Sakura District

Google Forced to Retake All Street View Images in Japan

2009-05-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

Google has announced they plan to retake all Japanese photographs for its Street View service due to complaints from residents photographs were taken from a vantage point that was higher than most people’s fences around their homes. The photos were taken by a camera mounted on a stick attached to a roof of a car and according to company product manager Keiichi Kawai, Google Japan has agreed to lower the cameras. Google has also agreed to blur vehicle license plate images to address one of the other privacy complaints being leveled against the Google Street View service.

Kawai said Google’s decision to lower the cameras is designed to address concerns in Japan, where many neighborhoods are crowded and privacy is tightly guarded. According to CNET, the new photographs will be taken with a camera that is exactly 16 inches lower, and will be a costly and time consuming affair because Google has already photographed 12 Japanese cities including Tokyo and Osaka.

Google’s lowered camera is meant to prevent items such as people’s laundry hanging out to dry from being filmed. The lowered camera will most likely make no difference as almost everyone in Japan hangs their laundry outside to dry due to space constraints and the high humidity.

Japan Probe also has other examples of images captured by Google Street View where a lowered camera would not have made a difference. The images include a high school girl’s chest being touched, a homeless man collapsed on the street, and a couple entering a "love hotel".

Complaints about Google Street View were already beginning to surface late last year when a Japanese civilian group that includes lawyers and university professors asked Google to stop providing detailed street-level images of Japanese cities on the internet because it violates privacy rights.

Source: DailyTech

Twitter is Dangerous: revista

2009-05-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

I’m probably miles behind some tech complaint curve everyone else knows about, but having spent four hours trying to gain control of my Twitter account I’m at the point of pulling what’s left of my hair out. Here’s what’s happened.
The last few days I noticed the number of people I am allegedly following rise dramatically. The reason I noticed was because I started to get a bunch of direct messages thanking me for following. (see pic below)

Within a couple of days the number of these spurious follows had rocketed from some 1,300 to over 1,900 with around 300 added last night. I reckon I’m a reasonably sociable if curmudgeonly person but there is no way that I can realistically follow random people to that extent. Scoble’s got the lock on that ability. That’s why I regularly cull follows and only follow those where I can see a likely connection to my interests.
Without wishing to appear a total dope I asked whether anyone else has experienced the same problem. Lo and behold I am not alone - so not a total dope. (see pic below but there are other examples) The irony is that @paulthomas_tx is someone I’ve never heard of but I am following.

OK - so what to do?
My first plan was to lock down my account by going into ‘protected Tweet’ mode. That didn’t help much because the ‘follows’ continued to pour in. I am presuming there’s a backlog of messages coming through. (As I write this, the direct messages of thanks are still coming in.)
I then tried deleting the follows I don’t want. That seemed to be working but then I find I am getting follow requests from the same people - or at least some of them. Delete those as well.
You’d think that would help but no. Next I find the follow/follower list/request continuing to grow. At this stage I am getting mighty annoyed but someone suggested changing passwords. Having done that three times - in part because I was being locked out of my Twitter account - I then find I can’t login via the AIR clients I use: Seesmic Desktop or TweetDeck, nor can I get in via Nambu but I CAN get in via the native web client.
Someone else suggested blocking but I am loathe to do that to people who might otherwise be innocent and simply the victim of some ’stuff’ of which they are unaware. Some candidates however were pretty obvious so they got the block treatment.
Next step - get help from Twitter. See below:

Apologies for the small image size but when I sent the original lockout query along with some details about the other problems, Twitter’s autoresponder assumed I was talking about login problems and replied: “This problem is deemed solved.” Puhleeeease. The lockout problem cleared so that’s one issue out the way. It would have helped if Twitter provided a time estimate for lockout instead of it’s ‘hang on’ message.
I have been successfully using Topify to filter Twitter messages coming in via email but it doesn’t work as well in protected mode. The result is that my email inbox is being swamped with follow requests. That’s easily solved with more filtering but waking up to 154 follower requests was not my idea of fun.
What’s happened? I really don’t know. People in my network made good suggestions for at least temporarily fixing the problem for which I am immensely grateful. But… as an enterprisey person with plenty of things to do other than clean out Twitter crap, this is unacceptable. It reminds me of the days when I used to clear up Windows infections. Twitter support has to improve.
Autoresponders are fine when they work, but when they don’t they’re a guaranteed way to elevate the grump levels. Locking out the account because of failed logins is fine but discriminating between services is not. It’s confusing.
Operating a service that is drop dead easy is fine, but having issues that require tech support solutions that are undocumented or not immediately obvious is far from acceptable for the average person.
It has been suggested I might have picked up the ‘Mikeyy’ or ‘StalkDaily’ Twitter worms or some such. I have no idea but couldn’t Twitter scan accounts for this, notify individually and then do a clean up? Robin Wauters at TechCrunch documented a fourth round of the worm infection and said that Twitter is advising. Unfortunately, the link he provides goes to a dead Twitter page.
Back in December 2007, Mike Krigsman declared Twitter is Dangerous. At the time he was thinking of other issues. I’m thinking that with Salesforce.com and others jumping on the Twitter train, the issues I have experienced for reasons I still cannot fathom renders Twitter even MORE dangerous. Questions:

Do I really want my business email junked up with spurious follows/follower requests? If not then what is Twitter prepared to do to provide users with protection against this kind of problem yet still allow the service to grow?
Does Twitter have coherent processes in place to help its users? This seems to have been an ongoing issue that as yet remains unresolved.
Is the notion of an open API that has no apparent requirement for destruction or malware testing acceptable? In the enterprise the answer is a solid no but with consumery apps creeping into the enterprise is it any surprise when IT stamps them out?
What are established services like Salesforce.com doing to ensure that Twitter users get what they want from the service but without this type of headache?
Has the time come for more attention to be paid to services like Yammer or ESME where use issues inside the firewall are being addressed but which will have to extend outwards at some point?
As Dick Hirsch asked: Am I ready to declare Twitter bankruptcy? Answer: I’m within a gnat’s whisker.

Written by: Dennis Howlett of Zdnet Blog.

Actress Kim So-yeon to Join 'Iris' as Sexy Agent

2009-02-28T01:51:00.001-08:00

Actress Kim So-yeon will join the high profile cast of the upcoming spy action drama series Iris starring Lee Byeong-heon and Kim Tae-hee. She will play a sexy agent.

The drama's production agency Taewon Entertainment said, "Kim will turn into a provocative warrior playing Kim Seon-hwa, a North Korean agent. She is up for some intense action scenes."

Under the order of the team chief played by actor Lee Seung-woo, Kim Seon-hwa doggedly tails South Korean special agent Kim Hyeon-jun (Lee Byeong-heon). After being abandoned by the North regime, she fatefully falls in love with Lee. She creates an intense love triangle with Kim Tae-hee and Lee to the very end.

"Iris" is expected to air on KBS 2TV in the second half of the year. Filming will start next month in Akita Prefecture, Japan.

source: KBS Global

Takita Yojiro Enjoys Oscar Limelight

2009-02-28T01:50:00.000-08:00

The Japanese show business industry has been basking in the glory of the country's two wins at the Academy Awards, which we announced here yesterday. Japanese productions won two Oscars, both for the first time in their category. The first to be announced was the animated short "Tsumiki no Ie." But the bigger prize was taken by "Okuribito" (Departures), chosen as best foreign language film. Director Takita Yojiro (53) has come a long way since his 1981 debut as a director of soft porn. "Chikan Onna Sensei" (Pervert Lady Teacher) was the first in a series of more than a dozen he made. In recent years, he's had more mainstream success with films like "Onmyoji" (2001) and "Battery" (2007), but has reached a peak with his 43rd movie. He was emotional after the awards ceremony and tearfully thanked the cast and dozens of crew members who paid their own way to accompany him to Los Angeles. As often happens in Japan, it was only when Okuribito started gaining a reputation at film festivals overseas late last year that it got any media attention at home. Stars Motoki Masahiro (43) and Hirosue Ryoko (32) are already well established names, so the Oscar is mainly Takita's chance to enjoy the full limelight.

• Actor Nishimura Kazuhiko (42) is a father again. He announced on his blog yesterday that his wife, shodo (calligraphy) artist Kunishige Tomomi (30) gave birth to their second child last weekend. They married in 2006 and had a son the following year. Nishimura was previously married to actress Tachihara Mai (39). Meanwhile, actor Tanihara Shousuke (36) is to be father for the third time, according to today's issue of weekly magazine "Shuukan Josei." He and his wife Emi (32) have two children, their elder son being from her previous marriage to actor Ishida Issei (34). She was already pregnant when she and Tanihara married in March 2007. They had a daughter the following October.

• With an 11-year career behind her, J-pop star aiko (33) finally has her first No.1 single. She's had 5 chart-topping albums but the best she's ever managed until now on the Oricon singles rankings was No.2. That has now changed with the success of "Milk/Nageki no Kiss," which entered the latest chart at No.1. On top of the album chart are rock band Unicorn, who recently reformed 15 years after they split.　"Shamble" is their 7th original album. They split up in 1993 and members pursued solo careers until they decided to revive the band in the spring of last year. The band is fronted by Okuda Tamio, who has had by far the most successful solo career over the last decade.

Glam girls sizzle on Sports Illustrated

2009-02-13T03:44:00.000-08:00

With supermodel Bar Rafaeli, better known as Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend, on the cover - Sports Illustrated has ensured that temperatures keep soaring, as its annual Swimsuit Issue hit the stands recently.

And for Leo's heartthrob, it is a dream come true. Rafaeli can now expect to be a super-celebrity.

"I mean it's not a secret. That's why it's every girl's dream to be in Sports Illustrated because it brings you up in an instant. And it gives you recognition and a lot of opportunities. it just makes the way so much quicker to get up there. So it really means a lot. It's an honour to be among all those names that were on the cover of Sports Illustrated and it's just a big thrill," said Bar Rafaeli, cover girl on the Swinsuit Issue of the Sports Illustrated.

But Refaeli isn't the only attraction in the issue. Speed Diva Danica Patrick has also struck a sexy pose in a teeny-weeny piece - certainly a treat for the fans of the Indycar driver.

And if you thought tennis players hit aces only on the court, there's a surprise. World number 39, Daniela Hantuchova took her time off to show her playful side on the beach as well, posing for the issue. She was joined by fellow tennis player Frenchwoman Tatiana Golovin. Russia's Maria Kirilenko completed the tennis troika with her own uninhibited style.

With so many hot women gracing the pages of Sports Illustrated, it is certainly not a surprise to find the subscriptions of Sports Illustrated skyrocketing hours after its release. For the figures, the sales went up 438 per cent in just six hours of its release, as reported in Weekly World News.

Microsoft to move into retail

2009-02-13T03:08:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has surprised technology industry rivals and high street retailers by announcing plans to open its own line of branded shops.
The decision to launch a "small number" of Microsoft stores comes during the worst recession for decades, and just weeks after the company and made its first ever mass redundancies.
The company, which is based in Redmond, Washington, said that it was hiring David Porter, an executive from the movie studio DreamWorks, to oversee a network of shops that wil sell Windows PCs, mobile phones and other devices.
"This is an exciting time with our strong line-up of product releases, including Windows 7 and new releases of Windows Live and Windows Mobile," said Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer.
"We're also working hard to transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience at retail … so that it's clear, simple and straightforward for consumers everywhere."
Although it made its fortune providing software and operating systems for computers, in recent years Microsoft has moved further into making hardware and devices.
The company's Xbox 360 videogame console has helped knock Japanese electronics giant Sony off its perch, while it also produces a popular range of keyboards, mice, webcams and other computer peripherals.
Not every venture into hardware has proved successful, however: the company's Zune music player – which made a solid but unremarkable start on its release in 2006 – saw sales drop sharply last year. Recent financial figures suggested that revenues from the device had dropped by nearly $100m on the previous year.
Despite the range of hardware now being made by Microsoft, Porter implied that his primary focus will be selling PCs, which could be an important way for the company to stimulate sales of the upcoming Windows 7 operating system.
"I'm excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases," said Porter in a statement.
Microsoft's long-standing rivalry with Apple led to immediate comparisons with the iPod makers own hugely successful string of shops.
Overseen by vice president Ron Johnson, who joined the company from America's fifth-biggest retailer Target, Apple's chain of stores broke records by achieving more than a billion dollars in sales within two years. There are now more than 200 Apple stores worldwide.
However, several large electronics chains have closed outlets or collapsed entirely in recent months, perhaps prompting the audacious plan.
"It'll be great to have a store to demo Microsoft tech and Windows laptops side by side, since so many chains are dropping away," wrote Brian Lam, the editor of gadget blog Gizmodo.
Regardless, the decision to launch into such an expensive undertaking while the economy is in dire straits baffled some analysts, while others suggested that remaining electronics retailers are likely to be angered by the move.
But the company will be hoping that Porter, who was previously an executive at retail giant Wal-Mart, can bring some of his experience to help the company's marketing push.
"Retail will help Microsoft in telling a broader story it wants to get across about products from Windows Live to Windows Mobile," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with the independent research company Directions on Microsoft.

Bandai Namco Goes For D3 Buyout

2009-02-13T03:03:00.001-08:00

Bandai Namco made a grab today for D3, parent of Puzzle Quest publisher D3 Publisher.

Bandai Namco claims it's already reached an agreement with the company's shareholders for a 70 percent stake -- and is aiming for full ownership, according to a press statement translated by interpreter Andria Sang.

According to the announcement, Bandai Namco sees synergies with D3 in the desire to develop more properties across the multiple simultaneous arenas of anime, toys and video games, as with D3 Publisher's Ben 10: Alien Force cartoon license.

Bandai Namco often investigates property expansions around animated series like Dragon Ball Z and Naruto; it does a Naruto collectible card game, for example, while D3 has distributed Naruto video games published by Tomy. The release mentions a cooperation on content expansion specifically around Ben 10; the cartoon series is produced by Cartoon Network, while D3 owns the license to publish the tie-in games.

Bandai Namco also mentions D3 Publisher's North American operations, noting the potential for technology sharing. Also likely to be a significant part of the decision is D3's subsidiary, Vicious Cycle Software, developer of the Vicious Engine middleware used in titles like Flushed Away and Dead Head Fred, in addition to Puzzle Quest.

Gamasutra has contacted both parties for comment and will update as we receive it.

IT’S BOY MEETS GIRL – AND ANOTHER GIRL – IN VIZ MEDIA DEBUT OF I”s DVD BOX SET

2009-02-13T02:55:00.001-08:00

Zany Comedy About A High School Boy And Two Sexy Classmates Inspired By A Popular Manga Series

San Francisco, CA, FEBRUARY 3, 2009 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, will expand its library of animated properties with the eagerly awaited debut of I”s as a special two-disc DVD box set with an estimated street date of March 24th.

I”s is based on a popular manga series (Rated ‘M” for mature audiences) by Masakazu Katsura, published domestically by VIZ Media under its Shonen Jump Advanced imprint. The original I”s animated series, as well as a six-episode follow-up called I”s PURE, will be included this new DVD box set (rated “M” for Mature audiences) and carries an SRP of $29.98 US/$39.99 CAN.

Iori Hazuki is a beautiful high school girl with ambitions of becoming a model and actress. Ichitaka Seto is an indecisive sixteen year-old boy with a mad crush on Iori. Things become more complicated for Ichitaka when a childhood friend named Itsuki returns from living in the United States and ends up living at his house – and Itsuki is far from the shy and homely young girl Ichitaka remembers. Ichitaka must now reconcile his feelings for each girl and work hard to make sure that his angst-riddled personal life doesn't become any more dramatic. Put all three “I”s together and you have a tale of love, comedy, and dreams!

In I”s PURE, hapless Ichitaka continues to face endless obstacles that include pranks, misunderstandings, stalkers, and a romantic intervention as he continues to try and win the heart of his classmate and budding actress Iori. But most of all, Ichitaka tries to remain true to his feelings. Are these two "I"s destined to find happiness together, or does fate have other ideas?

Widely known in anime circles as the character designer for IRIA: ZEIRAM THE ANIMATION, a Science Fiction series about a sexy female bounty hunter, I”s creator Masakazu Katsura is also a popular manga artist celebrated for the buxom beauties and madcap stories that are a focal point of his work. His best-selling series VIDEO GIRL AI is also published domestically by VIZ Media.

“This zany and often unexpectedly sweet romantic comedy, understandably celebrated by fans of the original I”s manga, plays out wonderfully in this special 2-disc DVD box set,” says Gonzalo Ferreyra, Vice President Sales & Product Marketing. “Creator Masakazu Katsura's quirky sense of humor and penchant for drawing appealing young ladies will make I”s a unique favorite. We look forward to fans of the manga exploring this new DVD box set and encourage audiences that have yet to discover the humor and fun of I”s to check out both the manga and the anime series from VIZ Media!”

About VIZ Media, LLC
Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), is one of the most comprehensive and innovative companies in the field of manga (graphic novel) publishing, animation and entertainment licensing of Japanese content. Owned by three of Japan’s largest creators and licensors of manga and animation, Shueisha Inc., Shogakukan Inc., and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, Co., Ltd., VIZ Media is a leader in the publishing and distribution of Japanese manga for English speaking audiences in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa and is a global ex-Asia licensor of Japanese manga and animation. The company offers an integrated product line including magazines such as SHONEN JUMP and SHOJO BEAT, graphic novels, and DVDs, and develops, markets, licenses, and distributes animated entertainment for audiences and consumers of all ages. Contact VIZ Media at 295 Bay Street, San Francisco, CA 94133; Phone (415) 546-7073; Fax (415) 546-7086; and web site at www.VIZ.com.

Legendary Motorcycle Racer - Valentino Rossi - To Run The Monster Energy M-Claw Logo

2009-02-13T02:48:00.001-08:00

6-time MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi joins the Monster Army to help further expand the fast-growing Monster Energy brand all over the world
CORONA, Calif., Feb. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi is one of the most recognizable athletes on the planet. And now people are going to associate him with one of the most recognizable energy drink brands on the planet as well, as Rossi is set to run the Monster Energy M-claw logo on the 2009 MotoGP tour.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090212/LA70208)
Continuing its global push, the No. 1 by-volume sales energy drink in the United States - Monster Energy - will look to Rossi as a means of delivering Monster's 'core' message to the legions of fans that follow the world's premier two wheel road racing motorsport.
"Going Big has been our motto at Monster Energy for some time and aligning ourselves with Valentino Rossi is about as big as it gets in motorsports," said Mark Hall, President of Monster Energy. "We feel that Valentino is one of those rare athletes that not only defines his sport, he actually transcends it."
Rossi's race resume is stellar. Not yet 30-years-old, he stands as the only racer in the sport's history to have won world titles in the 125cc, 250cc, 500cc and MotoGP classes. And his 97 career race wins in 210 starts approaches a 50-percent win percentage that is absolutely mind boggling.
"I'm happy to join up with Monster Energy and to be one of the first European sportsman testimonials for this new brand," said Rossi. "Monster is growing all over the world and I am very excited to be joining them. I think that together we can make something special and the M-claw is going to look good on my new helmet!"
Monster Energy's Valentino Rossi began testing for his 2009 MotoGP title defense at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia this past weekend. The series opens on April 12th at the Grand Prix of Qatar.
Monster Energy supports the sport. Be it MotoGP, SX, rally, insane distance jumping, MX, road racing, supermoto, off-road, FMX, skate, MTB, rock crawling, wake, mini bikes, surf, snow, BMX - name it - the athletes are rockin' Monster Energy more than anything these days. Check out all the types - Original Monster Energy, Monster Lo-Carb, Monster Assault, Monster Khaos, Monster's fruit juice hybrid dubbed "M-80," the party-friendly MIXXD, the ground-breaking Java Monster premium coffee & cream drink line supercharged with our Monster Energy blend, along with the new Monster Energy "Hitman" energy shot. Valentino Rossi digs 'em - so will you. On the 'Net at www.monsterarmy.com and www.monsterenergy.com
Website: http://www.monsterenergy.com/

The Tokyo 2016 Olympic: Tokyo pushes 'compact' Games

2009-02-13T02:30:00.000-08:00

The Tokyo 2016 Olympic bid committee is hoping that less will be more.
Less travel time to events and venues for athletes, spectators and media; a less harmful impact on the environment; less costly construction projects by using existing facilities.
"The idea is to have a compact Games that are very athlete-friendly," Yosuke Fujiwara, Tokyo 2016 senior executive officer of planning and PR, said during a recent media tour of the proposed venues. "You will be able to reach most of the venues from the athletes' village within 20 minutes."
Of course, they also point out that when it comes to overall finances, it doesn't hurt to have a little more.
Tokyo is up against bids from Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Games. The winning bid will be announced by the International Olympic Committee on Oct. 2 in Copenhagen.
The focal point of the Tokyo proposal will be a brand-new 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium to be built in Tokyo Bay on reclaimed land, just northwest of Ariake Colosseum. The proposed stadium will be semi-enclosed and feature large solar panels and possibly wind turbines to cut down on the need for electricity.
With the new stadium as the centerpiece, organizers boast that 95 percent of the Olympic events will be held within an 8-kilometer radius. There will be preliminary round soccer matches at far-flung sites like Sapporo and Saitama, but for the most part, the events will be quite concentrated.
"With 95 percent of all venues located within the 8-kilometer radius, this will be the most compact Games ever," said Masanori Takaya, the bid's manager of international communications.
Takaya pointed out that within the 8-km circle, there would be five main venue "clusters" representing various themes. The "Palace Cluster," for example, would be geared toward Japanese culture while the "Sea Forest Cluster" would highlight sustainable Tokyo, with the planting of trees.
In keeping with the theme of an environmentally friendly Games, several facilities, such as the mountain-biking course and equestrian events, will be staged on landfill sites and reclaimed land.
"As part of our unique 'green' and sustainable Games plan, 20 out of 34 Olympic venues will be on reclaimed land, helping to ensure that Tokyo 2016 will be the 'greenest' Games ever staged," Fujiwara said. "This equates to approximately 60 percent of competition venues."
The Tokyo 2016 bid plans to use 23 existing venues with 11 new venues proposed, many of those to go up on land already owned by the metropolitan government. Among the more interesting venues that are already in operation, the Nippon Budokan, which was built for the 1964 Olympics, would host judo and the famed Ryogoku Kokugikan sumo arena will be the site of the boxing competition.
While Tokyo's proposal has gotten high marks from the IOC so far--the bid ranked first or second in 10 of the 11 categories assessed by the Candidature Acceptance Working Group--the biggest strength may be the metropolis' finances rather than its venue plans.
"The Tokyo metropolitan government has 6.6 trillion yen from its annual budget in its general account, the most for any city in the world," Takaya said. "We already have $4.4 billion (402 billion yen) secured for the Games from the TMG and Japan's central government will guarantee the event."
Not all in the Tokyo assembly, however, support huge spending on the Olympics with the total budget for the bid campaign alone to top 10 billion yen. Other funding for the Games will come from television rights, sponsorship from the private sector and ticket sales.
Final details of the Tokyo 2016 bid's budget will not be revealed until after Thursday, the deadline for the four cities to make their final candidature submissions to the IOC. After that, the next key date is in mid-April, when the IOC's evaluation commission hits town to check out the bid up close and personal.
Tokyo's bid initially suffered from public indifference--an IOC poll conducted in June showed that only 59 percent of the public backed Tokyo's Olympic bid, the lowest among all four candidate cities (Chicago 74 percent, Rio 77, Madrid 90)--but organizers say they have overcome that, pointing to a recent Internet poll that showed local support up to 70.2 percent. (That poll was carried out by a private entity commissioned by the Tokyo 2016 Bid Committee.)
Security concerns could work against both Madrid and Rio de Janeiro, which means Chicago is expected to be Tokyo's main competition in the race. The U.S. Midwest city will likely get a major boost from native son Barack Obama, the newly elected U.S. president who may travel to Copenhagen in October for the final vote. Tokyo organizers have countered that they hope to have Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso in Denmark, but even if Aso is still in power at the time, he would appear to be no match for the cachet and star-power of Obama.(IHT/Asahi: February 11,2009)

The Women's Connection, The Lolita Effect: Media and the Sexy Girl

2009-02-13T02:25:00.000-08:00

Press release submitted by The Women's Connection

University of Iowa Professor and Author Dr. Gigi Durham

To Present February 26 in the Quad Cities

The Lolita Effect: Media and the Sexy Girl

"How can I raise my daughters to have high self-esteem?"

"What"s the best way to talk about sexuality with young girls and boys?"

"How can we combat images of the sexy girl in today"s media?"

We live in a culture where primetime shows feature underage sex and sexual violence, toddlers play with dolls dressed in miniskirts and fishnets, and teenage girls undergo surgery to achieve Barbie-doll body types. How do we help our young girls – and boys – navigate through these sexual images and stereotypes?

