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Mr. Pop Culture Report – December 9… Will Chrome Be Gold For Google?… Mr. Pop Reports The Assassination of John Lennon…

Thursday, December 9th, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture | No Comments

The first laptops powered by Google Inc’s Chrome operating system will reach store shelves months later than expected and miss the holiday shopping season as the Internet company fixes software issues. The Web-centric computers, intended as an incursion into territory dominated for years by Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc, will ship around the middle of 2011.

Mr. Pop chronicles John Lennon’s death... Let’s go back to the week of December 8, 1980… Hard to believe John Lennon’s been gone 30 years:

Beatle  John Lennon is slain in front of the Dakota apartment building he and Yoko called home. The suspect is Mark David Chapman, who was photographed getting an autograph from John Lennon by Paul Goresh, who talked to Chapman earlierin the evening. He said a guy named Mark, spoke with a Southern accent and said he was from Hawaii by way of Atlanta. “He said he spent the last three days trying to see Lennon and get an autograph on Lennon‟s new album.” When Lennon and his wife emerged from the building, mark approached with the album said Goresh. “He timidly held it in front of him. Lennon took it and signed “‟John Lennon‟ across the cover.”
Police say Lennon and his wife arrived at 10:50pm in a limousine from a recording studio and had just stepped out of the car when the gunman approached them. “Mr. Lennon” the man said, drawing a .38 caliber handgun from under his coat. Chapman then opened fire without waiting for an answer. Lennon was struck in the chest, back and
shoulder and staggered from the sidewalk into a small vestibule of the apartment used by the doorman. “Do you
know what you just did?” said the doorman to Chapman? “I just shot john Lennon,” the gunman responded throwing down his gun. The first policeman arrived and made the decision to take Lennon directly to the hospital without
waiting for an ambulance. Lennon was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, less than a mile away. Doctors pronounced him dead at the hospital.
Next day – Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara Bach slipped into the Dakota building to see Yoko. They broke off a vacation to fly into the United States after hearing of the murder. Paul McCartney – quoted leaving his Sussex, England farmhouse after learning of Lennon‟s murder – “I can‟t take it at the moment. He is going to be missed by the whole world.”
In New York, President-elect Ronald Reagan, asked about the Lennon shooting said “we have to find an answer” to violence in the nation‟s streets, but that handgun control legislation is not the answer. Asked if there is any solution to such killings, Reagan said, “Well if there is, it should be done, but I think the overall picture of violence in our streets has to be treated.” He called the murder of John Lennon “a great tragedy… just further evidence of something we‟ve got to stop.”
Despite the murder of her husband, Yoko Ono still believes in the philosophy of peace: This is not a time for hate or disillusionment.” She said of the even – “it was so sudden… so sudden. We had planned to go out to eat after leaving the recording studio but we decided to go straight home instead. We were talking to the entrance of the building when I heard the shot. I didn’t realize at first John had been hit. He kept walking, then he fell and I saw the blood.”
Continued Yoko Ono - “The future is still ours to make. The 80‟s will blossom if only people accept peace and love in their hearts. It would just ad to the tragedy if people turned away from the message in John‟s music.”
John Lennon is cremated and his ashes are privately unturned sources close to Lennon‟s family said the action was taken to avoid any of the mass public adulation that has marked the grave of Elvis Presley in Memphis.
Yoko Ono says she has explained the killing to their 5-year-old son Sean: “I told Sean what happened. I showed him the picture of his father on the cover of the paper and explained the situation.” “I took Sean to the spot where John lay after he was shot. Sean wanted to know why the person shot John if he liked John. I explained the he was probably a confused person.‟
The lawyer for Mark David Chapman is replaced after he reportedly received death threats an after he told the court the defense had become „an albatross” in terms of the time it was taking from his other clients. Mark David Chapman is secretly moved from a psychiatric hospital to an island jail in the East River.
And Now The Following Week – December 15, 1980 As Reported At www.mrpophistory.com:
Sunday – More than 100,000 pack hillsides and valleys in Central Park during John Lennon commemorative services. A smaller crowd gathered outside the Dakota, the apartment house where Lennon lived and was shot.
Yoko Ono asks fans “to pray for John’s soul” for 10 minutes on Sunday. She thanked the millions of fans
and friends who paid tribute to Lennon in a worldwide outpouring of tears and silent prayer. She said she
saw her husband “smiling in the sky.”
Radio Comes Through -The stations to listen to in New York were WNEW-FM and WPLJ-FM for John Lennon. WNEW-FM prepared the selections for the Sunday Central Park gathering and they included classical selections and
Beatle songs. WNEW-FM went commercial-free for 12 hours after the murder was reported to the media. Lennon Tribute recordings. WABC -AM also went into John Lennon mode with Beatles music and veteran DJ Dan Ingram talked about WABC’s days when the Beatles first came to NY in 1964. All-news 1010WINS featured a story on how the Beatles were a part of WINS and Murray the K – back when they played top-40 music.
John Lennon Tributes Begin –
Since Lennon’s death, four tributes of the slain Beatle have been recorded. The first one, on Shelby Singleton’s Sun Label, was written, recorded and shipped within 48 hours of the murder. Three of the four songs came from Nashville. The fourth, “We won’t say Goodbye, John,” was recorded in Los Angeles. Here they are:

