Mandel 'thrilled' to work with Stern on 'Got Talent'

Chris Haston / NBC

Howie Mandel believes the upcoming changes to "America's Got Talent," including the addition of shock jock Howard Stern, are thrilling.

By Sean Daly, TODAY.com contributor

Howie Mandel knows exactly where his bread gets buttered.

Sure, ?America?s Got Talent? may turn into ?The Howard Stern Variety Hour? with the addition of the self-proclaimed King of All Media, but that?s OK. The veteran comic and third-year judge insists "without Howard Stern, it would just be season seven.?

NBC and executive producer Simon Cowell have made an all-in bet on Stern, splashing his picture front and center in promos and even relocating the show to New Jersey at his request. Bold moves, indeed, that could bend the fragile egos of some co-stars completely out of shape.

(FYI: TODAY.com is powered by msnbc.com, which is a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

?Honestly, that doesn?t bother me,? Mandel told TODAY.com. ?There is nobody more thrilled to be working with Howard than me. I am such a fan. I think he is one of the brightest people I know. And I think he is an asset to the show. I love the fact that his fans show up to the show. All of a sudden a 12 hour taping is the most exciting place they have ever been. It is like being at a rock concert.?

Q:? Will we see a different type of act this year?? Is the overall talent pool changing?
No, but I think if you look at the show each and every year, each year is more dangerous than the past. The show is more outrageous than it has ever been. Because I think that once you air something ... someone comes on and says ?I am going to jump into 6 inches of water,? then the next guy comes on and says ?I am going to shoot myself out of a cannon? -- which is more dangerous. ?

Q:? And yet every year, the singer always wins.
This year I am hoping (not) and Howard is hoping (not). We always celebrate the variety. This year we have got more groups. And the variety acts are tremendous -- and more dangerous and more spectacular. ?

Q:? Do you think the show is better without Piers Morgan?
I think it is very, very different.? I would never say better.? Everybody has their own taste. I love having Howard. He is truly a friend. Somebody I would socialize with. Somebody I listen to and somebody I am a fan of. I think that the excitement level is going to be ramped up.

Q:? The judges are gelling better?
Absolutely.? I think last year we were three people who came to work. And now we are three gelled. ... This team of judges is a fully formed friendship, and it is really different. I can?t really describe it, but we love every minute of it.

Q:? By the way, congrats on your new show ?White Elephant? getting picked up by NBC!
Thanks. I am very excited. I have been offered many shows since ?Deal or No Deal.? This is the first game show that I have chosen to do. All of the elements that I have loved about ?Deal Or No Deal? are evident in that show. And it is something that we both play. But you are playing it face to face. Instead of playing it in the dark. You are deciding whether you want to pull something away from somebody.

Q:? And once again it kind of involves making a deal.
It does. That is my theme.

Q:? What made you want to host again?
This game so intrigued me. We developed it at my company. I could have hired another host.? But it is just so intriguing. I never thought there would be another ?Deal Or No Deal.? But I believe we have another ?Deal Or No Deal,? and I don?t want to give that up. I am selfish. I want to do it.

No premiere date has been set for "White Elephant," but viewers wanting to see Mandel on the small screen can catch him, Stern and their fellow panelist Sharon Osbourne when the season premiere of "America's Got Talent" airs Monday, May 14 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.

Do you think Stern will make a thrilling addition to "Got Talent"? Are you looking forward to the other changes in store for the show? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page?

Sean Daly runs the blog?SingersAndCritics.com, which covers reality singing-competition shows.

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New Sony iOS docks promise clearer sound thanks to magnetic fluid

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You can only skim through so many iPad/iPod/iPhone docks before things start to get predictable, and when a speaker dock stands out, it's usually for a retro design or a little mood lighting. Sony's two newest iOS docks, the CMT-V50iP and the CMT-V75BTiP, may look like your standard options, but they aim to break the mold by using magnetic fluid instead of speaker dampers to move sound. Sony says this technology provides clearer audio with less distortion, and no dampers means a slimmer design. If your music collection extends beyond your iDevice, you can take advantage of the CD player and built-in DAB and DAB+ radio, or -- if you've migrated to the digital age -- stream over Bluetooth on the CMT-V75BTiP or connect via USB on the CMT-V50iP. Sony just announced these yesterday, and pricing info remains MIA, though The Verge reports that both models will drop in the next few months.

