Reuters - Pop star Michael Jackson dead: report

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Pop star Michael Jackson dead: report

Thursday, Jun 25, 2009 10:30PM UTC

By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop giant Michael Jackson, who took to the stage as a child star and set the world dancing to exuberant rhythms for decades, died on Thursday, TMZ website reported. He was 50.

There was no official confirmation of the reported death and spokespersons for Jackson could not be reached for comment.

"We've just learned Michael Jackson has died," TMZ said.

"Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back," the entertainment site said.

It added, "A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived."

Earlier, the Los Angeles Times said the singer had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital by fire department paramedics who found him not breathing when they arrived at the singer's home.

The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene before taking him to the UCLA Medical Center hospital.

Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits included "Thriller" and "Billie Jean," had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months.

The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within minutes of going on sale in March.

His lifetime record sales tally is believed to be around 750 million, which, added to the 13 Grammy Awards he received, makes him one of the most successful entertainers of all time.

He lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation.

There were concerns about Jackson's health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors.

CHILD STAR TO MEGASTAR

Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana, the seventh of nine children. Five Jackson boys -- Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael -- first performed together at a talent show when Michael was 6. They walked off with first prize and went on to become a best-selling band, The Jackson Five, and then The Jackson 5.

Jackson made his first solo album in 1972, and released "Thriller" in 1982, which became a smash hit that yielded seven top-10 singles. The album sold 21 million copies in the United States and at least 27 million worldwide.

The next year, he unveiled his signature "moonwalk" dance move while performing "Billie Jean" during an NBC special.

In 1994, Jackson married Elvis Presley's only child, Lisa Marie, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1996. Jackson married Debbie Rowe the same year and had two children, before splitting in 1999. The couple never lived together.

Jackson has three children named Prince Michael I, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II, known for his brief public appearance when his father held him over the railing of a hotel balcony, causing widespread criticism.

(Additional Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Writing by Frances Kerry, Editing by Jackie Frank)

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Reuters - Michael Jackson rushed to hospital: report

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Michael Jackson rushed to hospital: report

Thursday, Jun 25, 2009 9:29PM UTC

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Michael Jackson has been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital by fire department paramedics who found him not breathing when they arrived at the singer's home, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.

The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene before taking him to the UCLA Medical Center hospital.

No further details were immediately available, and spokespersons for Jackson could not be reached for comment.

Jackson, 50, is due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits include "Thriller" and "Billy Jean," has been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months.

The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within hours of going on sale in March.

Jackson, who started out as a child star in the band "The Jackson 5" more than 40 years ago, has lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation.

There have been concerns about Jackson's health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors.

(Additional Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Jackie Frank)

CNN - Farrah Fawcett, sex symbol and actress, dies

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Farrah Fawcett, sex symbol and actress, dies

Farrah Fawcett, the blonde-maned actress whose best-selling poster and "Charlie's Angels" stardom made her one of the most famous faces in the world, died Thursday. She was 62.

Fawcett's death was confirmed by Paul Bloch, one of her representatives at Rogers and Cowan, an entertainment public relations firm.

Fawcett, who checked into a hospital in early April, had been battling anal cancer on and off for three years.

Bloch told CNN that Ryan O'Neal, Fawcett's romantic partner since the mid-1980s, and her friend Alana Stewart were with Fawcett at Saint John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, when she died.

"Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world," O'Neal said in a written statement. Read more tributes to Fawcett

O'Neal is the father of Fawcett's son, Redmond O'Neal, born in 1985. Redmond O'Neal is in an intense rehabilitation program conducted in the Los Angeles county jail, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore told CNN on Thursday.

Fawcett's son was informed on Wednesday night by a grief counselor and a chaplain that his mother's death was imminent, and a grief counselor and chaplain also told him when she died, Whitmore said.

The young man, who is currently with a chaplain, has spoken with his father, Whitmore said.

Ryan O'Neal had recently told People magazine that the sex symbol was declining.

