pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=49280ffd14b9b9e60042d897maxX=340maxY=342" border="0" alt="Maxim.png" title="Maxim.png" width="340" height="342" /The publisher of sex magazine Maxim and Blender has violated debt covenants and may be turned over to creditors, a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122730194963548825.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"the WSJ reports/a. Such a move will likely lead to a steep loss for Steve Rattner's Quadrangle Group, which bought the company, Alpha Media, for $250 million last year:/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"The negotiations are fluid and could still fall apart, according to people familiar with the discussions. Financial results at a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djnsymbol=LM.V"Alpha Media/a, the publisher of Maxim and a separate music magazine called Blender, have dropped sharply amid an advertising slowdown.../p p style="padding-left: 30px;"Maxim's crisis marks the latest setback for Mr. Rattner, a prominent Wall Street deal maker and investor whose firm manages New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's multibillion-dollar fortune. Mr. Rattner's Quadrangle Capital Partners has struggled with its private-equity portfolio and recently unwound its hedge fund amid market turmoil./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"Quadrangle's private-equity fund paid about $250 million for Alpha Media in August 2007, lauding the company as an "unrivaled" play for reaching 18- to 34-year-old males. The New York-based firm put up about $90 million of equity and borrowed the rest to purchase the titles from British publisher Felix Dennis./p pWho are these mysterious creditors who are likely to inherit the titles? One is Cerberus, which used to be thought of as an astute private equity firm. Cerberus execs will not likely have much time to read all the free magazines they'll get, however, because they're too busy trying to save some of the billions they blew on Chrysler and GMAC./p pOne small bit of good news is that Blender and Maxim aren't actually losing money yet. They'll probably get there soon:/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"The company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, have plummeted, say people familiar with the matter. When Quadrangle acquired Alpha, it was generating about $28 million in Ebitda; it is on track to generate about $8 million in Ebitda in 2008./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"Amid a broad magazine downturn, ad pages in Blender are down 25% through September, according to the Publisher's Information Bureau. Maxim's ad pages have fallen 3% over that period./p pstrongSee Also:/strong a href="http://clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/quadrangle-s-hedge-fund-blows-up-closes"Quadrangle's Hedge Fund Blows Up, Closes/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/MVvU1s8WL_30la9v8nIG7YGFAkc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/MVvU1s8WL_30la9v8nIG7YGFAkc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=OpzhtimN"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=OpzhtimN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=rmyu7FX7"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=gw1xiKvo"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=gxyTUK6k"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=gxyTUK6k" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=YVQW1Xcx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=FSVz2DPU"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=Pl8481W8"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=7oa6xlnT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/SV97Vuoi6do" height="1" width="1"/

Posted by Dennis Sellers

Griffin Technology has announced the availability of RoadTrip with SmartScan for iPhone. This latest iteration of RoadTrip marks Griffin’s third FM transmitter certified for use with Apple’s iPhone and iPhone 3G.

Tabula Rasa, the sci-fi MMO from NCsoft and Richard Garriott, will shut down on February 28, according to an official message on the Tabula Rasa site. The game officially launched in November 2007, meaning that it will have lasted approximately 15 months. This brings to a close the long saga behind the game; it began development in 2001 and encountered numerous delays.

"Last November, we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we've achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn't performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for," the post, which was attributed to the Tabula Rasa team, read.

The post went on to add that the Tabula Rasa servers will be made free to play on January 10, allowing anyone to experience it before it shuts down on February 28. The team says that it will "be doing some really fun things... and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."

This certainly marks a setback for NCsoft and Garriott, even though he recently announced plans to leave NCsoft to pursue his interests in space. Garriott, the creator of Ultima and Ultima Online and an early pioneer in the RPG genre, was the sixth space tourist in history last October. He paid approximately $30 million to fly aboard the International Space Station for 12 days.

Tabula Rasa is set on alien worlds, where the last remnants of humanity battle against an alien coalition known as The Bane. Like World of Warcraft, it required a monthly subscription to play.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/932/932708p1.html

I recently picked up the unibody Macbook Pro. Being a fool mixed with wanting to show off the gorgeous nakedness of the machine - resulted in me bypassing any thoughts of a sleeve for this sleek computer.

Since then, I have a small soup stain just to the left outside of the trackpad which seems to be a hardened water stain - which can be seen and felt. Also, I've noticed its quite easy to acquire grease marks on the black keys.

Are there any techniques I can use to clean stains off of the brushed aluminum body? As well as the keys and monitor without damaging them?

I plan on getting a sleeve to help prevent anymore imperfections.

