With the advent of cell phones and then Blackberrys, there's pretty much nowhere the Hollywood pro can claim to be unreachable -- except the airplane.

But no longer. American Airlines, the nation's biggest carrier (and no. 2 in the world), is the latest to make a major commitment to in-flight wi-fi. According to USA Today, most of its domestic flights will have the service soon. Competitors Delta has already said it will do the same by the end of next year. Virgin America has a similar plan, while Southwest and JetBlue are experimenting wtih the technology.

Used to having a respite on that five hour New York - L.A. flight? Or even an hour shooting up to San Francisco and back? No longer. If somebody shoots an important email your way and you take several hours to respond, you can't just say "sorry, I was on an airplane." They'll expect you spend the $8-$13 per flight to connect a laptop of wi-fi enabled mobile device along the way.

In good news, you still can't pick use a cellular device on a plane. And voice-over-IP services are blocked for the time being. So you don't have to talk to anyone from work, at least.

For those in Hollywood who want to know just how simple -- but luckily not yet simple enough -- pirating via BitTorrent is, Gizmodo has posted a "handy" how-to guide.

Numerous BitTorrent clients, most notably Vuze, make downloading through the peer-to-peer service fairly easy. But Gizmodo notes that a little advanced knowledge of router settings like "port forwarding" are necessary to get decent download speeds, necessary for actually downloading big video files of TV shows and movies. And because BitTorrent uploads while it downloads, users have to set decent upload speeds in order to "share" (since, hey, some of the stuff on there is indeed legal) content in order to get the stuff they want.

Folks in Hollywood concerned about online pirating will be glad to know adjusting those settings is none-too simple (even with the Gizmodo guide), meaning average Internet noob won't be able to get very good performance out of BitTorrent.

They might be a little less pleased with Gizmodo's tips to "cover your ass" in order to avoid the "RIAA/MPAA/NARC's." Number one, of course, is to not "seed" (make available for sharing) too much content, since that's the only way authorities can detect who's active on BitTorrent and they go after the most heavy users.

Of course, being caught doesn't mean what it used to. The RIAA and MPAA don't sue nearly as many illegal pirates in hopes of halting the practice. Their newest strategy is to get ISPs like Comcast and AT&T to help them keep track and send warnings to folks doing illegal downloading via BitTorrent or other services.

Nonetheless, as Gizmodo explains, piracy is tempting, even with ISPs keeping watch and the growth of legal services like Hulu. Vuze even lets users "subscribe" to TV shows in order to get new episodes as soon as they're available. And unlike Hulu, there are no limits based on what media companies are partnering with, or fighting with, whom.

Since it pioneered the business in 2006, ABC/Disney's approach to online streaming has been simple: Our way or the highway.

While its rival networks have distributed their shows to dozens of different websites -- CBS on its own, NBC and Fox via Hulu -- ABC has signed only one, with AOL, and otherwise attempted to draw viewers to ABC.com, where it can control the experience. "We're focused on the economics, not just ubiquitous distribution," digital media chief Albert Cheng said a year and a half ago.

Things have changed. Apparently the company behind "Lost" and "Grey's Anatomy" and "Hannah Montana" is ready to sign a major online partnership and is choosing between Hulu and YouTube.

Late last week came news from numerous outlets, including the L.A. Times, that Disney was negotiating with NBC and Fox to buy a stake in Hulu. That would put its shows on the fast growing site and most likely, via its distribution deals, partners like Yahoo and MSN.

But today the plot thickened. PaidContent reports that Disney may go with YouTube instead. The two companies are already close to a partnership to put clips from the conglomerate's TV shows on Google's massive video service (with a generous revenue share, no doubt). But they're also reportedly in more tentative talks about putting full episodes on YouTube, thus making Google the ABC's main video partner and precluding an investment in Hulu.

Whichever way Disney ends up going, it looks like it won't be going solo on the Web anymore.

Made-for-Web production has become a very difficult business in the past year. So it's perhaps no  surprise that after making a big splash in the space with "Jackass 2.5" in late 2007, Paramount Digital Entertainment has been quiet on the Web front.