"She stays in bed now. The doctors see that she is comfortable. Farrah is on IVs, but some of that is for nourishment. The treatment has pretty much ended," he said in a story posted May 7.

Fawcett's cancer journey has been documented in a television special partly shot by the actress. Fawcett began shooting "Farrah's Story," by taking a camera to a doctor's appointment. Eventually, the film expanded to include trips overseas in hopes of treating the cancer.

The documentary aired on NBC on May 15.

Fawcett's beauty -- her gleaming smile was printed on millions of posters -- initially made her famous. But she later established herself as a serious actress. She starred as a battered wife in the 1984 TV movie "The Burning Bed." She appeared on stage as a woman who extracts vengeance from a would-be rapist in William Mastrosimone's play "Extremities."

She reprised the "Extremities" role on film in 1986. Other Fawcett films include "Logan's Run" (1976), "Saturn 3" (1980), "The Cannonball Run" (1981), "The Apostle" (1997) and the Robert Altman-directed "Dr. T and the Women" (2000).

To many, Fawcett will always be best known for her red-swimsuited image on the pinup poster, which sold a reputed 12 million copies after its release in 1976. iReport: Share your memories of Farrah Fawcett

Fawcett was a model best known for bit parts, commercials and as "Six Million Dollar Man" actor Lee Majors' wife when she shot the poster in early 1976 at the behest of Pro Arts, a Cleveland, Ohio, company.

Photographer Bruce McBroom placed Fawcett -- then known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors -- in the Indian blanket-draped front seat of his 1937 Chevy and snapped away. Fawcett did her own hair -- a long, tousled cascade of blonde locks -- picked out the red bathing suit and chose the frame later used for the poster, according to a story in the Toronto Star.

The poster, with Fawcett's million-dollar smile front and center, became a sensation.

Soon after the photo shoot, Fawcett was asked to join the cast of a new Aaron Spelling TV show, "Charlie's Angels," about a trio of female detectives who work for a mysterious man named Charlie, whose only appearance in the show was through his voice (supplied by John Forsythe).

Fawcett, who played Jill Munroe, was the last to be cast. Co-star Kate Jackson was the known name at the time, but thanks to her poster, Fawcett became the breakout star.

The highly rated TV series kicked off what came to be known as "jiggle TV," series full of pretty actresses who appeared in bikinis at the drop of a hat.

"Denunciations of 'massage parlor television' and 'voyeurism' only brought more viewers to the screen, to see what the controversy was about," wrote Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh about "Charlie's Angels" in their indispensable reference, "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows."

ABC's "Three's Company" and CBS's "The American Girls" were among the shows that immediately followed, and shows such as "Baywatch" owe "Charlie's Angels" a debt.

But Fawcett didn't stay with "Angels" long. At the end of the first season, unhappy with her contract, she left the show and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd.

Fawcett's career stagnated for a time after "Charlie's Angels." She appeared in a handful of forgettable films and divorced Majors.

But her career received a major boost with her starring role in "The Burning Bed," a 1984 TV movie co-starring Paul Le Mat. Fawcett played an abused wife who sets fire to her husband's bed as he lies sleeping. Fawcett received an Emmy nomination for her performance.

Fawcett also became romantically involved with O'Neal around this time. The pair had a son, Redmond, in 1985.

In recent years, Fawcett has appeared sporadically in the public eye. She posed nude for Playboy in 1995. In 1997, she appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman," an interview that became notorious for Fawcett's apparent incoherence. She later said she was just having fun with Letterman.

She reunited with her "Charlie's Angels" co-stars, Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, for an awards show in 2006.

Fawcett was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947. She married Majors in 1973; they divorced nine years later.

She was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

Reuters - Mobile money seen as chance for world's poorest

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Mobile money seen as chance for world's poorest

Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009 4:6PM UTC

By Georgina Prodhan

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Being able to use a mobile phone for money transfers, bill payments and even savings would give some of the world's poorest people the chance to become part of the financial system, telecom providers and bankers have said.