The rich world reaches middle age in 2009. It is time to think afresh about ageing nbsp; nbsp; Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lopez, Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jennifer Aniston might prefer you not to mention it. Each marks her 40th birthday in 2009. As they blow out their candles they might consider this demographic detail: the median age in the seven big, rich democracies (the G7) will also pass 40 in the coming year. nbsp; nbsp; The rich world is greying fast. Germans, Italians and Japanese are already, on average, well into their 40s. In 2009 the British, French and Canadians will join them. By one estimate the median age of west Europeans is rising by an average of two days with each passing week. It will carry on doing so for at least another couple of decades. In the G7 only Americans remain relatively young, with a median age in 2009 of just 36.4 years, thanks to a steady influx of sprightly Mexicans.

Crossword Forge 5.5.2Crossword Forge is an easy to use classroom style crossword and word search puzzle maker. It quickly generates puzzles from your words for the web, print, and PDF.

Features:

• Generate high quality Flash web, print and PDF puzzles, puzzle images, and puzzle text
• Type puzzled data directly, or import it from many different text formats
• Generate high quality web, print and PDF puzzles, puzzle images, and puzzle text
• Built-in multi-lingual spell checker
• Unlimited undo and redo
• Support for restricted word lists in word search mode (i.e. helps eliminate accidental "naughty words" in your word search puzzles)
• Bonus Clues for Crossword and Word Search
• Multiple puzzle titles
• Font, Style, Size and Justification controls
• Unlimited clue and answer length
• Color and Picture backdrops
• Customizable Across and Down text
• Supports puzzle grids of any size
• Puzzle clues can span multiple pages
• Customizable grid block size
• Allows for manual puzzle repositioning within backdrop
• Crossword Options
  • Toggle Clue and Word Bank Visibility
  • Word Bank Scramble
• Word Search Options
  • Show Clues or Word Bank
  • Word Bank Scramble
  • Toggle Backwards and Diagonal Words
• Built-in Support for making foreign language crossword puzzles.
  • Built-in Language Sets Include: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Greek etc.
  • Support for characters with accents, umlauts and other diacritical marks (great for Spanish, French and German puzzles).
  • Support for Right to Left scripts like Arabic and Hebrew
  • supports scripts and alphabets with combining ligatures like Punjabi
  • Full Unicode support.

WHAT'S NEWrelease notes not available at developer site nor in download at the time of this posting
REQUIREMENTSMac OS X 10.1 or later, Mac OS X 10.2.4 or later recommended.
DEVELOPERSol Robots
DOWNLOADS38084
DOWNLOAD NOW (10.1 MB)
More information

Marks and Spencer's 'guerrilla' sale caught the competition on the hop and sparked copy-cat discounting across the high street as retailers scramble to step up price cutting in the run-up to Christmas

Wall Street Journal:
The Waxman Democrats  —  What the coup against Dingell means for business.  —  John Dingell's fall from power yesterday is an important inflection point in the history of the modern Democratic Party.  The House purge marks the final triumph of the Congressional generation that came …

In October 2007, while most tech media attention was focused on the OiNK raid, another large site got police attention. TV-Links, which linked to videos on YouTube-like sites was raided and shutdown, with the admin arrested. A year later, we catch up with the ex-admin of TV-Links for the entire story.

When it became apparent that TV-Links.co.uk had been raided by police and the admin arrested, the news was met with some disbelief. TV-Links was a site that linked to videos that were hosted on video sharing sites like YouTube. It carried absolutely no illicit video content of its own.

Nevertheless, following an investigation by UK Trading Standards, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and the police, the admin was arrested. At the time, FACT claimed that he was detained due to “offenses relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the Internet.” Except there was a problem.

There is no criminal offense of ‘facilitation of copyright infringement’ under English law. There would have been at least a civil offense if TV-Links had hosted the videos themselves, but they did not. Sites like YouTube and Dailymotion did, but the police or anti-piracy groups didn’t go after these giants. Indeed, the police themselves seemed to disagree with FACT’s reasoning for the raid, saying that the admin had been arrested for “supplying property with a registered trade mark without permission.”

…which raised another problem. The Trade Marks Act 1994 (specifically section 92) was designed to deal with physical, real-world counterfeit goods. Supplying links, if anything, could only be considered a service - definitely not a sale of physical goods. Getting a conviction on these grounds would be tricky, if not impossible. Considering the problems highlighted above, it’s no surprise that the TV-Links case has disappeared from the news radar.

