According to a New York Times report, Fine died in Beverly Hills, California on Friday, May 17. He is reported to have succumbed to multiple atrophy syndrome.

During the 1960s Fine published magazines for the Hearst Corporation. His magazines included Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and Town & Country. After leaving Hearst, Fine became the president of New York department store Bonwit Teller.

Fine is, perhaps, most well-known for influencing drug law in the U.S. According to the Times, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller once sent Fine to Japan to discover why the country had such low drug addiction rates. Fine’s report focused on the harsh sentences drug dealers in Japan were given. Rockefeller soon signed into law harsh mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug possession, increasing prison populations and influencing drug laws for decades to come.

The hype around the documentary Room 237 has no doubt played a role in much of the recent interest in the film, but The Shining will continue to inspire countless pieces of Internet fun for years to come, without a doubt.

With the new Film Ink ad, we can’t help but be reminded of this Channel 4 ad for The Stanley Kubrick Season from a few years back:

[via The Overlook Hotel]

Google announced that magazines are now available on Google Play in the UK. The magazines on offer at launch come from a variety of publishers including Condé Nast UK, Dennis Publishing, Future, Haymarket, Hearst UK, Immediate Media and IPC Media. Current issues will be available in digital format starting today, but there’s no mention of making back issues available.

As for the specific selection, some of the launch brands include Men’s Fitness, Slimming World, Total Film, New Statesman, The Spectator, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, Wired and more. Subscribers will have each new issue added to their collection for easy access on the cloud.

Google is also introducing its U.S. Google Play promotion in the UK. All new Nexus devices sold will include free issues of Men’s Fitness, .net and Vogue. Not exactly the cream of the crop, but it’s a good way to see if you like reading digital magazines. Some folks still prefer traditional magazines, but they’re proving to be more and more of a financial liability as evidenced by how many were shut down this year.

You can check out the magazine selection on Google Play here.

It won’t be all TheDailyBeast.com. Tablet apps will remain a major part of the strategy, as well as a premium web version of the publication.

Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, Tina Brown, made the announcement in an article on the site this morning. She writes:

Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication will be named, will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context. Newsweek Global will be supported by paid subscription and will be available through e-readers for both tablet and the Web, with select content available on The Daily Beast.

Four years ago we launched The Daily Beast. Two years later, we merged our business with the iconic Newsweek magazine—which The Washington Post Company had sold to Dr. Sidney Harman. Since the merger, both The Daily Beast and Newsweek have continued to post and publish distinctive journalism and have demonstrated explosive online growth in the process. The Daily Beast now attracts more than 15 million unique visitors a month, a 70 percent increase in the past year alone—a healthy portion of this traffic generated each week by Newsweek’s strong original journalism.

Brown admits that the business has been increasingly affected by the “challenging print advertising environment”.

The transition to all digital will happen early next year. The last print edition in the U.S. will be the December 31 issue. Newsweek will celebrate its 80th anniversary next year.

It’s unfortunate then that today came news out of Ars Technica that Nintendo Power was closing. It appears that its current publisher, Future Publishing, can’t work out a deal with Nintendo to extend the license. It’s a shame too since Nintendo Power was one of the most influential video game magazines in the late 80s/early 90s.

Nintendo Power was first published in 1988 as a glorified marketing device to advertise the latest and greatest games. It was more than that to Nintendo obsessed kids like me though. Each issue was chock full of tips, tricks and secrets for games that I never would have completed were it not for Nintendo Power. It didn’t hurt that the magazine had one hell of a sales pitch:

After owning the magazine for 19 years, Nintendo licensed out the name to Future Publishing. Future is the major publisher behind other console-specific magazines like Official Xbox Magazine and Official PlayStation Magazine. It only made sense for them to get ahold of Nintendo Power as well.

Thankfully, it looks like Future won’t be firing any of the writers after Nintendo Power ceases to exist. They are apparently being moved to other Future properties like GamesRadar and MacLife magazine. Here’s hoping that Nintendo realizes their mistake and renews the license. It’s almost too sad to see such a giant within the gaming community just go away like that.

It’s not entirely certain when the last issue will be published, but you can bet that I’ll be picking up a copy. Maybe I can show my kids 20 years down the road just how awesome game publications used to be.

As an aside, check out this collection of Nintendo Power covers. The magazine, especially the early ones, had amazing cover art. It’s worth a trip down memory lane just for them.

“Helen Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry,” said Hearst CEO Frank Bennack. “She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential ‘Cosmo girl.’ She will be greatly missed.”

Gurley Brown was also known for her best-selling book Sex and the Single Girl, which was published in 1962, when she was 40. She was married to film producer David Brown.

Hearst shared the following letter from Bennack to staff:

Dear Hearst Colleague:

Frank Bennack

Earlier this year, Gurley Brown donated (as part of her and her late husband’s joint philanthropy efforts) $30 million to Columbia and Stanford Universities, creating the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, which is designed to represent “the increasingly important connection between journalism and technology,” according to the schools. David Brown attended both.

“Having been involved with both magazines throughout the last five years, it would be fair to say that X360 and 360 Magazine have always occupied their own individual niche; there have always been elements each has realised with greater effectiveness than the other,” said Howdle. “The new X360 combines the power of these unique strengths into one highly desirable whole. I could not be more thrilled at being a part of the team that’s going to make X360’s future a reality.”

The first issue of X360 to be authored by the combined staff is issue 87. That issue, which will hit stores on July 11, will feature in-depth E3 coverage and an enhanced DVD.

