So you work for a video game company. Say it's called 2K Sports. You are about to launch a game called "Top Spin 4."

Now, tennis isn't quite the most popular sport in the world. And you need to persuade, oh, young, happily hormonal men to buy your game.

You hold a brainstorm that takes at least some minutes. You decide you need to make your game sexy. "Serena Williams is sexy," someone says. "Yeah, yeah," someone else replies.

Your minds then hotfoot it to an ad concept in which Williams looks … Read more

Some things require explanation. Some merely leap into the mind and boggle it.

Such is the effect of the circumstances surrounding the arrest yesterday of Marissa Mark of Jersey City, N.J.

Mark, 28, is accused of hiring a hitman to kill a woman five years ago when Mark was living in Allentown, Pa. The reasons Mark allegedly wanted the woman dead aren't exactly clear, but a man's love--or a lack thereof--may have something to do with it.

Yet Mark's case is made far stranger in that she stands accused of turning to Hireahitman.net.

Perhaps you … Read more

When she was in high school, all of her friends wanted to work at Google.

So offered Lady Gaga as she wandered into the Googleplex and showed them what true domination really looked like.

The purpose of Gaga's visit was to sit with Google's Marissa Mayer and answer questions offered on something called Google Moderator. This, oddly, is not a new Google tool specifically designed to dampen China's enthusiasm for censorship.

It's a thingy that allows your audience to decide what is most important to them. So there sat a hoarsely nervous Mayer asking questions offered … Read more

I worry that our whole world is being systematically systematized.

The more our youngest and brightest minds offer their working souls to the Facebooks and Twitters of this firmament, the more they are asked to define every single human event and emotion by digits.

And yet I still found myself sensing a momentary twitch of the single gray hair between my eyebrows when I heard that Google had been awarded a patent for its doodles.

I suppose there will be some who will say: "But, of course! Google's doodles are unique works of art! Van Gogh would have … Read more

They always tell you in business that you should never burn your bridges. This is actually very difficult, as you will sometimes come across such dreadful people that you will find it very hard to do anything but raise your longest finger in their directions.

However, what must the nice people at T-Mobile USA be feeling, now that news has emerged they will be acquired by AT&T?

You see, T-Mobile seems to have spent quite a bit of time and money telling us all that AT&T's service is, well, worse than a lobotomy in the … Read more

You're no one, nor anything, until you become the subject of David Letterman's Top 10. Isn't that how Jay Leno finally became famous?

So all of those who believed that merely the sales of the iPad 2 proved that this was the most magical and revolutionary product of the century can now sit, breathe and go back to reading The Daily.

For last night, David Letterman managed to dedicate perhaps his most influential and enduring feature to perhaps Apple's most influential and enduring product. Since the last one.

You will, I am sure, choose your own … Read more

I know that patience isn't everybody's thing. Friday, I wandered along early in the (my) morning to see how many people were lined up at the Apple store in Corte Madera, Calif.

It was the most civilized line I have ever seen, not unlike the one you'd see at Starbucks every morning. It was populated by those who might be described as being past the middle of their lives.

And yet, it seems, there was still no guarantee that these very nice people would actually get the iPad 2 that they were queuing for.

A report in 9to5Mac, … Read more

Updated at 10:20 a.m. PT: Sources within Google deny that anything will be launched at SXSW this evening and say that the ReadWriteWeb report is inaccurate.

When it comes to social networks, Google has not managed to garland itself in too much glory. Critics suggest Google doesn't quite understand what makes people buzz.

And yet an interesting report has emerged that says Google might be using an event at SXSW this evening to launch--or, at least, preview--a new social network.

According to ReadWriteWeb, Google's social network is to be called Circles. At its heart it purportedly … Read more

The wheels of commerce truly have no brakes. And, being wheels, they don't have scruples or taste either. Even when it comes to the iPad 2.

It appears that a college student called Amanda Foote was committed to being the first person in line to buy an iPad 2 at the most famous Apple store, on Fifth Avenue in New York.

She reportedly parked herself at the front of the line for 41 hours.

As Mashable tells it, she suffered the slings and apples of outrageous fortune. It rained for an entire day. A passer-by even helped himself to … Read more