British billionaire Richard Branson has set all sorts of world records and is planning plenty more adventures, even if the center of the earth isn't one of them. Hollywood's resident daredevil, filmmaker James Cameron, who's also passionate about ocean and space exploration, recently plunged to the deepest known part of the ocean in a specially designed submarine.

But there is another wealthy adventurer vying for the record books: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. But unlike his brand's grand name, the intrepid e-tailer isn't planning to explore the Amazon; instead, as Taiwan's NMA TV recounts in its animated version above, he recently discovered the rockets that pushed Neil Armstrong and pals upward into space at the bottom of the ocean and is planning to bring them back to dry land, according to CNET.com.Continue reading...

Masdar City, near Abu Dhabi, means "The Source" in Arabic. It's also not, technically, a city.

Masdar is a "cleantech cluster," and a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company — itself a division of the Mubadala Development Company, an Abu Dhabi government initiative "that seeks to be a catalyst for the economic diversification of the Emirate."Continue reading...

Google imitates Facebook "like" function with "+1" introduction, while Flickr adds sharing feature. Google also settled FTC privacy charges over Buzz and announced Kansas City (not Topeka) in Kansas as the site of its fiber network.

GoDaddy head Bob Parsons under fire for elephant hunting in Africa.

Microsoft top marketer Mich Mathews steps down.

News Corp. promotes James Murdoch to New York role.

Salesforce boosts social media chops with Radian6 acquisition.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz admits he doesn't drink his own Frappucinos.Continue reading...

TED’s tag line is “Ideas worth spreading,” and it has been doing just that since founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in 1984. An annual conference event since 1990, Wurman left following the 2002 conference, and the owner/curator now is Chris Anderson, whose Sapling foundation acquired TED in 2001; he hosted his first TED in 2003. TEDTalks debuted online in 2006.

TED.com has become the ‘Who’s Who’ of technology, entertainment, and design. TEDTalks are available free on TED’s website, and on iTunes, YouTube, and most recently a free iPhone app. The archive now exceeds 600 talks viewed more than 230 million times worldwide since launch in 2006.Continue reading...

For awhile now, 3D televisions have been the talk of town. Samsung's even unveiled their 3D TV’s at the annual tech event CrunchGear, attempting to woo regular Joe’s and Jane’s to fill their living rooms with 3D television sets. But before you throw out your “worthless” HD televisions and get fitted for your 3D glasses, stop and think whether the switch is worth it.

How could it not be worth it? All of the new, great entertainment out there is in 3D, like Avatar, and, well, maybe just Avatar.

That’s the point Avatar director and 3D-pioneer, James Cameron, is trying to make at least. Cameron isn’t convinced that there’s enough 3D entertainment out there to make such a purchase worthwhile for everyday television viewers.Continue reading...

China has pulled the smash hit Avatar from screens around the country while the film was at its peak of popularity. The move came just two weeks after the film was released, when there were still long lines for tickets to showings that sold out almost as soon as they went on sale.

Speculation abounds as to why China's film authorities nixed this flick – and the reasons provide a valuable example for anyone planning a product or marketing launch in the nation of 1.3 billion people.Continue reading...

Avatar is the number one film for a second continuous week, meaning the year will end with the sci-fi tale dominating box office numbers. As brandcameo noted, though Avatar is groundbreaking in the realm of special effects, from a product placement perspective, the film is forgettable. Director James Cameron created an alternative future where brands were not just unimportant, but largely nonexistent. And that's noteworthy because a quarter century ago, Cameron was a product placement pioneer.Continue reading...