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Naughty Dog today revealed that its highly anticipated PlayStation 3 exclusive The Last of Us has been delayed. The release date for the title was originally May 7, but has been pushed back more than a month to June 14.

The delay was announced by Neil Druckmann, lead game designer at Naughty Dog, through a post to the PlayStation Blog. Druckmann stated that the game needs a “few extra weeks” of polishing. From the blog post:

The Last of Us is an ambitious project. In many ways it may be Naughty Dog’s most ambitious project to date – brand new universe and cast of characters, brand new tech, brand new genre, not to mention it’s easily the longest campaign Naughty Dog has ever made.

As we entered the final phase of development for The Last of Us, we came to realize just how massive Joel and Ellie’s journey is. But instead of cutting corners or compromising our vision, we came to the tough decision that the game deserved a few extra weeks to ensure every detail of The Last of Us was up to Naughty Dog’s internal high standards.

Though game delays are always frustrating news for fans who can’t wait to get their hands on a title, The Last of Us fans can take solace in the fact that they aren’t being toyed with the way Rayman fans are. Gamers who are fans of both Naughty Dog and Rayman can feel free to vent their frustrations in the comment section below.

According to YouTube, “Harlem Shake” is the biggest video trend of the month. As of Tuesday, YouTube had seen 12,000 Harlem Shake videos with 44 million views.

As YouTube’s Kevin Allocca points out, the meme first started gaining traction last week, thanks to a video from Filthy Frank, but it was SunnyCoastSkate, who established the form most are familiar with.

“From there, the spin-offs spread very quickly,” he says. “As of the 11th, around 12,000 ‘Harlem Shake’ videos had been posted since the start of the month and they’d already been watched upwards of 44 million times. As you can see in the chart below, over 4,000 of these videos are being uploaded per day and that number is still likely on the rise.”

YouTube has created a playlist with some of the most popular versions. Prepare to feel dumber.

Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers is a grand title, and it’s been held by some pretty impressive academic economists over the years (Arthur Okun, Marty Feldstein, Joe Stiglitz, Ben Bernanke, Cristina Romer — to name a not-entirely-randomly chosen few). But it’s usually hard to detect the Chairman’s fingerprints in administration economic policy. The big decisions are made in the West Wing of the White House, not over in the Executive Office Building where the Council is housed.

So when a chairman does have a clear impact, it gets noticed. Then-chairman Glenn Hubbard, for example, pushed for and got a reduction in taxes on dividends in 2003. And, in the State of the Union Address Tuesday night, current Chairman Alan Krueger got a kind of shout-out from the President, in the form of a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage all the way from $7.25 to $9 and index it to inflation after that.

In 1992, when New Jersey raised the state minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.05, Krueger and his then-Princeton colleague David Card surveyed 410 fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania before and after the wage hike. The idea was to compare changes in fast-food employment in New Jersey, where the minimum wage had risen, with those in Pennsylvania, where it stayed constant at $4.25. The surprising result: fast-food employment went up in New Jersey relative to Pennsylvania.

This was surprising because the basic supply-and-demand model of economics teaches that, when you raise the price of something (in this case, low-skilled labor) demand for it will go down. There had been a number of philosophical objections posed to this approach through the years — among them the argument that employers possess more power and information than individual workers in most labor markets, allowing them to push wages below the optimal level in the absence of collective bargaining or government intervention. But Card and Krueger now had empirical evidence that the “textbook model,” as they put it, didn’t work. The New Jersey fast food restaurants did pass their increased wage costs on to customers in the form of higher prices — but they weren’t enough higher to hurt business.

This research was a sensation, as economic research goes. It got lots of media attention back in the early 1990s, and has continued to inspire economist after economist to attempt to refute or back up its conclusions (Google Scholar lists 8,780 citations, and Wikipedia summarizes some of the major work). It’s probably accurate to say that most economists still don’t believe that raising minimum wages is a reliable way to increase employment (one hopes that Brian Barry and Anil Kashyap of the University of Chicago will ask their Economic Experts Panel about this soon) — but I also get the sense that the percentage of economists who think it has a substantial negative effect on employment has declined since the initial Card-Krueger research was published. Economists in general have become a bit less trusting of “textbook models” than they were in the 1970s through 1990s. And while it’s dangerous to equate changing fashions in the economics profession with truth, I’ll go ahead say that the business groups making dire claims about the negative economic impact of a minimum wage increase are mostly blowing smoke.

