Berlin on a BudgetWhat: A new hotel brand emerges, offering reasonably priced accommodations in one of Europe’s most cultural cities.

The Dirt:Once a divided city, Berlin is now home to a great film festival, a huge art scene and a great selection of hip hotels. Enter Michelberger Hotel, an 119-room hostel-cum-hotel located near Oberbaum Bridge, set to open in September 2009. Named after its proprietor, Tom Michelberger, the hotel caters to artsy globetrotting travelers. This [...]

Revamping Hotel CuisineWhat: Chef celeb Jamie Oliver has linked up with Scandic Hotels to help the group revamp its menus.

The Dirt:The celebrity chef is a sexy notion for us couch potatoes looking for a dreamy guy or gal that is nice to look at and offers innovative recipes. We fall prey to Jamie Oliver. He appears both sweet and sexy, which is why we sit there for an hour admiring the country setting for [...]

U2’s Big Week What:Activist Irish rock band U2 spent the weekend in the U.S. and darted back to Europe to unveil their latest song.

The Dirt:Songs, like artwork, may sometimes be harder to appreciate later in an artist’s life than one expected. Such may be the case for U2’s latest single, Get On Your Boots, the first single off their impending album, No Line On The Horizon.The single, due out in February, is the classic U2 rock song. What [...]

HP Introduces Home Entertainment Computer

Hewlett-Packard’s Connecting Your World event in Berlin was the launching pad for a number of consumer-oriented products, including the SmartTouch. Is it a computer or a television? The folks at Hewlett-Packard are hoping you’ll think it’s both. The evolution of the personal computer has been propelled by the advent of both wireless Internet and touch [...]