TorrentFreak tracked down the now ex-admin of the site, 26 year-old Dave Rock, for the lowdown on this important case which seems to ask two questions: Can someone be held responsible when 3rd parties merely link to copyright works that are hosted by someone else, and furthermore, does this constitute a criminal offense under an act designed to protect physical goods?

It all starts on the morning of 18th October, just five days before the police raided OiNK. Dave had some unwanted visitors. At 06:20, two police officers, three FACT members, and around five Trading Standards officials descended on Dave’s home. Fortunately for him, in his case the media wasn’t tipped off, so there were no photographers and reporters outside his house. Alan Ellis of OiNK was not so lucky.

“The police and Trading Standards officers were always polite and professional, I wasn’t man handled like you see with the over acting police on the TV,” Dave told us. “I was arrested as soon as I opened the door, not cuffed and was allowed to grab a few bits, like my wallet and phone. They seized my laptop, my old PC and annoyingly, my girlfriends PC too, along with random CDs and four or five old hard drives, ranging between 8GB to 15gb.”

TV-Links Homepage (large)

When we asked Dave what was on the search warrant, he said: “They ticked Video Recording Act 1984 - Section 16A and Trade Marks Act 1994 - Section 93. But, thinking about some of the questions during the interview I got the impression they were looking for DVD copying kit or they hoped to find this type of thing. FACT’s website always boasts about DVD pirate busts.”

The police officers then took Dave to the station where he was questioned. Not by the police, but by people from Trading Standards and FACT, a well known private anti-piracy company-come-lobby group. Quite why a private company is allowed to directly question someone in a criminal case that they may wish to prosecute privately is another question, and one that many people will find unpalatable.

It seemed that both outfits were disappointed, they must have expected more than just hyperlinks. In common with thousands of forums around the world, Dave didn’t know any of the TV-Links staff personally, and obviously didn’t know anything about the users. Almost 75% of the site’s visitors came from China, 10% from the US and next popular was the UK, at just 3.8%. Hardly a threat to Great Britain Ltd, but of course the implication was that Dave was making money. The reality was that he was receiving around $2 to $5 per day in donations from random site users, which he used to cover the server costs.

After six hours, Dave was released - without being charged and with no restrictions. Now, well over a year later, not much has changed. For the last 6 months or so, Dave has had no contact with the police and no contact through his lawyer with FACT or (Gloucester) Trading Standards. In fact, GTS has no further involvement in the case and has deferred to FACT, just in case they want to make a private prosecution. But, everything has gone very quiet.

TorrentFreak asked Dave if it had ever been raised that he was arrested under laws ill-placed to deal with the situation. He told us, “When it comes to law there isn’t really any point arguing after the point, you need to concentrate on identifying [in this case] how FACT will interpret the current law and, if/when this ends up in court, how they will use it to their advantage.”

Until then, it just seems like a waiting game. “I guess you could call it being in limbo, but recently I haven’t given it much thought, I’m just getting on with my life,” Dave told us. “The only thing that’s a little annoying is that FACT still have all the gear seized by GTS, apparently they’ve been given it for “forensic analysis”. Do I hear you cry ‘breach of Data Protection Act‘, for passing private data to a private company? Again this is something we are still looking into.”

So how on earth did TV-Links end up on the radar in the first place? Why was such significance put on the site and why did the response include a raid with so many people in attendance from the police, government trading standards and Hollywood-funded private company FACT?

“One thing I’d like to mention, Gloucester Trading Standards were always polite and professional,” said Dave. “In my eyes they were led up the garden path by FACT. My personal opinion is that Gloucester Trading Standards were lead to believe I was copying and selling DVDs. But, when they entered my home they only found crappy old PC gear, Laptop and no DVDs, and lost all interest - if they were ever interested in the first place.”

Despite the lack of interest and indeed grounds for a conviction, it doesn’t change the fact that TV-Links is gone as a result of the above actions. Why did it even find a place in people’s lives in the first instance? Dave believes it’s down to sheer lack of choice. “TV-Links and other linking sites are only around because the big media companies haven’t supplied the viewing public with any viable alternatives, at least until recently in the UK. The BBC iPlayer is very good, but it’s a shame it’s only 7 days of TV.”

So, with the authorities backing away, what are the chances of TV-Links making a comeback? “Running the site did take up all of my free time, it was good fun running it but I’m happy I now have my evenings and weekends free,” Dave told us. He has no intention of bringing the site back, particularly since a TV-Links.co.uk replacement site popped up many months ago at TV-Links.ws.

