Nick D’Aloisio is living the technology entrepreneur’s dream: he sold his news-reading app, Summly, to Yahoo on Monday for tens of millions of dollars and became the resurgent Web giant’s newest employee, Brian Stelter writes. The only problem is that Mr. D’Aloisio still has to finish high school; the British programmer is only 17. Mr. D’Aloisio received venture capital from high-profile investors like Yoko Ono, Wendi Murdock and Li Ka-Shing, the Hong Kong billionaire, when he was just 15. Yahoo plans to incorporate Summly, which summarizes long-form stories for smart phones, into Yahoo’s suite of mobile apps.
Anthony Lewis, a New York Times reporter and columnist who won two Pulitzer Prizes and revolutionized the way the Supreme Court is covered, died on Monday, Adam Liptak writes. He brought passionate engagement to his two great themes, the role of the press in democracy and justice, and his column appeared on the Op-Ed page of The Times for more than 30 years, until 2001.
It may seem implausible to the millions of fans of the “Dork Diaries,” but the author of the popular books about the socially aspiring, fashion-impaired Westchester Country Day School student Nikki Maxwell is Rachel Renée Russell, a 53-year-old divorced former bankruptcy lawyer, Leslie Kaufman writes. Ms. Russell’s books have drawn comparisons to the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series, but Ms. Russell said the stories came from her own awkward childhood and experiences raising her two daughters, who work with her on the books.
Many video game journalists were concerned that the delays leading up to the release on Tuesday of Irrational Games’ BioShock Infinite might bode ill for the highly anticipated first-person shooter. They should not have worried, Chris Suellentrop reports. The latest BioShock is a model for what video games can achieve — the world is dense, fascinating and inventive and combat is exhilarating.
Gillette has started a new ad campaign for its Fusion ProGlide Styler, a trimmer-razor hybrid introduced in 2012 for facial hair, designed to emphasize the styler’s efficacy on other regions of the body, Andrew Adam Newman writes. The ads feature attractive women like Kate Upton and Hannah Simone explaining their preferences for body hair (or lack thereof), both in a television spot and a print ad featuring QR codes that provide specifics when scanned with a smart phone. The commercial plays on the public perception that the hirsute styles of the 1960s and ’70s have decidedly gone out of fashion.
The Concord Music Group, an independent music company that includes artists like Paul McCartney and Paul Simon, has been sold to Wood Creek Capital Management, a private equity firm that has been quietly building a collection of music assets, Ben Sisario reports. The label was put up for sale last year by the Village Roadshow Entertainment Group, the media conglomerate that has owned it since 2008, and the price was estimated at more than $120 million.
The International New York Times will be distributed alongside The Japan Times as part of a joint publication deal beginning in October, Gerry Doyle writes. The agreement creates a combined print edition in which each newspaper will comprise one section and should give The International New York Times, which will change its name from The International Herald Tribune this fall, a circulation increase. Digital content will also be shared.
The Hachette Book Group has decided to delay its publication of Jane Goodall’s latest book, “Seeds of Hope,” after revelations that it contained passages appropriated from Web sites, Leslie Kaufman reports. The book was set to be published on April 2, and no new date has been set.
Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/the-breakfast-meeting-yahoos-big-hire-is-17-and-anthony-lewis-dies-at-85/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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