Monday, February 28, 2011
Šimtadienis!!! 694 photos for you!
Labels:
For student,
Photos
100 style essentials - Part II
Continuing the post last week, I'll show more cute pieces that can not miss in your wardrobe, choose what best suits you!
49. Dangly earrings
Ups the flirt factor on your outfit—big time.
50. Bangles and cuffs
A single one looks posh, multiple ones look boho.
>> 51. Statement ring
All the bling you need when your dress has a lot going
on.
Kate Spade New York "All Wrapped Up" Large Bow Ring, $75, nordstrom.com
52. Layered necklaces
Pick one that’s loaded with texture, with ribbons and chains
to quickly update any tee.
53. Pearl necklace
Whether it’s real or faux, every girl should own one (or
two).
Oscar winners and nominees in full
BEST PICTURE
The King's Speech - WINNER
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
Winter's Bone
True Grit
Toy Story 3
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment,
News
Oscars 2011 analysis: hits and misses
First things first. The
King's Speech, as expected, has come out on top and been crowned with 12
Oscar nods, with Colin Firth almost certain to go on and win best
actor.
Royal characters have a history of doing well at the Oscars - look at the success of The Queen and Shakespeare in Love.
The best picture showdown looks set to be between The King's Speech and The Social Network
David Fincher's Facebook movie won best drama at the Golden Globes and has found favour with the main critics groups.
Nominations tally
- The King's Speech - 12
- True Grit - 10
- Inception - 8
- The Social Network - 8
- The Fighter - 7
- 127 Hours - 6
- Black Swan - 5
- Toy Story 3 - 5
- The Kids are All Right - 4
- Winter's Bone - 4
- Alice in Wonderland - 3
- Biutiful - 2
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 - 2
- How to Train Your Dragon - 2
Yet The King's Speech caused an upset at the weekend by winning the top prize from the Producers Guild of America.
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment,
News
Friday, February 25, 2011
Kelly Osbourne for Material Girl
Kelly Osbourne is the new face of Madonna’s Material Girl line, and the
ads were just released. The photos capture Material Girl’s style switch
from grungy to sugar and spice. According to people.com,
Osbourne said “There’s not many other companies besides material girl
that do clothes at an affordable price that are high fashion and what
people see in the magazines and can emulate themselves without having
to go and spend 1000 on a dress.” Well said, Kelly, well said.
Will you be rocking any of these pieces for spring?
Google blunts Facebook phone app on Android
Google has stepped up its data battle with Facebook by blunting the social networking site's app on its phones.
An update for its latest mobile operating system will see users' Facebook contacts disappear from the phone's address book.
Google said it took the action as it was no longer willing to exempt Facebook from its data-sharing rules.
The decision has been seen as indicative of growing tensions between the two internet giants.
The contact-altering update applies to the Gingerbread
version of Google's Android mobile operating system - currently only
available for the Nexus S and Nexus One handsets, which are manufactured
for Google.
Labels:
News
Sir Paul McCartney to write ballet score
Musician Sir Paul McCartney is to write his first original orchestral score for a ballet performance.
The former Beatle is collaborating with the New York City Ballet company (NYCB) on Ocean's Kingdom.
"I am always interested in new directions that I haven't worked in
before, so I became very excited about the idea," Sir Paul said.
The production's world premiere will take place on 22 September. More performances will be announced later.
In an interview with The New York Times, the 68-year-old said
the show was a love story based in two fantastic worlds - the "pure"
ocean kingdom, and the earth kingdom with its "sort of baddies".
He explained that when earth meets water, love happens, and "you'll have to see whether the couple make it".
He added: "The sheer athleticism is the most astounding
thing. It's like a meeting of the Olympic games and art, and I find that
fascinating and challenging for me, to see what can be done."
Sir Paul was asked to consider the collaboration after
meeting NYCB's ballet master-in-chief Peter Martins at the School of
American Ballet's Winter Gala last year.
"Like the rest of my generation, I grew up being a huge fan of The Beatles so I was thrilled to meet him," said Martins.
"After I got to know him a bit, and knowing of his great love
of composing classical music, I asked if he might be interested in
doing something for New York City Ballet, and I am ecstatic that he has
agreed to write a score for us."
The 50-minute production will consist of more than 40 dancers.
In 1991, Sir Paul wrote the Liverpool Oratorio with Carl
Davis for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's 150th
anniversary.
Since then he has released Standing Stone, Working Classical and 2006's Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart).