“John” – Baxter, Baxter & Baxter“John Would Agree” – Contains Beatles-flavored tracks – by Bob Farnsworth, “Elegy For the Walrus” – Sid Bradley. Another – “We Won’t say Goodbye – Iren Koste
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Mr. Pop Culture Report – August 7…

Saturday, August 7th, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture, This Week In Pop Culture History, Today In Pop Culture | No Comments

Google announces that it has agreed to purchase social networking app maker Slide for an undisclosed amount. The deal marks the latest try for the search giant to make some headway into the world of social networking. So far, Google has mostly failed in its attempts, including the poorly received Orkut and Google Buzz. Though the terms weren’t disclosed, various new reports have put the value at between $180 million and $230 million.

Singer/songwriter Sting has opened up a farm shop. Sting will sell organic food from a 900 acre estate and will be selling specialty salami, olive oil, wine, acacia honey, and various fruits and vegetables. The name of his shop is called the “Tenuta il Palagio.” The farm is in the region of Tuscany. The locals nicknamed Sting, ‘Chiantishire’

Saudi Arabia and the makers of the BlackBerry have reached a preliminary deal on granting access to users’ data that will avert a ban on the phone’s messenger service in the kingdom, Saudi officials said Saturday. The agreement would likely involve placing a BlackBerry server inside Saudi Arabia to allow the government to monitor messages and allay official fears the service could be used for criminal purposes, the telecom regulatory officials said.

Wyclef Jean announced his candidacy for president of Haiti on Larry King Thursday. His priorities include improving education and rebuilding the earthquake-ravaged country’s infrastructure, as well as focusing on security, jobs and health care, he told Wolf Blitzer, who was filling in for the vacationing King on CNN.

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Mr. Pop Culture Report – July 22… Katy Perry Album… Comic Con Is On… More Pop Culture History

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 | Celebrity News, Hot Pop Culture, This Week In Pop Culture History, Today In Pop Culture | No Comments

The View” gets re-invented on CBS – CBS announces  that the hosts of the as-yet untitled daytime show include Sharon Osbourne; Sara Gilbert of “Roseanne; Holly Robinson Peete from “Celebrity Apprentice”; Broadway actress Marissa Jaret Winokur; Leah Remini of “The King of Queens;” and  CBS’ Julie Chen. Gilbert developed the program, which will be the network’s only daytime talk show, and is its executive producer. It’s set for a fall debut, but a specific date was not announced.

