Jazz News

EMI Back on Terra Firma?

Source: All About Jazz
May 13, 2010

Terra Firma appears to have raised the funding it needs to prevent lender Citigroup from foreclosing on embattled music giant EMI Group, according to unconfirmed reports on Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal is claiming that Terra Firma chairman Guy Hands succeeded in persuading 75% of his fund's backers to inject a further 105 million ($156 million) so that EMI could meet banking covenants agreed to with Citigroup. However, Terra Firma is remaining tight-lipped, with a spokesman reiterating to Daily Variety ...

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Cutting Edge Group Eyes Music-Based Films

Source: All About Jazz
May 13, 2010

International music-rights company Cutting Edge Group is looking to broaden its scope into the production sector.

According to CEO Phillip Morris, the group wants to make music-based films through an executive producer role. Cutting Edge has inked multi-picture deals with Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment and Exclusive Media Group (international sales arm to Hammer Films) whereby it invested in a slate of films for each company, providing creative and music rights services to titles. “Because Cutting Edge has had success ...

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4th-Gen iPhone 'Found' in Vietnam, Contains A4 iPad Chip

Source: All About Jazz
May 13, 2010

My Vietnamese is terrible, but this video demo is still pretty clear. What you see is a newer version of the 4G iPhone that was bought by Gizmodo.

This iPhone surfaced in Vietnam, and may or may not have been bought on the black market for US$4,000. It certainly looks legit, and in a more finished state than the Gizmodophone: the ugly screws in the base of the handset are gone, for example.

The video, from the Vietnamese site Tinhte, ...

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Doris E. Travis, Last of the Ziegfeld Girls, Dies at 106

Source: Michael Ricci
May 13, 2010

For a quarter century, Florenz Ziegfeld auditioned hundreds of thousands of young women vying to become chorus girls, the Ziegfeld Girls, those lace and chiffon visions of glamour who were as much a part of the Jazz Age as Stutz Bearcats, the Charleston and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Doris Eaton Travis may have been the youngest Ziegfeld Girl. In all, from 1907 to 1931, he picked about 3,000, and on Tuesday the last Ziegfeld Girl died. She was Doris Eaton Travis, ...

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Revamped Microsoft Office Will Be Free on the Web

Source: Michael Ricci
May 13, 2010

Microsoft has created a chimera in its new Office 2010 software, part desktop software and part Web app. This latest version of Office, which includes applications like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, is Microsoft's long-awaited effort to modernize one of its most lucrative products and to thwart rivals like Google that are nipping at its heels with free Web software. For the first time, Microsoft will provide a free online version of Office that lets people store their documents on ...

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NYU Students Aim to Invent Facebook (Again). We've Got Your Back.

Source: All About Jazz
May 13, 2010

Remember when Facebook really was a private club? In the days before we called anything a “social network?" When “sharing" and “connecting" wasn't bait for the switch of “monetizing" the stuff and nonsense of our lives?

Well, four NYU students do, and they are so nostalgic for those halcyon days way back in 2004 that they have set out to re-invent that wheel -- for the good of mankind. The New York Times reports Wednesday that Ilya Zhitomirskiy, 20; Dan ...

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With TV Everywhere, Pay-TV Industry Seeks to Fend off an Apple Invasion

Source: Michael Ricci
May 13, 2010

Fearful that they'll suffer the same fate as the music business, television firms are racing to come up with services such as TV Everywhere, which would let paying customers view shows on any device.

In the year since Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, above, introduced TV Everywhere, his grand plan has hit resistance, even from within his own industry. Three of the most powerful players in cable Disney, NBC and Fox parent News Corp. have championed another alternative, Hulu. Last ...

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ESPN Lands New 3-D Channel on Comcast Cable Systems

Source: Michael Ricci
May 13, 2010

The nation's largest cable operator, Comcast Corp., has jumped on the 3-D bandwagon.

Comcast is expected to announce Wednesday that it will offer ESPN 3D when it launches June 11 with coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The new network has pledged to carry a minimum of 85 live sporting events in its first year, including college football's Atlantic Coast Conference championship game and the 2011 BCS National Championship Game. ESPN announced its 3-D plans at this year's Consumer ...

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