The public is invited to join The Women"s Connection on February 26, noon, QC Waterfront Convention Center at the Isle of Capri, Bettendorf, for a luncheon event featuring University of Iowa Professor and author Dr. Gigi Durham, on "Media and the Sexy Girl." Cost is $18 for members, $20 for non-members. This event is sponsored by Western Illinois University Quad Cities Campus.

For more than a decade, Dr. Gigi Durham has conducted research on adolescents and the media, and she is committed to advocating for the rights of girls and women worldwide. Dr. Durham will identify five core myths of sexuality found in mainstream media targeted at children and adolescents, and she"ll provide clear strategies for parents and adults to work with children to recognize, understand and resist the consequences of these trends. Don"t miss out on this important discussion.

Event Facts

· Date: February 26, 2009

· Time: Noon to 1:15 p.m. Luncheon

· Location: Isle of Capri"s QC Waterfront Convention Center

· Speaker: Dr. Gigi Durham

· Event Fee: $18 members, $20 non-members

· To purchase tickets – call Colleen Rafferty at (309)631-0167 or register on-line at www.AskTWC.com. Registration deadline is Monday, February 23

The Women"s Connection is the largest women"s organization in the Quad Cities and is sponsored by Royal Neighbors of America and Trinity Regional Health System. The mission of TWC is to inspire, educate and connect women. TWC events provide women with an opportunity to learn, network and develop professional and personal relationships.

SI Cover Girl is On A Plane

2009-02-13T02:18:00.001-08:00

Getty ImagesBar Rafaeli

YOU ARE NOW FREE TO GAWK ABOUT THE COUNTRY Bar Refaeli, the new cover girl for this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, will grace a Southwest jet being dubbed "S.I. One," the Chicago Tribune reports.
After publicity events Wednesday morning in New York, Refaeil was "whisked away in a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 dubbed the 'S.I. One' for a cross-country promotional trip," according to MSNBC.com. The website adds that "in an ultimate honor, the plane will feature Refaeli's photo spread across its hull."
That revelation came on Wednesday morning's Today Show on NBC, where host Matt Lauer quipped: "Air traffic control is going to be a mess this afternoon."
And what's Refaeli's reaction? "I just heard the plane is going to still be active for a month later. I'm like, 'Oh, my God, it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me.' "

DA asks police for more investigation of Brown
Prosecutors said Tuesday they want more evidence from police before determining whether to press charges against Chris Brown, who's accused in a domestic dispute that reportedly involves pop superstar Rihanna.
Police presented a case regarding Brown on Tuesday, but did not release any of its details, Los Angeles County District Attorney spokeswoman Jane Robison said. She said the office would have no further comment on the case.
Brown was arrested Sunday night after surrendering to police, who sought the 19-year-old singer when a woman identified him as her attacker during a fight the night before. Numerous media outlets, citing sources and police officials who were not named, have identified the woman as 20-year-old Rihanna, Brown's longtime girlfriend.
Brown remains free on $50,000 bail, and he's withdrawn from public appearances in Phoenix scheduled for this weekend before the NBA All-Star game. Rihanna on Tuesday postponed a planned concert in Malaysia.
Brad Paisley leads ACM Awards with 6 nominations
Brad Paisley leads all finalists for the Academy of Country Music Awards with six nominations, but the biggest surprise might be former Trick Pony singer Heidi Newfield's five nods.
Paisley was nominated Wednesday for entertainer of the year and male vocalist, an honor he won last year. He's also a finalist for record, song and video of the year for "Waitin' on a Woman," and for vocal event of the year for "Start a Band" with Keith Urban.
Newfield released her solo debut, "What Am I Waiting For," last August. She's nominated in five categories, including song of the year and video of the year for "Johnny & June."
Kenny Chesney, the ACM's entertainer of the year four years running, received four nominations, including another in the coveted entertainer category.
George Strait and Jamey Johnson also received four nominations apiece, and for the first time in her career, Carrie Underwood is nominated for entertainer of the year. Underwood is also up for female vocalist, which she's won the last two years.
The Academy of Country Music Awards air on CBS from Las Vegas on April 5.
Will Smith tops Forbes.com's list of bankable stars
Will Smith was voted the most bankable star in Hollywood in a survey of industry professionals by Forbes.com.
The financial magazine's Web site gives the actor a score of 10 out of 10 for his bankability in its first "star currency" list, compiled by surveying more than 150 industry professionals.
Following Smith on the list: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio, who all tied for second with a score of 9.89. Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson rounded out the top 10.

Microsoft to Open Stores, Hires Retail Hand

2009-02-12T19:13:00.000-08:00

By NICK WINGFIELD

Microsoft Corp. said it hired a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive to help the company open its own retail stores, a strategy shift that borrows from the playbook of rival Apple Inc.

The Redmond, Wash., company said it hired David Porter, most recently the head of world-wide product distribution at DreamWorks Animation SKG, as corporate vice president of retail stores for Microsoft.

In a statement, Microsoft said the first priority of Mr. Porter, who is also a 25-year veteran of Wal-Mart, will be to define where to place the Microsoft stores and when to open them. A Microsoft spokesman said the company's current plans are for a "small number" of stores.

Microsoft

In a warehouse near its Redmond, Wash., campus, Microsoft created mockups for how Microsoft products might be displayed either in its own stores or in a retailer's.

Microsoft

It remains to be seen whether the effort can add some pizzazz to Microsoft's unfashionable image, which Apple has sought to reinforce with ads that mock its competitor. Mr. Porter, in a statement, said there are "tremendous opportunities" for Microsoft to create a "world-class shopping experience" for the company's customers.

"The purpose of opening these stores is to create deeper engagement with consumers and continue to learn firsthand about what they want and how they buy," Microsoft said in a statement.

The move is a sign of the deeper role consumer-technology companies are playing in the retail business, despite the many risks of straying from their traditional businesses of making hardware and software. Apple, of Cupertino, Calif., encountered widespread skepticism when it first began opening its own retail stores in 2001.

Eight years later, though, Apple's chain of more than 200 stores around the world are widely credited with helping the company boost sales of its Mac, iPod and iPhone product lines. The Apple stores, with their eye-catching architecture, highly-trained sales staff and "genius bars" that provide technical support, gave Apple a way to showcase its products in an environment where they weren't lumped in with a gamut of other electronics items. Sony Corp. and Bose Corp. also operate their own stores.

At the same time, some large electronics retailers have fallen on hard times amidst the weakening economy. CompUSA Inc. last year closed most of its retail stores, while Circuit City Stores Inc. is in the process of shutting down all of its stores and laying off more than 30,000 employees.

Microsoft has long flirted with the idea of doing its own store, even as it has tested ways that retail partners can better sell Microsoft products. In a 20,000-square-foot warehouse near its campus in the suburbs of Seattle, Microsoft has tested various retail concepts, complete with shelves displaying Xbox games and big computer monitors with touch-sensitive screens.

Key details about Microsoft's retail plans still need to be worked out, though. Microsoft said the stores could feature a range of products from personal computers running its Windows operating system to cellphones running the company's Windows Mobile operating system to its Xbox videogame console.

One of Mr. Porter's tasks will be to figure out whether to actually sell computers rather than merely show off their features. Any decision that favored some PC makers and left others off store shelves could anger some hardware partners.

Stephen Baker, an analyst at NPD Group Inc., which tracks retailers, said Apple doesn't face the dilemmas Microsoft will in the retail business because Apple makes the hardware and software for its products. "That's going to be a big challenge for Microsoft," Mr. Baker said.

A spokeswoman for Hewlett-Packard Co., one of Microsoft's biggest hardware partners in the PC business, declined to comment on Microsoft's retail strategy. Spokesmen for Dell Inc. didn't respond to requests for comment.

Microsoft's store plans could also irk existing retail partners like Best Buy Co., on whom Microsoft is especially dependent for sales to consumers. Best Buy representatives didn't return calls requesting comment. Microsoft said it will share the lessons it learns from its own stores with other retailers.

The failures of other stores opened by technology companies will loom over Microsoft as it launches its stores. In 2004, computer maker Gateway Inc. shuttered a network of more than 188 company-owned retail stores after weak sales. Microsoft itself operated a Microsoft store inside a movie-theater complex in San Francisco beginning in 1999, but two years later shut down the store -- which showcased, but didn't sell, Microsoft products.

—Justin Scheck contributed to this article.

Write to Nick Wingfield at nick.wingfield@wsj.com

Windows 7 upgrade plans leaked

2009-02-12T06:28:00.000-08:00

MICROSOFT INTENDS to minimise the number of potential new customers delaying their computer purchasing decisions because of the impending launch of Windows 7, by offering what some commentators are assuming will be free upgrades from Vista.

A leaked draft document which was distributed to OEMs, and sneakily acquired by Techarp, gives details of what is currently being called the 'Windows 7 Upgrade Program'.

The programme is firmly aimed at consumers and includes no support for multiple upgrades for enterprise. Companies will be asked to use the volume licensing programme, details of which will be released at a later date.

The biggest kick in the teeth, however, will be for anyone who decided not to stump up the extra cash for one of Microsft's top-tier operating systems.

Anyone cheap enough to go for Vista Home Basic, Vista Starter Edition or XP will be left out in the cold when Windows 7 rolls into town.

The only viable upgrade paths are:

Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium
Vista Business to Windows 7 Professional and
Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate

There are no details of costings, either to OEMs or end users, and Microsoft is leaving it up to individual partners to decide how to provide qualifying customers with details of possible upgrades.

Super sexy in slinky latex

2009-02-12T06:03:00.000-08:00

THE slinky outfit had a surprising effect when Malin Akerman was cast as a superhero in the Hollywood movie Watchmen.

While the tight latex costume and high heels were not exactly comfortable to put on, the Swedish-born actress said yesterday that they were made her feel "super sexy".

"Every time a girl puts on a pair of heels, you feel like a different person," she told Stay in Touch. "And just getting in those heels and seeing the reaction of the boys on set, it was, 'All right. This is going to work."'

The 30-year-old, who has featured in 27 Dresses and The Heartbreak Kid, plays a former superhero who helps solve a murder in the $US100 million ($153 million) movie, based on a hit graphic novel. Watchmen is not released until next month, but Akerman has already met some of the book's rabid - and geeky - fans.

"There are some that start to stutter and don't really know what to say or don't really know where to look. For the most part they're either really excited or really nervous."

The director, Zack Snyder, whose last movie was the Spartan epic 300, found it challenging to turn a dense story into a movie that runs for two hours, 37 minutes. Lest hardcore fans feel robbed, there are plans for a cinema run of the director's cut, which runs for three hours, 10 minutes, later in the year.

Read more about Watchmen in today's Metro.

REALITY TELEVISION

The Seven and Nine networks have sustained strong audience numbers for news and current affairs programs this week while extending their half-hour bulletins to an hour to cover the bushfire disaster.

On Wednesday 1.58 million viewers watched the first half-hour of Seven News at 6pm, making it the most watched program of the night,

followed by the second half-hour at 6.30pm, which drew 1.54 million viewers.

Nine averaged 1.26 million for its first half hour and 1.24 million for the second.

The extended coverage has meant both Today Tonight and A Current Affair have screened at 7pm. On Wednesday the two programs, which rated 1.3 million and 1.1 million respectively, pushed the 7pm ABC news (which usually draws an average national audience of about 1 million) down to 942,000, and, for the third night running, was beaten by The 7.30 Report, with 990,000 viewers (down slightly on Tuesday's figure of 1.07 million and Monday's 1.2 million).

Other popular shows on Wednesday included Australia's Got Talent (1.3 million) and Criminal Minds (1.2 million) on Seven, House on Ten and Nine's season return of The Farmer Wants A Wife, both with 1.07 million. Gangs Of Oz, Seven's pitch at the "real" Underbelly, rated 1.02 million at 9.30pm.

RIHANNA REVENGE

Not every event that is planned around Valentine's Day has a romantic feel. A New York radio station, WBLI, has invited fans of the R&B singer Rihanna to shred CDs and posters of her boyfriend, the singer Chris Brown, who is accused of assaulting her. The station's operations manager, Nancy Cambino, said: "Valentine's Day should stand for love, so we find it fitting to make the Friday the 13th right before Valentine's Day a day for revenge for those who were unlucky in love.

"Whether you're a Rihanna fan or not, we can all empathise with being with someone who caused love to go wrong."

Brown was arrested last weekend after allegedly attacking Rihanna, who suffered a split lip, contusions on her forehead and bite marks on her arms.

According to the US gossip website TMZ, the couple started fighting in his rented Lamborghini after a star-studded pre-Grammy party. Both were last-minute cancellations at the Grammy Awards, where they were due to perform.

Prosecutors have asked for further investigation into the incident before pressing charges. Brown is due to appear in court on March 5. Two advertising campaigns starring Brown have been suspended, and several radio stations are refusing to play his songs. Rihanna has cancelled several events in the coming weeks.

BAT MAN GOES SCI-FI

The director of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan, has settled on his next movie - and this time it has nothing to do with the Caped Crusader.

The Hollywood studio Warner Bros has given the nod to Inception, which is being described as a sci-fi action movie "set within the architecture of the mind", which makes it sound like The Matrix.

But whatever the movie sounded like, there is no doubt that The Dark Knight's remarkable worldwide box office of about $US1 billion made financing a breeze.

As The Hollywood Reporter tartly noted: "One would suppose a treatment based on some poems he wrote in his fifth-grade journal would have gotten the green light."

THREE QUESTIONS Matt Shirvington

What is your favourite Olympic moment?Kieren Perkins in 1996 at the Atlanta Games winning the 1500 metre final from lane 8. He was the outside chance and won. It's one of the greatest underdog stories of all time.

Do you ever bust out any of your Dancing With The Stars moves?Actually, at my brother-in-law's wedding, which was not long after the show, I had a dance with my wife, which I found a lot more comfortable to do than before the show.

How do you feel about your nickname, the Lunchbox?It's definitely not a nickname I chose for myself or encourage. However, there are worse things to be called.

Lisa Perkovic

For Better Sex, You Probably Need More Than Correlation

2009-02-12T04:31:00.000-08:00

By Justin Wolfers

I finally got around to viewing the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) ad that NBC decided to ban from its Super Bowl coverage. I had imagined a rather sordid broccoli-loaded affair. But it turns out it was just like a Victoria’s Secret spot, only a bit more nutritious.

The point of the ad was that “Vegetarians have better sex.” Now that’s provocative — provocative enough to stimulate this confirmed omnivore to further research. Here’s what I learned.

PETA does not actually have direct evidence that vegetarians have better sex. Instead, it argues that:

Research has shown that vegetarians enjoy greater amounts of the nutrients that help boost sexual health and performance — such as vitamins A, C, and E and potassium — than meat-eaters do.

There’s a logical gap between PETA’s evidence and its conclusions. Any student of statistics knows the perils of mislabeling correlation as causation. But that’s not the problem here, as PETA is simply claiming a correlation between vegetarianism and better sex. But even if X (being vegetarian) is positively correlated with Y (ingesting vitamins A, C, and E), and Y (more vitamins) causes Z (better sex), we still don’t have enough information to conclude that X (being vegetarian) is positively correlated with Z (better sex).

Here’s a simple counter-example: when I get a cold, I take a multi-vitamin and I eat a few more veggies; you probably do something similar. But even as we both “enjoy greater amounts of the nutrients that help boost sexual health and performance,” I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t conclude that people with colds have better sex.

Interestingly, this is a case where a causal claim (become a vegetarian and you’ll have better sex) may be warranted, even if the asserted correlation (vegetarians have better sex) is wrong. That is, if vegetables are more loaded with the relevant nutrients than the alternative (which seems likely), and if those nutrients do improve sexual performance (as PETA asserts), then PETA would be on firm ground concluding that “vegetarianism causes better sex.” But causation isn’t correlation.

We can investigate the asserted correlation directly. Is vegetarianism correlated with better sex? The General Social Survey asks: “How often do you refuse to eat meat for moral and environmental reasons?” That sounds like it will isolate the folks PETA is talking about.

While there’s no data on the quality of sex, the frequency with which people had sex over the past year is measured, and so we can investigate the related question of whether vegetarians have more sex. It’s not quite the same as PETA’s claim, but if you believe that quality shifts demand curve up, then folks having better sex will also want more of it.

In the following chart, I divide the population according to their degrees of ethical vegetarianism. For each group (shown in each panel), the bars show a simple histogram — the proportions of that group reporting various degrees of sexual activity. Adding up the right-most three bars tells us the proportion of each group having sex at least weekly. Around 40 percent to 45 percent of people report having sex at least once per week, and there’s no real difference between ethical vegetarians and carnivores — a fact confirmed by a formal chi-squared test.

Unfortunately, it looks like there’s nothing here to support PETA’s purported vegetarian-sex link. I’m from a mixed household, and so my vegetarian partner is keen to remind me that quality and quantity are very different things. In fact, she finds my quantity evidence too weak to shift her beliefs, which remain firmly in the PETA camp.

Valentine's Day

2009-02-12T04:07:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines." Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards. The sending of Valentines was a fashion in nineteenth-century Great Britain, and, in 1847, Esther Howland developed a successful business in her Worcester, Massachusetts home with hand-made Valentine cards based on British models. The popularity of Valentine cards in 19th-century America was a harbinger of the future commercialization of holidays in the United States.

The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, behind Christmas. The association estimates that, in the US, men spend in average twice as much money as women.

Saint Valentine

For more details on this topic, see Saint Valentine.

Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine Until 1969, the Catholic Church formally recognized eleven Valentine's Days. The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae) and Valentine of Terni (Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae). Valentine of Rome was a priest in Rome who suffered martyrdom about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. His relics are at the Church of Saint Praxed in Rome and at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland.

Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been killed during the persecution of Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni (Basilica di San Valentino).

The Catholic Encyclopedia also speaks of a third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies under date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him.

No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs. By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the fourteenth century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.

In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feastday of Saint Valentine on February 14 was removed from the General Roman Calendar and relegated to particular (local or even national) calendars for the following reason: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14." The feast day is still celebrated in Balzan (Malta) where relics of the saint are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Vatican II calendar.

The Early Medieval acta of either Saint Valentine were excerpted by Bede and briefly expounded in Legenda Aurea. According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.

Legenda Aurea still providing no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. In an embellishment to The Golden Legend, on the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he wrote the first "valentine" himself, addressed to a young girl variously identified as his beloved, as the jailer's daughter whom he had befriended and healed, or both. It was a note that read "From your Valentine."

Attested traditions

Lupercalia

Main article: Lupercalia

Though popular modern sources link unspecified Greco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St Valentine's Day, Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas argued that prior to Chaucer, no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love existed. Thus, it is immaterial to the history of Valentine's Day whether or not in the ancient Athenian calendar the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.

In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13 through 15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility, without overtones of romance. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier "or "the chaste Juno," was celebrated on February 13-14. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) abolished Lupercalia.

While it is a common opinion that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to christianize celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia, no connection has been demonstrated.

Geoffrey Chaucer by Thomas Occleve (1412)

Chaucer's love birds

While some claim the first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer this may be the result of misinterpretation. Chaucer wrote:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

This poem was written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. A treaty providing for a marriage was signed on May 2, 1381. (When they were married eight months later, he was 13 or 14, and she was 14.)

Readers have uncritically assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14 as Valentine's Day; however, mid-February is an unlikely time for birds to be mating in England. Henry Ansgar Kelly has pointed outthat in the liturgical calendar, May 2 is the saints' day for Valentine of Genoa. This St. Valentine was an early bishop of Genoa who died around AD 307.

Chaucer's Parliament of Foules is set in a fictional context of an old tradition, but in fact there was no such tradition before Chaucer. The speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among eighteenth-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. Most notably, "the idea that Valentine's Day customs perpetuated those of the Roman Lupercalia has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, up to the present"

Medieval period and the English Renaissance

Using the language of the law courts for the rituals of courtly love, a "High Court of Love" was established in Paris on Valentine's Day in 1400. The court dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading.

The earliest surviving valentine is a fifteenth-century rondeau written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his "valentined" wife, which commences.

Je suis desja d'amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée…
(Charles d'Orléans, Rondeau VI, lines 1–2)

At the time, the duke was being held in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415.

Valentine's Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in Hamlet (1600-1601):

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
(William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5)

Valentine's Day postcard, circa 1910

Modern times

The reinvention of Saint Valentine's Day in the 1840s has been traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt. As a writer in Graham's American Monthly observed in 1849, "Saint Valentine's Day... is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday." In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, but Howland took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received, so clearly the practice of sending Valentine's cards had existed in England before it became popular in North America. The English practice of sending Valentine's cards appears in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mr. Harrison's Confessions (published 1851). Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary." The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association estimates that, in the US, men spend in average twice as much money as women.

Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards. The mid-nineteenth century Valentine's Day trade was a harbinger of further commercialized holidays in the United States to follow.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to all manner of gifts in the United States, usually from a man to a woman.Such gifts typically include roses and chocolates packed in a red satin, heart-shaped box. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine's Day as an occasion for giving jewelry. The day has come to be associated with a generic platonic greeting of "Happy Valentine's Day." As a joke, Valentine's Day is also referred to as "Singles Awareness Day." In some North American elementary schools, children decorate classrooms, exchange cards, and eat sweets. The greeting cards of these students often mention what they appreciate about each other.

The rise of Internet popularity at the turn of the millennium is creating new traditions. Millions of people use, every year, digital means of creating and sending Valentine's Day greeting messages such as e-cards, love coupons or printable greeting cards.

Google, Microsoft: I Sync, You Sync, We All Sync

2009-02-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

Talk about strange bedfellows: Google (NSDQ:GOOG) Monday licensed software from rival Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)'s Exchange ActiveSync protocol that will let Google users transfer data to iPhones and Windows Mobile phones.

Microsoft also said it recently expanded its Exchange ActiveSync Licensing Program, which includes partners and competitors Apple, Nokia, Palm, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, among others.

Google Sync, currently in beta, uses push technology that lets iPhone and Windows Mobile devices get Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar events to phones.

When Sync is set up on phones, it automatically starts synchronizing a user's address book and calendar in the background and over-the-air and allows changes or additions to transfers over devices in minutes. For example, when a colleague changes the time of the TPS report cover sheets meeting, it will let alert Sync users immediately.

As a security feature, data is automatically backed up to Google accounts, so information is stored even if a user loses their phone.

In addition, for devices that support the open SyncML protocol, Google Sync allows two-way contacts synchronization. For BlackBerry users, a version of Google Sync is already available.

"This agreement is a great example of Microsoft' s openness to generally license our patents under fair and reasonable terms so long as licensees respect Microsoft intellectual property," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's deputy general counsel and vice president, Intellectual Property and Licensing, in a statement.

Kago Ai's new movie Kung Fu Chefs

2009-02-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

After Kago's comeback last April, she announced she would be appearing in a Hong Kong film co-starring Sammo Hung and Vanness Wu. Now two trailers for "Kung Fu Chefs" (功夫厨神) have been released online.

In the first trailer you can also hear Kago singing on the soundtrack. Vanness Wu wrote on his blog:

The trailer is out, seems better than the last movie i did. Well I know this much....the music this time for sure definitely kicks some major tail. Me and Mr. Tye was coming up with it while we were in China, and I'm really excited to say that we were able to have Ai Kago lace us with some of her vocals....and as if that wasn't enough...Uncle Sammo came through with some Filthy Flows!!!

The movie's release date is February 19.

Who said Idol’s never Cry? H!P Elders Graduate!

2009-02-04T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hello! Project’s Elder Club graduated on Feb. 1st. And I haven’t had a chance to see it, but I also don’t want to. It’s just going to depressing, like graduations, but on a mammoth scale. Because it’s not just one or two or even four members… it’s all of the great Idols that we’ve watched grow and improve. It’s favorites like Mari Yaguchi and Kaori Iida, and Hitomi Yoshizawa and Tsuji Nozomi. Members who we were so excited to see come back leaving us once again, like Makoto Ogawa and Asami Konno. It’s heart breaking! It’s 22 of our favorites gone. Originals like Nacchi, Yuko, Kei and Kaori~! Gone. entertaining ones like Charmy and Mikitty. Soloists like Ayaya and Yuki Maeda! With Yui Okada & Erika Miyoshi gone, there’s none of the ex-Biyuuden members left. Mai Satoda and Atsuko Inada of Country musume. Gone. non H!P eggs of Ongaku Gatas! Gone. There’s is hope for Melon Kinenbi, who although is graduating has said that they will remain together. Of course, I’m surprised why they’re staying together, they weren’t really all that popular and they haven’t exactly been shooting out singles or albums. That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing them sign up to a different agency that would allow their music to grow into something more than pop idol music. There was a very special guest backstage though! Anyone remember Aya Ishiguro? She was most certainly one of the coolest original members ever! Here’s how she used to look in Morning Musume way back then in case it triggers any memories. She had the nose ring, had past tense, she’s a mom now, I doubt she has it anymore.
This picture is from the Morning Musume first photo album anniversary book in case anyone was wondering. Such a beautiful picture.
And then this is her backstage with Mari Yaguchi and Kei Yasuda. I find it funny how different Mari & Kei look when compared to Aya, the whole difference in outfit alone is funny.

