Gawker: valleywag, atari

The 5 goofiest computer ads

Paul Boutin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Microsoft's new Seinfeld ad campaign proves you can't predict success. Here are five goofy ads that worked — plus the clip that probably sold Microsoft on Seinfeld. Above: A parody of Jacques Cousteau's undersea documentaries for Sun Microsystems.

Playing on an early meme about home computers, Alan Alda shows how an Atari will make your kid a better typist than you. Oh, and it plays games too.

Apple flaunts its Y2K-proof products with a sad monologue from 2001's HAL 9000.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion teaches you how to get the color you want from your I-can't-decide girlfriend. Sexist? Not as much as the talk about Sarah Palin at Whole Foods this morning.

A clever Web page ad for Apple that ties two ad spots on the page together. John Hodgman's PC guy undermines the ads a bit by making me feel sympathetic for him.

Seinfeld's pointless but funny Superman ad for American Express's product warranty feature was probably what convinced Microsoft he could do the same for Windows. If the writers of the Microsoft/Seinfeld ad had created a similarly out-of-character character for Bill Gates, it might've worked.

Atari creator's 21st century automat coming to Mountain View

Jackson West — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:20:00 EDT

In the future, customers will go to a clean, well-lit cafeteria where delicious food will be on display behind glass. See what you like? Drop a few coins in the slot and that liverwurst on rye is all yours. Of course, by "the future" we mean 80 years ago, not in a couple of months when Atari founder Nolan Bushnell brings another of his uWink outposts to the Valley. The gimmick? You order your food on a touch screen! You'd think with Bushnell's experience with animatronics at Chuck E. Cheese, there'd at least be frickin' robots. (Photo by Eater LA)

The Pirate Bay takes on corporate raiders

Mary Jane Irwin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:22:11 EDT

Amidst all the hubbub about MediaDefender — the file-sharing policing agency whose private email files were recently spewed across the Internet, revealing unsavory antipiracy plans — one particularly interesting tidbit has bubbled to the surface. The Pirate Bay, a major file-sharing site, says it now has proof from those files that the music and movie industries have been paying hackers to attack the site. It is now taking this information to the police and charging the Swedish arms of Fox, EMI Music, Universal, Paramount, Atari, Activision, Ubisoft and Sony with technical sabotage, denial-of-service attacks, hacking, and spamming.