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
Map your Facebook friends in a few clicks
(Mashable) -- You know who your Facebook friends are, but can you visualize where they are? You might be surprised when you see "Where My Friends Be?," a Google Maps mashup with all of their locations pinpointed, showing you just how far-flung your friends really are.
We've seen other Facebook/Google Maps mashups
before, but this one's different from other friend-mappers. It's fast,
it takes just a few seconds to click into, and suddenly it's dropping
little pins all over the globe, showing you precisely where your pals
reside. Says one of its developers, Ajay Mehta:
"Surprisingly,
there aren't a lot of apps like this. There were a few that were very
poorly developed and eventually canceled years ago.
They weren't
this visual either, most had a lame loading bar or something similar and
the mapping was laggy/slow. We have friends pop onto the map in a cool,
interactive way (which was the hardest part to hack together)."
Written
by college freshmen Ajay Mehta, Wesley Zhao and Dan Shipper, the mashup
gives you a quick way to remind yourself that you're not in Kansas
anymore, and neither are your friends. Unless, of course, you all live
in Kansas.
The enthusiasm of these frosh is infectious. Future Zuckerbergs?
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment,
News
'The Hangover 2': Teaser Trailer Released!
Check out the teaser trailer for The Hangover: Part 2!
The follow-up to 2009’s smash hit features Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Justin Bartha, and Ed Helms in their roles as friends who find themselves in sticky situations after a wild night.
Here’s the official synopsis: “In The Hangover Part II, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha)
travel to exotic Thailand for Stu’s wedding. After the unforgettable
bachelor party in Las Vegas, Stu is taking no chances and has opted for a
safe, subdued pre-wedding brunch. However, things don’t always go as
planned. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in
Bangkok can’t even be imagined.”
The Hangover: Part 2 will hit theaters on May 26!
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
Kanye West video can trigger epileptic seizures, UK charity warns
RAPPER Kanye West's latest video could cause epileptic seizures, British experts warned today.
People with photosensitive epilepsy should not watch All of the Lights, featuring Rihanna, said UK charity Epilepsy Action.
The charity claimed the extensive use of flashing imagery could trigger seizures in some people.
The
video, which does not carry a warning alerting viewers to the risks,
was examined by experts at Cambridge Research Systems who found that it
contains flashes at a rate high enough to trigger seizures.
By today the video had already been viewed almost five million times on YouTube.
Epilepsy
Action spokeswoman, Aimee Gee, said: "We are deeply concerned that this
video may be harmful to some people with photosensitive epilepsy. We
are doing all we can to warn people who may be affected not to watch it
... we feel it is unfortunately very likely that people may have already
been affected."
The charity said it had contacted Kanye West's representative,
YouTube and other online sources to ask that they take the video down.
There are estimated to be about 50 million people with epilepsy worldwide.
Labels:
Music
Knights Contract wins cinematic trailer scary. Game reminds God of War
Like God of War, Bayonetta, Dante's Inferno game and the genre? So prepare your heart.
"Knights Contract" at first seems just another generic action game-full-of-combos-copy-of-God-of-War. But not quite.
The protagonist is named Heinrich, a warrior cursed with immortality, and his movements are superb, brutal and fill the entire screen with many effects. To smash the monsters - some of them gigantic, of course - you have a type of sickle-sword that definitely commands respect.
"Knights Contract" at first seems just another generic action game-full-of-combos-copy-of-God-of-War. But not quite.
The protagonist is named Heinrich, a warrior cursed with immortality, and his movements are superb, brutal and fill the entire screen with many effects. To smash the monsters - some of them gigantic, of course - you have a type of sickle-sword that definitely commands respect.
Moreover, a strange white-haired witch named Gretchen, and which dominates powerful magic, will be your ally in the fighting. Interestingly, though, is that at times you will have to charge the woman in your arms, fighting and fleeing while in the midst of explosions and destruction.
As Heinrich is immortal, the only way to see the game over screen if Gretchen is dead. And there is the great challenge of the game: fight a myriad of creatures and at the same time protect the girl - who is also the target of enemies, since everything goes into an old Germany where witches are being hunted and exterminated.
But if even after all this "Contract Knights" have not you excited, then watch the trailer below to launch the game. The launch took place on February 22, 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
But if even after all this "Contract Knights" have not you excited, then watch the trailer below to launch the game. The launch took place on February 22, 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
Berlin Philharmonic / Simon Rattle, Royal Festival Hall, review. interview, live music
The Berlin Philharmonic’s London series has certainly been shrewdly planned.