But today comes news it's making a second try, working with French production company Gaumont on "Section 8." This one won't be streamed or sold online as a full movie, like "Jackass." Instead, Paramount plans to stream six-to-nine minute episodes on the Web and then collect the whole thing into a DVD and even a theatrical feature.

The primary factor holding back original online video hasn't been a glut of product, as many might have expected a year or two ago, but monetization problems. Digital download numbers remain paltry compared to DVD sales and advertising money isn't yet close to what can be made from the same content on TV.

Paramount's solution is apparently to go back to that oldest of funding methods: product integration and advance overseas sales. The studio is working with Endemol to handle both, which is why the project was unveiled now, going into the MIP TV conference in Cannes.

What exactly is "Section Eight?" Paramount isn't telling. It won't even say yet who's writing and producing. All we know is that it's an "interactive short-form serial thriller" that will debut this fall, with an exclusive window on MySpace before hitting other platforms like Hulu and iTunes. And viewers will actually get to vote on the end of the series (Another old school throwback -- I remember doing with a 900 number for an "A-Team" episode as a kid in the '80s).

(Posted by David S. Cohen)

They're not the only company in the field, but Philips has concluded that for the forseeable future, the only 3-D in homes will be with glasses.

News Corp. is shuffling digital executives as part of its new structure, bringing in a fresh face for the congom and moving back a veteran to its studio.

Details are still spotty, but based on reporting by Deadline Hollywood and AllThingsD, it looks like there are two major changes: Peter Levinsohn (right) is moving from his current job job as president of Fox Interactive Media, in which he oversees the conglomerate's online properties, most notably MySpace, IGN, Fox.com and FoxSports.com, back to the studio, where he used to work as president of digital media. According to AllThingsD, Levinsohn's job will be to "coordinate the delivery [Fox] assets on mobile and digital platforms, sources said. It will be his task to create sustainable business models in this fast-moving arena."

Actually, that's pretty much what he did before moving over to FIM in 2005. When he took that job, Variety reported that Levinsohn had been "a key architect in the digital revenue-sharing agreement with Fox affiliates... he also led the Fox on Demand effort, which brought primetime series to the Internet... [and]'s headed Fox's development of the VOD business and electronic sell-through for film and television product." Of course, today digital media is a much bigger deal for a movie/TV studio and you can bet chairmen Jim Gianopolus and Tom Rothman, to whom Levinsohn will report, will be paying a lot more attention than they did four years ago and counting on him to helm them juice some real growth.

Nonetheless, there's no avoiding the fact that it's at best a lateral move. Levinsohn used to be in charge of a separate unit and report directly to Rupert Murdoch. Now he's a senior executive within a unit and reports to the guys who run it, not world's richest Aussie.

Levinsohn is moving so that Jonathan Miller (left, in what I hope will become his official photo at News Corp), the former chairman/CEO of AOL, can take his job and then some. In his old job, Miller transitioned AOL from a subscription-based ISP with a Web component to an advertising-based Web portal with an ISP component, but didn't make the shift quickly and smoothly enough for his Time Warner bosses, who replaced him with Randy Falco (himself recently replaced by Google's Tim Armstrong).

Miller's new title will reportedly be chief digital officer, reporting directly to Murdoch as Levinsohn did. But his portfolio will be bigger, encompassing not just the FIM properties, but also overseeing digital initiatives for every New Corp property.

Including Fox? One of the big questions now is how and whether Levinsohn and Miller work together. Will Levinsohn be in charge of his own digital strategy? Will he have to coordinate with Miller? And even though they have separate reporting lines on paper, which one will be seen as the bigger digital honcho within Fox and within News Corp.?

And how exactly will Miller handle his duties? Directly underneath him are assets like MySpace and IGN that have seen their growth slow of late along with the online advertising market. MySpace's heralded search advertising deal with Google, in particular, is said to be a disappointment.

