Kelso is cashing in on Charlie Sheen’s crazy. According to TV Guide, Ashton Kutcher is currently the highest paid sitcom actor at $700,000 an episode. He makes double what Laurence Fishburne did, $350,000 an episode, for his stint on CSI. Kutcher’s salary is still less than Charlie Sheen was pulling, $1.2 million an episode, but it certainly remains substantial. Leads on series usually make less than $150,000. It of course remains to be seen how well Two and Half Men will perform with Ashton at the helm, but he’s cheaper than Charlie at least.

Meanwhile Details has a glowing cover story on Ashton in which they portray him as some kind of tech guru. He seems overrated to me, and I still remember his failed attempt at entering the Internet gossip sphere, his short-lived series in which he tried to punk the celebrity press, and the fact that he hired a PR company that regularly spammed blogs with ads for it. He’s just an actor on Twitter and Facebook, but I have to give him some credit for being interested in technology and following it closely. Ashton also addresses the Twitter flame war he got in with the Village Voice when they called him out for using false numbers to discuss human trafficking. He handles it better than he did before, I’ll say that.

Details: The Village Voice just called you out for citing spurious statistics in your advocacy against child prostitution. You fired back on Twitter that their online adult classifieds constituted “a digital brothel,” then encouraged Disney, Domino’s, and American Airlines to pull their advertising. Is that what you’re talking about?
Ashton Kutcher: I think that was irresponsible journalism on their part, but I don’t want to speak about the company.

Details: Okay. Generally speaking, what is it about platforms like Twitter that allows individuals to take on institutions?
Ashton Kutcher: You can’t just say shit anymore, because people have the ability to speak up. At the same time, with the Village Voice thing, I definitely have to take responsibility for misrepresenting the data. It’s forcing transparency both ways.

Details: The line between online life and real life is getting blurrier. Is that a good thing?
Ashton Kutcher: I wouldn’t bifurcate the two. I wouldn’t say you have an online life and a real life. I think technology is just mapping and organizing what already exists. If you’re an asshole offline, you’re probably an asshole online.

Details: As a celebrity, you’re used to managing the boundary between your public and private selves. Is that something we all have to do now?
Ashton Kutcher: You have to learn to negotiate it, or you can choose not to participate. It’s almost like a manifestation of God. People used to behave morally because they thought God was always watching—in some ways God today is the collective, and the collective is watching.

Details: Sounds kind of creepy. Do you think privacy is overrated?
Ashton Kutcher: I think privacy is valuable. You don’t have to share everything, and it’s healthy to occasionally hit the pause button and ask yourself if you’re oversharing. But at the end of the day, if you’re not doing anything wrong you don’t have anything to hide.

Details: What do you think is coming that will blow our minds five or ten years from now?
Ashton Kutcher: I think the big next wave will be wearable technologies. Your phone will be your true PC, and these technologies will act as your mouse and keyboard. You’ll have a high-fashion bracelet that will perform functions for you—it’ll track your health, your movement, your sleep, your activity—and by wearing a couple of rings, you’ll be able to type in the air or take pictures with your fingers. There’ll be a device that will track your eye movement, whether it’s an earpiece with a camera or a necklace that can project and record. That Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, got a lot of it right from what I’ve seen.

Details: What about old media? You’re returning to television soon, taking over for Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men. Who’s your character going to be?
Ashton Kutcher: It’s somewhere between an alien and Jesus Christ, but I can’t be more specific than that.

Details: Have you talked with Charlie about filling his old job?
Ashton Kutcher: I don’t know him. I’ve never met him in my life. But, you know, he sent me congratulations and wished me well. Via Twitter.

[From Details]

I think Ashton is off about wearable technology. His description of rings that allow you to type in the air sounds ridiculous, like it might be technically possible but I doubt that people will want to type in the air using some kind of ring. I agree that computers and smart phones will get smaller and more portable. In terms of the Minority Report comparison, remember those little spider camera things in that movie? We’re getting close to that with drone technology now, which is basically just sticking a smart phone on to a remote controlled devices.