Some more pictures of the concert

This was probably the hardest thing for Yuko to do. This is when Yuko Nakazawa gives Ai Takahashi the role of leader of H!P. Yuko used to be the oldest and the “mother” and “leader” of H!P, which really meant nothing, but it meant that she was greatly looked up to and had been there the longest. But since she’s graduating along with most of the other conditioned members, it is now up to Ai Takahashi. Ai is now the oldest member in H!P and considered the leader of H!P. I can’t imagine the pain for Yuko. H!P was her start, it was her life, Morning Musume, she grew and improved and watched all her friends graduate until she did and even then continued mentoring. She did shows and everything revovled around her and her ‘yanki’ tendencies, which would always be a joke, it was mostly how she would act unladly like once in a while really. But it was all H!P related, the shows, the performances, the music and dances. She was in H!P for so many years, it must be quite painful to have to just give it up like that.
Such a sad event, even Yossie is crying…

Here Yuko & Nacchi walk down crying, Kei being on the bottom, she seems sad, but not nearly as distraught as the other two are. That said, I feel Kei has been shunned in H!P for way too long, Hopefully she’ll continue on to new and better things.

I’m glad Kago was fired before this… I mean, I adore Kago and was so upset when she was finally fired from H!P. But the way I see it, she has started her career up again. If she had stayed in H!P she would’ve been shown the door, this was a mass firing. I hope they can all find jobs after this. Though Kago already had to find a job, and now she’s doing movies, two trailers for Kung Fu Chef are now online (a movie that Kago is in, I heard that she lent her voice in some of the music!) Not to mention she was in a play recently. She has a blog and a fan club already “the Biscuit Club” and apparently she wants to graduate from an american high school and “battle against foreign teachers” and she wants to study English so I wish her the best, since, as I’m sure all Aibon fans know… she’s not very good at English…

Angelina Jolie Wows In Low Cut Dress At Brad Pitt's Japanese Premiere

2009-02-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

The Tomb Raider star looked stunning on the red carpet in a floor-length black satin gown that showed plenty of cleavage.
Fans queued for hours before the premiere to get autographs of Hollywood's golden couple.

And it seems the actress has perfected her red carpet wardrobe style, which effortlessly combines comfort and elegance.
Last week she sparked a new fashion trend after wearing a Max Azria dress backwards to the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The star's stylist Jen Rade has confirmed Angelina turned the blue dress she wore around so she could show off the tattoos on her back

Golden Globe Winner Kate Winslet Thinks the Wii Is Great

2009-02-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

The Nintendo Wii is nothing short of a sales miracle in today's harsh market, which is affected by the recession. Its wide appeal to a variety of demographics made it a must buy for quite a lot of people and managed to pull the industry after it in terms of sales and popularity.

But Nintendo's small white box isn't popular with just average people, because, as it seems, celebrities and even the President of the United States, Barrack Obama, are also getting into the Wii hype and are using it to relax with their own families or to have fun after a hard day of shooting on various locations. The latest actress to endorse the popular Japanese console is Golden Globe winner Kate Winslet, who has recently talked about her fun experiences.

When asked by a reporter about her reaction to the Oscar nominations she had just received, she revealed that at the time she was playing on the Wii with her son. She said that, although Wii Tennis was a great experience, the most hilarious one was Wii Boxing, which really made her laugh and have a good time in the company of her family.

“It was extraordinary, I was playing Wii Tennis with my son,” the actress relayed to E! Television. “It is fantastic. The boxing is the funniest thing of all. Because you're boxing the air... I'm watching my little five year old go [convincing Wii Sports boxing sounds]. It's hysterical.”

So it seems that the Wii is truly becoming a worldwide phenomenon and is currently making Nintendo recession proof, which can't be said about its main rivals, Sony and Microsoft, who are employing drastic cost-cutting measures, with their staffs suffering a pretty severe headcount reduction.

There you have it – when you'll be playing Wii Sports, remember that even celebrities are having a great time doing what you do. Hopefully, this will make gaming a more mainstream culture and more people will start playing video games.

Erika Sawajiri Hot Photo Album

2009-02-04T09:01:00.000-08:00

Bump On The Asphalt: [Drama] 1 Litre of Tears

2009-02-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

Starring: Sawajiri Erika, Nishikido Ryo, Yakushimaru Hiroko, Jinnai Takanori, Fujiki Naohito, Narumi Riko, Sanada Yuma, Matsuyama Kenichi...

In 1986, a girl named Kito Aya, aged 15, was diagnosed with an incurable diseased called Spinocerebellar Atrophy. As part of her rehabilitation treatment and in order to help the doctor understand more of her situation, she was asked to keep a diary about the details of her disease and how it affects her daily life and also how she feels about practically everything. This diary was later published and inspired many patients to hang on in their battle against various sicknesses. This diary was the basis for this drama.

The drama follows the story of Ikeuchi Aya, 15 years old. The eldest daughter of a tofu shop owner with a caring and warm family. Aya has always been a happy, kind and hardworking girl with an optimistic view in life. The drama opens on the day of Aya's big entrance exam to high school. On the way to school, Aya tripped and knocked down a row of bicycles. By chance, a boy named Asou Haruto was contemplating to not take the entrance exam when Aya's accident happened. Haruto had no choice but to help Aya rearrange the bicycles and then sent Aya to the examination hall. A teacher later permitted the two to take the exams despite being late.

Aya continued to excel in studies and sports, being part of the highschool female basketball team and also the class representative. She also was dating a senior named Kawamoto. The future was seemingly bright for the 15-year-old until her mother noticed that she was tripping and dropping things a lot. When she fell and hit her head on a date with Kawamoto, her mother put her through a medical examination and it was found that she has a disease called Spinocerebellar Atrophy.

The disease will affect Aya's ability to move gradually. Her limbs would soon be difficult to control and speaking and breathing would prove to be a difficult task. Despite such a knowledge that her life would be greatly changed over the coming years, Aya decided that she should just try her best at what she was able to do and graciously accept the help of those around her although she felt bad for troubling them. She later realized that she had to give up a lot of things as Kawamoto decided that dating a sick girl was too much for him to handle and basketball was something that she could no longer do. But then there were those who remained helpful such as Aya's friends Mari and Saki, and also Haruto, who was always there to silently help her and cheer her up. Aya's family was also doing their best to ensure that Aya's life would to change drastically because of the disease.

However, the disease, being incurable, showed no signs of slowing down and soon, highschool seemed too much for Aya to keep up with. She was later transferred to a school for disabled people and had to bid goodbye to the highschool which she loved so much. When Aya felt down because of she could no longer do the things that she could do before the disease, that she was so different from the active self that she was, she would continue to write in her diary words of encouragement to herself. And apart from her family, Haruto was an important support for Aya.

The drama continues to follow Aya's situation and a decade later, when Aya was 25, her body finally gave in to the disease...

*****

^^ I just realized that my crap-talking about this drama was too crappy and was also left in another blog and that didn't do it justice as this was THE drama for me. This drama sparked my drama interest. Though I watched various Japanese dramas on TV, I wasn't particularly into them. I just watched and that was it. And this drama came along. With a brilliant soundtrack and pretty people starring in it. The storyline is great too. What more can one ask for?

It is strange though, when I watch this drama, I cannot see how Sawajiri can be this nice and then be such a bitch in real life. xD But hey, it is because she was in this drama that no matter what she does, I'll still be remembering her as Ikeuchi Aya. The same with Nishikido Ryo. This drama is probably the best thing that happened to them both, as actors. Sure, Ryo was famous as a Johnny's Junior, his group activities were fine too, but it is this drama that introduced Ryo to many non-Johnny's fans and overseas people who watched Japanese dramas. If the two on-screen lovebirds had any chemistry, it wasn't translated through the screen.

However, since then until now, Nishikido hasn't been the leading character in a drama before. I am a bit disappointed with that and am still intently waiting for him to get an opportunity to lead. I knew he wasn't ready yet, even during "Last Friends", but perhaps in a few more drama season's time. I hope he is not going to play second fiddle for the rest of his career. Nishikido Ryo can be a total impudent, rude asshole in real life. I don't care. xD One great character and the actor's image will be stuck to my head as that character. ^^ Hey, it is the first step towards seeing the best in people, though I have yet to do that with the people I know in real life.... xD

Anyways, Narumi Riko was also very impressive in here. To think that she was 13 when she was filming this... even more impressive. I foresee great things from her. She's very pretty too. Though I have problems watching "Hachimitsu to Clover", it isn't her fault though. I just really disliked the movie version with Aoi Yuu playing Hagumi. I like Aoi Yuu, but her portrayal of that character pissed me off to no end. TO NO END.

Sawajiri Erika. Married and has not been involved in a drama OR a movie since 2007. Such a waste! And the man is like... 44 years old. 22 years her senior. I mean, she can do better, richer, hotter. What the hell is she thinking? I don't rule out the possibility of love. I would too marry someone that much older than me. That is, if he looks like McDreamy. Gosh, McDreamy is hot. That hair~ But hey, whatever floats their boat, mmmkay?

But it is a disappointment that she isn't working more. She could have done more. I won't be satisfied if I had to give up a career that has yet to peak just because I am getting married. Such a waste. Anyways, her life, not mine.

The drama is one of the must-watch. It didn't achieve high viewership ratings, but it is warm, moving and inspiring. Keep in mind that there was this girl who was struggling with this disease. The hardships portrayed were not fiction. And she persisted and hung on to life as it slips through her fingers. Regardless of all the pain, she hung on to life. A life that those without any disease would waste away.

And among all that, I was initially pulled in by Asou Haruto. Who is probably a fiction, drama-only character. I can't help it. Fangirl instincts. And Ryo's shy and reserved portrayal of the character makes the character reminds me of him. Only a bit kinder and I cannot ever imagine Nishikido Ryo crying. I have seen it numourous times on TV, but as someone else. As Asou Haruto, as Oikawa Sousuke, as Ariake Taisuke. Not as Nishikido Ryo... I just think he's a dead-inside psychopath. xD What? I have a thing or two to say about his hair in here. Didn't suit him, but it was better than that red/blonde perm he had way back when. Erika looks best here, to me.

And young love. It is when we were young that we would be so reckless to get involved in hairy situations. Falling for a sick girl IS a hairy situation. As we grow older, we are too rational to do things like that. Everything becomes something that one should think about carefully, balance the pros and cons. See if there is a chance of having a good return on your investments. Investments of time, effort, affection and money. But when we were younger, such things didn't matter. What I would give to be able to be reckless and brave like that again. To have the freedom to act without thinking about the consequences. I didn't appreciate or make use of the chances to do that when I had them. T_T Oh well.

The songs "Konayuki" and "3 Gatsu 9 Ka" became frequent visitors to my playlist. Even now. ^^ I have gradually forgotten why I liked them so much apart from the songs being good, but after re-watching the drama, a song that is being tied to a good drama is twice as good.

War Breaks Out Amongst Korean Pop Fans, Casualties Not Out of the Question

2009-02-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

Gotta love this — fans of the groups Big Bang and Wondergirls recently joined forces to reserve up to 1700 tickets for the upcoming concert by Dong-bang-shin-ki (DBSK), only to relinquish the tickets at the last minute, rendering the seats useless and costing promoters about 10 million won ($7,225 USD).
I have some insights into how Korean pop fans operate, though thankfully not too many that are first hand. They’re obsessive to put it mildly, and like a number of things in Korean culture, they don’t shy away from taking things to an emotional extreme. Think I’m exaggerating to make for a better post? Well, check out the DBSK Wikipedia page, which details an incident from 2006 in which a DBSK anti-fan tried to murder member Jung Yunho (aka U-Know) by handing him a beverage mixed with super glue.

From Wikipedia:

While the group was filming a variety show in October 2006, U-Know was rushed to the hospital from drinking a beverage given by an anti-fan. U-Know drank from the bottle, believing it was given by a crew member. Because the drink was spiked with super glue, he was quickly instructed by his manager to vomit immediately after drinking it. The Anti turned herself in the next day. The female suspect, whose surname is Ko, apprehended on October 16, was a member of an anti-TVXQ (DBSK) website for over two years. In a letter to TVXQ (DBSK), she states:
“You watch your mouth! Ever since the debut you people (members of TVXQ) were so stuck up. (middle fingers) You people won’t last after a couple years… You would be forever seen as some teen idols not real singers. Do you know your limit? Only little kids like you!…I really want to kill you.”
The incident still left behind unanswered questions, such as why U-know drank from the open container, and how the culprit managed to enter the building of the broadcasting station. U-Know called the police personally to request them not to press charges because “he has a little sister who is almost the woman’s age.” Because of his request, she was not charged.

One can only hope that this fan war doesn’t break out into something serious. Or, on the other hand, one can very much hope things break out into something quite serious. The Big Bang fans (called VIPs) and the Wondergirls fans (called Wonderfuls) have already issued a public apology. However, the DBSK fans (called Cassiopeias) have issued their own public declaration against the VIPs and Wonderfuls. Both statements can be read at PopSeoul, where the post reporting on the fan war has already netted some 320 comments.

[Morning Musume] 2008 Autumn Concert DVD Preview

2009-02-04T08:54:00.001-08:00

Dohhh UP! has released a live performance of “Sono Bamen de Bibiccha Ikenai jan!” from Morning Musume’s 2008 Autumn concert tour, “Morning Musume Concert Tour 2008 Aki ~Resonant LIVE~”. The DVD was filmed on November 3, 2008 at Tokyo Welfare Meeting Hall and will be released on January 28, 2009.
Watch the perfomance on Dohhh UP!.
Click below for the concert setlist.

1. OPENING
2. Sono Bamen de Bibiccha Ikenai jan!
3. Mikan
4. MC1
5. Pepper Keibu
6. VTR - Member Introduction
7. TOP!
8. YAH! Aishitai
9. MC2
10. Inspiration!
11. Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii jan
12. Purple Wind - Ai Takahashi, Risa Niigaki, Koharu Kusumi, Aika Mitsui, Junjun, Linlin
13. Lemon Iro to Milk Tea - Eri Kamei, Sayumi Michishige, Reina Tanaka
14. MC3 - Eri Kamei, Sayumi Michishige, Reina Tanaka
15. Tan Tan Taan! - MilkyWay
16. Watashi no Miryoku ni Kizukanai Donkan na Hito - Aika Mitsui
17. Guruguru JUMP - Koharu Kusumi, Junjun, Linlin
18. Mushoku Toumei na Mama de - Ai Takahashi
19. Take off is now! - Ai Takahashi, Risa Niigaki, Reina Tanaka
20. MC4 - Koharu Kusumi, Aika Mitsui, Junjun, Linlin
21. Dou ni mo Tomaranai
22. Koi no Dial 6700
23. MC5 - Ai Takahashi, Risa Niigaki
24. Souda! We’re ALIVE
25. Onna ni Sachi Are
26. Roman ~MY DEAR BOY~
27. Koko ni Iruzee!
28. MC6
29. Resonant Blue

30. Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisenai Darou?
31. MC7
32. Aozora ga Itsumademo Tsuzuku You na Mirai de Are!
Extras
1. INDIGO BLUE LOVE - Risa Niigaki
2. Lemon Iro to Milk Tea (Eri Kamei Ver.)
3. Lemon Iro to Milk Tea (Sayumi Michishige Ver.)

Kago Ai vs Friday Magazine……again!!

2009-02-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

It seems that Friday magazine is once again trying to dish the dirt about Kago Ai. The latest edition of the magazine which is notorious for outing idols in secret relationships with paparazzi photos to get them into into trouble with their management agency has a story of Kago finding romance with a 33 year old man, an actor called Hidejiro Mizumoto. They snapped her with him at a restaurant and going to his apartment. Both have been working on a new movie which comes out in the summer.
However, Kago has put the record straight in her blog by stating that the guy’s mother is a psychic and she’s been seeking her advice. When she isn’t available her son takes over so there isn’t any romance going on at all.

Illuminati ~Visual Kei Skins

2009-02-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

If you know SL designer Yukio Ida at ALL, you probably know just a little bit about his love affair with Japan. Oh yah, and it's not that Japan the rest of us know, either. It's not Hello Kitty or Pokemon or whatever. Oh!! Speed Racer! No, not that either.

Nope, Yukio Ida, and *Illuminati* Designs features looks and styles inspired by j-rock and Visual Kei bands like Malice Mizer and Chariots... dark, gothic, and bizarre in the most weird and beautiful ways. Personally, I'd never heard of any of it before I found Illuminati... but, well, that's another blog post.

The fact is Yukio has brought some new and interesting ideas into Second Life. Not only one of my favorite designers, he's one of my favorite kinds of designers. He's got an eye for the visually unique and the talent to bring that vision into SL.

So, today we're looking at Illuminati's latest skins, called Visual Kei. These are ugly/beautiful weird/sexy looks that go beyond just goth. We won't be seeing these walking down the runway anytime soon, but that's a shame. These are gorgeous and ghostly, and all part of that SL 'story' I'm always ranting about.

I'm wearing 'Porcelain' for the photos, but these are available in China, Ganguro, Gold and Tan. I love skins like this because they're not easy... they're not 'pretty' or 'normal'. Visual Kei is a skin that challenges the more 'traditional' beautiful people in Second Life...

Oh, and maybe you'll like the music too.

Russia and Japan for Energy Collaboration

2009-01-25T02:32:00.000-08:00

Moscow, Jan 24 (Prensa Latina) The energy cooperation and the bilateral relations centered a phone dialogue Saturday between Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, and Japanese Prime Minister, Taro Aso, confirmed the Kremlin press office in this capital.

During the chat the successful advance of energy megaprojects in the Far East part of Russia was highlighted, impelled by the interrelation of the governments and the private sector of the two countries, the source said.

Corporations of Moscow and Tokyo collaborate in the exploitation of locations of hydrocarbons in the island of Sajalín, where there are the biggest grateful reservations of gas and petroleum of the Federation in the basin of the Pacific.

Medvedev and Aso met last November in Peru during the Summit of the Asia-Pacific Organization.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Serguei Lavrov, travelled to Japan at the beginning of November to discuss matters related with the signature of a peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo, pendent since the end of World War II.

In that occasion both parts agree to foster bilateral efforts for the development of locations of gas and petroleum in eastern Siberia and to accelerate the negotiations on cooperation in the peaceful use of the nuclear energy.

Japan can cover less than 25 percent of its needs of atomic fuel and it is willing to buy Russia a third of all the enriched uranium Russia imports, Euro-Asian expert Anton Jlopkov said.

Toyota’s 2009 Global Output to Fall 20%, Tokyo Shimbun Says

2009-01-25T02:28:00.000-08:00

Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest automaker, will cut worldwide vehicle production by at least 20 percent this calendar year as a global recession damps demand, the Tokyo Shimbun reported today, without citing sources.

The carmaker will produce about 6.5 million vehicles this year, down from an estimated 8.21 million vehicles in 2008, the newspaper said. The figure excludes output by units Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd., it said.

Toyota is scheduled to release 2008 global production figures on Jan. 28.

Toyota said last week worldwide vehicle sales fell 4 percent to 8.972 million in 2008, the first drop in 10 years. The automaker, based in the central Japan city of Toyota, expects to post its first operating loss in 71 years for the 12 months ending March 31, as the credit crunch discourages consumers from buying new cars.

Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco could not be reached immediately on his cell phone for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Makiko Kitamura in Tokyo at at Mkitamura1@bloomberg.net.

Yakushiji temple to host chant concert in Paris

2009-01-25T02:27:00.000-08:00

Yakushiji temple in Nara will host a shomyo Buddhist chant concert in Paris for the first time to publicize the 1,300th anniversary of the Nara Heijokyo ancient capital.

Various events will be held throughout Nara Prefecture in 2010.

The shomyo concert in Paris was organized by the Japan Tourism Agency as part of the Visit Japan Campaign promotion, which aims to attract more foreign tourists to Japan.

Shomyo is a type of vocal music chanted by monks during Buddhist rituals. The chanting style differs by religious sect.

According to an ancient record, shomyo was performed at the eye-opening ceremony of the Great Buddha at Todaiji temple in Nara in 752.

Shomyo has attracted attention as healing music, and CDs of the chanting are available at record shops.

Shomyo is sometimes chanted at a series of events organized nationwide by the temple to offer people an opportunity to think about the Japanese way of life. The temple also has performed shomyo in foreign countries, including Germany and the United States, for about 20 years.

The Paris concert will be held on Feb. 17 at the Maison de la Culture du Japon a Paris.

During the event, seven priests will chant shomyo in repentance for sins or mistakes for about an hour on the stage decorated with a panel of a statue of Yakushi Nyorai.

Eiin Yasuda, chief abbot of the temple, will lecture on seeking a spiritual home.

Hoin Yamada, the vice abbot of the temple, said listening to shomyo at the Paris concert would give people an opportunity to learn about Nara and the 1,300th anniversary of the ancient capital.

Where there's bras

2009-01-25T02:22:00.000-08:00

MICHELLE MONE is talking balls. "I don't know if it will be this year, but we are definitely launching Ultimo for Men. It will have strong fabric where you need it - to, you know, hold you up." The 37-year-old mother of three stifles a giggle. We are in Mone's smart, glass-panelled office in the East Kilbride headquarters of her multi-million pound lingerie business, MJM International, a company as famous for its glamorous, straight-talking boss as it is for its most successful product, its gel-filled, cleavage-enhancing Ultimo bra.

As a man, I am acutely aware that I am principally here to discuss ladies' underwear. During the course of my meeting with Mone, bra straps will be fiddled with and cleavages examined. And why not? Men ogle women's underwear every day, surreptitiously, on the street, in the office, in the tabloids and online. We are, in some ways, the ultimate consumers of Mone's products. "Did you notice how the front of the building is shaped like a breast?" her assistant asked me with a knowing smile as she led me up to the stairs to Mone's room. "Erm, no," I reply hesitantly.

Perhaps on a subconscious level, I did notice it. Mone is, after all, a very accomplished operator when it comes to marketing her brand. Ultimo has made her a very wealthy woman, with recent reports suggesting the business is worth more than £50 million.

Mone herself is guarded about her finances. "This company is cash rich. We now have no overdraft. This company now has its own building - this place - which we own. This company now has bought all our shareholders out. But no-one knows what I take out or what I do with it." What we do know is that MJM is preparing to launch a major new product range for girls in May - Miss Ultimo.

Before we get into that, a pressing question. Will Mr Ultimo or whatever it's going to be called, have any gel in it? "Of course not!" She laughs. "Everyone thinks that all we do is gel. We don't. We have eight brands now and only one of our inventions has gel in it."

Like, I suspect, many men reading this, I can feel myself relax as it becomes clear that the lingerie queen is not out to challenge my manhood with any silicone enhancements. "Ultimo for men will just have lovely fabric. My technical teams here and in Hong Kong are working on it right now."

They had better get a move on, because their boss is bursting to get to grips with the finished article. "I just can't wait to have male models coming in for their fitting sessions because I have had 13 years of female models and celebrity women coming in, and seeing my husband staring at them and going, Oh that wire's not quite right.' Now I can go up to these men and go, Oh that's not quite right on your left ball.' So it's payback time!" Men please note: the lingerie queen gives trunks the thumbs-up, but boxer shorts are a no-no.

Mone and her husband, Michael, are at the head of the family business, which Mone set up with tycoon Tom Hunter's help in 1996. Michael's job is to "look after all the boring stuff in the business that I don't want to do". Also contributing is Mone's mother. "That's my mum out there." She points through a glass door to the shop floor. "She helps out with returns. She loves it. But my dad is very sick at the moment. He's in a wheelchair and not doing so well." When Mone was 15, and the family lived in Glasgow's east end, her father awoke one morning to find himself paralysed by a rare spinal condition. A few years before that her brother, who suffered from spina bifida, died. That Mone experienced such profound tragedies at a formative age seems to go a long way towards explaining her temperament, which has a definite hard edge. One woman I know suggested Mone is not unlike a good bra herself: smart, sexy and feminine - but cutting if rubbed up the wrong way. Anyone who saw her infamous performance in The Apprentice: You're Fired! last year, in which she locked horns with unsuccessful contestant Katie Hopkins, has seen Mone's rage at first hand. "She really angered me. That clip is one of the most-watched on You Tube, apparently."

Miss Ultimo was designed with the help of Mone's eldest child, 16-year-old Rebecca. The idea behind getting her daughter on board was simple: to find out what teenagers want from a bra. "My design team are a lot older than Rebecca, so it was decided that she would get involved. I've been training her since she was eight." Mone shows me samples of the new product, which will be launched at £16 to target brand-conscious youngsters for whom the main Ultimo range is too expensive. Miss Ultimo has a lot of the kind of detailing which, Mone's daughter tells her girls of that age really like. On the inside of the cups is the embossed image of a sexy lady. The pink packaging, which advertises the bra's properties, uses words like "fun" and "flirty".

