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2013-02-21T15:29:00.001-08:00

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2013-02-21T14:21:00.002-08:00

Christina Aguilera Flaunts Killer Style In “Your Body” Video

2012-09-30T11:13:00.002-07:00

Hot on the (platform, stiletto) heels of her announcement that she is taking a hiatus from "The Voice" next season to refocus on her pop career, judge Christina Aguilera has released her comeback video, "Your Body," in all its trashy, tawdry, Technicolor glory. And man, the girl is looking killer, literally, as she portrays a femme fatale on the lam who leaves a trail of destruction and slain suitors in her wake. (Don't worry, a pre-video disclaimer assures viewers that "no men were harmed in the making of this video.")

Video On Youtube ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cfCgLgiFDM

The dirrty girl's sexy "Your Body" video makes so many pop-culture references during its retina-scaldingly rainbow-brite four minutes and 40 seconds, it's enough to make even Seth MacFarlane or Dennis Miller's heads spin. And yet, somehow, it's all so very, very Xtina. First of all, Christina basically embodies both Thelma and Louise, combined into one leopard-printed package. This, of course, brings to mind Lady Gaga and Beyonce's cross-country "Telephone" road rampage...and speaking of Beyonce, the retro-'50s housewife look Christina rocks in the clip's opening scene brings to mind Beyonce's "Why Don't You Love Me" vid, which perhaps not coincidentally was lensed by "Your Body's" director, Melina Matsoukas

When it comes to the hair--and what Christina Aguilera discussion would be complete without some serious follicle focus?--Xtina also references many other pop-culture icons' hairstyles, as well as some of her own past memorable looks. The finger-waved lavender 'do is oh-so Nicki Minaj, with a bit of Christina's old Back To Basics glamour; the grungy braids are reminiscent of "My So-Called Life" bad girl Rayanne (or Xtina's own tiny plaits from 2001); the multi-colored extensions aren't too different from the ones Christina's former Disney rival Britney Spears recently sported at the iHeartRadio music festival (or the streaks Xtina rocked herself in the early 2000s); and the pink-tipped ombre wig even seems like a subtle (well, subtle by Xtina standards, anyway) homage to Berlin's Terri Nunn.

And speaking of Berlin, the '80s references don't end there. Those rhinestone cat-eye specs? Soooo Cyndi Lauper. Paired with a platinum movie-star bob, the effect is pure Madonna circa Who's That Girl. And that pink pickup truck? It looks like it was borrowed from Hollywood billboard starlet Angelyne's garage. The result, of course, is some totally awesome fashion.

As for more recent pop-cultural touchstones, this may be a stretch here, but the tattered American-flag tee is quite Ke$ha-esque, and when Christina, still wearing said shirt, reclines in a tanning bed, Snooki leaps to mind. In fact, the scene when Xtina rampages through a roadside mini-mart, in her curve-hugging clubbing dress, kind of looks like an outtake from "Jersey Shore."

Basically, in "Your Body" Christina is dressed to excess and for success, because despite the fact that she looks like she's wearing the entire contents of a Sephora flagship store on her face and an entire counter's worth of Claire's baubles on her body, she pulls it off and makes every look totally her own. When Christina returns to "The Voice" in fall 2013, she really ought to have this video's stylist on the NBC set at all times, because this popstar-pinup thing she's got going on here is really werking for her..

Lady Gaga's meat dress to be shown in DC museum

2012-09-06T12:35:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lady Gaga's famous meat dress has made its way to the nation's capital, along with Loretta Lynn's song about "The Pill" and other relics from music history.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is opening a national tour for an exhibit about pioneering women in rock 'n' roll, tracing the evolution of women artists and their impact on music. It opens Friday at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Curator Meredith Rutledge-Borger told The Associated Press the exhibit, "Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power" is inherently political, in part, as it highlights many "first ladies of rock" who have spoken loud and clear on women's rights, gay rights and other issues through their music.

"This really is the center of our political life," Rutledge-Borger said during the Washington opening. "Bringing this exhibit here kind of redefines what's important in our history and political life ... at a time when there's talk of women being under attack in politics."

More than 250 artifacts represent 70 women who were "engines of change and creativity," she said, each helping to redefine who could make rock 'n' roll. It features items from Cher, the B-52s, Donna Summer, Stevie Nicks, Cyndi Lauper and Madonna's provocative outfit from her "Blonde Ambition" tour. Other items date back to jazz singer Billie Holiday, first blues recording artists Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey and country music trailblazer Mother Maybelle Carter.

Lynn's country song, "The Pill," was considered so controversial in 1975 that her record label delayed its release for three years. Lynn later recounted that doctors told her the tune was pivotal in rural acceptance of birth control.

"We really wanted to make sure this wasn't just a fashion show," Rutledge-Borger said. "We wanted to showcase these artists as musicians."

For the National Museum of Women in the Arts, it's the first exhibit to feature women performing artists, said chief curator Kathryn Wat.

Gaga's dress from the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards — now dried, preserved and painted to restore its original raw meat color — is being shown in its political context.

When Gaga wore the dress, she was accompanied by U.S. soldiers impacted by the "don't ask, don't tell" policy to protest the ban on gays serving openly in the military. She explained that if people don't stand up for their rights, "pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones. And, I am not a piece of meat."

Beyond the dress's shock value, Gaga's push for inclusion of gays or anyone else who is different helped cement her place as a pioneer, said Rutledge-Borger.

"If you dig a little deeper, there's this important message of inclusion and family," she said. "That to me is really why she's so powerful."

The museum also is featuring Gaga's outfit from the 2010 Grammy Awards, where "Poker Face" won for best dance recording, and her childhood piano. She began taking lessons when she was 4.

"Women Who Rock" will remain on view in Washington through Jan. 6. Then it will travel to the Durham Museum in Omaha, Neb., the EMP Museum in Seattle and the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.

Quincy Jones denies casino mogul made threats

2012-09-06T12:33:00.001-07:00

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Music mogul Quincy Jones testified Thursday that he never told "Girls Gone Wild" creator Joe Francis that casino mogul Steve Wynn had threatened to kill the soft-porn producer and have him buried in the desert.

The Grammy-winning record producer shook his head repeatedly under questioning before a jury as an attorney described Francis' accusations, which Jones called fiction.

Francis says Jones told him that Wynn had threatened to hit him over the head with a shovel and have him buried in the desert. Francis also says Jones showed him a stack of emails supposedly detailing the threats. Francis said under oath that Jones told him Wynn was a gangster and "old Vegas."

"That sounds like a line from 'Scarface,'" Jones said. He added that he would like to see the emails Francis claims he displayed.

Francis acknowledges he never read the emails and didn't ask Jones, who is his next-door neighbor, to let him read them.

Wynn has vehemently denied he ever threatened Francis. Wynn has testified that Francis' comments are damaging to his reputation and could hurt business at Wynn Resorts Ltd.'s casinos, the Wynn and Encore.