New Sony iOS docks promise clearer sound thanks to magnetic fluid originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Olympian outs stalker on Facebook, triggers debate

Boris Streubel / Bongarts/Getty Images

Ariane Friedrich of Germany celebrates after winning the women's high jump during the IAAF World Challenge ISTAF 2010 at the Olympic Stadium on August 22, 2010 in Berlin, Germany.

By Andy Eckardt , NBC News Producer

MAINZ, Germany ? Ariane Friedrich, a 28-year-old German high-jumper currently training for the 2012 London Games, is taking on more than one Olympic-size challenge: she is also publically challenging an alleged stalker.?The German athlete from Frankfurt says that she recently received an email with a sexually explicit photo from a stalker.

In what some see as a controversial move, she chose to out the stalker on Facebook ? posting his full name, excerpts from the email he sent her and his home town.

?It?s time to act, it?s time to defend myself. And that?s what I?m doing. No more and no less,? Friedrich wrote on her Facebook page on Saturday.?

In Germany, where strict online data protection laws exist, Friedrich's decision to ?name and shame? her alleged stalker is receiving broad attention and has triggered a heated debate about the moral and legal implications of the online allegations.?

Fears of a web-mob
Friedrich, who is not just an athlete, but also a police officer, also filed a legal complaint against her offender, according to German media reports.

While the move has triggered lots of positive responses from her fans on her Facebook page, with posts calling her ?courageous,? there was also growing criticism.

?As much as I can understand your anger about the stalker, you as a police officer should not just pillory somebody on the Internet,? one person wrote on Friedrich?s Facebook page.?

Gero Breloer / AP

Germany's Ariane Friedrich reacts in the Women's High Jump final during the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in this August 2009 file photo.

?The reaction of Mrs. Friedrich is of course understandable, but she reacted too fast,? Dr. Thilo Weichert, a data privacy law expert in Kiel, Germany, told NBC News.
?
?It needs to be checked first, if the named person is really the correct one. Anybody can use a wrong name on Facebook,? Weichert said.

On Monday, many of the critical Facebook posts referenced a recent incident in which the equivalent of a lynch mob turned against a 17-year-old in the northern German city of Emden, after police had arrested him for questioning in the murder case of an 11-year-old girl.

The teen was later declared innocent and released, but the social media storm led to a gathering of an angry crowd in front of the local police station. Afterwards the boy and his family felt so harassed that they relocated to an undisclosed location.

Don?t need the distraction
Friedrich?s coaches aren?t exactly welcoming the move. On Saturday, Guenter Eisinger, her coach and manager, tried to downplay the incident, saying he is concerned that the growing media attention will negatively affect her preparations for the summer games.

?The issue has nothing to do with the public,? Eisinger told German news agency dpa on Saturday. ?We can do without any stress factors.??

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Quora Is Raising At A $400M Valuation, With D?Angelo Putting In His Own Money

Screen Shot 2012-04-21 at 7.24.05 PMIt's really beautiful outside. Like so beautiful if San Francisco is like this more often it will become really expensive to live here. Also, Quora is raising money according to the multiple people in the past week who have told me that Quora is raising money. From what I've heard, the startup wants to raise between $30 to $50 million in its Series B, at a $400 million valuation -- an amount which strangely enough seems modest in light of the billion dollar rounds being thrown about willy nilly.

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Huawei Ascend G312 (U8680) lands at FCC, unsurprisingly sports T-Mobile myTouch moniker

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It's far from a secret that T-Mobile has been cooking up its next myTouch handset with Huawei (also known as the Ascend G312), and now a phone bearing the same moniker has landed at the door of the FCC. According to the label location diagrams, it plays nice with HSPA, UMTS, GPRS, GSM and Edge, but there's no indication of whether this Huawei U8680 is the QWERTY variant we spotted at the company's headquarters. If you'll recall, Huawei has this 4-inch (WVGA) device pegged to ship with Android Ice Cream Sandwich, running atop a 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255T SoC with 1GB of RAM that's supplemented by 4GB of on-board storage. Of course, this doesn't leave us with any more information about when T-Mobile will officially debut this next-gen myTouch, but for now, you can can view the currently available FCC documents at the source link below.

