Today at Flavorpill, our eyes played tricks on us thanks to this crazy street art installation in Stockholm by illusionist artist Erik Johansson. We decided after some internal debate that we’d be happy to see Leonardo DiCaprio play a villain in a Quentin Tarantino movie. We were surprised to read that AOL’s newsroom is now bigger than The New York Times’ (in case you’re curious, it’s a difference of about 1300 staffers vs. 1200). We checked out the first photo from the second season of The Walking Dead, which suggests that this year’s crop of zombies will be just as skin-crawling as their predecessors. We got super excited over this slew of action posters for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, but had a hard time picking a favorite one. We enjoyed this fictional account of why Emma Watson really left Brown a little too much (in fact, we think it should become a YA series). We wondered if women are capable of giving The Look too. We tried to figure out who has it the worst at NYC intersections after watching this clip — cars, bikes, or pedestrians. And finally, we thought that a Darren Aronofsky-directed re-telling of the Noah’s Ark story sounded promising — just imagine how dark and creepy he’d make all of the animals.
1. AOL has announced that it plans to buy the Huffington Post for $315 million. Arianna Huffington will become editor in chief of all of AOL’s content sites, including TechCrunch and Engadget. According to Arianna’s memo to site contributors, nothing will be different except “more people reading what you wrote.” [via The Atlantic]
2. The iconic terminal that was once the home to TWA at JFK airport might be getting a second life in the form of a small, high-end hotel, according to the Wall Street Journal.
3. According to USA Today’s Ad Meter, two ads tied for the top Super Bowl commercial among viewers — the spots for Doritos and Bud Light — and they both happened to star dogs.
4. The second trailer for JJ Abrams’ latest top secret movie Super 8 debuted last night during the game, and while it doesn’t reveal much more than the original teaser did plot-wise, you definitely see more of executive producer Steven Spielberg’s influence on the project. [via TotalFilm]
5. Fox has announced that the X Factor’s winner will walk off with a $5 million record deal — aka the largest guaranteed prize in television history — in a joint venture between Sony Music and Simon Cowell. The show is set to debut this September. [via TVline]
Bonus link: Stream PJ Harvey’s new album Let England Shake, which is due out February 15
We’ve already chatted about the America Online rebranding, in which the online media conglomerate went hip with a sans-serif font, lowercase letters, and punctuation. (Aol. > AOL?) It got us thinking about the efficacy of that one small dot, and what brands are trying to convey by punctuating their logos. From greater-than symbols to obnoxious exclamation points to a growing number of quotation marks, we have to wonder if punctuation is the new emoticon.
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We remember a time when America Online was the most important thing to happen to the internet since the personal computer. While we’ve long since abandoned the brand for greener, Google-ier pastures, AOL is still around, kids! And in the wake of their spin-off from Time Warner, they’re trying out a new identity as part of an effort to seem younger, hipper, and less like a haven for Dateline‘s sexual predators. More of the new logos, plus a look at some of their previous re-branding attempts, after the jump.
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The premise behind AOL’s new Where It’s At site — which bills itself as “the ultimate pop culture treasure map” — is simple. Users across the country submit the locations for stuff like the real Grey’s Anatomy hospital or Capeside High. You can search for places of interest by category (“music mania,” “reel estate,” “gangsters & ghouls”) on an ugly Mapquest map. It’s kind of fun to play around with because it reminds you of random spots you probably haven’t thought about in a while (or maybe ever) — the Goonies house; Laverne & Shirley‘s apartment; the Dirty Dancing resort. That said, use Where It’s At at your own risk. We pity the poor sucker who decides to make a pilgrimage to Jay-Z’s childhood home.