even sued Obama, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and former CIA Director Leon Panetta to prevent them from having his son killed, but last December, a federal judge threw out the "unique and extraordinary" suit, leaving open the question of whether the U.S. government can legally target American citizens for death abroad without a trial.
U.S. District Court Judge John Bates dismissed the case on procedural grounds, saying that Nasser al-Awlaki did not have standing to sue and that the officials were immune from such lawsuits anyway.
Last year, Dennis Blair, director of U.S. national intelligence, told Congress that the government has the right to kill American citizens abroad if they present a direct threat to U.S. security.
"We take direct action against terrorists in the intelligence community," Blair told a House intelligence committee. "If that direct action -- we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Friday that the wartime dilemma pivots on how the terrorists targeted by the American military don't have a practical access to U.S. courts to challenge their listing on a government kill list.
"The Obama administration says it is authorized by Congress" to issue an order to kill or capture al-Awlaki, Toobin said. "One of the very important things to point out about this whole legal controversy is that it's never been in court.
"No judge has ever evaluated it, and because of the weird legal setting, it's not clear that a court ever will. When you think about Osama bin Laden, Awlaki, they don't really have the opportunity to go to an American courtroom," Toobin said.
Al-Awlaki's father's legal challenge was thrown out of court because it was the son -- not the father -- who was on the kill list, and so the dad didn't have standing, Toobin said.
"I cannot conceive of how any of these people could ever really get access to an American courtroom," Toobin said. "Will a court ever judge thumbs up, thumbs down on this policy? Frankly, I doubt it."
But Mary Ellen O'Connell, an expert on international law at the University of Notre Dame, said the key question concerned not citizenship but location. "The real concern is where is this person?' she said. "He is not in an armed conflict zone, not in a battle zone."
Al-Awlaki should have been arrested, she said. "It's basic law, it's basic morality, that you do not kill people without warning in non-battlefield situations. International law is clear about where a battlefield is and is not. We don't get to just make it up because we particularly dislike this guy and we want to declare where he is suddenly a battle zone without doing the hard work of a country to arrest him and put him on trial."
International law, she said, says a battlefield where a person can be killed without warning "is a place where there's intense, organized, inter-group fighting; that was not the situation."
She said the United States was supposed to be leading the world in moving toward more human rights, more zones of peace and more use of law enforcement to respond to criminal suspects, but that hasn't proven to be the case. "Instead, it started with the Bush administration but, ironically and even more damagingly, the Obama administration has carried this forward. In fact they're doing far more killing away from battlefields than ever occurred in the Bush administration."
She said people tend to cooperate more with authorities when they know an individual is going to get a fair trial instead of a summary execution.
But Panetta, who is now defense secretary, showed no regret. "This individual was clearly a terrorist and yes he was a citizen, but if you're a terrorist, you're a terrorist. That means that we have the ability to go after those who would threaten to attack the United States and kill Americans. There's no question that the authority and the ability to go after a terrorist is there."
Al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and lived in the United States until the age of 7, when his family returned to Yemen. He returned to the United States in 1991 for college and remained until 2002. It was during that time that as an imam in California and Virginia, al-Awlaki preached to and interacted with three of the men who went on to become hijackers in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. He publicly condemned the attacks afterward.
Watch out, Justin Bieber! 14-year-old Drew Ryniewicz sang a version of “Baby” that blew the judges away.
Justin Bieber has some major competition! The X Factor contestant Drew Ryniewicz sang her own version of his hit song Baby during the Seattle auditions that really impressed judges Simon Cowell, Nicole Scherzinger, L.A. Reid and Paula Abdul.
Drew may only be 14, but she has done her research – particularly on L.A. Reid, the Def Jam chairman that actually signed Bieber. “He is a big part of Justin Bieber, the biggest part I would say in his career," she said.
She couldn’t help but gush over Bieber, as well. "Justin Bieber is so cute because of his hair, the way he flips it is cute!" she said in her intro video. “His favorite colors are purple and red."
After singing her own version of Baby, all the judges were impressed -– even tough-as-nails Cowell, who said he liked her version better than the original and he could see kids buying that track!
"It's hard for me because I'm a real Justin Bieber fan and I like the original version which is why it's so interesting that I prefer your version to his,” gushed Scherzinger.
Adbul agreed, saying her version was “commendable, original, daring and bold.”
L.A. Reid had warned before she started singing that he would be “harsh and critical” since he was so close to the song, but after she finished he gave her props. "That was so original. I love how you took it and really made it yours. It was soulful and believable. You are special,” he said.
An NPR article out today noted an often overlooked North American fruit that is high in antioxidants... and is in season right now.
The article highlighting a trip around suburban Washington, D.C. to gather the pawpaw, and taste it, noted that pawpaws have only recently been commercialized. The fruit, which is high in fatty acids and antioxidants (like an avocado), but has a custardy, pale, sweet flesh (like a banana) grows along a large swath of the Southern, Southeastern and Midwest states. It is commonly reffered to as the Hoosier banana.
While it is hard to find the fruit at a supermarket, Kentucky State University, which runs an agricultural extension program aimed at expanding knowledge about the fruit, has a list of nurseries that sell young trees.
Pawpaws can be eaten fresh, up to two days after they are ripe, or substituted for bananas in a multitude of recipes. A favorite of the Ohio Pawpaw Festival, which honors the fruits is blending yogurt, honey, cinnamon and a pinch of salt to make a 'pawpaw lassi.'
By Wilson Rothman
Before Amazon's press event even started, the big news slipped out of the bag: The Amazon Kindle Fire will be a 7-inch Android tablet with a $199 price tag. Then Amazon's Jeff Bezos went on stage and unveiled it, showing off its movie playback capability and other media features.
As rumors had suggested, it is very reminiscent of the $499 BlackBerry PlayBook, though the bezel looks a little narrower. It weighs 14.6 ounces, pretty much exactly the same as the PlayBook.
In fact, we managed to get a quick shot of the Kindle Fire alongside a PlayBook. As you can see, at right, the Kindle Fire is a little bit more sleekly styled than RIM's far more expensive tablet, but they are hauntingly similar, hardware-wise.
But unlike the BlackBerry tablet or the many struggling Android tablets on the market, Amazon gives you many many reasons, right up front, as to why this tablet matters. As Amazon puts it: "18 million songs, movies, TV shows, books, magazines, apps and games." Not that you get all of those free with purchase, but the device is purpose-built as a conduit for media, whether you pay for an Amazon Prime streaming subscription, subscribe to periodicals or buy books, music or movies a la carte.
As had been foretold, the Kindle Fire has a dual-core processor and a pretty nice custom interface. It does not look anything like a Google-authorized Android tablet, but the tablet plays Android games fairly well —at least in the canned demonstrations shown today.
Part of the reason that the cost can be kept low is that the tablet has just 8 gigabytes of internal storage, half of the baseline storage of most tablets. Amazon expects people to use the tablet mostly in Wi-Fi hotspots, where they can stream content from Amazon's cloud.
The tablet will be available Nov. 15, but you can pre-order it now.
