This year in viral videos, as told by YouTube’s top 10 of 2014

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YouTube celebrates the moments, memes, and people that made 2014 with its “YouTube Rewind” mashup extravaganza. The video features a number of YouTube content creators singing, dancing, and acting out many of the year’s most popular viral memories. Speaking of viral videos, the good folks at YT have provided a top 10 list of the most popular clips uploaded to the video streaming site “based on views, shares, comments, likes and more.” And they are:

1. Mutant Giant Spider Dog (SA Wardega) by SA Wardega
2. Nike Football: Winner Stays. ft. Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Rooney, Ibrahimović, Iniesta & more by Nike Football
3. FIRST KISS by Tatia PIlieva
4. The Voice IT | Serie 2 | Blind 2 | Suor Cristina Scuccia – #TEAMJ-AX by TheVoiceOf Italy
5. iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test by Unbox Therapy
6. Bars & Melody – Simon Cowell’s Golden Buzzer act | Britain’s Got Talent 2014 by Britain’s Got Talent
7. Budweiser Super Bowl XLVIII Commercial — “Puppy Love” by Budweiser
8. Devil Baby Attack by DevilsDueNYC
9. Goku vs Superman. Epic Rap Battles of History Season 3. by ERB
10. 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman by Street HarassmentVideo

This year YouTube also went out of its way to provide a top 10 list of the most-watched music videos. Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” tops the list that’s pasted after the break. Continue reading This year in viral videos, as told by YouTube’s top 10 of 2014 →

This year in music, as told by DJ Earworm’s mega-mashup “United State of Pop 2014”

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DJ Earworm is back to celebrate the most popular music to come out of 2014. Per usual, he magically mashes together the top 25 songs of the year–as determined by Billboard’s weekly Hot 100 charts–with visual eye candy to-boot. The 4-minute music video mash includes Ariana Grande, Hozier, Iggy Azalea, John Legend, Maroon 5, Meghan Trainor, Sam Smith, Taylor Swift, and many more. Jump after the break to discover every song the DJ managed to string together for his latest tribute. When you’re done watching, click over to SoundCloud to download the track for free. Continue reading This year in music, as told by DJ Earworm’s mega-mashup “United State of Pop 2014” →

iTunes shares 2014’s top-selling music, movies, TV shows, apps & more

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Apple returns to reveal its best-selling media across the major entertainment industries including music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books. Consumers flock to the iTunes Store for the latest and greatest, and so it’s always fun to look back and discover which products made the biggest dent in their respective categories.

The top-selling album of 2014 is actually a soundtrack: it’s Disney’s Frozen! Included in the top 20 are T-Swift’s 1989, Coldplay’s Ghost Stories, Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour, Beyonce’s self-titled surprise album, and Lorde’s magnificent debut Pure Heroine. The top-selling song of the year is Pharrell Williams’ addictive “Happy,” a song that made waves in the animated feature Despicable Me 2. Also in the top 20 are John Legend’s “All of Me,” Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse,” Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me,” A Great Big World’s “Say Something,” and OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars.” In addition to these top-selling lists, Apple likes to share hand-picked Editor Choice awards and they include: Best Artist (Beyonce), Best Album (Taylor Swift’s 1989), Best Song (Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy”), and Best New Artist (Sam Smith).

Top-selling movies include Frozen, The LEGO Movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, Catching Fire, and Neighbors. Apple named Guardians of the Galaxy Best Blockbuster, The LEGO Movie Best Family Movie, Boyhood‘s Richard Linklater is crowned Best Director, and Obvious Child is Best Discovery. Moving over to TV, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Downton Abbey, Breaking Bad, and Scandal are amongst the year’s best-selling series. Apple named Fargo TV Show of the Year, The Honorable Woman is Best Discovery, Key & Peele is Best Breakthrough, and Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson’s performances in True Detective are commended.

Apple’s App Store truly houses the best app ecosystem–there are just so many to choose from. In 2014 people gravitated toward trivia game Heads Up!, which receives my personal Best App To Help Pass The Time Award. Other best-selling paid apps include Minecraft–Pocket Edition, Afterlight, Plague Inc., Sleep Cycle alarm clock, and Facetune. And I bet you can easily guess the top 5 best-selling free ones: Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. 5 for 5? Thought so.

Are you a reader? John Green’s The Fault in our Stars, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Veronica Roth’s Insurgent, Allegiant, and Divergent are among the best-selling fictional tales. Top-selling non-fiction novels include Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson, Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent, and Duty by Robert M. Gates.

We cannot forget about podcasts! I will share with you my favorite podcast this year. It’s Serial, from This American Life. It’s being called the most popular podcast of all-time and for good reason. It tells a highly serialized and incredibly addicting true crime story across 12 episodes. It’s like a riveting TV drama, except you get to imagine all of the characters and settings in your head. In addition to Serial, which Apple calls the Best New Podcast, other top-selling podcasts include works from NPR, HowStuffWorks.com, Joe Rogen, Carolla Digital.

Open iTunes to view all of the best-selling media across Apple’s digital storefronts.