What ails the U.S. economy, and in particular its workers, though, goes well beyond the minimum wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 3.8 million people, or about 3% of the country’s wage and salary workers, made the minimum wage or less in 2011. Yet workers across the income spectrum, except for those at the very top, have been stuck in neutral for a while. Except for a brief uptick during the dot-com era, labor’s share of income has been on a steady decline since the early 1970s. Through the years, this has been mostly attributed to globalization (capital can go anywhere on the globe in search of the highest return, while workers are generally stuck in the country they came from) and technological change (machines are replacing workers). Lately there’s increasing sentiment, perhaps not so much among economists as among others who care about economic policy, that maybe political decisions and changing social mores have played big a role, too.

As Jonathan Schlefer wrote on hbr.org in November, early economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo believed wages were set by “habits and customs of the people,” to use Ricardo’s words, as much as by economic forces. That’s where something like the minimum wage — or collective bargaining by labor unions — comes in. If, in a free market, the wages and salaries paid closely approximate the actual value of the work done, then minimum-wage laws and unions can only get in the way. But if labor markets are naturally riddled with inefficiency and affected by custom and habit, then laws and unions can conceivably bring a healthier economy — and higher profits for business — by raising wages.

Studies of retailers seem to indicate that this might the case. So does the current example of the Northern European countries, which combine strong unions and high wages with higher competitiveness rankings than the U.S.

Of course, it’s really hard to imagine at this point that unions will ever regain much of a foothold in the U.S. private sector. The minimum wage is irrelevant to most of the workforce, too. And it may still be that most reliable way to increase the wages of American workers is simply to upgrade their skills. But I get the sense that the conversation about pay in the United States is just getting started — and that it’s not going to be dominated by the models out of economics textbooks.

Mozilla announced back in October that it would release a Metro Modern UI version of Firefox. At the time, the company released a “preview” version that was code named “Elm” which was an offshoot of the Nightly builds that the company produces for those users who wish to live on the bleeding edge of technology.

The day has finally arrived where that test build has graduated to an actual Nightly build. Yesterday evening Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler announced that “preliminary Metro Firefox development work arrived at mozilla-central, the source code repository that feeds the Firefox Nightly channel”.

The first Metro version did indeed roll out last night for those who subscribe to the Nightly channel, which generally provides a stable version of the browser, but is certainly a more dicey build than those provided from the Stable, Beta and Aurora channels. “There’s plenty of work still to do, but it’s stable enough that we’re ready for more and more regular testing” Dotzler states.

You can grab the new Firefox in either an Express or Standard download. There are versions for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. The build is labeled as “21.0a1” and it will run along side your current version of Firefox, so no need to worry that it will overwrite your nice, stable browser.

While there is a Metro version of the new web browser, it is difficult to get. You will need to set Firefox as your default browser and set “http” to open within the Mozilla browser. Even then you may have trouble accessing the new interface, as I did. It clearly is not yet ready for prime time. Firefox Metro lags behind Chrome Metro in its development, but is also in “day one”.

Honey Boo Boo has taken the world by storm, whether we like it or not, and her mom, June Shannon, is getting her fair share of press lately.

The entire family–featured on TLC’s “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”–has made headlines over the past several months for their penchant for eating something called “sketti”, farting, participating in the Redneck Games, and the Mt. Dew habit most of them seem to have (even little Honey Boo Boo herself, who uses it to get some energy before pageants). But recently, they’ve also garnered some attention for the good things they do, such as collecting toys, clothes, and money for the needy during the holidays. And despite the unconventional way they lead their lives, they are also getting strong, positive attention for continuing to be themselves–including staying in the same home they lived in before making big money with the show–no matter how popular they get. June Shannon has even said that the money her daughters make from appearances on the show goes straight into a trust fund and is untouchable until they reach a certain age.

With all the attention they’re getting, it’s no surprise that June is rumored to be up for a spot on “Dancing With The Stars”. And while a rep for TLC has said the rumors are untrue, some are hoping she’ll take a chance and sign up.

