Here is a compilation of rumored tech industry shakeups that are all but 100% guaranteed to happen in 2011, courtesy of Tech News Rumor Insider, the undisputed leader in tech news and rumors.
Google will acquire Tumblr and merge it with their flagging social network Google Buzz in order to boost usage
Apple will release an indoor grill just to see if their competitors follow suit
Facebook will open up a new revenue stream by acquiring Mint and selling users' credit card information
Foursquare will suffer a PR scandal after The New York Times reports on a string of serial killers using the location service to stalk their victims
The Windows Phone 8 operating system will be a fork of Android with Bing set as the default search engine
Yahoo! will make another foray into content production with the acquisition of the I Can Haz Cheezburger Network
Bowing to the pressures of the internet, Cahiers du Cinema will force its writers to summarize each film review with "WIN" or "FAIL"
The Wikimedia Foundation will unveil Wikipedia Plus, a premium service that will allow paid subscribers to access deleted material considered "too hot" for Regular Wikipedia
Twitter will achieve profitability by selling
"Tweetshirts," t-shirts with Tweets screenprinted on them
bit.ly will be overtaken by the Winnie the Pooh-themed URL shortening service hun.ny
The actor portraying Samsung spokestween "Zoll" will be revealed to be 35
Ohio Art will release an Etch-a-Sketch iPad app, which will begin to outsell real Etch-a-Sketches within a year
MySpace will be sold off to McDonald's and renamed "McSpace"
Nintendo will launch a phone that lets you call up Yoshi
One of GOPAC's most effective tools was an audio instruction series, teaching conservatives to communicate their program in the pithy style mastered by Gingrich himself. The mail-order audiotapes included specific phrases, recorded by Gingrich, that listeners were to memorize, and repeat at every opportunity until they had internalized the message: "You favor a political revolution. You want to replace the welfare state with an opportunity society. You favor workfare over welfare. You want to lock prisoners up and you're actually prepared to give up some political pork barrel to build as many prisons as you need."
The main targets of this program were young politicians in the hinterland. John Boehner spent hours listening to the GOPAC tapes as he drove between Columbus and his district.
Back when this site started in 2003, I thought I'd make up for the severe lack of content by posting galleries of "random" pictures that I either made or just came across, which I pretty much abandoned. Now I'm going to try to resurrect the idea as an annual thing, with "leftover" pictures I made or at least modified over the past year but didn't post on this site for whatever reason. Check it out
Just got off the phone with an NBC insider who told me how the producers plan to continue The Office once Steve Carell leaves the show. Let me tell you, the writers have cooked up an INGENIOUS plotline that should leave every Office fan satisfied. If you've been worried about a Michael Scott-less Dunder Mifflin, this ought to put your worries to rest.
In an upcoming episode, Michael decides he doesn't want to be part of the documentary anymore, and requests that the crew digitally pixellate his face and modulate his voice. This will continue for the remainder of the series, thus eschewing the need for writing out Michael or replacing Steve Carell (a production assistant will stand in for Michael's body). You've got to hand it to those clever Office writers for coming up with a seamless way to continue without Carell's involvement! Can't wait to see how it turns out.
24: Season Two: The Musical - I'd sorta forgotten about this and then I came across it again recently. Still incredible! The best ones are "Bring It On!" and "Three Countries in the Middle East." I kind of want to do a musical now
Don't have a cow, man - This is probably old news to you but check out this e-mail exchange between Judd Apatow and the creator of That '70s Show. There's a lotta cattitude and the fur flies and the claws really come out and all kinds of other cat-related idioms occur
Teen Wizard Academy - Here's some cool comics from stopmakingsteve about wizards
Comic Book Guy refers to Melkor as "the proudest of the Ainu". "Ainu" is actually the singular form, the plural which should have correctly been used is "Ainur".
Samsung has a new spokestween/mascot named "Zoll." He is an androgynous 11 year old who likes to dance and twirl, and he wears a wolf hoodie for some reason. He was introduced three days ago at the International Consumer Electronics Show during Samsung's keynote. You should read or at least skim Engadget's liveblog of it, because it all kinds of amazing.
This is one of the "teasers" they played beforehand:
And here's a video of him talking:
Move over, Geico gecko. Zoll is my new favorite advertisting character. I love everything about him - the coy way he looks at us as he sits and spins at the end of the first video; the way he keeps running away from the camera for some reason in the second; the way he says "UN, PLEASE," which is the cool new way to say "turn off," apparently. Then there's his name, which is both a SUPER-SUBTLE textualization of 2011 and a modern-futurist respelling of "Joel" (I'm reminded of this scene from The Simpsons). Samsung has really captured the Generation Z zeitgeist in this kid. He is a cross between Justin Bieber, Max from Where The Wild Things Are, and The Noid. I'm going to try to collect every video of him I can find and put them in this playlist. Every moment in those videos is just screaming out to be made into a Tumblr gif. I don't want to jinx anything but I think Zoll could be the new fourthmeal.
Sometimes I can only think up jokes when they're in the form of a talk show monologue
Well folks, finally some good news for the economy today. FINALLY, there's some good news about the economy. (clasps hands together, scattered chuckles from the audience) Well, today the Obama Administration announced that over one million new jobs were created in the past year. (pause, mild applause from applause) That's right, 1.1 million new jobs in the past twelve months alone. Isn't that great, Kev?
(A beat.)
Yeah, well, unfortunately, they were all for that homeless guy with the golden radio voice. (guitar riff, audience laughs)