While microfinance is estimated to have reached about 100 million people through institutions such as Grameenbank and small-scale community projects, telecoms industry group the GSM Association (GSMA) reckons that almost four times that number, who currently have no bank account, could benefit from mobile financial services.

"The Grameenbank model works, but the scalability is limited," said Hannes van Rensburg, chief executive of mobile financial services provider Fundamo said on Wednesday.

"The problem is about the inertia of money. It's very difficult to move very small amounts of money fast," he said in an interview with Reuters at the GSMA's Mobile Money summit in Barcelona.

South Africa-based Fundamo is the world's leading provider of software and services for mobile money to network operators and banks, with about a quarter of the global market. More than 100 million transactions were made using its platforms last year.

These transactions can be as small as 30 cents at a time, as mobile financial services providers aim to reach more of those living on less than $2 per day.

EASIER BY PHONE

Currently, about 3.5 billion people, more than half the world's population, have no access to banking services. However, 1 billion of those people do have mobile phones and the GSMA sees that figure rising to 1.7 billion by 2012.

Access to financial services could not only remove the need for long, costly and risky journeys to move money around, but also reduce the burden of constant, active money management endured by those living on tiny amounts and in constant danger of financial crisis.

"Poor people are doing a tremendous amount of financial transactions just to survive," says Stephen Rasmussen, who runs a mobile banking program for CGAP, an association of non-profit organizations under the auspices of the World Bank that seeks to help to increase financial access for the poor.

"People at the very bottom spend far more energy and mental time on managing these systems than we do," Rasmussen told Reuters.

Mobile money deployments have huge momentum, with the number expected to double to 120 by the end of the year, according to the GSMA.

High-profile initiatives announced in recent months include South African operator MTN's plans to roll out mobile money using Fundamo's technology in 23 countries across Africa and the Middle East and Kuwaiti operator Zain's plan to extend its Zap money service from Kenya across its network, which spans 24 countries.

Eventually, these services could provide some of the world's poorest people the chance to save money safely and to obtain credit, although the bulk of transactions currently taking place are simple money transfers.

"We haven't even cracked step one correctly yet," said Fundamo's van Rensburg.

Rasmussen agreed.

"The prepaid phone has completely changed the world in the last five years," Rasmussen said. "But we're still talking potential."

"It's not going to instantly bring people out of poverty, but it's one more thing in the tool kit," he said.

(Editing by Karen Foster)

Reuters - "Friends" stars reunite online

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"Friends" stars reunite online

Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009 11:47AM UTC

By Andrew Wallenstein

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A "Friends" reunion of sorts is coming to the Internet courtesy of Lexus.

The carmaker is launching a second season of "Web Therapy," an online comedy series starring Lisa Kudrow for its branded-entertainment network, L Studio. Returning June 23, "Therapy" will feature Kudrow's fellow "Friends" alum Courteney Cox as a guest star. Don Roos directs.

With the release of 15 new short-form episodes of "Therapy," Lexus has also retooled its strategy to syndicate the series to iTunes, YouTube and Hulu. When L Studio launched last September, all of its content was confined to the website, which has also since been redesigned to incorporate high-definition video that loads faster and can be shared on social networks.

Kudrow, who won a Webby Award in June for outstanding comedic performance for "Therapy," stars as Fiona Wallice, a shrink who employs pretty shaky methods on a clientele she counsels over Webcam. In addition to Cox, Kudrow will play opposite Alan Cumming, Steven Weber and Victor Garber in the second season.

Beginning with the July 6th episode, Cox plays a psychic who seeks Wallice's help because the dreams she relied on to deliver her psychic vision no longer occur. It's a comic wink to the role played on CBS' "Medium" by her sister-in-law Patricia Arquette -- Cox even alludes in character to the famous family into which she married. "Good god, how many of them are there really?" she jokes about the Arquette clan.

While episodes will continue to be available at LStudio.com, bundles of three episodes will be available on iTunes for $1.99; a season pass for "Therapy" will cost $7.99. On YouTube and Hulu, Lexus will be in the unusual position of being an advertiser who will sell spots within "Therapy" to other advertisers.