Shannon recently announced that she’d lost 115 pounds due to a rigorous shooting schedule and being more active, and many are applauding her for it.

“I have lost 115 pounds, but that’s because I’m on the go. We love fried food, but I lost that weight because I’m more active doing things,” she said.

Image: TLC

Early last year, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange found that he could technically run for the Australian senate while under house arrest in London. A lot has happened since then, but Assange’s political aspirations have not diminished.

The Age reports that Julian Assange will be on the ballot for thet Australian Senate in Victoria come election time on September 14. He has been registered under the Wikileaks Party, a newly formed political party comprised of 10 close friends of Assange and pro-Wikileaks activists.

The newly formed party, according to Assange’s father John Shipton, will be focused on “the democratic requirement of truthfulness from government.” It’s obviously a very Wikileaks-centric platform, but the party has yet to mention how it will use this to appeal to voters who probably have more than just government secrets on the mind.

So, how does this all work? Assange is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London as he evades a state mandated extradition to Sweden. The Age explains that Assange is eligible as an overseas elector:

Australian citizens living overseas can enrol to vote as an overseas elector, and consequently run as a Senate candidate if they left Australia within the past three years and intend to return within six years of their date of departure.

The rules make Assange eligible to run, but there’s a very real possibility that he would not be able to return to Australia even if he did win. If that turns out to be the case, he will appoint a Wikileaks party nominee to the seat.

This is a strage, but not unexpected, turn of events. Assange may just be popular enough to win the election in September. If it’s successful, we may just start seeing Wikileaks parties popping up in countries all over the world, especially Europe. The continent has already seen an increase of applications for the alternative Pirate Party, which has already won a number of seats in various levels of government across Europe.

I’ve got to say, my BlackBerry Z10 is amazing, and with BlackBerry World it’s truly a pocket-size tour de force. BlackBerry World brings movies, music, games, apps and themes – in other words, a comprehensive gateway to all of my media needs.

With so much new content in BlackBerry World, I thought you might enjoy a rundown of what I’ve been downloading and how I use the platform. While Melanie and I recently told you about the first apps we downloaded on our new BlackBerry Z10 smartphones, I wanted to share some of the new movies and music you can download from BlackBerry World.

Since I was getting ready for my trip to Amsterdam for BlackBerry Jam Europe, I was excited to download the first four seasons of Modern Family. (I also downloaded Flight, but then realized it might not be the best movie to watch while flying overseas.) Luckily I downloaded some of my favorite music and checked out some new albums, and of course songs from our very own Global Creative Director at BlackBerry, Alicia Keys. No matter your taste in music and movies, you’ll find what you want in BlackBerry World.

We’re constantly working with great developers to bring BlackBerry 10 apps to BlackBerry World, so keep checking back for new additions! What apps do you want to see?

German luxury brand Loewe experienced a roller coaster day. A trader commented that “Apple supposedly wants to bid 4 euros a share for Loewe,” which sent Loewe shares up as much as 44.5 percent to 3.93 compared to yesterday’s closing price of 2.72. The German stock exchange closed today with Loewe shares trading at 3.35, representing a one-day increase of 23.16 percent.

In May 2012, rumors surfaced on AppleInsider that the company was interested in the German TV manufacturer. Even though Loewe denied the rumor and Apple declined to comment, a buyout wouldn’t be a big risk for Apple. Loewe’s market capitalization is around $58.6 million (€43.58 million).

Yet, Apple would have to convince major shareholders. Sharp now owns 28.8 percent of shares, Loewe’s executives 14 percent and hard-drive manufacturer LaCie 11.2 percent. The German company reported $39 million (€29 million) in losses in 2012. Selling the company to Apple or anyone else would be a way to exit the tedious luxury TV market.

The company is currently trying to cut 1,000 jobs, as well, in order to reduce costs. TV sets remain Loewe’s core product, but the company now manufactures Blu-ray players, DVD recorders, hard-disk recorders, multiroom systems, speakers and racks.

For Apple, Loewe could represent another small strategic acquisition. Yesterday, Tim Cook said that the company closes a deal every other month.

But analysts and traders may be reading too far into the rumors, which were alone responsible for Loewe’s share increase today. It remains to be seen whether those analysts are too excited by Apple’s rumored TV plans or whether they are actually hearing talks between the two companies.