Bezos unveiled a new kind of Web browser called Amazon Silk, which weds the tablet to Amazon's cloud network. The browser gathers user behavior in order to predict where you'll go next, and caching that Web page in advance. If you always jump from msnbc.com to the tech/sci page, it will start loading it on the back end, so that it's quicker to load for you.
But Amazon engineers say not to worry about a whole new system. "It will seem like a traditional browser, just a lot better and a lot faster."
Our overall impression is that this is what Amazon needs to do, and despite rumors that Amazon had been cutting corners on their design (which may well be the case), the goods on display today look like something Amazon can be proud of.
A 7-inch touch-screen Android tablet for $199 is an incredible value, and a device $300 less than an iPad can manage to avoid direct comparisons. This is about media consumption. There's no camera, no microphone, not much at all in the way of content creation. It's a supplement to your computer, whereas an iPad could well replace your computer, if not now, then in the near future.
The Kindle Fire is squarely aimed at knocking Barnes & Noble off its perch. The $250 Nook Color was a coup and a true value, but a $199 Amazon-media-powered tablet with a fluid interface and more up-to-date hardware is likely to trump it.
That said, we'll have to wait till the product is in our hands, presumably closer to the ship date, before we can pass judgment.
Bloomberg's report regarding the basic details about what is described as a "souped-up version of the Kindle electronic-book reader" matches most of the gossip we've heard so far. (Albeit, it was previously suggested that the device would be priced at $250.)
We now know that the Kindle Fire will indeed offer Wi-Fi connectivity — though no support for 3G — and come with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime, "the company’s $79-a-year membership service that includes streaming video and free two-day shipping."
Bezos also introduced three new e-ink-based Kindle readers, including a touch-screen version for $99, which we covered in greater detail here.
Ashton Kutcher might have a lot of power on Two and a Half Men, but CBS executives are peeved that he used the show to promote his personal business ventures.
Ashton Kutcher is in trouble this week, in more ways than one. Demi Moore’s husband reportedly cheated on the gorgeous actress with a young girl last Saturday in San Diego on what was their sixth wedding anniversary.
Now, CBS is more than a little peeved at their new Two and a Half Men star for giving free advertising to several web companies, including Foursquare, Flipboard, Hipmunk and Chegg. The problem? Kutcher has a financial interest in all the companies and gave them free primetime advertising on the show.
"Check out @aplusk showing some @foursquare & @GroupMe laptop-sticker love on Two & a Half Men," the star tweeted during the show, along with a screenshot of his laptop.
CBS isn’t pleased. "This was not part of any advertising transaction with CBS," a network spokesman said in a statement "Our policy is to disclose such financial interests in a credit at the end of the broadcast."
Foursquare was mentioned during the show’s credits, per FCC regulations. However, CBS now wants the company to pay up or they’ll blur the logos in future airings of the episode. It’s likely the cost of that sort of advertising will run each start-up a considerable amount of cash -- and the network always wants to boost the bottom line.
Maybe Kutcher can give some of his cash back to the network to make up for it? After all, he’s making a reported $700K per episode for taking Charlie Sheen’s place on the sitcom.
This isn’t the first time Kutcher has come under fire for promoting his own business ventures. The DNA Foundation creator took over as a guest editor for Details magazine last month and used the space to promote the businesses without admitting his financial stakes in the company (a big journalism no-no.) The FTC considered investigating Kutcher, but ultimately declined to pursue charges against him.
Call us old-fashioned, but we remember a simpler time when elderly men were given great, whopping segments of television to kvetch incessantly about all the mysterious, newfangled things they overheard on the radio, wax rhapsodic over random gemgaws they found secreted away in their desk, and generally whinge about the loud and confusing modern world. Unfortunately, that era, like all eras that were markedly better, seems to have passed us, as tetchy tortoise Andy Rooney will slowly scuttle off into the sunset this Sunday, officially announcing his retirement from being your private complainer, a complainer for money, and any old music will do.
The move comes as something of a surprise, considering Rooney—at a spry and ornery 92 years—had until very recently maintained his seven-days-a-week work schedule, at least 6.75 of which were presumably spent sitting perfectly still and emitting a low, sustained whine. Alas, Sunday’s 60 Minutes will feature a retrospective interview with Rooney about all of his most important commentaries—such as that time he said he didn’t like that new thing very much, far preferring an older thing—followed by his 1,097th and final essay, which may feature Rooney pointing out the specific flaws of every single person in America until, finally drained of every splenetic humor, he vanishes in a puff of cinder.
The television networks got their news tip early -- at last they would have a Washington newsbreak truly made-for-TV. So, at sunrise Tuesday, their mobile satellite broadcast trucks clustered at the base of the towering icon that the world knows as the symbol of our nation's capital.
Never has that been so true. And as the TV cameras titled skyward we saw proof that the Washington Monument is finally symbolic in every way of the reality of our nation's capital. It's just what we've been told by the cynical pundits, pandering politicos and even the econo-wonks of Standard & Poors:
Washington is broken. And now, perhaps fittingly, its monument is too.
TV cameras tiled skyward showed us a team of daredevil engineers rappelling from the 555 foot-high pointed peak of the Washington Monument. The experts slowly worked their way down the column, detecting and analyzing previously unknown cracks and chips in the stones and mortar, caused by the recent rare earthquake.
So it was this week that television finally had visual representation for all that is broken in Washington. On CNN, for example, we saw the engineers doing their monumental version of those daredevil wing-walkers, as highly trained engineers battled the breezes and dangled down the monument. We saw video from the earthquake day, of bits of stonework raining down upon tourists at the top of the Washington Monument, which, as an anchor told us, is closed until further notice.
Then the anchor moved on to what was billed as a new story -- which we now realize is really just a new chapter in the very old Washington story: "The government may not shut down after all this weekend ..."
Yup, just the newest wrinkle in the same old Washington-is-broken story. Once again, some Republicans in Congress had played yet another game of brinksmanship threatened to just let Washington run out of money and shut down before the September 30 end of the 2011 fiscal year.
Really. This time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which provided emergency funds to disaster victims in this year of multiple catastrophes form earthquakes to tornados, hurricanes, floods and fires was due to run out of money. Some pro-Tea Party Republicans were insisting on letting the government shut down unless budget cuts elsewhere could pay the difference. Other Republicans, however, were mindful of the political fallout of plummeting polls that followed their party's roles in congressional brinksmanship earlier this year in April and August.
So they agreed to a so-called bipartisan deal that ended the threat of this shutdown with a few days to spare -- but the deal will only last until November. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called it "a win for everyone." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called it "a reasonable way to keep the government operational."
Meanwhile, you know it was neither a win nor reasonable. It is crazy and even cruel to inject political gamesmanship into the need to help victims to natural catastrophes. But you also know Republicans are right about halting our eras of massive deficits (such as those amassed during the presidencies of Reagan and both Bushes) and congressional Democrats always need to be pushed to curb spending.
Mainly, you remember how in August Republicans let their Tea Party minority push them to the brink, opposing raising the debt limit and risking default. Even when the GOP caved at the last minute, Standard & Poors still downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time.
But S&P got it wrong in August when it declared: "The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed."