That was really weird the way he claimed God was “the collective.” Ashton is a member of the Kabbalah cult, which is a paid-for distorted version of the Jewish mystic religion. That could be where he got that concept of God as everything and everyone. Is he saying that his moral behavior is partially due to the fact that he can so easily get busted as a celebrity? I’m probably giving him too much credit.

Ashton still seems dim to me and in no way worth $700k an episode, but it’s not like Charlie Sheen deserved over a million an episode either.

Oh in terms of that Details cover it looks ‘shopped into oblivion to me. There are no lines whatsoever on Ashton’s face. Kaiser thinks he looks hot without the beard though.

Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter account was hacked, but unfortunately the hackers weren’t fifteen year old high school students who wanted to complain about wasting two hours of their lives watching Killers. They weren’t porn moguls who wanted to promote their little-known Butterfly Effect sex parody for free. (I could go on.) It was part of a tech conference that Ashton was taking part in, in which people supposedly gained access to his account and used it to bring awareness to the need for SSL (secure socket layer) be turned on by default in Twitter. Without SSL, it’s easy for hackers to gain access to users’ passwords when they’re on an unsecured/open wireless connection. (Or even if the wireless has a password that they know as well.) Ashton hasn’t updated his Twitter account after the breach occurred, so I’m thinking he might have co-signed it (or staged it) for publicity purposes. Here’s more:

Ashton Kutcher, whom most people will know for his TV work on That 70s Show, and his own produced show called Punk’d, seems to have got a taste of his own medicine recently when at this years TED conference his Twitter account, with more than 6 million followers, got hacked.

Not much of a big deal you may think, but the TED venue is a world-famous conference that consists of some of the top elite spokes people (i.e. Bill Gates) and the hacker was using this event to make a point over the security of Twitter and Facebook.

Out of the two messages that the hacker posted on the Twitter site, the first seemed to be harmless enough as it reads:

Ashton, you’ve been Punk’d,” “This account is not secure. Dude, where’s my SSL?

The second message was more political but they both point to the same thing: a lack of security:

P.S. This is for those young protesters around the world who deserve not to have their Facebook & Twitter accounts hacked like this. #SSL

The SSL parts stands for Secure Sockets Layer and you will mostly see this on websites in the form of https or a small padlock symbol down in the lower right hand corner of your browser. Without it any data that is transmitted on the page will be insecure and vulnerable to hacks. But it’s this feature that so many Twitter and Facebook fans have long cried out for to help secure their accounts.

So the hacker’s successful entries into Kutcher’s account was more to prove a point than to be malicious, but it does highlight how insecure Twitter is. Even though Twitter does have SSL it’s not switched to by default. However, Twitter is looking at building this into future releases as a user setting, but for those who want to use it now, instead of typing in “http://www.twitter.com/nameofyourtwiitteraccount” you would replace the http part with https and that’s it.

[From Geek.com via Wonderwall]

You can make sure that SSL is turned on by checking for https in the address line of your browser, as described in the quote above. If you’re on an open wireless you can also use a free service to protect your computer, like Hotspot Shield or another proxy (many are free) or VPN. (FYI – both Hotmail and Gmail have SSL turned on by default. I think Yahoo! does too at least for the login process.)

As for Ashton Kutcher, he acts like he’s this big tech guy but he didn’t turn SSL on for Twitter. To be fair, there’s no setting for it that I can find and you just have to add an “s” to http: in order to access it. I hope the hackers changed Ashton’s password and contact information and make him wait a while to get access to his Twitter account. He’ll have to find another way to supplement whatever income he makes for going to events.

Photos are from 2/10/11 credit: WENN.com

This photo illustration is from The Wall St. Journal

When I first heard this story on BBC radio this morning I was pretty sure that the video that would be featured in some print editions of Entertainment Weekly wouldn’t be much longer than a few seconds – like even shorter than an Internet video ad. Instead, on little flat 2 x 1.5 inch screens not much bigger than a cell phone display, Entertainment Weekly will feature 40 minutes of on-demand preview from CBS shows like “Two and a Half Men” and “NCIS: Los Angeles.” There will be some Pepsi commercials in there too. They’re using microchip technology that’s described as similar to the chips that play sound in greeting cards. It’s not cheap and each video ad will cost EW over $10. Only a few thousand will be mailed to subscribers in NY and Los Angeles.

