The Gossip Machine, Churning Out Cash
I just found
a great article from the New York Post that shows how "Celebrity Gossip" has developed into a new form of business for celebrities and gossip sites such as TMZ or Radar. Every little bit of the celebrities private lifes is exploited by the media and millions of people can't get enough of the juicy details of Schwarzenegger's affair, Charlie Sheen's latest outburst or the juicy details of Robert Pattinson's relationship with Kristen Stewart. The public life is forced onto them as soon as they've entered the entertainment business, and either they try to resist by avoiding known celebrity hot spots and leading a quiet life behind closed doors, or they try to use the cameras following their every move to boost their fame.
This is often a dirty game as the gossip sites have proved their unscrupulous work ethic in the past, e.g. when they've obtained pictures of Rihanna after she was beaten up by her then-boyfriend Chris Brown, or when they've bought the medical records of Britney Spears after her hospitalization in Cedar's-Sinai Medical Center in 2008, not forgetting the death of Lady Diana in a car accident after she was chased by a horde of paparazzi.
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How Safe Is Your Data? Lessons of the PlayStation Security Breach
For seventy million users of Sony's PlayStation Network, this is a weird time — one in which they're being simultaneously deprived of the shoot-em-ups they crave and used as pawns in an epic conflagration between Sony and a shadowy, wily opponent. It started on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th, when a post on Sony's PSN blog noted that the PlayStation Network and Qriocity service — which the PlayStation 3 console relies on for multiplayer PlayStation 3 games, movies, and music — were out of commission. A day later, another post estimated that it might be a day or two before they returned. Then one announced that Sony had detected an "external intrusion" and had intentionally taken the services offline to fortify them....
Sony PlayStation Network Shut Down ‘Indefinitely’ Following Attack
Sony's PlayStation Network,
plagued by problems for days, is being shut down indefinitely, according to the
Wall Street Journal.
PlayStation
tweeted a link to a blog post updating users on the situation.
"I know you are waiting for additional information on when PlayStation Network and Qriocity services will be online. Unfortunately, I don’t have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time,"
wrote Patrick Seybold, Sony's senior director of corporate communications and social media. "As we previously noted, this is a time intensive process and we’re working to get them back online quickly. We’ll keep you updated with information as it becomes available. We once again thank you for your patience."
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5 Ways to Find Your Next Favorite Band
People who are interested in new music beyond their old, time-worn favorites or the standardized mix of oldies and chart-toppers found on the FM dial have probably tried Pandora, Last.fm, and YouTube by now. Those are indispensable tools for any music fan these days, but they're not the only games in town, when it comes to pleasing your ears with new sounds.
Check out these five ways to discover music, listed in alphabetical order. Some are brand new, while others have been hiding in plain sight all along.
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