Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

David Brooks Applies For a Job With Obama — Francis Cianfrocca

Friday, March 12th, 2010

The president, in Brooks’s reality, is a moderate progressive, trying to expand the government’s role in small ways while preserving the dynamism of free markets. (To the conservatives reading this: I’m not making this up. To the liberals: I’m not making this up.)

Mediaweek on Oprah’s heir — Bets are quietly being placed on contenders to fill Oprah’s shoes and time slots when she leaves daytime in 2011

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Easily the biggest news this season is Oprah’s announcement that she will officially step down from her syndicated chatfest after what will be 25 years on Sept. 9, 2011 to concentrate on her upcoming cable network OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint venture with Discovery Communications. While the “Queen” of daytime’s actual involvement at OWN remains uncertain (Oprah claims she will not do another talker), much clearer is the opportunity created now for all other syndicators. It also was the right time for her to step away.

Moonves: Advertisers, TV Affils Will Pay More for CBS — Adweek

Friday, March 12th, 2010

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves put two groups on notice Tuesday that they will be paying the network more in the future than they have in the past.

Advertisers will pay more in the form of higher prices for commercials. And the network’s local TV affiliates will pay more too, in the form of substantial portions of the retransmission consent fees they receive from cable operators-or they will risk losing their network affiliations.

K-State journalism “expert” — Lawrence Journal-World, Manhattan Mercury “some great examples of converged media operations”

Friday, March 12th, 2010

News release prepared by: Nellie Ryan, 785-532-6415, media@k-state.edu

Friday, March 12, 2010

K-STATE JOURNALISM EXPERT SAYS INTERNET CHANGING NEWS, NEWSPAPERS

MANHATTAN — News is changing in several ways and innovation is taking place at record-breaking speed, according to Angela Powers, director of the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University.

Powers researches influences on news content, media leadership and ethics, and media convergence.

“Some newspapers in the U.S. are laying off people, closing their doors,” she said. “Yet, other newspapers have an enthusiasm for new methods and techniques for gathering news and information that is completely changing the way they’re doing business.”

Part of that transformation has to do with the Internet, which has created massive interconnectedness, Powers said.

“Journalists are now routinely producing original content for the Internet and determining which medium is most appropriate, rather than simply covering a story for print or electronic media,” she said. (more…)

Web will be ‘critical’ revenue source for NY Times: publisher

Friday, March 12th, 2010

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UK Daily Mail: Avatar director James Cameron hails 3D TV as ‘the future’ despite fears screens could cause health problems

Friday, March 12th, 2010

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CNET: Why no one cares about privacy anymore

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Google co-founder Sergey Brin adores the company’s social network called Google Buzz. We know this because an engineer working five feet from Brin used Google Buzz to say so. “I just finished eating dinner with Sergey and four other Buzz engineers in one of Google’s cafes,” engineer John Costigan wrote a day after the Twitter-and-Facebook-esque service was announced. “He was particularly impressed with the smooth launch and the great media response it generated.”

Politico — “Mitt Romney’s new book, “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,” will debut on top of the New York Times bestseller list due out March 2″

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

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Investor’s Business Daily editorial on Detroit — Motown To Notown

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Urban Decline: Detroit was once the epitome of an industrial boomtown. From 1900 to 1930, it was the fastest growing city in the world. Now, ravaged by recession and a plummeting population, the city is shrinking.

As recently as 1950, Detroit was a manufacturing mecca, bustling with 1.9 million residents and the energy of thousands of workers at a dozen auto companies, not to mention the industries, shops and stores that sprang up to service them.

Today, the population of the former Motor City is 800,000 and falling. Since the start of 2008, the greater metropolitan area has lost nearly a quarter of its manufacturing jobs, and the city suffers from a 50% unemployment rate.

Wired — 10 Years After: A Look Back at the Dotcom Boom and Bust

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

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Investors can soon make bets on movie box office. Two new futures exchanges will let studios spread the financial risk of creating films — LA Times

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Two trading firms, one of them an established Wall Street player and the other a Midwest upstart, are each about to premiere a sophisticated new financial tool: a box-office futures exchange that would allow Hollywood studios and others to hedge against the box-office performance of movies, similar to the way farmers swap corn or wheat futures to protect themselves from crop failures.

Fox NY — Chefs Call Proposed New York Salt Ban ‘Absurd’

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

MYFOXNY.COM - Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.

“No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises,” the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

Panasonic ties with Best Buy for 3D TV promotion

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

(Reuters) - Panasonic Corp will launch its 3D televisions in the United States on Wednesday, and work with top U.S. electronics retailer Best Buy Co to promote the products, the Japanese electronics maker said.

Sony, Samsung detail 3D TV plans

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

(Reuters) - Sony and Samsung announced plans to introduce 3D televisions in coming months, betting they will become the next hot products in an increasingly crowded electronics industry.