I don’t feel I should be criticised for launching a younger range.It’s not as if I’m bringing out crotchless knickers or bras where you can see the nipples through them

Miss Ultimo is an attractive product. But that's exactly why it might worry some parents. According to the Just 17 principle, although Miss Ultimo is aimed at girls of 16 and upwards, in reality many of its aspiring customers are likely to be considerably younger. In a world where children are becoming sexually active at an ever-younger age, doesn't Mone worry that Miss Ultimo might send out the wrong message? "I don't feel I should be criticised for launching a younger range," she says. "It's not as if I'm bringing out crotchless knickers or bras where you can see the nipples through them. Miss Ultimo bras are plain and fun, and made from good-quality Italian and French fabrics that you just wouldn't normally get at that price point.

"From the age of about 12 or 13 a girl will need a bra," she continues. "It is harmful if they don't wear one. It's bad for their breasts, which have to be supported. Miss Ultimo is targeted at age 16, but if mothers want to buy it for girls that are younger then I'm not going to stop them. But please go for the non-wired version, because at 15 and under girls shouldn't be wearing a wired bra, for the good development of their breasts."

As a mother herself, Mone insists she is very comfortable with the Miss Ultimo image. Rebecca is living proof that she knows what it is like bringing up a teenager. "Rebecca hit her dad with a bomb the other day," she reveals, "And he's not happy with her." The bombshell was her decision to quit school. Instead of going into sixth year and then on to university, which is her father's wish, the strong-willed youngster will leave school in April. "She takes after her dad," says Mone, who quit school herself at 15 and hasn't done too badly out of it. But it seems clear that Rebecca Mone does, in fact, take after someone other than her dad. "Well, she is into design. She sets the trend at the school and she's always been into fashion. I know I'm biased about this, but she's stunning, 5ft 11in, and intelligent. She wants to go into a pop group or something like that. She wants to go for it, and she's determined. We've got all these magazines like Cosmo and Hello and OK wanting to do shoots with her. But we are keeping her way back from that." This is an oblique reference to a recent tabloid newspaper story, which reported that Mone and her husband have banned Rebecca from modelling the undies she helped design.

Mone claims she gives her children a lot of leeway, and that she takes a relaxed approach to parenting. "I just hate pushy mums, you know."

However, she has admitted to suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, which can make life challenging at her home in Thorntonhall, about five minutes away from Ultimo headquarters. She runs her family like a business, using "key performance indicators" to assess the weekly progress of her children, husband and household staff.

There is no doubt Mone has made a lot of sacrifices in trying to balance her role as a young mother of three with that of a successful businesswoman. She recently admitted that she returned to work just a few days after giving birth to her youngest child, Bethany - the other being her son, Declan - and that she cried in between meetings because of the guilt and the heartache.

Her guilt might explain her controversial stance on the question of paid maternity leave, the length of which has recently been increased by the government. "I think, to be honest, where it was before was very, very fair I just think maternity law has gone too far now." In 2006, Mone was ordered to pay compensation by an employment tribunal to a woman who claimed she was forced out of her job because she became pregnant. But Mone denies that she has done anything wrong, or that she discriminates against women who want to have children. "We've got a lot of staff on maternity leave at the moment and, if you see our team of women, there are only about four who are not within the ages where they could have a baby. All the women in here apart from those four could be pregnant by tomorrow, although hopefully not this afternoon in the toilets."

Mone's candour, humour and directness is refreshing. "If we just say nothing, and don't express an opinion, what does that makes us as people?" Her questioning attitude prompted some testing exchanges several years ago, when she converted from her Protestant faith to marry into Michael's Catholic family. When Michael said he wanted the couple's children to be brought up Catholic, Mone agreed, but with some reservations. "For a year, three nights a week I went to classes. And I used to sit down with the priests and the nuns, and challenge them. At the end, I said to my husband, I now know a lot more about this religion than I do about my own, and I enjoyed going to these classes. But I don't believe in everything that they stand for."

The Madonna that has had the greater influence on Mone is the material girl herself. "I totally respect her. She changed how women wore their lingerie. They started to wear corsets outside their clothes. Madonna is saying to women, Be yourself. Be sexy and enjoy it. And if you've got it, flaunt it.'"

Madonna's talent for reinvention is what impresses Mone the most. Mone is taking Miss Ultimo in a new direction, with an as-yet-unnamed girl band being signed to promote it. Previously, the main Ultimo range has been marketed with endorsement and modelling by individual celebrities like Penny Lancaster, Rod Stewart's girlfriend. "In the past we used one person as the face and body of Ultimo, but with Miss Ultimo we will have a group, which will be much more fun." Using the various members of a girl band, each with their own distinctive flavour, shrewdly taps in to teenagers' clique culture and gives the product a wider appeal.

"Some people will look at one member of a girl group wearing Miss Ultimo and see themselves in that person."

Mone has created an image of the person she wants to be, and strives hard to achieve it. Today she looks much slimmer and younger than a few years ago, when personal and business troubles caused her weight to spiral out of control. "My dad was probably the big influence in my weight loss. Because my weight had ballooned all the way out to six-and-a-half stone overweight, I was miserable. I felt I couldn't get out of it. That was until my dad wrote me a letter, which I still keep in a wee box with the kids' birth bellybutton tags, and it says, Michelle I really love you, but you're ruining your life. You're not happy. For your own health and your marriage and your kids, you need to lose this weight.'"

The next day, Mone went to see nutrition expert Jan de Vries in Troon. Using a herbal slimming remedy developed by de Vries, Mone regained control of her weight. Whether this was really down to de Vries's treatment or not is a matter of controversy, but Mone is so convinced that she bought into it and now jointly produces a slimming pill with de Vries called Trim Secrets.

Mone argues that positivity was never a more precious commodity than now, as recession grips the land. "We need to all get positive now because doom and gloom creates a vicious circle. I was made redundant 13 years ago and, yes, I was depressed for about a month. But I thought, well, I can keep going down and down, and get into trouble in my marriage, because I'm so depressed or I can do something about it. So I started a business and went from there to here. You've got to turn that negative into a positive."

Recession or not, there is no sign of Mone slowing down or running out of avenues for expansion. On top of Miss Ultimo, she reveals, tantalisingly: "We have just done our biggest-ever deal, for £60 million, which I hope to announce in April. And I want to launch Ultimo Perfume. I love perfume that goes well with lingerie. That makes you feel sweet and sexy. In fact, I've got so much to do, I don't feel like I've made it yet. I'm maybe half-way there."

The joys of marriage Or the lack of it?

2009-01-25T02:20:00.000-08:00

I hear a survey in Bongo has shown that those young fellows who have been showing plenty of teeth in our Sunday papers and ‘celebrating’ marriage are having second thoughts about the joys of marriage. They don’t like it one bit.

A whopping 93 per cent of 200 women who were asked if they enjoyed the joys of marriage said, no way. They would rather get a divorce, but they feared for their kids. The guys they agreed to get hitched to are a disaster. There are lots of regrets: ‘If I only knew….’

Marriage is fast becoming an anachronism. Many are increasingly saying that the institution belongs to the past and you don’t need it. Of course those religious types will be looking daggers at me and my likes. But I can fight my corner.

In the days when my old guy met the old girl, all he had to do a fact was organize a posse of like minded young crooks and wait by the water well. When a girl of their fancy came along, they would grab her and flee with her.

Then tomorrow the culprit in the posse would go to the girl’s family, waving a white flag and confess to have ‘stolen’ the girl. I am sure her father might have given the nod to the future son-in-law to go ahead. He was fined a few cows and ordered to give other offerings – a thing which he paid respectfully, and that was it. They were then declared man and wife.

Come the 21st century and there is a global village at work. The world has become so small. You don’t have to organize a posse to go after some chick by the water well. All you have to do is go to a disco. In fact both sexes organize inter-sexual posses – they call them discos. That is a more agreeable way of the boy-meets-girl show.

Then they go for each other like horny rabbits. Which all of which most of us went through. The unlucky ones even get married. The lucky one escape. You don’t believe that? Find a chick you thought you would marry ten years ago. You will thank the spirit of your forefathers, didn’t.

Now before couple marry the boy and girl look very nice when they open their parent’s fridge for a chicken and tomato sandwich and a beer. No questions asked (the Papa-this and Mama-that types). But when they get married they find they have to pay for that chicken and tomato sandwich from their own pockets.

Trouble is there is no pocket to be had – unless, of course, if your parents are in that bunch of fisadis made with a lot of stealing from the EPA scandals. You realize that money can be very romantic. The girl first realizes the guys sexy even if he looks like he has just been living in the Congo Tropical forest. And if he is also very free and eager to connect his fists with her lovely face, she still finds him sexy because he has the dosh.

So she thinks he will change with time though the Neanderthal behaviour in men is very difficult to change. The guy does not realize that he has just married an Amazon, who can head-butt like some an angry goat when provoked. And when they are busy manhandling each other, junior is wailing for ‘nyo-nyo’. You get a terrible sense of disillusionment with the institution of marriage. You want out!

Or you live in a state of armed truce – separate bedrooms, no talking to each other, unless you have guests. You seek comfort and affection from any creature which looks like a man or woman. But, not to worry too much. Women are increasingly earning an income and do not need to live and tolerate obnoxious men. They can have babies whose fathers they don’t know.

Men can hire a womb. Just get the seed and you can rent a womb, for a small fee. You get your baby without working up a sweat! It also unshackles women from the notion of being ‘looked after’ by men. Since women can earn their own money, they can get a couple of gigolos for manly attention. Who wants to be lumbered by a snoring gorilla reeking of beer in bed? And which man wants to be shouted dizzy by an Amazon who talks like she has swallowed 120 minute digital CD? The institution of marriage is fast on its way out!

Lingerie trends in bad times: simple or sexy

2009-01-25T02:09:00.000-08:00

Blair Thornley/ For the Times

Lingerie trends in bad times: simple or sexy

Two types of buyers are lifting the strapped market during the economic downturn.

Sugar and spice -- or everything nice? It's opposites that are propelling the lingerie market as the U.S. economy unravels and more Americans stay home. Whether it's blasé basics or come-hither costumes, nesting is giving rise to dueling trends in the lace-trimmed world of intimate apparel. Comfort is paralleling escapism.

"It's almost like the good girl and the bad girl," said Rita Nakouzi, North American director of the fashion forecasting agency, Promostyl. "People are definitely [staying home] more, and what's interesting is that it plays out in two ways. On the one hand, it's about wanting things that are more second skin that make you feel cocooned. On the other, it becomes a little bit more naughty and about fantasy."

Like so many other aspects of the American experience these days, today's lingerie climate is taking at least some of its cues from the Depression. Back then, "If women had any money at all to spend on clothes, it was something to help the clothes look good on them," said Jane Farrell-Beck, author of the book "Uplift: The Bra in America." So, foundations, as they called them -- brassieres and girdles -- "those were the thing," she said.

That trend toward sturdy foundations is mirrored in today's fragile economic climate. Women still need something to cover their backsides and to keep the girls in place.

"If you can't go out and buy a whole new wardrobe, you can at least have a good bra that makes you look good in the clothes you already have. A little treat in lingerie is less expensive than going out and buying a new outfit," said Jen Abercrombie, owner of the Panty Raid boutique in Silver Lake.

"People aren't taking as many chances," she added. They're sticking to the basics, and they want the ones that work.

Intimate apparel was one of the last retail segments to droop as the economy headed south last year. Though women's sportswear began to falter last spring, the straps didn't start slipping off the lingerie business until late fall. Unit sales in November were down from a year prior, but the dip didn't approach Detroit-level lows, according to New York-based market research firm NPD Group. Sales had dropped 4%.

The "must-have" nature of intimates helped keep the news from being worse. Even in good economic times, need is the No. 1 reason women buy lingerie. It's a lot more acceptable to wear last year's outfit than it is to don a ratty bra. Especially these days, when straps are purposefully exposed for fashion, bits of dangly elastic and sagging, bagging fabric won't fly. Yet bags and sags are inevitable. Underwear is perishable. Subject to intense use, there's only so much an intimate garment can take before the elastic loses its snap or an underwire pokes its patron.

That was the sad state of affairs that brought Karen Salvador to the intimate apparel department of a Pasadena Macy's on a recent Monday. The 28-year-old physical therapist was tired of hitching up the worn-out strap on the bra she bought from Target just six months earlier. Describing her financial situation as "so-so," Salvador doesn't ordinarily shop at Macy's, she said. But she's trying to save money in the long run by spending a little bit more on a better-quality brand up front.

Perusing the racks of plain beige separates from Calvin Klein, Maidenform and Warner, Salvador said, "Maybe I can use it for a longer period of time instead of just buying those cheapie bras that will wear out and then I need to buy one again. I would rather go to a thrift store, but I'm looking for a bra that I can use for a long time."

"Replenishment" is the F cup of lingerie market segments. It's the biggest reason for sales. "Technology" (undergarments that shape bodies and form the surgery-free illusions of more or less) and "fantasy" (highly sexualized items that provide escapism through role play) are smaller pieces of the pie. But of those smaller pieces, fantasy is the one that's selling.

"In times where everything is expensive -- entertainment, going out to dinner -- rediscovering the joys of the bedroom for much less money comes into play," said Joelle Saxon, owner of Mrs. Jones Boudoir in Camarillo. At Saxon's boutique, garter belts, bustiers and other "very feminine, risqué things that spark the imagination" are doing well, she said.

At Trashy Lingerie, it's bedroom costumes. Walk past the pink-trimmed, plate-glass windows of this appropriately named WestHollywood shop, and the interior is a titillating emporium of silky thongs, leather-trimmed corsets and Lucite heels, but it's the skimpy, sexually charged maid, nurse and schoolgirl uniforms that are the "classics" at this members-only boutique.

"We sell that every day, all day long," quipped a shopkeeper on a recent Sunday, referring to the bevy of low-cut tie tops and panty-skimming micro minis that put the "tart" in tartan.

"Lingerie, I feel like it's the best way to spice things up," said Daniel Volz, 23, who was shopping at Trashy with his girlfriend over the weekend.

"I love looking at it. She loves wearing it. It's a match made in heaven," he said before being summoned to a velvet-curtained dressing room where his petite blond girlfriend Keri had transformed herself from T-shirt-wearing everywoman to super-vixen. As she twirled in front of the mirror, showing off her enviably lithe figure in a black and pink garter skirt with matching push-up bra and platforms, Volz enthused: "Do you see why I like lingerie so much?"

Sex will always sell -- even in a down economy. When it's packaged as a pair of frilly lace panties trimmed with satiny pink ribbon, it's just selling slightly less than it had a year earlier. "Lingerie is one of the most passionate consumer purchases, but it is not invincible in this economic downturn," said Marshal Cohen, senior analyst for the NPD Group. Still, it's one of the last categories consumers stop buying, and "it will most likely be one of the first to return," he added.

"If I was looking at the economy from the government's perspective, I wouldn't look at the auto or house industries. I would be looking at intimate apparel, because that will clearly show me when the consumer is saying: 'I don't want to feel lousy anymore. No, I don't have more money. But I need to feel good again.' "

Well, at least I was Japanese, then..

2009-01-25T01:01:00.000-08:00

A happy new year in super late, guys!;-)
Oh no, I haven't uploaded my article almost for a month....
I've been very busy, though mostly in front of the computer:-(
I just hate it.... Thank God, that I got fashion shows in following month;-)
2 shows, rehearsal, projects with an editor, etc etc....

Oh, by the way I shot new photoes, with Yukata;-)

Yukata is one of traditional Japanese cloth for summer.
The material is lighter than Kimono.
Though people almost never wear it nowadays, still we put it when there are festivals or some special events.
This is the first time to shoot photoes of Yukata for me, so that was a nice experience. Not bad, as not as I expected.(at least, I'm still Japanese,hehee)
The photographer is always, great Sayaka Shibata
I really love her works.

Today I finally got free day. My muscles hurt, because of rehearsals for shows.
But I just love this tiredness.(no, I'm not workholic)
Ah, I have to pay attention to carry my bag with left hand instead of my right hand though.
My balnce of the body is bit broken. For example I never cross my legs,(all ladies try to do this, but it causes just unbalance of the skelton.) but now I have to care much more as possible for shows....

Now this is the season to take exams for administration of high school for my littele sister.
Her want is to become an opera singer just like my mother, so she's been practicing hard to get enter to musical high school.
However, the other day she failed the exam of her first choise.But this is not fair, because this school almost never takes anyone. As we expected, they didn't take anyone for this year.
Now she's going to attend second choise on 3rd February.
Anyway she'll be fine, she's really a Brava opera singer. Besides, schools are not important, seriously, the thing we care is the voice and ability she has.
That's something that I envy about classical music world, there isn't any fair justice like this in my entertainment world.
Oh,hey, I'm not complaining, I don't care in the end. I just do what I have to and want to, and if I'm not making people sad or sorrow because of that just so fine.

Just like always, things are changing and so are yours.
Universe never stops its stream, and come on, just let's follow the big flow with....big wishes for others, and littele wish for OURSELVES!

well, not even littele, if it's not too much, that's fine,hehee

Scenario Men>Yes,I really hope you'll find some solution for your mother.

Calder> A happy new year! I really hope this year brings you and your children a lot of happiness, as the time does always;-)

My USICA> Buon capodanno! Say hello to Italy for me please!

Terra> Grazie x i complimenti. Ma i miei gatti nn hanno nessun razzo. Pero' forse sono mescolati, ecco, x questo sono belli cmq;-)

Pocoyo> Grazie, anke la bambola della foto tua del profilo e' cho kawaii!

Sam> Thank you Sam, Nihongo zyouzu ne!

jhany etherington> Thank you, yes, I never change the core of my self;-)

Stanzer_V> Classic? Wow, that's really good to hear!

GAGAY> I read your article and I also wish that they will be able to find some solution. And I really wish the pain of this world decreases as much as possible.

Actress Erika Sawajiri and media creator Tsuyoshi Takashiro get married at Meiji Shrine

2009-01-25T00:34:00.000-08:00

Actress Erika Sawajiri, 22, and media creator Tsuyoshi Takashiro, 44, tied the knot on Monday at Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi in front of friends and family, and also a large media contingent plus a thousand or so fans and onlookers.

The media throng of roughly 200 and the thousand or so onlookers got a glimpse of Sawajiri as she walked along the corridors toward the inner shrine. She wore a white kimono featuring embroidered gold cranes, a large headpiece made of lilies, and colored contact lens. The many people on the sidelines kept congratulating her and telling her she looked beautiful. Sawajiri kept her head slightly down, but was all smiles from start to finish.

The media got wind of their upcoming marriage just before Sawajiri and Takashiro returned to Japan from London in late December. The pair registered their marriage on Jan 7, which fell on the most auspicious of the days - or “taian” - according to the six-day “rokuyo” calendar, and they will hold a small reception in Hawaii for their close friends later this month.

Actress Erika Sawajiri and media creator Tsuyoshi Takashiro get married at Meiji Shrine

2009-01-24T16:55:00.000-08:00

Erika Sawajiri Married

2009-01-24T16:30:00.000-08:00

Earlier last week .. i told everyone that Erika Sawajir is getting married.. well true to the announcement.. she did get married on the 19th Jan and looking very beautiful indeed. The ceremony took place in Meiji Shrine and loads of fans were there to wish her well.. and she in return kept saying “Domo” .. meaning thanks.. in Japanese. She was a beautiful bride alright.. but her media creator husband who is about 20 yrs her senior doesn’t look like the charming prince i would have hope for her. Anyhow.. i some gals in Japan would die to look like Erika and my g/fs in Japan swears by Fentraphen to look slim and confident. i wouldn’t mind taking some too.. if i could look like Erika eh..

Americans Sympathetic Toward Israel on Gaza in Poll

2009-01-24T16:06:00.000-08:00

A majority of Americans sympathized more with the Israelis than the Palestinians during the recent war in the Gaza Strip, according to a CNN opinion poll that points to a divergence from European views of the conflict.

Sixty percent of Americans in the nationwide survey said they were sympathetic toward the Israelis, compared with 17 percent who supported the Palestinians, CNN reported today on its Web site. A recent European poll showed that 23 percent of French people said the Palestinian Hamas group was primarily responsible for the war while 18 percent mainly blamed Israel.

The results indicate Israel successfully communicated in the U.S. its view that it had to defend itself against rocket attacks from the militant Hamas organization that controls Gaza and is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union. More than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the 22-day war.

The CNN poll showed that 63 percent of Americans felt Israel was justified in taking military action, compared with 30 percent who disagreed. The poll of 1,245 adults was conducted Jan. 12-15, before the Israeli military campaign ended in a cease-fire on Jan. 17. Conducted by Opinion Research Corp., it had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The findings largely echo those of a poll conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which reported that American sympathy with Israel was unchanged since its military campaign began with an aerial assault on Dec. 27.

Military Action

Sympathy for Israel exceeded that for the Palestinians by a margin of 49 percent to 11 percent, according to the Pew poll. The results narrowed when respondents were questioned on Israel’s military action in Gaza, with 40 percent approving and 33 percent disapproving.

The Pew poll surveyed 1,503 adults Jan. 7-11, with a margin of error at plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The French poll, conducted by CSA, found that 28 percent of respondents blamed Israel and Hamas equally. That telephone survey questioned a representative nationwide sample of 958 people on Jan. 7-8. CSA didn’t report a margin of error on its Web site.

To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net.

Harley to cut 1,100 jobs as amid slowdown in motorcycle sales

2009-01-24T02:10:00.000-08:00

Harley-Davidson Inc. said Friday that it would cut 1,100 jobs over two years, close some facilities and consolidate others as it grappled with a slowdown in motorcycle sales.

The Milwaukee company also reported its fourth-quarter profit fell nearly 60%, and said it was slashing motorcycle shipments in 2009 to cope with reduced demand.

The motorcycle maker said it would consolidate two engine and transmission plants in Milwaukee into its Menomonee Falls, Wis., facility. It will shrink its paint and frame operations in its York, Pa., plant and close its distribution facility in Franklin, Wis., whose duties will be handled by a third party.

Harley also is closing its domestic transportation operation -- its fleet of long-haul truckers who transport parts between manufacturing facilities -- and outsourcing duties to a third party. The cuts make up slightly more than 10% of the company's total workforce.

Harley has been stung by the rapid downturn in motorcycle demand. The recession has prompted many consumers to put off purchases of its high-end bikes, while the credit crunch has kept some would-be customers from obtaining financing.

Harley said worldwide retail sales fell 13.1% in the fourth quarter, with sales in the U.S. -- its biggest market -- falling nearly 20%.

For the full year, worldwide retail sales fell 7.1%.

Harley said it was slashing motorcycle shipments in 2009 to between 264,000 and 273,000 to cope with the down market. That would be a drop of 10% to 13% from a year earlier.

Harley said its profit declined 58% to $77.8 million, or 34 cents a share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with $186.1 million, or 78 cents, last year. Revenue dropped 6.8% to $1.29 billion.

The earnings fell short of Wall Street estimates. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected 57 cents a share on sales of $1.29 billion, on average.

Shares of Harley fell 90 cents, or 7.3%, to $11.50. The stock is down 69% in the last 52 weeks.

Microsoft Shuts Down 'Flight Simulator' Game Studio

2009-01-24T02:07:00.000-08:00

As the rest of the tech world scrambles to assess the implications of the recently announced 5,000 layoffs at software giant Microsoft, news has come in that might potentially spell the end of the company's nearly 30-year-old Flight Simulator series.
Microsoft confirmed Friday that the software giant has shuttered ACES Studios, the developer of the Flight Simulator series of games, whose latest incarnation is Flight Simulator X. The simulation is considered Microsoft's oldest product, whose original version first shipped in 1982.
However, a Microsoft spokeswoman said that while the studio has been closed, the software company remains committed to the Flight Simulator franchise, without explaining how future products can be launched without a dedicated software development team backing them.
"We can confirm the closing of ACES Studios, which was responsible for the Flight Simulator franchise," Microsoft spokeswoman Kelda Rericha told Appscout. "Following our annual strategy review process, IEB [Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business unit] is making adjustments within our business to align our people against our highest priorities. The closure of ACES Studios was one of those specific changes."

Rericha refused to disclose any further details regarding the future of the company. She did, however, suggest that the Flight Simulator series is likely to stick around in some form or another. "We are committed to the Flight Simulator franchise, which has proven to be a successful PC-based game for the last 27 years," Rericha added. "You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great Live experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time."