Newscaster bloopers will make you laugh, cringe, and laugh some more

Entertainment, Hilarity, Video,

Schadenfreude: noun: satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.

Throughout the year, so many different kinds of video go viral around the world. But there’s nothing quite like newscaster bloopers. So sit back, relax, and the enjoy the best of these bloopers from 2014. It’s schadenfreude at its finest. Viewer discretion is advised; dirty mouths abound. And there’s more where this came from; YouTube channel NewsBeFunny has curated a Part 2 and its posted after the break. Continue reading Newscaster bloopers will make you laugh, cringe, and laugh some more →

Astronaut captures beautiful images of Earth, folds them into stunning time-lapse video

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Fascinated by the vastness and wonderment of space that was presented in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey? Then you have to check out this six-minute time-lapse video. Our beautiful planet Earth stars in the clip that’s actually made up of 12, 500 photographs taken by European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst during his six-month stint in space aboard the International Space Station. While carrying out scientific experiences way up in the sky, Alexander smartly set cameras to automatically snap pictures at regular intervals. The result is what you see here: a spectacularly seamless and breathtaking look at our pale blue dot*.

*Blue Dot was the name of Alexander’s mission to space. And of course the ESA is borrowing that name from the late, great astronomer Carl Sagan; he was the creator and host of the original Cosmos series and he famously described Earth as “a pale blue dot.”

The ‘Entourage’ movie trailer has arrived

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Vince. E. Turtle. Drama. Ari. The boys are back in the first teaser trailer for the Entourage movie. Everybody’s back for the final ride, including Lloyd, Mrs. Ari Gold, and Sloan. Also, the teaser features exciting cameos from Calvin Harris, Billy Bob Thornton, Haley Joel Osment, kick-ass MMA fighter Ronda Rousey, and of course, Mark Wahlberg.

Movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), together with his boys, Eric (Kevin Connolly), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and Johnny (Kevin Dillon), are back…and back in business with super-agent-turned-studio head Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven). Some of their ambitions have changed, but the bond between them remains strong as they navigate the capricious and often cutthroat world of Hollywood.

The synopsis is pretty generic, but at the end of the day the plot isn’t what’s going to have fans of the HBO original series flocking to theatres this summer. It’s the characters, and man are they back in stride. From the mock sci-fi movie starring Vince and DJ Calvin Harris that opens the teaser, to the numerous Drama jabs, and Ari Gold being Ari Gold, it’s all here. If you’ve been following the Entourage movie whispers since the series finale aired in 2011, this is quite the early Christmas treat.

Entourage hits theatres June 5, 2015.

Surprise: It’s a ‘BoJack Horseman’ Christmas special!

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BoJack Horseman is an anthropomorphic horse voiced naturally by Will Arnett who stars in a wickedly smart and funny Netflix original series. If you’ve haven’t binged the 12 episode animated show yet, drop everything you’re doing and get going! Without getting too in-depth so as not to spoil the fun, BJH is about a dude (who happens to be a horse) navigating his life after being in the spotlight starring in a children’s TV show. When he’s tasked to help pen his tell-all biography with a ghost writer, his world slowly begins to get turned upside-down as he is forced to face his past. He contemplates love and so many other things, and it reaches some unexpectedly dark and cynical places, too. All in all, it’s very entertaining and it features slick animation with a stellar voice cast.

Now, onto the good news! It was previously reported that Netflix is already underway with a second season of BoJack Horseman, but seemingly out of the blue today the streaming service dropped a full-length Christmas special for fans of the series. Huzzah! In “Sabrina’s Christmas Wish:

It’s Christmas, and BoJack Horseman wants nothing to do with it, especially when Todd (Aaron Paul) shows up with a giant candy cane and one of BoJack’s “Horsin’ Around” Christmas episodes from his TV star days. But BoJack agrees to watch it with Todd, if only for the residual check. One heart-warming orphan story and lots of cans of beer later, BoJack might be willing to re-think his attitude — unless Todd gets too enthusiastic about the whole holiday thing.

Stream the special at Netflix today. And if you’re new to the show, start with episode 1 right here. BJH season 2 is expected to arrive sometime in 2015.

‘Bates Motel’ teaser turns Norman into the Peeping Tom we’ve all been waiting for

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Now that Norman Bates–played exquisitely by Freddy Highmore–is truly reaching his Psycho potential, it’s high time for the buzzy drama to start embracing its rich source material. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror classic has found its way into Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin’s prequel series in various forms: Highmore’s Norman has been fascinated with taxidermy for awhile now, and we’ve even seen his mother’s dark (yet still living) silhouette from afar in a window peering out of Bates Manor. Plus, at the very end of last season, Norman realized he could compartmentalize his multiple personalities: Norman and Norma can reason independently inside his mind. There’s no doubt we’re inching closer to the completely psychotic Norman Bates as seen in Hitchcock’s film.

