Meet Qtrax, Digital Music’s Latest Non-Threat to iTunesMaking its online debut today is Qtrax, a free, ad-supported, peer-to-peer service with a song catalog to rival Apple’s iTunes. Too bad it’s terrible in almost every way!
overnights
‘The Moment of Truth’: We’d Be Lying If We Said We Enjoyed ItLast night, after a passably entertaining episode of American Idol, came the series premiere of Fox’s sleazy new game show The Moment of Truth, on which average, ordinary people are connected to a polygraph machine and exposed as the philandering, tax-dodging, latently racist, elderly-hating, gambling-addicted lovers of Internet pornography that they truly are — all for the chance to win $500,000!
apropos of nothing
Steve Jobs Fails to Make Us Crap Our PantsA few minutes ago, at the hugely anticipated (by nerds, like us) Macworld conference in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the details of iTunes’ new movie-rental service, which officially launches today.
‘Untraceable’ Trailer: Websites Will Kill You!Unlike 1995’s The Net starring Sandra Bullock, which played on understandable fears of new technology and seemed perfectly reasonable until early 1996 or so, Untraceable is side-splittingly hilarious now, and it doesn’t even come out for another three weeks!
apropos of nothing
Year-end Report: Record Labels Not Doing So Well2007 was truly another bang-up year for the failing music industry, with album sales down an impressive 15.3 percent from the record business’ already-pretty-crappy 2006.
Writers’ Strike Gets Depressing AgainDespite some optimism on Monday over a possible deal, the writers’ strike, now in its fourth week, has not yet been resolved.
strike zone
Give Carson Daly a Break!Yesterday, it was announced that strapping television personality Carson Daly will defy the ongoing writers’ strike and resume production this week on his late-night talk show Last Call, currently one of NBC’s highest-rated programs among viewers who frequently forget to turn off the TV before going to bed.
New ‘Lost’ Webisode Is Kind of a SnoozeIn the first clip to run on the network’s site, island leader Jack has a flashback to a conversation with his creepy alcoholic dad on his wedding day and is given a watch that’s been in the family for generations. And … well, that’s it.
apropos of nothing
Thanks to Writers Strike, ‘Scrubs’ May Never EndMore precisely, the show is set to run out of episodes of its final season in January as a result of the Writers Guild strike, but if the picketing goes on much longer, the hospital dramedy may never have the closure of a series finale.
‘Billboard’ Bends the Rules for Greatest Band in the UniverseIn a move likely designed to deny Britney Spears her only possible personal victory of 2007, Billboard made a last-minute change to the way it tallies album sales, allowing Vulture’s Beatles the Eagles to claim the top spot on this week’s chart (Britney came in second).
What Happens If Radiohead’s Album Is Terrible?In just these past ten days, In Rainbows has received more hype than Cloverfield, Halo 3, and the second coming of Christ combined (approximately) … but what if it’s a stinker?
the take
RIAA Wins Case Against Poor WomanA Minnesota jury surprised a single mother yesterday by offering to let her pay whatever she wants for music she downloaded, as long as it’s $220,000.
We React to Slate’s ‘24’ Parody in Real TimeSlate magazine — a top source of witty satire for, well, no one, hopefully — debuted an animated parody of 24 today, inspired by recent remarks made by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.