Technology Slice Blog

Comcast Completes NBC Universal - Cable company Comcast and industrial conglomerate General Electric announced Saturday that their deal to merge Comcast's cable networks with GE's NBC Universal entertainment unit was complete. The new joint venture, dubbed NBCUniversal, LLC, is 51% owned by Comcast (CMCSA, Fortune 500) and 49% owned by GE (GE, Fortune 500). Comcast will manage the company. The complicated deal, which values NBCUniversal at $30 billion, was first announced in December 2009. Comcast will pay GE $6.5 billion in cash and also contribute some of its programming assets to the joint venture. The merger combines Comcast's cable networks, such as E!, Versus and the Golf Channel with NBCUniversal's struggling NBC broadcast network, as well as popular cable networks USA, Bravo, MSNBC and The Weather Channel. NBCUniversal also owns the Universal Studios film and theme park businesses. Comcast Completes NBC Universal

Benjamin Walker Abraham - One of the most famous figures in American history is to be played by a relative newcomer. Broadway star Benjamin Walker has been handed the title role in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the latest in a series of "mash-up" projects that are heading towards cinemas. The film sees the 16th US president fighting the undead during the Civil War. Based on a novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, it will most likely follow the same author's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on to the big screen. The latter sparked the current mash-up craze by taking Jane Austen's out-of-copyright tale of Regency romance and unleashing an army of the undead to liven up proceedings. Other similarly pitched movies are on the way. Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens is arguably a loose example of the genre, while the 2010 blacklisted Boy Scouts vs Zombies sounds similarly enticing. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will be directed by Timur Bekmambetov, a Russian film-maker w...

Bruno Mars Guilty - The seven-time Grammy nominee will plead guilty to felony cocaine possession in order to avoid jail time, according to E! News. In September, Mars was busted at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas on suspicion of narcotics possession. The "Grenade" singer, born Peter Hernandez, had 2.6 grams of a substance believed to be cocaine. Next up for Mars is a court appearance on February 4 when he'll enter his guilty plea. He'll be fined $2,000, sentenced to a year of informal probation, 200 hours of community service and drug counseling. After completing the terms, the first-time offender's record will be wiped clean. Bruno Mars Guilty

Chris Brown Completes Domestic - Chris Brown has completed a domestic violence counseling program required as part of the singer's guilty plea to assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna nearly two years ago. On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg congratulated the 21-year-old R&B performer for finishing the yearlong program. As a result of completing the required counseling, Brown will no longer have to appear in court every three months for progress report hearings. Brown is serving five years of probation after pleading guilty last year to assaulting pop star Rihanna in a rented sports car after a pre-Grammy Awards party. City News Service reports the judge said she would consider lifting the protective order against Brown at a later date. The order requires Brown to stay at least 100 yards away from Rihanna. Chris Brown Completes Domestic

Egypt Prisoners Escape - Thousands of prisoners have escaped from prisons across Egypt as rioting spreads following days of violent protests. Numerous jailbreaks have been registered in Alexandria, Aswan other places. An estimated 5,000 inmates are reported to have broken free in El Fayoum, south of Cairo, killing a senior police officer. Army units have temporarily blocked traffic along the highway connecting the capital Cairo with the country’s second biggest city of Alexandria. Egypt Prisoners Escape

Milton Babbitt Dies - Composer Milton Babbitt, who was known for his complex orchestral compositions and credited with developing the first electronic synthesizer in the 1950s, died Saturday. He was 94. Paul Lansky, a composer and Princeton University colleague who was once a student of Babbitt's, told The Associated Press he died Saturday at a Princeton hospital. Lansky said he did not know the cause of death. Born in Philadelphia, Babbitt earned degrees from both Princeton and New York University. He joined Princeton's faculty in 1938 and became a professor emeritus of music there in 1984. In the 1950s, RCA hired Babbitt as a consultant as it was developing the Mark II synthesizer. He became a founder and director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, where the synthesizer was installed. He blended electronic music with vocal performances in compositions such as "Vision and Prayer" and "Philomel" in the 1960s and "Reflections...

Monk Smoking Law - A Buddhist monk could face five years in prison after becoming the first casualty of a stringent anti-smoking law in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, which vows to become the first smoke-free nation. The monk has been charged with consuming and smuggling contraband tobacco under a law that came into force this month, the newspaper Kuensel reported on Friday, having been caught in possession of 72 packets of chewing tobacco. Monk first to be charged under Bhutan smoking law Bhutan, where smoking is considered bad for one's karma, banned the sale of tobacco in 2005. But with a thriving smuggling operation from neighbouring India, the ban failed to make much of an impact. The new law has granted police powers to enter homes, threatening jail for shopkeepers selling tobacco and smokers who fail to provide customs receipts for imported cigarettes. "He can be charged with smuggling of controlled substances, which is a fourth degree felony," a ...