Huawei Ascend G312 (U8680) lands at FCC, unsurprisingly sports T-Mobile myTouch moniker originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Behold the Crazy Monster Machine That Can Mow and Clean Everything [Video]

Watch this monster mowing and cleaning machine in action. I want to drive it and go wild with it. Clean every filthy thing in sight in New York, from traffic signals, building and parks to hipsters, hipsters and hipsters. Everything. More »


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How your baby will be just like and unlike any other - Fit Pregnancy

04.20.12 How your baby will be just like and unlike any other

Every generation pioneers a new phase in humanity. The baby you?re raising will be part of a generation that will see and do things differently than anyone ever has before. As their parents, you?ll have a big say over what your baby experiences, but the world will have just as great an influence. So muster up your pioneer spirit. It?s going to be interesting.

Several events in recent weeks have brought the concept of pioneering home:

  • I was at a screening of Oprah?s Lifeclass for the OWN channel a couple of weeks ago in New York at Radio City Music Hall. Tony Robbins (author, life coach and host of a new television show called Breakthrough,) shared the stage with Oprah and something he said has stayed with me ever since: ?Every life is either a warning or an example.? Robbins spent the next hour talking about how to be an example, break through your fears and recreate your life story.

That concept of warning versus inspiration applies to everyone, but more so to new parents than almost anyone else.? The way you model your life and raise your child makes the difference between being the family, parent and child who warn others what not to do or the family that models inspiration. As you raise the next generation of pioneers, ask yourself if your daily choices are creating the family you want?? That?s what pioneers do ? day by day.

  • I recently spoke to Abigail Disney, executive producer of Women, War and Peace, (a series presented on PBS) about her upcoming projects.? She mentioned a new documentary she produced that?s premiering this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, called Sexy Baby.? Here?s the synopsis:

In the age of runaway social media and "sexting," raunchy rap songs on pop radio and hardcore pornography at the click of a mouse?what's it like to be a woman? A girl? A teenage boy? A parent? Following a former porn star, a young woman undergoing a controversial surgery, and a 12-year-old girl who's growing up faster than her parents can handle, Sexy Baby is a startling look at the first generation to grow up [in the digital age].?

As the mother of an adolescent daughter, I found the storyline about the 12-year-old girl to be heartbreaking.?? This little girl calls herself a pioneer because she?s among the first generation to grow up with sex everywhere ? in her music, on her TV and computer?everywhere.?

Who knows what digital and social challenges your child will grow up with.? It?s hard to believe they?ll face overt sexuality before they?re old enough, but they will?they definitely will.? That is unless you keep the radio, television and computer turned off, and that?s probably not going to happen. You?ll be the pioneer parents who learn by trial and error how to balance between teaching your children how to live in a rapidly changing digital world and protecting them with old-fashioned common sense.? Bottom line ? the world may have changed because of technology, but kids really haven?t.?

  • In another pioneering conversation this week, I spoke with Julie Lamb, MD, an OB-GYN who specializes in reproductive endocrinology and infertility. Dr. Lamb is among the pioneers of women?s health using rapidly changing Star Wars technology to help women all over the world. Her passion for helping women with infertility was sparked in the least technologically advanced place on earth.? While studying International Women?s Health on a Fulbright scholarship in Zimbabwe, she worked in a burn unit with women who had lit themselves on fire because they were infertile.? When she returned to the United States, she found her professional home at Pacific Northwest Fertility in Seattle. Their donor egg program is dramatically upping the odds of parenthood for women facing life threatening illnesses, older women and others with extreme circumstances.

My own commitment to pioneering comes via my involvement with CARE (my favorite global humanitarian organization) and their focus on girls and women.? While many of their programs are decidedly old school, CARE?s slant at alleviating extreme poverty by promoting basic rights, education, healthcare and opportunities for women is part of a pioneer movement dubbed The Girl Effect.? Using some of the digital generation?s best tools including social networking and film, combined with good old fashioned person-to-person networking, we?re the generation that?s recognizing that women - mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties, grandmothers, businesswomen, teachers, politicians, doctors?(I could go a long way here) ? are changing the world.? We?re bringing our families, friends and communities along for the journey and exploring uncharted territories.

As a new parent that?s raising the next generation of pioneers, all you have to do is decide:? Will you be a warning or an inspiration?? No pressure, right?

?

Jeanne Faulkner, R.N., lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and five children. Got a question for Jeanne? E-mail it to?labornurse@fitpregnancy.com?and it may be answered in a future blog post.

This Fit Pregnancy blog is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace medical advice from your physician. Before initiating any exercise program, diet or treatment provided by Fit Pregnancy, you should seek medical advice from your primary caregiver.

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