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Rihanna and Chris Brown Battle It Out Via Music Video

11/15/2009 11:55:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , 0 Comments


With videos like these, it's almost as if Rihanna and Chris Brown were hoping for mass-media scrutiny to follow.

As promised, the two megastars debuted their new music videos on Friday, her first since the highly publicized incident last February, and spoiler alert: they're both left wide-open for interpretation.

Rihanna's "Russian Roulette" portrays some seemingly real emotion as the songstress bounces back-and-forth between writhing around a padded cell, and facing off with a rather muscluar man presenting her with a loaded gun.

Representative of her relationship battles with Brown? Likely Perhaps, but far more unstated than her former counterpart's attempt.

You can't deny Brown's ability to bust-a-move in his videos, but "Crawl" just feels like another one of Camp Chris' ploys for public pity. The song is good, but casting R&B singer Cassie—often touted as Rihanna 2.0 because of her strong fashion statements and outlandish hair styles—to play Brown's faux famous-ex? Not very cool.

Now you decide, who gave fans the best comeback video: Rihanna or Chris Brown?

Windows 7 Adoption Nudging Out Vista, Not XP

11/15/2009 11:54:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , , 0 Comments

Tracking shows that Windows 7 uptake is surging, and Vista switchers account for the lion's share.

Windows 7 is surging. After an insanely popular beta cycle, Microsoft's latest and greatest has exploded out of the gate, grabbing more than 4 percent of the real-world usage base as tracked by InfoWorld's Windows Pulse service -- after only a few weeks of general availability.

More tellingly, Windows 7 is grabbing a sizable chunk of our new users. Fully 10 percent of the most recent registrants are running some version of Windows 7, which is remarkable since, after three years in the market, Windows Vista still barely registers above the 30 percent level.

And even that number is beginning to erode: As Windows 7 picks up user share, it seems to be making most of its gains at the expense of Vista. In fact, there seems to be a direct correlation between Windows 7 adoption and Vista abandonment, with the latter losing a percentage point and the former gaining the same in a little over a week.

Of course, the lion's share of our user base remains on Windows XP. And with this legacy OS holding steady at just under 64 percent, it seems clear that the fence-sitters in the Vista-versus-XP debate remain firmly seated on their perches. In fact, it wouldn't surprise anyone to see this early Windows 7 surge taper off as the enthusiast euphoria fades and is replaced by the slow, steady grind of the corporate refresh cycle.

Still, this is an encouraging result for Microsoft and shows that there is indeed pent-up demand for something better than Vista -- even if much of that demand seems to be coming from Vista adopters themselves. It will be interesting see if this one-for-one user share correlation continues in the coming weeks. Will anyone still be using Vista a year from now?

Another interesting angle to consider: How many new Windows 7 users are coming to the new OS via direct upgrades from Vista? One of the advantages to having a living repository of over 21,000 active sites is that we can conduct all sorts of cross-tabular analysis. If, for example, we want to compare OS upgrade rates, we can simply compare the current records for a given PC (identified by its NetBIOS machine name and make/model/BIOS details) to those from an earlier snapshot of the exo.repository, which hosts the data shown in Windows Pulse. (You can add your system's data -- anonymously, of course -- by signing up for InfoWorld's Windows Sentinel and OfficeBench tool, which also lets you moniutor your own PCs's performance.)

In fact, we'll be doing exactly this sort of analysis in the coming weeks. Similarly, we'll be looking at changes in memory configurations to see if users are upgrading existing PCs with more RAM as part of a move from the less demanding XP to the more top-heavy Windows 7.

Of course, the big question is whether XP shops will finally migrate away from this nearly nine-year-old OS. So far, Vista is seeing the bulk of the user share erosion. If this trend continues, it's quite conceivable that Microsoft could see Windows 7's growth stall as the flood of Vista converts runs its course and the XP holdouts stand their ground.

Such an outcome would be disastrous for Microsoft. It desperately needs to regain control of the Windows release cycle with Windows 7, and simply swapping out the Vista community -- which, by all accounts, is ready to move almost immediately -- isn't going to do the trick.