He told jurors Tuesday that he had never sent an email in his life, and Jones said he hadn't ever seen one sent by Wynn.

Wynn's attorney Barry Langberg asked multiple questions about Francis' accusations. Jones alternated between appearing taken aback by the statements attributed to him to smiling and shaking his head. "Absolutely not," he repeatedly said when Langberg asked about whether Wynn had ever conveyed a threat toward Francis.

Jones said he attempted to mediate a dispute between Francis and Wynn's casino over $2 million in gambling losses.

"I was trying to just make peace," Jones said, adding that he wanted Francis to "do what he should have done in the first place."

"If you lose the money, you pay the money," Jones said. "That's ridiculous."

Jones has won multiple Grammy awards for his work with artists such as Michael Jackson and the superstar 1985 collaboration "We Are the World."

He was initially a reluctant witness, citing doctor's orders for why he was unable to testify during the case. He said he wasn't really feeling well after taking the witness stand Thursday morning, but laughed and cracked several jokes while testifying.

When asked about Francis and their relationship, Jones said he tried to bail his neighbor out of a Panama City, Fla., jail after he was arrested on suspicion of filming underage girls. Jones said he'd traveled to Mexico and the Middle East with Francis for events, but acknowledged it could be a lot of work at times.

"A lot of drama," Jones said of Francis.

Kings of Leon's Jared Followill on His Ambient New Band

2012-09-06T12:32:00.002-07:00

Jared Followill figures he's been touring virtually nonstop since the age of 15. Last November, after wrapping an Australian outing with his band Kings of Leon, the 25-year-old bassist was faced with an unfamiliar prospect: he had nearly a year off from the road.

"I knew that I would go a little bit stir-crazy just not doing anything and not having any artistic outlets," the youngest Followill brother tells Rolling Stone. Thanks to good timing and a close friendship with fellow Nashvillian Nick Brown, lead singer of the rock group Mona, Followill's outlet arrived in the form of a new band.

Smoke and Jackal, as the longtime friends have dubbed themselves, is the direct result of eight booze-filled nights spent recording in Brown's basement. The duo will release their debut, EP1, a six-song collection, on October 16th. The band, according to Followill, was anything but premeditated.

"It was super spur-of-the-moment," he says. The two friends' original intention, he says, was to record one song and "put it up on YouTube or something stupid like that for people to see. [Nick] sings amazing and I sing horribly, so we figured we could just go down there and try it one night."

The duo pumped out two songs on their first evening recording together; four more would arrive in just over a week's time. Before pressing onward, the two agreed on some basic ground rules. "We made a rule of 'no pressure,'" Brown says. "The second: if it's not fun, we're leaving. We'll go to a bar."

For inspiration, the pair spun "vibe-y" records by Beach House and Magnetic Fields and jammed over muted clips of some of their favorite movies, including Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 action thriller Drive. (Brown specifically recalls playing over "that fight scene in the elevator where [Ryan Gosling] is kicking the shit out of the dude.") The band's aim, according to Followill, aligned with their creation method.

"We wanted to create a soundtrack," he explains. "That's the kind of vibe we were both going for."

On EP1, the two rockers explore uncharacteristically ambient musical territory. "I think it was important for us to create a new identity and have our own sound," Followill says.

Brown is more direct in his assessment. "You had two friends getting shitfaced and just wanting to make cool noises," says the singer. "I think everything was based on vibe. We weren't even thinking songs. It was like, 'That sounds cool.'"

The spaced-out collection ranges from the reverb-heavy, mid-tempo tailspin "No Tell" to "Save Face," a brooding, Radiohead-style séance. There's also a free-spirited rocker ("Ok Ok") more reminiscent of the musicians' other bands. Followill says this wasn't intentional.

"All of the songs were kind of a specific sound that our other bands did not go for," he says. That's not to say that either musician brought in music originally intended for their other crews. "We made a point of [not doing] that," Followill adds. "We both love our own bands, and we weren't trying to step on any toes. That would have been weird for us."

In fact, the bassist says that his brother Caleb has been supportive of baby bro's new band – albeit in his own distinctive manner. "Caleb is a big animal lover," Followill says, "so when he told me that [the album] sounded like pussy shit, I think he's talking about a beautiful kitten."

Followill says they'll have to wait and see if there's a demand for the duo to perform live. "We can always pull something off," he says. "We just have to try to remember what we're playing and just figure out what to do." He is confident however, that Smoke and Jackal will release another set of music. "I think at least we will go back and do another EP at some point. It might not be this year. It might not be next year. Us being friends, it's bound to happen again."

In the meantime, the recently engaged musician is keeping busy. Followill says Kings of Leon are in the beginning stages of plotting the follow-up to 2010's Come Around Sundown.

"We're just trying to have fun with it and just have a relaxed-type thing," he says. "We're just meeting with producers and stuff. I think we're going to try and start it this year. We'll see."

Yahoo account users: Do not ignore 400k stolen passwords

2012-07-15T16:19:00.004-07:00

Yahoo confirmed Thursday that more than 400,000 user e-mail addresses and passwords have been compromised and posted online. The hackers claim to be do-gooders, breaking into Yahoo to shine a light on its potentially lax security.
Regardless of their intentions, the passwords are now online for everyone to see. The strike comes just a month after millions of passwords leaked onto the Internet. LinkedIn, the business-oriented social network, confirmed that nearly 6.5 million user passwords had wound up on websites frequented by criminal hackers. The same week, dating site eHarmony and the Internet radio service Last.fm acknowledged additional breaches that exposed the passwords of at least 1.5 million users.
If you use any of these sites, change your passwords immediately.
This rapid-fire series of announcements raises the question: Why would hackers target these sites? What could possibly be culled from someone's online résumé and dating history?
A lot, says Marian Merritt, Internet-safety advocate for the computer security company Symantec. People on LinkedIn share all kinds of information about their career history – names, associations, and department titles. Armed with details about someone's past, a hacker might pose as a former co-worker or pretend to be that person in order to scam people out of money.
"Oh, remember? We worked on this project back in '82," says Ms. Merritt, playing the part of a hacker who's laying the groundwork for a con. "I'm looking for X. Can you help me?"

This kind of scheme, called "spear phishing," requires a lot of effort, but going after the right target can be very lucrative. "The definition of a 'big fish' isn't necessarily the CEO of a corporation," says Merritt. "People often forget that churches manage money, membership dues, and whatever fundraisers. They have millions of dollars going through transactions, and it may be managed by somebody that doesn't have good security training because they're a volunteer or [work] part time."
Exposed passwords could also unlock other parts of a person's digital life. At the moment, it's unclear whether the ill-gotten passwords came with the corresponding usernames. Just in case, Gary Davis advises people to change passwords not only on the breached networks, but also on any website where they used the same login information.
"If I use the word 'password' as my password, and I use the e-mail address 'normangdavis,' well they can try that [combination] at my bank and see if that gets them in," says Mr. Davis, worldwide product marketing lead for security firm McAfee.
Fed up with remembering different passwords? Symantec and McAfee offer password managers. The paid services create unique logins for every site you use. You memorize a single password for the service – the software takes care of the rest.