It started small on Sunday with a clutch of chamber works, swelled by finely calibrated degrees through Haydn, Schubert and Mahler’s most refined symphony, the fourth.
Finally last night it climaxed with his most extravagant symphony, the third. Simon Rattle often likes to introduce a vast-scale piece with a little amuse-bouche, and on this occasion he gave us two delicious ones: Brahms’s tiny “Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang” (Harp notes ring forth) and Hugo Wolf’s setting for the women’s chorus and orchestra of Shakespeare’s “You spotted snakes,” in German translation, a surprisingly innocent piece from this most ironic composer.
After all this delicate melancholy and magic-forest gossamer, the first movement of Mahler’s third symphony burst in like some beery holiday parade in Vienna (to borrow Richard Strauss’s description).
Milos: Classical guitar has a new hero
'I want to wake the instrument from hibernation,’ a passionate Miloš Karadaglić tells Adam Sweeting
Listening to the debut album by guitarist Miloš Karadaglić, you find yourself wondering where on earth the classical guitar has been lately. As he moves from haunting compositions by Tarrega, Albeniz and Granados to the more abstract shapes of Carlo Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba suite, it’s as if Karadaglic is shining a brilliant light on the entire heritage of his instrument .
“The Seventies was the golden time of the guitar, but the situation was different because there was so much support from the media, the BBC and everybody,” says Milos (he’s known by just his first name).
“Because of Julian Bream and John Williams, the classical guitar really was a household name, but then the world changed, and the kind of music people wanted to listen to changed. I want to wake the guitar up from this hibernation, and show what I can do and what my instrument can do.”
Labels:
Music
Resident Evil: Raccoon City a prequel?
Resident Evil: Raccoon City has made a
return to rumour circles today for the first time since it first
surfaced in November last year.
The Kartel also reports the mystery game will feature multiple playable characters, but they'll all apparently be new and not characters currently known from series, which further supports prequel/parallel story theories.
According to rumors last year, SOCOM Confrontation developer Slant Six Games is currently working on the new Resi game, which was also rumoured to be a team-based affair.
Whatever it is, if there's a new Resi game coming you can consider us excited.
[ Source: The Kartel ]
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
Animal Kingdom, review
This Australian crime-family thriller is bursting with energy and ideas and features a terrific, Oscar-nominated performance from Jacki Weaver.
Director: David Michôd; starring: James Frecheville, Guy Pearce, Jacki Weaver and Joel Edgerton.
There’s enough in Animal Kingdom, David Michôd’s febrile tale of a Melbourne crime family, for a whole miniseries’ worth of sweat and apprehension. He packs a lot in – it’s a writing-directing debut with a thousand ideas and no intention of saving them for later.
We’ve barely been introduced to this tight-knit clan, the Codys, before they’re skittering towards ruin, much of it at each other’s hands. Pungent scene by scene and bracing in its cumulative impact, Michôd’s movie suggests what Aeschylus might have had in mind, if the House of Atreus had been fond of seafood barbeques.
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
Daily art news
MEXICO CITY.- Soldiers paint the symbols of an oversized Mexican flag in Mexico City, Wednesday Feb. 23 2011. Mexicans celebrate Dia de la Bandera or Flag Day every year on February 24. AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo.
HANOVER.- In the first institutional solo exhibition in Germany of works by the American photographer David LaChapelle (*1964), the kestnergesellschaft presents a series of new, not yet shown photographs. The series Earth Laughs in Flowers, which was created this year, refers to art-historical visual traditions but never loses sight of LaChapelle’s own artistic language. The large-format still lifes in this series, with titles such as The Lovers, Concerning the Soul, Risk or America, seamlessly take up the principle of exaggeration that characterized the portraits of celebrities like Madonna, Pamela Anderson, Michael Jackson, Björk or David Bowie through which LaChapelle himself has become famous since the 1990s. The portraits always contained art-historical references, along with a fear of emptiness, a love of bad taste, an ugly beauty, but David LaChapelle’s recent works now show an explicit compositional affinity to Baroque floral still lifes. Plants, fruits and objects, in place of human bodies, now bear witness to human pride, to the finiteness of life with its obsessions and compulsions, to pleasure and suffering.
Labels:
Culture
The Museum of Modern Art Announces a Retrospective of Cindy Sherman for 2012
NEW YORK, N.Y.- The Museum of Modern Art will present the exhibition Cindy Sherman, a retrospective survey tracing the groundbreaking artist's career from the mid 1970s to the present, from February 26 through June 11, 2012. The exhibition will bring together more than 170 key photographs from a variety of the artist's acclaimed bodies of work, for which she created myriad constructed characters and tableaus. The first comprehensive museum survey of Sherman's career in the United States since 1997, it will draw widely from public and private collections, including the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art.