Of course, the Flight Simulator franchise is a fairly broad one, and anything falling under the largely online Live umbrella would likely be fairly different than the game's traditionally resource-intensive online incarnation.
"It's definitely confusing; I wish I had more clarification on that that we could provide, Rericha added. "At this point, they're just not talking about it yet – how the product will, and if the product will, live within Microsoft."
Microsoft does not have a time frame on when it will provide additional information, Rericha added.
The most likely scenario seems that, like the rest of us, Microsoft is still attempting to assess exactly how such a large number of redundancies will affect its business strategy. Projects like Flight Simulator have likely been given a lower priority than, say, Windows or Office, and therefore their fates are still not entirely certain even in Redmond.
Numerous contractors also confirmed that they'd been let go in the ACES layoffs, including independent coders who were also fans of the series.
"One thing that every person at ACES will tell you is that the community and each of you in it mean the world to us for sharing our passion of flight, and so it really hurts that Gib and I can't tell you more," "PlaneEater, one of the affected contractors, wrote in a thread on SimOuthouse.com. "I was a FS fan before I joined the FS team, and being able to work on the sim we all love so much was a dream come true. I just want to thank everyone here for the time and passion they've poured into Flight Sim for so many years, and to let you all know that every person at ACES is in awe of how much the community cares about what we build."
It seems unlikely that Flight Simulator will go away entirely, even if it means branding a Live game with the name, fans speculated.
A version of this post originally appeared on AppScout.

Mac or PC: Making the Big Switch

2009-01-24T01:38:00.000-08:00

The Mac vs. PC "war" has been going on since many of us were still in grade school. As for me, I've been torn between the two for about that long. But switching back and forth for me was in large part a combination of necessity and desire. Let me explain.
I learned to run PC-DOS, program BASIC, and write Pascal programs on the original IBM PC in 1982. In those days, you got text with a text graphics card and bare-bones color graphics with a CGA adapter, and I thought it was the height of cool that I could play Microsoft Flight Simulator during downtime. I was so smitten with the new tech that when the ill-fated PCjr came out, I almost convinced my parents to get us one.
Soon after that, my buddy John showed me an article in Creative Computing magazine about an upcoming computer called Macintosh from the company that produced our "ancient" Apple II computers. I didn't think much about it, since Apple was obviously yesterday's news, and the future of the PC was all in IBM's hands. Apple II was a dying, closed-off system, while the IBM PC was the system that both businesses and consumers thought of when they thought of computers.
Then I got a summer job at a local Computer Depot, and consequently got some hands-on time with the Macintosh. The first-generation 128K Mac was underpowered, to be sure, but the new graphics interface sure beat having to type DOS commands just to get to the word processor and modem terminal program. Call me fickle, but when I "got it," the way was clear: Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) were the wave of the future. For college, I chose a brand-new Apple Macintosh Plus. It had the power the original Mac lacked, and by that time there were enough software packages to make it useful. I mean, MacPaint and MacWrite were cool, but you need to do other things like connect with CompuServe, right? That Mac saw me through college, with an 800K floppy disk drive, a 20GB SCSI hard drive, various modems, Apple ImageWriter printer, and 4MB memory upgrades along the way. I upgraded to a Mac Performa 400 while in grad school. But, alas, the real world waited.
My first job out of college was as an IT dude at a major record label, where I serviced the art department, which, of course, worked with Macs. I got a crash course in Lotus Notes and saw how a mixed PC/Mac environment worked, which wasn't too well in those days. The lines were drawn between the creatives (Macs) and the corporate side (PCs). I still liked the Mac as a platform, but the incompatibilities were maddening. You couldn't reliably get a PC-written Word document to read right on a Mac if you'd done any formatting on it. Even keyboards and monitors were on different, noninterchangeable standards (PS2 versus ADB keyboards, VGA versus DB15 monitors, and the like), leading to walled gardens where the Macs played with each other and the PCs did the same. Networking was just starting to bridge the gap, but the gatekeepers (network managers) absolutely hated that work, so it got done only when necessary.

Rihanna 'Too Sexy' For Malaysia

2009-01-24T01:30:00.000-08:00

R&B sensation Rihanna's world tour faces the axe in Malaysia because she is deemed too sexy.

Rihanna's sex appeal is unappealing to Asian values, says the PAS party

The country's conservative Islamic party have called for the 20-year-old American to be banned for her provocative stagewear.

They say Rihanna's skimpy outfits from her "Good Girl Gone Bad" tour would be an insult to Asian values.

But even if the Umbrella star reined in her sexy clothing, it seems global politics also threaten her chances of playing the Southeast Asia federation on February 13.

The Pan-Malaysian Islamic party (PAS) has led protests against the US over its support for Israel.

One of the party's youth leaders warned potential concertgoers that buying tickets would help boost America's war chest.

Beyonce scrapped Malaysia gig

"Whether Rihanna realises it or not, we know that the taxes she has paid also contributed to the war in Gaza," Kamaruzaman Mohamad told Malay newspaper the Star daily.

The event was "akin to insulting Eastern culture, belittling local artistes, internationally causing losses to the country's economy and supporting Israel's war policy," he said.

Kamaruzaman urged authorities who hand out concert permits in the country to block the application.

The concert's sponsor told the daily that Rihanna has agreed to follow local regulations for her performance but did not give details.

Rihanna (real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty) is not the first big star to face such flack.

Last year, US singer Beyonce scrapped a planned concert in Malaysia due to protest fears.

In 2006 the Pussycat Dolls were slapped with a £2,000 fine for falling foul of the country's decency laws.

Weather girl Sian in sexy romp

2009-01-24T01:28:00.000-08:00

Welsh TV weather reader Sian Lloyd and Welsh actresses Joanna Page and Margaret John are to star in a sexually explicit play in Cardiff.

The three will appear in The Vagina Monologues in which women talk about their most intimate secrets such as sex, orgasms and relationships.

The three will join the show for a five-night run at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff from March 2 to 6.

Page and John are stars of the BBC TV show Gavin and Stacey. Joanna shot to fame playing Stacey with Margaret playing neighbour Doris in the award-winning series.

And the two Swansea women will be working alongside Maesteg-born TV presenter Sian Lloyd, whose autobiography, A Funny Kind of Love, was released last year.

Sian Lloyd began her broadcasting career with the BBC, joining ITV Weather in 1990. She has appeared on I'm a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here!, and Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

The Vagina Monologues is in its tenth year of performances throughout the UK.

The producers say more than two million people have seen the show, over 25,000 fake orgasms have been witnessed, and audiences are still clamouring for more.

Sometimes the show embarrasses even famous actresses who appear in it. Maureen Lipman said, "I've decided to tell my mother I'm starring in the Geneva Monologues and it's about
a group of Swiss women in banking."

Obama seeks congressional consensus on stimulus plan

2009-01-24T01:23:00.000-08:00

BLOOMBERG NEWS

January 24, 2009

President Barack Obama pressed congressional leaders Friday to reach a consensus on an $825-billion stimulus plan, warning the country may be facing an "unprecedented" economic crisis.

Obama said that, while there are "some differences" between his administration and lawmakers on the details, the legislation is "on target" for passage by mid-February.

"We are experiencing an unprecedented, perhaps, economic crisis that has to be dealt with," Obama said as he began a meeting with nine Democratic and Republican leaders at the White House. He also called for greater oversight of spending by financial institutions that get bailout money.

The administration and Congress are confronted with a weakening economy and eroding investments. Average home prices in November dropped 8.7 percent from a year earlier, the most in at least 18 years, the government said Friday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was among those in the meeting, said afterward that lawmakers expect to get the legislation to Obama's desk before the Feb. 16 Presidents Day holiday, when Congress is scheduled to take a break. "If not, there will be no recess," she said.

The legislation crafted by House Democrats includes $358 billion for public works projects, $192 billion in other spending and $275 billion in tax cuts. The Senate has begun work on part of its version of the stimulus plan, which includes $275 billion in tax provisions, including cuts for businesses. Some Democrats also are pressing to speed up infrastructure spending.

Republicans, meanwhile, want deeper tax cuts and doubt that new federal spending for roads and bridges can be pumped into the economy quickly enough to do any good.

Republican leaders said they are pleased by the tone of the meeting and the willingness of Obama and the Democrats to listen to their ideas.

"I do think we'll be able to meet the president's deadline," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said after the meeting.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said he remains concerned about the size of the spending portion of the stimulus plan and whether the money will be used wisely.

"At this point, we believe spending nearly $1 trillion is more than we need to be putting on the backs of our kids and their kids," he said.

Stimulus, anyone?

The Democrats' plan:

Costs $825 billion

Proposes $550 billion in spending

Offers $275 billion in tax cuts

Directs benefits toward lower-income workers, even those who do not pay income taxes.

Proposes a tax cut of $500 for individuals earning up to $75,000 and $1,000 for families earning up to $150,000.

The Republicans' plan:

Helps all income taxpayers with families getting an average of $1,700 in savings.

Proposes cutting the lowest two income tax brackets, from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to 5 percent.

Offers small businesses a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their income.

Eliminates taxes on unemployment benefits.

Paris Hilton’’s love for footlongs brings Tokyo to a standstill!

2009-01-24T01:16:00.000-08:00

London, Jan 24 (ANI): Socialite Paris Hilton brought Tokyo to a standstill after she stopped over to grab a Subway sandwich.

The 27-year-old heiress, who’’s visiting Japan on business, was flocked by fans when she instructed her limo driver to pull over to the side of the road and get her a Subway sandwich, reports the Sun.

However, Hilton didnt let her fans down and posed with fans still sitting in the back of her Rolls Royce, waiting for her order.

But, the number of fans flocking to the limo steadily increased, which blocked one of Tokyo’’s main roads.

Meanwhile, the crook behind Paris Hiltons house theft has been arrested.

Called the Bel-Air-Burglar, Troy Corsby Thomas was the mastermind behind 150 thefts in Hollywood homes.

He mainly targeted mansions in Bel-Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, the Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills, and thus for the obvious reasons has been dubbed the Bel-Air-Burglar. (ANI)

Sexy Celebs in their Skivies!

2009-01-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

Victoria Beckham joins her husband, David Beckham, and many other scorching celebrities who have stripped down to their undergarments as a luxury brand's spokesperson.

Posh is featured showing some fierce skin in the new campaign for Emporio Armani Women's Underwear. Designer Giorgio Armani says he chose the former Spice Girl because she is a 'stylish and intriguing woman.' The high drama snaps certainly capture just that!

Other hot advertisements to keep an eye out for: Jessica Alba hawks for Campari, as Eva Mendes and Salma Hayek have in the past. The still glamazon as ever Helena Christensen (you may remember her smoldering face and frame from Chris Issak's music video for "Wicked Game"), channels the hottest pirate since Captain Jack Sparrow for lingerie line Agent Provocateur. She joins the luscious ladies Kate Moss, Dita von Tesse and Maggie Gyllenhaal among the fairest females to work with the line.

Last but not least, Madonna strikes a pose for Luis Vuitton. The designer of the new handbag line, Marc Jacobs requested Madonna personally via text message and photographer Steven Meisel showcased her fit features in a smoky French-style brasserie.

Idol Casey Carlson Is New 'Bikini Girl'

2009-01-16T14:04:00.000-08:00

There's a new "Bikini Girl" Idol stripping down for the cameras.
20-year old Casey Carlson wowed the judges with her clothes on when she belted out Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles," Wednesday night on American Idol.
Casey's sexy bikini shots are also getting plenty of attention. Casey was the cover girl for the Campus Girls USA 2009 Big 10 Calendar. 100-percent of the profits go to the breast cancer research foundation.

Victoria Beckham Posed For Sexy Armani Ads

2009-01-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

Victoria Beckham is following in the footsteps of her husband David Beckham, appearing in an underwear campaign for Giorgio Armani. The 34-year-old beauty has stripped down to her sexy undies for the new Armani ads.
Victoria, 34 and a mother of three, was reportedly convinced to do the shoot by Giorgio. Last year soccer star David posed for the designer in his briefs. You could see her stunning pictures here and here.
In one of the black-and-white photos, Victoria shows off her cleavage wearing only a black bra and panties. Another picture shows the former Spice Girls member lying on carpet donning a polka-dot bra and thong.
Posh Spice admitted: “There are loads of things I don’t like about my body. I’ve got so much saggy skin on my stomach.”
About teaming up with Armani, the mother-of-three says, “To be given this opportunity to work with Armani is thrilling. I have so much respect for him.”
The former Posh Spice’s images, shot by celebrated fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, will similarly be on show in New York, LA, London, Milan, Rome, Paris and Tokyo. Of the campaign, for which Mrs Beckham, 34, is being paid a reported £12million over three years, Giorgio Armani said: ‘I chose Victoria because she is a stylish and intriguing woman.’
According to the designer, the collection features a ‘timeless lingerie palette’ and ‘classic materials like tulle and lace’.

Google’s New Favicon

2009-01-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

This is one of the smaller changes to Google – at least if measured in pixels! Google changed their “Favicon.ico”, the 16x16 image file that usually shows in the browser address bar or in bookmarks. The old icon used a square with red, green and blue edges, wrapping an upper-case “G”. The new logo is a bit more open, showing just the lower-case blue “g” from the Google logo, without borders, and a bit of shadow. To see this, visit Google.com (or images.google.com, Google Product Search and so on), empty your browser cache and reload the page.
Tony Ruscoe in the forum wonders, “Is Google undergoing a rebranding exercise...?” and adds, “Maybe they’re going to be known as ’the little g’ rather than ’The Big G’ from now on...”. Google continues to grow and grow, but one of their self-proclaimed core values is “Think and act like an underdog”.

Jame-Weblog - Happy 2009

2009-01-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

Another year has gone and just like at the end of every year, people take a few moments to look back on the past year, but also look ahead to the future with various new year’s resolutions. At JaME, we’re eagerly looking forward to see what the next year will bring us, but we are also particularly fond of looking back, by creating several articles and also listing our own Top 3’s with “best of’s”.

Please feel free to comment on this post with your own top 3’s or comments on the selected ones by the JaME team members. Also, in order to find the lowest low of 2008, we have taken all the disappointing moments mentioned, and created a poll on the weblog. Please vote for the ultimate Jmusic disappointment of 2008!

Jacob’s choices:

Artists of the year (in no significant order)
1: POLYSICS
2: Dir en grey
3: MUCC

Albums of the year
1: POLYSICS - We ate the machine
2: Dir en grey - UROBOROS (shocking, I know)
3: miyavi - THIS IZ THE JAPANESE KABUKI ROCK

Singles of the year
1: MUCC - Ageha
2: Sugar - ruddy afterglow
3: MUNEHIRO - Hinomaru Power ~Kimi no Chikara~

Concerts of the year
1: POLYSICS in Detroit
2: Dir en grey in Pontiac
3: Rockstar Taste of Chaos Tour in Detroit (MUCC, D’espairsRay and the Underneath)

Disappointments of the year
1: RENTRER EN SOI singles and announcement of disbandment
2: X JAPAN, in every way
3: Yuuki of UnsraW’s bad health (do they know if he’s actually died or not yet?)

Surprises of the year
1: South America getting some (well deserved and long awaited) attention
2: Dir en grey hits the Billboard chart
3: SADS reunion! (Oh wait, that never happened. I can’t find a third thing to be surprised about?)

Best newcomers/discoveries
1: ROACH!!! - I caught onto this bandwagon late
2: DELUHI - A nice little gem in the sea of visual kei bile
3: MUNEHIRO - Thanks to Kay for the awesome recommendation!

Anna’s choices:

Artists of the year (in no significant order)
1: SID
2: Miyavi (world tour!)
3: Ayumi Hamasaki (mostly because of her 10th anniversary thing)

Albums of the year
I can’t answer! There was a lot of great music this year, but to be honest none of the albums really stuck with me. ;__;

Singles of the year
1: alice nine. - CROSS GAME (I’m biased, but I pick it for that third song)
2: acid black cherry - 20+∞Century Boys (Yasu just keeps stepping it up with those PVs, lol)
3: chatmonchy - Kaze Fukeba Koi

Concerts of the year
1: Miyavi at THE WALL in Taipei
2: Gackt at Omiya, Tokyo (the man was on time for meeeee XD)
3: LM.C at FORMOZ in Taipei

Disappointments of the year
1: Miyavi taking out his piercings! I know it was a personal decision, but I loved his lip ring!
2: SuG. They haven’t released anything I really like recently.
3: w-inds. Their most recent single isn’t as good as I hoped it would be.

Surprises of the year
1: X JAPAN’s reunion (and then subsequent hiatus, which was less of a surprise)
2: Gackt in a Hollywood movie. I still lol.
3: More personally, the fact that I actually went through a brief stint fangirling Hey! Say! Jump XD

Best newcomers/discoveries
1: lynch. (I hadn’t really listened to their stuff before reviewing them, and now I find I like them!)
2: Aoyama Thelma
3: lolita 23q (I only just started getting into them this year)

Cage’s choices:

Artists of the year
1: Ayumi Hamasaki
2: Namie Amuro
3: MUCC

Albums of the year
1: MUCC - Shion
2: Namie Amuro - BEST FICTION
3: Dir en grey - UROBOROS

Singles of the year
1: Namie Amuro - 60s 70s 80s
2: Ayumi Hamasaki - Mirrorcle World
3: BoA - Eat You Up

Concerts of the year
1: MUCC (Taste of Chaos)
2: Gallhammer
3: Girugamesh

Disappointments of the year
1: lynch. haven’t released a new album.
2: Merry didn’t perform in Europe.
3: -

Surprises of the year
1: The fact that so many artists made it to their 10th anniversary XD
2: Koda Kumi’s “controversial statement”.
3: BoA’s American debut.

Best newcomers/artist discoveries of the year
1: 9GOATS BLACK OUT
2: Kanon Wakeshima
3: -

Meg’s choices:

Artists of the year
1: 9GOATS BLACK OUT
2: the studs
3: moran

Albums of the year
1: the studs - and hate
2: girugamesh - music
3: MUCC - shion

Singles of the year
1: 9GOATS BLACK OUT - devils in bedside
2: the studs - niji no iro
3: moran - element

Concerts of the year
1: Girugamesh at Shimokitazawa ERA
2: MUCC at the Filmore
3: Chariots/Nega/Siva at Shibuya O-West

Disappointments of the year
1: Cancellation of Clash Against Commercialism
2: Ruvie’s disbandment
3: Versailles at Anime USA

Surprises of the year
1: Ruvie playing secret at the heidi./jully tour final
2: Chariot’s hiatus
3: moran’s (great) releases

Best newcomers/artist discoveries of the year
1: Oreskaband
2: Anna Tsuchiya
3: OZ

Jess’ choices:

Artists of the year (in no significant order)
1: miyavi
2: the underneath (they accomplished so much in one year!)
3: TOHOSHINKI (so what they’re korean originated XP)

Albums of the year
1: miyavi - THIS IZ THE JAPANESE KABUKI ROCK
2: DIR EN GREY - UROBOROS
3: TOHOSHINKI - Jumon (Mirotic)

Singles of the year
1: Gackt - Jesus (what’s this? not a ballad? omgggg)
2: DELUHI - HYBRID TRUTH (I could listen to this for hours)
3: TOHOSHINKI - Jumon -MIROTIC-

Concerts of the year
1: The whole TASTE OF CHAOS tour
2: Dir en grey in NY
3: miyavi in Anaheim, CA

Disappointments of the year
1: X JAPAN. (jyping the people who went to their first concert timewise and continualing canceling their concerts and rescheduled concerts)
2: Clash Against Commercialism being canceled. (especially since it was a last minute cancelation)
3: ELLEGARDEN going on an “indefinite haitus”.

Surprises of the year
1: Gackt in the Hollywood movie “Bunraku” (I’m still loling too, anna XD)
2: RENTRER EN SOI’s ninja disbandment, especially since a banner on their OHP advertised the last show before they even made the announcement. One day everything was fine and next it was WHAT IS THIS BANNER ADVERTISING THEIR “LAST SHOW” ABOUT? D:
3: X JAPAN fans still believing in their fandom Versailles having to modify their band name because of some idiotic american woman’s copyright.

Best newcomers/discoveries
1: DELUHI (I agree with Jacob. They will go far)
2: knotlamp (they will be the new ELLEGARDEN)
3: kalvary (I really like their versatility and jazz/blues-like feel)

Kay’s choices:

Artists of the year
1: INORAN
2: Sherbets
3: PUSHIM

Albums of the year
1: lecca - City Caravan
2: Sherbets - MAD DISCO
3: INORAN - Apocalypse

Singles of the year
1: PUSHIM - Rainbow
2: MUNEHIRO - Again
3: Namie Amuro - 60s 70s 80s

Concerts of the year
1: Metis in Tokyo (acoustic set)
2: INORAN in Tokyo
3: Sherbets in Fukuoka

Disappointments of the year
1: My favorite artists not playing live when I was in Japan
2: Hirakawachi Icchome disbanding
3: X JAPAN’s broken promises (even though I am no fan of the band)

Surprises of the year
1: All the bands that reunited
2: miyavi doing an actual -world- tour
3: GLAY performing a mini-tour in the US

Best newcomers/discoveries
1: Chihiro Onitsuka
2: INORAN (re-discovery)
3: Tamurapan

Tokyo's Heart: Mitsuwa meetup in January 2009!

2009-01-07T23:59:00.000-08:00

So... t3h_janitor_jim and I would like to start off the new year with making a meetup in Mitsuwa (Edgewater,nj). Its up to everyone if they like to do more than going to Mitsuwa. Nearby, there's a Movie theater, golf center and shopping plazas (Target, Old navy, TJ Maxx, etc.) This meetup is ONLY for lolitas and NOT casual clothes, visual kei's and other type of fashion. If you are not sure what type of clothes to wear, or if you are bringing a friend, your friend must follow the lolita guidelines. We have choosen the date to have this meetup on Saturday, January 10, 2009. As for the time, We like to start the meetup At 12Noon. Please gather inside to the side door entrance of the food court. click here for visual aid. For those who are coming from NYC, there is a mitsuwa shuttle bus from NY ports authority and it comes every 45minute to an hour. for more info on transportation, please take a look at mitsuwa website. Also, if you are going to be late, please let me know ahead of time or call/text my cell (PM me for my #). I will make a final post for reminder and what other stuff we can do after mitsuwa. :)

Katy's Perry sexy new vid

2009-01-07T23:15:00.000-08:00

Forthcoming single Thinking Of You is a grown-up tear-jerker of a ballad.

Its video shows Katy in foxy 40s kit — and here my exclusive still sees her mourning the loss of her true love in World War Two while falling into bed with a new fella.

Majors look to Japan for projects

2009-01-02T01:50:00.000-08:00

Hollywood pics used to dominate the Japanese market, the world's second largest, with regal ease. But with Japanese viewers turning more toward local product, Hollywood majors are looking to get in on the Japanese action. Studios are partnering on remakes of such American hits as "Sideways" and "Ghost" to help appeal to the Japanese market.
As recently as 2002, foreign pics, led by Hollywood product, recorded a 72.9% marketshare, accounting for the top seven B.O. slots. The balance of power, however, has since shifted, with Hollywood scoring fewer hits beyond the Harry Potter, Spider-Man and other mega franchises, while local films, especially pics backed by the Japanese TV networks and distribbed by powerhouse Toho, have gained ground.
In 2008, only two Hollywood pics -- "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "I Am Legend" -- appeared in the annual B.O. top 10, with local pics and the Chinese period epic "Red Cliff Part I" taking the other slots.
The Hollywood majors have reacted by ramping up local production, much as they have in other markets around the world, but with a few only-in-Japan twists. Hollywood majors are finding the best way to work with the Japanese, is joining production consortiums consisting of TV networks, advertising agencies and other media companies.
The upside of this system, which has been in place for nearly three decades, includes not only a sharing of risk, but a pooling of PR clout. A network, for example, can flog its own pics on its own shows, in addition to airing the usual ads. A Hollywood major serving as a distrib for such a consortium, as Warner Japan did with the two smash "Death Note" fantasy thrillers, can bank a tidy profit while trimming its ad budget. The downside, of course, is that Warner had to share the pics' combined $86 million B.O.
Seeing the potential for bigger paydays, Warner Bros. and other Hollywood majors in Japan are taking a more active role in development. Led by local production director Hiroyoshi Koiwai, Warners now has a staff of 10 working on its upcoming slate of local pics. More than 10 are in development, with one feature toon and at least two live-action pics soon to be announced.
The 2009 slate already includes "Subaru," Lee Chi Ngai's drama about girl who dreams of becoming a professional ballerina, set for a March bow, followed in April by "Oppai Volleyball" (Breast Volleyball), a sports-themed teen comedy, and in early May by "Goemon," an big-budget action fantasy helmed by Kazuaki Kiriya, whose 2004 epic "Casshern" was widely distribbed and screened abroad.
Koiwai notes that "Subaru" was produced with investment from four Asian countries, so sales throughout Asia and perhaps even in the U.S. should be robust.
Also getting into the local production swim is Fox Japan, under the leadership of general manager Jesse Lee.
Fox is producing the Japanese remake of the hit 2004 Alexander Payne drama "Sideways" with the Fuji TV network. Tyro Cellin Gluck is helming while Rinko Kikuchi ("Babel"), Kyoka Suzuki, Fumiyo Kohinata and Katsuhisa Namase star. Fox will bow the pic next fall.
Fox is also developing pics with other local partners, and distributing "Gunjo" (Cobalt Blue), a romantic drama about two generations of women who experience love on Okinawa. Also active as a local pic producer is Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, which is joining with veteran producer Satoru Iseki's Tara Contents shingle and other equity partners to make "Rain Fall," a Japan-set thriller. Gary Oldman stars, while Australian Max Mannix scripts and directs. Sony plans to release the pic wide for the April/May Golden Week holiday.
Paramount Japan's first local production will be "Ghost," a remake of the 1990 hit. Pic is being produced by horror maestro Taka Ichise ("Ring," "The Grudge") and due in 2010.
Meanwhile, Disney Japan hasn't plunged into features yet, but is making a series of toon shorts with local partners, including anime powerhouse Toei. Titles include "Fireball" and "RoboDz."