(Editing by Dean Gooodman at Reuters)

(please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

CNN - Neda: Latest iconic image to inspire

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Neda: Latest iconic image to inspire

A 14-year-old girl stoops and screams above the body of a Kent State University student killed in 1970 by an Ohio National Guardsman.

A police chief aims his gun at a Vietcong prisoner's head in 1968, just before executing him on a Saigon, Vietnam, street.

And in 1989, an unarmed man in Beijing, China, stands defiantly in front of a column of tanks as they rolled into Tiananmen Square.

These are iconic images, the kinds of shots that changed the way people viewed history as it unfolded. They put human faces on conflicts and became rallying cries for movements, inspiring those who demanded change.

But while these photographs -- chronicling a single, silent moment -- were taken by seasoned photographers, two of whom won Pulitzer Prizes, this time amateur cell phone video is grabbing worldwide attention. It captures the death of a young woman named Neda Agha-Soltan, galvanizing protesters in Iran and shaping perceptions of a land and people few Westerners know.

"Every revolution needs icons and symbols -- an image that embodies a sense of universality of blight and at the same time innocence," said Roya Hakakian of Connecticut, a writer, poet and journalist who was born and raised in Iran. "The image of Neda does both."

The graphic video of Neda's death, caused by a gunshot fired during a protest in Tehran, Iran, records her final moments: Her eyes turn toward the camera, people scream and struggle to revive her while blood streams across her face.

Having gone viral with the help of social networking sites such as Twitter, the video of Neda's death has earned her the highly revered status of martyr. The woman who by all counts was an innocent bystander is now known as the "Angel of Iran" and is inspiring poetry. She is mourned publicly despite Revolutionary Guard threats, and her likeness graces posters.

For Hakakian, who left Iran about 25 years ago, the significance of Neda's image runs deep. She said it's part of a larger picture of current protests being propelled by women, and a reflection of the Iran and the Iranians she knows.

What outsiders have seen over the past three decades, she said, are fist-pumping men decrying America, images of hostages and "the burning of Uncle Sam effigies." Americans, she continued, have gotten to know little beyond the talk of Hezbollah and Hamas support, discussions of nuclear bombs and the rants of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for, among other things, the destruction of Israel.

"We come from different corners of the world, but we see the same thing," Hakakian said of the video of Neda's death. "You don't need to be Iranian. You don't need to be her neighbor. You don't need to know her name. ... Anyone can watch this and come away with the sense of injustice and what's taking place, and I think that's why it's catching on."

Graphic images have long played a role in driving social awareness and change, said Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

The skeletal figures of concentration camp victims drove home the horrors of the Holocaust. And the brutalized body of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy killed in 1955 for allegedly flirting with a white woman, was shown at the insistence of his mother at his funeral, galvanizing the civil rights movement, Shapiro said.

In more recent years, amateur video was credited with capturing the 1991 beating by Los Angeles police of Rodney King. And the first images out of Virginia Tech during the 2007 campus shooting were taken by students before professionals could hit the scene, added Nora Paul, founding director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota.

The challenge today, in a time when anyone can post images, is making sure graphic photos or videos are put in context and used by news organizations in a way that moves stories forward, both Paul and Shapiro agreed.

While news outlets may blur faces, offer warnings to viewers or not even use some images, the vastness of the Internet means that once they are out there -- no matter how horrifying or inappropriate for viewers -- it's next to impossible to stop them from being circulated.

"Even if you try to control access, the dam is already broken," Paul said.

As for the impact on viewers, the effect of disturbing and violent images is hard to measure, said Elana Newman, who teaches psychology at the University of Tulsa and is a specialist in psychological trauma.

An image often can communicate "the depths of pain" in a way that words alone cannot, Newman said. But she added scholars often debate whether such images turn people away from news, desensitize them or bolster a story's credibility. And there is also the challenge to consider of "balancing the privacy of the victim with the importance of telling the story."