Katy Perry – hot on the summer charts with “California Gurls” – has a new and nude album coming out August 24. Look for a lot of Katy on the cover of “Teenage Dream” on August 24.

Google’s second quarter didn’t do much to help get the company’s stock out of its current rut. The world’s online search leader reported a quarterly profit on Thursday that rose from its year-ago results but missed Wall Street’s forecasts. Though quarterly earnings rose 24% from a year earlier — healthy by any standards — it’s far from the nearly 40% average growth rate that Google posted over the past five years.

Police say rapper Foxy Brown has been arrested in New York City for allegedly violating an order of protection. A police spokesman said he had no details on the arrest Wednesday in Brooklyn. A report said Brown got into an altercation with her neighbor Arlene Raymond, during which curses and name-calling allegedly ensued. Brown was later booked at New York’s 77th precinct and released on bail.

About 125,000 are expected to attend the San Diego International Comic-Con, running from Thursday (July 22) through Sunday (July 25). This historic four-day comic book convention may be infamous for long lines and crowded spaces, but for those lacking a four-day pass and a geeky costume, TVGuide.com will be giving you full-access to all the TV-related happening at the panels and with your favorite stars. Check out our full list of coverage below and remember to visit TVGuide.com for all of your 2010 Comic-Con updates.

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Mr. Pop Culture Report – July 22… CBS Re-invents The View… Comic-Con Is On… Katy Perry’s Got The Stuff…

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture, This Week In Pop Culture History | No Comments

“The View” gets re-invented on CBS – CBS announces  that the hosts of the as-yet untitled daytime show include Sharon Osbourne; Sara Gilbert of “Roseanne; Holly Robinson Peete from “Celebrity Apprentice”; Broadway actress Marissa Jaret Winokur; Leah Remini of “The King of Queens;” and  CBS’ Julie Chen. Gilbert developed the program, which will be the network’s only daytime talk show, and is its executive producer. It’s set for a fall debut, but a specific date was not announced.

Katy Perry – hot on the summer charts with “California Gurls” – has a new and nude album coming out August 24. Look for a lot of Katy on the cover of “Teenage Dream” on August 24.

Google’s second quarter didn’t do much to help get the company’s stock out of its current rut. The world’s online search leader reported a quarterly profit on Thursday that rose from its year-ago results but missed Wall Street’s forecasts. Though quarterly earnings rose 24% from a year earlier — healthy by any standards — it’s far from the nearly 40% average growth rate that Google posted over the past five years.

Police say rapper Foxy Brown has been arrested in New York City for allegedly violating an order of protection. A police spokesman said he had no details on the arrest Wednesday in Brooklyn. A report said Brown got into an altercation with her neighbor Arlene Raymond, during which curses and name-calling allegedly ensued. Brown was later booked at New York’s 77th precinct and released on bail.

About 125,000 are expected to attend the San Diego International Comic-Con, running from Thursday (July 22) through Sunday (July 25). This historic four-day comic book convention may be infamous for long lines and crowded spaces, but for those lacking a four-day pass and a geeky costume, TVGuide.com will be giving you full-access to all the TV-related happening at the panels and with your favorite stars. Check out our full list of coverage below and remember to visit TVGuide.com for all of your 2010 Comic-Con updates.

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Mr. Pop Culture Report – July 22… … Comic Con Is On… Katy Perry’s New Album

Saturday, July 17th, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture, This Week In Pop Culture History, Today In Pop Culture | No Comments

The View” gets re-invented on CBS – CBS announces  that the hosts of the as-yet untitled daytime show include Sharon Osbourne; Sara Gilbert of “Roseanne; Holly Robinson Peete from “Celebrity Apprentice”; Broadway actress Marissa Jaret Winokur; Leah Remini of “The King of Queens;” and  CBS’ Julie Chen. Gilbert developed the program, which will be the network’s only daytime talk show, and is its executive producer. It’s set for a fall debut, but a specific date was not announced.

