Absolute darling Stephen Fry is to explore language in a new series for BBC2.

Fry, who has said he is passionate for language, will be studying origins, variations and how to speak different languages.

He will be interviewing people, such as the creator of Pinyin, a phonetic Chinese language.

Speaking at the annual Bafta Television Lecture in June, Fry said it was “shocking” how “infantilised” adult programmes had become on British TV.

“I’m not saying TV should be pompous and academic, but it should surprise and astonish,” he added.

BBC

The five part series, called Planet Word, is set for release in 2011.

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Viral Videos: Opera Parodies Google

If this is the outcome to the browser war, then we love it.

Google may have a cool speed test video, but Opera have now sullied its good name.

En Garde!

Video:

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One abortion ad please, on the rocks, with a twist, hold the abortion.

Like we reported here, the Marie Stopes “abortion” ad was causing all sorts of outrage,flame wars and debate.

But then on Monday night, when it aired, it didn’t even mention abortions!

Video:

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As our forum story hunter Koth says:

“All I got from the ad was, ‘if you’re pregnant and don’t know what to do, you can seek information/advice here’.

Nothing like what I’d expected after all the uproar.”

Apple worth more than Microsoft

The Business Insider reported Wednesday that Apple is worth $200 billion, whereas Microsoft were limping behind just in the 190s.

Apple’s stock market capitalization (AAPL) has not yet quite surpassed Microsoft’s (MSFT), but the value of its actual business is now higher.

Specifically, Apple’s business is now worth $200 billion, while Microsoft’s is only worth $197 billion–at least by one simple calculation of enterprise value.

Business Insider

There’s all sorts of boring maths stuff after it and numbers scare most of us here (ok, maybe just me) so head over to B.I if you like that sort of thing.

Stephen Fry releases Ipad & Iphone apps!

Oh, and the Ipad came to Britain…

Yes, that wonderful man has released apps for the Ipad that grab his writings and tweets from around the web and bring them to you.

The FryPad will be a free app and SoundCircus, its audio relative, will be £1.

Now develop symbian apps you lovely fellow.

Oh, and as I said, the Ipad came to the U.K.

Woo.

Zynga comes to Yahoo

Following the near war experience with Facebook and then kissing and making up (for 5 years anyway…), Zynga has expanded its ever growing reach and now comes to the Yahoo platform.

Yahoo is reported to have 600 million users for Zynga games like Farmville and Mafia Wars to gobble up.

This isn’t the first time Zynga has expanded beyond Facebook. Last fall it launched a Facebook Connect-enabled version of Farmville at Farmville.com, and it integrated its games into MSN Games back in February. And there’s also Zynga’s rumored independent game portal Zynga Live looming in the future.

It’s also worth pointing out that today’s announcement is coinciding with Yahoo’s Investor Day, and will probably be pitched as part of its recent drive to increase its social functionality.

Techcrunch

This week, Farmville was named as one of the worst 50 inventions:

a series of mindless chores on a digital farm, requiring the endless clicking of a mouse to plant and harvest crops. And yet Zynga, evil geniuses behind this bizarre digital addiction, say more than 10 percent of Americans have logged in to create their online homestead. How many hours of lost productivity does that translate into?

Saddam Hussein and the gay sex tape

Yes, America is known for some crazy ideas in almost every conceivable situation, but on Wednesday the Guardian reported that one of the plans to topple Saddam involved the making of a gay porn tape.

According to the Washington Post’s security blog, some of America’s spooks believed that shooting a fake video of Saddam cavorting with a teenage boy might destabilise his regime in the runup to the US-led invasion in 2003. “It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera. Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session,” the Washington Post quoted one former CIA official as saying.

Nor was the Saddam sex tape the only idea floating around the more bizarre corners of the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group. Other ploys involved interrupting Iraqi television with a false newsflash that would announce Saddam was handing over power to his hated and feared son Uday. The presumed idea was to shock the Iraqi people into rising up against their leaders and thus make the invasion a lot easier.

The Guardian

The end of LOST. Oh Noes!

Yes, around Ireland viewers tuned in to see the final episode, the big one, the answer to all our wtfs?!, of LOST.

And around the country heads were scratched as many stared at the tv like it just broke up with them.

But forget the disappointment. Forget the WTFs?!!!

The final episode gave way to some awesome virals.