Furthermore, Miller's job as, essentially, a digital coordinator for the rest of News Corp. is a little blurry. Will folks at businesses as diverse as the Wall Street Journal and Sky Broadcasting and HarperCollins run their online initiatives through him? How does he make himself an asset to them, as opposed to a layer of bureaucracy that makes it harder to get anything done, as so often happens with executives in his position at big conglomerates?

More to come soon, no doubt, especially when News Corp. announces the deal and perhaps lets both of them speak publicly.

In the final part of our five part interview with Jeff Dossett, Yahoo's senior VP of audience and head of the Santa Monica office, we talk about the biggest picture issues: The meaning of the Yahoo brand, the relevance of a portal with a home page, and whether digitally savvy audiences are still interested in what his company has to offer.

For more on Dossett, read the introduction to part one of our interview. Read part two here, part three here, and part four here.

Ben Fritz: Going forward, when you think about “What is Yahoo?” and/or “What is Yahoo content?” do you see the old portal model where people come to a homepage and you can shoot them all around as something that's becoming less and less important? The “I am a Yahoo user, I go to Yahoo.com, I go to Yahoo Mail, I go to Yahoo News,” versus “I come into it a million different ways?”

Jeff Dossett: Great question. I think the front page will continue for many years to be an essential experience for Yahoo users. It's where we get to reflect our understanding of a broad set of content and information and service needs and try to curate that experience. Try to find the best: try to make it easier for people to find the information and services and experiences that matter most to them.

I do think the front page or the homepage experience will evolve. I think it will evolve in two key ways. One is, I think that we'll improve our ability to present a more relevant front page experience as an essential starting point to Yahoo users. We'll be able to reflect what we know about you and your interests and your experience on the network, and tune the content experience to your particular needs. That's one thing. Sort of, again, the audience-segment-centric position to deliver the best, most relevant content experience to each and every user.

The other is that Yahoo has clearly, strongly embraced the power of openness. We want to make it easier for consumers to make sense of the Internet, for them, in a way that's relevant to them, and to the extent that there are information sources or services that are important to users that exist outside of the Yahoo network, we'd like to make it easier for them to bring them into the experience, as we've had traditionally in experiences like My Yahoo.

So I think you'll see the front page as a starting point evolve to be more personally relevant and more customizable, including the inclusion of experiences that are currently thought of as outside the Yahoo experience.

We have begun to communicate a little bit more broadly about our plans for the evolution of the Yahoo homepage. “More open, more social, and more relevant” are our three key themes, and I think it's an essential part, because with all of the world's information available online, the burden on a consumer to find and discover the information and services important to them, that complexity is actually increasing right now, and Yahoo has traditionally helped people discover and interact with the content and services that are most important to them. I think that will continue to be one of the key elements of differentiation and the value that we bring to online consumers, so we'll definitely do that.

At the same time, there are many different entry points into the network. There are some people who are news junkies, they just love the news, and that's really the right and most appropriate starting point for them, and we'll want to serve them as well. OMG for others. We think holistic, and we're not dependent on the front page, but we recognize the value it plays in helping simplify the complexity of the richness of the Internet.

BF: And that idea of Yahoo as an editor in a sense, as opposed to, for people who are very tech-savvy, the idea of “I get my RSS feeds, and I have everything, and nobody tells me what I want?” It sounds like you're saying there's still a lot of value, at least for some audiences, in that Yahoo's going to tell you “Here's ten things that you should see,” or otherwise present the user with information that they might not have asked for.

(Posted by David S. Cohen)

Monsters vs. Aliens has got the MSM abuzz about 3-D, so much so that NPR's Bob Mondello just finished giving the picture a review that seemed more concerned with reviewing the 3-D than the movie. (His verdict on both: mediocre.) But if you want to find the real action in 3-D, look into 3-D television, which is already feasible and yet still nowhere near your local Best Buy.

Into this breach rides, yet again, USC's Entertainment Technology Center. The ETC today had an open house at its brand new 3-D lab near USC, which brings together pretty much every available 3-D TV system so studios and other pros can do side-by-side comparisons. There's a "3-D Sandbox" room (So you can play with the 3-D. Get it?); a 3-D home theater room running stereo content on a 100" wall from an off-the-shelf DepthQ projector; and a 3-D Living Room with several monitors, including the very nice but not-yet-available model from JVC. The Living Room has a nice couch but it lacks a messy coffee table.  There's also an Anytime/Anywhere Content room.