Ford to recall more than 10,000 Escapes for carpet problem

2012-07-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

Ford is recalling more than 10,000 2013 Escape crossover vehicles to fix a carpet issue that could give drivers a problem reaching the brake pedal.

The recalled vehicles, manufactured from March 8 through June 7, feature mispositioned carpet padding in the center console trim panel. That can cause the driver to hit the side of the brake pedal when moving the foot from the accelerator pedal, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That could increase stopping distances and the risk of a crash, the agency said.

Dealers will remove the carpet padding and left-side console trim panel and replace it for free. The recall is expected to begin on July 23.

NHTSA said 8,226 vehicles would be recalled in the U.S.

Ford spokeswoman Marcey Zwiebel told the Associated Press that an additional 2,000 Escape vehicles in Canada and a couple of hundred in Mexico would also be affected. She said the automaker had not received any reports of accidents or injuries related to the problem.

Nokia Lumia 900 Drops to $49.99 as Phonemaker Seeks Comeback

2012-07-15T16:17:00.002-07:00

The price of Nokia Oyj (NOK1V)’s Lumia 900, which the company is counting on to challenge the iPhone and Android devices, was cut in half to $49.99 at AT&T Inc. (T) (T) stores.

The product is available at that price with a two-year commitment, according to AT&T’s website. AT&T began offering the phone in April, following the debut of the Lumia lineup in the U.S. on T-Mobile USA’s network in January.

North America was the only region where Espoo, Finland- based Nokia saw handset shipments grow sequentially in the first quarter, helped by the release of the Lumia 710 on T-Mobile. Still, the 600,000 units shipped marked a 50 percent decline from a year earlier. Sales of the Lumia on AT&T started after the quarter ended, so its impact won’t be seen until Nokia reports its next quarterly results on July 19.

The price cut was previously reported by the Wall Street Journal.

'Dark Knight Rises,' But Saga Ends For Director Nolan

2012-07-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

The new Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, is perhaps the most anticipated movie of the summer. It's the last film in the Batman trilogy that writer-director Christopher Nolan has crafted over the past 7 years.
Nolan wanted The Dark Knight Rises, which will be released in theaters July 20, to feel like a historical epic. As he tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz, he looked to films like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, David Lean's Dr. Zhivago, and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
On what inspired him to be a film director
"The films of Ridley Scott, particularly Alien and Blade Runner. Watching those films and realizing that even though the stories were different, the actors were different, something was connecting these films, the same mind was behind them. And realizing that, 'Oh, that's this guy, Ridley Scott, he's the director. He's getting to really define those movies.' I think that really inspired me to want to specifically be a director."

On why Batman is his favorite superhero
"For me the character of Batman is the most human and relatable of superheros. He doesn't have super powers — base level he's just a guy who likes to do a lot of push-ups. He's a self-created hero."

On the state of Bruce Wayne and Gotham at the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises
We have to be seeing a Gotham where — at least superficially — Batman's not needed. Because the sacrifice that Gordon helps him make at the end of The Dark Knight has to mean something. So we're finding a Bruce Wayne who's living in self-imposed isolation for eight years, he's locked himself up in a wing of Wayne Manor, very much in the manner of Howard Hughes in his sort of Las Vegas period.

On the villain, Bane
"He represents almost a flip-side of Bruce Wayne, somebody Bruce Wayne might have become in a parallel universe or something."

On what he will miss most about ending his Batman run
"The thing I'm going to miss the most about the great privilege of working with these characters is the built-in connection they have with the audience. That lets you tell a story in this incredibly-heightened fashion, what I call this "operatic-style," and I will miss that enormously because you can't do that with characters you make up, you can't assume that investment on the part of the audience."

Stallone, Schwarzenegger in fighting form for "Expendables 2"

2012-07-15T16:08:00.003-07:00

(Reuters) - Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and their fellow aging action heroes are back in fighting form for new movie "The Expendables 2," thrilling crowds at the giant Comic-Con pop culture event with footage from the upcoming film.

The new movie, a sequel to 2010's surprise hit about a group of rebel mercenaries out to kill a brutal military leader, appeared similar to the first one in film clips shown Thursday with an emphasis on old-school shootouts over sci-fi fantasy.

"Rambo" and "Rocky" actor Stallone, 66, introduced Schwarzenegger, 64, the former governor of California and star of the "Terminator" movies, to the Comic-Con crowd as "one of my fellow brothers in the hard art business ... a true one-of-a-kind movie star, the likes of whom we'll never see again."

"The Expendables" hit theaters in August 2010 with a tale of aging mercenaries on a new assignment and was positioned as a return to classic 1980s action and adventure versus the Spider-Man and Batman film franchises that rule box offices today.

The film was loaded with older actions stars such as Bruce Willis, and the formula worked well as the movie blasted its way to nearly $275 million at worldwide box offices.

For the sequel, in theaters on August 17, Stallone and Schwarzenegger reunite with Willis, Chuck Norris, Jet-Li, Jason Statham and others.

"The first one was more searching for what was going to work. Is it more dramatic, comedic? But on the second one, you find out what works from the first one, and you try to amplify it," Stallone told the Comic-Con crowd.

"You have the same playbook ... if you have it all together, the second one can surpass the first one, and I think we achieved that."

For the second film, Hollywood's old action heroes set out on another dangerous assignment where Stallone said the Expendables were pushed to the extreme. Film clips showed them in explosive situations, slick fight scenes and trading tough-guy comments with each other.

Stallone said recent Hollywood heroes were "a different kind of action star, more futuristic, scientific, technical. (They) don't have to spend their life pumping iron."

He added that the newer heroes were still valid for their age group, as "each generation has to create their own heroes and each generation redefines the heroes they like to adore."

Much of the audience was filled with fans who have grown up idolizing the old-school heroes including Stallone and Schwarzenegger, and the actors thanked them for their loyalty and dedication.

"The action genre is like a religion, you get your beliefs from these movies, you get your right and wrong from these movies, you get your inspiration," said another of the film's stars, Terry Crews.

Following the panel, Schwarzenegger was given an award from Comic-Con for his contributions and achievements to the film arts and pop culture.

Symantec antivirus software update crashes some PCs

2012-07-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

A recent update to Symantec's antivirus software rendered some Windows-based PCs inoperable, the security software maker disclosed Friday.
An update earlier this week to Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 antivirus software for businesses caused some Windows XP-based computers to crash repeatedly with a "blue screen of death," the company revealed on its Web site.
"On July 11th, 2012 Symantec Security Response started receiving reports of customers experiencing blue screens after applying the July 11th revision 18 definitions," Orla Cox, of Symantec Security Response, wrote this post "Machines may continue to blue screen after they reboot. This problem only appears to occur on Windows XP machines."
In an update, the company said the crashes were limited to XP machines running Endpoint Protection 12.1 and certain software from Norton. Once the cause was identified, Symantec issued a rollback of signatures on Thursday, the company said.
The company said it learned of the issue Wednesday night from customers, who said they were forced to manually remove the software from disabled machines, a process they described as time consuming.