Finally, when sites are busted, many people are interested in exactly how the owners were tracked down by the authorities. With TV-Links, the techniques weren’t mysterious at all. They didn’t need to be. The reason why it was so easy is the very reason Dave felt free to run the site in the first place:

“To be honest I didn’t really attempt to hide my ID, as under UK Law linking to another site isn’t illegal, so I didn’t see the need.”

Post from: TorrentFreak

Full marks for steamy intrigue in Spain's latest corporate soap opera. The seeds of this drama lie in the country's collapsing property market

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/98042?ns=guardianpageName=Environment%3A+Otter+makes+mammoth+journey+from+Britain+to+North+Sea+islandch=Environmentc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Wildlife+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment%2CUK+newsc5=Environment+Conservation%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CEthical+Livingc6=Martin+Wainwrightc7=2008_11_21c8=1121699c9=articlec10=GUc11=Environmentc12=Wildlifec13=c14=h2=GU%2FEnvironment%2FWildlife" width="1" height="1" //divpFor the first time since records began, an otter has reached the isolated Farne Islands, off Britain's North Sea coast, one of the country's most important sanctuaries for seabirds.br / br /The discovery this week of the species' distinctive tracks on Brownsman, an islet on the outer edge of the little archipelago, has startled naturalists and marks a new high for the recovery of Britain's once-threatened otter population.br / br /"We almost had to rub our eyes with disbelief when we found the tracks," said David Steel, head warden for the National Trust on the Farnes, yesterday. "It is staggering that an otter could survive the perilous journey out to the islands."br / br /The otter, which is thought to be still on Brownsman, although it has not yet been seen, will have faced strong currents on a swim, which is three miles in a direct line. Although the sleek, streamlined mammals are at home in the water, the distance is one of the longest British otters are known to have travelled.br / br /Steel said: "It can be tricky to reach the islands even on a relatively calm day, and we've recently had force nine gales which makes this journey that much more special. We have no previous records of otters on the Farnes. /pp"We have no idea how long it might stay but the islands are very rocky and offer it a safe place to live and it should be able to find an abundance of food." /ppThe single otter will not pose a threat to seabird colonies, although wardens are sure that it is still on Brownsman because gulls there have been unusually agitated in the last week. The annual Farnes nesting survey last week reported a rise in the numbers of the six main seabirds, including the guillemot, kittiwake and shag, although puffins have declined. /ppPaul Chanin, of the Mammal Society, said: "This is a really exciting discovery. We know that otters like living on the coasts where there is food available and will sometimes travel to islands. To find them so far off shore shows not just their strength but that they have a remarkable ability as navigators." /ppOtters suffered a serious decline in the last century because of pesticide poisoning in rivers and hunting. By the 1960s, they were seldom seen and evidence of their presence was found at only 6% of their holts, or riverside lairs./ppA steady revival has raised this figure to 30%and otters have been seen in the Thames at London, and the Aire in central Leeds, although they are still classed as a vulnerable species on the red list of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/wildlife"Wildlife/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Environmentcountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227261459717112110021436901"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Environmentcountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227261459717112110021436901" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

Today I'd like to announce the beginning of Canola issue tracking on the maemo.org Bugzilla. This marks the beginning of community application tracking in our Bugzilla, and another milestone in maemo.org's transition into a true community website.

Canola's existing tracker on Garage is now closed (anybody familiar with Garage's tracker will know exactly how sweet a thing that is ;)), any remaining valid issues will be migrated to Bugzilla, and the rest of the issues will be closed.

This is only the first step in tracking 3rd-party applications in Bugzilla, as tracking for more than just a few applications will be dependent on significant software upgrades, so we're starting with a small pilot-program with some high-profile applications that are most likely to benefit from quality bug tracking.

Big thanks to Andre and Karsten (our bugmasters) for facilitating this change, and to the Canola team (particularly Marcelo Oliveira and my fellow Council member Eduardo Lima) who worked so hard to get Canola open-sourced (which was really what finally made this happen). The rest of you can show your appreciation by filing some bugs! ;)