Sherman (American, b. 1954) is widely recognized as amongst the most important contemporary artists of the last 40 years, and arguably the most influential artist working exclusively with photography. Today her work is the unchallenged cornerstone of Post-Modern photography. Throughout her career, Sherman has presented a sustained, eloquent, and provocative exploration of the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation, drawn from the unlimited supply of images from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet, and art history.
Labels:
Culture
Sylvester Stallone Opens Retrospective Exhibition at Galerie Gmurzynska
ST. MORITZ.- From February19th until March 15th 2011, artworks by Sylvester Stallone will be exhibited at Galerie Gmurzynska, St. Moritz. Stallone’s exhibition at Galerie Gmurzynska is a retrospective of his work. The pictures will document different periods of the creative work. About 30 pictures of the action star will be presented, including various self-portraits.
Stallone’s pictures are as action-packed as his movies: colorful, expressive and abstract. Referring to Automatism and abstract Expressionism, his paintings merge to a new, very personal expressive style. Thereby the Hollywood star uses the Expressionism concept of presenting art in a spontaneous manner without caring about conventional shapes.
The exhibition at Galerie Gmurzynska will be accompanied by a catalogue written by art critics Anthony Haden-Guest (i.e. for New York Times and the London Times) and Donald Kuspit, one of the most distinguished art critics in America. Donald Kuspits analysis is attached to this press release.
Labels:
Culture
Thursday, February 24, 2011
News about Games for you!!! [Update]
Adrenaline and Action the First Gameplay Battlefield 3
Battlefield 2 was very successful, being one of the FPS genre games most notably last year, having a solid campaign mode and an incredible multiplayer mode, which many say is the best ever made. This year the Dice
Battlefield 3 will launch to try to repeat or even make more successful than the previous game.
Battlefield 3 will launch to try to repeat or even make more successful than the previous game.
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
Microsoft and Apple: Competing on the high street
Seattle: I've just visited two shiny temples to
technology, brightly lit places with keen, well-informed and helpful
staff, and a welcome for anyone who wanted just to play on the laptops,
mobile phones or tablet computers.
Yes, one was an Apple store, but the other, just a few doors along in
a shopping mall in Bellevue near Seattle, was a Microsoft store. The
software giant has now opened seven of these shops in the United States,
an attempt perhaps to copy Apple's very successful experiment in
selling its products direct to the public in an environment designed to
reinforce the brand.
The one I visited, just a few miles from Microsoft's headquarters in
Redmond, seemed to have much of the recipe about right - good design,
plenty of room to look at the products, and without the overcrowded
shelves and apathetic salespeople you get in many big electronic retail
chains.
But it did seem to be proving less of a draw to shoppers than its
neighbouring Apple Store. That might be just because it has only
recently opened, or it could say something about the different ways the
two companies are organised to address their markets.
Labels:
News
Shockwaves NME Awards 2011 - Find out who won what this year
Tonight's (February 23) Shockwaves NME Awards 2011 ceremony is all done and dusted – see below for the full list of winners and nominees.
My Chemical Romance were big winners on the night. As well as opening the ceremony by playing live they took home two gongs: for Best International Band and Best Video, for the promo to 'Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)'.
Muse won the coveted Best British Band award for the second year in a row, while frontman Matt Bellamy also walks home with the 2011 Sexiest Male honour – the fourth time he's won the title.
Foals were nominated for five awards and walked away with one: the Best Track honour for 'Spanish Sahara'. Arcade Fire were up for four and also won one: the Best Album gong for 'The Suburbs'.
Foo Fighters also played at the awards, closing the ceremony at the O2 Academy Brixton in London after frontman Dave Grohl was handed the Godlike Genius trophy.
PJ Harvey played too, and was given the Teenage Cancer Trust Outstanding Contribution To Music award. Hurts and Crystal Castles also performed live.
My Chemical Romance were big winners on the night. As well as opening the ceremony by playing live they took home two gongs: for Best International Band and Best Video, for the promo to 'Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)'.
Muse won the coveted Best British Band award for the second year in a row, while frontman Matt Bellamy also walks home with the 2011 Sexiest Male honour – the fourth time he's won the title.
Foals were nominated for five awards and walked away with one: the Best Track honour for 'Spanish Sahara'. Arcade Fire were up for four and also won one: the Best Album gong for 'The Suburbs'.
