Our long, national nightmare is over! Two years ago, during Super Bowl XLIII, the Arizona Cardinals took the lead with a fourth-quarter touchdown by Larry Fitzgerald. And during that touchdown, a 30-second clip of porn appeared on the screen alongside Mr. Fitzgerald. The Pittsburgh Steelers ended up winning that game, but were most likely not distracted by the porn since only Tucson low-definition cable subscribers saw the clip. And it only took two years to find out who was responsible! Um, really?

Often considered the go-to source for comic book news for the last two decades, Wizard Magazine is rumored to be shutting down its print operation effective immediately. First reported by Rich Johnston, a veteran reporter with Bleeding Cool News, the rumors of Wizard’s shut down were swiftly followed by a press release from Wizard World, Wizard’s parent company, announcing the creation of a new online-only publication.

From the press release:

Wizard World plans to launch in February 2011 an all-new digital magazine called ‘Wizard World’ that will appeal to pop-culture fans, the same audience to which Mr. Shamus has catered to, for over 20 years. Wizard World digital magazine will provide coverage of the world of comic books, toys and superheroes, and the personalities behind them.

Wizard’s website and comic conventions appear to be unaffected.

With Wizard’s passing goes the last print publication covering the comic book industry. Much of that coverage has since moved on-line, and other traditional news outlets like the New York Times have begun paying closer attention to comic books, which may be a contributing factor in Wizard’s demise. However, the fact that print coverage of the industry is apparently unsustainable may have more serious implications for comic book publishers which still rely on print products.

Update:

Newsarama is now reporting that Toyfare will also be shutting down. This has been confirmed in an email from Wizard World PR, stating:

Wizard Entertainment is ceasing publication of the print magazines Wizard and ToyFare.  Wizard World, Inc. will begin production of the online publication “Wizard World” beginning in February.   We feel this will allow us to reach an even wider audience in a format that is increasingly popular and more readily accessible.

(via Bleeding Cool News, Newsarama)

Google has just announced that its longtime CEO Eric Schmidt will be stepping down April 4 as CEO, with company co-founder Larry Page replacing him. Google says that this an effort to “streamline decision making and create clearer lines of responsibility at the top of the company.”

Schmidt writes:

For the last 10 years, we have all been equally involved in making decisions. This triumvirate approach has real benefits in terms of shared wisdom, and we will continue to discuss the big decisions among the three of us. But we have also agreed to clarify our individual roles so there’s clear responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.

Schmidt says that he will stay with Google, acting as the company’s executive chairman, and will “focus wherever I can add the greatest value: externally, on the deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership that are increasingly important given Google’s global reach; and internally as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.”

Owen Thomas notes that Page was the original Google CEO from 1998-2001, and writes based on their personal correspondence that “Page has long held an interest in the top role”; one interesting thing that Thomas points out is that in stepping down from the role of company president to “Co-Founder,” Sergey Brin gives up some real power, though he’ll continue to be a respected authority within Google.

(Via PaidContent)

We had better stop global warming now, because when the robot uprising comes only the bears will save us.

(via Reddit, YouTube link via Neatorama.)

Minecraft overlord Notch just announced via his Tumblr that Minecraft has entered its beta phase. The accompanying updates are as follows:

• Working server-side inventory
• Survival multiplayer servers don’t save chunks as often, and chunks don’t resave if they’ve been saved in the past thirty seconds
• Moving too far away from a container, or having it blow up, closes the inventory screen
• Fixed the /kill command
• Reintroduced leaf decay
• Egg items are now throwable
• Added “super exclusive” clan cloaks for Mojan Employees
• “…and something, which is even more rare”

The last two lines of the update are extremely interesting, in that Minecraft clans might make an appearance sometime in the future, and of course, the secretive “rare” addition will surely trigger rampant speculation.

(more…)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has reportedly been granted bail by a London judge. When Assange turned himself in last week, he was initially denied bail.

Assange’s bail has been set at £240,000. However, there are additional conditions: Heather Brooke reports live from the courtroom via Twitter that Assange has to wear an electronic tag, surrender his passport, obey curfews from 10am-2pm and 10pm-2am, and report to the local police station at 6pm every day.

(via MSNBC, Heather Brooke)

The first trailer for the next installment in Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, dropped tonight at the Spike Video Game Awards. The Spike VGAs may embarrass many of us gamers, but it’s becoming more difficult to dismiss the award show when it graces us with world premiere trailers for series as incredible as Uncharted.

The trailer comes with an added bonus: A release date! November 1, 2011 can’t come soon enough.

(Spike Video Game Awards via GameTrailers)

Corvidae.  Remind us to hire some the next time we need someone distracted, harassed, or misdirected.

(via BoingBoing.)

Bleeding Cool has the scoop on what, if true, is an enormous deal in the world of manga: It’s reported that Akira Toriyama, creator of the venerable Dragon Ball franchise, is about to relaunch Dragon Ball comics.

Bleeding Cool:

This morning we received word that Shueisha Publishing Company of Tokyo has convinced legendary manga creator Akira Toriyama to come back and restart the Dragon Ball comics franchise.

…

Akira Toriyama has been persuaded to return to creating new chapters. Partly to help promote the [forthcoming Dragon Ball Online MMO] game, partly to earn the boat load of cash he has been promised.

Something that will make this event even more spectacular is a simultaneous fully translated worldwide launch of the new book.

Toriyama wrote the 519-chapter, 42-volume manga series from 1984 to 1995: On television, it was split into two very successful animated series, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, which successfully managed to combine humor, action, and, yes, interminably long fight sequences and increasingly ridiculous (but still charming) Power Levels.

(The Dragon Ball GT animated series was not based on any manga by Toriyama, and it showed; and darnit, AF was an urban legend.)

While Bleeding Cool’s report is focused solely on the comics business, if Toriyama does indeed write more Dragon Ball comics for the first time in 15 years, it seems hard to believe that these new storylines wouldn’t ripple over into other media. The Dragon Ball franchise has made more than four billion dollars in merchandising sales, and the franchise is still strong enough that the likes of Nickelodeon and The CW can still slap “Kai” on the name and repackage old DBZ episodes and have a hit. If there are more comics, could there be a new animated series as well? If so, expect Power Levels that make 9000 look positively paltry by comparison.

Microsoft announced Office 365, what essentially amounts to their answer to Google’s many cloud-based services, like Google Docs. The service will have two subscription models: Office 365 for Small Businesses is best suited for 1 to 25 people at $6 a month, and Office 365 for Enterprises is fully customizable version to better fit a company’s needs and will cost anywhere from $2 to $27 per user per month depending on what features the company desires.