The battle for 2009's box office starts here

2009-01-02T01:46:00.000-08:00

The Japanese film industry — particularly at the top, where Toho and the TV networks dwell — had a terrific 2008. Boosted by Hayao Miyazaki's animation "Gake no Ue no Ponyo" ("Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea"), which earned a splendiferous ¥15 billion, Toho passed the ¥70-billion box-office mark for the year — a new company record. Meanwhile, the TV networks, which produce most of the biggest Japanese films and distribute most of them through Toho, scored hit after hit, including the romantic dramedy "Hana Yori Dango" ("Boys Over Flowers," TBS) and the mystery thriller "Yogisha X no Kenshin" ("Suspect X," Fuji TV).

The new year, however, looks to be tougher for the local industry — and not only because of the recession. Hollywood, which ceded a majority share in Japan to homegrown competition in 2008, will have a stronger lineup in 2009, including new installments in the "Harry Potter" and "Terminator" series, as well as "Dragonball Evolution," a highly hyped live-action version of the classic "Dragonball" anime, to be released here by 20th Century Fox.

Also expected to draw crowds are the remaining two parts of John Woo's "Red Cliff" period action trilogy set in China. The first has grossed nearly ¥5 billion, a record for an Asian film in Japan.

As for Japanese hits this year, check out the Toho lineup, which usually earns most of the annual domestic box-office Top 10. In January, Toho will release "Kansen Retto" ("Infected Archipelago"), a disaster pic starring Satoshi Tsumabaki and Rei Dan about a virus that sweeps Japan (the movie is reportedly pegged for a Hollywood remake); and "Dare mo Mamote Kurenai" ("Nobody to Watch Over Me"), a thriller about a girl on the run from the media with her police protectors after her brother is charged with murder. The scriptwriter and director for the latter is Ryoichi Kimizuka, who also wrote scripts for Fuji TV's money- spinning "Odoru Daisonsasen" ("Bayside Shakedown") police-thriller franchise.

Coming up in March is "General Rouge no Gaisen" ("The Glorious Team Batista 2"), a TBS-produced followup to the 2007 hit starring Yuko Takeuchi as a spacey but intuitive hospital counselor and Hiroshi Abe as an obnoxious but sharp government bureaucrat who, in the new film, team up once again to solve a medical mystery. This pair's first on-screen puzzle was not so puzzling, but their quirks and quarrels were entertaining enough.

Following in April is "Crows Zero II," a sequel to the 2007 hit about gang warfare in a bottom-of-the-barrel boys' high school, inspired by a best-selling Hiroshi Takahashi comic. Director Takashi Miike, Japan's King of Cult, and star Shun Oguri, the ultimate ikemen (pretty boy) pin-up, are back for the sequel, as are the many scenes of strobed mano-a-mano mayhem.

Miike is also responsible for "Yattaman" (titled "Yatterman" for foreign release, for some reason), a goofy-looking action comedy — based on a well-remembered 1970s TV anime — that Shochiku and Nikkatsu will release in March.

This summer, Toho will open "Manatsu no Orion" ("Last Operations Under the Orion"), a World War II naval action film directed by Tetsuo Shinohara and based on a novel by Tsukasa Ikegami. Heartthrob Hiroshi Tamaki plays a submarine captain, and Keiko Kitagawa appears as both the hero's love interest and his present-day granddaughter. Japanese WWII films, usually with a nationalist slant, have become hot at the local box office — the hit 2008 courtroom drama "Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai" ("I Want to Be a Seashell") is one recent example, though sales to Asia have been "slow."

An even bigger summer film is "Amalfi: Megami no 50-byo ("Amalfi: the Goddess's 50 Seconds"), a suspenser starring Yuji Oda — Japan's answer to Tom Cruise — as a diplomat in the title Italian resort town who investigates the disappearance of a Japanese girl. "Amalfi," which commemorates Fuji TV's 50th anniversary, is the first Japanese film shot entirely in Italy.

This fall, Takashi Yamazaki, the director of the hit "Always" nostalgic dramas, returns with "Ballad: Namonaki Koi no Uta" ("Ballad: Nameless Song of Love"), a period drama whose story is bizarrely based on an award-winning 2002 episode in the "Crayon Shinchan" kiddie animation series. "Ballad," which stars SMAPster Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as a samurai general and idoru (manufactured entertainer) star Yui Aragaki as the girl with whom he falls in love, has a production budget, including lavish CGI, of ¥2 billion — considered the upper limit for a domestic film.

Continuing the trend for multipart films, which started two years ago with the smash-hit "Death Note" duology, is the three-part "20th Century Shonen" ("20th Century Boys"). Directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi, this trilogy is based on Naoki Urasawa's best-selling manga about a gang of boys who, grown to adulthood, see their childhood prophecies of worldwide devastation come horrifying true. The first installment, released last August, reeled in nearly ¥4 billion, to the enormous relief of the producers, led by the NTV network, who sank ¥6 billion into this project.

The second part will hit theaters on Jan. 31 and the third later in 2009, though Toho has not yet announced a firm date.

Toho, however, is not the only big distributor and the networks are not the only big producers in Japan. Hollywood studios, including Warner, Sony and 20th Century Fox, have recently been making and releasing more local productions. The most exciting among this year's crop is "Goemon," a fantasy actioner by Kazuaki Kiriya, the director of the 2004 sci-fi sensation "Casshern" and produced by Warner Japan.

Based on the life of legendary 16th-century ninja and bandit Ishikawa Goemon, the film boasts two years of research, 100 sets, 2,500 CG cuts, 1,000 extras and a staff of 300. Despite being made with far fewer resources, "Casshern" had not only the scale and look, but the mad ambition of silent-era Hollywood's more extravagant follies and masterpieces. We can only hope that "Goemon" will be more of the same, squared. Release is set for May.

Meanwhile, Toei, a distributor whose usual target of choice is the salaryman demographic, will release Daisake Kimura's "Tsurugidake," an action drama starring Tadanobu Asano, Koji Yakusho, Ryuhei Matsuda and Aoi Miyazaki about a dangerous climbing expedition to the title mountain in 1907. The film, based on a novel that was in turn based on a true story, will open in June and, as its all-star cast indicates, it is Toei's big picture for the summer.

Rival Shochiku's big film for the year is Yoichi Sai's "Kamui," which stars Kenichi Matsuyama (the sweets-eating genius L of the "Death Note" films) as the title swordsman hero and Hideaki Ito (the jut-jawed coast-guard diver of the hit "Umizaru" films) as a shark-killer for hire who becomes the hero's rival. "Kamui" is set for a September opening.

Even Japanese indie filmmakers are dreaming bigger dreams. One is Sion Sono, director of "Ai no Mukidashi" ("Love Exposure"), a 237-minute dramedy about starred-crossed love that satirizes both loony cults and the Catholic church. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2008 Tokyo Filmex Film Festival, it opens at the end of January.

Also making a bigger splash are non-native directors producing films with mostly Japanese casts and backing. One is Michael Arias, an American animator ("Tekkonkinkreet") whose first live-action film, "Heaven's Door," is a reworking of a 1997 German film of almost the same title. Tomoyo Nagase and Mayuko Fukuda play two young terminal patients who decide to escape the hospital and squeeze out the last drops of fun and adventure before the big fade out. Asmik Ace will open "Heaven's Door" on Feb. 7.

Another is Max Mannix, an Australian who cowrote the much-lauded 2008 Kiyoshi Kurosawa drama "Tokyo Sonata." He has directed "Rain Fall," a thriller based on a novel by Barry Eisler starring Kippei Shiina as a Japanese-American assassin for hire and Gary Oldman as a CIA agent. The latter, of course, is the bad guy. Sony has scheduled the film for an April bow.

In addition to these well-publicized films, there are always the sleepers — films by little-known talents that turn out to be more interesting than the self-proclaimed big titles. One that may deserve that label is "Drop," a comic actioner about high-school gang members scripted and directed by newcomer Hiroshi Shinagawa, who also draws the comic on which the film is based. For once, in other words, a manga-to-movie project has been made without the usual filters — and, from the trailer at least, it looks as though Shinagawa has not only found actors who look as close as humanly possible to his manga characters, but has also filmed some slick-looking action. Miike, watch your back. "Drop" opens on March 30.

Vanessa Marcil, A Sexy Mary Poppins?

2009-01-02T01:39:00.000-08:00

She's flaunted her curvy bod on Las Vegas, Beverly Hills, 90210 and General Hospital. Now, Vanessa Marcil is playing a good girl with glasses in The Nanny Express on the Hallmark Channel (January 3).

The sexy actress gets some dramatic scenes and a little romance as the spunky nanny who triesto bring a troubled family together. Leaving her usual glam look behind, the actress admits sheenjoyed the no-fuss role.

Q: You're sexy even when you play kind, dedicated and spunky, but this part sure willsurprise your fans who love you playing the hot gal.

A: It's true that people think of me as the kind of characters I've played. But everyone whoknows me in my own life calls me the librarian because I'm very nerdy. I read a lot. And I neverwatch TV. I hardly go to the movies. And I dress really conservatively, like a librarian.When Iread this story I thought, 'Wow, I'd love to be able to play a girl like this who I just have somuch admiration for.' And by the way, who's so graceful in the face of adversity.

Q: I'm willing to bet that there was a huge debate about whether to have you wear glassesfor most of the show.

A: I love that you knew that. Everyone except the director gave me a huge fight about theglasses. And the funniest thing is that they are my own glasses that I wear in real life. I'venever worn them on camera because I've always liked the fact that when I pull my hair back anddon't put on any make-up, the glasses give me sort of a separate personal life. For the movie mycharacter wouldn't even have enough money to buy contact lenses.

Q: And we know you love kids, the last time I saw you with your son Kassius, he was playingthe slot machines on the Las Vegas set.

A: Oh yeah, he's six now and for years he was king of that set. Once when we actually visitedVegas I had to explain to him that he couldn't go in the real casinos because they didn't allowchildren.

Q: His father is Brian Austin Green and though you two never married and you're in along-time relationship with another man, Brian still has a wonderful relationship withKassius.

A: He loves his dad. They play video games together and once, when Brian guested on Las Vegas, Kassius was on the set and we took lots of pictures. Both his father and Iagree, though, that he has to finish college before we'd even think about letting him become anactor.

Q: So are you getting ready for your Las Vegas co-star Josh Duhamel and Fergie's wedding? Are you teasing him aboutit?

A: I tease Josh about everything all of the time. He and I have a brother/sister dynamic witheach other. Because Stacy is so lovely I tease him about how the hell did he get anyone to committo marrying him. When we worked together all these women would just go crazy over him and I'd haveto rib on him that I would tell that he farts under the covers on the set and stuff like that.

Q: Can you imagine him married to Stacy (who the rest of us all call Fergie)?

A: Oh, yeah. Jokes aside, he's such a lovely down-home country boy, really. I've always saidabout Josh, that he's the most humble lead I've ever worked with on a show. He is always focusedand passionate and wants everyone to be good. Stacy guested on the show and we all met hertogether. We just added her to the family and he got serious.

Posh’s fury at Becks’ ’sexy skimpily-clad Italian interviewer’

2008-12-21T01:35:00.000-08:00

Victoria Beckham reportedly hit the roof after finding out that a stunning Italian TV presenter, fond of wearing revealing clothes, was to take hubby David’s first TV interview when he lands in Milan.

According to sources, the former Spice Girl had turned to Internet to research chat host Ilaria D’Amico before the format of the exclusive hour-long interview had been changed at the request of the Beckham camp.

Following confusion on the entire matter, TV bosses had revealed that the interview would last for only 15 minutes, reports the Sun.

However, a spokesman for the celebrity couple slammed the reports as nonsense, insisting the interview to be on schedule as decided.

Ilaria was said to have become a national heroine in early December after encouraging Italians to boycott a 20 per cent satellite TV tax.

Remembering the ghost of a Christmas past

2008-12-21T01:26:00.000-08:00

I prefer this season not as one of tinsel, lights and storefront carols, but rather as one of quiet — a season of soft-falling snow, a season of anticipation, a season of memories.

In this season I am haunted by the memory of a Christmas past, that of my very first Christmas in Japan in 1976. And like the Dickens messenger from the shadows of distant youth, the ghost that I welcome is not unfriendly at all.

It was a time when Japan was first modeling its hard-earned affluence, clumsy attire that yet did not fit so well. In my tatami apartment, in richie-rich Denenchofu no less, I slept on futon, slurped Cup Noodle for breakfast, cranked my space heater as high as it would go, and wondered if I myself would ever fit Japan. My home seemed far away.

In the mornings, I would ride the elevator to the first floor, my half-asleep head propped against the doors, and when I arrived, I would wade my way through a sea of high-school girls ebbing from the station, girls with straight black hair and grape-colored coats, all a-chatter in the new day.

Each girl the same. Or so I thought.

Then I would hold my breath for a jam-packed commuter ride to Shibuya, where I would mangle wa's and ga's in the hallowed halls of Naganuma Language School.

Every day this had been my pattern, from my arrival in September until now, the final few days before Christmas.

It was a nondescript morning, with the winter air biting my face and neck, adding a freeze-frame background for the event to come.

I picked my way among the high-school girls as they streamed around me and up the hill for their campus. My head held its usual contents — meaning it was empty.

But then came a thought. I had forgotten my notebook with my homework! One hundred and 50 days of classes and this was the only time I would ever forget.

I cursed and retreated for my apartment.

When I slammed through the building doorway, I found a high-school girl standing at my postbox. She was shoving a Christmas package inside.

Her eyes burst with terror. Behind her, a second girl, a friend, backed against the wall.

The girl stood there, flummoxed and trembling. That I could hardly speak Japanese was a blessing. For I had no idea what to say.

I was 22; the girl maybe 16. She stared at me with big eyes.

Presently, she tugged the present from my postbox and placed it in my hands. I rustled it open. Inside was a hand-knitted scarf, one she had no doubt spent hours making.

I fumbled out a "thank you," and tried it on — to find it long enough to wrap around a redwood, let alone my neck. I grinned with her scarf knotted about my throat and both ends drooping past my knees. I must have done it all wrong.

For in that second she choked in tears and banged out the door. Her friend ran after her. I watched them trot away.

With the scarf came a note in hiragana. When I pulled myself together, grabbed my notebook and made it to class, I showed the note to my teacher. It read "Anata no koto ga suki desu. Satoko."

"But," I told my teacher. "I don't play the koto."

The teacher went berserk with laughter and showed the note to everyone in the building. I couldn't make out was she was shrieking, but perhaps it was, "Yes, it's true! I'm teaching a total dork!"

So . . . a love note. From one girl in the ocean of girls who watched me shiver to the station each day.

I hadn't seen her before. And I would never see her again. Except once at a distance as she wound up the hill toward her school. In March, I moved from Tokyo to Kyushu.

Kyushu — where I met another big-eyed girl, a few years older, whom I one day married. One who finds my Christmas story touching.

As for me, I don't reflect back in any "Disneyfied," what-if kind of way, nor, so much, as if an awkward moment borrowed from the outtakes of "The World of Henry Orient."

Instead, I dwell on the incredible synchronicity of one notebook forgotten. And I wish I could have somehow better swallowed my surprise and fished up a more gentlemanly response. The unknown girl deserved that.

Still, each Christmas I lift my wine glass to some Satoko somewhere in Japan, no doubt now approaching age 50.

That was a nice gift, Satoko. One of the nicest I ever got.

Somehow, in some glow of stumbling human spirit, in the cold and loneliness of that first Christmas, it helped me see that, yes, Japan might be the right fit for me.

By THOMAS DILLON

Japan's emperor turns 75 with worries over royal future

2008-12-21T01:17:00.000-08:00

Japanese Emperor Akihito turns 75 this week with worries mounting over his succession in the world's oldest monarchy and with the country's stressed crown princess entering her sixth year as a recluse.

Akihito, who in 2009 will mark 20 years since he ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne, has cancelled a customary annual news conference ahead of his birthday Tuesday due to health problems.

The emperor, whose father Hirohito was revered as a demigod until Japan's defeat in World War II, will instead issue a statement expressing his "feelings" on his birthday.

His plight has renewed public attention on stress among the royals. Crown Princess Masako has skipped most public duties since late 2003 as the former career woman struggles to adjust to the tradition-bound palace.

On December 11, Imperial Household Agency chief Shingo Haketa surprised the public by going on the record about the emperor's distress.

The emperor has seemed "worried for the past several years about the future imperial line and various other issues concerning the imperial household, which never leave his mind," Haketa said, while noting it was his personal view.

Masako gave birth to a girl in 2001 after eight years of marriage with Crown Prince Naruhito.

The birth fuelled a divisive dispute on whether the nation should allow a woman to sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne, which traditionalists say has an unbroken male line of succession.

The succession dispute subsided in 2006 when the wife of the crown prince's younger brother gave birth to a boy, the first prince in 40 years born to the royal family.

But experts say a single boy cannot stem the succession crisis in the 2,000-year-old monarchy as all other children in the broader imperial families are women and become commoners upon their marriage.

"Imperial families are supposed to have some spare blood in store," said Tsuneyasu Takeda, a descendant of one of 11 families stripped of their royal status after the war under the US occupation.

"We are in a very risky situation, like driving a car without any insurance," he told AFP. "It is easy to imagine that this has caused stress on the emperor."

Shinji Yamashita, a former official of the Imperial Household Agency, said: "Politicians don't bother to think about the future of the royal family. They only try to get over the imminent problems."

"They know they can't win votes by talking about the imperial system," said Yamashita, who publishes a quarterly magazine on royal matters.

On December 9, doctors for the emperor announced that they had found traces of bleeding in his stomach and duodenum that may have been caused by physical and mental problems.

"His Majesty has long endured mental suffering and anguish. My impression is that this is a major problem," medical supervisor Ichiro Kanazawa told reporters, saying his tight schedule was not solely to blame.

On the same day -- which was Masako's 45th birthday -- the medical team for the princess separately said she was steadily recovering but admitted that she had had a "large" amount of stress which required years of treatment.

"We would like to ask for humane, warm consideration" for her, doctors said in a paper issued to the press to explain her condition.

Takeda, the descendant of a former royal, said pressure to produce a male heir made the princess sick but that her condition worsened due to magazine articles depicting her as "a slacker" for having fun while avoiding public duties.

Imperial agency chief Haketa said the emperor and Empress Michiko "seemed deeply hurt" by speculation that the imperial household itself is causing stress to the princess or that she is seeking a more "worthwhile" job.

Japan's emperor enjoys wide respect among the general public, although the post-World War II constitution bars him from holding any political role, defining him as the "symbol" of the nation.

Hiroshi Takahashi, an expert on imperial matters, said Akihito developed the role of the emperor as symbol by carrying out welfare work and palace rituals.

"The emperor is desperate to pass that onto the next generation, while the crown prince puts priority on treatment of the illness" of Masako, he said.

"The emperor must be regretting this," he added.

Yahoo Limits Retention of Search Data

2008-12-19T00:02:00.000-08:00

Yahoo said Wednesday that it would limit to 90 days the time it holds some personally identifiable information related to searches to address growing concerns from privacy advocates, policy makers and government regulators.

Yahoo’s new data retention policy is the most restrictive among major search engines in the United States and will most likely put pressure on rivals like Google and Microsoft to shorten the time they keep information about their users.

It comes at a time when some privacy advocates are planning a renewed push for legislation that would regulate the data retention and online advertising practices of Internet companies, which they say has a stronger chance of passing with a new Congress and president in Washington.

Already Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, praised Yahoo for setting a new privacy standard.

“I urge other leading online companies to match or beat the commitments announced by Yahoo,” Mr. Markey said in a press release.

Previously, Yahoo kept search logs for 13 months. In September, Google began to strip out some personally identifiable information related to searches after 9 months. Microsoft keeps the information for 18 months.

The strongest pressure on Internet companies so far came from European regulators who have been urging major search engines to reduce to six months the time they hold personally identifiable information. Microsoft said last week that it would agree to such a standard if its rivals also went along.

Anne Toth, vice president of policy at Yahoo, said that the company chose an even shorter time period to “take the issue off the table.” Ms. Toth said she hoped that the new policy would make Yahoo’s search service more attractive with users concerned about privacy.

But it is not clear that stronger privacy protections will persuade consumers to switch to a different search engine. Last year, Ask.com introduced a new feature called AskEraser, which allows users to search anonymously. It has had little noticeable effect on the popularity of Ask.com. Google is the dominant search engine, handling about 63 percent of search queries in the United States, according to comScore.

Under the new policy, Yahoo will delete the last eight bits of the Internet Protocol, or I.P., address associated with a search query after 90 days. I.P. addresses are digital tags that can identify a specific computer. Yahoo will also hide cookie data related to each search log and strip out any personally identifiable information, like a name, phone number, address or Social Security number, from the query itself.

Yahoo also said that its new policy would extend to other types of data it collected, like page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks.

Major search engines have said they need to retain personal data, in part, to provide better services, like more targeted ads and more relevant searches. Ms. Toth said Yahoo determined it could begin scrambling the personal data after 90 days without affecting the quality of services it provided to users, advertisers and publishers.

Privacy advocates said that the new policy was a step in the right direction and credited the change to pressure from European regulators. But they said that Yahoo’s method of scrambling I.P. addresses by deleting their last eight bits was inadequate to guarantee privacy.

“That is not provably anonymous,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Mr. Rotenberg and other advocates said that companies should delete the entire I.P. address, an approach recommended by European officials. Currently, Microsoft deletes the entire I.P. address, while Google deletes only the last eight bits.

“Microsoft believes that the method of anonymization is more important than the anonymization timeframe and believes all major search engines need to adopt a high standard,” Brendon Lynch, director of privacy strategy at Microsoft.
Google declined to comment directly on Yahoo’s new policy but said it was “continually evaluating” how to balance the services it offered with the privacy of its users. Google had said previously that discarding personally identifiable data sooner than nine months would undermine the quality of its search engine and other services.

Woeful hospital system puts children at risk

2008-12-17T20:08:00.000-08:00

Even though accidents are the major cause of death among small children, many Japanese hospitals are woefully unprepared to deal with such cases.

Among 13 major nations, Japan ranks third-worst in terms of the mortality rate for infants between 1 and 4, according to statistics compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO).

While emergency care in Japan in general is in dire straits, with more doctors moving away from the strenuous work, the paucity of such care for children is even more serious.

One of the few pediatric intensive care units (PICU) in Japan is at Shizuoka Children's Hospital.

In early November, a so-called Doctor-Heli landed on the roof of the hospital. A 2-year-old girl was placed on a stretcher. She was bleeding from her mouth and chest, her blood pressure was low and she was unconscious.

The girl fell from the second story of her home and was taken by ambulance to a general hospital. Doctors there determined that she had hit her head and chest hard and that surgery might be required if there was bleeding in her brain.

Doctors at the general hospital called Shizuoka Children's Hospital, located about 50 kilometers away.

The PICU had doctors who specialized in intensive care for children as well as brain surgeons and plastic surgeons. Although it would have taken an ambulance about an hour to transport the girl, the Doctor-Heli did the job in 10 minutes.

Ikuya Ueta, who heads the pediatric intensive care center at the children's hospital, gave out instructions to the doctors and nurses gathered around the girl.

He asked that the girl's blood pressure be monitored and that an IV drip be injected into her foot.

A tube inserted into her respiratory passages that measured only 5 millimeters in diameter was connected to a respirator. Needles were injected into her foot for blood transfusions and IV drips.

The initial stages of treatment were over in about 30 minutes. There was no damage to the brain or internal organs, so doctors were relieved that she had emerged from a worst-case scenario.