Foo Fighters also played at the awards, closing the ceremony at the O2 Academy Brixton in London after frontman Dave Grohl was handed the Godlike Genius trophy.
PJ Harvey played too, and was given the Teenage Cancer Trust Outstanding Contribution To Music award. Hurts and Crystal Castles also performed live.
Labels:
Music
The Smithsonian wants your favorite video games. Enter the site and vote!!!
(CNN) -- Is "Donkey Kong" art?
Should one of the world's best-known museums honor"Heavy Rain" or "Call of Duty: Black Ops?"
The Smithsonian wants you to help decide.
Next month, the Smithsonian American Art Museum will debut the Art of Video Games, an exhibit chronicling what the museum calls the 40-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium.
"Video games use images, actions and player participation to tell stories and engage their audiences," the Smithsonian says on the exhibit's website. "In the same way as film, animation and performance, they can be considered a compelling and influential form of narrative art."
Now, video game fans can vote to help decide some of the games that will be featured. Between now and April 7, the public is invited to vote online.
Go to the Smithsonian's voting site for the Art of Video Games.
Should one of the world's best-known museums honor"Heavy Rain" or "Call of Duty: Black Ops?"
The Smithsonian wants you to help decide.
Next month, the Smithsonian American Art Museum will debut the Art of Video Games, an exhibit chronicling what the museum calls the 40-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium.
"Video games use images, actions and player participation to tell stories and engage their audiences," the Smithsonian says on the exhibit's website. "In the same way as film, animation and performance, they can be considered a compelling and influential form of narrative art."
Now, video game fans can vote to help decide some of the games that will be featured. Between now and April 7, the public is invited to vote online.
Go to the Smithsonian's voting site for the Art of Video Games.
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
Breakup Notifier gets shut down by Facebook
Facebook have decided to shut down Breakup Notifier, a popular
relationship tracker which is used to monitor the relationship status of
chosen friends. The application sent users an email notification
whenever one of their friends changed relationship status, meaning that
interested parties could make advances whenever someone they liked was
‘single’ again.
Dan Loewenherz, the creator of the software package received a
message from Facebook explaining why they had disabled the application
on the site.
To ensure positive user experiences on Platform, we run routine
automated screens that take user feedback, machine learning and various
algorithms into account and remove spammy applications. For example, if
an application is making an inordinate number of stream.publish calls
and receiving a large number of user reports, it may be removed by our
automated systems to protect the user experience and the Platform
ecosystem.
Loewenherz seems to be rather miffed at the events which have removed
his software from Facebook’s services, saying that none of his emails
or calls to Facebook have even been returned. Facebook also appear to
have disabled his personal account.
His Twitter page shows “Hey everyone, Facebook e-mailed saying that
they’ve disabled us… We are working for a fix, but ask @facebook to put
us back online!”.
A Facebook representative has said that the company is looking
further into the issue with Breakup Notifier. This application has been
immensely popular with over 100,000 users adopting it within the first
24 hours of it being launched.
Labels:
News
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Euro Top 20. The best music for you! New!!!
Labels:
Music
Apple in talks to improve sound quality of music downloads
San Francisco (CNN) -- Apple and other digital music retailers
are in discussions with record labels to improve the quality of the
song files they sell, executives involved in the talks say.
As a
result, online music stores could eventually offer songs that sound
truer to their original recordings, perhaps at a premium price.
Professional
music producers generally capture studio recordings in a 24-bit,
high-fidelity audio format. Before the originals, or "masters" in
industry parlance, are pressed onto CDs or distributed to digital
sellers like Apple's iTunes, they're downgraded to 16-bit files.
From
there, the audio can be compressed further in order to minimize the
time the music will take to download or to allow it to be streamed
on-the-fly over the internet.
Labels:
Music
100 style essentials - Part I
From tees to totes, belts to blush, we've got all the fashion and beauty must-haves to keep you looking head-to-toe gorge!
3 pretty blushes to warm up winter skin
Normally, we could take blush or leave it. But during the dead
of winter, it’s suddenly a girl’s BFF. Here are three of our new faves
that’ll instant add cute color to your cheeks.
A darling duo
Having blush ‘n’ bronzer in the same place is perf. Plus, it lets girls
who might shy away from pink tones ease into the sweet scene. Blend like
mad find the color that’s most flattering to you.