No way. Even S&P now realizes Washington is predictable -- pathetically so. Washington is broken from the tip of its monument to the core of its principles. You can take this prediction to the bank: Come November, Washington will mindlessly blunder itself to the brink yet again -- playing politics with our future.
Recently, Facebook announced a new music service that incorporates streaming music services with such partners as Spotify, Rhapsody, Mog, Rdio, iHeartRadio, and Slacker. The idea is that when Facebook members listen to music from one of these services, they can elect to share a constantly updating playlist of tracks they’re playing. Those “friends” who have access to the same music service can then also play this music simply by clicking on a link to the track.
I commented on what this might mean in "Facebook and the Future of Music". One vital piece of information missing at the time was that, in at least one case we now know of, Facebook membership is a requirement to belong to the service. That service is Spotify.
According to a Spotify representative: “New accounts require Facebook to log in and this is a worldwide initiative. To us, this is all about creating an amazing new world of music discovery. To make this as good and simple as it possibly can be, we’ve integrated Spotify login with Facebook login. By adopting Facebook’s login, we’ve created a simple and seamless social experience. Once a user is logged in they can control what to share to each of their networks from the preferences menu in Spotify.”
I’ve checked in with some of the other music services, and both Mog and Rhapsody tell me that while they’re participating in Facebook’s music service, they are not exclusive to it. You can have a Mog or Rhapsody account without also having a Facebook account. Each of these services additionally offer its own social networking service.
Putting aside the issue of whether this really is about “creating an amazing new world of music discovery” or the more likely matter of Spotify increasing its revenue thanks to better placement and a piece of the action, it very definitely puts Facebook in an important place in the music business. It’s now a significant music distributor and in the position to make demands of music companies as well as promote particular labels, artists, and publishers to millions of Facebook users.
Yes, I have Facebook issues
I’m not a fan of Facebook—I dropped my Facebook account more than a year ago thanks to what I considered the company’s pernicious privacy policies. So you’re forgiven for swallowing a grain of salt prior to believing, like me, that this isn’t a particularly good thing.
There’s a succinct phrase floating around the Internet that goes, “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.” This is how Google, Facebook, and other such services operate. You’re offered these services not because of the philanthropic tendencies of these companies but rather because you have something of value that they want—your personal information. This information gets churned with the information of countless other individuals and sold to advertisers, who use it to find ways to more efficiently market their stuff. This includes targeting individuals for particular products.
In order for this scheme to work, these forces must collect as much information about you as possible. And, in the case of Facebook, this means making it difficult for you to prevent that information from being shared. Time and again the company changes its policy settings—sometimes without your knowledge—so that more of your information is made available. If you’re aware of these changes you can attempt to change them back to more restrictive settings, but it’s not often easy to do that, as the settings are designed to be confusing. Additionally, most people either aren’t savvy enough to understand the implications of their inaction or are too busy to bother.
The company has made a habit of stepping too far over the privacy line, backing off when enough voices are raised, waiting for things to cool down, and then testing the waters again. These are not the acts of a company that values privacy but rather one that continues to push the limits of what its users and the law will allow.
Given this, do I really trust Facebook to be Simon Pure in regard to promoting music? Of course not. Nor does this do much for my faith in Spotify.
But it does make me think that Apple now has a significant opportunity.
Where Apple fits
As I said in last week’s piece, Apple has shown no signs of wanting to get into the subscription music business. The $25-a-year iTunes Match music service will allow you to wirelessly download music you own that can be found at the iTunes Store as well as upload music that isn’t in the iTunes Store, but there’s no option for streaming or downloading music you don’t own, as you can with Spotify, Rhapsody, Napster, Rdio, and Mog.
Suppose this streaming thing catches on—that Facebook demonstrates that people do like to swap playlists and immediately play and collect music recommended by their friends. How could Apple respond?
First, it could offer such a service without demanding your Internet life and soul in exchange. Rather than forcing you into a Web browser to listen to music streams, it could provide streams through iTunes, Apple TVs, and iOS devices. If you like the social experience, Apple could keep the name Ping, scrap the original service that went by that name, and make it an effective and enjoyable way to share music with your friends. Video streaming is also an option. And, like Facebook, it could launch the service and make it available to the millions of people who already have a relationship with the company in the form of an Apple ID.
But why trust Apple more than Facebook or Google or any other company? Of course there’s always the chance that Apple will go more heavily into the advertising business than its initial iAds foray so never say never but, unlike Facebook, advertising isn’t Apple’s reason for being. The company is doing quite well selling us tangible objects and apps—”real” things rather than enticements. This gives me hope.
I’m on record saying that I find music subscription a terrific way to listen to scads of music and I suspect that as people are exposed to it—from whatever service—they too will find the value in it. Once we’re over the hump of believing it’s sinful to “rent” music, I pray Apple’s there to provide a workable and trustworthy alternative to the Facebook trap. In the meantime, I’m dropping Spotify; sticking with Rhapsody, Napster, Mog, and Rdio; and keeping my fingers crossed that Apple has plans along these lines.
ABC's period epic is as light as prime-time drama can get without becoming bubble-headed
Come fly with them: Christina Ricci and Margot Robbie in "Pan Am."
If production values equalled artistic quality, "Pan Am" (Sundays 10 PM/9 central) would win a Nobel prize.
This new series about Pan American airlines flight attendants -- oh, wait a second, it's set in 1963; I'll use the word "stewardesses"! -- is a triumph of retro atmosphere. Unlike NBC's dreadful "The Playboy Club," the series doesn't feel like a good-enough-for-government-work re-creation of another era, with contemporary attitudes, hairstyles and music inadvertently creeping in. Almost every touch is just right: the orange Tourister suitcases displayed in the opening airport sequence; the green-shelled manual typewriter that a young man uses to type a paper on Karl Marx; the crinkly chiffon dresses and 8mm camera in a wedding flashback; the way the stewardesses' blouses and skirts wrap their tummies and hips, thanks to the girdles that the company makes them wear. The opening section, which revolves around the inaugural flight of Pan Am's Clipper Majestic, has a couple of images whose scale is breathtaking: a shot of a yellow Checker cab racing up Park Avenue toward the Pan Am building, the street lined with vintage automobiles and signage; and an aerial shot of a chopper approaching the same skyscraper, every building in the 1963 Manhattan skyline lovingly re-created.
