Gossip

So what do these two have in common? Apparently at the Live 8 show, they both were forgotten about, and had to *gasp*, SHARE a dressing room with someone else. BillG hung with U2, in his “un-ironed trousers” and Pitt spent some quality time with Sting. PITT AND GATES SUFFER LIVE 8 BLUNDER

So eBay wants to expand Paypal to China, and the valley is all abuzz about Google’s possible buyout of Chinese search juggernaut Baidu, possibly before its IPO later this month. Now the only left for the Chinese to do is to continue the space race. Oh, wait. BEIJING: China is drawing up its own version of the US-built Deep Impact probe, media reported on Wednesday, two days after the American spacecraft smashed into a comet. The third nation to launch…

That’s just what we need, technology taking the place of good ol’ fashioned sommeliers. I can just imagine instead of being annoyed by people yakking away on their cell phones, people are going to be yakked to by their bottle of wine. While we’re at it, let’s just get rid of the waiters and have everyone just speak into a voice recognition box at a fast food place instead. “The idea is to bring the oenologist to the table so…

So this guy wrote a piece for Popular Science magazine on how to build a WiFi hotspot backpack. It’s $1000, and yes, while cool (the geek in me is drooling), I wonder if things like The Quiet Zone are in danger. So to all you PR flaks out there, when talking about why you aren’t returning my calls — “Oh, s/he was traveling!” — get over it. There’s no excuse now, bitch. BE YOUR OWN HOTSPOT

Our good friend Om Malik basically trashes a new report by The Diffusion Group that podcast consumption will grow from “15% of portable digital music player owners in 2004 to 75% by 2010.” CNET, on the other hand, leads with this: Researchers at The Diffusion Group predicted this week that the U.S. podcast audience will climb from 840,000 last year to 56 million by 2010. By that time, three-quarters of all people who own portable digital music players will listen…

So Paul Allen is not only swimming in money, he’s getting local subsidies for his companies too! Ah, the life! Allentown: Rich guy Paul Allen and his Vulcan Inc. are about to receive hundreds of millions in various public subsidies for their South Lake Union commercial real estate development. Mayor Greg Nickels’ Robin Hood-in-Reverse proposals will tax poor and middle-income Seattleites in order to bestow the subsidies on a private venture that should be able to make it without them.…

So Steve Jobs gets +10 Nice Guy points for calling the family of the boy who was slain in Brooklyn recently. But then the Times of India gets +5 Huh? points for comparing this murder to the deaths of the Iraq War. On Tuesday, Jobs telephoned Errol Rose, the father of the slain boy, after his staff obtained his telephone number from a newspaper reporter. He conveyed his sympathies to the family and told them he understood their pain. Rose…

The next generation is just around the corner. Patrick Scoble, Robert Scoble’s son, is now podcasting as well, as a “punishment” for listening to the Dawn and Drew Show as an 11-year-old. Some punishment. Kid admitted that he downloads all the ones with the EXPLICIT tag on them. Smart kid. “I did know about podcasting — but it just sounded lame, because you did it.” MY SON’S FIRST PODCAST : SOMETHING INAPPROPRIATE

Is there anyone who considers what Pew researches to be news? I mean, I feel like all they do is confirm what most people can pretty much expect exists out in the online sphere. Their next study is going to talk about how people are annoyed with the imperfections of VoIP. Or wait, that will come in about two years. NEW YORK — Internet users worried about spyware and adware are shunning specific Web sites, avoiding file-sharing networks, even switching…

Morgan Freeman is providing his traditional folk wisdom to yet another white guy, but this time it’s Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Why has it taken so long for someone to figure out how sell/stream films online? Argh. Wait, wait, they’ve built a “model digital home” in LA? This is like Microsoft telling people that for Longhorn that they’re going to need 2 GHz and half a gig of VRAM just to run the GUI. Revelations and Intel have been working…