Techno

In the wake of Newt Gingrich‘s ridiculous plan to set up an American moon base by 2020, San Diego CityBeat’s Dave Maass attended the “Future of Astronauts (Colonization)” panel at the SpaceUp San Diego “unconference” on space exploration at the Ansir Innovation Center last weekend. The piece spends quite a bit of time presenting a rather dark, dystopian view of the future of privatized space travel.

Writes Maass: “The darkness is in the socio-political implications of a space race that could mirror the colonization of the Americas, with all the death and exploitation that came with it. Indentured servitude. Corporate rulers. Space cults.”

But, despite all those reservations, Maass eventually gets to the real question that’s been brewing in the back of his mind.

How long until reporters are invited to junkets on space yachts?

“Fifteen years,” [I'm told].

Did I say the future is dark? Retract that. Where do I get in line?

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Hate how Best Picture at the Academy Awards often goes to films that are in no way, shape or form the best movie of the year? Well, there may be some solace for you if your film of choice gets jobbed. USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab has teamed with IBM and the LA Times to measure social media buzz relating to this year’s Oscars. Culling worldwide Twitter sentiment, the hope is to accurately identify the “people’s Oscar” winners in the major categories.

From the release:

The project relies on new sophisticated analytics and natural language recognition technologies to gauge positive and negative opinions shared in millions of public tweets.

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The website for Third Street restaurant Il Covo lists the loose English translation for its Italian name as “den of thieves” or “lair.” But after reading Jessica Gelt‘s recent LA Times article about how this establishment and others around the city have been overtaken by Smartphone-wielding customers, FishbowlLA is inclined to look up the Italian for “end of civilization.”

Then again, we’re not in the business of catering to LA’s multi-tasking parents, studio execs and Cedars-Sinai superstars. For those who are, like Il Covo general manager Eric Rosenfeld, it’s now all about accommodating device-totting diners. For example, his restaurant provides small plates on which customers can place their Smartphones, so as to avoid spillage:

“If a diner would like to have their phone on the table, we want to protect it as much as possible,” Rosenfeld explains, adding that many restaurants in Los Angeles even keep a discreet stash of iPhone and BlackBerry chargers on hand and train servers on how and when to approach a diner on a phone and what to do if a phone is in the way when it comes time to deliver a plate. (The hard and fast rule is never put your hands on another man’s phone.)

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Fandango and Movies.com Chief Marketing Officer Ted Hong is moving to the app market. He’s just signed on as the new CMO of M-GO–a new multi-media content app set to launch this Spring.

“Today more than ever, the media landscape is changing and evolving, and M-GO is at the precipice of the shift in consumer behavior,” says Hong. “With that in mind, an exciting opportunity lies ahead for M-GO and I am thrilled to be a part of a company that is so dedicated, experienced, and committed to bringing this vision to life.”

Press release after the jump:

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iPad owners don’t have to wait for Netflix to catch up on that season of Dexter they missed. The network just announced they’ve developed an app to allow iPad users access to over 400 hours of programming–including the the network’s live boxing events.

The offering is limited to the iPad for now, but Showtime says iPhone and Android users will get their own apps sometime in 2012. The app is free to all Showtime subscribers.

Press release after the jump:

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Strange things are happening on The Wrap’s website this Monday morning. We’ve received several tips that the site had been hijacked by another site called Newstogram.com. And, indeed, when we attempted to access The Wrap just now, we were automatically redirected to Newstogram. We failed in all attempts to reach The Wrap’s actual content. We’ll update when we know more.

*Not a jacking, according to a Wrap spokesman.

“A faulty DNS update caused the Newstogram servers to be unavailable. Newstogram is a technology used to provide recommendations to users of sites. We apologize that this affected some users of TheWrap.com”

“Good Food” radio host Evan Kleiman just launched a new iPhone, iPad app called “Easy As Pie.” And, yes, it involves pie. Lots of pie.

Writes Kleiman of her app: “It’s no secret that I love pie, and what better time of year to express that love than the holidays? Appetites’ breaks down each step of the recipe into a short video clip from my own point of view in the kitchen. No guesswork and no fear. Just cook along with me to make delicious pies!”

The app will set you back $4.99 and it includes a recipe for apple butternut squash pie with bacon. Which, to this Jew, sounds absolutely sacrilicious.

High Country News announced today that it’s expanding its digital presence. The mag has just come out with two new digital products: new iPhone app as well as a digital edition. In one of the more candid press releases we’ve ever read, early reviews, are um…mixed.

A taste of early reader survey results include “This web-only app sucks. I much prefer just reading on the website to this crap.” …and “I will likely subscribe for a year to the digital edition based on this free look. Thanks. Keep up the good work.”

The release also notes that, given their limited budget, HCN had to rely on “highly underpaid coders” to help finish the iPhone app. Normally, we here at FishbowlLA trade in snark. But we can’t top this friggin’ press release. You’re better off just reading the original copy yourself. After the jump.

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The free file hosting service Megaupload is on the entertainment industry’s s**t list for making copyright infringement so easy-peasy. But several high-profile artists – the sort that create that copyrighted material in the first place – have recently expressed their unabashed support for the site in a new music video.

In the “Megaupload Mega Song,” Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, P. Diddy, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown, Kanye West, Lil John, Kim Kardashian, and more express their love for a service that lets you share their copyrighted material for free. I never thought I’d say this, but I have a newfound respect for Kim Kardashian.

The video was released over the weekend, and was quickly removed from YouTube, after Universal Music Group complained about – what else – copyright infringement.

There’s a funny New York Times piece by Nick Wingfield about a new problem in the ever-changing world of cell phone netiquette. It’s all about what to do or not to do when the person next to you starts barking back at their iPhone 4S virtual assistant Siri.

Included in the article are several LA anecdotes. Along with the guy who had to endure listening to a woman while in line at a car dealership, there’s this tidbit from 24-year-old Jimmy Wong:

Wong was at an after-hours diner with friends in Los Angeles recently when they found themselves next to a man ordering Siri to write memos and dictate e-mails. They found the man’s conversation with his phone “creepy,” without any of the natural pauses and voice inflections that occur in a discussion between two people.

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