“By merging these two magazines, we have a chance to better focus ourselves on creating exactly what is needed is push the X360 brand forward,” said Rick Porter, editor In chief at Imagine Publishing. “Ultimately, we’re now in a position to create the best possible package for the Xbox 360 gamer, and ensure the X360 brand goes from strength to strength in the challenging single-format magazine market.”

Today, Playboy Enterprises has launched i.Playboy.com, a site that gives you access to every page from every issue of Playboy ever published. That sure is a lot of…articles.

Here’s the scope of what we are talking about here: 130,000 pages from over 57 years of magazines – every centerfold, pictorial, reporting piece, interview and even every advertisement.

In addition to providing users with access to all issues from December 1953 to present, the site will also feature exclusive videos and curated content recommendations submitted by members of the Playboy Commission, a high-profile panel of celebrated individuals from art, design, fashion, media and technology. Commission members will provide their own content suggestions from the Playboy archives for users to explore and enjoy each month, beginning in June.

The site, i.playboy.com, is optimized for the iPad, meaning you can navigate the service with relative ease and fluidity. Each magazine issue that you open has a content page with yellow highlighted areas that users can tap to jump quickly from section to section within the issue. A promotional video at the site tells users to “zoom in for more detail” by pinching the screen. I’m sure people will.

A subscription to the service will be offered for multiple time-frames. It will run users $8 per month if they pay monthly. A year’s subscription is $60 while a 2-year subscription is $100. You will save a substantial amount of money by going with the 2-year plan.

Here’s what Playboy’s content officer Jimmy Jellinek says about the new service, as quoted at the Chicago Tribune:

Jellinek is optimistic people will pony up the $8 per month or $60 per year for a service that’s “meant to appeal to that sense of collective nostalgia and affinity.” He calls the website “the world’s sexiest time machine” and “an anthology of cool” for a magazine he refers to as “the Mount Rushmore of literary greatness.”

In an age where the next naked girl in just a *free* click away, will people pony up the cash for Playboy online? The magazine has always had the reputation as “classy” pornography, which is more than can be said for much of the stuff on the web. Will the nostalgia factor create subscription sales? Are the interviews with famous people like John Lennon and articles by Jack Kerouac enough to draw people in?

I would think that every page from every Playboy issue ever published is quite an historical document in its own right, and that could drive enough interest to make i.playboy.com work. I mean, come one – when’s the last time you saw the Marilyn Monroe Playboy spread?

Does i.playboy.com interest you?

Do you think Hearst’s success in traditional publishing will extend to triumph in the online world? Let us know in the comments section.

With 14 magazines and 23 sites, the company has 40 apps to accompany them. "Our digital library is a huge asset," he said, later adding "It’s not just the assets. It’s what you do with them."

Hearst goes well beyond simply re-creating its print experiences for digital platforms whether they be the publications’ websites or mobile apps. For its sites it creates unique content. For its apps it not only creates unique content, but unique app experiences altogether. Many of Heart’s brand apps offer different services or entertaining experiences that aren’t just reading. And this goes beyond even video, audio, and animation. It’s about creating a interesting experience. 

None of these apps are free. Loughlin says that while much of the Blogosphere says this stuff should be free, he disagrees, noting that these bloggers should see the bills that come along with developing this stuff. 

"It’s not just about brand exposure," said Loughlin. "It’s about creating a sufficiently strong impression."

"When people ask me, ‘Is print dead?’ I say hell no" he added.

Hearst’s paid print subscriptions sold via the web have gone up significantly in the last four years.

While I’ve long been skeptical of the notion that a substantial amount of people will pay for digital content when there is so much other content available for free, 

Hearst has the right idea when it comes to making this work, I think, if it’s really going to.  It’s all about keeping it unique and creating interesting experiences beyond just readable (or even watchable or listenable) content.

Let us know what you make of Loughlin’s thoughts — and if you have any additional ideas — in the comments section.

Kobo is backed by Indigo Books & Music, Borders, REDgroup Retail, Cheung Kong Holdings, and others. In July, Borders launched its own branded eBook store powered by Kobo. At that time, Border CEO Mike Edwards said, "The race to emerge as a retail leader within the digital category is just starting." 

Since then, Samsung has unveiled its Android-powered Galaxy Tab, and Kobo announced that it would be supplying the e-reader technology for it. Kobo has apps for the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, and Palm Pre. 

Today’s announcement, however, only applies to the reader, the iPhone and iPad apps at this point. Publications include: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Scientist, The Seattle Times, Wilson Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, American Scholar, China International Business, Columbus Dispatch , Guideposts, Harvard Business Review, National Review, New York Observer, PC Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Reason, The Christian Science Monitor Daily Briefing, The Nation, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times-Colonist, and The Globe & Mail.   

The company says it will continue to expand its offerings in this area. The newspapers’ and magazines’ formats are emulated on Kobo’s offerings. Still, readers can customize text sizes.

"Kobo continues to build on our commitment of making sure that consumers have the best reading experience on any device with the largest selection of content worldwide," said Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis. "We’ve had tremendous success with eBooks and we’re very excited to expand the Kobo offering to include newspapers and magazines with a two-week free trial, allowing consumers to try first without any obligation. We continue to bring on top publishers to ensure that Kobo’s newspaper and magazine offering meets our customers’ highest expectations."

After the two-week trial, monthly subscription prices start at $13.99 for newspapers and $2.99 for magazines. Kobo also claims to have over 2.2 million eBooks available.