As for the drama, well ... Let's just say that for all its busy plotting, Pan Am is not a terribly intense show, and judging from the tone of the premiere, it isn't trying to be. The core cast of young female characters all have intriguing back stories that are touched on in this episode, and will be explored at length in future installments. The French Collette (Karine Varnasse) is rattled when a handsome man she had a one-night-stand with in Paris shows up on the Clipper with his wife and young son. The beatnik Maggie (Christina Ricci) looks askance at the conspicuous consuption she sees in her job, but she loves being a stewardess because it gives her so much freedom to travel (a huge incentive for young women from all walks of life). Laura (Margo Robbie) becomes a stew to avoid a wedding she decided wasn't for her; there's a marvelous comedy scene with Laura and her sister Kate (Kelli Garner, "My Generation"), who also works for Pan Am, escaping the event in a fishtailed sedan. When we first meet Laura, she's a quasi-celebrity just three weeks into her job, thanks to a candid photograph of her in her stewardess outfit that somehow ended up on the cover of Life magazine. ("With a face like that you'll find a husband in a couple of months!" she's told. )
Big sister Kate has connections to the American espionage community and is engaged in Cold War-type subterfuge, such as replacing a diplomat's passport with a nearly identical but expired one. Did the CIA or some foreign spy service have something to do with the mysterious disappearance of a fourth character, Bridget Pierce (Annabelle Wallis)? We'll find out eventually.There are also handsome pilots and copilots (Mike Vogel and Michael Mosley, respectively) whose stories are secondary to the ladies'; Moseley's character, Ted Vanderway, is connected with the disappeared Bridget via the Bay of Pigs invasion, and had a "Casablanca" moment with her on Havana tarmac.
That last bit probably makes "Pan Am" -- which was created by "ER" coproducer Jack Orman -- sound like a spy thiller in globe-trotting romantic comedy drag. It's not. The series isn't a comedy, either; nor for that matter is it a somewhat introverted psychological drama with flashes of corporate satire, the go-to mode of its partial inspiration, "Mad Men." It's really more of a cinematic time machine, and quite happy to be that -- a non-morose "Mad Men," more interested in surfaces than emotional interiors.
Because Pan Am folded 20 years ago, and thus has no branding stake in this program as Playboy does in "The Playboy Club", the producers were free to make a more satirical, cynical or bleak statement, but they opted instead for an immersive experience that's about as cheery as a prime time drama can get without being bubble-headed. "Pan Am" isn't blind to the social realities of the era, but it doesn't feel compelled to stare at them accusingly. On first glance it suggests a program founded on retro-sexist fantasies. The working world that we see is almost completely white; men fly the planes (and run the world); the women are by definition subservient -- mainly stewardesses catering to the needs of their passengers and having romantic and personal adventures during their off-hours. But although the show isn't making any overt feminist statements, it isn't anti-feminist, either. It's aware of the stewardesses' problematic but significant place within the story of gender equality, and acknowledges the downsides of the job without underselling its real benefits.
I've met a number of women over the years who worked as Pan Am stewardesses in the 1960s and '70s. Each one looked back fondly on the experience, but with clear eyes rather than rose-tinted glasses; each was grateful to have been able to do that job during an exciting time for women, and for the world generally. The show captures the curiosity and spirit of adventure that I associate with them. Laura, for instance, isn't sitting around before her wedding composing a speech about how marriage equals sexual bondage and submission to paternalism, but you don't need to hear something like that to know that she feels suffocated by constricted expectations, and wants to get out; all you have to do is look at her panicked eyes before she makes her escape and her rapturous expression after. What she finds in the air is a fantasy of liberation, but it's her fantasy; she made it happen. And whenever she forgets about reality, that damned girdle is there to remind her. "Pan Am" is nostalgic bonbons for the mind, made with the finest ingredients.
Herman Cain is basking in the Sunday glow of his surprise win Saturday in the Florida straw poll. But he lags in national polls, and his Florida win may draw sharper scrutiny of his positions.
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain departs the stage after speaking at the Republican Party of Florida Presidency 5 Convention and Straw Poll at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando Saturday. Cain won the straw poll.
Herman Cain is basking in the Sunday glow of his surprise win Saturday in the Florida straw poll.
But stark morning-after questions remain:
Can he keep up the momentum among his Republican rivals for the 2012 presidential nomination? Will the results of what is essentially a candidate beauty contest make any difference in the national polls, which are a much more accurate gauge of how the rivals are doing compared to each other (and to Barack Obama)? And will it mean sharper scrutiny – and pointed criticism – of his positions and policies in upcoming debates and straw poll maneuvering?
"The takeaway from Florida, that we took away, is that number one, the citizens movement is more powerful than the establishment wants to give me credit for. So yes, they keep treating me like the Rodney Dangerfield of this primary contest," Cain told Fox News Sunday.
"The voters, the people out in the field are saying we want to send a message to Washington, D.C. The establishment is not going to make this call, the people are going to make the call and that's what you saw in the Florida straw poll yesterday," he said.
Most analysts see Saturday’s unscientific Florida poll of 2,657 delegates (party activists who’d paid $175 to participate) as one blip on a long trail of debates and straw polls – and one that mainly was a rebuke of Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Perry, whose three debate performances seem to have gotten progressively worse and some of whose positions have drawn sharp critical response from party conservatives, managed to win just 15 percent of the straw poll tally compared to 37 percent for Cain. The loss was all the more troubling for the Perry camp since the Texas governor and late entry to the race had lobbied hard for delegate votes.
“Perry’s showing in the straw poll was disastrous. He was here, he worked the crowd, and it just proves that the debate performance really undermined his support,” Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who was at the straw poll in Orlando this weekend, told Politico.com “Perry’s gotta retool, reorganize and retrench very quickly.”
Cain’s principal thrust has been on the economy, mainly his “999 Plan” for tax reform starting with a 25 percent limit on personal and business taxes, then moving to a 9 percent flat tax for businesses and individuals, plus a 9 percent national sales tax.
But he’s also made some controversial statements that may come back to haunt him if his campaign continues to succeed and he comes under greater scrutiny.
He’s called Social Security a “scam,” for example. And he’s had to apologize to Muslim Americans for suggesting that communities could ban mosques.
So far, Cain has yet to take off in national polls. The latest Rasmussen poll gives him just 7 percent; the McClatchy-Marist poll has him at 5 percent, as does the CBS News/New York Times poll of Republican primary voters; the Bloomberg News national poll gives him 4 percent; and the CNN/Opinion Research poll puts Cain at 5 percent
Saturday evening’s straw poll in Michigan probably was even less significant than Florida’s. Not surprisingly, Mitt Romney won in his home state with 51 percent of the 681 votes cast. Perry was second with 17 percent, and Cain came in third with 9 percent. More interesting to political junkies may have been the results to a question about the most attractive possibility for the GOP’s vice presidential nominee: 23 percent for Sen. Marco Rubio, followed by 14 percent for Cain. Some analysts think Rubio – an attractive newcomer to the national political scene – is angling for the VP nod.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite during its deployment in September 1991.
NASA's dead 6-ton satellite plunged to Earth early Saturday, but more than eight hours later, U.S. space officials didn't know just where it hit. They thought the fiery fall was largely over water and the debris probably hurt no one.
The bus-sized satellite first penetrated Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, according to NASA and the U.S. Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center. But that doesn't necessarily mean it all fell into the sea.
NASA's earlier calculations had predicted that the 20-year-old former climate research satellite would fall over a 500-mile swath and could include land.
Because the plummet began over the ocean and given the lack of any reports of people being hit, that "gives us a good feeling that no one was hurt," but officials didn't know for certain, NASA spokesman Steve Cole told the Associated Press.
The two government agencies said the 35-foot satellite fell sometime between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday and 1:09 a.m. EDT Saturday, but with no precise time or location.