Her own opinion?

"These images are helpful when these events are far away," she said, because they can bring home a story. They, however, are "not helpful to people when they're in their own backyard."

And the impact on the person who captures the image is often untold.

John Filo was a senior photography student at Kent State when he snapped the photo that became a symbol of the shootings on campus and helped propel the anti-war movement at the time.

He doesn't remember going through six rolls of film that day, but he remembers being shot at and is all too aware that a mere feet -- even inches -- separated him from life or death. In 13 seconds, four students were killed and nine were wounded.

It took "a good nine years" for him to sort through the experience, he told CNN. His relationships suffered, as did his confidence as a photographer. He grappled with survivor's guilt, the images he saw but didn't share and the anxiety about how his work affected other people's lives.

"Everyone that was there that day was affected," said Filo, now director of photography for CBS media relaitons. "At least I had something to do that day. There were people who felt totally helpless -- people who tried to hide behind a four-inch street curb."

When no one could believe what was happening around them, he had the power to show it.

"You sit there as a journalist and say, 'If it was my brother or my mother, would I have taken this picture?' " he reflected out loud. It's "your purpose of being there. So yes, if it was my brother, if it was my mother, I'd still shoot the picture."

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ThisMoment.com is the newest social networking debutante

Vince Broady insists his new site, Thismoment.com, isn't just another way for you to share videos and pictures with friends, and find out about their likes and dislikes.

The site, which debuts today after six months in a private beta, is a place to create "moments," similar to what you might do on Facebook or Twitter, but also making use of the various media all over the Net.

"I got really frustrated using the other services," says Broady, a former CNET and Yahoo executive. "One is oriented towards photos, another toward video. One is all about status updates, another is about friending. There hasn't been a service yet that lets you break out of the format, to share what's most important to you, and incorporate stuff from the Net to help tell your story."

Broady raised $3.5 million to start the venture, with assistance from former CNET chief Shelby Bonnie, former MTV digital exec Mika Salmi and current MySpace exec Jason Hirshhorn.   Making it pay off will be a challenge, however.  The social networking market is notoriously crowded, and many sites are not profitable.

At thismoment.com, you put video, pictures and web content (from Flickr, YouTube, Picassa Web Albums, the New York Times and Time Inc.) into a "moment," telling a story of, say, a recent vacation, night out at the movies, graduation or other event.

"It's not a photo album, it's not a blog post, it's a moment," says Broady. "It gets to the essence of the human experience, which is emotion."

Broady says he started the site because he found himself "wasting" so much time constantly updating his status, and uploading pictures to sites, "and having nothing to show for it. It was all going into a digital shoebox, no one was looking at them, and I knew I could create something richer and more meaningful than what Facebook and Twitter were doing."

Broady has several personal "moments," on display. including one about taking his kids to see the old Mel Gibson film Mad Max, complete with YouTube clips from the film, Flickr photos of the movie theater and commentary about the Broady's  meal. 

The amount of time to create these multimedia blog posts could be quite time-consuming, but Broady is convinced folks will put in the effort.  "They're doing it now," he says. "They put in the time everyday."

He hopes to make money via advertising, and by selling promo content that can be used for moments. At launch, he's got stuff from the New York Times, Time and Road and Track magazine. The content will be free for the first 90 days.

By Jefferson Graham

Photo: Thismoment.com

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Phanfare gives up on social networking

Andrew Erlichson thought fans of his premium photo sharing site Phanfare would embrace social networking features like instant updates to friends whenever new pictures were posted, or news feeds about their pictures

.

Instead, his base of over 11,000 paying customers voted a resounding "no."

They wanted their old Phanfare back.

So Thursday, Phanfare goes "back to our roots," as pure photo sharing, says Erlichson. Phanfare users will once again be able to showcase their work with personalized URLs (such as http://jeff.phanfare.com) to share albums, with optional passwords instead of pesky registrations and notifications.