After Facebook freeze, IPO market starts to thaw

2012-07-15T16:03:00.005-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) — With new public stock offerings for guitar maker Fender and travel booking website Kayak on deck next week, there are signs demand is starting to grow for IPOs after a five-week freeze triggered by a steep decline in financial markets and exacerbated by Facebook's rocky May 18 debut.

Five companies are scheduled to go public next week alone, including Fender, Kayak and Palo Alto Networks, a maker of computer network security products. After Facebook, just four deals made it to market by the end of June, marking the longest stretch without an initial public offering of stock since August-October 2011. Stocks sank then in the wake of the U.S. debt limit showdown and a deepening European financial crisis.

The resurgence now is a welcome indication that dealmakers are regaining confidence about raising money through IPOs.

But the situation is far from rosy.

There are 68 companies expected to raise $14.4 billion through IPOs later this year, according to research firm Dealogic, Last year at this time there were almost double that amount of companies — 135, looking to raise $23.6 billion.

"If the market stays healthy — the overall market — I think we will see a lot of IPO activity in the second half," said Nick Einhorn, an analyst with Renaissance Capital. But another plunge in stock markets could make it difficult for companies to raise money by selling shares.

The types of companies that try to raise money will also affect the IPO market. Mutual funds and the other big investors who tend to buy IPO shares are less likely now to be attracted to technology companies like social networks and games maker Zynga Inc. They've shifted to business technology companies such as Palo Alto Networks, which they consider more stable.

Stocks of several of these kinds of companies have performed well since their IPOs. ServiceNow Inc., a provider of so-called "cloud" technology services to companies, went public in late June, pricing at $18, above its expected range of $15 to $17. The stock has risen 34 percent from its debut. Jive Software Inc., which makes internal social networks for corporations, started trading in December and has climbed 56 percent from its IPO price.

Well-known consumer brands also help drum up excitement for IPOs among retail investors, the "regular" people who buy and sell stocks. There are high hopes for Fender Musical Instruments Corp., the company behind the famous Fender Stratocaster electric guitars. It's looking to raise up to $160.5 million in its IPO next week.

Several other consumer-oriented deals could ignite excitement later this year, said Morningstar analyst James Krapfel, citing Bloomin' Brands Inc., the owner of Outback Steakhouse; English professional soccer club Manchester United; and Coty Inc., maker of OPI nail polish and Jennifer Lopez perfume. Krapfel doesn't expect much demand for deals in industries sensitive to economic concerns and weak commodity prices such as industrial and energy companies.

But even companies in industries considered appealing will have a hard time if the broader markets don't cooperate. Fears about the faltering global economy stalled the IPO market in May, when economic worries drove the Standard & Poor's 500 index down 6.3 percent. In June, the index rallied 4 percent, but the IPO market tends to lag the broader market and reacts to the prior month's decline.

That's one reason experts like Einhorn remain wary. The S&P 500 is down 2 percent in July and a sluggish U.S. economy, signs of slowing growth in China and financial crises in Europe may douse enthusiasm. Also, summer is traditionally a slow time for making deals since many bank executives take vacation in July and August.

And then there's the memory of Facebook's disappointing debut. The stock was expected to take off and ignite investor demand for other IPOs. Instead, it closed up just 23 cents from its IPO price of $38 on its first day of trading. The stock has fallen about 19 percent since then and now trades around $31.

Facebook's decline after its long-awaited, highly anticipated IPO of the social network was "no question" a big negative for the IPO market, so the more time passes, the better, said Sam Hamadeh, the CEO of PrivCo, a research firm that follows privately held companies.

On the plus side, investors may take heart from a spurt of IPO activity at the end of last quarter. The stocks of all four companies that went public in the last week of June are trading at or above their IPO price.

Next week's scheduled IPOs include Fender, the travel website Kayak Software Corp., which expects to raise as much as $87.5 million; network security company Palo Alto Networks Inc., hoping to fetch as much as $229.4 million; Five Below Inc., a discount teen retailer, seeking to raise up to $134.4 million, and biotech company Durata Therapeutics Inc., which could raise up to $81.9 million.

Serena wins at Stanford in final Olympic tuneup

2012-07-15T16:03:00.001-07:00

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) — Serena Williams overcame a shaky start and two service breaks to beat lucky loser Coco Vandeweghe 7-5, 6-3 on Sunday for her second straight Bank of the West Classic title.

Eight days after winning Wimbledon, Williams saved a set point and won the final four games of the opening set. It was the 43rd WTA Tour championship of Williams' career, tying older sister Venus for the most among active players.

The first all-American WTA final on home soil in eight years was hardly a one-sided affair.

The 20-year-old Vandeweghe, who failed to make it out of qualifying and got into the main draw only when Bojana Jovanovski withdrew with an injury, moved the 14-time Grand Slam champion and her highlighter-yellow outfit all over the court to give Williams her only real challenge of the week.

The final result was still the same.
Williams whipped a backhand crosscourt that Vandeweghe sent sailing wide for an early break to go ahead 2-0. In what looked to be another rout by Williams, the young American showed some fight.

Vandeweghe immediately broke twice in the first set — both with Williams struggling on tosses into the sunny side of the court — and ripped a 121 mph ace in her next game. But serving for the set at 5-4, Vandeweghe crumbled when she had the chance to put a dent into Williams' final tuneup before the London Olympics.

All it took was one point.

Williams walloped a soft second serve with another backhand crosscourt to save a set point. And on the sixth break chance of the game, Vandeweghe double-faulted — a theme throughout a sun-splashed afternoon in the biggest moments of the match.

She finished with five double-faults and six aces. Williams didn't fare much better with nine aces and six double-faults, but she won 81 percent of her first serve points and waited for her opponent to make mistakes.

Vandeweghe again double-faulted to give Williams a set point at 6-5, and Williams smacked a another backhand crosscourt that Vandeweghe barely got a racket on to take the set. Williams gave a light fist pump and stayed steady, just as she had done for most of the last month in her latest rise up the rankings.

Another double-fault by Vandeweghe on break point gave Williams a 3-1 lead in the second set. Williams served out the match and put away one final forehand winner on match point, giving another light fist pump and showing little emotion — especially compared to her hug-filled celebration with family eight days earlier on Wimbledon's grass.
The fourth-ranked Williams, still jet-lagged from traveling more than 5,000 miles and eight time zones from the All England Club, never looked at her dominating best at Stanford. But she did exactly what she wanted all week: just win.

Not only did she defend her points to stay on track to regain the No. 1 world ranking, she did it on a court that will forever hold a special place in her heart. The tournament is where Williams' comeback took shape last year when she beat Marion Bartoli in the finals for her first WTA title since returning from blood clots in her lugs and two foot operations that threatened her life and career for almost a year.

