Archive for the 'Media' Tag
November 13th, 2009, 1:46 pm by Jayson Peters
Is ABC 15 chief meteorologist Bill Bellis an alien? What else could explain his recent appearance on the polished bottom surface of the Visitor mothership, peering down at the huddled masses a la V star Morena Baccarin?
While watching the second episode of ABC’s alien invasion drama on Tuesday, I had to laugh out loud at a clever weather promo featuring Bellis (pictured, right) addressing viewers from the celestial PA system Visitor high commander Anna (Baccarin, left) uses to greet the unsuspecting people of Earth.
Jim Hart, ABC 15’s director of creative services and local programming, told me the idea for the unusually immersive promo was generated locally. “We have the very good fortune of having a group of creatives that can turn an idea into reality and at the same time just have a little fun for our viewers,” he said via e-mail.
You can watch the whole reality-shattering ad spot after the jump - and you can watch full episodes of V at abc.go.com. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Business • Sci-Fi & Fantasy • Television • ABC15 • Advertising • Bill Bellis • Media • V | Post a Comment »
October 23rd, 2009, 3:48 pm by Jayson Peters
 (Paul Connors, AP) Yesterday’s grand opening of Microsoft’s first retail store at Scottsdale Fashion Square, and the accompanying release of the new operating system Windows 7 — generated a lot of media buzz. And, I’m afraid, some media bias.
I considered joining the hundreds of people who waited in line, some as long as 12 hours, to get their first look at the software giant’s first retail operation.
Then I realized that would mean standing in line with hundreds of people. Or at least dealing with corporate PR types on their Big Day.
But lo and behold, I found a way to blog about it anyway.
On the drive home Thursday, listening to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered like the loyal liberal media elite-type that I am, I was surprised at just how harshly host Melissa Block was grilling Microsoft representative Mika Krammer. Today I was wondering whether I imagined it, so I asked some colleagues. One of them had heard the same report and was also left with the impression that it went too far. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Apple • Business • Scottsdale • Technology • Xbox 360 • Media • Microsoft | Post a Comment »
October 19th, 2009, 9:38 pm by Jayson Peters
 Chad, we hardly knew you.
As Tribune reporter Ed Taylor writes today, Verizon Wireless has completed its assimilation of Alltel’s stores and billing systems in the Valley.
While this of course means Alltel customers will now be served by Verizon personnel, perhaps more visibly for consumers it will literally change the face of mobile phone advertising.
No more will we be subjected to calls to “join the Circle” or be entertained by the four wily nerds’ attempts to outwit the perfectly coiffed Alltel pitchman known as “Chad.”
The cruelly well-adjusted slick talker, who had the gall to let slip that he didn’t know Dungeon Masters don’t have levels (dork!), will fade from out TV screens, just as the bumbling Sales Guy characters, each of whom represented one of Alltel’s competitors, have been phased out since Verizon began its acquisition of Alltel this year.
Posted in: Business • Nerd rage • Technology • Television • Advertising • Alltel • Chad • Chadvertising • Media • Verizon | Post a Comment »
August 19th, 2009, 6:24 pm by Jayson Peters
Entertainment Weekly subscribers in New York and Los Angeles will get a little hipper when they open up their Sept. 18 issues. That’s because they’ll be the first ever to watch a video ad embedded in a print publication.
CNET News (a CBS publication) has a report on the technology behind the groundbreaking advertisement, which will promote CBS’ fall TV season in concert with Pepsi Max soda:
 The screen, which is 2.7 millimeters thick, has a 320×240 resolution. The battery lasts for about 65 to 70 minutes, and can be recharged, believe it or not, with a mini USB cord–there’s a jack on the back of it. The screen, which uses thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) technology, is enforced by protective polycarbonate.
Run! The walls of reality are breaking down!
Posted in: Technology • Advertising • CBS • Entertainment Weekly • Media • video | Post a Comment »
August 5th, 2009, 12:01 am by Jayson Peters
In a clear indication of just how bad G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is likely to be, Paramount has declined to let critics see it before it opens Friday, The Associated Press reported.
The way studio executives see it, they’re doing you a favor by freeing you from the tyranny of the evil print and broadcast media:
 Paramount Pictures “G.I. Joe is a big, fun, summer event movie - one that we’ve seen audiences enjoy everywhere from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland (pictured, right) to Phoenix, Ariz.,” said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures. “After the chasm we experienced with Transformers 2 between the response of audiences and critics, we chose to forgo opening-day print and broadcast reviews as a strategy to promote G.I. Joe. We want audiences to define this film.”
 Phoenix? When was that? Must have been a carefully vetted test audience, because I’ve heard to expect nothing but the worst. But that’s all right — we knew it was going to be bad when we saw those ridiculous power suits and bizarre casting. This is a Netflix candidate if ever there was one.