0 0

pFiled under: a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/apple-financial/" rel="tag"Apple Financial/a/ppimg vspace="5" hspace="5" border="1" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2008/11/aapl-nov20-923409284.png" /Apple shares today dropped to an intra-day 52-week low of a penny over $75, and rebounded to a href="http://finance.google.com/finance?q=aapl"close at $80.49 per share/a. That was down 5.8 points from yesterday's close./p pThis marks the lowest prices for Apple stock since the introduction of the iPhone in early 2007. Many stocks lost ground today in a broad market selloff that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average down nearly 445 points. /p pMarketwatch.com's Rex Crum says that a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Apple-shares-fall-below-pre/story.aspx?guid={4C7F9E0C-028B-4824-83B6-70E3D8D6F221}"AAPL has lost "the iPhone premium"/a: That is, whatever gains the company made since the introduction of the popular handset. Apple shares hit a peak of almost $203 per share late last year, but those days are long gone./p pIf there's a silver lining to this gray cloud, it's that now might be a good time to buy. Macworld Expo is coming in January. In years past, the stock price has risen in anticipation of product announcements at the expo, leading to a selling frenzy the day of the keynote./p pOf course, past performance does not necessarily indicate future results. In this market, who knows?/pp style="padding:5px;clear:both;"a href="http://www.tuaw.com"TUAW/aa href="http://www.tuaw.com/2008/11/20/aapl-hits-52-week-low-cries-itself-to-sleep/"AAPL hits 52-week low, cries itself to sleep/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.tuaw.com"The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)/a on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:46:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a.br style="clear:both;"/ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://finance.google.com/finance?q=aaplRead/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2008/11/20/aapl-hits-52-week-low-cries-itself-to-sleep/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.tuaw.com/forward/1378756/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2008/11/20/aapl-hits-52-week-low-cries-itself-to-sleep/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/NDZKIL5u4tVbGIqf67_v0n1etHk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/NDZKIL5u4tVbGIqf67_v0n1etHk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/tuaw?a=gzJL5aPj"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/tuaw?i=gzJL5aPj" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/tuaw?a=86wjLp3z"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/tuaw?i=86wjLp3z" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/tuaw/~4/zOc2uYGrtxI" height="1" width="1"/

PlayStation Nation,
This is one of the fun parts of my job, when we get to unveil our TV commercials and give you, our loyal fans, a preview of our spots before they hit the airwaves. This year’s campaign is dubbed ”Entertainment Unleashed” and for good reason.
The campaign actually began quietly a few weeks back with three fifteen second ”tease” executions. Hopefully, you’ve seen these by now. These initial ads depicted various people catching glimpses and reflections of beautiful PS3 game footage magically appearing on building facades across a city.

This weekend, we’re excited to reveal what triggered the excitement. The spot begins with a guy creating a LittleBigPlanet level on a building wall and from there, the PS3 takes on a momentum all its own, spreading amazing entertainment content uncontrollably from building to building throughout the city. The ad prominently features not just LittleBigPlanet but also two other PLAYSTATION 3 exclusive titles — Resistance 2 and MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. And we’ve also highlighted PS3’s Blu-ray capability by featuring Blu-ray movies like The Dark Knight, showcasing PS3’s unrivaled leadership as both a gaming and multimedia entertainment experience.
PLAYSTATION 3 offers unrivaled game content, with not just one platform-defining game, but an array of groundbreaking games across virtually every genre throughout the year that are pushing the envelope of creativity and sheer gameplay.
And at the end of the spot, you’ll see that all this great exclusive content has literally been unleashed on the city and its residents. I know our fans will appreciate spotting some of your favorite games across the cityscape.

This week marks an important milestone for the PS3. And one of the things we’re most excited about as we head into year three is the tremendous adoption and excitement found on PlayStation Network. This year alone, we’ve added great new features you guys have been asking for like a service to deliver High Def movies and TV shows that you can rent or buy and store directly on the PS3’s hard drive; a robust trophy system that lets you compare your gaming prowess with others as well as help you discover everything about the great PS3 games you’re playing; and of course, the groundbreaking Home service, which is just around the corner for all. All of this and a lot more has resulted in more than 14 million active PlayStation Network accounts – a very rapid expansion of a service that we have equally aggressive plans for in the future.
So with its tremendous growth and adoption, we thought it was time to give the PlayStation Network its own moment in the sun with a TV spot that sings its praises. This PlayStation Network ad will also make its debut this weekend. The ad is a metaphor and itself depicts the relentless spread of the PlayStation message from user to user. We’ve featured various ways you can ”Download/Play/Connect.” Great downloadable games like Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty, PAIN, Wipeout HD and Echochrome. Free online gaming and downloadable levels with games like LittleBigPlanet. Human connection and community via Home. And downloading great movies like Hancock directly to your PS3 and then sharing it with your PSP.

