October 12, 2006, 9:33 PM CT

Microsoft Zune

Now here's something that will give the Apple iPods a run for their money. and they may actually have a chance in hell of succeeding.

Microsoft has just unveiled the Zune brand media player. Microsoft claims that the Zune experience centers around connection - connection to your library, connection to friends, connection to community and connection to other devices.

With a suggested retail price of approximately $249.99, Zune will be available this holiday season in the United States in black, brown or white. Zune comes in a 30GB digital media player that features wireless technology, a built-in FM tuner and a 3-inch screen that allows users to play music, pictures and video.

The biggest hook for this device is its Zune-to-Zune sharing feature. Just by coming in close proximity to your Zune wearing friends, you will be able to wirelessly share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with one another. They can listen to them 3 times, or 3 days, whichever comes first. If they wish, they can flag the songs right on your device and easily purchase it from the Zune Marketplace. Initially though, Microsoft will only sell music, but no video.

As per CNN.Com Technology page, Microsoft announced that it will sell a subscription pass for $14.99 a month, allowing the user to listen to any songs in the Zune Martketplace. However, after the pass expires, the user will not be able to access those songs.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

October 4, 2006, 4:51 AM CT

Sirius vs XM

Looking at the animated version of this graphic too long may make you ill, but it does nicely illustrate the very different schemes that Sirius and XM chose in their efforts to blanket North America in audio and data, including, of course, our recent obsession.live marine weather. Both schemes seem to work fine around the U.S., especially on boats with their naturally wide open sky views, but how far offshore, north, and south can you receive Sirius or XM? A lot of cruisers would like to know, but the company Web sites seem vague on the subject. For one thing, I don't think they themselves are positive about their footprint edges, and don't want to over promise.

Another issue is that XM and Sirius may broadcast into countries where they are not licensed to, and where someone thinks they should be. You may recall a long period when Canadians could only subscribe to satellite radio using U.S. addresses, even though most could get it fine. XM and Sirius were not bragging about their Canadian coverage then! Both Audio services are now licensed in Canada but, head's up, Sirius Weather isn't yet. Which brings us to some legalese in the Raymarine Sirius literature suggesting that your expensive weather receiver might not work if you go outside U.S. territorial waters. Not true; I checked!........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

October 4, 2006, 4:47 AM CT

Vancouver Dispatch

For all its natural beauty, Vancouver is famously non-descript in the numerous Hollywood movies that shoot here on the cheap, invariably relegating the city to a stand-in for Anytown, USA (recent examples include the X-Men films, Firewall, The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the remake of The Fog).

While the locals rather like having movie stars in their midst (and you can be sure the local media resent their absence from VIFF), there is something belittling about this enforced anonymity. Gallingly, Hollywood is making jokes about it: "Why would we want to shoot in Vancouver?" someone rails in the pilot for Aaron Sorkin's new show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. "Vancouver doesn't look like anywhere. Vancouver doesn't even look like Vancouver."

Well, Vancouver never looked more like itself than in Everything's Gone Green, based on the first original narrative screenplay by the novelist and multi-media artist Douglas Coupland. Coupland is Vancouver born and bred, and several of his books take place in the immediate vicinity (Life After God, Girlfriend in a Coma and Hey Nostradamus!, for starters); he even wrote a typically gnomic A-Z of his hometown, City of Glass.

Everything's Gone Green might be City of Glass: The Movie for the way it goes out of its way to foreground the location. It even begins with a bike ride around the Seawall. But this is not mere travelogue; Coupland is exploring the way the environment conditions a certain culture, in this case a psyche of west coast capitalism that is at once attractively laid back and morally inert (not to say corrupt).........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

October 4, 2006, 4:43 AM CT

Remake of Friday the 13th should be out by 2007

Jason lives! Or at least he will once all of the litigations are finished. The folks over at bloody-disgusting.com gave us this, but please be aware the information is of the hearsay variety:

B-D reader 'xerotheory7803' sent in this little update on New Line Cinema and Platinum Dunes' delayed Friday the 13th project. Xero tells B-D, "I just got back from the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Jersey and got a little bit of news to share with you. After the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning' Panel, I was talking with Andrew Form, one of the producers who is also producing the new 'Friday The 13th', and he said that the remake, which is tied in a rights battle right now, should be in theaters by July 2007. He also exclaimed that they will fight to the bitter end to make sure it is released with an R rating, no PG-13 bullshit for Jason Voorhees." We've also heard some positive rumbling here in Los Angeles and hope to have some big news for you soon!.

Wow has it been that long already? Well the original Friday the 13th was made in 1980, and yeah, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that twenty six years may in fact be long enough for a remake.

This is a classic horror movie and I am curious to see if the movie makers can do it justice. It's going to be difficult, to me the eighties had a real lock on fear and tension. But if this movie is made I will watch it.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

September 28, 2006, 4:53 AM CT

The Last King of Scotland.