Katy Perry – hot on the summer charts with “California Gurls” – has a new and nude album coming out August 24. Look for a lot of Katy on the cover of “Teenage Dream” on August 24.

Google’s second quarter didn’t do much to help get the company’s stock out of its current rut. The world’s online search leader reported a quarterly profit on Thursday that rose from its year-ago results but missed Wall Street’s forecasts. Though quarterly earnings rose 24% from a year earlier — healthy by any standards — it’s far from the nearly 40% average growth rate that Google posted over the past five years.

Police say rapper Foxy Brown has been arrested in New York City for allegedly violating an order of protection. A police spokesman said he had no details on the arrest Wednesday in Brooklyn. A report said Brown got into an altercation with her neighbor Arlene Raymond, during which curses and name-calling allegedly ensued. Brown was later booked at New York’s 77th precinct and released on bail.

About 125,000 are expected to attend the San Diego International Comic-Con, running from Thursday (July 22) through Sunday (July 25). This historic four-day comic book convention may be infamous for long lines and crowded spaces, but for those lacking a four-day pass and a geeky costume, TVGuide.com will be giving you full-access to all the TV-related happening at the panels and with your favorite stars. Check out our full list of coverage below and remember to visit TVGuide.com for all of your 2010 Comic-Con updates.

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Mr. Pop Culture Report – July 1

Thursday, July 1st, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture, This Week In Pop Culture History | No Comments

Hannah Montana’s fourth and final season is set to debut as “Hannah Montana Forever” begins Sunday, July 11. It still follows student-by-day, pop-star-by-night Miley Stewart but now, she and her dad and brother will relocate from their Malibu beach house to their new ranch. In addition, the upcoming season will welcome new guest stars including Sheryl Crow, Jay Leno and Kelly Ripa.

Google on announced it will buy online travel software company ITA Software for $700 million cash, a move the search giant hopes will boost its visibility in the highly competitive airfare market. Boston-based ITA specializes in organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices. Its data is used on a host of websites like Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia.com, TripAdvisor and Microsoft’s) Bing, as well as a number of airlines’ websites. Nearly half of airline tickets are now bought online, according to Google.

According to Variety, Paul Reubens’ beloved character, Pee-wee Herman, is slated for a return to the big screen with Judd Apatow set to produce. The new Pee-wee movie reportedly takes him on the road in “a gigantic adventure.”

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Mr. Pop Culture Report – June 17

Thursday, June 17th, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture, Today In Pop Culture | No Comments

Ohhh??? – To celebrate O, The Oprah Magazine’s 10th anniversary, the Queen of Daytime TV has handed out an iPad and $10,000 to each member of her magazine’s staff. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the mag said, “As a thank you for their hard work and dedication, Oprah Winfrey surprised the staff of O, The Oprah Magazine with an Apple iPad and a check for $10,000, to commemorate the magazine’s 10th anniversary.”

Google recently announced a new feature found in YouTube’s TestLabs. The YouTube Video Editor is a trial feature that will allow YouTube video creators to edit their videos online without any additional software. In its initial form, the video editor allows users to do the following: combine multiple videos to create a new longer video; trim the beginning and/or ending of videos; add soundtracks from YouTube’s AudioSwap library; and create new videos online with no uploading required.

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Mr. Pop Culture Report – June 10

Thursday, June 10th, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture, Today In Pop Culture | No Comments

BP Trying PR Ploy – buys top rankings in Google search -  and could be a misstep, according to media watchdogs and industry experts: the company has been buying up the top Internet search terms such as “oil spill” or “BP” – a move that places its corporate website at the top of search results pages. “At minimum, this is in extremely poor taste in the midst of such a disaster,” says Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. But more important, she says, “it’s highly likely” that the average Internet user doing a search on any of the key terms associated with this spill would mistake the paid link for a genuine source of real information. “Most people assume when you do a search that the things that appear front and center are in some sense the most important,” says Fordham University media maven Paul Levinson. “The average person searching online isn’t aware of the fact that there are ways to manipulate the way things come up in searches,” he adds. The author of “New New Media” says he has never been comfortable with the idea that information placement was for sale on the Internet, adding, “Google ought to rethink its policy.”