There was rampant speculation on the Internet and Twitter, much of it focusing on unconfirmed reports and even video of debris over Alberta, Canada.
Cole said that was possible because the last track for the satellite included Canada, starting north of Seattle and then in a large arc north then south. From there, the track continued through the Atlantic south toward Africa, but it was unlikely the satellite got that far if it started falling over the Pacific.
Cole said NASA was hoping for more details from the Air Force, which was responsible for tracking debris.
But given where the satellite may have fallen, officials may never quite know precisely.
"Most space debris is in the ocean. It'll be hard to confirm," Cole said.
Some 26 pieces of the satellite representing 1,200 pounds of heavy metal had been expected to rain down somewhere. The biggest surviving chunk should be no more than 300 pounds.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is the biggest NASA spacecraft to crash back to Earth, uncontrolled, since the post-Apollo 75-ton Skylab space station and the more than 10-ton Pegasus 2 satellite, both in 1979.
Russia's 135-ton Mir space station slammed through the atmosphere in 2001, but it was a controlled dive into the Pacific.
Before UARS fell, no one had ever been hit by falling space junk and NASA expected that not to change.
NASA put the chances that somebody somewhere on Earth would get hurt at 1-in-3,200. But any one person's odds of being struck were estimated at 1-in-22 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.
The satellite ran out of fuel and died in 2005. UARS was built and launched before NASA and other nations started new programs that prevent this type of uncontrolled crashes of satellite.
It was a difficult night for long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, who is trying for the third time, to fulfill her quest to become the first woman to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.
In the first 12 hours of the swim, Nyad suffered debilitating jellyfish stings and had some breathing issues, but Saturday morning she was continuing toward her goal, one stroke at a time.
Nyad, 62, started the swim at Friday at 6:05 p.m. EDT. One hour later, she encountered a Portuguese Man O War that stung her on both arms, the side of her body and her face, according to a report on her blog.
“She is trying to clear herself of tentacles and continue to swim,” her team tweeted just after it happened.
After treading water for an hour she was able to recover from the stings and continue, but there were more obstacles ahead.
A post on Nyad’s blog titled “A challenging night” said that in the early morning Nyad’s stroke pace dropped from 52 to 55 strokes per minute to 48.
At 5:50 a.m. she stopped swimming completely, complaining that she could not breathe properly and was having trouble getting oxygen to her muscles.
Her last attempt at this swim was foiled in part by an unexpected bout of asthma, but this time Nyad was prepared.
She received a prednisone shot along with oxygen and other medications and after treading water for an hour, continued the swim at 8 a.m.
Her team remains hopeful that Nyad will complete the swim this time. According to Nyad's blog, her chief handler, Bonnie Stoll, told Nyad, "You're doing better, I can see it." And Candace Hogan, who has been a part of most of Diana’s swims since 1978, said Diana can recover and complete this swim.
Recent tweets indicate that her stroke is getting stronger, and her rest times each our are growing shorter.
Before she got in the water, Nyad was convinced she would make it this time.
“This weekend is my magical moment,” she tweeted on Friday night. “I can’t imagine any other ending than making it to the other shore.”
This is Nyad's third attempt at this 103-mile swim. She tried for the first time in 1978, quitting after 42 hours in the face of huge waves.
Then, on Aug. 8 of this year, she tried again, abandoning that effort after 29 hours, battling ocean swells and suffering from shoulder pain and asthma. Media reports said she was vomiting when she was pulled out of the water.
“I am not sad,” she told CNN, which was accompanying her at the time. “It was absolutely the right call.”
Immediately after the swim, she said that she would not try again, but she later expressed second thoughts about that statement to L.A. Times columnist Bill Dwyre.
"What I said right afterward is not necessarily true," she told Dwyre in mid-August. "You've got me a week later. Right after, it would be like talking to a boxer on the canvas, still on his back and looking up at the bright lights.
"Now, I do not feel at peace the way this ended," she added.
At a news conference in Havana, Nyad told reporters that despite her age she is in the best shape of her life.
A Florida judge today more than doubled the amount that Casey Anthony must pay for the investigation into her daughter's death, according to news reports out of Orlando.
Orange County Judge Belvin Perry upheld his earlier order that Anthony pay nearly $97,000 for investigative costs, then ordered that she now owes an additional $119,000 to the sheriff's office, WJXT says.
The sheriff's office initially was awarded more than $25,ooo but resubmitted cost estimates for the search for 2-year-old Caylee Anthony from July 15 to Sept. 29, 2008, the Orlando Sentinel says.
Anthony was acquitted of murder in her daughter's still-unexplained death but was found guilty of four counts of lying to law enforcement when she told investigators Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny.
He's got his back: Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill star in Moneyball. It's the true-life story of Billy Beane, the man who revolutionized the way professional baseball players are evaluated.
Like old buddies reuniting for a happy hour at the corner bar, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill enter the room already gabbing and laughing.
What could the model-handsome middle-aged half of the celebrity beast known as Brangelina be discussing so intently with the Gen-Y whiz kid who was Russell Brand's reluctant drug mule in Get Him to the Greek?
Maybe how their new film, Moneyball, which opens today, puts a whole new backroom-negotiating spin on the baseball genre by doing with spreadsheets what sexy Bull Durham did with bedsheets?
Or how their fashion and hairstyle choices reflect their shrewdly balanced jock vs. geek pairing on-screen? It's suburban-dad chic for floppy-locked Pitt, 47, who is youthful yet has a penchant for Cosby-esque sweaters. And neo-conservative business casual for close-cropped Hill, 27, belying both his age as well as his foul-mouthed dweeb antics as a member of comedy king Judd Apatow's clown posse.
Or, perhaps they could be debating just how boring Pitt's life was during his years with ex-wife Jennifer Aniston? That's doubtful, however, considering the actor has since issued a denial about similar statements after his foot landed in his mouth during a chat with Parade.
Instead, Hill is explaining the joys of the now-departed cult sitcom Arrested Development to an intensely fascinated Pitt.
"It won Emmys and it was so acclaimed," says Hill, who co-starred in 2007's Superbad with series regular Michael Cera. "It was always a counterculture thing. I think they are going to try to make a movie out of it."
Pitt: "Oh, great."
Hill: "It's so funny."
Pitt: "And the talent that came out of that show … "
Hill: "Oh, my God. Every character is so great. I go back and forth on who my favorite character is all the time."
Enough. Time to pitch Moneyball, boys. Conceived in 2003, when the book it is based on came out, this once-troubled project was all but dead just two years ago.
But after surviving three directors (Capote's Bennett Miller eventually took the reins) and several writers (Steven Zaillian and The Social Network's Aaron Sorkin now share credit), the movie hung in there in large part because of the unwavering loyalty of superstar lead Pitt.
This is one real-life sports drama that features minimal on-field action. Instead, its plot pivots on a mathematical formula that upends how baseball talent is usually measured.
Yet the film has been handily winning superlatives from critics and is even seen as a strong Oscar contender. A glance at the Rotten Tomatoes scoreboard online shows an enviable 90% positive rating.