When we launched the PS3 two years ago, we said we would deliver on the most advanced next generation console that would offer ten years of entertainment value. We are committed to that promise and remain confident that we’re now just scratching the surface on PS3’s potential.
We hope you like these new ads and look forward to your feedback and continued support for PlayStation.
Enjoy!
Peter
PS: Killzone 2 is real and it’s spectacular…


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divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/41393?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+Bargains+galore+as+Christmas+comes+early+for+shoppersch=Businessc3=The+Guardianc4=Retail+industry+%28Business%29%2CChristmas+%28Life+and+style%29%2CBusiness%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29c5=Unclassified%2CCredit+Crunch%2CBusiness+Marketsc6=Julia+Finch%2CMartin+Wainwright%2CPatrick+Barkhamc7=2008_11_21c8=1121628c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=Retail+industryc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FRetail+industry" width="1" height="1" //divpShoppers were lured back on to the high street yesterday as stores slashed prices in an attempt to kickstart the vital Christmas trading period and shift unsold stock./ppIn the annual game of chicken between consumers and stores, the retailers have blinked first. There may still be 34 shopping days until Christmas, but over the past three weeks sales have fallen off a cliff for many retailers. Faced with what some analysts have warned could be the worst Christmas for 30 years as a result of falling house prices, rising unemployment and rock-bottom confidence, retailers have already resorted to price cuts and promotions./ppIt was Marks Spencer's decision to hold a one-day 20% off "spectacular"- for the first time in four years - that prised many reluctant shoppers out of their homes and offices. /ppBut the shop windows in the West End of London were plastered with posters promising bargains. Debenhams was in the middle of a three-day 25% off sale and there were sale signs up in Jane Norman, Mexx, Clarks, H Samuel, and Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group chains, including Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Bhs./ppNew figures from the Office for National Statistics suggested retail sales were proving unexpectedly resilient. The ONS said sales dropped by just 0.1% in October, leaving them 1.9% higher than last year. This was way ahead of forecasts in the City, where analysts had been predicting a slump of 0.9%./ppBut in recent months economists and retailers have repeatedly questioned the accuracy of the ONS figures. Even the Bank of England has suggested the data should be treated with caution./ppDavid Tinsley, an economist with nabCapital, predicted the official figures would soon catch up with reality: "The figure will probably crash around November or December."/ppSurprise sales can anger shoppers who have bought items at full price and yesterday some MS customers were certainly planning revenge. One woman, who asked to remain nameless, said several of her friends were buying items at 20% off which they had already purchased and planned to return with their original items another day to get a full refund./ppNevertheless, MS boss Sir Stuart Rose insisted the discounts had given the UK's biggest clothing retailer a much-needed boost: "It seems to have touched the spot. It's a riot."/ppShopper Judith Limbert, who had travelled to Oxford Street from Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire for the MS sale, said consumers were waiting for bargains: "In the runup to Christmas I suspect people are going to hang on and hang on, waiting for sales." /ppLimbert had been planning to buy Christmas presents in MS but had been waiting to see if it would offer reductions. She said her family would definitely spend less this year and would look for bargains on the internet. "We've got less money in that our utility bills are higher and food bills are dearer."/ppA survey yesterday said that 80% of consumers plan to spend less this year and there was more gloom from credit rating agency Moodys, whose chief international economist, Ruth Stroppiana, warned: "Britain's retailing sector is expected to come under increasing pressure in coming quarters as the country's highly indebted households continue to rein in expenditure." /ppOver at the new Westfield shopping centre in west London, in the basement food hall of MS's vast store, trolleys were clattering through the tills./ppWith a recession around the corner, it was clearly time to stock up on champagne. A couple from Dorset were piloting a trolley laden with MS bubbly. They bought 36 bottles - and saved nearly pound;450 on the shelf price. /ppThe champagne was a triple bargain. On top of the 20% off was another 10% discount and a pound;5-a-bottle reduction for buying more than 12 bottles. The result was a pound;26 ticket price slashed to just pound;13 a bottle./ppIsabelle Marsh bought 36 bottles for just under pound;500, compared with the pound;936 full price./ppMarsh runs Bournemouth-based Viva Las Vegas, a fun casino business for private parties, and the champagne will be used as prizes. /ppAt the next till her friends Kay and Roger Brahams, from Surrey, who are also in the casino business, were doing exactly the same. They also had a collection of blue spotted bow ties and waistcoats for their croupiers - four waistcoats, four bow ties and two pairs of black trousers for pound;124, down from pound;155 for one day only. "It's for the business," said Roger Brahams. "It is too good to miss." /ppOn the clothing