This Shoe Was Pre-recorded -  A 5,500 year old shoe, the oldest leather shoe in the world, was discovered by a team of international archaeologists and their findings will publish on June 9th in the online scientific journal PLoS ONE. The cow-hide shoe dates back to ~ 3,500 BC (the Chalcolithic period) and is in perfect condition. It was made of a single piece of leather and was shaped to fit the wearer’s foot. It contained grass, although the archaeologists were uncertain as to whether this was to keep the foot warm or to maintain the shape of the shoe.

It’s Understood That Carrie Underwood… At the CMT Awards – Carrie Underwood gets multiple awards – The former “American Idol” champ won the night’s top honor, video of the year for “Cowboy Casanova,” and CMT performance of the year for “Temporary Home” two months after making history by winning her second Academy of Country Music Awards entertainer of the year. Lady Antebellum got group video of the year for the trio’s crossover hit “Need You Now” and Miranda Lambert taking female video of the year for “White Liar,” her first No.1 song. Keith Urban won male video of the year for “‘Til Summer Comes Around.”

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Mr. Pop Culture Report – April 20

Thursday, May 20th, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture, Today In Pop Culture | No Comments

Search For TV – Saying it will “change the future of television,” Google on Thursday rolled out Google TV — the internet giant’s venture into web-TV integration. The application, run by Google’s Android operating system, lets users search for content from their television, DVR and the web.The platform will let users search for content, from the name of a TV show to the name of a network, in much the same way a Google search works. They’ll get results from TV and the web and be able to watch either on their TV screen. It also will have voice recognition, letting users speak the name of a show or other content and have it pop up on their screens.

Vanessa Williams – the “Ugly Betty” (her show which wrapped up in April) veteran has joined the cast of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives.”

A Los Angeles Superior Court issued a bench warrant for Lindsay Lohan’s arrest. The bail was set at $100,000. Lohan, 23, failed to appear in court Thursday, claiming she was stranded without her passport at the Cannes Film Festival in the South of France. The troubled actress later made bail.

Google kicked off its annual developers’ conference this week by introducing tools to help people build web-based applications, while making a strong push for HTML5, the next generation of the code on which the web is built. In a wide-ranging keynote, Google engineers and guest speakers emphasized the potential of the web as an open-source platform for developers to build apps and reduce the dependence on plug-ins — small external programs, such as the Flash media player, that can make browsers more useful.

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Mr. Pop Culture Report – May 13…

Friday, May 14th, 2010 | Hot Pop Culture | No Comments

Google’s Nexus One smartphone will start being sold in brick-and-mortar stores, said the company Friday in acknowledging that its experiment with Web-only sales has been a failure. Unveiled in January to much fanfare, the Nexus One offered the choice of “locked” service with T-Mobile or, for a higher price, the freedom to let the user pick their mobile provider. More recently, Verizon was added as a mobile provider for the phone. “As with every innovation, some parts worked better than others,” blogged Andy Rubin, Google’s vice president of engineering . “While the global adoption of [Google's] Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the Web store has not.”

NBC will not renew the original “Law & Order” at the upcoming conclusion of its 20th season, leaving it tied with “Gunsmoke” as the longest-running scripted show in television history. But, don’t fret – NBC has picked up another season of “SVU” and a new Law and Order: Los Angeles. Great!

The next version of Firefox will be a faster, more powerful Web experience, the browser’s director says. In a presentation to Firefox developers, Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner said that the planned version 3.7 of the browser will now become Firefox 4.0 – a revamp clearly designed to close ground on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and stay ahead of competitors like Google’s upstart Chrome.

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