Hill plays a cherubic geek
Many of the plaudits are aimed squarely at the unlikely partnership at the story's core. Pitt funnels the golden-boy aura he shares with onetime mentor Robert Redford, his director on 1992's A River Runs Through It, into his role as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's. His personal failure to capitalize on his early potential when he was a player makes the under-financed team's inability to compete against richer opponents all the more painful.
Hill's Peter Brand is the wild card as Beane's unlikely guru, a chubby and cherubic Ivy Leaguer with an economics degree and a deep knowledge of sabermetrics, which uses on-base percentage instead of batting average as a key way to judge players. Hill's performance is gracefully nuanced compared with his previous comedy work and provides a gentle contrast to Pitt's angsty, pent-up slow burns. Any devotee of the holiday TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will smile when Hill's wonky numbers cruncher lovingly compares the A's lineup of affordable rejects to "the island of misfit toys."
Despite their odd-couple chemistry, the two are more eager to discuss almost anything but Moneyball. That includes how Pitt happened to bump into Inglourious Basterds castmate Michael Fassbender— whose turn as a sex addict in Shame was the talk of the Toronto and Venice film fests this year — at a festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia (presumably while lady love Angelina Jolie was working on her directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey).
Hill: "You ran into him by accident?"
Pitt: "I didn't know he was going to be there. He and his dad had been taking a tour through Europe on bikes."
Hill: "No way."
Turns out there might be a couple of topics they would rather avoid. One is weight loss. While Pitt gobbles a hefty wrap sandwich, Hill is asked about how he slimmed down with the aid of a nutritionist and personal trainer for his role in the upcoming movie version of 21 Jump Street.
He must have lost more than the 40 pounds that has been reported. "I don't know how much I weighed to begin with, and I don't know how much I weigh now,'' he says. "My goal wasn't about numbers."
Interjects Pitt, "All the male models he admired were hovering at a 31-32 waist, so that became the target number."
Adds Hill: "Now I'm at 29, so what are you going to do?"
Asked if he is concerned about no longer fitting into his usual plus-sized roles, Hill suddenly looks crestfallen while Pitt chivalrously comes to his defense.
"It's so beyond that," says the mega-fan of the Apatow brand of raunchy R-rated humor, who appears to be more in awe of Hill than Hill is of him.
"I remember being bowled over by Superbad. The most innovative, big leaps in what we do come from Jonah and his cohorts like Danny McBride and Russell Brand. Not only are they pushing the boundaries of irreverence, which is hilarious, but it is grounded in this humanity, this pain, this pathos, that goes beyond what we think of as comedy. There is an openness to what these guys are doing. They aren't hiding anything. It is so beyond any kind of stereotype."
Hill finally chimes in: "What you said is silly. I'm not offended in any way. With the part I play in this movie, it wouldn't have mattered what size I was. You just play people. I just try to do a good job when they cast me in this movie."
So who's idea was it to hire Hill? "The studio forced him on us," says Pitt with a grin. "For marketing reasons."
Even Pitt loves underdogs
Moneyball's director has always considered Hill as much more than a mere comic foil.
"Casting Jonah did not feel like an avant-garde, crazy idea," says Miller, who first met the actor through a mutual friend, Capote's Catherine Keener, who was in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Cyrus with Hill. "Maybe because I knew him and knew how smart he is. He is an agile, original thinker with an unbelievable memory. He's not like the funny guy who is always on. Many of the qualities you see in the movie are evident if you know him. Also, I knew he wanted to stretch the boundaries of what he was given the opportunity to do before."
Pitt's pet peeve seems to center around an observation he hears all too often: How can a two-time Oscar nominee who makes millions, lives with one of the most beautiful actresses in the world and ranks among the sexiest and most powerful stars in Hollywood relate to an underdog tale like Moneyball?
"People forget I came from Oklahoma and Missouri with just a few bucks in my pocket," he says. "Every time we go into a film, it's a miracle. It's an underdog endeavor in a way. You are putting everything you have out there. So for whatever reason, perceived or real, I love an underdog story, I relate to an underdog story. I root for the underdog."
Miller says that despite surface differences, it makes sense that Pitt could be believable as a man up against major odds. "Billy Beane had this public face and private reality," he says. "Same with Brad. You can perceive someone as being very successful, but sometimes that public image can belie a reality that is less shiny. Often, successful people can never purge themselves of the need to prove something to the world."
As Hill attempts to do more drama, who does he admire? "My heroes are Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray. Those are the two guys I look up to as an actor. Guys who do comedy and drama both, seamlessly."
Stage-whispers Pitt: "And Brad Pitt, obviously."
Hill laughs. "He's somewhere down the list. No. 98 favorite actor. Ever. In the world." He then clarifies: "I'm a massive fan of Brad's, as a human being and an actor. My favorite Brad film? I don't know. I love Brad in …
"Legends of the Fall," says Pitt, referencing his Fabio-haired hunk-in-the-wilderness classic from 1994.
"I just call it The Fall," says Hill, running with the joke. "My friends and I just call it The Fall. We say, 'Hey, it's Saturday night. Midnight. Should we throw in The Fall and have a couple beers or what?'"
After naming his real favorites —Fight Club, True Romance and the mumbling Irish gypsy boxer in Snatch— Hill suddenly comes around and grows serious about the man next to him.
"I want to say in all honesty that I think Brad is in a really cool, insanely cool, creative place right now. I thought TheTree of Life and Moneyball are an insanely cool combination of, like, a special creative space. That's all I'm saying."
Says Pitt: "It's been a good year."
"Finally," says Hill, "you got one."
Adds Pitt: "After so many bad years."
Hill shrugs. "My whole life is a backhanded compliment. 'You look great. You used to look like (crap).'"
The federal government has doled out more than $600 million in benefit payments to dead people over the past five years, a watchdog report says.
Such payments are meant for retired or disabled federal workers, but sometimes the checks keep going out even after the former employees pass away and the deaths are not reported, according to the report this week from the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general, Patrick McFarland.
In one case, the son of a beneficiary continued receiving payments for 37 years after his father's death in 1971. The payments — totaling more than $515,000 — were only discovered when the son died in 2008.
The government has been aware of the problem since a 2005 inspector general's report revealed defects in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. Yet the improper payments have continued, despite more than a half dozen attempts to develop a system that can figure out which beneficiaries are still alive and which are dead, the report said.
"It is time to stop, once and for all, this waste of taxpayer money," it said.
Office of Personnel Management spokesman Edmund Byrnes said he could not immediately comment on the findings. But the report said OPM Director John Berry agrees that stopping the improper payments should be a priority.
There are about 2.5 million federal workers who receive more than $60 billion in benefit payments from the program each year.
Federal officials have tried matching the fund's computer records with the Social Security Administration's death records, checking tax records and improving the timeliness of death reporting.
OPM has also sampled its records of all recipients over 90 years old to confirm whether they are still alive. In 2009, there were more than 125,000 recipients identified as over 90 and about 3,400 over 100 years old.
Both the Obama administration and Congress have made it a higher priority to crack down on improper government payments.
Last year, government investigators found that more than 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each from the massive economic recovery package went to people who were either dead or in prison.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite during its deployment in September 1991.