The PICU at Shizuoka Children's Hospital was established in June 2007. The 14 doctors work in two shifts. The two Doctor-Helis in Shizuoka Prefecture along with ambulances bring in children in critical condition from both within and outside the prefecture on a 24-hour a day basis. Different knowledge set

Dealing with children in critical condition requires a new set of knowledge because they cannot be treated in the same manner as adults.

The effects of having a PICU have been documented.

Since 2004, the emergency and critical care center at the Nippon Medical School Chiba Hokuso Hospital in Inba, Chiba Prefecture, has been transporting children under 15 in critical condition by Doctor-Heli to the PICU at the National Center for Child Health and Development in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, about a 15-minute flight away.

Including the period when the Doctor-Heli was not used, 11 children were transferred between 2001 and 2006. Only one died.

Of the 22 children who were not transferred, close to a third, or six, died.

Even an emergency and critical care center may not be enough to save children's lives.

Kenkichi Takei, the doctor at Chiba Hokuso Hospital who compiled the study, said, "I was very surprised that even children who we thought could not be saved because of a major injury were saved at the PICU."

According to the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine, there are 18 PICUs in Japan. There are a total of about 120 beds at all those units.

In Europe, based on the incidence of children in critical condition, a PICU with 10 beds is set up for every 400,000 or so children.

If that standard was used in Japan, there would be a need for about 50 PICUs, with a total of about 500 beds.

Another problem in Japan is that most PICUs can only handle post-operative care or sudden changes in the conditions of children already hospitalized for cancer, heart disease and other illnesses. Those PICUs do not accept children with major injuries stemming from falls or traffic accidents.

In such cases, those children have to be taken to emergency and critical care centers for adults. But such centers often refuse to see the children.

One emergency care doctor admitted, "If possible, I do not want to see a small child with a major injury. Only a pediatrician can adequately handle such cases. To be honest, I would be afraid of taking on such cases."

Youngest most vulnerable

Such conditions are behind the high mortality rate for Japanese infants. While Japan's rate falls below the average in the WHO study in all other age groups, the rate is above average for children between 1 and 4.

Hirokazu Sakai, who heads the comprehensive care department at the National Center for Child Health and Development, said, "The leading cause of death for that age group is accidents. However, many pediatricians refuse to treat such children. It is as if those children were being left to die."

One reason behind such a situation is the advanced differentiation within pediatric care. Because emergency and intensive care requires that doctors examine the entire body, it has not been covered in the current medical specialization system, which is classified based on the organ being examined.

For that reason, Japanese medical schools do not have a systematic curriculum that allows students who have completed pediatric care training to undergo training in intensive care for children.

There are only between 20 to 30 doctors in Japan who specialize in pediatric emergency and intensive care.

To change that situation, the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Japan Pediatric Society and a research group with the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare compiled standards for PICUs in 2007. The PICU was clearly defined as "a place to treat all children whose lives are in danger, including emergency patients."

A pressing issue in increasing the number of PICUs is training doctors to work in those units. Specialists are taking time out of their busy schedules to help with that training.

Veteran pediatric intensive care specialists formed a nonprofit organization in 2005 that has conducted two-day workshops every fall for young doctors and nurses. This year, about 600 people took part, indicating that some effort is just now beginning to help save more children's lives.

あなたのクリスマスプレゼントには少しスパイスを入れ

2008-12-17T19:21:00.001-08:00

あなたのトラブルは、 " "あなたの重要な他の今年のホリデーシーズンに向けて完璧な贈り物を見つけることはありますか？

香水、宝石類、電気カミソリ素晴らしい贈り物をすることができます。しかし、多くの記念日、誕生日や休暇の後、これらの贈り物はかなり退屈になることができます。代わりにいろいろな機会の贈り物のと同じようなどころか、今年のホリデーシーズンの両方を楽しむことができますお客様の重要な他の何かを与える。クリスマスやハヌカのセクシーな贈り物確信しているシズルしてください。念のため、お互いに家族のホリデーパーティーでそれらを与えてはいけない。

セクシーランジェリーアイディアにはいつもセクシーな贈り物を緩和するのに最適な方法です。すべてのセクシーな女の子と何かを感じていない人は、彼自身が選んだのはガールフレンドを見て心を愛している。女の子は恥ずかしがり屋の場合、ほとんどは美しい購入してください。シルクのベビードールビクトリアズシークレットやフレデリックスオブハリウッド。冒険からの側に設定すると、彼女のセクシーなレースアップパンティー一致でコルセットを取得してください。場合は、すべてを、何かを迎えに行きたい太ももの高さは、セクシーなガーターストッキングにアタッチすることができます。どちらのランジェリーあなたとあなたの女の子アイデアの両方をお楽しみください。

場合は、さらに挑発されているギフト用下着よりも、一緒に自分の最優先課題は、常にすべての性的に活発なカップルのためにギフトバスケットいたずらグッズ。セーフセックス完全な刺激的入れてみてくださいので、コンドームは、まず最初にしなければならない検討しているあなたの痛烈なギフトバスケットに入れている。代わりにコンドームのたびに同じようなどころか、コンドームの3種類で、さまざまなパックを入手してください。これは簡単で安価な方法をスパイスに任意の性生活をバックアップします。

次に、いくつかの温暖化と官能的なマッサージ本のマッサージオイルを拾う。ほとんどの書店が、任意の性的新規店も対象にしてください図書が多いのも事実です官能的なマッサージは、さまざまな書籍を提供しています。さらに挑発、取得するようにするには潤滑剤として使用することも安全だとは、デュアル温暖化のマッサージオイル。それを、段階別のファジー手錠と目隠しを確実にしてくださいするのペアを購入推進しています。、いくつかのチョコレートイチゴとスパークリングワインカバーを追加してあなたの想像力を実行する野生。ことを確認していくつかのろうそくを設定し、音楽には、両方の雰囲気を出すようにしてくださいさせると、どちらの場合では、決して忘れられることにバインドされている才能があるよ。

そのためには、同じ退屈な贈り物ではなく、今年のホリデーシーズンは、どちらも今まで決して忘れることはないでしょうあなたの重要な他の何かを与える。また、これらすべてのギフトアイデアのボーイフレンドやガールフレンドに最適です。場合は、コメントを残し別の考えがある魅力的な贈り物下。ハッピーホリデーギフトと、今年はちょっとスパイスを追加することを確認します。

あなたのクリスマスプレゼントには少しスパイスを入れ

2008-12-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

あなたのトラブルは、 " "あなたの重要な他の今年のホリデーシーズンに向けて完璧な贈り物を見つけることはありますか？

Put a little spice into your holiday gifts

2008-12-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

Are you having trouble finding the “perfect” gift for your significant other this holiday season?

Perfume, jewelry and electric razors can be great gifts. But after so many anniversaries, birthdays and holidays, these gifts can become pretty boring. Instead of getting the same kind of gift for every occasion, this holiday season give your significant other something you both can enjoy. Sexy gifts for Christmas or Hanukkah are sure to sizzle. Just make sure not to give them to each other at a family holiday party.

Sexy lingerie is always a great way to ease into the sexy gift idea. Every girl loves to feel sexy and no guy would mind looking at his girlfriend in something that he picked out himself. If your girl is a little shy, try buying a beautiful silk babydoll set from Victoria’s Secret or Frederick’s of Hollywood. If she’s a little more on the adventurous side, try getting her a sexy lace-up corset with matching panties. If you want to go all out, pick up something with garters that can attach to sexy thigh-high stockings. Both of these lingerie ideas are sure to please both you and your girl.

If you’re looking for a gift that is even more provocative than lingerie, try putting together your own titillating gift basket full of naughty goodies. Safe sex should always be the top priority for every sexually active couple, so condoms should be the first thing to put into your racy gift basket. Instead of getting the same kind of condom every time, try getting a variety pack with three different kinds of condoms. It’s a simple and inexpensive way to spice up any sex life.

Next, pick up some warming massage oil and a sensual massage book. Most bookstores offer a variety of sensual massage books, but any sexual novelty store is also sure to have plenty of books on the subject. To make it even more provocative, try getting a dual warming massage oil that also is safe to use as a lubricant. Pushing it another step up, purchase a pair of fuzzy handcuffs and a blindfold that will certainly please. Add some chocolate covered strawberries and some sparkling wine, and let your imagination run wild. Make sure to set up some candles and put on music that is sure to put you both in the mood, and you’ll have a gift that is bound to never be forgotten by either of you.

So, this holiday season instead of the same boring gifts, give your significant other something neither of you will ever forget. Also, all of these gift ideas are great for your boyfriend or girlfriend. If you have another seductive gift idea, leave a comment below. Happy Holidays and make sure to add a little spice to your gift this year.

Israel’s ‘Obama Girl’?

2008-12-17T18:23:00.000-08:00

Can the Internet strategy that enhanced Barack Obama’s celebrity appeal be replicated to add a dash of swoon to Tzipi Livni’s limping campaign for prime minister?
Drawing inspiration from the ubiquitous online video featuring “Obama Girl,” two 30-something Tel Avivians have come up with an Israeli version to highlight for younger voters what they consider the overlooked sex appeal of the Israeli foreign minister and would-be prime minister.
The Web clip “Livni Boy” features a lanky, would-be suitor who showers alongside a poster of Livni and dances his way through Tel Aviv while rapping out praises of the Kadima prime ministerial candidate:
“I always knew you would be the woman who would bring the change/And not spew out empty slogans. I’m sick of

all the generals who are trying to scare/ I want you Tzipi, baby, I’m not the only one.”
The “Livni Boy” video has tried to recast the foreign minister’s buttoned-up image to something more racy. Dvir Bar, who co-wrote the video with a musician friend, Noy Aloosh, said until now, the election has been an issue for older adults rather than their age cohort.
Bar said he became convinced of the need for emphasizing Livni’s youth after trailing Livni at election events.
“She’s a woman who looks a lot better in person. TV doesn’t flatter her. She’s cool,” said Bar, a TV producer who insisted he had no connection to the Kadima campaign. “We are turning her into someone who is our own and someone who is sexy.”
Livni currently trails Netanyahu and Likud in the polls by six to eight seats, according to recent surveys.
By uploading the video to YouTube and then setting up Web pages on Facebook and MySpace, Bar said he hoped to make the election more relevant for a generation weaned on the Internet but increasingly alienated from politics.
“The idea is, how can we urge young people to come out to vote,” said Bar.
With about 850 views after four days, the video is not exactly the viral marketing phenomenon that “Obama Girl” was. The talkbacks on the YouTube site have been mixed.
“Better than any of the slogans she’ll come up with,” wrote Dardor1. “I don’t support her, but the song is cool.”
And this from OrGaM87isBack: “I don’t know what is more pathetic: Tzipi Livni and all her comments, or this song. And what’s the deal with copying everything from the Americans?”

Microsoft preps emergency IE patch for Wednesday release

2008-12-17T01:01:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Corp. announced today that it will issue an emergency patch tomorrow to quash a critical Internet Explorer bug that attackers have been exploiting for more than a week.

The advance warning came less than a week after Microsoft acknowledged that exploit code had gone public and was being used by hackers to hijack Windows PCs running IE.

Microsoft will deliver the out-of-cycle patch Wednesday at 1 p.m. Eastern time via its normal update mechanisms, including Windows Update, Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

The update will be pegged "critical," the most serious ranking in Microsoft's four-step scoring system.

Even as it declared that it would release an emergency fix, Microsoft continued to downplay the threat. "At this time, we are aware only of attacks that attempt to use this vulnerability against Windows Internet Explorer 7," said company spokesman Christopher Budd in an e-mail today.

Initially, Microsoft and other security companies believed that only IE7 was vulnerable to attack, but on review, the company confirmed that all versions of its browser, including IE5.01, IE6 and IE8 Beta 2, contain the bug.

Last weekend, Microsoft researchers said that they had seen a "huge increase" in attacks, and that some were originating from legitimate Web sites. Another researcher added that about 6,000 infected sites were serving up exploits that target the IE vulnerability.

Also today, Microsoft confirmed that attacks could be launched through Outlook Express, a free e-mail client bundled with Windows XP. Because Outlook Express renders HTML-based messages using IE's engine, attackers could exploit the bug by getting users to open or view malicious messages.

This will be the second out-of-cycle patch from Microsoft in the last two months. In late October, it issued an emergency fix for a critical vulnerability in the Windows Server service; like IE's bug, that one had been actively exploited before Microsoft was able to come up with a patch.

According to today's advance notification, Microsoft will provide patches to users of Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008 for IE5.01, IE6 and IE7. A separate patch will apparently be issued tomorrow for IE8 Beta 2, a preview version of Microsoft's next browser that is not officially on the support list.

What To Make of Apple's Exit from Macworld

2008-12-17T00:53:00.000-08:00

As Arik just blogged, Apple has announced that Steve Jobs will not be doing the keynote at this year’s Macworld show, and that this will be the last year Apple attends the tradeshow that has been the venue for so many famous Steve Jobs keynotes.

Of course, the first thought goes to Jobs’ health. The company declined to comment directly as to whether this was the reason marketing chief Phil Schiller will be doing the keynote, instead of Jobs. Rather, spokesman Steve Dowling says that since “this will be our last year, it doesn’t make sense for us to make a major investment in a trade show that will we no longer be attending.”

I pray that Jobs’ health is fine, but this reasoning isn’t very convincing. If there was ever a good trade show-related investment for a company, it’s Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote. It pretty much guarantees headlines in major newspapers and business publication around the world, and has the added benefit of stealing the thunder from the throngs at the Consumer Electronics Show, often held the same week. Personally, I would think that Apple would have gone the other way: guarantee even more publicity by hyping the opportunity to see Jobs’ last Macworld performance.

Of course, there could be a reason unrelated to cancer to explain why Jobs is leaving the keynote duties to Schiller: that it won’t be much of a show, in terms of product news. The company just refreshed the notebooks and iPod lines, and there’s little talk of a new iPhone out there yet. While TBR’s Ezra Gottheil attracted buzz this morning by predicting a low-priced netbook, even he says this was based only on his own tea leaf-reading. Personally, I don’t see it happening. Jobs only recently said in October that Apple didn’t know how to make a great $500 PC that lived up to its quality standards. My guess is that the company hasn’t learned how since then (though I suppose it could argue it does know how to make a great $599 device, which is what Gottheil thinks may be coming).

Either way, this is a very bad day for the tradeshow business. Here we have a company with $27 billion in the bank, that gets massive, global exposure from a talk that rarely lasts two hours. If Apple can’t see the ROI in Macworld, what company can justify the tradeshow bill?

Of course, Apple is correct in pointing out that it has many other ways of reaching consumers, that other companies can only dream of. Apple knows how to throw its own events just fine, saving some of its biggest news for them in recent years. Dowling says this will continue. “We’ll continue to do these events as regularly as we have in the past.” Also, Apple now has 250 well-located retail stores, where 3.5 million people shop each week. Then there are its online efforts, such as how-to videos that accompany the introduction of new products to curious consumers.

I also wonder whether there is a far more practical reason for pulling out of Macworld. Rather than spend every December in a forced march to finish products and polish his presentation for the early January event, he and Apple’s employees may be able to actually enjoy the holiday season a bit. Let’s hope that’s the reason for Apple’s decision, and not anything to do with Jobs’ health.

セクシーな競争のためAnushka

2008-12-15T23:33:00.000-08:00

Kaveriは、映画ナリッチ娘Baagaフレンドの彼女は映画の中で表示されている方法では声明している演技です。性的魅力に必要な要素を持つ女性この映画のすべての外出している。

もし彼女が気に掛けないしている質問に彼女は"なぜ私はこのラベルに不安を覚えるようにと言って、セックス爆弾のラベルがついて、私はこのようなラベルを享受しているが、なぜ私はここです。 "

夢真Kaveri多くの取締役および一部の若い人の血液のテルグ語の映画にAnushka後のようないくつかのエロティシズムを吹き込むを検討している生産者が来るのです。 AnushkaするArundhathiのような映画をsareeクラッドの役割をするにオプトインされています。しかし、彼女が唯一のグラマーKaveriの役割ではなく、肉のものが必要だ。

Sexy Competition For Anushka

2008-12-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

Kaveri who is acting in the film Na Girl Friend Baaga Rich is making a statement in the way she appears in the film. The lady with the requisite oomph factor is going all out in this film.

Asked if she has no qualms about being labeled a sex bomb she says "Why should I have qualms about this label; I will relish such a label and that is why I am here."

Kaveri is a dream come true for many directors and producers who are looking for some young blood to infuse some erotica into Telugu films after the likes of Anushka. Anushka is now opted to do saree clad roles for films like Arundhathi. But Kaveri says she needs only glamour roles but not meaty ones.

Yahooのソーシャルネットワーキングサイトにモーフィング

2008-12-15T23:22:00.000-08:00

ソーシャルネットワーキングにYahooの融合

は、自社のオンライン製品のいくつかを発信月曜日の広範な取り組みのCEO 、ジェリーヤンによってソーシャルネットワーキングサイトのようにするにはYahooや製品を外部の開発者によって作成が容易なアクセスを提供擁護の一環として、改良を導入した。

いくつかの計画の変更：

Yahoo ！メール：ユーザーは友達や家族からのメッセージを整理することができるので上部にしている。

MyYahoo ：ユーザーは外部の開発者の一握りの製品を追加することができます。

ヤフー、テレビや音楽：ユーザーは、自動的件の評価やコメントは、お友達と記事を参照することができます。

Yahooのツールバー：アップグレードのユーザーを取得できるようになる電子YahooとGoogleのGmailだけでなく、外部サービスへのアクセスなど、さまざまなプロバイダーからeBayなどのツールバーを介してメール。

- Verne Kopytoff -ベルヌK opytoff
Google seeks quicker loading over others Googleの他に速いの読み込みを求めて

その公開宣言の逆転では、 Googleは自社のWebサイトよりも早くユーザーのコンピュータに負荷通信会社の支払いを望んでは、競争のは、月曜日Wall Street Journal紙の記事によると。

は、 Googleは、いわゆるネットワークの中立性の原則-すべてのW ebサイトで同じ速度-を保存する必要があるインターネットの基礎を成すものとしてオンラインでのデータの配信共有しているにとって大きな後退となる。

唯一の問題は、次の資料を"リチャードWhitt 、 Googleのワシントン電気通信およびメディア顧問は、ブログの記事で述べている混乱"とされています。ネットワークの中立性に違反するのではなく、彼は、 Googleだけで通信会社とのデータセンターで同社のオンライン製品の配信速度には、サーバーを見つけることが契約交渉しようとしていると述べた。

エッジのキャッシュと呼ばれ、その年に使用されており、ネットワークの中立性とは関係がない練習だ。

この資料では、ジョシュシルバー、フリープレスは、プロは、公共の利益団体ネットワークの中立性、常務理事はGoogleの支援とその競合は、同社のネットワークの中立性の原則に付着さに対応しています。

- Verne Kopytoff -ベルヌK opytoff
Deceased get recognition on listリストに認知される故人

死亡広告をオンラインで読むした場合は、チャンスをLegacy.com 、全体が表示されたら、故人のための仮想ゲストブックに署名することができます実行している。

11日には、それは、有名人のゲストブックの中で最もエントリで、 2008年には独自のトップ10リストを発表した。 They are:彼らは：

1. 1 。バーニーマック（ 13170エントリ）：俳優、コメディアン

2. 2 。ティムラサート（ 4630本）：ジャーナリスト、弁護士とNBCの" "ミートザプレスのモデレータ

3. 3 。ハドソンの家族（ 4270本）：母、兄と甥のジェニファーハドソンのオスカー女優と芸人優勝

4. 4 。マデリンダナム（ 3900本）：大統領の祖母に選出さバラクオバマ

5. 5 。ヒースレジャー（ 3290本）：賞受賞俳優

6. 6 。ビルキートリー（ 3280本）：ケンタッキー州の大学男子バスケットボールチームのために48年の3度NCAAチャンピオンと設備マネージャー

7. 7 。メレディスエマーソン（ 2720本）：若いハイカーグルジア北部の山の中で拉致

8. 8 。リチャードライト（ 2710本）：ピアニスト、キーボード奏者、声楽家、作詞家ピンクフロイドの

9. 9 。ポールニューマン（ 2560本）：俳優、監督、起業家や人道

10. 10 。スキップCaray （ 2550本）：スポーツ、伝説の野球アナウンサーハリーCarayの息子

このサイトによると、 1か月あたり約800000ゲストブックのエントリ-または1つの約2 .5秒ごとに受信します。

- Suzanne Herel -スザンヌH erel

This article appeared on page D - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicleこの記事のページのDの登場-2のサンフランシスコクロニクルの

Yahoo melding into social networking

2008-12-15T23:14:00.000-08:00

Yahoo introduced a revamp to several of its online products Monday as part of a broader effort championed by outgoing CEO Jerry Yang to make Yahoo more like social networking sites and provide easier access to products created by outside developers.

Some of the planned changes:
Yahoo Mail: Users will be able to organize messages so those from friends and family are at the top.
MyYahoo: Users will be able to add products from a handful of outside developers.
Yahoo TV and Music: Users will be able to automatically see ratings and comments that friends post.
Yahoo Toolbar: An upgrade will let users get e-mail via the toolbar from various providers including Yahoo and Google Gmail, as well as access to outside services, such as eBay.
- Verne Kopytoff

Google seeks quicker loading over others

In a reversal of its public proclamations, Google wants to pay telecom companies so that its Web sites load faster on users' computers than the competition's, according to a Monday Wall Street Journal article.
That would mark a major retreat for Google, which has espoused the principle of so-called network neutrality - the delivery of online data at the same speed for all Web sites - as a cornerstone of the Internet that must be preserved.
Only problem is that the article was "confused," Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media counsel, said in a blog post. Instead of violating network neutrality, he said that Google is simply trying to negotiate a deal with telecom companies to locate its servers in their data centers to speed the delivery of its online products.
Called edge caching, it's a practice that has been used for years and has nothing to do with network neutrality.
In response to the article, Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a public interest group that is pro-network neutrality, backed Google and its contention that it is sticking to its network neutrality doctrine.
- Verne Kopytoff

Deceased get recognition on list

If you've read obituaries online, chances are you've run across Legacy.com, where you can sign a virtual guest book for the deceased.
On Monday, it released its own Top 10 list for 2008, of the celebrities with the most entries in their guest book. They are:
1. Bernie Mac (13,170 entries): actor and comedian
2. Tim Russert (4,630 entries): journalist, lawyer and moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press"
3. Hudson Family (4,270 entries): mother, brother and nephew of Oscar-winning actress and entertainer Jennifer Hudson
4. Madelyn Dunham (3,900 entries): grandmother of President-elect Barack Obama
5. Heath Ledger (3,290 entries): award-winning actor
6. Bill Keightley (3,280 entries): three-time NCAA champion and equipment manager for 48 years for the University of Kentucky men's basketball team
7. Meredith Emerson (2,720 entries): young hiker kidnapped in the mountains of Northern Georgia
8. Richard Wright (2,710 entries): pianist, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter for Pink Floyd
9. Paul Newman (2,560 entries): actor, director, entrepreneur and humanitarian
10. Skip Caray (2,550 entries): sportscaster and son of legendary baseball announcer Harry Caray
According to the site, it receives nearly 800,000 guest book entries per month - or one about every 2.5 seconds.
- Suzanne Herel

This article appeared on page D - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Microsoft and Open Source: The Song Remains the Same

2008-12-15T23:10:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has a new open source point man to promote the software giant's interaction with the open source community.
Robert Duffner has taken over the role of senior director of Platform and Open Source Software strategy at Microsoft. Sam Ramji held that role for awhile until relinquishing it to Duffner. Ramji has moved up to take a broader role in Microsoft's overall approach to open source.
Now Duffner leads the team that drives marketing communications and community outreach across a diverse set of audiences that include IT professionals, developers, government and academia. He also oversees Port25, the primary communication channel for the open source community at Microsoft.
According to his bio, prior to joining Microsoft, Duffner was the lead executive responsible for establishing and executing IBM's open source software business development strategy and the emerging markets investment. Indeed, Duffner's team held the distinction of introducing IBM’s first-ever open source based product support offering (WebSphere Application Server Community Edition and Apache Geronimo) from the IBM Software Group. He has also held senior positions at BEA Systems, Vignette and PeopleSoft, with over 16 years experience in the enterprise software industry, Microsoft said.
So not much will change in the way of messaging regarding Microsoft's outlook on open source. It didn't change much when Jason Matusow handed some of the handling of the Microsoft open source strategy to Bill Hilf, or when Hilf handed it off to Ramji.
I met with Duffner and my former eWEEK colleague Peter Galli for lunch here in New York.
The overall messaging hasn't changed much, but Microsoft is doing a little more with various open source communities. For instance, Duffner said he believes one of Microsoft's biggest moves with the open source community this year was its decision to invest in the Apache Software Foundation And not only the financial investment, but that Microsoft also contributed to an Apache project for the first time was “probably the biggest thing we achieved in 2008," Duffner said.
Through its acquisition of Powerset, Microsoft contributed to the HBase project, Duffner said. Bryan Kirschner, Director of Open Source Strategy, at Microsoft said in a blog post about Powerset:

"HBase, which is an important component of Powerset's development, is developed as part of the Apache Software Foundation's Hadoop project, and runs on top of the Hadoop Distributed File System, providing BigTable-type capabilities. (HBase initially started as a contribution to Hadoop before becoming a full sub-project of Hadoop in January 2008.)"

