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The New York Times's Brian Stelter reported Friday that Current TV has dismissed cable news host Keith Olbermannafter he moved there just over a year agofrom MSNBC, and the break-up does not sound amicable. In a statement, Current TV writes:

Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.

That might only be big news in itself if you're an Olbermann follower, though if you are, it'll come as no surprise. Olbermann has publicly sparred with his network a lot over the past few months. But of course, no story on Olbermann goes without his own enthusiastic take on it, and we expect fireworks will make this interesting. Apparently, there won't be any ceremony about the firing either, Stelter reports. Olbermann's dismissal is immediate, and he'll be replaced by Eliot Spitzer -- the former New York governor who also knows a little something about being fired by a cable news network. Spitzer's set to appear in just a few hours from the announcement, a turn-around so fast, even the show's guests have been caught off guard.

It'll also be interesting to see where Olbermann lands. We hear Rupert Murdoch's got a new sports network in the making.

Update: 6:30 PM EST:Olbermann released the following statement:

I'd like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV. Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I've been not publicizing my complaints, and keeping the show alive for the sake of its loyal viewers and even more loyal staff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt, instead of abiding by their promises and obligations and investing in a quality news program, finally thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract. It goes almost without saying that the claims against me implied in Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently. To understand Mr. Hyatts values of respect, openness, collegiality and loyalty, I encourage you to read of a previous occasion Mr. Hyatt found himself in court for having unjustly fired an employee. That employees name was Clarence B. Cain. http://nyti.ms/HueZsa In due course, the truth of the ethics of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt will come out. For now, it is important only to again acknowledge that joining them was a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one. That lack of judgment is mine and mine alone, and I apologize again for it.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at erandall at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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Keith Olbermann and Current TV Break Up

A small New York web development company pulled a fast one on the Internet this week when it pretended to launch a website associated with Kanye West's yet-to-be-unveiled startup.

And as the famous West/Jay-Z song says, it got the people going.

WhoDat.biz lit up Twitter on Wednesday and was reported by a couple of credible news sites, including the Washington Post.

"Quick! Invest in @kanyewest's Donda Media. They just reinvented technology that has been around since the 80's," said one Twitter user, who likely hadn't yet realized the site was a hoax.

By the end of the night, it was obvious the site was not legitimate, especially considering it's nothing more than a simple who-is website that looks up websites' information. Gizmodo debunked WhoDat.biz after discovering the real creators behind the site, cleverly enough, by using the fake West website to look up their phone number.

OKFocus the team of web developers behind the hoax, pulls this kind of stunt once a week, said co-founder Ryder Ripps.

We try to do one of these kind of projects a week just to keep our own spirits up and have fun," he said. "Thats the main objective, and prove to our future clients that were good at the Internet.

OKFocus decided to make an interesting who-is website on Monday. They chose to go with a gangster-style who-is but decided they needed something more to make it interesting and catch people's attention.

And West's startup, named Donda after his deceased mother, presented an opportunity. The rapper announced the venture in January on Twitter, but he has yet to reveal what it is.

It was something that didnt have any sort of presence on the Internet yet, Ripps said. We could interpret it to our own liking.

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Fake Kanye West startup website fools the Internet

A ship leaving the United Arab Emirates uses weights attached to buoys to help sink an underwater Internet cable.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Did you ever wonder how people in Japan connect to websites hosted in San Francisco? Or how a New Yorker can Skype with a friend in Sydney?

It sounds crazy, but Earth's continents are physically linked to one another through a vast network of subsea, fiber-optic cables that circumnavigate the globe. Cords no thicker than your home's broadband connection stretch along the bottom of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans; through the Suez canal; across the Mediterranean Sea and around the coasts of Africa and South America.

Indian telecom giant Tata, one of the world's largest subsea cable providers, manages 130,500 miles of fiber sitting at the bottom of the ocean floor. That's enough to circle the planet five times. It takes a ship six weeks just to load the cable for a cross-ocean voyage.

Why is all that underwater cable necessary? It's a matter of speed, and laying in enough safeguards to ensure that the Internet won't suddenly go down.

Subsea fiber-optic cables can tie two giant centers of commerce together, reducing data traffic delays. Three companies are in the process of building cable networks that link London directly to Tokyo -- through the polar ice cap -- with cables capable of 10 gigabit-per-second speeds. (That's 2,000 times faster than your home Internet connection).

Those cables could reduce the Internet's latency by about 60 milliseconds between those two points.

That's an imperceptible lag for the average Internet user, but it's an eternity for high-speed stock traders. They can make or lose millions of dollars in that span of time.

It's not just financial institutions, which make up a very small portion of total Internet usage, that are interested in faster speeds. Internet service providers like Comcast (CMCSA, Fortune 500) and Time Warner Cable (TWC, Fortune 500) like to go zoom as well, because it gives them capacity to meet the growing demands on their networks.

Subsea cables have the added benefit of being shielded from wind, trees, storms and other destructive forces. They don't require massive towers to carry them, like over-the-land cables do.

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Making the Internet a split-second faster

Enlarge Hrvoje Polan/AFP/Getty Images

The group Anonymous has threatened to take down the Internet on Saturday to protest anti-piracy proposals that they consider online censorship. Here, a masked protester demonstrates against one such measure last month in Zagreb, Croatia, last month.

The group Anonymous has threatened to take down the Internet on Saturday to protest anti-piracy proposals that they consider online censorship. Here, a masked protester demonstrates against one such measure last month in Zagreb, Croatia, last month.

The mysterious group of hackers who go by the name "Anonymous" have threatened to take down the Internet on Saturday. Or not.

The confusion comes from the very nature of the group, which is amorphous and has no identifiable leadership. Several weeks ago, a group identifying itself as Anonymous announced "Operation Global Blackout," the effect of which would be to bring Web surfing to a halt.

Cybersecurity experts doubt the operation would have more than a limited effect, given the layers of protection built into the Internet architecture.

The Anonymous group itself, meanwhile, appeared divided over the plan. A Twitter account normally associated with Anonymous included several statements on Friday denying any effort to shut down the Internet.

"For the billionth time: #Anonymous will not shut down the Internet on 31 March," said one.

"What is this #OperationGlobalBlackout nonsense?" said another. "Stop asking us about it!"

The contradictions highlighted the difficulty of assessing whether a hacking threat should be attributed to Anonymous or to hackers merely posing as Anonymous

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'Anonymous' Hacking Group Threatens The Internet

Eric Michael Gillett, Marilyn Maye, Terese Genecco Among 2012 MAC Award Winners

By Michael Gioia 30 Mar 2012

The 26th Annual MAC Awards, hosted by Jason Graae, were presented by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs March 29 at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill.

The 2012 ceremony, dedicated to The Year of the Songwriter, honored and paid tribute to five songwriters: Ervin Drake and David Friedman, who received MAC's Lifetime Achievement Awards; and Francesca Blumenthal, John Bucchino and Julie Gold, who received MAC's Board of Director Awards. Additionally, the HansonAward was presented to Rosemary Loar.

The annual MAC Awards honor achievement in cabaret, comedy and jazz in Manhattan. Lennie Watts directed the evening, which was produced by Julie Miller.

The 2012 MAC Award nominees follow (winners' names are bolded with an asterisk):

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Kim Grogg, One-Hit Wonder Woman Don't Tell Mama

*Janice Hall, Grand Illusions: The Music of Marlene Dietrich Urban Stages

Sigali Hamberger, A Toast to Ava Gardner Metropolitan Room

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Eric Michael Gillett, Marilyn Maye, Terese Genecco Among 2012 MAC Award Winners