Neutrogena Healthy Skin Custom Glow Blush & Bronzer Duo in Posie Glow 20, $13, drugstore.com
Google faces fresh EU search complaint
(FT) -- A fresh
complaint accusing Google of abusing its dominant position in the online
search market and blocking the development of rival search businesses
has been filed with the European Union's antitrust watchdog.
It
comes from a French company, 1plusV, related to Ejustice.fr, one of
three companies that originally filed complaints against Google with the
European Commission last year.
These prompted Brussels to open an in-depth probe against Google,
looking at whether the search company gave preferential treatment to its
own services when ranking results and whether its contractual
relationships with advertisers may also have breached competition rules.
1plusV,
which was formed in 2004 and is controlled by Bruno Guillard, is
alleging Google illegally "tied" its search engine and its Adsense
advertising service -- which allows advertisers to buy a keyword that,
when typed in as a search query, produces a commercial link alongside
the search results.
Labels:
News
Facebook app lets you stalk -- er, monitor relationships
(CNN) -- Stalk much?
Facebook Breakup Notifier, a new app for the site, is super simple -- and will probably be super popular.
It lets users pick certain friends whose relationship status they'd like to monitor. If one of those relationships changes, the user gets notified by e-mail.
"You like someone. They're in a relationship. Be the first to know when they're out of it," promises the app's website.
So, if that old high school flame suddenly becomes "single" or the receptionist you've pined for decides that her on-again, off-again relationship is now "complicated," you can swoop right in.
Facebook Breakup Notifier, a new app for the site, is super simple -- and will probably be super popular.
It lets users pick certain friends whose relationship status they'd like to monitor. If one of those relationships changes, the user gets notified by e-mail.
"You like someone. They're in a relationship. Be the first to know when they're out of it," promises the app's website.
So, if that old high school flame suddenly becomes "single" or the receptionist you've pined for decides that her on-again, off-again relationship is now "complicated," you can swoop right in.
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment,
News
Sony Preparing Hack-Proof PS3 SKU
With all the recent price drops circulating Sony’s PlayStation 3
console and even reports suggesting the company may even introduce an
official price drop, you can’t help wonder why Sony are really doing
this for.
If they really wanted to drop the price of their machine the
best opportunity would have been at E3 last year.
So, there must be a
motive behind the recent price drops from major retailers – Sony are
reportedly looking into a hack-proof PS3 SKU.
According to what I have been told by an
anonymous source Sony are already deep into plans of developing a
hack-proof PS3 system. This is mainly due to the recent leaks of
Killzone 3 which has worried Sony of their console becoming a mainstream
threat to piracy.
The hack-proof SKU will be a slim PlayStation 3 model and will
contain a 300GB hard drive as an incentive to purchase the hack-proof
system – the price of the SKU will be £186.99, my source informs me. The
scheduled launch is unsure at this time due to Sony seeing if they can
win the battle in the courts against the root of all the PS3 hacks –
George Hotz.
Sony is essentially trying to get rid of all the old SKUs with these
price drops – and even their own price drop incoming possibly – so it
makes way for their new hack-proof model.
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2
At 6am on 7th May 2004, Axel Gembe awoke in the small German town of
Schönau im Schwarzwald to find his bed surrounded by police officers.
Automatic weapons were pointing at his head and the words "Get out of
bed. Do not touch the keyboard" were ringing in his ears.
Gembe knew why they were there. But, bleary-eyed, he asked anyway.
"You are being charged with hacking into Valve Corporation's network,
stealing the videogame Half-Life 2, leaking it onto the internet and
causing damages in excess of $250 million," came the reply. "Get
dressed."
Seven months earlier, on 2nd October 2003, Valve Corporation director
Gabe Newell awoke in the large
American city of Seattle to find the
source code for the game his company had been working on for almost five
years had leaked onto the internet.
The game had been due for release a couple of weeks earlier but the
development team was behind. 12 months behind. Half-Life 2 was going to
be late, and Newell had yet to admit how late. Such a leak was not only
financially threatening but deeply embarrassing.
After a few moments pondering these immediate concerns, an avalanche of
questions tumbled through
Newell's mind. How had this happened? Had the
leak come from within Valve? Which member of his team, having given
years of their life to building the game, would jeopardise the project
in the final hour?
If it wasn't an inside job, how the hell did it happen? Did someone have access to Valve's internal server?
But the question which rang out loudest of all was the one anyone who
has ever had something stolen from them cannot push from their mind: who
did this?
Read more: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-the-boy-who-stole-half-life-2-article?page=1
Labels:
Culture,
Entertainment
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