'Salt' is spicy in its Friday debut; 'Inception' holds onto number one

Looks like Angelina Jolie has another hit on her hands. Salt, the spy caper from director Philip Noyce bowed to an estimated $12 million on Friday, a number that sets it up for a possible $35 million weekend. Still, the action-packed thriller is no match for Inception, Christopher Nolan’s dreamy heist film that earned an additional $13 million on Friday for a weekend that will likely hit $40 million. The movie, which crossed the $100 million mark on Thursday, could surpass $140 by weekend’s end–quite impressive for such an original, though-provoking summer flick.

The rest of the top five on Friday was made up of family films, though none of them are likely to be the weekend’s other new release Ramona and Beezus. The G-rated adaptation of Beverly Cleary’s classic children’s books is likely to land in the sixth spot this weekend with maybe $8 million to its name. Despicable Me however could grab the third slot. The animated hit starring the voice talent of Steve Carell grossed north of $7 million on Friday for a weekend that could total $24 million. That would put the three-week gross at over $160 million. Disney’s two wide releases The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Toy Story 3 are both jockeying for the fourth slot, a position that could get more competitive if Ramona and Beezus gets an uptick today from the young girl audience. Both The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Toy Story 3 grossed north of $2 million on Friday and will each be in the $9-10 million range for the weekend.

Ready for New Dexter? Watch a Sneak Peek Now!


Just in case you missed our live-tweet extravaganza during yesterday's Dexter panel, followed by this handy-handy little recap of all things sexy serial killer, we've got one last Showtime treat: A lovely first look at Dexter's fifth season, courtesy of Comic-Con.

Can we get an amen?!

If you can stomach the bloody and blubbering baby within the first three seconds, the payoff is well worth it. Plus, seeing Michael C. Hall all badass and back in action? Priceless.

And once you've scraped your jaws up off the floor, comment away on this Dexter teaser.

Samsung Epic 4G to launch by August 20th?


Anxiously awaiting the 4G version of the Galaxy S? If you answered with an enthusiastic ”yes”, then you may be happy to know that Sprint’s second 4G handset might land in August, possibly on or before the 20th. This tentative launch date is a based upon the observation that the Epic 4G is scheduled to debut on Samsung’s Galaxy S On Demand Live Show website on August 20th. Both the Vibrant and the Captivate episodes debuted on or after the handset’s respective launch dates, so we would expect this trend to continue with the Epic 4G. Additionally, Samsung updated its Twitter status on Friday with the tantalizing tidbit that “the Sprint Epic 4G is arriving in a few weeks. It’s the 4G #GalaxyS”. Though it is not as solid as an official confirmation, these two pieces seem to point to an August launch for this highly anticipated 4G handset.

Forrester: iPad Doesn’t Behave Like Other Consumer Devices

Before the launch of the iPad — you know, that magical and revolutionary tablet device from Apple? Before it released onto the world, there were plenty of analysts and forecast companies out there projecting their initial estimates on how many tablets Apple would sell out of the gate, and in the future. Numbers ranged from the hundreds of thousands, to the high millions, and now that Apple has come out and declared that they’ve sold 3.27 million units worldwide, some of those companies are coming out and clarifying their positions. Forrester is doing just that.

In the company’s first projection, Forrester declared that the iPad would sell upwards of 3.5 million to US-based consumers in 2010, and 8.4 million by 2011. By 2015, there would be 59 million consumers out there using Apple’s shiny gadget. One thing to note here, though: as you can see, Forrester projected these numbers for US-based consumers, not the worldwide market. On top of that, Apple is also including enterprise-based sales, while Forrester did not include that in their projections, either. All this does is add some cushioning to Forrester’s projections, but it can’t be ignored, either.

BoA unveils Game MV

A couple of days ago, it was revealed that K-pop’s queen BoA would take the first step for her comeback by releasing a MV of a track titled Gamefrom her upcoming 6th album, Hurricane Venus.


Well, it is now the 25th (in KST), and her full Game MV has been unveiled! It’s been 5 long years since BoA promoted in Korea, so I’m sure this will be a great treat for all her fans.

BoA goes blonde and it seems this MV gives us a more mature and sexy angle than what we usually see from BoA.

