Remember that huge $140 million judgment against Gawker in the Hulk Hogan case? Well, it just got upheld on appeal and if you thought Gawker lost because the Hulkster threw his massive fortune at a team of attack dog lawyers, you’re wrong. It was actually PayPal co-founder and Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel who dropped an estimated $10 million into Hogan’s legal exercise, according to the New York Times.
What’s Thiel’s beef with Gawker? Well, back in 2007, Gawker’s Valleywag blog announced that he was gay, and at the time, that was still a bit of a sensitive subject in venture capital circles, which was made up of straight rich white guys, according to the Valleywag post. But Thiel says his biggest complaint about Gawker was how it went after his friends and “ruined people’s lives for no reason.”
He says that’s what really led him to fund Hogan’s sex tape lawsuit that has Gawker staring down the barrel of a gigantic judgement. Will Gawker survive Thiel’s revenge? Stay tuned.
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Remember the rumors of an Apple pay-TV service that so far has failed to materialize? Well, it looks like Apple came pretty close to making it happen when they contemplated buying Time-Warner late last year.
According to the Financial Times, Apple higher-ups met with Time-Warner folks about including some of their broad spectrum of content in an Apple service, and iTunes chief Eddy Cue apparently had a better idea: just buy them. That would have netted Apple a lot of content: HBO, CNN, TNT, TBS, and all of the NBA’s games, among numerous other content providers. That’s a whole pay TV service right there. In the end, though, the idea got nixed, and we’re still waiting for an Apple TV service.
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We love to be on the cutting edge of tech here at Digital Trends, but it’s also fun to see some vintage-type gear come through the door that still holds up in the modern world. Check out the Kenzie headphone amp from Amps and Sound. Yes, those are vacuum tubes, and yes, this thing sounds as amazing as it looks. There’s no digital-to-analog conversion here, no zeros and ones. Just pure analog bliss you gotta hear to believe.
Like most hand-built vintage kit, it ain’t cheap: the Kenzie will set you back almost 1700 bucks, but if you’re a truly discerning fan of quality sound, you know that’s pretty cheap compared to what you can spend on the latest and greatest all-digital gear. DT’s golden-eared audio reviewer Ryan Wanita has been hogging the Kenzie to himself for weeks, so check out his video review and prepare to bask in the warm glow of wood-grained analog goodness.
