Miley Cyrus has seemingly taken a side in her parents’ divorce. A few days after Tish Cyrus filed for a legal split from Billy Ray Cyrus, the couple’s famous daughter took to Twitter and posted a photo of herself, 13-year old sister Noah and their mom. And she captioned it: “The baddest bitches in the WORLD.” Safe to assume she means that in the most loving way possible. Miley later Tweeted a photo of herself and her mother and included with it three hearts. But the 20-year old star didn’t forget about Billy Ray entirely, despite sending out a bitter Tweet on the day his divorce was announced. “Happy Daddy Day @billyraycyrus,” Cyrus wrote this morning, just days after posting on the social media site: “Billy Ray Cyrus, since your text and email obviously aren’t working would you like to talk like this?” Ouch . Looks like all it far from calm in the Cyrus household. We hope it all works out.
An app called Lulu is emerging as a controversial new social platform that allows women to post reviews and recommendations about former flames. The app, which is available for iOS and Android, is for women only. Men are denied access to Lulu, deeming it a “safe zone” for females to rate dudes on a various topics, from humor and careers to kissing and sex. Yes … just like reviewing / rating the Justin Bieber Girlfriend perfume on Amazon, you can review whether your guy smells like Bieber in real life. If you’re a female of at least 18 years, you can get the app and sync it to Facebook, then simply add a guy to the database and upload his picture(s). Users are anonymous and activities are kept off Facebook, but one has the ability to share profiles and searchable hashtags with Facebook friends. For instance, characteristics likes #globetrotter and #cleansupgood were listed on a profile, or #smokeslikeachimney for the other side of the coin. The app asks you to identify your relationship with a guy in order to review him, then asks you a series of questions and tries to sum up your answers. While it seems like this could become the newest, trendiest platform for hilarious guy-bashing, Lulu claims that a majority of its reviews are positive. In fact, some women are even using the Lulu app to get the word out about their brothers or available male co-workers … in a good way of course. The goal, says CEO Alexandra Chong, is to provide intel on the guy who’s #SweetToMom and #BelievesInLove yet may also be #RudeToWaiters and #CrazyJealous. What do you think? Have you used the app? Does it sound like a good platform for evaluating dates as if they were consumer products? Discuss!
Bindi Irwin, the 14-year-old daughter of late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, is alive and well despite a hoax reporting her untimely demise this week. A rumor that the teen died started to pick up steam on Twitter Friday, and then “Steve Irwin daughter dies” climbed all the way to No. 4 on MSN trends. We know, we know … who uses MSN trends. But still! Effed up! Two days ago Bindi tweeted a link to an interview she gave in Hong Kong, saying, “I had such a wonderful time there.” And posted the pic above. She’s fine. Interestingly, the consensus is that interest in Bindi and her new film Return From Nim Island , combined with her late father’s death, led to the “hoax.” In other words, chalk this up to technical problems and a bizarrely macabre trending snafu, rather than a deliberate campaign to fake-kill Bindi. Time to switch up the ol’ algorithm, MSN.
It’s only a matter of time before this guy is found dead face down on the floor with a bullet in his head. Man Who Leaked U.S. Spying On Citizens Back On The Run According to The NY Daily News Edward Snowden, the former CIA technician who unabashedly leaked word of the U.S. collecting phone records and internet data, may be a lot less secure in Hong Kong than he believes. In an interview released Sunday, Snowden praised Hong Kong’s “commitment to the right of political dissent.” But it likely won’t give him a free pass if the Obama administration seeks his extradition — assuming he’s still there. A guest who had checked into Hong Kong’s Mira Hotel under the name Edward Snowden has since left, The Washington Post reported Monday citing a hotel receptionist. Under a 1996 extradition treaty between the U.S. and Hong Kong, now under the sovereignty of China, the two sides agreed to surrender an individual wanted for prosecution by the other. The matter is theoretically complicated by China’s relationship to Hong Kong. China can derail Hong Kong’s move to extradite someone if it believes it impacts its own national security interests. But it’s currently unclear why China would want to get into a tussle with the U.S. if Washington wanted Snowden, who worked for the private defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. in its dealings with the National Security Agency. “The Chinese have no interest in making this an issue,” David Zweig, a professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told Bloomberg News. “He hasn’t helped China necessarily.” “This is an internal affair within the United States. They’ll see it that way. If they hold on to him then it just strengthens the American right to intervene in China’s internal affairs.” The Guardian reported that Snowden, 29, holed up in a Hong Kong hotel after leaving the United States last month. “I think it is really tragic that an American has to move to a place that has a reputation for less freedom,” he told the Guardian, which was the original conduit for his leaks. “Still, Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People’s Republic of China.” Ironically, his fate may now be more in the hands of China and whether they see any self-interest in essentially protecting him by blocking potential extradition. If he remains in Hong Kong, he might want to check the local press. On Monday, Wen Yunchao, a liberal blogger in Hong Kong, wrote that Snowden has gone “out of the tiger’s den, and into the wolf’s lair,” according to a Beijing blog by a New Yorker correspondent. And he may generate a lot less sympathy than he apparently believes. As a former high-ranking Justice Department official in the Clinton administration told the Daily News, “I think he’s a moral and legal idiot.” The government will probably hire some “Huck” like assassin to murk him before the trial begins and say it was an “accident.”