Without further ado, check out the sexy MV below!

Se7en releases dance version MV for Better Together


Following the release of his long awaited music video for Better Together a couple days ago, Se7en is back once again and this time with a dance version MV.

It seems like YG Entertainment knows exactly what fans desire, two music videos for each artists’ comeback including Taeyang and now Se7en. Besides, who is to complain?

Check out the major eye candy and full set of choreography below!

Oksana Breaks Her Silence: Mel Gibson "Is Lying"

Oksana Grigorieva is speaking up for herself.

Mel Gibson's ex and the mother of his 8-month-old daughter Lucia briefly broke her silence on Friday as she encountered paparazzi outside her lawyer's office in Century City, Calif.

Recently accused by Gibson's camp of attempted extortion, she slammed the charges. "Mel is lying. He's lying. There's no extortion, and there's no texts and no emails," Grigorieva, 40, said. "I'm fighting for my child. [Mel's] just a liar, and it will come up in the court, just wait." The Los Angeles Sheriff's department recently confirmed that it is investigating the extortion charge. Meanwhile, Gibson, 54, is the subject of a domestic violence probe.

The Russian-born musician also slammed reports that her younger sister leaked the infamous phone tapes that hit Radaronline.

"She (her sister) doesn't have them," Grigorieva said of the shocking tapes in which an irate, screaming Gibson spewed racial and misogynist epithets and threatened his ex with violence. "She erased them a long time ago."

In fact, her rep told Entertainment Tonight: "Oksana emphatically denies that anyone on her side, specifically her sister, leaked or marketed to Radar Online or anyone else ... Radar has again confirmed it was neither Oksana or her sister who gave them recordings."

Vanessa Hudgens: Badass and Photoshopped for Sucker Punch


And Vanessa Hudgens' quest to shed the tweeny, High School Musical persona continues.

Not that we're complaining. This shot of the actress as Blondie from director Zack Synder's (300) Sucker Punch, one of our 11 Buzz Films of Comic-Con, has us hoping to see more soon.

Billed as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns," Punch also stars Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Jamie Chung and Carla Gugino.

Check out shots of the rest of the cast after the jump and tell us what you think: excited for more or less than thrilled with the heavily retouched look?

Apple keeps antennagate alive with Droid X's 'kill switch' (video)


We had a feeling Apple wasn't done showing off the apparent reception woes of its competitors -- after all, the company already updated once this week with the Nokia N97 mini. Now it's going after Motorola's celebrity of the moment (and known iPhone 4 bully), the Droid X. You can see Cupertino's results in the video after the break, but unlike Apple's other videos, we can't seem to recreate this one as easily with our Droid Xs. But hey, it's not like anyone's gonna buy a big phone anyway, right?

Microsoft: IE8 barred 1 billion malware downloads

Internet Explorer 8, with the help of its SmartScreen Filter, has "blocked 1 billion attempts to download malware," Microsoft product manager James Pratt said in a blog post Friday.

The SmartScreen Filter evaluates URLs and their associated servers. If the software recognizes a server as containing malicious content, it displays a warning, saying it's unsafe to browse to a respective site that could cause harm on the user's computer. The user is then given the option to continue to the page or go back to their home page without downloading any content.

According to Microsoft, the SmartScreen filter continues to improve. In August 2009, it blocked 70 million malware download attempts. At the time, just 15 percent of Web users were surfing with Internet Explorer 8. Today, Microsoft reported, nearly 26 percent of the Web population is using IE8, and the company's SmartScreen filter is blocking "five times more malware month on month" compared to August 2009.

Netizens on SHINee ‘MR-removed’ comeback performance video, “Is this live or CD?”

SHINee once again proves their perfect live skills through a MR-removed video released.

SHINee had their comeback stage with their 2nd full length album title song ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Up & Down’ performances on KBS 2TV Music Bank on 23rd July.


The video released after the performance online had garnered great interests and through the MR-removed video, it can be seen that the boys did a 100% live performance. And their live performance skills is comparable to their CD recorded vocal standards.

This comes in the midst of idol groups being criticised as *’5-seconds singers’ as SHINee proves that they are capable of good live performances.