The last player to win consecutive titles at Stanford was Kim Clijsters in 2005-06. Clijsters is also second behind the Williams sisters with 41 career WTA titles.

The last all-American final at home on the WTA Tour came in 2004, when Lindsay Davenport topped Williams in Los Angeles.

Blackberry maker loses patent suit over software

2012-07-15T16:02:00.002-07:00

A federal jury in San Francisco has found beleaguered Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd. liable for $147.2 million in damages for infringing on patents held by Mformation Technologies Inc.

Amar Thakur, a lawyer for Mformation, said Saturday that the verdict late Friday followed a three-week trial and a week of deliberations by an eight-person jury.

Mformation, of Edison, N.J., sued Research in Motion in October 2008, alleging that Canada-based RIM infringed on its 1999 invention for remotely managing wireless devices. Mformation's software allows companies to remotely access employee cell phones to do software upgrades, change passwords or to wipe data from phones that have been stolen.

Officials at RIM, which has been struggling with plummeting sales, a declining stock and other problems, did not provide a comment Saturday.

Thakur said the jury ruled that Research in Motion should pay his client $8 for each of the 18.4 million Blackberrys that were connected to the Blackberry Enterprise Server, from the day the lawsuit was filed until the time of the trial. That's a total of $147.2 million.

He said the software at issue is the heart of the business of Mformation, a privately held company with several hundred employees.

"We believe it's been fundamental to the success of Research in Motion," Thakur told The Associated Press.

The patent at issue was filed in 2001 and issued in 2005, he said.

RIM, of Waterloo, Ontario, has previously denied it did anything wrong.

RIM has seen its business crumble as it increasingly loses market share. Today's consumers want smartphones that go far beyond handling e-mail and phone calls, with built-in cameras and other cool functions.

Particularly telling is the plunge in the Blackberry's U.S. market share. It's dropped from 41 percent in 2007, the year the first iPhone came out, to below 4 percent in the first three months of this year, according to research firm IDC.

Meanwhile, RIM will miss a chance to bounce back because of repeated delays on its BlackBerry 10 operating software, which is intended to help Blackberrys catch up to rivals such as the iPhone and smartphones running Google's Android software. Not only will devices with the new Blackberry software miss the crucial holiday shopping season, they'll have even more competition when they do go on sale, including a new iPhone expected from Apple this fall.

Last month, RIM reported weaker than expected results. For the quarter that ended on June 2, it lost $518 million, or 99 cents a share. Even after excluding impairment charges, the loss was 37 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting a 3-cent per share loss. Revenue fell 43 percent to $2.8 billion, and RIM said it will be cutting 5,000 jobs, or 30 percent of its workforce.

The company's stock, which traded for more than $30 less than a year ago, has recently dropped below $8, near a nine-year low. On Friday, the stock dropped another 2.4 percent to close at $7.24.

Farmer plants heart-shaped meadow for late wife

2012-07-15T16:00:00.001-07:00

A devoted farmer painstakingly planted a tribute to his late wife, Janet, using 6,000 oak trees to etch out a giant heart in the middle of his field in South Gloucestershire, England. Howes, 70, and a gardener spent weeks planning and setting out each oak after his wife died suddenly 15 years ago. He planted the fledgling trees across a six-acre field after carefully marking out a heart shape in one half of the grass, with the heart pointing in the direction of her childhood home. The stunning crop was captured in its full beauty after a balloonist sailed over the farmhouse and photographed the field from the air.

A Skateboard to Pique Your Imagination

2012-07-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

When you call your motorized skateboard the Board of Awesomeness, it takes some confidence. But rigging a tablet computer and a Microsoft Kinect to control the motorized skateboard is undeniably pretty awesome.

The designers at Chaotic Moon Labs, whose trademark slogan is "We're Smarter Than You" probably don't need our reassurance.

We went down to their design studios, or as they call it, their "fortified zombie-proof bunker" to give the board a ride.

The Board of Awesomeness actually has a sibling called the Board of Imagination, which is controlled by your mind, via an EMOTIV brain wave helmet. The helmet reads your mind and when you think go, it goes, and when you think stop, it stops.

Unfortunately, mere hours before we got there the helmet broke when those aforementioned zombies tried to get into the bunker and broke the EMOTIV helmet. At least that's how they explained it to us.

There wasn't a soldering gun in the state of Texas with the capability to fix it. So with one board down it was Awesomeness's time to shine.

And while a brain controlled skateboard sounds pretty fun, it's fitting that we're featuring a Kinect controlled skateboard on This Could Be Big, because if there was a device that could go viral, it's the Kinect.

The $150 hands free controller that came out in 2010 has taken on a life of its own. Even Microsoft, which was initially unhappy with their device being repurposed has grown accepting. People have taken the controller and hacked it to steer a quadracopter, built a medical body scanner, even attach it to a grocery cart that meets you at the door.

Or in this case, an off-road skateboard that goes 35mph. Let's see how it works.

Oscar-winning actress Celeste Holm dies at 95

2012-07-15T15:53:00.003-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) — Celeste Holm, a versatile, bright-eyed blonde who soared to Broadway fame in "Oklahoma!" and won an Oscar in "Gentleman's Agreement" but whose last years were filled with financial difficulty and estrangement from her sons, died Sunday, a relative said. She was 95.

Holm had been hospitalized about two weeks ago with dehydration. She asked her husband on Friday to bring her home and spent her final days with her husband, Frank Basile, and other relatives and close friends by her side, said Amy Phillips, a great-niece of Holm's.

Holm died around 3:30 a.m. at her longtime apartment on Central Park West, located in the same building where Robert De Niro lives and where a fire broke out last month, Phillips said.

"I think she wanted to be here, in her home, among her things, with people who loved her," she said.

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Holm played everyone from Ado Annie — the girl who just can't say no in "Oklahoma!"— to a worldly theatrical agent in the 1991 comedy "I Hate Hamlet" to guest star turns on TV shows such as "Fantasy Island" and "Love Boat II" to Bette Davis' best friend in "All About Eve."

She won the Academy Award in 1947 for best supporting actress for her performance in "Gentleman's Agreement" and received Oscar nominations for "Come to the Stable" (1949) and "All About Eve" (1950).

Holm was also known for her untiring charity work — at one time she served on nine boards — and was a board member emeritus of the National Mental Health Association.

She was once president of the Creative Arts Rehabilitation Center, which treats emotionally disturbed people using arts therapies. Over the years, she raised $20,000 for UNICEF by charging 50 cents apiece for autographs.

President Ronald Reagan appointed her to a six-year term on the National Council on the Arts in 1982. In New York, she was active in the Save the Theatres Committee and was once arrested during a vigorous protest against the demolition of several theaters.

But late in her life she was in a bitter, multi-year family legal battle that pitted her two sons against her and her fifth husband — former waiter Basile, whom she married in 2004 and was more than 45 years her junior. The court fight over investments and inheritance wiped away much of her savings and left her dependent on Social Security. The actress and her sons no longer spoke, and she was sued for overdue maintenance and legal fees on her Manhattan apartment.