Michael Joshua Rowin opens Reverse Shot's round on The Last King of Scotland at indieWIRE: "What starts out as an awkward, wide-eyed bildungsroman and travelogue transforms (through more untamed verve than directorial precision) into a frantic, disorienting tragedy about the seduction of power, one that would make proud this film's not-so-unlikely pair of guardian angels, Joseph Conrad and Oliver Stone." Neither Keith Uhlich nor Nicolas Rapold agree.

From Greencine.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

September 28, 2006, 4:46 AM CT

Mel Gibson Screens and Talks About Apocalypto

Anything new from Mel Gibson is news. Lately he has been very silent. Read this blog post the movie blog.

We haven't heard much from Mel Gibson over the last little while (for obvious reasons). As far as I'm concerned the guy should be in jail for risking killing people and himself for driving drunk. but oh well. the laws in North America are totally screwed when it comes to stuff like that. But now Mel is out and about again screening his new film Apocalypto, which I'm dying to see by the way.

Love or hate Mel Gibson, you have to admire a guy who puts his own neck and money on the line with his projects. He seems to do films these days that people love telling him won't work and that people will avoid seeing in the theaters. It's neat seeing a guy make his own movie, with his own money and have no one to answer to.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

September 24, 2006, 11:27 AM CT

Discovering A Gem Of A Deal

Prepare to spend at least an hour leisurely exploring Dandelion Vintage. It's just like discovering a secret antique boutique with room after room crammed with delicious finds. Best of all most prices are under $50 (we found plenty at $20 to $30) and the variety is endless.

Carol Baker has been running her online vintage business since 1997 and is very picky about the fashions she sells. Each item has a large photo with detailed descriptions including condition, fabric and measurements and Carol will glady answer any questions about the garments.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

September 20, 2006, 8:11 PM CT

DVD Player for Xbox

The rollout plans come as the company tries to shore up sales ahead of the arrival later this year of next-generation machines by its two top rivals - Sony and Nintendo Co.

The basic Xbox 360 doesn't come with high-definition DVD capability. The new HD-DVD peripheral, to be launched in Japan on Nov. 22, is seen as an attempt to keep pace with Sony's PlayStation 3. That anxiously awaited upgrade to the PlayStation line will have Sony's new Blu-ray HD-DVD player built in.

The attachment will cost 19,800 yen ($170) in Japan, bringing the combined cost of the basic Xbox 360 and the HD-DVD player to nearly the same price as that anticipated for the PlayStation 3 in Japan.

In choosing Japan for the launch of the HD-DVD add-on, Microsoft is testing a market that is one of the world's biggest but holds a deep allegiance for to homegrown Sony. Microsoft has plans to release the HD-DVD elsewhere, but no specifics about other markets or timing were disclosed.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

September 13, 2006, 8:13 PM CT

Spring Fashion Week 2007 Day 4

New American designer Hilton Hollis has been getting quite a bit of press lately, so when I received an email from a reader about his collection, I decided to take a peek. From a design perspective, the line doesn't look like anything new, but from a pr, branding and overall marketing perspective, what's interesting about Hollis' line is that he is directly targeting those who purchase in the mid price range-skipping higher end customers all together.

This is an interesting approach because it has the possiblity of challenging fashion's hierachy. So what's this hierachy? According to the wonderful blog, Fashion Incubator (who also reviewed the Hollis line), here's the basic breakdown of the hierachy (I added in the mass market category) and my very rough definitions of each category:

Fashion Hierachy

• Haute Couture- "High Fashion" (Chanel, Dior, made to wear items from top, usually Parisian designers). A much over used term.
• Designer RTW (Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, pre -made and sold on the racks).
• Bridge (not quite Chanel, but not quite Jones New York. This term is used a lot and the line between bridge and contemporary seems to be blurred).
• Contemporary ( Basically the stuff sold at the department stores and includes designers like Tracey Reese and Nanette Lepore to Ellen Tracy and Dana Buchman).
........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

September 13, 2006, 5:00 AM CT

Story Time

Story ideas from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. To arrange for an interview with a researcher, please contact the Communications and External Relations staff member identified at the end of each tip.

For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to one of our Media Contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@@@@@@@ornl.gov.

Materials-Monster cutters

Underground rock formations in Atlanta will provide a real-world test for monster disc cutters coated with an iron-based nano-composite developed by a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers. The laser-fused composite has resulted in hardness values two to seven times greater than conventional steel, as per Narendra Dahotre of the University of Tennessee/ORNL Joint Center for Advanced Photonics Processing. The coatings are expected to result in up to a 25 percent improvement in energy efficiency, significant reductions in down time and potential improvements in tunnel boring health and safety. This work, which is funded by DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program, is part of an effort to improve tunnel boring disc cutters to cut repository tunnels for radioactive material storage. Other partners are Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Colorado School of Mines, where this coated disc cutter was the first in 25 years to survive testing on a hydraulic press that simulates in-field conditions. [Contact: Ron Walli; 865.576.0226; wallira@@@@@@@ornl.gov].........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source