alicia keys

Alicia Keys gives PowerPoint presentation to BlackBerry

It would be easy to think that no one, no one was buying BlackBerrys right now.

Somehow, the brand -- at least in the U.S. -- appears to be enduring a soporific phase. Why, only the other day, some highly unreliable research suggested that it was the phone that people least wanted to buy.

BlackBerry, though, believes bigger and brighter days are ahead. Recently, it hired Alicia Keys as its creative director.

Some pointed out, to BlackBerry's discomfort, that Keys was an iPhone user with an iOS app.

Just as that information reverberated, Keys was seen tweeting from … Read more

BlackBerry's Alicia Keys tweets from iPhone, claims a hack

When you've done product launches for Nokia, regularly use an iPhone, and are now creative director of BlackBerry, perhaps one smartphone just looks like another.

Perhaps, though, when you're the new creative director of BlackBerry, it's best to leave your iPhone at home.

Otherwise, bad things might happen. Like tweeting from it. Or having someone hack it and tweet from it.

As the Verge reports, Keys today offered the profound thought: "Started from the bottom now were here," to all of her Twitter followers.

This obvious spontaneity seems to have been sent from a Twitter … Read more

Crave Ep. 107: Madden NFL 13 predicts Super Bowl XLVII

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Sorry, San Francisco. An annual Madden NFL Super Bowl simulation predicts the Ravens will trump the 49ers in the final seconds of Sunday's Big Game. Get on this, Vegas! And with "Star Wars" in the news, Crave asks if J.J. Abrams can pull off the impossible directing both "Star Wars Episode VII" and "Star Trek." Are you into it or not into it? Maybe a J.J. Abrams and "Star Wars"-themed musical will help you decide.

The 404 1,198: Where we captcha your mace face (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- This man will take your picture while macing you.

- Ticketmaster does one thing right, dumps captchas.

- PornHub's rejected SFW Super Bowl ad is brilliant marketing.

- Swedish police raid teenagers playing Call of Duty.… Read more

Oops: BlackBerry's Alicia Keys is an iPhone user, has an iOS app

BlackBerry's newest global creative director, recording artist Alicia Keys, must have been given an offer she couldn't refuse.

Keys, who today said would help "inspire the future" of BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion), is a longtime Apple user. That includes tweeting from iOS devices, and publishing her photography app Alicia Keys Photo Booth exclusively on the App Store. Keys also uses Facebook-owned Instagram -- which is not yet available on BlackBerry's platform -- where she has more than 1.6 million followers.

In a question and answer session with reporters following today's BlackBerry event, … Read more

BlackBerry goes glam, enlists Alicia Keys

BlackBerry wants to be hip, and it's going to Alicia Keys for help.

The Canadian smartphone maker, which previously called itself Research In Motion, today named Keys as its global creative director. The position is one BlackBerry created to help "inspire the future" of the company.

Keys said she previously was a BlackBerry power user, but she left the platform after noticing sexier phones at the gym. For a while she had two phones, but Keys has now moved back to just a BlackBerry.

It's typical for companies to seek endorsements for their products, and some … Read more

Lady Gaga quits Facebook, Twitter for charity

Stars sometimes cause us vast moral dilemmas.

Should we support those stars who gyrate appallingly, but whose music we secretly love? Should we adore those stars whose songs we adore, but whose personal life seems a sewer of broken hearts and severed senses?

Now there is another parameter to this axis of complication.

Lady Gaga, she of the interesting designer fashions and music for gym clothes, is, along with other stars, quitting Facebook and Twitter.

There are those for whom this news might signify disaster on a worldwide scale. Lady Gaga, after all, has more than 7 million Twitter followers, … Read more

Inside the short, troubled life of a music start-up

The dot-com era had eToys, Webvan, and Pets.com. The digital-entertainment boom has SpiralFrog.

The day SpiralFrog likely reserved a corner in the pantheon of the Web's most noteworthy busts came on July 14, 2008. At 2 a.m. that day, an agitated Amir Khan, an executive at hedge fund 3V Capital Management, SpiralFrog's main financial backer, e-mailed several fellow board members at the pioneering ad-supported music service.

Khan was frustrated by SpiralFrog's marketing efforts. In one case, the start-up spent $300,000 to host a video from pop singer Alicia Keys that managers claimed would draw … Read more