Bing has finally one-upped Google in the nerd-cred department. In honor of this week’s premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness , Bing Translator has added the Trek language Klingon, or as I’ll be referring to it: Bingon. Starting today, you can visit the Bing Translator to convert a phrase from any of the languages available into Klingon. The language is also available on the Windows Phone app (so the guy who has that can use it there). The Klingon language has been a huge part of Star Trek culture since 1979, when the first words were uttered in the invented language in Star Trek: The Motion Picture . Estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000 speakers of Klingon, with dictionaries and translators widely available. What phrases will you translate into Klingon?
Google is commemorating the 37th anniversary of the classic Atari game Breakout with an awesome Easter egg, so to speak, within its Image Search. All you need to do is run an image search on “Atari Breakout.” When you do, your results will be displayed and organized into a Breakout-style game, which requires the player to demolish brick walls with a ball! The 1976 game was a takeoff on the 1972 game, Pong. Yes … Pong. The single-bit mother of all video games. The best part? Google’s tribute is playable . And as addicting as the Atari version. We recommend checking it out two minutes before you have to go somewhere. That way you won’t waste hours playing.
Suffice it to say, Shakira and Usher on The Voice works. NBC’s singing competition hit is pulling off a rare feat, increasing its ratings since the Season 4 premiere, with a switched-up judging panel to boot! Adam Levine and Blake Shelton are still holding it (and throwing it) down, but the show has not been dinged by the hiatus of Christina and Cee Lo. Three weeks in, The Voice is up 4 percent from the previous cycle, hitting a season high 13.7 million viewers and a 4.9 rating among adults 18-49 last night. The show still could tank as we head deeper into spring, but it certainly doesn’t look like it. In fact, Usher and Shakira are re-igniting the fire if anything. The blind auditions conclude this evening on NBC. Grade Usher and Shakira on The Voice: Love them! They’re great! They were okay. We’ll see if they improve. Not a fan! Get Christina and Cee Lo back in here ASAP! View Poll »
Fox is threatening to convert its entire operation to a pay-TV-only channel if Internet startup Aereo continues to “steal” its over-the-air television signal. News Corp., which owns Fox, said not being paid by Aereo threatens the economics of broadcast TV, which relies on both retransmission fees and advertising. Say what now? Anyone with an antenna can pick up a TV station’s signals for free. However, as we well know, cable and satellite companies typically pay stations and networks for the right to distribute their programming to subscribers. Industry-wide, those retransmission fees can add up to billions of dollars every year. Fees that Aereo is circumventing with its new business model: Aereo takes broadcast signals from the air with thousands of little antennas, recodes them for Internet use and feeds that to computers, tablets and phones. Subscriptions start at a mere $8 per month, which is much cheaper than a cable package, though the service is mostly limited to broadcast channels. Obviously, they were sued VERY fast, but last week, that industry was shaken after a federal appeals court issued a preliminary ruling siding with Aereo. The company contends that it doesn’t have to pay those fees because it uses thousands of tiny antennas to grab the signal, and a judge agreed. “This is not an ideal path we look to pursue, but we can’t sit idly by and let an entity steal our signal,” NewsCorp COO Chase Carey said in response. “But if we can’t do a fair deal, we could take the network to a subscription model.” While most people get Fox through a pay cable TV provider anyway, millions of other Americans rely on the free signal coming over their own antennas. If realized, Carey’s proposal would amount to a sea change in how Fox does business; currently, Fox sends its signal to TV stations across the country. Those stations, 27 of which it owns directly, relay Fox programming such as New Girl and Glee for free in local markets and add their own local news, etc. Carey didn’t explain how TV stations would be affected if Fox shut off the signals it sent to broadcasters and went straight over to a pay TV model. Later, the company said in a statement that any change due to the Aereo situation would occur “in collaboration with both our content partners and affiliates.” Last week, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said that Aereo could continue its service despite a legal challenge by Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS. In a split ruling, the court accepted Aereo’s position that having individual antennas meant that Aereo wasn’t retransmitting signals illegally for profit. Rather, the appeals court said that Aereo enabled its subscribers to do what they already could on their own with their own antenna and video recorder.