Video is invading a new medium: print.

In a marketing stunt to promote its fall TV series, CBS Corp. is inserting thousands of tiny screens in copies of the Time Warner Inc. publication Entertainment Weekly.

The screens measure two and a quarter inches diagonally and play about 40 minutes of clips from new and old CBS shows.

The video begins with a cheeky intro to the “video-in-print” technology, starring characters from the show “The Big Bang Theory.”

After that, the reader/viewer can push a spot on the cardboard insert that holds the screen and watch a clip of the sitcom “Two and a Half Men.” Push another to see a preview of the new crime-investigation spinoff “NCIS: Los Angeles.” Another delivers an ad for PepsiCo Inc., which is helping fund the promotion.

The player, developed and made by Americhip Inc. of Los Angeles, is much like the chips that play music in some greeting cards and magazine ads and is rechargeable.

A CBS print advertising insert that will appear in Entertainment Weekly contains a small black screen that plays videos, enlarged above right.
CBS wouldn’t disclose what the inserts or the screens themselves cost. “More than a can of Pepsi,” George Schweitzer, CBS’s president of marketing, said at a news conference Wednesday.

Apparently, they cost quite a bit more than a soda. According to Paul Caine, president of the Time Inc. magazine group that includes Entertainment Weekly, the ballpark dollar cost for one of these video units is in the “low teens,” although he said the cost may come down before the issue comes out.

Time Inc. wouldn’t disclose how much it is charging to run the novelty ad, which has to be hand inserted at the printing plant. It is much-needed revenue, though, as Entertainment Weekly ad pages were down 32% in the first half of this year compared to a year ago.

The insert will appear only in copies sent to some subscribers in New York and Los Angeles. A CBS spokesman wouldn’t say how many screens would be inserted, saying only that it would be thousands.

It isn’t the first time magazines and technology have teamed. Last year, the cover of October’s Esquire magazine splashed blazes of electronic ink. Using the same technology as Amazon.com’s Kindle, panels on the cover and an ad inside from Ford Motor flashed with messages and an illusion of a car on the road.

My mouth is hanging open and I’m conflicted over this amazing feat of technology that potentially shows a scary new trend in advertising. Will we be seeing interactive ads like in Minority Report soon? Like the glorious Internet, this sort of thing can be used for good as well as advertising. With this type of technology we’ll be able to send personal greetings in the mail featuring hours of special moments to our loved ones, but we can pretty much do that already with CDs and SIM cards. And why bother mailing stuff when you can just upload it? It would make for cool wedding invitations and fancy thank you notes at least. There are also potential applications for places where technology is not as available. For now this looks like a very impressive way to show us video ads where we’re not expecting them, like in the print magazines we’re increasingly reading online anyway – where we have access to much longer, cheaper, higher resolution videos. Is this going to revive print at all or just make us realize how limited it is? I have a feeling these tiny video ads are going to cross over from “cool” to “annoying” very soon.

Brad Pitt is looking pretty good on the cover of August’s Wired Magazine. He’s interviewed to promote the August release of Inglourious Basterds, which seems weird. Basterds is a period film, and I never really think of Brad Pitt as any kind of gadget/computer/technology guy, so it’s an unconventional way to promote a film.

I like his current hair color and the goatee, especially the grey that’s coming in. He looks his age – 45 – and he’s still handsome, but no longer “pretty”. Both People and Entertainment Tonight have advanced excerpts of the Wired interview, so let’s see what Brad’s got to say:

Brad Pitt even looks hot in a headset.

The star of Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Nazi-scalping action flick Inglourious Basterds graces the August cover of Wired magazine, and PEOPLE.com has a first look.

Pitt, 45, sports a wireless cell phone headset and gives advice – in his Inglourious character – on a variety of subjects, including conduct at work, etiquette and those sometimes awkward cyber dilemmas. “Who cares if your Warcraft wife is really a dude,” Pitt is quoted as saying on the cover. “If it’s good, don’t check under the hood.”