Meanwhile, netizens’ comments include “Is this live or CD?”, “SHINee is really the evolved idols” etc.

Wall Street speaks -- the days of Microsoft growth are over

Yesterday, Microsoft reported record revenue and massive earnings, in what must be considered a blowout fourth quarter at a time when the country remains in the economic doldrums. Today, its stock price dropped. What gives? Wall Street has spoken: It believes the days of big growth at the company are over.

The fourth-quarter news for Microsoft is about as good as it gets. Its revenue was $16.04 billion, a 22% increase over the fourth quarter last year. It had a net income of $5.93 billion, an increase of 49% compared to a year ago.

And yet, as I write this, even though the overall stock market is up slightly today, Microsoft's stock price is down .36, to $25.48, a 1.47% drop. It's hard to imagine Microsoft reporting better financial results than yesterday's, but that still doesn't satisfy Wall Street. Microsoft's stock price has remained at the same level for years, even as revenue has ballooned.

As I wrote in my blog, Is Microsoft stock suffering from a "Ballmer discount"?, some people attribute the problem to Steve Ballmer's lack of vision for the company.

Lee Hom avoids Dee Hsu’s persistent questions on his love life

He avoids answering Dee Hsu’s incessant questions on his rumoured love life by playing dead and lying on the studio’s floor

It has been three years since the multi-talented Taiwanese singer-actor Lee Hom guest starred in the variety programme, Here Comes Kang Xi. When he last appeared three years ago, he was interrogated by Dee Hsu (also known as Xiao S) on his highly-speculated romantic relationship with fellow Taiwanese actress, Shu Qi.

Although Lee Hom did not make any verbal response to Xiao S's questions back then, his reaction to the question was cut into a promotional clip for the show. Wang continuously rejected production's invitation to guest star in the show ever since the clip was circulated around with the header 'Lee Hom admits to relationship with Shu Qi'.

After a three-year hiatus, Lee Hom finally agreed to appear on the programme at the invitation of Chen Han Dian, Here Comes Kang Xi's protégé and Wang's fellow actor in his upcoming movie, Love In Disguise.

Apart from promoting his directorial debut flick, Love In Disguise, Lee Hom also promoted his newest music album, 18 Types of Martial Arts, which is slated for a month-end release in July, on the show.

Apple’s Real Problem With The White iPhone 4 — Well, Potentially

I’ve fielded a lot of questions today about the iPhone 4. No, not about the antenna — that was last week — today, all people want to know is why the hell is white version being delayed again? Like everyone else outside of Apple, I have no idea. Is it a problem with the glass supplier? That they’re prioritizing the black ones for now? That they’re working on an antenna modification? Any of those things could be the reason behind the delay (though if it’s the last one, Apple is going face a whole range of new questions). But I can’t say for sure what the reason actually is. What I can say that this is potentially a real problem for Apple — and I don’t mean from a manufacturing perspective.

In their two-sentence statement on the matter this morning, all Apple said is that the white iPhone 4 “will not be available until later this year.” This is a quick reversal from just one week ago when Apple confirmed that the device was on track to ship by the “end of July” — which itself was already quite a bit of a delay from the original iPhone 4 launch in June. “Later this year” is a bit ominous. It could mean anything from August all the way until December. The fact that Apple isn’t saying “August” or “another month” seems to suggest that it will be at least the Fall when we see the ivory device.

And again, that’s a problem. Let’s just pick a random month that it could be released — let’s say November. A white iPhone 4 released in November means it will have been a full five months since many customers have had the black iPhone 4 — the exact same device, only black. More importantly, it will only be seven months until the next WWDC event, where the iPhone 5 (or whatever it will be called) will be announced.

'Tab Candy' to bring calm to Firefox's tab chaos

Mozilla's head of user experience for its Labs unit, Aza Raskin, on Friday unveiled a new project called "Tab Candy" that promises to dramatically change the way users manage open browser tabs.

Tab Candy is not an extension, but a new feature that Raskin and team plan to build into a future version of the Firefox browser. In essence, it creates a desktop-like workspace for users to separate and organize open tabs into groups. When opened, these groups act like their own instance of the browser. So, say you had grouped together 5 of 50 open tabs, then opened that group through Tab Candy; you'd only see those 5 in your browser, and not the other 45. You could then jump back and forth between the main grouping and other subgroups--all without having to keep open (or track of) various Firefox windows.