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason is not very happy with the state of sandwich shops. More specifically, he’s not very happy about their mayonaise policies.

The quirky executive took to Twitter today to rant about the issue (hat tip to Forbes).

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Andrew Mason
@andrewmason

I am about to my first multipart twitter rant, even though as I sit here about to embark I realize I am acting emotionally and may regret

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1 hour ago via Tweetbot for iOS · powered by @socialditto

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Andrew Mason
@andrewmason

It. The topic is sandwich stores that put mayonnaise on all or most of their sandwiches by default – it makes no sense. Even if you like

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Andrew Mason
@andrewmason

Mayonnaise I would think you would prefer to have it on te side so you can admit yourself – will make the bread less soggy. Sandwich stores

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Andrew Mason
@andrewmason

Would lose exactly zero sales by requiring mayonnaise lovers to manually apply their mayonnaise and they would attract a lot of new

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Andrew Mason
@andrewmason

Customers who would otherwise be really interested I. Their sandwiches. This is an especially annoying issue in the uk which seems to be

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Andrew Mason
@andrewmason

Going through a sort of sandwich store renaissance period but its completely off limits to those of us who don’t like mayonnaise.

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One can only help but wonder if any of Groupon’s restaurant customers are guilty.

As we argued in a recent post about how publishers can make the most of their star writers — including offering “pay walls” around specific authors — the way we consume news and other content is changing, in the sense that individual brands are as important (or possibly even more so) than publishing brands. Now a Dutch publisher is betting the future of his business on that model: De Nieuwe Pers, or The New Press, has just launched a mobile app for iOS that allows readers to subscribe to individual writers.

The New Press is funded by publisher and CEO Jan-Jaap Heij and a partner, and arose from the ashes of a previous free newspaper called De Pers or The Press. After about five years of operation, the paper was forced to shut down last year as a result of losses incurred during the financial crisis in Europe, Heij told me in an interview from The Netherlands — but instead of closing its doors entirely, the editor decided to create a new entity with many of the same staff and focus solely on mobile news and content.

Readers can subscribe to one writer or a package

Launched on Monday, the New Press app is powered by a company called imgZine, and allows users to pay about $2.50 per month or $23 per year for a subscription to the entire output of a specific author or journalist, or about $6 a month and $50 per year for a package of all the writers who are currently being syndicated through the platform — a total of 11, according to Heij, with a goal of having more than 50 by the end of the year. In the future, he said, The New Press may also offer packages of writers focused around specific topics such as sports or crime.

Jan-Jaap Heij by Frank Groeliken

Although it is still early, Heij says there has been a substantial amount of interest in the app, and not just from users but from journalists and writers as well. As part of its deal with the authors that it distributes, The New Press shares 75 percent of the subscription revenue with them (after paying Apple its 30-percent cut), and if they get 500 or more subscribers to sign up, they get 85 percent. “We have had about 200 people approach us about being part of the service,” Heij says. “After the launch, my mailbox just exploded with requests from journalists.”

Why did The New Press decide to offer a subscription feature for its writers instead of going the traditional route of a blanket paywall or just a charge for the app? Heij says he believes that media is becoming much more about individual brands than institutional ones, and The New Press wanted to take advantage of that phenomenon:

“As we see it, people are now starting to follow journalists as brands and not the media they work for. A lot of journalists have way more followers on Twitter and Facebook than the brands the media company that publishes them, and I think it’s because people want to hear individual voices, not institutional voices. Media brands are losing power and personal brands are becoming more important.”

Heij said that while individual writers have always had strong personal brands, “it’s far more easy than it was even 5 years ago to publish yourself” and build your own following — to the point where some writers such as star blogger Andrew Sullivan have severed any ties to a traditional media outlet and set up their own publishing operation driven by subscriptions.

Maybe not the only answer, but one of many

The New Press publisher said that the current selection of writers is a mix of established or “star” names from different sectors of the journalism market, as well as newer writers who show promise and are willing to experiment. All sign freelance contracts with The New Press, and while they don’t require a certain number of articles per week or per month, Heij says that the expectation is that they will work hard for their channel or “one push of a button and they are gone.”