Moreover, Kirschner said, "The next ten years of software will also be a time of growth and change, where both open source and Microsoft communities will grow together, so it is exciting to see contribution to HBase join contribution to ADOdb, a popular data access layer for PHP used by many applications (this was Microsoft's first code contribution to PHP projects, but not the last), and OpenPegasus, an important part of System Center's new cross-platform approach."
Meanwhile, Duffner was particularly interested in driving home the point that Microsoft still competes with open source applications "on an application versus application basis," and Microsoft competes with commercial Linux vendors, such as Red Hat "on the platform versus platform basis." He said these lines often get blurred in the telling of the open source story versus Microsoft's. And he said the messages out in the market right now about open source automatically equating to cost savings versus Microsoft offerings are simply not correct.
For his part, Duffner said, "the responsible question isn’t 'How much will I pay for the platform up-front?' but rather 'Which operating system will save my organization more, year after year, by offering easily available and easily trained resources, and on a platform that provides the reliability and manageability to help minimize downtime as my IT environment scales?'”
Duffner also pointed out that today there are more than 80,000 open source applications that run on Windows, 30,000 of which were built specifically and only to run on Windows.
See, not much has changed in terms of messaging. Microsoft started its strategy of peaceful coexistence with the open source community a few years ago. After rumors began to swirl, back in 2005, of top Microsoft executives meeting with leaders of open source software vendors and communities, I just happened to be in attendance at a small event on Maryland's Eastern Shore where Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel, Brad Smith, came out and offered an olive branch to the open source community. And the core Microsoft stance has been the same ever since: "We will work with you, but we also compete with you."
So not a whole lot of the message has really changed; except some of the faces in front of the community. However, Microsoft deserves points for evolving to the point that it is hiring more and more open source aficionados, and delving into more sophisticated ways of supporting open source – such as contributing to projects under various licenses.

Madonna forks over $92 million for divorce settlement from Guy Ritchie

2008-12-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

Madonna is a little less materially wealthy today after she settled her divorce for up to $92 million.

The superstar's spokeswoman said she has agreed to give Guy Ritchie the huge lump sum to end their eight-year marriage.

The figure includes the value of the couple's country home Ashcombe in western England, said Madonna's spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg.

"It's one of the largest payouts ever in a divorce settlement," Rosenberg said on Monday.

A London court last month quietly granted the couple a preliminary divorce order while they work out the details of their split.

Ritchie, 40, who is worth an estimated $45 million before the deal, had said he didn't want a slice of Madge's reported $450 million treasure trove.

While the financial component of the settlement is now done, the warring couple has yet to finalize custodial arrangements for the couple's children.

The couple has agreed to share custody of their sons, Rocco, 8, and David, 3, who was adopted from Malawi.

Madonna's daughter, Lourdes, 12, from a previous relationship will live with her in New York.

Ritchie and Madonna, 50, have traded barbs in recent weeks, with the singer suggesting her soon-to-be ex was an "emotional retard."

A representative for Ritchie declined to comment on the reported settlement.

The deal will likely outstrip the $60 million Sir Paul McCartney agreed to pay his ex-wife Heather Mills in their divorce.

It will probably rank fourth on the all-time list of celeb divorce payouts, behind the $150 million Michael Jordan and Neil Diamond paid to end their marriages and Steven Spielberg's $100 million ticket to Splitsville from ex-wife Amy Irving.

Retooled Yahoo Mail to Bring Smarter In-Box for Third-Party Development

2008-12-15T22:37:00.000-08:00

Yahoo began delivering on its promise of creating a smarter in-box experience for its 275 million Yahoo Mail users, turning on a service Dec. 15 that will let the Web mail application integrate with social networks and other Web services.
The new Yahoo Mail, which former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang promised at the Consumer Electronics Show Jan. 7, is rolling out to users on a limited basis over the next few months.
Yahoo says the move is part of the most challenging leg in the Yahoo Open Strategy to open the company's service to interoperate with various Web services.
Yahoo's belief is that it can make Yahoo Mail, "where millions of people start their day, prioritize their daily activities, and continually check in to stay connected with and informed about what matters most to them," the central Web services aggregator for consumers.
The idea is as bold as it is risky, coming in the wake of a failed merger with Microsoft, the exodus and dismissal of thousands of employees, and the failure to strike a search ad deal with Google to bolster its ailing search ad business, all of which will be remembered in association with Yang's nearly 18-month tenure at the top.
Yet Yahoo believes opening up its traditionally closed, siloed networks to outside development will be the key to succeeding in keeping its massive core audience as it seeks to compete with Google and Microsoft.
In this video demo, the so-called "smarter in-box" surfaces messages, information and activity updates from people users care about most, as well as an updated in-box and folder view that filters messages from those personal connections.
The new Yahoo Mail in-box also gives users immediate access to third-party applications, such as Family Journal, Flickr, Flixster, WordPress and Xoopit, which can leverage the user's e-mail content, calendar and contacts.
TechCrunch's Mark Hendrickson chronicled a demo of the new Yahoo Mail at a press event in San Francisco today, Dec. 15:

The "Welcome" dashboard shows messages, invitations, and "updates" from the people that matter to users most. The dashboard also displays "invitations to connect" (evidently, once connected with someone, their actions will begin showing up on your dashboard because they will have deemed important to you). When you view your inbox, you can choose to view messages from just your "connections," letting you filter out all of the e-mail that ostensibly means less to you. Contacts (which includes everyone in your address book) are different than connections, which are suggested by Yahoo's algorithm and explicitly identified by users. Invitations to connect are either generated by Yahoo's algorithm or sent manually by your contacts.

VentureBeat's Anthony Ha wrote:

It's not just about notifying your friends about what you're doing on other sites, but actually bringing those services into your e-mail. For example, you can open your Flickr account within Yahoo Mail and copy photos into an e-mail; you can also drag text from an e-mail into a WordPress blog post.

Moreover, Yahoo said the new Updates feature will include user activity related to new connections, the Yahoo profile, Yahoo Buzz, and Yahoo properties such as TV, Music and Travel. As part of the YOS philosophy, developers will be able to integrate their services right into Yahoo Mail.
Today, some Yahoo Mail users in the United States and Australia will see the smarter in-box, including the new Welcome Page, in-box and folder-view enhancements, and connections and Updates functionality. A more limited group of U.S. users will begin beta testing the open applications today.
Yahoo plans to bring together the social and open features in Yahoo Mail in the first half of 2009.

Google’s ‘Treat All Rich Companies the Same’ Vision of Net Neutrality

2008-12-15T22:29:00.000-08:00

Let’s not lose sight of this: There really is a war going on between the phone companies and Google over the way Internet traffic will be priced. And both sides want their self interest to appear to be morally superior.

The blogosphere has been in a tizzy all day about an article in the Wall Street Journal that suggested that a new initiative by Google meant to speed up the delivery of YouTube videos and other parts of its service represents an abandonment of the principles of “network neutrality.”

Google responded that the Journal’s article was “confused” and that it isn’t asking for any special treatment. It said it simply wants to build a “content delivery network” of its own so it won’t have to buy services from companies like Akamai or Limelight. Those networks put copies of big files, mainly videos and photos, on servers located in or near Internet service providers so they can be delivered more quickly using less long distance network capacity.

Google isn’t being as hypocritical as the Journal story made out. But it shares the some of the blame for the sloppy rhetoric used by advocates of network neutrality. Sometimes the issue is framed as a total bandwidth egalitarianism, when that’s not really what they want.

There is a huge fight here, not over whether there will be first class and coach seats, but how those seats will be priced and who will pay for them. Google and others are saying that, in effect, every seat in the same class of service should have the same price, and that Internet providers can’t add surcharges to companies they don’t like or give discounts to those they do.

The Open Internet Coalition, of which Google is a backer, writes that on the Internet “both the big player and the new entrant can reach individuals, anywhere, on equal footing.” And it writes that if net neutrality is not guaranteed, Internet providers will charge money to Web companies for fast access, leaving everyone else in the “slow lane.”

The reality today is that rich companies already get first class service, and most network neutrality proposals aren’t going to change that. Big sites buy faster Internet connections and get better service from their providers. Moreover, those with money can buy services content delivery networks like Akamai, or in the case of the superrich, they can set up their own networks, as Google is trying to do.

That has been, more or less, the way the Internet has operated until now. A lot of traffic has been exchanged between various networks without payment. And the rest of the market has been very competitive, with pricing based on standard measures—like the number of bits transported or the maximum capacity.

The phone and cable companies don’t like the existing protocols of the Internet. They argue that since they paid to build the networks, they should be allowed to come up with any pricing scheme they choose. In other communications areas, they have found that the best way to profit is by charging a lower price for base service, and then selling high margin add-ons, like text messages in cell phones, or telephone service on cable systems.

The communications companies don’t want Google to waltz in and offer free voice chat, free messaging or a free version of whatever other add on service they come up with and undercutting their plans without cutting an appropriate deal. They find Google’s argument especially galling since it is making so much money on advertising using their networks.

There are lots of arguments on all sides here and lots of interests to be balanced between different sorts of companies as well as consumers. The incoming Obama administration says it wants to work this out.

But the overheated rhetoric and manipulative tactics on both sides may well make it harder to build a consensus around whatever policy they come up with.

Aiko, Le Trung’s Robo-Girl, Rules!

2008-12-15T21:50:00.000-08:00

Aiko, Le Trung’s Robo-Girl, is still in the news, and at least one commercial company seems to have taken advantage of her.

“British British tabloids are calling it his ‘robot girlfriend’, but a 33-year-old Brampton man maintains that Aiko, which means ‘Love Child’ in Japanese, is merely a research project, albeit a costly, time-consuming one,” says CTV.

“The fem-bot has been programmed by creator Trung Le to read, swat away an inappropriately placed hand, and speak about 13,000 sentences in English and Japanese.”

The headline to a p2pnet story read, World media swoon over Le Trung’s robo-girl, and occupied a top spot on the main Google news page for quite a few hours on December 12.

And she was still there today at 4:00 am pacific today under Scientist Builds Female Android from InformationWeek.

Aiko is cool but IOHO, she’s hardly a sex-bomb.

CTV also runs a video of Aiko its story on the android and by and amazing concidence, it kicks off with another robo-girl to rival Aiko.

And this time it has very definite, and unmistakable, sexual overtones.

It’s an advertisement in which a female robot lovingly strokes a man’s face in what a promo page for a model agency calls a “high-tech Ad spot” featuring a “hot [male] model” getting a close shave under the shower,.

Are you there, Isaac Asimov?

Brad Pitt photographs nude girl in Japanese commercial?

2008-12-13T00:28:00.000-08:00

What is Brad Pitt doing in this strange Japanese TV commercial?
Well, it's directed by Wes Anderson, so there's that. And according to Us, it's a remake of the 1953 French film "Les Vacances de Monseieur Hulot." Pitt shot the Softbank commercial in Normandy on Sept. 20.

"There were lots of children on the set, and Brad was very friendly to all of them," a set source tells Us. "Some of the children had complicated French names. He turned to them and said, 'What is your name?' in the most perfect French. He's obviously been studying hard."

As well as learning French, Brad is also mastering Japanese. "Brad also used a few Japanese words to the Softbank execs too," the source told Us. "He's becoming a master of many languages."
Apparently, the Pittster's been doing wackadoodle Japanese commercials for a few years.
Check out this complication of his commercial work for Edwin Jeans, cell phones, etc.
The dancing alone is worth the price of admission.
Now we know where he got those dorky dance moves we saw in "Burn After Reading"!

Film inspired by rape of Okinawa girl by U.S. troops

2008-12-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

"Never let them forget."
That’s the tagline for "The First Breath of Tengan Rei," a new independent film that focuses on an Okinawa woman who travels to Chicago to confront two Marines who abducted, raped and left her for dead a decade ago.
And if the story line sounds familiar, it should. The directors loosely based some of the plot on a 1995 incident that gained international notoriety and drew thousands of anti-base protesters to the streets.
In that case, two Marines and a Navy corpsman from Camp Hansen abducted a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the main street in Kin and took her to a beach — her hands tied and her eyes and mouth duct-taped shut — where she was beaten and raped.
Two of the men were sentenced to seven years and the third to 6½ years of hard labor in a Japanese prison.
The girl’s family later moved from Kin, and she has not been heard from publicly since. "Tengan Rei" examines what could have happened 10 years later.
In the movie, the girl was 16 when she was abducted, and now — at 26 — she journeys to Chicago with an unclear intent, perhaps only to find out what happened to her assailants after they were released from prison and to make sure they know how the incident scarred her for life.
But her search leads her to kidnap the 16-year-old son of one of the Marines, and the tale turns to one of redemption and reconciliation.
"Tengan Rei" is the first feature-length film by writers and directors Ed M. Koziarski, a native of Chicago, and his wife, Junko Kajino, originally from Nagano, Japan. It had its premiere showing in November at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.
Koziarski said the film, financed by backers in the United States and Japan and made for "under a million dollars," next will be screened at an international film festival in India and then at a return engagement in Chicago.
Arrangements also are being made for distribution in Japan and major U.S. cities, he said.
A DVD should be released early next year.
It was filmed on Okinawa and in Chicago in 2006 and 2007. The Okinawa scenes took place on the tiny Yagaji Island, the site of a former leper colony located north of Nago, Okinawa.
The film stars Okinawa-born actress Erika, who had to learn English almost from scratch to play the part of young Tengan Rei.
"We thought a part like this must be played by an Okinawan actress, and we found Erika, who has starred in some Japanese movies, TV and advertising," Kajino said in a telephone interview from their Chicago home. "She really prepared and was connected to the part. She played it with her body and her heart."
After a preview on Okinawa last summer, some anti-base activists said the movie should have made a stronger case against the U.S. military presence on the island. Kajino said that’s not what their project was about.
"A lot of people wanted us to express strong political issues, but as filmmakers we are more interested in telling compelling stories," she said. "We want to take the viewer on a personal journey, get them to ask their own questions."
Koziarski said they approached the political issue of the military occupation of more than 20 percent of the main island of Okinawa in a "deeply intimate and personal way, challenging audiences to find their own answers to the questions the film raises."
In preparation for the film, Kajino made several research trips to Okinawa to explore the distinct culture of the Okinawan people and get their perspectives on the base controversy and the social stigma attached to victims of sexual assault and rape.
"This was something in the back of my mind for a long time," she said. "Women who are attacked tend to be silent; they try not to talk about it. I wish the environment would change, that women would be more open and break the stigma."
One of the messages Kajino wanted to convey in the film was how such crimes affect both sides — the perpetrator and the victim.
She said that talking with Okinawans and American servicemembers "changed my way of looking at soldiers 180 degrees."
"They are isolated, too, and feel disconnected," she said. "Though the two cultures live side by side, there are still walls."
In the film, Rei tells the kidnapped boy the truth about the rape and his father’s long absence from home during his tour in Japan. The boy, Paris, had believed his father had served time in the brig for disrespecting an officer.
After the two Marines raped her, she was left for dead on the beach at the water’s edge and was swept to sea by the incoming tide. She struggled to the surface and took her first breath in her new life as a victim.
"I thought the ocean was cleaning me and taking away the stain they put in me," she tells Paris. "But the stain was still there. It never goes away."
The directing team had asked if the movie could be screened on base in Okinawa. It would be something the military might want to show newcomers to the island, Koziarski said.
Lt. Col. Douglas Powell, head of Marine Corps Public Affairs in Japan, nixed the idea after reading some reviews.
"It’s not a movie we would show," he said Wednesday. "It wouldn’t be appropriate."

Robot 'not really' his girl, man says

2008-12-13T00:14:00.000-08:00

A Brampton man who became an Internet celebrity yesterday after his "robot girlfriend" was featured on the websites of two British tabloids is both happy and embarrassed by the attention.

"She's not really my girlfriend," said Trung Le at his parents' home last night. "Aiko's a robot who can do a lot of things, and hopefully more soon."

Stories in Daily Mail and Sun sites refer to Aiko, the 5-foot-tall robot with an hourglass figure, shiny hair, delicate Asian features and silicone breasts, as her creator's girlfriend.

"I have friends – I don't need to create friends," said Le sheepishly. The stories suggested Trung, who was born in Vietnam and grew up partly in Japan, may have made Aiko because he was too busy to find a real girlfriend.

Trung, 33, who made his first robot when he was 8, says Aiko is the result of his years of planning, calculations and hard work.

Aiko – which means love child in Japanese – can speak about 13,000 sentences in Japanese and English, do algebra, trig and geometry, and tell the weather in foreign cities, courtesy of Internet links.

She can move her hands, nod her head – and shout indignantly if touched roughly. When Le lightly slapped her, she cried out: "It's not nice to touch a girl's head. Touch your own head."

Le is now trying to teach her to make tea and coffee, and do simple household chores.

He began her assembly in August of 2007 and was done two months later. Well, almost. Her hair – real, from Japan – came a bit later.

He says Aiko cost him about $25,000, leaving him penniless and forced to move in with his parents.

But the real cost came a year ago, in the form of a heart attack. "There was a lot of stress," said Trung. "Of creating her, of having almost no money left and finding no sponsor."

He said he was also stung by the skeptics who put down Aiko.

His robot girl has been heckled and worse in their public outings, Le said.

A home video he posted on YouTube in 2007 is not without controversy. After having her read a text in Japanese and solve an algebra problem, he asks Aiko to follow the movements as he moves his glasses in front of her face. But she can't.

She's been called a fake on the Internet and to her face.

Le has taken her out to a Brampton park three times. "Most people have been very curious about her and want to know what all she can do," he said.

Women, in particular, have been fascinated. Some touched her breasts to feel the silicone, he said.

But Le said one elderly woman got hostile, yelled at them and threw rocks. She told Le he was "trying to be God and it isn't right."

Le defends his girl. "If people think she's pre-programmed, I invite them to her next public appearance," yet unscheduled, he said.

Meanwhile, his mother Kim is happy to have Aiko at home. "I like having her in the house because she can tell me the weather.

"She's like a family member now."

Teens Post, Send Nude Pix As Sexy Presents

2008-12-13T00:11:00.000-08:00

One in five teen girls has sent a revealing photograph of themselves via cell phone or e-mail or posted nude or partially nude images of themselves online, according to a survey released this week. Eleven percent of them are 16 or younger. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com teamed up to survey 1,280 teens and young adults, ages 13 to 26, from Sept. 25 through Oct. 3. They released a 20-page report on their "Sex and Tech" (PDF) survey Wednesday. "Teenagers are early adopters of technology -- from the latest social networking sites to the hottest new cell phones," Susan Schulz, special projects editor for Hearst Magazines, said in a statement. "While this tech savvy can be seen as a positive, our study reveals there's also a negative side. Teenagers should be aware of the real consequences to this type of behavior and we need to provide them with guidance and encourage them to make smart choices."
Twenty-one percent of girls and 18% of boys said they have posted nude or partially nude pictures of themselves online. Forty-nine percent of teens and young adults have sent sexually suggestive text messages or e-mails of themselves. Fifteen percent of teens who sent sexually suggestive content said they have done so with someone they only know online.
Two-thirds of teen girls who sent or posted sexually suggestive content said they did it to be fun or flirtatious. Fifty-two percent said they wanted to give a sexy present to their boyfriends, and 40% said they did it as a joke.
The survey found that the pictures get around. One-third of teen boys and one-fourth of teen boys said they have seen nude or partially nude photos because someone shared an image that the sender meant to keep private.
The report stated that young people's online behavior seems to affect their behavior in real life, with more than one in five teens saying technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive. More than one-third of teens said that exchanging sexy content makes dating or hooking up more likely. Nearly one-third said they believe that people exchanging sexy content are expected to date or hook up.
"That so many young people say technology is encouraging an even more casual, hook-up culture is reason for concern, given the high rates of teen and unplanned pregnancy in the United States," Marisa Nightingale, senior adviser to the Entertainment Media Program at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, said in a statement. "Parents should understand that their own notions of what's public, what's private, and what's appropriate, may differ greatly from how teens and young adults define these concepts."

Iconic US 1950s Poster Girl Dies

2008-12-13T00:05:00.000-08:00

The 85-year-old suffered a heart attack nine days ago and never recovered consciousness.

"With deep personal sadness I must announce that my dear friend and client Bettie Page passed away in a Los Angeles hospital," her agent Mark Roesler said.

She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Bettie Mae Page was one of six children from a poor family.
She worked as a secretary as she made a bid for Hollywood stardom that was never to materialise.
A screen test at 20th Century Fox went badly, with a producer offering her a break in return for sexual favours - she refused.
She turned to modelling and posed for her first pin-up photos in 1947 - soon provocative pictures of her in bikinis or sexy lingerie were wildly popular, tacked up on the walls of locker rooms, student halls, offices and military barracks.

She was one of the inaugural centrefolds in Hugh Heffner's new magazine Playboy, which named her "the model of the century."
However, the pictures of her were not universally popular and some led to an inquiry into pornography with Ms Page being subpoenaed at one point to appear before a senate committee.
In the end, she did not have to testify.
According to her fans, the model's appeal was her naughty-but-nice image that combined sweetness with sexuality for a series of now-legendary posters and photographs.
Among her fans was filmmaker and aviator Howard Hughes who doggedly pursued the pin up - she turned him down as well.

I guess people will say I made a mistake. But sex is part of love, and you shouldn't go around doing it unless you are in love. I certainly didn't.

By the late 1950s, Bettie Page was one of the most photographed women in the world, and at the height of her popularity.
In 1958, at the peak of her fame, Ms Page vanished from public view and her modelling days ended. She became a born-again Christian while struggling with marriage problems and depression.
But she became famous all over again to a new audience in the 1990s after her image was used for a lucrative licensing deal.
In her old age, she refused to be photographed, preferring to preserve her mystic.
She said: "I want to be remembered, as I was when I was young and in my golden times...
"I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."

Op-ed: NARA framework distorts records management

2008-12-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

The National Archives and Records Administration recently issued a framework for developing records management guidelines. I see the framework as one more instance of how NARA distorts records management to the disservice of the entire federal government.

As always, NARA presents itself as being generally responsible for federal records management. That assertion is untrue, as NARA well knows.

The 1984 law that created the agency gave responsibility for federal records management to NARA and the General Services Administration. Whether by formal or informal agreement, GSA dropped out of any active role in records management after 1984, and NARA stands unchallenged in the field.

However, the agency represents only the half of records management that Congress assigned to it in 1984 — namely, documentation and preservation of records. That is the risk management side of the field: If you don’t keep good records, bad things happen. That is emphatically not the whole of records management.

The other half of the field, which was assigned to GSA, is economy and efficiency — the information management part of records management. That part deals with how agencies use records information every day in their business processes.

You find the GSA aspect still included in the Code of Federal Regulations provision that asks: What type of records management business process improvements should my agency strive to achieve? The key answer is: To give agency personnel the information needed in the right place at the right time and in a useful format.

In other words, federal records managers are responsible for feeding records information back into agency business processes and for being active in agency information management. Would you ever discover that from NARA’s records management guidance? No way.

And thanks to NARA, federal records managers are mostly unaware that they have any responsibilities in agency information management.

If NARA asserts its primacy in federal records management, the assertion should encompass the whole of the field, including GSA’s role. In the new NARA guidance, as in everything preceding it, you find not a word about the information management side of records. NARA preaches only half of the gospel, and that is dishonest.

No one fills the role of promoting the information management side of records management. No government entity advises agencies on best practices for integrating records information into their business processes. Nobody has developed guidance for how records information should contribute to efficiency and productivity in carrying out agency programs.

Sound financial management demands reliable internal controls, which depend on good financial records. Audits by inspectors general succeed only when they have good records to rely on. Yet chief financial officers, IGs and chief information officers never hear from NARA that good records management is crucial to doing their jobs and improves mission performance.

NARA argues only for the risks that occur when records are not documented and preserved. It never says that programs are more productive and efficient when a solid records management program exists.

In my judgment, records management has a low status at agencies because of NARA’s lopsided take on what it is all about. It is high time that the agency presented the whole picture.

Sakura District

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Actress Erika Sawajiri and media creator Tsuyoshi Takashiro get married at Meiji Shrine

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あなたのクリスマスプレゼントには少しスパイスを入れ

あなたのクリスマスプレゼントには少しスパイスを入れ

Put a little spice into your holiday gifts

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Illuminati ~Visual Kei Skins