bowls

Is that an Oreo in the sky or are you just using Nokia's Lumia?

Fresh off winning the Super Bowl, or at least the social media advertising wars during the NFL's championship, Oreo is now setting out to conquer the stars in the skies.

The cookie giant has teamed up with Nokia to release a stargazing app for Lumia Windows phones that could result in the heavens above being filled with virtual Oreos.

Called Oreo Skies, the app was designed to let users write messages and tag them to actual stars -- or at least to constellations.

It works like this. First, users can point their Lumia at the skies and pick a … Read more

Play a bowling game on your device with PBA Bowling Challenge

Many people remember the bowling game, popular on the old bar-style Nokia devices, as the first game they played on a cellular telephone. Today the graphics are significantly better and the gameplay is incredibly realistic, but bowling games are still available. PBA Bowling Challenge is fun, easy to play, and perhaps kind of nostalgic.

The download time for this app seems quite long, but the reason is apparent once you begin to play the game. The graphics for PBA Bowling Challenge are not cheap. They are sharp, detailed, and realistic. The animation flows smoothly and the game itself is perfectly … Read more

'SNL' shows why a Super Bowl blackout is a bad thing

Perhaps like you, I have spent much of the week calling my local power provider to check on its use of electrical relay devices.

Spurred by the difficult happenings at last Sunday's Super Bowl -- reportedly caused by one of these devices functioning with all the perfection of a Boeing 787 -- I didn't want any of my weekend events spoiled by a sudden power outage.

"Saturday Night Live" took it upon itself last night to explain to those who were still doubtful why an electrical relay failure can be a devastating thing. Especially during the … Read more

It wasn't Beyonce: Super Bowl outage traced to relay failure

Don't blame Beyonce for this one.

New Orleans utility company Entergy said today that the power outage at the Super Bowl was caused by a problem with an electrical relay device, not by the singer as many people have joked.

The device was specifically installed to protect the Superdome equipment in the event of a cable failure between the switchgear and the stadium. However, the relay, which has functioned fine at events like the New Orleans Bowl and Sugar Bowl, "triggered, signaling a switch to open when it should not have." That, in turn, caused the partial … Read more

Jay Leno kisses nerd in GoDaddy Super Bowl ad re-creation

There are those who would dearly love to kiss Jay Leno.

And there are those who would dearly love to smack him in the kisser.

I have no horse in this face.

But I would like to show you Leno kissing a man. This man is Jesse Heiman, who won a difficult lottery in order to be the one who kissed Bar Refaeli in an ad that ran during the Super Bowl.

In this deeply scripted scenario, Leno believes he is about to re-create the GoDaddy ad and kiss Refaeli.

She performs a switch and makes him kiss Heiman, whose (… Read more

Go Daddy posts top sales after airing model-kissing-geek ad

Apparently advertising really works. Well, at least if it contains a nerdy geek making out with a blonde model.

Web hosting company Go Daddy announced yesterday that it had its biggest Super Bowl sales day ever after its infamous ad aired on Sunday. The site got more new customers and overall sales than after any of its other Super Bowl campaigns.

"Attracting new customers is what advertising is all about," Go Daddy CEO Blake Irving said in a statement. "We set all-time Super Bowl Sunday records for mobile sales, Website Builders, website hosting and new customers." … Read more

Where were you when the lights went out?

Where was I when the lights went out?

I was at my post for the game in the CBS operations center inside the Superdome, sitting next to our head of NFL sales and our director of operations. As with every Super Bowl, we stayed in constant communication with the production truck to make sure all the commercials and promo spots played as scheduled. There are formats, rules, and procedures, and our job is to oversee them. We are there for quality control, and usually it all goes right.

Nothing prepared us for what we heard over the director's intercom: &… Read more

The 404 1,202: Where we get a shave and a price cut (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- An asteroid is coming, and scientists are excited. Fear not, Earth is safe.

- Search for near-Earth asteroids needs a speed boost.

- Take a peek at Domino's Pizza's Super Bowl "war room."

- Free food: Pizza Hut introduces "Sliders."… Read more

Report: Twitter buys social TV analytics company BlueFin Labs

Twitter has reportedly acquired BlueFin Labs, which generates social TV analytics, in a deal which is said to be the social-networking giant's biggest-ever.

According to Business Insider, Twitter has closed a deal to buy BlueFin, a company that specializes in helping media companies understand how people use social media in conjunction with their TV watching.

As Business Insider wrote, "Twitter's move into social TV makes a lot of sense. It hired a Head of TV last fall and there's a strong correlation between people watching shows and tweeting about them. Just look at last night's … Read more