Some of the content related to its writers is free, the New Press publisher said — such as blog posts from other sites or their Twitter stream, for example — but the majority is behind the subscription wall. Some journalists have been using the service to publish their older material from other sites, he said, while others are writing daily or weekly pieces specifically for The New Press, and some are a mix of both approaches. The New Press also has staff writers who do a live-news blog that is free to users.

So is the personal subscription model the future of media? The New Press publisher says he isn’t prepared to go that far, but he thinks it will be a crucial part of the future of content:

“We see ourselves as a combination of a newspaper, a news app and a publishing platform. People have asked me whether this is the answer to the crisis in journalism and I have said I don’t think it’s *the* answer, but it is one possible answer.”

Heij, who made a substantial amount of money investing when he was younger, says that he and his partner have invested about 100,000 Euros in The New Press, and the venture also raised about 25,000 Euros through a crowdfunding effort to launch the app. “I’m quite certain we will lose money at the start, because everything you do in media tends to lose money at the start,” he said. “But I am optimistic that this could turn out to be a very significant business.”

Images courtesy of imgZine / Frank Groeliken and Shutterstock / artjazz and Flickr user George Kelly

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It’s not hard to imagine why Netflix has decided to focus on original programming (most recently with House of Cards and now with an animated children’s series). Making oneself an exclusive source for a show starring Kevin Spacey is a great way to sweeten the value proposition and compete with Hulu and Amazon. Plus, eventually every grocer wants to be a P&G. Why merely manage the channel when you can start filling it?

But Hollywood is not just any industry. It’s the true north of our culture. To become a broker here! Think of the power! Think of the parties! And this is why so many are called. Everyone would like to be a player and Hollywood is littered with the wreckage of careers of people who looked at the entertainment industry and thought, “I would love to be a big shot and, anyhow, how hard can it be?” It turns out that making entertainment is extremely hard. Even Disney can make a stinker like John Carter. Even very talented people (the Weinstein brothers or Bonnie Hammer, for instance) make mistakes.

So does Netflix have an edge? Is there any reason to think they can flourish where so many have failed? The apparent answer is data. Netflix has lots and lots of data. They know what we watch, when we watch, where we stop watching, where we repeat a scene, where we reach for the fast-forward button, and most critically, when we break off and move on. They know which movies sell well at 8:00 on a Friday night and which ones we like to watch on Sunday afternoon. They can surmise which directors, writers, and stars produce the most watchable entertainment. They have magnificent data.

And that’s a tragedy. Netflix has so much data that they are going to be tempted to climb into the creative tent and start offering “advice.” I mean, what is all that data (and power) for, if it doesn’t let you call some shots? They can claim to know exactly what works and what does not. Well, sorry, no. Knowing that something works leaves us a long way from knowing why something works. And this leaves us a long way from knowing how to reproduce it in another movie. The only thing this data can be absolutely sure to produce is arrogance. We have seen this mistake before.

As HBO CEO Richard Piepler explained during the Harvard Business School Entertainment and Media Summit, it’s important to give talent creative freedom. “What happened to us, which is very instructive for any company or any business, is that we fell in love with what we were doing. We got elected to the top of the entertainment firmament and we liked it there. We forgot the insurgent voice and we got arrogant…We lost the very DNA which helped us get where we were, which is that talent wanted to be in our house.” HBO had stopped being a place “where painters could paint.”

Piepler is right. There is a larger issue here, especially as every enterprise learns to speak to a dynamic, sometimes chaotic world with a new order of creativity and innovation. Everyone, not just Netflix, has to learn how to manage “painters.”

This means that whatever the data say, Netflix cannot tell a director, “We need a fight scene here.” And it really can’t say, “We need a fight scene at the 14-minute mark.” Doing so, will not only drive creatives away, but viewers as well. As Henry Jenkins has said, viewers are newly sophisticated and critical. They can see formula a long way off. They can see plot mechanics the second they hit the screen. And the moment this happens, they are off.

Netflix, therefore, will have to temper their itch to intervene. Naturally, we are not talking carte blanche here. We are not saying that we take any artist and turn them loose. Because we know a great deal of capital has been squandered by creatives keen to prove how artistic and avant garde they are. No, what we need are culture producers who are — in the language of Goldilocks — “just right.” They need to be able to tell a story and obey some of the story-telling conventions even as they do new and interesting things to break and bend those conventions. Only then will painters paint and patrons watch.