Wired — 500-Horsepower Plug-In Porsche Makes Us Swoon

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Power from the engine and the rear motor hits the street through a seven-speed PDK gearbox. The front motor turns the front wheels through a fixed ratio. Juice for the motors is stored in a lithium-ion battery mounted behind the seats. No specs on the pack.

Porsche gave the car four modes. E-Drive is for tooling around under electricity alone, and you’ve got a range of 16 miles. Choose Hybrid Mode and you’re using gas and electricity as the circumstances dictate. Sport Hybrid mode tips the gas-electric equation in favor of performance, sending most of the power to the rear wheels and using torque vectoring to keep things under control. Flip the switch to Race Hybrid mode and everything is tuned to maximum performance. If the battery’s carrying enough juice, the motors provide a push-to-pass burst of energy at the touch of a button.

Wired — 21st-Century Shooters Are No Country for Old Men

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

I’m currently embedded in MAG, the new PlayStation 3 shooter that puts up to 256 players on the same battlefield. And at first, the notion of running and gunning with so many other people is exhilarating. But after all these shots to the head, I feel like this most complex of shooters may only be navigable by younger players with the free time to learn how to handle a hundred human foes.

I’m 37, and I’ve been gaming since the Atari 2600. Last year, at the peak of Modern Warfare 2 mania, I found myself in a hip Hollywood bar celebrating the birthday of an old college buddy. We’re all in our mid-thirties. As usual in a crowd of aging, buzzed geeks, the conversation veered toward videogames - specifically, the prowess of the young punks swarming the Call of Duty servers.

Pakistani musician to perform, meet with students during two-day visit to KU

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Contact: Diana Carlin, Department of Communication Studies, (785) 864-9875, dbcarlin@ku.edu

Pakistani musician to perform, meet with students during two-day visit to KU
http://www.news.ku.edu/2010/march/9/ahmad.shtml

LAWRENCE - Pakistani rock star, United Nations goodwill ambassador, physician and author Salman Ahmad will perform a concert and sign copies of his book “Rock and Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 11, at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union. The event is free and open to the public.

Ahmad, founder of South Asian rock band Junoon, which sold 30 million albums, is making his third appearance at the University of Kansas since 2002. He will speak to the University Scholars’ Rhetoric of the Nobel Prize class about his experiences performing at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2006 and 2008. He also will meet with student groups during his two-day visit to campus.

His wife, Samina, who also is a physician, will present a brown bag talk at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, March 11, in the Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center on her work with women and children in South Asia. The event is free and open to the public.

“Rock and Roll Jihad” is an autobiographical look at one person’s attempt to use music to bridge cultural differences. Junoon performed a benefit concert for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in October 2001 in New York. The band’s first English language single, “No More,” was dedicated to the victims. Junoon created controversy among political and religious leaders for playing a concert in India and using a line from the Quran in one of their songs. A BBC/PBS/WideAngle documentary titled “The Rock Star and the Mullahs” chronicled the controversies.

The Ahmads’ visit is sponsored by the University Honors Program, International Programs, International Student Association, Pakistani Student Association and Emily Taylor Women’s Resource Center.

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Is the Kindle finally ready for the Web?

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

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Abu Dhabi is future base for News Corp: Murdoch

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

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Google testing TV search service with Dish Network: WSJ

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

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“If Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had his way, any journalist who called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator would quickly find himself behind bars.”

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

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Letterman Plot Suspect Expected To Plead Guilty — CBS

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

The CBS news producer accused of trying to shake down David Letterman will plead guilty Tuesday afternoon in Lower Manhattan, sources tell CBS 2.

“Hurt Locker” producers sued days before Oscars

Monday, March 8th, 2010

(Reuters) - A U.S. Army sergeant on Tuesday sued the makers of Oscar-nominated film “The Hurt Locker” five days before the Academy Awards, claiming the central character in the film is based on him.

Spring Break No School Day Camp at Mahaffie

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Spring Break “No School Day Camp” at Mahaffie
The Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop and Farm is offering a day camp on Wednesday, March 17th from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., at the historic site, 1200 Kansas City Road in Olathe.

The camp is available to kids in kindergarten through sixth grade and features history based games, crafts, living history activities, movie times and stories frown from cowboy culture. Weather permitting, campers will spend time indoors and outside.

The cost is $50 for the first child in the household and $40 for each additional household participant. Registration is open until Thursday, March 11th. For more information or to register call (913) 971-5111 or email mahaffie@olatheks.org.

Glenn Beck –The Chicago way is now the American way

Monday, March 8th, 2010

On Today’s Program
The Chicago way is now the American way

Congressman Eric Massa, a Democrat from New York, finds himself directly under the bus. He was kicked to the curb by Democrats because he didn’t support the healthcare bill or cap and trade. Democrats are using an ethics violation to toss him under the bus. Is this guy a dirtbag? Probably - it’s not exactly uncommon in Washington DC. But do his transgressions make what he’s saying about Washington untrue? Glenn reacts to the Massa controversy today and why this is the conversation America needs to have. ( Transcript, Insider Audio) (more…)