A dead 6-ton satellite baffled NASA experts Friday by slowing its descent toward Earth and delaying its ultimate crash until the early part of the weekend.
The space agency is now predicting the satellite will crash down to Earth late Friday or early Saturday, Eastern Time. Increased solar activity had been causing the atmosphere to expand and the satellite to fall more quickly, but that's no longer such a major factor, experts said. What's more, the orientation of the satellite apparently has changed in orbit, and that's slowing its fatal plunge.
Friday morning, NASA cautioned there is now a slim chance any surviving debris will land in the United States. Earlier this week, NASA said North America would be in the clear and that the satellite would strike somewhere Friday afternoon.
"It is still too early to predict the time and location of re-entry with any certainty," NASA said in a statement.
The Aerospace Corp., based in California, is estimating the strike sometime between about 6 p.m. and 4 a.m. EDT, which would make a huge difference in where the debris might wind up. Those late-night, early-morning passes show the satellite flying over parts of the United States.
Any surviving wreckage is expected to be limited to a 500-mile swath.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, will be the biggest NASA spacecraft to crash back to Earth, uncontrolled, since the post-Apollo 75-ton Skylab space station and the more than 10-ton Pegasus 2 satellite, both in 1979.
Russia's 135-ton Mir space station slammed through the atmosphere in 2001, but it was a controlled dive into the Pacific.
Most of the UARS satellite will disintegrate, but 26 pieces — representing 1,200 pounds of heavy metal — are expected to rain down somewhere. The biggest surviving chunk should be no more than 300 pounds.
Chances are the wreckage will slam into the ocean; nearly three-quarter of the Earth is covered in water.
In any event, no one has ever been hurt by falling space junk to anyone's knowledge, and there has been no serious property damage. NASA put the chances that somebody somewhere on Earth will get hurt at 1-in-3,200. But any one person's odds of being struck have been estimated at 1-in-22 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.
UARS was launched in 1991 from space shuttle Discovery to study the atmosphere and the ozone layer. NASA shut it down in 2005 after lowering its orbit to hurry its demise. With a satellite-retrieval mission ruled out following the 2003 Columbia disaster, NASA did not want the satellite hanging around orbit posing a debris hazard.
Space junk is a growing problem in low-Earth orbit. More than 20,000 pieces of debris, at least 4 inches in diameter, are being tracked on a daily basis. These objects pose a serious threat to the International Space Station.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about Timeline during the f/8 conference in San Francisco.
Facebook has a new face and voice.
The social-networking service used by 800 million people gave itself a major face lift on Thursday that its CEO Mark Zuckerberg says "is an important next step in telling your life."
The changes were rolled out at f8, the social-networking company's annual developers conference here.
The crown jewel of the new look Facebook is Timeline, a profile interface that lets users share photos, music, TV shows, movies and other content in real time, simply by sliding or hovering their cursor over content. The function also lets them play games together at the same time.
As part of the revamped user profile, Facebook struck up deals with content partners ranging from online music services such as Spotify and Rdio, to online-video services Hulu and Netflix, and with Color, a next-generation video service.
"It's a big day for everyone who loves music," Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in an interview. "Music is one of the biggest social vehicles."
Timeline became available on Thursday and is being rolled out to Facebook users in the next few weeks. It is a visually stunning tool that is a summary of what you have done, by month or year, for instance. "We want to design a place that looks like your home," Zuckerberg said.
Equally important, the passel of product enhancements clearly throws down the gauntlet to Google+, Google's new social-networking service, which is aggressively pursuing Facebook's users. The two companies are vying for millions of consumers and, by extension, billions in online advertising dollars.
Google declined to comment.
"The next five years will be defined by apps and the depth of social engagement," Zuckerberg said.
But in piling on features, Facebook could overwhelm its users, who are typically resistant to changes to their profiles, says social-media observer Steve Rubel.
"These changes should not be issued all at once, but steadily over time," Rubel said. "Google can take more risks since it's new. Facebook should be somewhat more cautious, since people tend to view the experience as theirs, and take it personally when the social network makes a dramatic shift."
In a press conference afterward, Zuckerberg said users have control of which features they choose to use and the privacy settings they prefer.
Indeed, Facebook users are app hungry. Last week, for the first time in a single day, 500 million people used Facebook, Zuckerberg said.
In the days leading up to the news, rumors swirled about what Facebook was up to.
Hundreds lined up outside the San Francisco Design Center at least an hour before the highly anticipated event. An estimated 2,000 people crammed into an auditorium for Zuckerberg's keynote speech.
But it was Saturday Night Live's Andy Samberg who ambled on stage, impersonating Zuckerberg down to his hoodie, jeans and flip-flops. Zuckerberg joined him for a few minutes of scripted banter.
"Facebook is at the intersection of technology and social change," Zuckerberg said of the new Facebook look, which has been in the works for a year.
I used to manage a - at the time - pretty big social network around the year 2000 (we called it online community, these days). Our users were online 35 minutes per log-in in average, so their experience was pretty intense, and we found out that with every pixel you would change, users would start to complain. Their habits would be stronger than any excitement for a new feature or better design. But a few weeks later, just because they used the site so frequently, they wouldn't be able to remember what the site looked like before. I am often reminded of this when I use Facebook these days. Ever since the launch of Google+, Facebook keeps rolling out new features and product developments, and obviously there is even more to come. My initial, emotional reaction always is: "How am i supposed to manage all this?". Facebook goes through that risk to annoy users for good reasons.
During the last few days, Facebook introduced a better list feature and a usage of them as noise control in my stream (left), and today I found an "activity feed" to the right, where not only news, but also likes, comments and other things that friends do are listed.
It seems as if the aim is to display the most relevant messages in what used to be the news stream, formerly managable through "top news" and "recent news", and all the other stuff that happens in this activity stream to the right. All this is introduced to better control the "signal to noise" ratio in your stream, and this was absolutely necessary, because with subscriptions, the other new feature from a few days back, your news stream will very likely get a lot busier than it used to be (and to be honest, my news stream was busy enough before). Therefore, you can additionally mark a friends' activity as a "top story".
Facebook is going through all these changes because it believes this will improve the product, obviously. But in my eyes this is clearly also a reaction to the G+ launch and the inevitable realization that their growth and extraordinary position is not god-given. That even with 800 million users, you might become the Myspace of the future (they also had a head start, 150 million+ users). It seems to me that Facebook is playing hardball now. I wrote before that Facebook should go into a "modify-copy" mode, and this is what they did. "Subscriptions" are a following feature, something that G+ introduced to complex social networks - but that is the core mechanism of Twitter. What Twitter lacks is noise control: my Twitter feed is sorted by just one thing: Time. Therefore, I am a lot more likely to miss something relevant to me on Twitter than on Facebook.
Kevin Rose, who already has close to 250,000 subscribers, published a test yesterday. His 1.2mn followers on Twitter reacted less on a link than his 250,000 FB subscribers. If this trend proves to be sustainable, it means that celebrities, Twitter's traditional stronghold, will get a lot more use out of Facebook than out of Twitter.
