Author: Rocco Penn

And just like that, it’s gone. Netflix is quickly turning into the faux pas kings of the entertainment world with mistakes, mishaps, missteps, and misunderstandings popping up every couple of weeks. Their latest: the abortion of the new Qwikster brand before it made it out of concept mode. “It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs,” CEO Reed Hastings said in a blog post. “This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.” Last month, Netflix…

US Predator and Reaper drones in Afghanistan were hacked and a virus inserted into their remote cockpits at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, logging every keystroke their pilots make. These remote drones, arguably the most pivotal piece of American war efforts in Afghanistan over the last 10 years, have continued to fly missions even though the threat was first detected two weeks ago. There is no indication that sensitive or classified data was retrieved as a result of the virus, but it continues to pose a problem. “We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with…

There are two signs that point to a company entering into “desperation mode”: big cuts and big investments. Big, risky investments often signal prosperity at large companies, but they can also mean the exact opposite as companies try to buy their way out of bad situations and stagnant balance sheets. The latter seems to be the case with Sprint, a company that is committing a lot more money than they plan on bringing in over the next couple of years. First, there’s the iPhone. While the initial announcement that Sprint was getting the iPhone was met with glee, the decisions they’ve made since them…

Social media has had a tremendous effect on many aspects of life and work over the last couple of years. Marketing and advertising have been particularly affected due to the attention that social media demands. Just as radio changed advertising, then television changed it later, now the internet and social media have made the advertising executives’ jobs change. This infographic by our friends at BuySellAds breaks it down for us nicely. Click to enlarge. …

Few songs are more sinister or invoke a deeper geek reaction than Imperial March, the musical interpretation of the domination of the Empire in Star Wars. Thanks to YouTube user sh4dowww90, we now have the song to enjoy in a format most have never heard: floppy disk drive music. Here’s how it works: It’s nothing new and it’s very simple. The sound comes from a magnetic head moved by stepper motor. To make a specific sound, head must be moved with appropriate frequency. FDD has a simple interface – the description may be found for example [ HERE ]. To move the head you need to activate the drive…

Google is singing “God Save the Queen” as they launch their first Google store. Sort of. Unlike competitors Apple and Microsoft who have multiple lines of merchandise to entice shoppers to visit brick and mortar retail shops, Google’s hardware lineup is miniscule, as is their first physical retail presence. Nestled in a petite 285-sq ft section of PC World in Tottenham Court, the temporary shop will only stay open until Christmas. Also unlike the competitors, Google isn’t saying much about it. There were no high-ranking executive cutting ribbons, no long lines to get be the first to touch the…

There are several natural phenomenon that transcend art and humanity and give us things that are truly awe inspiring. The Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis have been among the most stunning of these natural phenomena for centuries. Now, we get a glimpse of them from above rather than below thanks to this video from the International Space Station. The video is recent, reportedly taken in September of this year. …

For decades, scholars have debated the validity and inspiration behind what many consider the biggest archeological discovery of the 20th century. To see the Dead Sea Scrolls, one had to travel to Israel. Now, they’re available to everyone through the internet thanks to Google in a project managed by The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The 2000-year-old collection of 972 Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts were discovered in bits and pieces between 1947 and 1956. They were put together over the decades and preserved in Israel, but digital records have been limited until now. Google technology took…

Very few people are able to post 3 words on a new website and get articles written about it, hundreds of comments, and RSS feed subscribers before the fourth word of a blog post is published. One such person is TechCrunch founder and former editor Michael Arrington. The humor cannot be missed in the naming of his new site, Uncrunched. As we mentioned, TechCrunch lost a little credibility when Arrington created CrunchFund, then regained credibility but lost overall power when they ousted him. Very little is known about what Arrington will use the site for, but since he’s a blogger and the site is built…

The buzz and obsession that once was Twitter has leveled off in the last year to a level that is nearly sane. It’s being used more now as a communication tool, a news aggregator, and an opinion-expression machine. The days of “the more mundane, the better” are behind us. Well, most of us. Yet, when I mentioned to a friend that they were the “Twouble with Twitters” she didn’t know what I was talking about. I had to hunt down this old video (yes, 2 and a half years is old on the internet) and show her. She nearly cried laughing, not simply because it was hilarious but because it still holds a degree of truth even…