The future Broadway star was born in New York on April 29, 1917, the daughter of Norwegian-born Theodore Holm, who worked for the American branch of Lloyd's of London, and Jean Parke Holm, a painter and writer.

She was smitten by the theater as a 3-year-old when her grandmother took her to see ballerina Anna Pavlova. "There she was, being tossed in midair, caught, no mistakes, no falls. She never knew what an impression she made," Holm recalled years later.

She attended 14 schools growing up, including the Lycee Victor Duryui in Paris when her mother was there for an exhibition of her paintings. She studied ballet for 10 years.

Her first Broadway success came in 1939 in the cast of William Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life." But it was her creation of the role of man-crazy Ado Annie Carnes in the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's musical "Oklahoma!" in 1943 that really impressed the critics.

She only auditioned for the role because of World War II, she said years later. "There was a need for entertainers in Army camps and hospitals. The only way you could do that was if you were singing in something."

Holm was hired by La Vie Parisienne, and later by the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel to sing to their late-night supper club audiences after the "Oklahoma!" curtain fell.

The slender, blue-eyed blonde moved west to pursue a film career. "Hollywood is a good place to learn how to eat a salad without smearing your lipstick," she would say.

"Oscar Hammerstein told me, 'You won't like it,'" and he was right, she said. Hollywood "was just too artificial. The values are entirely different. That balmy climate is so deceptive." She returned to New York after several years.

Her well-known films included "The Tender Trap" and "High Society" but others were less memorable. "I made two movies I've never even seen," she told an interviewer in 1991.

She attributed her drive to do charity work to her grandparents and parents who "were always volunteers in every direction."

She said she learned first-hand the power of empathy in 1943 when she performed in a ward of mental patients and got a big smile from one man she learned later had been uncommunicative for six months.

"I suddenly realized with a great sense of impact how valuable we are to each other," she said.

In 1979, she was knighted by King Olav of Norway.

In her early 70s, an interviewer asked if she had ever thought of retiring. "No. What for?" she replied. "If people retired, we wouldn't have had Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud ... I think it's very important to hang on as long as we can."

In the 1990s, Holm and Gerald McRainey starred in the CBS's "Promised Land," a spinoff of "Touched by an Angel." In 1995, she joined such stars as Tony Randall and Jerry Stiller to lobby for state funding for the arts in Albany, N.Y. Her last big screen role was as Brendan Fraser's grandmother in the romance "Still Breathing."

Holm was married five times and is survived by two sons and three grandchildren. Her marriage in 1938 to director Ralph Nelson lasted a year but produced a son, Theodor Holm Nelson. In 1940, she married Francis Davies, an English auditor. In 1946, she married airline public relations executive A. Schuyler Dunning and they had a son, Daniel Dunning.

During her fourth marriage, to actor Robert Wesley Addy, whom she married in 1966, the two appeared together on stage when they could. In the mid-1960s, when neither had a project going, they put together a two-person show called "Interplay — An Evening of Theater-in-Concert" that toured the United States and was sent abroad by the State Department. Addy died in 1996.

Funeral arrangements for Holm were incomplete. The family is asking that any memorial donations be made to UNICEF, Arts Horizons or The Lillian Booth Actors Home of The Actors Fund in Englewood, N.J.

___

Online: http://www.celesteholm.com

Future 'Assassin's Creed' games may not leap ahead

2012-07-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The next installment of "Assassin's Creed" may take a trip further back in time.

The upcoming "Assassin's Creed III" trades the stealthy historical series' previous settings of the Crusades and the Renaissance for the American Revolution, but there's no guarantee future installments will be set after Independence Day.

"I don't think we'll necessarily always go forward, or we're dooming ourselves to run out of history," the game's creative director, Alex Hutchinson, told fans at a Comic-Con panel Thursday.

During the presentation, developers from Ubisoft Entertainment demonstrated some time-bending "Assassin's Creed III" gameplay set in an early rendition of Boston. The scenes featured Native American protagonist Connor ascending brick buildings, slipping past redcoats and bashing Scottish brawlers.

Hutchinson told the crowd — many of whom were dressed as hooded protagonists Altair and Ezio — that the developers originally planned for players to be able to scalp enemies as half-Mohawk, half-English assassin Connor, but that feature was later removed.

"When we dug into it deeper, we found it really horrifying," Hutchinson said.

"Assassin's Creed III" is set for release Oct. 30.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang is tweeting from Comic-Con at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang .

___

Online:

http://www.assassinscreed.com

'Amazing Alex': Fun, But No Angry Birds' [REVIEW]

2012-07-13T05:55:00.002-07:00

How to Play

In Amazing Alex, you are given a goal each level you have to achieve: in the first levels, its getting a ball into a basket using ramps and a force called gravity.

, Rovio's newest physics puzzle game is great for people of all ages, but you won't find yourself quite as addicted as Angry Birds.

Rovio released its newest game franchise to the Apple App Store and Google Play on Thursday morning. It's a rebranded version of Casey's Contraptions, which was released last year for iPad and was well-reviewed then. It's interesting that Rovio decided to simply purchase and rebrand a game rather than coming up with their own new game ideas, but with the success of Angry Birds, they have cart blanche to do what they like. So this review is partially for a game that has been out a year, with some changes.

Amazing Alex takes place in a young boy's messy house. Each level presents a different physics puzzle that involves cleaning up: you have to put balls in a bin, topple some books, or pop balloons. You then use the objects available to you to solve the puzzle, earning bonuses for each of the three stars you collect.

The physics puzzles are a little more clever than some games, because there isn't just one solution to every problem. You can place several pieces -- like shelves or pipes -- on a blank canvas to experiment with the game's physics. You don't also need every piece available to you (and they change every level) to solve a puzzle, meaning there is room fiddle with your designs.

This is where the game could have extra challenge, and it misses the boat. There are no time bonuses for solving a puzzle in one go, for not using all your pieces, or solving it an allotted time. The only achievement is collecting the three stars each level, which you'll have to do to unlock new sections of the game.

The game's difficulty isn't too challenging; the first few levels serve entirely as tutorial, and it won't be hard for you to breeze through the first couple of zones. The joy in the game lies more with its sandbox nature, and it challenges you to create whatever Rube Goldberg can most creatively solve the level. That might not satisfy the most achievement-hungry player, but it is far more creative and would be a great title to help kids' problem solving skills.

This is especially true in the section of the game that allows you to create your own levels with the same simple household objects. Players will be able to publish and share their own levels with friends, giving the game an extra creative level lost on many mobile titles.

Rovio says they will offer regular, free updates to the game, similar to their support for Angry Birds. The game is easily worth the 99 cents, but those looking for a serious challenge might not get into the game.