Facebook is out to achieve the 1 billion users target at all cost. It seems that part of that cost is to kill Twitter. In a world where G+ will pursue the role of social network #2, Tumblr keeps growing and growing, I wonder if there is a niche big enough for Twitter to survive, if it stays the way it is.Personally, I changed my Twitter to following 100 users only (so I could really follow their Tweets) a long time ago. Now I went from tweeting to just publishing my links (from Delicious). When I have to say something besides blogging, G+ and FB offer a lot more than Twitter.The time I spend on the network has dramatically decreased over the last 2-3 years. And I don't think I am the only one.
Simon Cowell is out for blood tonight on "X Factor" -- telling TMZ, he wants to beat "American Idol" (and every other show for that matter) in the ratings department.
The big "X Factor" premiere isn't competing head to head with "Idol" -- but Simon still wants to outrank his big competition, telling us, "You don't compete for the silver or the bronze ... You may not get the gold, but you die trying."
When we asked how X will measure up against similar singing competitions --Simon responded, "It's definitely going to be better than the other shows."
As for what to look out for tonight -- Simon says the show is full of "nutcases" ... and one audition is especially terrifying.
Oh, as for what Simon thinks of "American Idol" without him -- well, he says, "It's not my cup of tea."
"The X Factor" judges Nicole Scherzinger, Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, L.A. Reid, and show host Steve Jones
The wait is almost over.
After months of hype, a reported $35 million in marketing costs and one high-profile judge switcheroo, Simon Cowell's "X Factor" will finally premiere on Wednesday. But will it be one talent contest too many? And can the show possibly be as big a hit in the U.S. as it is back in the UK?
I've been eagerly anticipating the U.S. launch of "The X Factor" for a long time now and have been frequently posting updates on my site Remote Patrolled. As a reality TV producer, originally from the UK but now living here in the United States, I'm very familiar with "The X Factor" format and its influence on British culture. For the past eight years, "The X Factor" has been the No. 1 entertainment show in British television, launching the career of several British pop stars and one international singing sensation, Leona Lewis. So can lightning strike twice?
In case you're not too familiar with "The X Factor" back story, here's a quick refresher.
Over in England in 2001, the ITV1 network unleashed a new talent contest called "Pop Idol." The show became an instant smash, due in large part to its toughest judge, Simon Cowell, and an addictive elimination format. In 2002, "Pop Idol" relocated to the U.S. as "American Idol." That show became an even bigger hit, launching stars like Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood and making Cowell one of the richest people in show business.
Now here's where it gets really interesting.
"American" Idol was overseen by Spice Girls guru Simon Fuller, leaving Cowell as a mere (highly paid) gun-for-hire with no stake in the show -- or the success of its artists. As vocal as Cowell has been about being competitive, it is not surprising that he wanted to run his own show and reap the subsequent rewards. So back in England, "Pop Idol" was canceled after two seasons and replaced by the Cowell-produced "X Factor," resulting in some bad blood between the two Simons and a high-profile lawsuit (eventually settled).
The format of "The X Factor" is similar to "Idol," but there are several key differences. On "The X Factor," each of the four judges 'mentor' a category of contestant: Males younger than 30; females younger than 30; groups; and 30s and older. The show therefore becomes a contest between the judges as much as the contestants, often resulting in plenty of judges' bickering ("X Factor" judges Sharon Osbourne and Dannii Minogue were reportedly barely on speaking terms by the end of their run on the show). At the same time, the diversity of the contestants also makes the show rather different from "Idol," which these days only seems to crown white male guitar players.
One other key difference is that "The X Factor" is BIG! Auditions take place in front of a live audience, rather than a tiny audition room. And as the show progresses, it's the job of the judges to produce each of the contestants' performances as though they were staging an awards show style performance. So "X Factor" finalists get dancers, elaborate sets and complex lighting arrangements in contrast to the "static stand-and-sing" style of "American Idol."
Those are the differences. But can "The X Factor" succeed in the fiercely competitive U.S. marketplace? Back in England, the show faced little competition in the music competition genre. The BBC had "Fame Academy" (for which I produced all the live performance shows) and ITV1 had "Popstars" (a version of which also ran for two seasons here in the U.S.), but both shows had effectively run out of steam by the time "The X Factor" launched.
By contrast, the U.S. version of "The X Factor" is entering a crowded market dominated by a decade of the very successful " American Idol." Then there's NBC upstart "The Voice," which came out of nowhere in the spring to achieve strong ratings, especially among the highly coveted 18-49 demo. And at the same time as "The X Factor," NBC will also be rolling out a new season of another singing competition, "The Sing Off."
And those are just the success stories.
Over the last few years countless music competition series have come and go. Remember "Rock Star," "The One," "R U The Girl," "Clash of the Choirs" and MTV's "Top Pop Group?" Exactly! Even this year we've seen the heavily hyped "Glee Project" struggle on Oxygen, while Bravo's "Platinum Hit" was an outright flop.
Can "X Factor" buck the trend and become a bona fide phenomenon?
In large part, the success of "The X Factor" will depend on whether it can discover a true international superstar. Even Simon Cowell has admitted this will be the benchmark of the show's success. Unfortunately this will also be the show's toughest challenge.
It's been a long time since "Idol" discovered a true star. Not since Season 7's David Cook has an "Idol" artist sold a million albums (though Season 8 runner-up Adam Lambert has done reasonably well), and Season 10 winner Scotty McCreery seems unlikely to buck the trend. And while "The Voice's" Javier Colon has received plenty of critical kudos, "The Voice" finale was actually one of the lower-rated episodes of the season. It could be argued that the public appetite for music competition pop stars has already been sated.
Another challenge for "The X Factor" is that "The Voice" has effectively stolen one of the key gimmicks of the Simon Cowell series -- the idea of judges as 'mentors' who work with their contestants and are in a competition with one another. Even more damaging is that "The Voice's" starry line up -- Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton, Adam Levine and Cee Lo Green -- is a heck of a lot more contemporary, successful and A-list then "X Factor" judges Paula Abdul, Nicole Scherzinger and L.A. Reid.
But "The X Factor" has one undeniable ace in its hand -- Cowell himself. After a pitiful season of "Idol" in which Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Randy Jackson could barely utter a word of criticism to any of the contestants, it will be refreshing to once again hear Simon's sharp-tongued but truthful feedback. On this year's "Idol," everyone was 'amazing', resulting in a tedious series that eliminated strong contenders such as Pia Toscano far too early and neutered others such as Casey Abrams who needed some harsh truth telling to raise their game.
Personally I think "The X Factor" will be a huge hit for Fox, enabling the network to dominate the fall season in much the same way it does the second half of the TV season.
With all the hype and hoopla surrounding Cowell's new show, audience awareness is higher than for any other show this season.
The only remaining question is just how big will "The X Factor" be? Can it possibly beat the 20 million plus audience "Idol" still routinely clocks up? Or will it have to settle for the more modest 12 million to 14 million "The Voice" pulled in? Knowing Simon Cowell, nothing less than No. 1 will be good enough. But for now it's up for us the audience to decide.