Thanks to Erik Rodin and Leora Kornfeld for contributions to this piece.

A new European Space Agency (ESA) study has shown that Arctic sea ice has declined significantly since 2003.

The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, has confirmed that Arctic ice volume is declining, rather than just sea ice coverage. The paper shows that the ice has declined by (36%) during the fall months and 9% during winter since 2003. The decline in sea ice during summer, though, was shown to be the greatest.

“The data reveal that thick sea ice has disappeared from a region to the north of Greenland, the Canadian Archipelago and to the northeast of Svalbard,” said Katharine Giles, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) in the U.K.

The data used in the study was collected using the NASA’s ICESat satellite and the ESA’s CryoSat satellite, which uses its high-resolution radar altimeter to fire microwave pulses at the arctic. The pulses bounce off of both the surface ice and the water below, giving researchers a measurement with which to estimate volume.

“Other satellites have already shown drops in the area covered by Arctic sea ice as the climate has warmed, but CryoSat allows scientists to estimate the volume of sea ice – a much more accurate indicator of the changes taking place in the Arctic,” said Tommaso Parrinello, CryoSat mission manager.

Game developer 10tons is putting 2 BlackBerry 10 games on sale for Valentine’s Day. Sparkle and Joining Hands are now available for 99 cents and available on BlackBerry World.

Sparkle is a match-3 marble launching game. It takes finesse and accuracy to get the timing right. Score huge bonus points by stringing together explosive combos. Sparkle was $2.99 so this title is now 67% off!

Click here to buy Sparkle for BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook for 99 cents.

Joining Hands launched to rave reviews for it’s innovative touchscreen gameplay and clever puzzle game mechanics. The object of the game is to join the hands of your Peablin characters so that they don’t get taken away by the Bogeyman. The game has really cute art and is suitable for all ages. Joining Hands used to retail for $1.99 so it’s an amazing deal at 50% off.

Click here to buy Joining Hands for BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook for 99 cents.

News Corp is spinning off its own publishing division, and now Time Warner is reportedly looking to sell off Time Inc., its publishing division, Time publication Fortune reported Wednesday. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both reported late Wednesday afternoon that the potential buyer is Meredith, which publishes women’s magazines like Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal.

According to the Fortune article, which cited unidentified sources:

In one scenario, most of the company’s publishing titles, such as People, InStyle, and Real Simple, would be carved out and rolled into an independent company and sold to the undisclosed buyer. Under this plan, Time Warner would maintain control of at least three titles – Time, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune – according to the sources. A Time Warner spokesman says, “We never comment on speculations of this nature.”

The New York Times, also citing unidentified sources, elaborated that “Meredith did not express interest in purchasing Time Inc.’s sluggish news titles.”

In 2012, Time Inc. contributed $3.4 billion in revenue to Time Warner’s total revenues of $28.7 billion — a decline from 2011, which the company attributed to lower subscription and advertising revenues. The publishing division laid off about 500 people — roughly 6 percent of its global workforce — in January.

It’s unclear who a potential buyer for Time Inc. might be. BDT Capital, the bank that Fortune reports is involved in the deal, has ties to Warren Buffett, leading AdAge to speculate that Buffett could be involved in the deal.

This story was updated at 5:00 p.m. ET to reflect reports from the WSJ and NYT that Time Inc.’s potential buyer is Meredith.

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Last week, representatives of 20 hardware makers came together in Google’s Seoul, South Korea office to talk about the future of Google TV, I’ve learned from a person with knowledge of the gathering. During two days of workshops, the companies were told about upcoming Google TV technologies and also talked about future devices powered by Google TV.

I’ve also learned a bit about who was part of this meeting: Unsurprisingly, the list of attendees included representatives from device makers like LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL, as well as chipset manufacturers such as Marvell and MediaTek.

But at least two of the participating companies weren’t previously announced as Google TV partners: Nemustech is a South Korean software systems integrator that also develops launchers and UX frameworks for Android mobile phones, and Wistron is a Taiwanese original design manufacturer that builds TV sets for Sony and others.