Chinese online marketplace starts taking preorders for iPhone 5

2012-07-13T05:53:00.001-07:00

"The iPhone 5 will have a larger, clearer screen and 4G internet!" or so the rumors say. Fact is, until Apple announces the new iPhone, we don't really know if anything we've heard is real. And while it's widely believed that the phone will be announced in September or October, we still have no idea when it will be available exactly. In spite of that, Chinese online marketplace Taobao already lists the iPhone 5 — you can even preorder one right now.

Taobao is a portal where electronics retailers can clear out their inventories. A recent Reuters report details how these retailers are currently using the site to find buyers willing to pony up cash for a phone that hasn't even been officially announced yet. Some sellers are asking roughly $160 worth of deposit, but there are those who actually expect customers to pay approximately $1,100 or the full price of an unlocked iPhone up front, which is hilarious considering Apple has yet to divulge the phone's pricing and details.

According to the retailers Reuters talked to, they plan to buy stacks of iPhone 5 from the United States or from Hong Kong and then bring them to mainland China. That, of course, doesn't guarantee that the iPhone 5 units to be sold on Taobao will be authentic. China, as you may know by now, has a thriving market for counterfeit goods. The Reuters report didn't mention whether the fake Apple Store disguised as a fake Android Store is also taking preorders for the next iPhone.

Yahoo Hack Leaks 453,000 Voice Passwords

2012-07-12T07:36:00.002-07:00

Yahoo passwords were stored unencrypted and stolen via a SQL injection attack, attackers claim. Meanwhile, Formspring resets passwords for 28 million users after a password breach.

Yahoo Voice users: Change your Yahoo password immediately.

A hacker or hacking group that bills itself as "DD3Ds Company" Thursday leaked what it said were plaintext passwords for 453,492 Yahoo accounts, as well as over 2,700 database table or column names, and 298 MySQL variables. DD3Ds said it obtained the data by executing a SQL injection attack against an unnamed Yahoo subdomain, which security experts have identified as being Yahoo Voice.

We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat," read a note included in the password dump. "There have been many security holes exploited in webservers belonging to Yahoo! Inc. that have caused far greater damage than our disclosure. Please do not take them lightly. The subdomain and vulnerable parameters have not been posted to avoid further damage."

It has been a bad week for Yahoo when it comes to security issues. Read Yahoo Defends Android App, Botnet Questions Remain.

A Yahoo spokesman said that the company is currently investigating the alleged password leak. "We are currently investigating the claims of a compromise of Yahoo! user IDs. We encourage users to change their passwords on a regular basis and also familiarize themselves with our online safety tips at security.yahoo.com," he said. "At Yahoo we take security very seriously and invest heavily in protective measures to ensure the security of our users and their data across all our products."

According to security researchers, the leaked came from the Yahoo Voice service. That's because, while most subdomain details were excised from the data dump, "the attacker forgot to remove the hostname 'dbb1.ac.bf1.yahoo.com' (credit to Mubix for the hostname find). Looking through a variety of sources, it appears that the compromised server was likely 'Yahoo! Voices' which was formally known as Associated Content," according to Trusted Security. But according to the Guardian, the last entries in the data dump link to IDs created in 2006, suggesting that the password list may date from that time.

Yahoo bought Associated Content in May 2010 for $100 million, then renamed the service as Yahoo Voice. Billed as a way to "make free and low cost calls from your PC," the Yahoo Voice service is now outsourced by Yahoo to JAJAH. Which Yahoo Voice users have been affected by the breach? The Dazzlepod website has collected a searchable list of affected usernames and email addresses.

The Yahoo Voices password breach follows recent password breaches involving LinkedIn, as well as eHarmony and Last.fm. All of those breaches came to light only after stolen password hashes were posted to online forums. Unlike LinkedIn, eHarmony, and Last.fm, however, according to DD3Ds, Yahoo wasn't even hashing its passwords. Instead, it said they'd been stored in unencrypted format, which would mean that Yahoo had fumbled a crucial information security best practice.

In online forums, some posters posited that the plaintext passwords may date from Yahoo's acquisition of Associated Content in 2010. "Most likely a dump of old tables before authentication was migrated to login.yahoo.com. Should've dropped these tables after the migration," said "mathrawka," who claimed to have previously been a developer involved with Yahoo's single sign-on system, in a post to Hacker News.

If--as DD3Ds Co. claimed--Yahoo was storing passwords in plaintext format, privacy experts foresee FTC sanctions. Notably, privacy researcher Christopher Soghoian said via Twitter that there's a "strong chance of FTC deception case re: Yahoo password breach via claim it maintains reasonable electronic safeguards," and referenced Yahoo's privacy policy. The first line of that policy states: "Yahoo! takes your security seriously and takes reasonable steps to protect your information."

According to Soghoian, the FTC's complaint against RockYou, from which an attacker obtained and leaked 32 million passwords, focused on RockYou's privacy policy, which promised that "RockYou! uses commercially reasonable ... safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of your personal information." But the FTC alleged that RockYou's actual security safeguards weren't reasonable, in part because the website had failed to protect "its website from ... commonly known or reasonably foreseeable attacks from third parties attempting to obtain access to customer information stored in [RockYou's] databases."

SQL injection attacks are one of the most common types of attacks used to compromise websites and databases, and a favorite of hacktivist collectives, including Anonymous. Such attacks work by "injecting" SQL commands into databases. When databases don't properly screen such inputs for signs of attack, attackers have an easy-to-use technique for obtaining sensitive information from databases. The variety of freely available automated SQL injection attack tools further simply the process.

The Yahoo Voice password breach leak comes just one day after reports that 420,000 password hashes from question-and-answer website Formspring had been posted to a hacking forum. "We learned this morning that we had a security breach where some user passwords may have been accessed," said Formspring CEO Ade Olonoh in a blog posted Wednesday. In response, the company disabled passwords for all of its 28 million users.

"We apologize for the inconvenience but prefer to play it safe and have asked all members to reset their passwords," said Olonoh. "Users will be prompted to change their passwords when they log back into Formspring." He also detailed recommendationsfor creating strong passwords.

Later Wednesday, Olonoh posted additional details about the attack. "We found that someone had broken into one of our development servers and was able to use that access to extract account information from a production database," he said. "We were able to immediately fix the hole and upgraded our hashing mechanisms from SHA-256 with random salts to Bcrypt, to fortify security. We take this matter very seriously and continue to review our internal security policies and practices to help ensure that this never happens again."

Formspring has been forthright about rapidly notifying users of a breach, detailing the problem, as well as immediately putting in place a solution. Will Yahoo follow suit?

Employees and their browsers might be the weak link in your security plan. The new, all-digital Endpoint Insecurity issue of Dark Reading shows how to strengthen them. (Free registration required.)

Rovio brings Angry Birds to Samsung’s Smart TVs

2012-07-12T07:33:00.001-07:00

Samsung is hoping that Smart TVs will take off, Rovio is on a quest for total screen domination… why not pair the two together? Rovio and Samsung have announced a partnership that will see Angry Birds making the jump to the ES7000, ES8000, and ES9000 Smart TVs. The redesigned game will take advantage of the motion sensors found in the televisions. Angry Birds also leverages the new Smart TV SDK, allowing the app to run natively on the television without the need for an additional set-top box or console.