Lady Gaga In 'Vogue': 'She Showed Up Completely Naked...'

11/15/2009 11:54:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , 0 Comments

Lady Gaga is featured in a compelling "Hansel and Gretel"-inspired photo shoot in the December Arts issue of Vogue. Gaga plays the witch -- a Marc Jacobs-wearing witch -- who lures in actor Andrew Garfield and model Lily Cole who play the story's main characters.


But there was just as much action behind the lens -- Annie Leibovitz's lens -- as there was in front of the camera.

Check out this new behind-the-scenes video footage with Lady Gaga, Annie Leibovitz, and Vogue Creative Director Grace Coddington, who provides insight into the shoot as well as Lady Gaga's big entrance on set: "She turned up completely naked under a white rubber rain coat."





Could Jaebeom Be Back?!

11/15/2009 11:53:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , 0 Comments

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But what kinds of words has this photo of Jaebeom struck up?

In the last couple of hours, a certain photograph of 2PM’s ex-leader Jaebeom has been circulating around on fan sites, stirring chaos amongst 2PM fans. This candid photo shows Jaebeom leaving a Korean airport.

Wait! Korean airport?! Yes, you heard me right. Many fans are speculating that this photo is recent because it hasn’t been seen by many people yet. Some fans are even suggesting that he may be returning just in time for this year’s MAMA. Now if this is the case, the question would be whether he’s returning just to attend the awards show or to perform with 2PM, as they are having a special stage with Ivy this year.

So what do you think? Could this possibly be Jaebeom’s return to 2PM? Or is it just a rumor?

Is imminent Chrome OS launch reckless?

11/15/2009 11:52:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , 0 Comments

It sounds like Google will be releasing an early version of their Chrome OS sometime this week — that leads us to a question of whether anybody will use the new operating system, and if they do, will they like it?

The initial release of Chrome OS will likely be very bare-bones, bordering on useless — but depending on what kind of feedback they get, it may grow rapidly. The “release early and often” mantra adopted by many software companies that use agile practices can be extremely dangerous, however.

When it comes to releasing new software, I hold the firm belief that first impressions are extremely important. Releasing “early” is asking for dissatisfied early adopters — the most important users for any new product or service. This early debt (bad first impressions, and loss of early adopters) is far more difficult to recover from than physical debt collected as result of the extra time it takes to polish the first version of your software.

If Google’s not sure of what first impressions are going to be, an early release of such an important product could be a disaster. In contrast, some of the most successful Google services are ones that had an extremely positive first impression — including Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Voice.

Hot favourite Tavia Yeung withdraws from Best actress nomination

11/15/2009 11:52:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , 0 Comments

Despite beating out veteran actress Sheren Tang to win Best Actress in 2004, Gigi Lai's star went downhill after that. To prevent the same thing from happening to her, hot favourite Tavia Yeung has decided to withdraw her nomination and give up her throne to Sheren.

In 2004, Sheren's portrayal of the Imperial Consort Ru in TVB drama War and Beauty was well-received by critics and was tipped to win Best Actress of that year. However, she lost to Gigi Lai and it was rumoured that the award was given to Gigi in exchange for signing a contract with TVB. After which, Gigi got slammed for it and Sheren won the hearts of the masses. Till today, Sheren refuses to use the award as an incentive for a renewal of contract with TVB and this time she's nominated for her role as the fourth wife in the drama Rosy Business. Once again, she is tipped to win the Best Actress.

According to reports, TVB wanted to award Best Actress to Tavia, who portrayed a scheming concubine in Beyond the Realm of Conscience. However, as she does not want to incur the wrath of the masses like Gigi, she declined TVB's offer and said that even if she did eventually win the award, she does not want it either.

As for the others contesting to the award, they expressed that they have no intention of fighting with Sheren Tang. It seems that the throne is truly hers this year.

