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Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman may well be the two most interesting people creating popular culture right now. Whedon is the man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and he wrote and directed the science fiction film Serenity, which opens Sept. 30th. Gaiman created the instant-classic comic book Sandman, and he's the author of the new novel Anansi Boys, out this month. He has a new movie, Mirrormask, which also opens Sept. 30. They chatted on the phone together-chaperoned by TIME's Lev Grossman-about their work, their fans, their Klingon bodyguards and, of course, Timecop...
...reported in the New York Post, have risen to the highest levels of both companies, involving direct discussions between Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons and Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer, says a source close to the talks. Negotiations are now at an impasse over key technology issues, such as whose instant-messaging platform would be used. But a variety of proposals remain on the table, including the creation of a separately traded company. "We could take a more modest approach with co-marketing agreements," the source tells TIME, "but the bias is, if we're going to do this...
...Desperate Housewives did that for drama and soaps. But a genre show can hook viewers fast through sensational plots. Guy gets drugged by a hooker--bang, you got 30 million people's attention. Sitcoms depend on gradual bonding with characters, and today's networks, part of media conglomerates, want instant hits. "Laughs are in characters, and no time is being given to establishing them," says Phil Rosenthal, creator of Raymond, which--like Seinfeld and Cheers--had poor ratings its first season...
...Yahoo and AOL have their own voice-over-instant message services. All these deals have generated as much confusion as excitement. Is eBay just trying to acquire Skype's 54 million users? Maybe GoogleTalk will let you click to dial a phone number of someone you've just Googled. Will Teleo mean yet more software bundled with Windows? None of these questions are likely to be answered any time soon. Making phone calls over the Web (also known by the acronym VOIP, for Voice Over Internet Protocol) is one of those radical new technologies that surely will change our lives...
...words on paper, where they couldn?t be erased by power surges or turned into ampersands by computer worms-I knew in my heart that the future was passing me by. I also believed that I could catch up later, the way I had with TiVo and instant messaging. But then, just recently, the future dawned -before I was prepared for it, as usual. The writer Andrew Sullivan, whose work I admired but who I barely knew, called to ask me if I could spare five days to ?guest blog? on his influential website, Andrew Sullivan.com. I confessed...