Thomas Andrew "Tom" Merritt (born June 28, 1970 in Greenville, Illinois ) is a technology journalist and broadcaster who hosts a daily show on Leo Laporte's TWiT.tv Netcast Network Tech News Today. Merritt was formerly an Executive Editor for CNET and developer and co-host of the daily podcast Buzz Out Loud.
Born in Greenville, Illinois, Merritt's father worked on the Coffee-Mate project as a food scientist. Merritt received a BS in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and pursued graduate work in communications at the University of Texas at Austin.
Tom's foray into the world of radio began in 1986 as a DJ for WGEL, a country music station located in Greenville, Illinois. In 1993, Merritt worked as an intern for National Public Radio's "Morning Edition". From 1999 to 2004 Merritt worked for TechTV in San Francisco as an Executive Web Producer and served as a radio host with TechTV until 2003.
Merritt started with CNET in 2004. In addition to his duties as co-host of Buzz Out Loud with Molly Wood, Merritt also had a regular column & podcast (co-hosted with Rafe Needleman) dealing with consumer technology. He also co-hosted the tech support call-in program CNET Live with fellow editor Brian Cooley, and was the host of CNET Top 5.
Léo Gordon Laporte (/ləˈpɔrt/; born November 29, 1956 in Manhattan, New York City) is an Emmy Award winning, American technology broadcaster, author, and entrepreneur.
Laporte studied Chinese history at Yale University before dropping out in his junior year to pursue his career in radio broadcasting, where his early radio names were Dave Allen and Dan Hayes. He began his association with computers with his first home PC, an Atari 400. Laporte said he purchased his first Macintosh in 1984. He operated one of the first Macintosh-only bulletin board systems, MacQueue, from 1985 to 1988.
Laporte has worked on technology-related broadcasting projects, including Dvorak On Computers in January 1991 (co-hosted with computer pundit John C. Dvorak), and Laporte On Computers on KGO Radio and KSFO in San Francisco. Laporte also hosted Internet! on PBS, and The Personal Computing Show on CNBC. In 1997, he earned an Emmy Award for his work on MSNBC's The Site, where he created the motion capture character Dev Null.
Mads Dittmann Mikkelsen (help·info) (born 22 November 1965) is a Danish actor. In May 2012, he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his role in the film The Hunt.
Mikkelsen was born in the Østerbro area of Copenhagen, the son of Bente Christiansen and Henning Mikkelsen, a cab driver. He is the brother of actor Lars Mikkelsen. After attending Århus Theatre School, he made his film debut in the movie Pusher. He has starred in popular Danish movies such as Flickering Lights (Danish: Blinkende lygter), The Green Butchers (Danish: De grønne slagtere), Adam's Apples (Danish: Adams æbler), Valhalla Rising, his film debut Pusher, and Pusher II. Mikkelsen's longest running role was as a policeman in the Danish television series Unit One (Danish: Rejseholdet). He also starred as Tristan in the Jerry Bruckheimer production of King Arthur, as well as playing the villain Le Chiffre in the 2006 James Bond film, Casino Royale. Also in 2006 he took the lead role in the Oscar nominated After the Wedding (Danish: Efter brylluppet).
Richard Buckner is an American singer-songwriter born in California. After living in Edmonton, Alberta for a number of years, he currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. A critically acclaimed artist hailed by Bon Iver as a big influence and most often associated with the alternative country movement, Buckner had in recent albums eschewed his initial acoustic approach and displayed an increasing interest in more abstract music styles until reintegrating his acoustic approach on 2011's "Our Blood".
Buckner's career began with Bloomed (1994), a lyrically-dense suite of songs recorded in Lubbock, Texas (produced by Lloyd Maines) and heavily influenced by that state's tradition of whiskey-soaked poet/troubadors, probably best embodied by Townes Van Zandt. (Since 1999, the album has been kept in print (with additional bonus tracks) by Rykodisc offshoot Slow River Records at Buckner's request, the artwork on the back cover was edited to remove his then-girlfriend from the picture.) In January 1996, while living in San Francisco, he recorded an album's worth of acoustic songs, all of which would reappear in more fully realized forms on his second and third albums. This CD was self-produced and self-released, and was sold exclusively at his early shows.
Veronica Ann Belmont (born July 21, 1982) is the co-host of the Revision3 show Tekzilla alongside Patrick Norton, the co-host of the TWiT.tv gaming show Game On! along with Brian Brushwood, and the former host of the monthly PlayStation 3-based video on demand program Qore. Formerly she was the host for the Mahalo Daily podcast and a producer and associate editor for CNET Networks, Inc. where she produced, engineered, and co-hosted the podcast Buzz Out Loud.[citation needed]
At the time of Belmont's birth, her mother was a vice president at Coleco. Belmont attended Emerson College, in Boston, Massachusetts, to study audio production and new media studies. She worked briefly in Boston afterwards, and eventually secured an internship at CNET. Belmont currently resides in San Francisco, California with her fiancée, former Engadget editor Ryan Block.
Belmont started as an intern producing audio content for CNET Networks. She was hired full-time six months later to produce their "First Look from the Labs" series, and also began producing Buzz Out Loud. Originally she was the sound engineer and producer of the show, but her role on the podcast grew substantially. She began to inject her own commentary, and was acknowledged as an official co-host in August 2006. She also was the producer and co-host of two more CNET podcasts called MP3 Insider and CRAVE Gadget Blog, which were both co-hosted by the late James Kim.