Palm Pre WebOS 1.3.1 update available now

11/15/2009 11:52:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , , 0 Comments

WebOS 1.3.1 was always destined to come right around the launch of the Pixi, but it's surprised us by showing its face early. No app catalog bombshells here, but there are a slew of more minor fixes and updates that should make users experience a great deal smoother. Is this the update that finally unlocks access to the GPU and provides the speed boost Pre owners are waiting for / advances the iTunes chess match another step? We'll let you know once our unit reboots, for now here are a few highlights from Palm's list of changes:

Update: Downloaded, applied and rebooted. iTunes still isn't spotting our Pre as a device to sync with, and at least for the moment there's no great speed increases to speak of, but we have noticed a few more key tweaks that owners are sure to like -- setting a specific ringtone for text messages is exactly what we've been looking for.

* Yahoo! now appears as a Calendar/Contacts/instant messaging synchronization account.
* You can forward a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Forward.
* A new option is available for restarting the phone: press and hold power > Power > Restart. The prior restart method (Device Info > Reset Options > Restart) is still available.
* Widescreen videos (including YouTube) now display in widescreen mode on the phone by default, instead of being cropped.
* If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.
* You can select a unique ringtone for new message alerts: Open Messaging > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Sound > Ringtone.
* While listening to a song with album art displayed, you can tap the screen below the art to display a playback slider. Dragging the slider jumps forward or backward in the song.

Megan Fox: ‘I’m not a tigress like Angelina’

11/15/2009 11:51:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , 0 Comments

Megan Fox may be an action star, a brunette beauty with striking blue eyes and an actress that the men’s magazines go ga-ga over, but she doesn’t think she has much in common with another actress with a strikingly similar past pedigree.

“People compare me to Angelina Jolie, and she’s so serious and stoic,” Megan told the New York Times Magazine. “I’m the opposite. When I do interviews, I say things that I think are hysterical. But because we live in a world of sound bites, you’re not allowed to have a sense of humor. Sarcasm doesn’t translate in print at all. And neither does self-deprecating humor. I’m not a tigress like Angelina. Of course, people want me to be. But I want to be the contradiction of that.”

While the “Transformers” franchise actress has offered plenty of quotes that would indicate she is in fact a “tigress,” like once saying she would “eat” Zac Efron, the actress said sometimes the Megan people read about, is actually someone else entirely.

“When I sit down to talk to men’s magazines, there’s a certain character that I play,” she told the mag. “She’s not fully fleshed out — she doesn’t have her own name — but she shows up to do men’s magazine interviews. There’s something so ridiculous about always being in your underwear in those magazines, and you know the interview is going to run opposite those pictures. So, there’s a character that talks to all of them.”

Megan said she also isn’t the woman described in the anonymous “Transformers” crew letter, which surfaced after she compared director Michael Bay to “Hitler” in an interview, and which suggested she was “thankless, classless, graceless” and an “unfriendly b****.”

“I know that the things they said about me in the crew letter were not true, but Bay is not happy with some of the things I’ve said about him,” Megan said. “I was waiting for someone to defend me, to say, ‘That’s not accurate,’ but nobody did. I think it’s because I’m a girl. They left me out there to be bludgeoned to death.”

Some of the comments that have got Megan headlines and into hot water have actually prompted the actress to consider heading online to sort things out.

“Sometimes I so desperately want to clarify. I recently had an urge to get a Twitter account to explain myself. But me contradicting a news story is not going to make my words fact. It will just create a new news story,” she said. “There’s no solving this: It’s completely its own monster. You have to come up with clever ways of getting your control back.”

And the actress is smart enough to know that if she had not made some of the comments she did over the years, that she wouldn’t be getting the attention or roles she’s getting now.

“If I had been a typical starlet and said all the right things, I wouldn’t have escalated to this level,” she said. “I sit down and do an interview and I talk like a person and that, for some reason, is shocking. All women in Hollywood are known as sex symbols. You’re sold, and it’s based on sex. That’s OK, if you know how to use it.

“It’s been a crazy year,” she continued. “I’ve learned that being a celebrity is like being a sacrificial lamb. At some point, no matter how high the pedestal that they put you on, they’re going to tear you down. And I created a character as an offering for the sacrifice. I’m not willing to give my true self up. It’s a testament to my real personality that I would go so far as to make up another personality to give to the world. The reality is, I’m hidden amongst all the insanity. Nobody can find me.”