Raskin is keen to note that this level of organization makes it much easier to manage open tabs on devices with smaller screen like Netbooks. The same concept could also be applied to Mozilla's mobile browser efforts, where screen real estate is hard to find.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 Teaser: Zombies, Mermaids and Penelope Cruz!

Jack Sparrow is back!

Sorry: Captain Jack Sparrow is back!

At Comic-Con today, audience members were treated to a video of Johnny Depp in his most iconic role, as he appeared on screen and teased Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in this wildly popular franchise.

Due in theaters on May 20, 2011, the movie will take viewers to the fountain of youth. According to Captain Jack, it will also feature zombies, mermaids and a gorgeous actress. Watch the teaser now and just try to get the film's inspiring score out of your head afterward...

Microsoft sells 10 Windows 7 licenses per second

25M sold in last 29 days, 175 million since launch, crows company

Microsoft sold nearly 10 copies of Windows 7 every second over the last month, according to numbers the company released Thursday.

Yesterday, Peter Klein, Microsoft's chief financial officer, told Wall Street analysts of the latest Windows 7 milestone. "With 175 million licenses sold to date, it is the fastest selling operating system ever, and now runs on over 15% of all PCs worldwide," Klein said during an afternoon earnings call.

A month ago, Microsoft announced that it had sold 150 million Windows 7 licenses.

By Microsoft's numbers, the company sold 25 million licenses during the 29 days between June 23 and July 21, a pace that represents sales of 9.97 copies of Windows 7 per second.

On Tuesday, Microsoft credited strong sales of Windows 7, as well as the introduction of Office 2010, for pushing its second quarter revenues to a record $16 billion -- a 22% jump over the same quarter in 2009. Windows revenue grew by more than $1 billion, to $4.55 billion, according to the company.

Samsung dispatching free Galaxy S handsets to iPhone 4 whiners on Twitter?


Well this is one lucky Tiffany here, but she's not alone. Wired UK was first to report that Samsung's been quietly dishing out free Galaxy S handsets (the European flavor) to a few lucky British Twitter users. How so? Oh, four of them just made a fuss about their iPhone 4s, and the fifth guy needed help to choose between the Desire, iPhone 4 and Galaxy S. Before you all start tweeting your way to a free Android phone, though, it looks like the Korean giant's only picking certain influencers for some cheap publicity -- turns out our Tiffany here works in Digital Marketing for Condé Nast, which is coincidentally Wired's parent company. Tut tut tut. The other tweeples all appear to be similarly involved in marketing or publishing, with the exception of one student.

Mark Chao spotted on movie date with Ivy Chen

Taiwan actor Mark Chao was spotted catching a movie in the wee hours of the morning in Taiwan on Tuesday with "Black and White" co-star Ivy Chen, but was left to face the media alone when she abandoned him to seek refuge at a nearby fast-food store, reported Chinese media.

The pair had just caught Christopher Nolan's mind-bending thriller "Inception" and were leaving the cinema when Chen saw camera flashes and escaped.

Abandoned by his date, Chao could only nod and smile awkwardly as the media approached him and asked if he and Chen were out on a movie date.

When asked if the rumours that he and Chen were dating were true, Zhao could not help but look away and scanned the surrounding area for any sign that Chen would return to back him up.

After the 26-year-old actor realised that his date would not be returning, he gave a forced smile and declined to comment on the matter.

HP: WebOS phones only, no Win Phone 7

Hewlett-Packard confirmed Friday that it will not build phones with Microsoft's latest mobile software.

HP Senior Executive Todd Bradley told CNBC that the company will use WebOS, the mobile operating system acquired when it purchased Palm, on smartphones. HP will not be selling any Windows Phone 7-based devices, Bradley said.

It's not a huge surprise that HP wants to push its own software over Microsoft's after it spent $1.2 billion to get it. But, HP is Microsoft's biggest customer, and it's somewhat of a setback for Microsoft not to have the full backing of the largest tech company on the planet for the launch of its new mobile software later this year.

