Davis

Ziff Davis, the once-giant technology media company, has been sold off to yet another buyer.

J2 Global, a cloud services provider, announced today that it has acquired Ziff Davis for $167 million in cash. The acquisition includes the purchase of some of Ziff's top Web properties, including PCMag, Computershopper, and Geek.com.

In a statement, J2 Global CEO Hemi Zucker said his company bought Ziff Davis because of its "significant interest in the digital media and online marketing space." Zucker didn't say what J2 Global has planned for Ziff Davis, but it appears for now that … Read more

The mask has come off on at least one member of Anonymous.

The Guardian.com has published a lengthy profile of the group and Jake Davis, a Scottish teenager who used the handle "Topiary" and acted as one of Anonymous' spokesmen before he was arrested in July 2011.

The profile offers readers little that we didn't already know about the group, although the author does give us some nice glimpses of a few prominent members of Anonymous and the well-known splinter group LulzSec.

Davis is almost exactly the sort of person many critics of the group expected … Read more

It's always fun to have a first timer on the show with us, and today we welcome Chenda Ngak, CBSNews.com technology and lifestyle blogger. She's a big videogamer and proud geek, so she's the perfect guest to help us talk about the recent backlash against "fake" geek girls.

Speaking of girls, we don't have them on the show very often so it's great to finally get a female perspective on the Reply Girls phenomenon.

If you haven't heard about them before, Reply Girls are a group of a dozen women dressed in low cut tops that post video replies to trending YouTube videos, exploiting their sexuality to earn money via YouTube's revenue-sharing program. While certainly a symbiotic relationship between Reply Girl and the weirdos clicking on them, we'll discuss the real victims in the scam and how YouTube is putting an end to it.… Read more

Apple emerged as the top brand of 2011, according to an annual list put together by marketing strategy firm Davis Brand Capital.

The iPhone, iPad, and Mac maker topped the Davis list for the first time this year, ousting IBM, which had come in first in 2009 and 2010. Following those two are a handful of other technology companies including Microsoft, Google, and Hewlett-Packard.

"(Apple's) rise in this year's rankings was driven largely by its competitive performance and added brand value," Davis said in a press release.

So how does the company come up with these … Read more

Monster and Dr. Dre spearheaded the trend of celebrity-endorsed headphones, starting with the eponymous Monster Beats by Dr. Dre and Lady Gaga's own signature earbuds. But an increasing number of artists are partnering with other manufacturers for their own collaborations.

Signeo announced the Soul by Ludacris headphone series at CES 2011, and 50 Cent stopped by the CNET stage this year to demo his own wireless cans, but does a celebrity shout-out mean that those devices sound better than the competition?

Check out the following list to get the real scoop on all these new headphones supported by famous musicians.… Read more

If you've always wanted to achieve the precise focusing seen in the movies, perhaps it's time you invested in a follow focus. However, with professional systems costing anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars, the 50-Dollar Follow Focus is a more affordable alternative for videographers on a budget.

The brainchild of Wiley Davis, the 50-Dollar Follow Focus is made in his homemade CNC (computer numerical control) mill and consists of the follow focus body, a pulley and a rubber-toothed belt. A user-adjustable spring built into the system of Teflon washers in the follow focus allows users to fine-tune the amount of friction needed when focusing a lens.

Crafted from durable, heat-treated aluminum, the 50-Dollar Follow Focus comes with a re-positional handle, which lets users set their lens at different positions at specific marker lines. Finally, a toothed-belt and pulleys of different sizes can be swapped to fit different lens sizes. … Read more

The spray seen 'round the world at the UC Davis "Occupy" protest inspired one of the more awesome memes of the year, but just how dangerous is that police-grade pepper spray?

The infographic team at Online Criminal Justice Degree seized on this moment to answer that question. Turns out the nasty orange spray is 1,000 times spicier than the common jalapeno, and more than twice as potent as the consumer pepper spray you might carry around with you.

Click on the excerpt below to see the full image and find out just how safe (or not) the stuff is, as well as what to do if you ever get sprayed yourself (hint: don't rub, and always carry milk and soap to all acts of civil disobedience).… Read more

Fame can be a hydra.

One tentacle can lift you up. Then another wraps itself around your throat.

Lt. John Pike of the University of California at Davis police force might be feeling some constriction today, after the online world began to pay him many-tentacled homage.

Yesterday, it was merely touching retouchings of famous photographs and works of art.

Today, though, Lt. Pike has attracted the attention of hacktivist group Anonymous.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the group managed to create a little 10-minute video that happens to be peppered with Lt. Pike's address, home telephone number, and … Read more

There you are, enjoying just another day at the office. There you are, just doing your job as best you can.

How can you possibly know that one little pro forma action of yours will spout hundreds of imitations across the Web?

This must have been a thought of Lt. John Pike, the University of California at Davis policeman who had clearly eschewed paper pushing for finger pushing.

Should you have been suffering from unreasonably stingy eyes of late, you might have missed video of Pike mistaking his pepper spray for his plant food and a group of seated students … Read more