The South Korean company says it has been working with Rovio on the game ever since it first unveiled its Smart TV platform back at CES. Rovio has tweaked the game to play nice with the TVs motion controls, and will be releasing it onto Samsung’s TV app store for all to enjoy. Rovio is also working with Samsung on a series of animated shorts that will also be available on the TV via on-demand.

At this rate, Rovio will have the popular franchise on just about every screen know to man. Yesterday, the company teased the Angry Birds Trilogy, a compilation of Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio, and Angry Birds Seasons that would be released on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo 3DS. Rovio will revamp the game with high-definition graphics and animated backgrounds, along with new cinematics and additional content.

Is the iPad helping kill the PC?

2012-07-12T07:31:00.001-07:00

U.S. personal computer sales sagged during the spring as shifting technology trends, upcoming product releases and a shaky economy -- with some help from a certain Apple tablet -- dampened demand for the machines currently on the market.

The second-quarter decline in the U.S. ranged from 6 percent to 11 percent compared with the same time last year, according to separate reports released Wednesday by Gartner Inc. and International Data Corp. Gartner came up with the lower of the two figures in the research firms' quarterly look at shipments of desktop and laptop computers.

Hewlett-Packard and Dell, the biggest PC makers in the U.S. market, suffered the steepest drops during the three months spanning from April through June.

Consumers and businesses have been buying fewer PCs during the past two years amid the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers such as Apple's iPad. The iPad's success has spurred Apple's rivals to copy the concept, causing some analysts to predict that tablet computer sales will surpass PC sales within the next few years.

PC makers have tried to adapt by releasing sleeker laptops known as "ultrabooks," but IDC said many of those devices remain too expensive for many households at time of high unemployment and persistent fears of another economic downturn.

The interest in ultrabooks also has been tempered by the buildup for the next version of the Windows operating system that runs most PCs. Windows maker Microsoft has redesigned the software so applications are now spread across a mosaic of tiles and engineered the system so it can run on touch-based tablets as well as PCs controlled by keyboards and mice. PCs and tablets running on Windows 8 won't go on sale until October, causing some prospective PC buyers to hold off until they can see what kind of new devices and applications the new operating system inspires.

The Windows 8 anticipation will probably hurt PC sales in the current quarter ending in September, too, according to David Daoud, IDC's research director.

Even when Windows 8 hits the market, PC makers will face a new competitive threat from their longtime partner, Microsoft. The world's largest software maker last month announced plans to sell its own tablet computer, called the Surface, to battle the iPad.

Ice Age: Continental Drift: Franchise is Officially Frozen

2012-07-12T07:29:00.003-07:00

Ice Age: Continental Drift

Year: 2012
Director: Steve Martino, Mike Thurmeier
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Actors: Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo

Ice Age: Continental Drift is the fourth film to feature the adventures of the post-dinosaur, pre-caveman pals Manny the wooly mammoth, Sid the sloth and Deigo the sabertoothed tiger, but Fox has been smart enough not to put a number in the title. Without the number, how are parents to realize how much of their, and their precious children’s, precious time has already been spent with these annoying creatures?

The good news is, we’re moving right along in terms of natural history. In this film, thanks to continental drift caused by the earth’s shifting plates, Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo) and Diego (Denis Leary) are separated from their friends and family and cast adrift into the ocean on a chunk of ice, along with Sid’s shrewish, long-lost grandmother (Wanda Sykes). Obnoxiousness runs in the sloth family. Meanwhile, Manny’s wife Ellie (Queen Latifah) and their daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer), now a hormonal teenager, are left behind on uncertain ground. (Whether it is Pangaea, or the Earth has already subdivided is unclear.) The rest of the movie involves their attempts to reunite against considerable odds, including pirates, water spouts and giant waves for Manny et al. and crumbling cliffs and traversing land masses for the ladies.

Directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier (the latter of whom also co-directed Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs), this Ice Age features a bounty of new voice talent. Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, The Station Agent) plays Captain Gutt, a chimpanzee who leads the scurvy band of pirates. Jennifer Lopez gets to follow in Angelina Jolie’s Kung Fu Panda feline footsteps, playing Captain Gutt’s first mate, a slinky sabertoothed tiger named Shira. (Ways you can tell this is a J.Lo character: accessories. Shira wears two turquoise earrings in one ear that play up her eye color.) Parks and Recreation’s Aziz Ansari, Bridesmaid’s Rebel Wilson and Glee’s Heather Morris are all in the voice cast, but thanks to the constant din of shrieking, shrill animals, I couldn’t match their voices with any of the dozens of irritating characters on either the pirate ship or back on land.

Not that it particularly matters; your kids don’t care whether that funny lady from The View (Joy Behar) is in their animated flick or who she’s playing. They might not mind the visual overload either, but the frenetic pace masks an emptiness; this Ice Age is just a collection of slapstick moments and fisticuffs, with pauses for Sid to regurgitate food into his paw and show it to everyone. The franchise is just going through the motions at this point, and even the animation feels by-the-numbers. (The Ice Age movies are not known for their great animation, but even in the third movie, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, there were some beautiful nature sequences, whereas there is nothing memorable here.)

The usual premise, that friends stick together, no matter their species, has been extended to include lessons for both parents and children. Before plate tectonics intervene, Manny is a helicopter parent who spends an inordinate amount of time following Peaches as she attempts to hang with the cool crowd at their gathering place, a waterfall. “That’s a gateway!” Manny frets. (Drug references, they mean so much to small children.) Peaches is in the throes of her first crush, on another wooly mammoth—”He’s not cute. He’s hot!” she says. At the very moment she shouts, “I wish you weren’t my father,” the earth begins to shake and the continents start to break apart–daddy is just gone. Talk about your wish fulfillment. While Peaches learns to regret her harsh words, Manny comes to realize he needs to trust his capable child more, just as Marlin did in Finding Nemo, even if Ice Age lacks the wit and loveliness of spirit that made Nemo so special.

So mammoths, they’re just like us, and not just while at loggerheads with offspring. Sid the sloth has to deal with the responsibility of aging grandparents (Grandma has dementia). And Diego, the crotchety saber-toothed tiger (Leary’s voice work is the best in the film) finally finds love with sleek Shira. Everybody makes personal progress in this movie. All this anthropomorphizing is commonplace in movies for kids, obviously, but in Ice Age it’s particularly grating because it reflects not so much real human behavior as human behavior as put forth by our pop culture. The pirate business is pulled straight from Pirates of the Caribbean and the teen tantrums feel ripped from a Nickelodeons sitcom. “Stress is so stressful,” one of the teen mammoths says. That profundity is so profound.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to Ice Age: Dawn of Meat-Eating Man. Also needless to say, kids are likely to judge this Ice Age far less harshly. And they will ask you what continental drift means, so there is at least that modicum of learning involv