According to Wired, Pitt was intrigued by the magazine’s May Mystery issue, which featured Star Trek director/writer J.J. Abrams, and he wanted to break away from the traditional celebrity magazine story. For the photo shoot last month, Pitt came alone to the Smashbox Studios in West Hollywood and was photographed by portraitist Dan Winters.

The August issue of Wired hits newsstands July 21. Inglourious Basterds is due in theaters Aug. 21.

[From People]

“Awkward cyber dilemmas” is my new favorite euphemism. I think it means “fanboys masturbating to Megan Fox while playing Dungeons and Dragons”. I’m loving the idea of Brad Pitt giving a geeks-only interview, talking only about “awkward cyber dilemmas” and technological-related questions. ET has more gems:

Brad Pitt offers some cell phone and online etiquette tips when it comes to twitter, online dating and text messaging.

Wired magazine asked Pitt what he thought of tweeting a picture of his wife’s butt like Ashton Kutcher did of Demi Moore. He responds “Don’t take a picture of your wife’s butt. That’s silly. Take pictures of other people’s wives’ butts.”

As for online dating, the ‘Inglourious Basterds’ actor thinks that lying about how much money you make on your profile is accepted and encouraged. “Everyone lies online. In fact, readers expect you to lie. If you don’t, they’ll think you make less than you actually do. So the only way to tell the truth is to lie.”

Wired also asked Pitt in their “Ask a Basterd” article: Can I talk on the phone while taking a whiz? He answers, “No, you can’t talk on the phone! Do you want the guy next to you to hear your entire conversation? That’s why you should only text in the bathroom. Just be sure you don’t hit the wrong button and end up putting a photo of your junk on Twitter. Trust me, you don’t want those followers.”

[From Entertainment Tonight]

Thus, a million Brangeloonies are now going to begin searching for the elusive Brad Pitt-bathroom-wang photo. I’ve got a head start on you guys! Haha! I just searched for Google images of “Brad Pitt bathroom wang” and unfortunately, it’s a no go. Just some lovely pics of the Jolie-Pitts, and a couple of hits of some girls with the last name of “Wang”. Damn it, Brad! Don’t tease us. We. Need. Bathroom. Wang.

I know this is technology related and may not be of particular interest to gossip fans, but I cannot contain my excitement at this news. A new Google web-based operating is coming! For frustrated PC users like me it could offer a viable alternative to Microsoft Vista and the other crappy MS operating systems that have continually failed to perform, crash seemingly at random and download updates with little if no warning. (My husband keeps recommending that we switch to Linux, but I’m daunted at the task.) I love Google’s browser, Chrome, and find that it has slashed a huge amount of wait time out of my work day compared to slower IE and Firefox. I’ve replaced all Microsoft Office products with Google Documents and refuse to shell out the money for Office. (There’s also free alternative from Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice, but it seems to be incompatible with Vista in practice and crashed my OS, and a friend’s OS, after we installed it. Go figure.) Google products are intuitive, user-friendly, and they work like they’re supposed to. I cannot wait to see what they come up with. The only thing is – will it be completely dependent on internet connectivity and what happens if our connection is down or if Google is experiencing problems like that difficult day in May?

“The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no Web,” the blog post said. “So today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome–the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to rethink what operating systems should be.”

Among the benefits Google touted are “speed, simplicity and security,” Pichai and Upson said. “We are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware, and security updates.”

Google is talking to Netbook partners now, and the project will become open-source “soon.” It will run on members of the x86 and ARM processor families, Google said.
Google declined to comment on its plans beyond the blog posting.

The company also didn’t mention how exactly it hopes to profit from Chrome OS, but it seems likely it’s the latest variation on trying to get more people using the Web more often and more deeply–behavior that correlates with more searching and more search advertising.

“Any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet,” Upson and Pichai said.

Hints of Chrome OS
Hints of the direction have been abundant, but it wasn’t clear Google would go as far as creating a product branded as a full-on operating system.
On the software side, one hint was Gears, a plug-in to give browsers the ability to run Web applications even when offline.