Go look at our media forum for videos that are not only shorter, but better than the final episode.

Link

The Good The Bad and The Fugly:

Good: Screen legend Christopher Lee turned 88 on Thursday. Here’s to you sir!

Bad: National Fish and Chips day. While the concept was awesome and very popular, many chippers around the country proved poor planning and couldn’t handle the demand, leaving many fish and chipless.

Fugly: Eircom being IRMAs bitches. Grumble. Link

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Their names are at the end a letter calling on the House of Lords to look at their decision to adopt an amendment to the digital economy bill.

Letter:

Sir, We regret that the House of Lords adopted amendment 120A to the digital economy bill (“Bill will censor internet, providers claim”, March 6). This amendment not only significantly changes the injunctions procedure in the UK but will lead to an increase in internet service providers blocking websites accused of illegally hosting copyrighted material without cases even reaching a judge. The amendment seeks to address the legitimate concerns of rights-holders but would have unintended consequences that far outweigh any benefits it could bring.

The Lords have been thoughtful in their consideration of the bill to date. It is therefore bitterly disappointing that the House has allowed an amendment with obvious shortcomings to proceed without challenging its proponents to consider and address the full consequences. Put simply, blocking access as envisaged by this clause would both widely disrupt the internet in the UK and elsewhere and threaten freedom of speech and the open internet, without reducing copyright infringement as intended. To rush through such a controversial proposal at the tail end of a parliament, without any kind of consultation with consumers or industry, is very poor lawmaking.Endorsing a policy that would encourage the blocking of websites by UK broadband providers or other internet companies is a very serious step for the UK to take. There are myriad legal, technical and practical issues to reconcile before this can be considered a proportionate and necessary public policy option. In some cases, these may never be reconciled. These issues have not even been considered in this case.

We are particularly concerned that a measure of this kind as a general purpose policy could have an adverse impact on the reputation of the UK as a place to do online business and conflict with the broader objectives of Digital Britain. This debate has created tension between specific interest groups and the bigger prize of promoting a policy framework that supports our digital economy and appropriately balances rights and responsibilities. All parties should take steps to safeguard this prize and place it at the heart of public policy in this area.

Tom Alexander,

Chief Executive, Orange

Richard Allan,

Director of Policy EU, Facebook

Neil Berkett,

Chief Executive, Virgin Media

Matt Brittin,

Managing Director, Google UK and Ireland

Charles Dunstone,

Chairman, Talk Talk Group

Stephen Fry

Jessica Hendrie-Liaño,

Chair, Internet Services Providers Association

Jill Johnstone,

International Director, Consumer Focus

Jim Killock,

Executive Director, Open Rights Group

Mark Lewis,

Managing Director, eBay UK

Ian Livingston,

Chief Executive, BT Group

Sarah Oates,

University of Glasgow

Jenny Pickerill,

University of Leicester

Mark Rabe,

Managing Director, Yahoo! UK and Ireland

Paul Reilly,

University of Leicester

Jess Search,

Founder, Shooting People independent film makers

Ian Walden,

Queen Mary, University of London

Tom Watson MP

Found here: Chris Marsden’s blogspot

This coming Friday Twitter addict Stephen Fry is holding an xmas bash online.

The event will stream here.

Follow @stephenfry for more updates.

Upcoming Harry Potter sex scene? Bleurgh!!!

Director David Yates is to create a more mature version of J.K Rowlings hit book for the 2010 movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The director has also cut out parts of the book to compete with hit series Twilight.

From The Week.com

Next to the perpetually shirtless Twilight vampires, Harry Potter looks “a little staid,” says Stuart Heritage in Britain’s Guardian. By showing a little skin, Harry is just trying to keep up with the competition. Let’s just hope this doesn’t set a precedent for other big-screen adaptations of children’s books — nobody wants to see “the Very Hungry Caterpillar’s nipples.”
“Harry Potter enters the Twilight zone”

The scene will supposedly be a dream sequence featuring Harry and Hermione getting it on.

I never got into the Harry Potter buzz, but how will this affect the fans, young and old, of the series? Not to mention the net pervs…

Either way, at least it’s another reason to blame Twilight for something….

In other Potter news…

Those crazy cats over at CollegeHumor have released a paraody of Harry Potter and Dangerous Minds.

