The Emmies were on last night. There was a lot of controversy this year over the nominees/winners, all of which you can read about here.
The really great thing about the night was the fact that Conan O’Brien of late-night fame was hosting. Watch the two hilarious opening videos found here and here.
Here’s something interesting I read over at ComingSoon.Net. Apparently, the new season of the reality hit show, Survivor is adding yet another twist to the show. The new season, called Survivor: Cook Islands, will pit players of different races against each other. That’s right, you heard me, the show is actually going to be dividing the tribes based on their race.
The four tribes will be divided into African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic and Caucasians.
Although this is the most ethnically diverse cast of any reality show to date, it’s important we look at the implications of what the show’s producers are doing. They are literally putting different ethnic races in direct competition. No matter what happens during the duration of the show, the one feature that will be remembered about the castaway who wins will be their race. What this actually means is that we will be declaring the other ethnic groups, “losers”.
Perhaps I’m overanalyzing this. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks this is a sick, desperate plea for attention from a dying reality television show. But somehow, I get the feeling that I might not be alone in thinking that TV networks are considering doing anything for ratings.
Slashdot has a story about a sitcom pilot for the WB that was not picked up but released on YouTube. It became failry popular, and is now being put back into development by NBC. It’s a sitcom about making a sitcom, and looks like a pretty standard (read: not funny) fare, but the path to production is certainly interesting. Will YouTube be the new proving ground for television pilots?
Fulfilling promises made earlier this year, and in spite of some previously failed attempts (yes, that article is from 2004), Microsoft is going to introduce a new “iPod killer” before Christmas this year. (Another story)
Microsoft is being helped out by media companies (Music, Television, etc.). Because Apple dominates the digital music player and music download markets, they are able to strong arm the content providers and set the prices. Music labels and other media providers would like to see a more balanced market to be able to gain more control over their pricing.
For those of you who don’t know, iTunes and Microsoft-backed stores sell their songs with digital restrictions. These restrictions on the files prevent them from being copied a certain number of times, or can even cause the songs to “expire”, and stop working when the music store owner chooses. This also prevents music downloaded from iTunes from playing on Microsoft “Plays for Sure” players, and music from most other stores working on iPods. So any music you have downloaded from the iTunes music store will probably never work on Microsoft’s new player.
Rather than forcing you to re-buy your iTunes music at their store, Microsoft is planning to automatically buy it for you from their store, and pay for it, as well.
Would you be willing to switch to a new music player, if they re-bought all of your music for you? Will Microsoft be able to avoid previous traps and create a compelling product? I’m not betting on it, but if they throw as much money at it as they did for the XBox, there might be something that at least will have some presence.
OK- now here’s something strange for you. Last night, it was The Amazing Race finale. After a thrilling episode, the Hippies (BJ & Tyler) came out on top. They won the million dollar prize. The final challenge was to look for the flags of all the countries they had visited during the race. I guess going to Stanford and Harvard paid off.
As the Frat Boys (Eric & Jeremy) said, “We didn’t know the last challenge was gonna be brains.”
Well, in the season finale, teams were sent racing across Japan. The entire time, Tyler bragged that he knew Japanease and that he had walked across the entire country. We assumed he was exaggerating.
Guess what?
He wasn’t.
Click here to watch the full length feature movie of Tyler backpacking across Japan. Or visit the official website.
I’ll never doubt hippy-power again.
That’s right folks, The Lost Experience is starting today in North America. It seems that the first website in what looks like a promising ARG is up: The Hanso Foundation. This is one of the companies linked to the Dharma Initiative from Lost.
The first clue will go out today in the form of a TV advertisment during the show (which is available on the site). Other notable finds have included phone voice mail systems, a Widmore Labs website, and the release of a new book by a passenger on the doomed Flight 815.
Things are getting interesting!
That’s right folks. An official Lost ARG is coming soon. To quote from the article:
ABC, Channel 4 Television in the U.K, and Australia Channel 7 will launch the “Lost Experience,” a revolutionary interactive experience based on the international hit television series, “Lost”. Working together, more than 30 broadcasters from Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and the Middle East will release clues with new information regarding the mystery and mythology of the island featured in the series. Fans looking to solve the puzzle will find audio, video, and text clues in locations around the world, along with an online community in which to connect and collaborate with others. Just like any other good mystery, clues can and will happen anywhere at anytime across multiple platforms.
Oh, and Discussion is always ongoing at UnFiction.
A nice tribute video to The Office.
This reminded me just how much I love this show.