floor, however, there were many shoppers who had used the discount day to bring forward purchases they were planning to make anyway. Mark, a BBC employee, had popped in to buy an pound;80 coat he had his eye on. "My wife rang me this morning to tell me about the sale," he explained. He paid pound;64 and walked away very pleased. /ppIn Sheffield city centre, Carolyn Bowler had nipped out in her lunch break to buy a box of Christmas crackers, but by the time she had heaved her way out of MS she had three of them, plus a new dressing gown./pp"You've to shop carefully these days," she said, as three women marched past with purple Debenhams balloons and leaflets promising "25% off plus look inside for half-price bonus deals"./pp"These offers are bringing people out, no question," said another lunchtime shopper called Marion - "please don't print my surname in case my children read the paper and it spoils their Christmas surprise". The surprise is that Marion is making them clothes herself this year, instead of buying new ones./pp"You've got to cut back at times like these," she said. "We certainly have anyway, because my husband's not had a job since the summer. No one knows what the future holds any more."/ppIt was all music to the ears of Ian Fleming, who was supervising Debenhams balloon women. Enticing punters with the likes of a shimmer bow back dress reduced to pound;37.50 from pound;75, he said: "Shoppers will never get tired of good value and a bargain. This is working. It's even better out at the Meadowhall shopping centre."/ppThat, however, was impossible to check: reporters were barred from doing interviews in the sprawling complex beside the M1 because of the current spate of gloomy stories./ph2Key tactics for shoppers to cash in on stores' price war/h2pIt is the year of the tactical shopper, according to one retail expert, with yesterday's "flash" or "guerilla" sales at MS and Debenhams marking the start of what is likely to be a long and protracted war between high street stores. But for the savvy shopper hoping to secure the ultimate bargain, where and when is the time to strike? /ppIn order to secure the best bargain this Christmas, shoppers should look around and keep an eye out for promotional vouchers, said Lauretta Roberts, editor of Drapers magazine. /pp"My advice to shoppers is shop late. It's a buyers market out there and it is not going to be too difficult to find a bargain."/ppAnother way of saving money is to hit the shops before the official sale. "Even though they don't advertise the fact, many of the big department stores like Selfridges or Harvey Nichols discount their products from December 24. You get the best choice, unlike post-Christmas, when there often little left."/ppA further wave of price cuts can be expected from Boxing Day onwards, with January sales slashing 50% off many products immediately, she said. There are lots of other ways for shoppers to maximise their funds over the festive period. But it requires commitment and tactical thinking, said Martin Lewis, founder of moneysavingexpert.com. /pp"This is the year of the targeted and tactical shopper. As well as promotional sales we are seeing a rash of big discount shopping vouchers," he said. Vouchers currently featured on the website include 30% off at Gap, 40% off at Threshers and 20% off Shudoo, who sell Ugg boots, set to be a Christmas favourite. /ppAnother way of getting the best deal is to use price comparison websites, such as shopping.com, kelkoo.co.uk and pricerunner.co.uk, he said. For example, one Christmas must-have, a Wii Console + Sports Pack, costs pound;184.99 at Dixons, but on tdgstore.co.uk can be found for pound;179.99./pp"Different comparison websites are better for different products," said Lewis, who recommended find-dvd.co.uk for dvds and bookbrain.co.uk for books. /ppOnce the cheapest product has been identified, shoppers should try to buy it through a cash-back website, such as topcashback.co.uk, he added. "Cashback websites are paid 5% for sending you to a particular site, but instead of pocketing that cash they share the proceeds with their users by discounting products further."/ppHe also advises shoppers to use cash-back credit cards, such as American Express, which offers 5% back on purchases for three months. Using a credit card for expensive purchases also protects buyers, he added./ppIn 2007 the average British family spent pound;840 on Christmas. Choosing carefully this year, they could save 5% to 50%, said Lewis. /ppDoesn't all this calculating detract from the joy of the impulse buy? No way, he said. /pp"We are entering a recession, and there are two ways you can deal with it. Stop spending or make the money that you have got go further."br /strongAlexandra Topping/strong/ppstrongBargains/strong/ppstrongGap/strong/ppUltra-low rise jeans was pound;39.50 now pound;9.99br /Saving 75%/ppstrongDebenhams/strong/ppFour Royal Doulton crystal goblets was pound;80 now pound;32br /Saving 60%/ppstrongCurrysdigital/strong/ppLogik DAB digital radio was pound;139.99 now pound;59.99br /Saving 57%/ppstrongHouse of Fraser/strong/ppChristy Sorrento bath towel was pound;22 now pound;11br /Saving 50%/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/retail"Retail industry/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/christmas-xmas"Christmas/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Businesscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227227727742112100421654622"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Businesscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227227727742112100421654622" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