It's rumored that Microsoft does have other big names in smartphones signed up: Dell, Asus, LG, HTC, and Samsung. But it's clear that between Android and WebOS, Microsoft's offering for mobile isn't nearly as attractive to hardware makers as it once was.

HP still has plans to take advantage of its relationship with Microsoft in other ways. There's been a lot of confusion about whether HP still plans to ship the HP Slate with Windows 7 that it introduced at CES. But Bradley told CNBC Friday that HP will build a tablet PC with Windows 7 after all.

Previously, HP had said that it plans to build tablets with WebOS, which still appear to be coming in the future. Most recently, HP was granted a trademark on the term "PalmPad," which some have surmised to be the name of a future iPad-like device running the Palm software.

Why Did Microsoft Really Give Free Phones to Employees?

Microsoft's employees can tell you: There ain't no such thing as a free Windows Phone 7. So what's the deal with Steve Ballmer's vassals getting Windows Phone 7 handsets? According to an official letter, there are two important reasons.


The first one is the need to get the word out. 93,000 employees are a lot of people. If they are able to impress clients, family, friends, and random strangers, they may start a word of mouth effect that could be crucial for the success of the phone against Apple and Google. That's why, in a letter to all Microsoft employees, their mobile big honcho Andy Lees told them the following:

When you get your phone, the first thing you can do is MAKE IT PERSONAL! Pick up the phone, turn it on, download mail, get directions, make calls, find friends…. In short USE IT! [...] There is also a lot you can do while we are heading to launch even before you get your phone including: Understand the unique value of Windows Phone 7 and evangelize to your customers, partners, friends and family!

YouTube testing hybrid HTML5/Flash embeds

Google has worked out a new way to embed videos that presents the right version of the company's YouTube video player depending on your system's capability.

Videos embedded with the new code will be served up in either an Adobe Flash wrapper, or in the company's HTML5 player, opening up viewing to a potentially broader audience and without any extra effort for the person who embedded a video in the first place.

According to the Google, the company plans to roll the new code format out as the new default for YouTube embeds, but is running it through its paces first. For instance, one nagging hang-up of the HTML5 player compared to its Flash cousin (among the many) is that it cannot yet serve up advertising, something Google is remedying by defaulting to Flash.

Since launching its HTML5 player, YouTube has offered a similar viewing experience on its own site, though the convenience was not carried out to embedded videos. Instead, these linked to the clip in an Adobe Flash wrapper, which mobile devices like the iPhone and Android could identify and re-route to the source clip, but browsers without that logic built-in would see nothing at all. The new code fixes that.

Nokia Kinetic concept revealed in prototype form


Impressed by Jeremy Innes-Hopkins' Nokia Kinetic concept the other day? Then take a good look at the image above. That's the actual prototype of the device, which unfortunately doesn't power on (or have anything to power on), but does look remarkably like the previous renders we've seen, and gives us a far better idea of the scale of the device. In case you missed it, the real hook of the concept is an electromagnet in the phone's base that allows it to stand up on cue, and be flipped down to dismiss an action (like an alarm or a video call). We also now know that Innes-Hopkins worked on the project at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London under the tutelage of former Nokia Senior Designer Silas Grant, who was responsible for many of Nokia's premium phones like the 8800 Scirocco. Hit up below for a closer look.

Maroon 5 Join Arizona Boycott Over Immigration Law

Maroon 5 aren't known as a political band, but they've now joined the likes of Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Kanye West, Ben Harper and many others in protesting Arizona's controversial new immigration law.

When PopEater recently visited Maroon 5 in Los Angeles, frontman Adam Levine said it was a tough choice to cross Arizona off any touring they'll be doing for their upcoming 'Hands All Over' album.

"I did an interview in Tucson on the radio. [The host] asked about playing there," Levine recalled. "I said it was a really difficult decision to make because we have fans out there that are being penalized essentially by us not playing, so it's a really difficult decision to make. It really kind of comes down to what feels right, and it really didn't feel right to play there and reward Arizona for what we thought was a really bad decision."

Levine and the rest of his bandmates are aware that with controversial issues like the Arizona law, which will go into effect July 29, there is often a backlash against artists speaking out.

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