Bad as it is, they can’t take away our childhood memories, which is why I’ve prepared a slideshow of images — nostalgic and new — generously provided by Hasbro and Paramount. Just click on classic Destro, or the link below, to begin!
See also: G.I. Joe gets ‘Resolute’ in Adult Swim animation
Posted in: Collecting • Movies • Nerd rage • G.I. Joe • Media | 3 Comments »
August 4th, 2009, 4:19 pm by Jayson Peters
Not to beat a dead horse, but …
Remember when this looked promising?
The looks of utter despair on the faces of Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman, and that grinning thing standing behind them, should have been our first indications that something had gone horribly wrong in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.
Vanity Fair February 1999 cover image, via The Associated Press
Posted in: Movies • Star Wars • history • Media | 1 Comment »
July 15th, 2009, 1:00 am by Jayson Peters
Tall ships and tall kings Three times three, What brought they from the foundered land Over the flowing sea? Seven stars and seven stones And one white tree … — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
 New Line Cinema NPR’s Morning Edition recently featured a California software company that’s working with the U.S. government to track terrorist activity through phone calls and ATM activity. The Silicon Valley firm, called Palantir Technologies, borrows its name from the palantíri, the seeing-stones used to communicate across long distances in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Each palantir resembled the crystal balls so common in popular images of fantasy and wizardry.
The danger of the palantíri, however, was that they worked both ways.
Stare too long into the abyss, and it stares into you … and what is created as a tool for good ends up being used for great evil.
Cliches aside, I wonder if the government has considered enlisting clairvoyants in the hunt for violent extremists? I mean, law-enforcement agencies have been known to do so when tracking down kidnappers and serial killers …
Posted in: Technology • Media • Middle-earth • NPR • security • terrorism • Tolkien | 1 Comment »
July 14th, 2009, 10:39 pm by Jayson Peters
Have you noticed all the strange happenings surrounding graveyards recently?
 Wikipedia Commons First, you’ve got the one in Illinois where workers are accused of digging up bodies so they can resell the plot. And there was some question about whether Michelle Obama’s father is or isn’t buried there. (The White House now insists he isn’t and never was.)
This was followed by a case of vandals toppling tombstones at an historic South Carolina graveyard. Now comes word of a 51-year-old man caught in the buff in an Indiana cemetery.
It’s a little troublesome when the dead start piling up in the bushes to make room for new arrivals, and it’s certainly unsettling, I’m sure, to see headstones kicked over and flashers strutting about.
Maybe it’s nothing to worry about — just Michael Jackson bringing the freak show with him to the afterlife.
Then again …
Posted in: Hmmmmm..... • Horror • This and That • Weird • cemeteries • Media • Michael Jackson | Post a Comment »
July 7th, 2009, 9:51 pm by Jayson Peters
 The New York Times is reporting that Google plans to introduce an operating system for PCs based on its Chrome browser. The report, citing unnamed sources, says an official announcement will come Wednesday on a company blog.
From the article:
The move would sharpen the already intense competition between Google and Microsoft, whose Windows operating system controls the basic functions of the vast majority of personal computers.
Google could well be hoping to capitalize on the rise of netbooks, the compact, low-cost computers that have turned the PC world on its head.
Updated: The official announcement is already out as of late Tuesday. (Thanks to Jared for the tip.)
Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. (More)
See also: The iTunes of comic books? | ASU sued by blind groups over use of Amazon’s e-book device
Posted in: PC • Technology • Chrome • Google • Media • Microsoft • netbooks | 1 Comment »
July 7th, 2009, 12:54 pm by Jayson Peters
 Today’s the day. The Sci Fi Channel is no more, replaced in a vortex of rebranding and other media industry buzzwords with an alien entity called, simply, Syfy. The new identity launches tonight with the network’s new series Warehouse 13.
In the spirit of changing the style and ignoring the many, many problems of substance, here are a few other cable networks with accompanying suggestions for retooling their brand identities in the age of Syfy. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Sci-Fi & Fantasy • Television • Media • Syfy | Post a Comment »
June 24th, 2009, 9:48 pm by Jayson Peters
 First there were the allegations that Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace was a racial caricature in the vein of Stepin Fetchit. Now a pair of jive-talking, illiterate, bling-toothed Autobots are launching even more negative stereotypes into the sci-fi universe with the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but an Associated Press story goes into a lot of detail exploring the issue. The characters are called Skids and Mudflap. One is voiced by a black man, the other voiced by a white man. Kids interviewed seem to like the characters. Academic types who haven’t even seen the movie pretty much condemn them as inappropriate.
I seem to remember the robots in the original Transformers cartoon in the ’80s having speech patterns that seemed out of place for alien beings that looked like tractor trailers. Then again, they learned everything they knew about Earth from a scan of our media.
Then again, it was just a cartoon.
Posted in: Movies • Toons • Transformers • Jar Jar Binks • Media • racism | Post a Comment »
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