Next came Chrome itself in September 2008. Google said its ambition with the open-source browser was to make the Web a faster, richer foundation for Web applications. Naturally, Gears was built in from the outset, and Google continues to bang the Web-applications drum loudly.

Next came Native Client and O3D, plug-ins that let browsers tap directly into the power of local processors and, if all goes according to plan, match the performance of PC-based applications. Native Client is for the main computing chores, and O3D is for hardware-accelerated graphics, and Google wants to build Native Client at least directly into Chrome.

The other set of clues came from the Web side of the company’s operations. Google’s cash cow is selling ads alongside search results, but the company has been trying for years to build a portfolio of Web-based applications that people could use for everyday computing. Google Docs offers a Web-based word processor, presentation, and spreadsheet, and Google Apps bundles that along with Gmail and Google Calendar.

For others trying to make a run at Web-based applications, Google offers Google App Engine, a foundation for online Python and Java programs that can run at the scale of Google’s own computing infrastructure, though free use is more limited.

One of the primary advantages of Google’s cloud-computing approach is that data is available from anywhere you can find a networked computer–or, increasingly, mobile phone. It also permits more natural collaboration, since multiple authors can work on the same document simultaneously rather than e-mailing variations or sharing them on a central server. And with data stored on the Net rather than on a PC, upgrades and laptop theft are relatively painless issues.
The disadvantages are abundant, though. Web applications are slow and primitive compared to those that run on PCs, network access is far from ubiquitous, familiar applications are missing, years of accumulated files and data must be migrated to a new system, and not everybody is prepared to have precious corporate or personal information housed at Google or other companies.

The Net is a different place than when the Sun’s JavaOS and network computers flopped in the marketplace, and Google is powerfully profitable. But many of the original challenges remain.

[From News.CNet.com]

So maybe it will be a while before Google operating system completely replaces Microsoft. If people develop applications fast enough they’re poised to take a big bite out of their market share, though. I’m not ready to switch over to Mac OS and buy all new computers (we have a few and I prefer to upgrade where possible) along with all new software. This could be a very viable alternative and I hope Microsoft is shaking in its boots. Here comes Google, and they’re nicer, faster, and easier than MS by a long shot. Try to compete with that, Mr. Gates. A good start would be by not interrupting my work day to automatically install your damn updates. Still, Google could easily fall prey to the same arrogance that plagues Microsoft products, especially once they increase their hold over our daily lives. At least they try to think what their customers want first, though, instead of trying to make us adjust to their idea of what computing should be.

Stevie Nicks, 60, hates computers and wants you to know about it. She dislikes them so much she won’t use a cell phone, write an e-mail or text message and it even sounds like she blames computers for all of society’s ills. Nicks is on currently on tour with Fleetwood Mac.

Friends who want to get in touch with Stevie Nicks know not to send an e-mail, call on a cell phone, or reach out by text message, because she won’t respond.

It’s not that she’s being rude: Nicks doesn’t own a computer or a cell phone. The 60-year-old rock legend, who is currently on tour with Fleetwood Mac, is a proud technophobe.

“I believe that computers have taken over the world. I believe that they have in many ways ruined our children. I believe that kids used to love to go out and play,” Nicks says in her famously smoky voice.

“I believe that social graces are gone because manners are gone because all people do is sit around and text. I think it’s obnoxious.”

Nicks does own an iPod, but she prefers to listen to music — which includes her new CD, “The Soundstage Sessions” — on a boombox. (The CD also comes packaged with a DVD.)

Better yet, give her a cassette version and she’ll be in musical heaven. “It sounds better and you’d be convinced,” she says.

AP: This is your first live project in 22 years. What took so long?

Nicks: I don’t really know exactly how that happened. Before I knew it, it was 2007 … (my) tour was over, and I’m sitting in my house going, “I can’t believe I’m sitting here again, and I didn’t film this show.” So I got on my phone and I called my managers, and I said, “Make some calls, because I need to film this show.” I’m very, very proud of it. I’m almost glad that I waited this long to do it, because maybe that’s what God wanted me to do.

AP: You say you hope this project is a blueprint for the next generation. Why do you think there’s a lack of strong rock acts?