Fox is threatening to convert its entire operation to a pay-TV-only channel if Internet startup Aereo continues to “steal” its over-the-air television signal. News Corp., which owns Fox, said not being paid by Aereo threatens the economics of broadcast TV, which relies on both retransmission fees and advertising. Say what now? Anyone with an antenna can pick up a TV station’s signals for free. However, as we well know, cable and satellite companies typically pay stations and networks for the right to distribute their programming to subscribers. Industry-wide, those retransmission fees can add up to billions of dollars every year. Fees that Aereo is circumventing with its new business model: Aereo takes broadcast signals from the air with thousands of little antennas, recodes them for Internet use and feeds that to computers, tablets and phones. Subscriptions start at a mere $8 per month, which is much cheaper than a cable package, though the service is mostly limited to broadcast channels. Obviously, they were sued VERY fast, but last week, that industry was shaken after a federal appeals court issued a preliminary ruling siding with Aereo. The company contends that it doesn’t have to pay those fees because it uses thousands of tiny antennas to grab the signal, and a judge agreed. “This is not an ideal path we look to pursue, but we can’t sit idly by and let an entity steal our signal,” NewsCorp COO Chase Carey said in response. “But if we can’t do a fair deal, we could take the network to a subscription model.” While most people get Fox through a pay cable TV provider anyway, millions of other Americans rely on the free signal coming over their own antennas. If realized, Carey’s proposal would amount to a sea change in how Fox does business; currently, Fox sends its signal to TV stations across the country. Those stations, 27 of which it owns directly, relay Fox programming such as New Girl and Glee for free in local markets and add their own local news, etc. Carey didn’t explain how TV stations would be affected if Fox shut off the signals it sent to broadcasters and went straight over to a pay TV model. Later, the company said in a statement that any change due to the Aereo situation would occur “in collaboration with both our content partners and affiliates.” Last week, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said that Aereo could continue its service despite a legal challenge by Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS. In a split ruling, the court accepted Aereo’s position that having individual antennas meant that Aereo wasn’t retransmitting signals illegally for profit. Rather, the appeals court said that Aereo enabled its subscribers to do what they already could on their own with their own antenna and video recorder.
Olivia Wilde is featured in the April issue of Marie Claire . Looking gorgeous as usual, the actress opens up to the magazine on a wide range of personal issues, from marrying Jason Sudeikis to becoming a mother. But first, some beautiful Olivia Wilde photos from the article: What drew her to Sudeikis? “I was just learning to be by myself. We were both seeing people but were single. He seemed to really see me, see through the bullshit. He said very few words and couldn’t keep eye contact. He was so handsome, and he could dance.” Why did she divorce Tao Ruspoli? “I had grown up with Tao; we had just drifted. I felt I had something to prove. If you fall off a horse, you get back up. I am not a quitter. I hung on for as long as possible, until it was more hurtful to stay…I’m so grateful for the pain and the heartbreak. It gave me the courage to leave and brought me to the great love of my life.” On motherhood: “I can’t wait for children. I’m open-minded about how many, but three, which I love, is like a little party. I am not trying to have kids now – there’s no strict plan for anything in my life. What happens, happens. He’s so good with kids…I’ve never before experienced looking at someone and thinking, That’s who I want to raise a child with.”