The social networking features are still there -- if wanted -- "but we don't expect for them to be used much," nor will they promoted, says Erlichson.

Phanfare competes with Smugmug for folks who want their photos presented online sans ads, in a more pleasing layout than at sites that exist just to sell prints.

Mighty Smugmug -- which serves consumers and pro photographers as a place to also sell prints -- has over 100,000 paying customers. Phanfare has a little more than 11,000 subscribers, mostly folks with their first digital SLR who who are photo enthusiasts.

So in a bid to increase market share, Phanfare began last year offering a free service, with storage of up to 1 gigabyte of photos -- hoping users would love the service so much they would sign up for the upgrade.

It didn¹t happen.

So now Phanfare is lowering its prices, to $49.99 yearly from $54.99 and heavily touting its acclaimed free iPhone app.  It lets you tap into your entire Phanfare photo library on your phone, even if offline (such as when you're on an airplane).

Erlichson says he added social networking features before Facebook really took off, and that in the interim, he's learned that social networking is a "natural monopoly. You want to join a network where all your friends are, so the biggest one continues to get bigger."  Phanfare fans can still share their pictures instantly to Facebook and Twitter, he says, so there was no need to have social features on Phanfare.

By Jefferson Graham

Photo: Phanfare's new home page.

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Napster creator tears down walls for social gaming

A decade ago, Shawn Fanning gained fame and turned an industry upside down with his music-sharing service, Napster. His latest project aims to remake the video game world, connecting players not only with content but also with one another.

Long before he began work on Napster, Fanning, now 28, was a gamer. And he was frustrated that he could not maintain contact with players outside of games like World of Warcraft. "You meet new people and friends and lose touch with them," Fanning says. "All these game platforms are walled gardens, and so you often only know someone you play with under their game alias."

So Fanning began work on a network he called Rupture to connect players across various game systems, individual online PC games such as Warcraft and even some casual Web games, "breaking down those barriers," he says. "Once you are a part of Rupture, you can track your friends and what your friends are playing, and find new games."

Electronic Arts acquired Rupture last year; Fanning remains general manager. "Shawn brought an entirely fresh, new way of thinking to our social gaming initiative," says EA CEO John Riccitiello. "It's exciting to see how his next venture, Rupture, applies his disruptive thinking to social gaming."

Currently in public testing, Rupture collects game identities and tracks your career. Once a player creates a Rupture account, profiles can be expanded upon with in-depth information harvested, for instance, from across PC, console, and Web gaming platforms. And Electronic Arts plans to supply information from its games, which range from sports to casual, on all platforms.

Game publishers could integrate Rupture to provide real-time updates. A Rupture desktop application meant to run while you are playing PC games lists friends' statuses (online or not).

Rupture's website provides social networking features such as friends and followers, plus recent games and challenges issued by other gamers (such as "Survive in Zombie mode co-op to level 20" in Call of Duty: World at War). "You get all the stuff your friends are posting, plus all of (their) achievements, high scores, new weapons or items," Fanning says.

Testing focuses on what data to publish automatically in the "feed" and what to leave for further searching. "You want to be able to digest that stuff really easily at a high level," he says. "Then, if you are interested in drilling down on a certain game or person, you have that ability."

These challenges pale in comparison with those Fanning faced in the past. Napster kicked off the peer-to-peer music-swapping craze and spurred a landmark copyright infringement decision before shutting down in 2001. A subscription Napster service eventually went into bankruptcy; this year, Best Buy relaunched the fee-based service.

Looking back, Fanning says, he was "completely blown away by the amount of interest and controversy. I wouldn't say I regret anything. It's easy in hindsight to look back at how such a complex situation unfolded and how you might have been able to make better decisions, but all in all, it was a great experience."

He says that in the music industry, "it is really hard to do anything innovative. (You're) dealing with a lot of people who aren't jumping at the prospect of their business model changing." But the gaming world, he says, is "a hybrid of technology and media, and their success depends on them incorporating and evolving new technology. You find people are far more open-minded."