Nicks: Because the music business is in terrible trouble. People are stealing our music. That’s all there is to it. In the old days … they would help you to develop into the artist that they knew you were going to be. In the last 10 years, the record companies don’t have the money to do that. I don’t know what the answer is to it. The only thing I can say to people is, “Buy music, do not steal music.” If you do, you won’t have any new music later on.

AP: If you and I were having lunch, and I pulled out my cell phone …

Nicks: I’m gonna put my hand on your hand and say, “Turn it off, for now. Just give me an hour, of you, I really want an hour of just you, and your heart. I don’t want you talking to someone else while we’re having lunch.” It’s love, you know, it’s relationships. I don’t want love and relationships to be lost, and I feel like that’s happening.

[AP via The Huffington Post]

I hope she has an answering machine. Do you think it’s digital or one of those tiny tape things from the 90s? I understand getting annoyed with people talking on the phone or texting when you’re at lunch but to say computers have “ruined our children” is ridiculous. Never in history have we had as much access to knowledge and to other people and cultures as we do now. Along with that comes a lot of junk that kids shouldn’t be exposed to and like everything else computers should be used in moderation. The good far outweighs the bad though. Kids just aren’t sitting in classrooms being lectured at anymore – they’re learning independently and making connections between information and ideas in ways that wouldn’t be possible without the Internet.

Yesterday I listened to part of a show on NPR’s “Whad’ya Know?” that was about Facebook. One of the women interviewed on the show said something that I found really profound. She said that you can connect with old friends on Facebook that you otherwise might not have any contact with again before you die. That’s powerful, and I never thought of it that way but it’s true! They also talked about the pitfalls of a “mediated life” in which people can think before interacting because they’re doing it through text message and e-mail and there’s a delay before you respond. There’s definitely something to be said about people hiding behind computers and blackberries and not interacting enough, but it’s a complicated issue and it’s vastly simplifying it to dismiss computers entirely. Maybe if you can’t use one and find it intimidating you would think of it as an entirely negative influence. Nicks hasn’t changed her hairstyle in 30 years so it’s not surprising that she hasn’t embraced the latest technology.

Nicks is shown on 3/31/09 promoting her new CD. Credit: PRPhotos

Obama drops his Blackberry at Reagan Intl Airport. 1/16/09. Credit: UPI/Newscom

There’s been a lot of speculation that President Elect Barack Obama will have to give up his Blackberry once he takes residence in the Oval Office. The NY Times did a whole piece wondering how Obama will cope without the addictive little device, which he’s so dependent on that he has two. It was thought that once Obama became President he would have to give up the constant connectivity due to concerns for the privacy and security of his data.

Obama spoke to CNN’s John King and let him know that he won’t have to give up the Blackberry. He hopes it will help him keep in touch with people who want to give him feedback on his performance as President:

KING: I’ll ask you one last question. And it’s, in part, silly. But it’s not always silly. You like these [King holds up a Blackberry]. I was just with you before this, and you have a couple of them. And there are a lot of people who say, because this will end up in the presidential library, because you don’t have privacy any more. Your life’s about to change Tuesday noon, you have to give this up.

OBAMA: Yes.

KING: You going to do it?

OBAMA: I think we’re going to be able to beat this back.

KING: Beat this back?

OBAMA: I think we’re going to be able to hang onto one of these. Now, my working assumption, and this is not new, is that everything I write on e-mail could end up being on CNN. So I make sure to — to think before I press “send.”

But what this has been — what this does is — and it’s just one tool among a number of tools that I’m trying to use, to break out of the bubble. To make sure that people can still reach me. But if I’m doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an e-mail and say, “What are you doing?” You know? Or “you seem detached” or “you’re not listening to what is going on here in the neighborhood.”

I want to be able to have voices, other than the people who are immediately working for me, be able to reach out and — and send me a message about what’s happening in America.