With this effort, ETC is adopting the same approach it used to help nurture D-cinema. ETC's Digital Cinema Lab in Hollywood let everybody test digital projector systems in genuine theater conditions -- it was located in the earthquake-damaged Hollywood Pacific Theater. The new 3-D lab isn't so grand, but it might just help turn everybody's living room into a 3-D room.

In part four of our five part interview, Yahoo's audience group senior VP Jeff Dossett, who runs the Santa Monica office, talks about whether having an L.A. office still makes sense, his view on infusing social media into the portal experience, and how Yahoo can compete against Google in search.

For more on Dossett, read the introduction to part one of our interview. Reads part two here and part three here.

Ben Fritz: You mentioned the value of being here in Santa Monica. Obviously this office was started when the Media Group was a more separate entity and was being headed by someone who came from the more traditional media business trying to do something more Hollywood in terms of programming.

Now, you're heading the audience group that includes the stuff in Santa Monica, and includes some stuff up in Sunnyvale – Is there still much value in being in Santa Monica? If this were all to move to Sunnyvale right now, would it make a big difference?

Jeff Dossett: I think there's tremendous value being here in Santa Monica. First of all, as I mentioned earlier, this is an incredible market of creativity and innovation in and around consumer content and media experiences. From a partnering perspective, from a talent pool to attract to Yahoo, to our ability to interface and interact face to face, day in and day out, with movie studies for premieres or showings, or even just developing relationships with the key, influential leaders in the media and entertainment business. You asked right at the beginning about the things that sort of attracted me to Yahoo; being in this environment, in this office, close to this industry is a strong attractor.

I do think that if you step back and look at all user behavior online, and you think from a multi-decade perspective – try to think out five, ten, twenty years – one of the most significant trends will be the willingness of users to consume more entertainment in total online, and certainly more content which is traditionally best created in this community and this marketplace. I think there's a great collaboration to be had as that user behavior changes over time.

BF: Who do you see your competitors as, now? We talked about the media companies, but you're a portal, and there's a traditional portal experience in which MSN and AOL are obviously still there competing, and have their own problems, but do you see your competition more broadly than Yahoo's competition may have been three years ago? Whether it's social media, whether it's the old media companies we talked about a little bit before, whether it's online service companies, who do you think about your main competitors as being?

(Posted by David S. Cohen)

Getting some kind of coordination among the studios can seem well nigh impossible, but it's just a coincidence that the initiative from the Entertainment Technology Center at USC to help the industry settle on a single format for digital masters has been dubbed the I.M.F.

That would be "Interoperable Master Format" to you and me. Not Impossible Mission Force.

This effort addresses one of those tech headaches that lives below the radar for most of us but adds a lot of friction and cost to the seemingly simple task of distributing content on video -- a movie, a TV show, whatever -- to companies that want to sell it.

Right now, masters have to be created specially for each version: 1080p Hi-Def, 720p, Standard-Def, Pan-and-Scan, foreign language and so on. Worse, the ETC's David Wertheimer told us, "There is no standard for how those masters are formatted. If I send somebody a digital file it’s not clear they’ll know what to do with it."

So the goal of the I.M.F., Wertheimer says, is to "come up with a specification, for what ultimately could be a standard, for a master from which we could create downstream deliverables, for everything outside the theater."

The difference between a spec and a standard can be esoteric, but ETC is getting the studios and the rest of the business on board for a spec, which will be handed off to SMPTE, which sets standards. Once there's a SMPTE standard, the industry will get on the same page, and the entire process of sending out digital video content should get a lot simpler.

The ETC's approach is to set up a single master with all the metadata anyone would need for all the various versions, from Blu-Ray to iTunes to a streaming foreign language version.

So there's a reason to make a mental note of yet another I.M.F., along with the International Monetary Fund and Ethan Hunt's band of spies.