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An idiots guide to Google Wave…

Over on Techradar they have a guide to Google wave for those who still don’t get it. For those that just don’t care, Ignore.

We have more invites to Google Wave. If you want one, simply comment or send us an email or tweet.

Christopher Nolan’s New Movie looks…Familiar

Inception is an upcoming Sci-Fi movie from the creator of the Dark Knight set inside the mind. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Ken Watanabe, the film is due out in the summer of 2010.

Facebook still feeling the heat

Facebook is still under fire for the Privacy settings update.

Gawker has a blazing article calling it Facebooks Great Betrayal.

People continue to be seriously annoyed, although, as many have already said, being annoyed won’t do much for them.

Meanwhile our own brush with a Facebook issue, OMGPOP spamming us on the article about the Health Reform bill, is finished as far as we’re concerned.

Having emailed the CEO of OMGPOP and receiving an email back from the email address of the suspect message, an apology has been given.

We were also offered 100,000 credits for our OMGPOP account as an olive branch.

None of us have one, nor will we be signing up to get one.

We haven’t bothered replying since.

Google claimed on Friday that the removal of the Pirate Bay from searches was due to an “error”.

"Google received a (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take-down request that erroneously listed Thepiratebay.org, and as a result, this URL was accidentally removed from the Google search index," Google said in a statement. "We are now correcting the removal, and you can expect to see Thepiratebay.org back in Google search results this afternoon."

The move seemed a little fishy, and it is hard to tell what really was going on. Is Google telling the truth, was it just an error? It would be very likely. But, with all the drama surrounding the Bay in the last year, sinister stirrings seem almost as likely.

Peter Sunde-Kolmisoppi told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagblated that The Pirate Bay’s attorney sent a letter to both Google and the companies that are suspected of being behind the allegations and demanded that the Pirate Bay be returned to Google’s index. The Pirate Bay accused Google of censoring a competitor and of stifling free expression, the paper reported.

Fry on Channel Four talking of his fears over The Tories

I swear, that man could talk about anything, even something I hate, and I’d listen intently to him.

That utter darling Mr.Stephen Fry has been on Channel Four this evening to talk about his fears at the Tories links with a right wing polish political group.

From Channel Four News:

Comics including Stephen Fry want the Conservatives to disassociate themselves from a right-wing European parliament grouping, which they say is homophobic.

The Conservative party insists it can exert influence over the Polish Law and Justice party as members of the same pan-European group.

But the Tories have been urged to make it clear they do not support parties that are alleged to have extreme right-wing views.

Stephen Fry is one of a group of activists, which also includes comedian Eddie Izzard and the Unite union, who have written to David Cameron asking him to reconsider the Conservative party’s links with the Polish Law and Justice party. 

Watch the 6 minute clip.

Supreme Court to look into Animal Cruelty Videos

The U.S Supreme Court is to make judgments on animal cruelty videos.

They will be deciding if videos, like ones circulating on the net of women crushing small animals, will be made illegal like child pornography.

The torture of animals on video for others sexual gratification will be a tough slog to debate and investigate.

Fishing, Hunting and other animal sports may come under the same light as the sick net vids.

LINK to full story.

Zombie Warning Signs

Warning your fellow man about dangerous undead lurking in the area is a great karma booster.

That’s why we loved the following picture collection.

Interbent have a round up of some of the best zombie road signs.

Check them out.

We picked two of our favourites here.

Mr Fonnen picked this one.

Nerin picked this one.

Brizzly Testing

(i love their logo, its like pedobear is wearing the twitter birds skin!)

As some of you that use twitter to follow our site updates know, we got out hands on an activation code (thanks to Stephan Fry) to beta test Brizzly, a new twitter client.

We’ve only just started poking it with a stick, but so far it looks pretty slick. It’s basically what twitter should be.

Want to know what this Brizzly thing is all about and what it can do?

Watch the video:

And yes, Twitter-fiends, because we are testing, we do have ten activation codes. Stay tuned to see how we figure out the best way to let them go.

And finally…

We love Seth Green. He was awesome as Oz in Buffy.

His Chris Crocker impersonation was great.

But poor Seth has blown a gasket like Christian Bale.

Woah. For a small guy, Seth is freaking scary! Like most of the videos we show, this and the rest of them can be watched on our slowly growing Media Centre.

(This video is especially for Sam )