[Transcript from Obama's interview with John King, aired on CNN January 17, 2009, via Welt.de]

Yeah, Obama, you need that Blackberry for the good of the nation. As a fellow technology addict I have to say that I see the signs in the President. I reason that it’s much better to bring my iPod to bed to check e-mail than to keep the laptop in bed with me and end up missing out on hours of sleep. Obama has much more noble reasons to hold on to his Blackberry, though. It’s nice to hear about a President who uses technology to keep in touch and ensure that he’s receiving feedback and up to the minute information from around the world. I wonder if he uses abbreviations when he sends e-mail from his Blackberry or if he takes his time and spells things out. We’ll probably find out soon enough given his promises of transparency in government. TTYL Obama!

Header is of Obama at Reagan International Airport in Washington, DC on 1/16/09. He dropped his Blackberry! Obama is also shown at Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Company, Inc., in Bedford Heights, Ohio on 1/16/09. Credit: UPI/Newscom

Jennifer Aniston is not ready to face her haters on the Internet. She says she’s not that computer literate and unlike her new boyfriend she doesn’t have a vanity Google alert set up to page her every time she gets a smidgen of coverage. If people send her clips from YouTube or FunnyorDie she’ll check them out, but she’s scared to go surfing around and hasn’t considered using Facebook or MySpace to communicate with her fans. In fact she likens social networking sites to “dancing with the devil.”

“My favorite move is when people pretend that they’re on the phone,” Aniston, 39, says in next Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine, “and they kind of dial and take the picture at the same time. You hope they’re doing it for themselves – that they’re not thinking, ‘I’m going to dine out on you.’ ”

Yet the actress also admits to being in awe of the tech-savvy. “I’m really computer illiterate,” she says. “When I see people on their BlackBerrys, working them like some girls work a hairdryer, I’m just stunned. People have sent me clips from FunnyOrDie.com or YouTube, but I never seek it out.”

So don’t expect the Friends star to be friend-ing you on Facebook anytime soon. Asked if she uses the online social network, Aniston replies, “It’s not for me. I’d be opening myself up too much. I don’t want to sound like a complete innocent – I’ve looked at things, of course. But it’s such spewing. If I look at it, I’ll be affected. It’s like dancing with the devil.”

What does the star like about the Digital Age: computer Scrabble and Wii.

[From People]

I really like how she compares using a blackberry to a hairdryer because you can tell her frame of reference for technology is based on high end personal care. The woman probably has the best skincare and haircare money can but hasn’t really ventured out to embrace gadgets. She’s been seen out with a cellphone with a headset but she likely doesn’t text much and isn’t spending hours online every night. Instead she’s watching Friends reruns and laughing to herself. It’s still 1997 in Aniston’s world. It was a lot simpler then.

Aniston out on 9/18/08 on her cell phone. Credit: Fame

Instead of using a traditional split screen for live coverage on election night, CNN decided to mix it up by taking a big risk – using holograms. Their reporters and interviewees were filmed live using a green screen and 35 cameras positioned in a circle to get a full image of their bodies. The live image was then sent to CNN’s studios so it appeared that Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, and the rest of the anchors were talking with the correspondents standing right next to them.

Of course the images weren’t perfect – it wasn’t like you’d think the reporter was really standing there. There were some outlines, fuzzy blips and digital clues – plus they sort of appeared to be floating. Reporter Jessica Yellin had a very Casper the Friendly Ghost issue going on with her feet – or lack thereof.

3-D hologram technology made its way from Tatooine to CNN’s studio last night, enabling the network to “beam in” correspondent Jessica Yellin and hip-hop star will.i.am for virtual studio appearances with Wolf Blitzer. And boy, is it cool. Here’s how the hologram effect works, as we described it in yesterday’s Election Day gadgets story:

The hologram didn’t actually appear in the CNN studio. Instead, it’s an effect visible only to TV viewers thanks to a massive array of cameras and some really impressive real-time video processing. To make it work, the virtual correspondents were sequestered in quiet rooms and “scanned” through motion capture and camera-tracking telemetry. Each VR-enabled room had between 35 and 44 small, fixed cameras, which combined to take in a 360-degree image of the person. The studio also had 20 PCs crunching the data.