TVXQ Plans remain unchanged…

11/15/2009 11:51:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , 0 Comments

TVXQ / DBSK / Tohoshinki's future in Korea is unclear. With the turmoil going on with SM Entertainment and concerts in China being canceled, the future for them in the motherland is dark and murky at best. What they need is a light and they have that in the land of the rising sun, Japan.


AVEX Entertainment, one of the top music labels and the management company of TVXQ in Japan made it clear to everyone that their activities in Japan will remain unchanged.

AVEX stated that TVXQ will release their new single titled BREAK OUT around New Years 2010. All their scheduled fan meetings and performances will go on as planned. They will go about their business as usual in Japan.

This is good news for TVXQ fans and always keep the faith.

WHERE helps us track DROID infestation, sales numbers

11/15/2009 11:50:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , 0 Comments

The folks over at uLocate, makers of the popular GPS-centric WHERE application, have come through with some stats in order to help us better track the DROID as it leaves store shelves…and there’s a map for that. Oh irony. When you download WHERE from the Android market, uLocate (like any good developer) can tell: what model of Android phone you are using and where, roughly, you are geographically located.
The DROID after its opening weekend was estimated to have sold close to 110,000 handsets (Bloomberg), and according to uLocate, 10% of those devices had downloaded WHERE (this number was based on 11,000 new WHERE DROID activations). Not bad.
As of today, uLocate has tracked 21,000 new DROID activations, and is projecting that number to increase to 25,000 by tomorrow. What does this mean? WHERE typically has a 25% penetration rate on all Android handsets sold worldwide, and a 10% penetration rate on new Android devices during the first month of their release. If the 10% number holds true, which we are told historically it does, then there have been somewhere around 250,000 DROID units sold and in use since last Friday the 6th.
That wouldn’t include any units that haven’t ended up in customers hands from telesales, or other sales channels. Again, this is just using past and present data from uLocate, but it should be realtively accurate if their download ratio stays the same. So where is the DROID dropping like it’s hot? New York currently has 12% of all DROIDs, LA has 6%, and DC has a respectable 5%. Check out the site for more info and other top cities.

'2012' destroys the competition at Friday's box office

11/15/2009 11:50:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , 0 Comments

Roland Emmerich has once again proved his mastery over the art of destruction with his latest film 2012: Moviegoers shelled out an estimated $23.7 million for the flick’s opening day. If the number holds, the Friday figure will mark a personal best for the German director, beating 2004’s disaster film The Day After Tomorrow. Second place went to Disney’s A Christmas Carol, which grossed $5.6 million on its second Friday in theaters. The third slot belonged to the George Clooney-starrer The Men Who Stare at Goats which earned an additional $1.95 million to put its 8-day cumulative at $19.2 million. Lionsgate’s Sundance acquisition Precious continues to exceed expectations, landing in the fourth spot with an additional $1.94 million on 174 theaters. In very limited release, this Oscar shoo-in has grossed $4.7 million in eight days. Rounding out the top five movies Friday was the Milla Jovovich thriller The Fourth Kind which grossed $1.8 million.

It was mixed results for the other two releases. Pirate Radio, from Love Actually director Richard Curtis disappointed here in the states, grossing outside the top ten for its first day in release. On 882 theaters, the movie earned only $882,000. In contrast, Wes Anderson’s well-reviewed animated film The Fantastic Mr. Fox earned $72,000 in only four theaters for a solid opening debut average of $17,880. Check back tomorrow for my full report.

Tokujō Kabachi! Kabachitare! 2 Manga to Get TV Drama

11/15/2009 11:45:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , 0 Comments

On 12th November, TBS announced that Arashi's Sakurai Sho (27) will play the lead role in TBS drama 'Tokujou Kabachi!!' (starts 17th January 2010, Sundays at 9). The drama follows the struggles of administrative scriveners who use the law as a weapon to fight for the weak. Horikita Maki (21) will also star in their first work together. With the same broadcast time as NTV's 'Gyouretsu no Dekiru Houritsu Soudansho', it will be a showdown between two law-themed programs.