Photoshop expert Deke McClelland offers some straight talk about trimming excess poundage from your images using Photoshop's near magical Liquify command. In this new dekePod episode—The Instant Liquid Diet—Deke shows you how to nip and tuck, avoid stretch marks, and make your trim edges nice and smooth. Watch the video.

pimg alt="dow_jones_venturewire_Nov_08.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/dow_jones_venturewire_Nov_08.jpg" width="160" height="43" /a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/14/070514fa_fact_auletta"Walter Mossberg/a, who has been reviewing technology since 1991 for the a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/us"Wall Street Journal/a in his weekly "a href="http://ptech.allthingsd.com/"Personal Technology/a" column, is convinced the companies that succeed in this type of a href="http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/category/econaclypse/"econaclypse/a, as a href="http://allthingsd.com/"AllThingsD/a has dubbed the economy, will be those that focus on innovation. "It has been my observation that while things do slow down in bad times, they don't stop," Mossberg said.br / br / Speaking to a packed room this week at the a href="http://showcase.dowjones.com/"Dow Jones VentureWire Technology Showcase/a in Redwood City CA, Mossberg, the "a href="http://www.time.com/time/digital/cyberelite/50.html"Most Influential Computer Journalist/a" according to Time Magazine, described the trends that excite him right now as happening both in computer hardware and computer software: strongoutside the browser Web applications, service in the cloud, and hand held computers/strong./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.openx.org/ck.php?n=12665amp;cb=12665' target='_blank'img src='http://d.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=861amp;cb=12665amp;n=12665' border='0' alt='' align="right" //a/p pMuch like during the mid to late eighties, when we saw advances in the personal computer, Mossberg explained we are once again witnessing advances in hardware innovation. This time however, we are not getting excited about the a href="http://www.pc-history.org/comm.htm"Commodore/a, a href="http://www.robert.to/reports/trs80rsc3.html"Radio Shack/a and a href="http://apple2history.org/"Apple II/a devices; instead, a new model of computer is energizing the world of consumer technology. The super smart phones or hand held computers as Mossberg prefers to call them: the a href="http://www.apple.com/iphone/"iPhone/a, the a href="http://www.t-mobileg1.com/"G1/a, and the a href="http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20081119/blackberrys-storm-presses-into-the-touch-phone-fray/"soon to be released BlackBerry Storm/a./p pIn much the same way, this time also reminds Mossberg of the mid to late nineties as we are once again observing a swell of Internet innovation; this one happening on the software front with widgets/Web apps and service in the cloud./p pWith so much information available on the Internet, and the instant gratification demanded by consumers today, the melding of these products is inevitable. Mossberg, who believes widgets will flourish on hand held computers, suggested that while the new class of mobile devices offer better browsing than their predecessors, it is in the apps that he sees competition, innovation and ideas fermenting. "We don't necessarily need to go through a browser," he said./p pThe problem of course is replicating data across devices in a smooth, cohesive manner to ensure that data available on the Internet is available on the handheld. And that's where service in the cloud comes in. While corporate America has enjoyed technologies such as a href="http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/server/"BlackBerry Enterprise Server/a, a href="http://www.microsoft.com/EXCHANGE/default.mspx"Microsoft Exchange/a, and a href="http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/notes/"Lotus Notes/a that have enabled data to be replicated between devices [servers, desktops, laptops and handhelds], according to Mossberg, nobody has yet been "wildly successful" in bringing this technology to the wider consumer world via the cloud. /p pAnd so the race begins. While Mossberg has always claimed he is not responsible for business coverage of tech companies, the fact remains that for the past 17 years, a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/mossberg.html"the star of the Wall Street Journal/a has accurately assessed innovation within the consumer tech market. Given his insights this week, the only questions that remain are: who will bring cloud services to the masses, and will it happen during the econaclypse? /p pemRead the transcript of Mossberg's keynote below./p pstrongWalter Mossberg: Dow Jones VentureWire Technology Showcase 2008/strong/p pstrongEffects of the economy/strong/p pI think it's obvious to everybody that we're in for a serious recession. The question is only how serious. Barack Obama probably had thirty seconds of feeling happy and now has a whole lot to worry about./p pAt AllthingsD.com, our website, we have coined a term for the economy; we're calling it the 'econaclypse' and I think we are in kind of an econaclypse./p pMy observation, and I have been writing about tech for 17 years, I don't fund anything, but I do get pitched like VCs do./p pI see all kinds of new companies, sometimes many months, sometimes over a year before their product ships. And it has been my observation that while things do slow down in bad times, they don't stop.br / br / There is a digital tidal wave in the world,