Once collected, the data was processed by graphics software, which synchronized the angles needed to produce an accurate render that matched up with what the main CNN cameras were showing. In order to “see” each other and gauge their physical presence within the virtual studio, Mr. Blitzer and the correspondents directed their gaze towards at a 37-inch plasma screen (in regular 2-D) to make sure they didn’t walk through their ghostly friends.

The hologram effect proved to be a technical success. The video-feed rendering of the human correspondents looked accurate, with precise and realistic perspective angles. It was especially impressive when the camera moved in real time, making it seem as if the person was really there.

[From Wired]

Several websites are pointing out that the holograms aren’t technically holograms. For them to be real holograms the images would have to be beamed into the actual studios, and that’s what the viewer sees. Instead Wolf Blitzer was talking to a red dot and the image of the reporter was visible only to the viewers. Thus the holograms are actually tomograms, “which are images that are captured from all sides, reconstructed by computers, then displayed on screen” according to CBC.

It’s a fascinating premise and I like that CNN is experimenting with new technology and mixing things up. I found it pretty distracting to watch, but that’s probably just because it’s brand new. According to a CNN producer many interviews may be conducted like this in the next five or ten years. It probably wouldn’t be so distracting when people got used to it.

I also can’t help but wonder about the cost. That whole arrangement sounds freakishly expensive, but no one will confirm the price. The setup is huge and the point is to use it for distant interviews, which means it’s got to travel. It seems pretty inefficient in that sense, especially with the cost of fuel. And then moving around such a large team of people to run it. I imagine CNN could lose a ton of money on it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the technology in the next couple of years, but for now it appears to have been just a one night phenomenon.

Whoever says Madonna and husband of eight years Guy Ritchie aren’t still madly in love with each other clearly doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Or maybe they just don’t really know what love is – because Madge and Guy sure do. The singer shares her secrets for a happy home life with OK! magazine, so that the rest of us can emulate the lovey-dovey couple.

An admitted control freak, the singer reveals she and Guy are addicted to their blackberries, even sleeping with them under their pillows!

“We lie right next to each other with our blackberries under our pillows,” she laughs. “I often wake up in the middle of the night and remember that I’ve forgotten something so I jump up and make notes. Guy’s always waiting for me to come to bed, so he plays Brick Breaker on his blackberry until I’m ready!”

[From OK!]

Awww, how romantic! Really, is there anything sweeter or more loving than jumping out of bed in the middle of the night to write down that you need to do an extra 50 reps of some arm muscle-enhancing exercise at the gym at three in the morning? And I’m sure Guy is just waiting with baited breath for his loving wife to return to bed. I think sleeping with Blackberries under your pillow is the 21st century equivalent of sleeping in separate rooms. Although if I were sharing a bed with Madonna, I’d do whatever I could to keep her away. God forbid she try to arm wrestle you or something.

Madonna also discussed what an average day is like for her. Hint: it involves suppressing her kids’ personalities so they always know she’s in control, lean fish, tree houses, and guns. Sounds uncomfortably similar to my own childhood.

“We have chickens and build tree forts there,” the Michigan native, 49, says of Ashcombe House [the English countryside estate she owns]. “Lola rules the roost,” the singer says. “She is extremely maternal toward David but is in major competition with Rocco. But he’s starting to fight back.” Of not allowing her kids to watch TV or read magazines, Madonna says, “You have to show them who’s in charge. If you give in to them, they’re going to run your life.”

The singer tells OK! a typical day for her includes regular Pilates and dance aerobics, shooting, fishing and riding horses. “I love horses,” she says. “I think I may have been one of Henry VIII’s knights in another life, riding through a great forest.”

[From OK!]

Well that would explain her massive upper body strength and frigid, domineering nature. Okay I don’t know for a fact that knights were cold, but I really don’t imagine them as warm, “let’s go play with a puppy” type of guys. I could totally see Madonna being a knight in another lifetime. She very much strikes me as the kind of person who’d get a big kick out of impaling someone. Probably another reason Guy Ritchie should consider a separate bed.

Here’s Madonna leaving her gym in London on April 4th. Header of Madge and Guy Ritchie leaving Harry’s Bar in London on March 18th. Images thanks to WENN.