Sakurai plays the main character Tamura Katsuhiro, a meddlesome character with a burning sense of justice. After his mother was given help, Tamura longs to enter into the world of public notary. In reality he thinks "Law my ass, this isn't right at all!" as he complains and uses the law to help out the weak. The drama with its comical and serious aspects will make viewers think about questions like 'What is justice?' and 'How should people lead their lives?'

On the other hand, Horikita plays the shrewd administrative scrivener Sumiyoshi Misuzu, a former delinquent who hates to lose so much that she has been known to sever ties after losing a game of rock-paper-scissors. Confrontations arise at every opportunity between the complete opposites, the herbivorous Tamura and carnivorous Misuzu, but as time goes by they begin to understand each other.

"'Being a daredevil is not a bad thing'. And 'It's cool to work with all one's might'. I want to reaffirm those ideas as I portray Tamura," commented Sakurai. Others in the cast include Nakamura Masatoshi, Endo Kenichi, Takahashi Katsumi and Asano Yuko.

In the works is also a quiz aired during the program itself. Viewers will send in their answers during the broadcast time. The winner will then receive a call from Sakurai or other cast members, in a first of its kind trial project.

Samsung to make 100 million touchscreen phones in 2010, 65% of them with capacitive screens

11/15/2009 11:42:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , 0 Comments

We recently told you that Samsung plans to sell about 270 million phones in 2010, and it looks like 100 million of those will be touchscreen handsets.

According to Telecoms Korea and a Shinhan Investment report, Samsung should ship about 57 million touhcscreen phones by the end of 2009, and it plans to almost double this number in 2010 to reach the aforementioned 100 million mark.

65% of Samsung’s touchscreen phones sold in 2010 should have capacitive displays, notes the report.

LG also intends to ship more touchscreen handsets next year, but only 20% of them will have capacitive screens.

Both Samsung and LG have touchscreen phones that were sold at record paces this year: the Samsung Star, pictured above (10 million units until now), and the LG Cookie (more than 5 million units). Interestingly, both the Star and the Cookie have resistive touchscreen displays, not capacitive.

Sheren Tang doesn't want to sign a 10 year "life" contract

11/15/2009 11:42:00 AM kenmouse , Posted in , , , 0 Comments

Sheren Tang and Wayne Lai were at a shopping mall yesterday demonstrating the drums with a group of artists. Kayi Cheung, Christine Kuo and Sire Ma were also there dancing and singing.

As the anniversary celebration is getting closer, Sheren said she has been busy rehearsing, therefore has no time to think about the award presentation. She is more anxious about the rehearsal and hopes she can do more performances. Reporter asked how was her drum practice getting on? Sheren replied she is trying to maintained a good posture and beating the drum with power.
Talking about her being "promoted" this year, reporter asked if she is taking over Ah Jeh's (Liza Wang) position? Sheren expressed that she cannot take over Ah Jeh's position, but she has the "Rosy Business" feel. Although she was supposed to lead, she felt she was actually doing a man's role, so to speak. Sheren went on to say learning to beat the drum is an art and it is very useful for future use.
She reckoned beating the drum suits her image better. She would rather demonstrate that than doing embroidery. She was very touched and impressed with the support she gets from colleagues. In particular, Steven Ma and Wong Hei who commented if she didn't get the "Queen" award, they would rather not renew their contract with TVB.
On the subject of signing a contract with a manager, Sheren smiled and said she is not young anymore, she doesn't want to sign a 10 years "life contract". She went on to say that every artist has their own needs, she only works on one series a year. Therefore, it doesn't matter if she is TVB's own daughter or not. On the contrary, young artists have to sing, act and dance, they need a manager to do their contract.

Wayne, on the other hand expressed that he is not very anxious about the award presentation. He feels the decision has been made already, and he has no intention of finding that out from the executives. It would be more interesting to get the result on the night. Wayne disclosed that he is nearly finished writing his speech, but still worried he may miss some people on his list. Wayne also revealed that he does the speech every year anyway and only copied what he wrote last year. Talking about Steven and Wong Hei being so supportive to Sheren, Wayne expressed if Sheren didn't get the award, they should renew their contract for another 10 years until Sheren wins her award.

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