Where does Norman go from here, then? To the peep-hole, of course! In this creep-tastic teaser for the upcoming third season of A&E’s Bates Motel, we spy on new motel tenant Annika Johnson (played by the beautiful Tracy Spiridakos from the recently cancelled NBC series Revolution) as she begins to undress. Cue heavy breathing as the camera pulls out of the hole to reveal Norman as our Peeping Tom. Chilling! As a massive fan of Psycho, watching this teaser is majorly satisfying.

Bates Motel checks in again this March.

‘Orphan Black’ teaser stars so many clones

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The latest teaser for the upcoming third season of BBC America’s addicting sci-fi series Orphan Black packs a punch. Series star Tatiana Maslany reprises clones Cosima, Sarah, Helena, and Alison here and they warn of an impending war. The teaser also touts the surprising revelations made at the end of last season: that little girl there is Charlotte, the youngest Project Leda clone; the hooded male figure is Mark and the scarred one is Rudy, the two new male clones (played by Ari Millen) who stem from Project Castor.

For more insight into the new season, head over to EW where you’ll learn more directly from the source–series co-creator Graeme Manson.

Orphan Black returns April 18, 2015.

Microsoft aims to break down language barriers with Skype Translator

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We’re living in the future, folks, in case you didn’t know. This week Microsoft is leading the charge in breaking down language barriers with its Skype Translator. Essentially, the new software allows Skype users to translate their conversations into another language in real-time. A perfect example of it in use is featured in the saccharine clip posted above. Students in America are video chatting peers in Mexico City; when an American student speaks English, the Spanish-speaking student on the other side can understand her completely (and vice-versa) as their spoken words are translated almost instantly. It’s quite magical, really.

Skype Translator is currently available as a preview and only supports English and Spanish. Skype promises that additional language support is on the way. You can help refine the incredible technology by signing up to become a preview user today.

[Via Microsoft]

Doug Dorst & J.J. Abrams put the “S.” in “S.earch” with new promotional campaign for their mystery novel

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The mysterious S. videos continue! Though, this clip is more straightforward than the last. Have you picked up a copy of Doug Dorst & J.J. Abrams’ novel S.? If not, now’s the time to jump in. In addition to briefly discussing the inspiration behind their book, in the video embedded above Dorst and Abrams explain that they’ve signed five copies and have hidden them in five different cities around the nation. They dare you to find one, read it, and then ditch it for someone else to discover (or keep it, that’s entirely up to you). Does this concept sound familiar? It should: D&A are borrowing the “Send Wonder” concept imagined by artist/magician Jamie D. Grant; he previously collaborated with Abrams’ Bad Robot and magic destination Theory 11 to create the Mystery Bottle. Grant’s “Send Wonder” campaign is all about spreading inspiration with the world through sharing and random discovery. Want to be one of the lucky five to score a signed copy of S.? Follow Dorst on Twitter where the author will be dropping clues to their whereabouts; first stop: NYC.

‘Birdman’ & ‘Fargo’ lead this year’s Golden Globe nominations

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On Thursday the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced this year’s Golden Globe nominations. The hybrid award show that celebrates both film and television granted Michael Keaton vehicle Birdman and the breakout FX drama Fargo the most nominations with seven and five, respectively.

Best Motion Picture (Drama) nominees include Richard Linklater’s excellent Boyhood, Foxcatcher (Steve Carrell received a nod for Best Performance), The Imitation Game (so did Benedict Cumberbatch), Selma (and David Oyelowo), and The Theory of Everything (and Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones). And the Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical) nominees: Birdman (Keaton received a nod for Best Performance), The Grand Budapest Hotel (so did Ralph Fiennes), Into the Woods (and Emily Blunt), Pride, and St. Vincent (and Bill Murray). And the five movies going after Best Animated Film are Big Hero 6, The Book of Life, The Boxtrolls, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and The LEGO Movie.

Moving over to the TV side of things, Best Television Series (Drama) nominees include Showtime’s The Affair (well deserved!, plus, Dominic West and Ruth Wilson received nods for Best Performance), Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, The Good Wife, and Netflix original series House of Cards (so did Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright). And the Best Television Series (Comedy or Musical) nominees: Girls (Lena Dunham received a nod for Best Performance), The CW’s Jane the Virgin (s0 did Gina Rodriguez), Netflix’s Orange is the New Black (and Taylor Schilling), Silicon Valley, and Amazon’s Transparent (and Jeffrey Tambor). And the five series going after Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television are Fargo (Martin Freeman,Billy Bob Thornton, and Allison Tolman received nods for Best Performance), The Missing (so did Frances O’Connor), The Normal Heart (and Mark Ruffalo), Olive Kitteridge (and Frances McDormand), and True Detective (and Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson).

With so many great nominees also comes the snubbed. Per usual there are too many to count, but here are a few that come to mind. Interstellar was nominated for Hans Zimmer’s original score and nothing else. In TV, Homeland, Masters of Sex, The Leftovers, The Americans, Bates Motel, Hannibal, The Walking Dead, Orphan Black (poor Tatiana Maslany, again!), Mad Men, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation: all nada.

The 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards airs live Sunday, January 11 at 8PM ET on NBC hosted once again by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Click here to view the full list of nominees.