Some of these partners have already started to work with the next generation of the Google TV software, which received its last significant update last fall. That makes it likely that we will see another big Google TV update before the end of the year.

It’s unclear yet how that next generation of Google TV will look like. Vizio CTO Matt McRae told GigaOM in January that at least some future Google TV devices could ditch the HDMI pass-through of live TV signals and instead look much more like competing devices from Roku and Apple TV with a clear focus on online streaming apps.

Check out my interview with Matt McRae below:

Image courtesy of Flickr user SLR Jester.

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Hello there indiscriminate texters! I’m here to offer you a new solution to all of those embarrassing late-night texts that you send to your exes. It’s much better than saying you were drunk, because even that implies some sort of consciousness.

May I present to you, “sleep-texting.”

“It’s just what you’d think it is, it’s texting while asleep,” says Elizabeth Dowdell, nursing professor at Villanova University. “It’s exactly what is sounds like, or really more between that, you know, that area between being asleep and being awake.”

“The phone will beep, they’ll answer the text. They’ll either respond in words or gibberish. (It) can even be inappropriate. Ex-girlfriends contacting ex-boyfriends, saying ‘I miss you. I want to see you.’ The thing that happens, though, is that when they wake up, there’s no memory.”

People have been known to do any number of strange things whilst technically “asleep” or in some sort of strange limbo between asleep and awake. You know, like make a sandwich or murder someone. But sleep-texting?

“Oh, sorry Jesse. I’m sorry I texted you that your new girlfriend looks like Sloth and she gives off a perpetual stink-eye. I don’t even remember it, I was actually sleep-texting.”

Apparently the sleep-texting crisis is being brought on by stress and lack of sleep. So pretty much like every other problem. If you have a sleep-texting problem and want to do something about it, it helps to make your bedroom “technology-free” or at least put your iPhone on the other side of the damn room.

[CBS Philly via UPROXX]

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Google announced the launch of new Search Funnels columns in AdWords so advertisers can add them to their campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ad tabs.

“Search Funnels show you how users search for products before converting, allowing you to make better informed decisions in AdWords. Now, we’re making it easier than ever to incorporate Search Funnels data into your everyday optimizations,” Google AdWords product manager Dan Friedman says.

“If you’ve enabled conversion tracking, you’ll be able to see a new section within the column customizer for Search Funnels,” he explains. “This section will allow you to add columns for many common Search Funnels metrics, such as assist clicks, click assisted conversions, and assist impressions.”

The feature is rolling out over the course of the next couple days.

Popular open-source, cross-platform image editor GIMP 2.8.4 Portable has been released for Windows PCs alongside the Mac binary of GIMP 2.8.4 FINAL. The updates appear less than a week after the Windows and Linux binary builds were released.

The update was a minor one, but many of the changes applied to the Mac build, including the moving of the program’s gimpdir to the ~Library\Application Support folder.

Those upgrading from GIMP 2.8.2 to 2.8.4 will need to open the Terminal application (it’s under Applications\Utilities) and type the following command before launching GIMP 2.8.4 for the first time:

mv ~/Library/GIMP ~/Library/Application\ Support

Once done, you should be able to use GIMP with all existing preferences intact.

The portable build of GIMP allows Windows users to run the application without having to install it. It’s accessible as a standalone portable build, or can be installed through the PortableApps.com Launcher, a useful tool for organizing and accessing portable apps from a custom Start menu that appears above the Taskbar Notification area.

Those coming to GIMP for the first time may be put off a little by the app’s use of multiple floating windows and toolbars. The good news is that since version 2.8, released last May, a single-window mode is available that groups everything together in a single window for ease of use and access. The option can be found under the Windows menu.

The GIMP community has also revealed a preliminary list of ideas it hopes to work on at Google’s Summer of Code 2013 program should it participate, all of which will appear in a future release, potentially GIMP 2.10. They include improved selection tools, a collection of sophisticated image slicing tools for web designers, a full-featured OpenEXR plug-in and, most critically, the porting of more plug-ins to GEGL (Generic Graphics Library), which supports higher bit depth images and non-destructive editing.

GIMP 2.8.4 FINAL is a free, open-source download for Windows, Mac and Linux. GIMP 2.8.4 Portable is a free download for Windows only.