Windows 7 debut a hit: NPD

SAN FRANCISCO, US (AFP) - Microsoft's new-generation Windows 7 operating system hit the ground running, with US sales in its opening days blasting past those of its Vista predecessor, according to NPD Group.

Sales of Windows 7 in the days following its October 22 release were 234 percent higher than those posted by Vista when it was released into the market, the market research firm reported on Thursday.

"Microsoft's program of early low-cost pre-sales, high visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful," said NPD vice president of analysis Stephen Baker.

"In a slow environment for packaged software Windows 7 brought a large number of customers into the software aisles," he said.

Revenue from Windows 7 sales during its initial days in the market only surpassed Vista by 83 percent due to price discounts and a lack of promotion for an Ultimate version of the new operating system, according to NPD.

The Windows 7 launch also gave a bump to personal computer (PC) sales, which nearly doubled from the previous week and were 49 percent higher than the same period a year earlier, but Vista's launch gave PC sales a bigger boost, NPD said.

"A combination of factors impacted Windows 7 PC sales at the outset, but the trajectory of overall PC sales is very strong leading into the holiday season," said Baker.

Microsoft's much-heralded Windows 7 went on sale around the world in October as the US software giant rebooted after the disappointment of its previous generation operating system Vista.

Windows 7 made its global debut to generally good reviews with most technology analysts and users who tested a demo version praising it as a significant improvement on the much-maligned Vista.

Analyst Rob Enderle of Silicon Valley's Enderle Group said the Windows 7 launch was a "big deal for Microsoft."

"Windows Vista was a train wreck," he said.

While computer users may not give much thought to the operating systems that serve as the brains of their machines, they are at the heart of Microsoft's global software empire that runs more than 90 percent of the world's computers.

Microsoft apparently learned a lesson from Vista and worked closely with computer makers, users and software developers while crafting Windows 7.

More than eight million people dabbled with Windows 7 in a beta test phase.

Among the new features in Windows 7 is a redesigned taskbar for launching programs and switching windows, enhanced ability to share files with other PCs, improved photo and video editing software and the ability to stream digital music or video to other devices.

Windows 7 also features Microsoft's latest Web browser, Internet Explorer 8.

My life online - time to delete?

How much do you know about all the data you have stored out there on the web? And how much control do you have over it? Questions prompted by Google's latest move to deal with concerns about privacy.

The search company has today launched its Dashboard, which it says will allow users to view and control all the data associated with any of the Google products they may use - from Gmail, to web history, to documents and so on. Why should you want to do that? Well it may give you a bit of a wake-up call about just how much information you are leaving stored on servers in California or elsewhere.

It prompted me to do a quick audit of my online data, and work out what control I had over it. There turned out to be a startling quantity of my stuff out there on the web. Amongst the Google products, I use are Gmail, Google Documents, YouTube and Web History. So I have nearly 22,000 e-mails stored, 589 documents, and 63 videos. My search history dates back to December 2006 - I presume that's when I opted into the service - and includes around 8,500 search terms. I'm reasonably satisfied that I have control over that data - after all I can simply delete all that material and opt out of search history if I so wish.

Then there are other photo and video sharing services like Flickr, and Apple's mobileme where I also have hundreds of pictures and videos for anyone to see if they so wish, plus thousands of contacts and calendar appointments which are only available to me. Again I feel pretty confident that I can wipe all of that if I decide that's best.

So what about all the traces I've left on various social networking sites? On Facebook's servers I have a large amount of material, including hundreds of photos posted by me, and quite a few of me posted by others. I can delete my own photos - but not those posted by others of me. And if I really get sick of Facebook I can simply delete my entire profile - and presumably all traces of my networking life there will disappear.

Now let's turn to Twitter. To my slight embarrassment I see that I've contributed over 7,000 tweets since I joined the micro-blogging service in 2007. All of those messages are now searchable by anyone. For the first time, I had a quick glance at Twitter's terms and conditions - and noticed this explanatory note:

"This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. But what's yours is yours - you own your content."
Now I've always regarded Twitter as a public place, so it doesn't really worry me that anyone can see what I've tweeted now and in the past. But in what sense do I "own" my content? If I delete my account, my thousands of tweets will still be online for anyone to read.

But there's one aspect of my online life where I'm even less clear about my control over my own data. For a couple of years I've used the Spinvox voice-to-text service - and you may remember that back in the summer I wrote several articles about that company, which included aspects of its data protection policies. I wrote to Spinvox this week with three questions. I wanted to know how long they kept my voice messages and the text transcribed from them, where that data was stored and what would happen to it if the business was sold to another company.

The answers I received were incomplete and slightly worrying. "Messages are stored in accordance with local data protection legislation", was about the sum of the answer to my first question, though I'm still pressing for details of what that means for my personal messages. Spinvox said all the data was held in its secure UK data centres, and if the company were to be sold, the new owner would acquire all of it. What I now need to find out is just how easy it is for me to wipe all of my embarrassing and confidential voice messages from the Spinvox servers if they are sold on.

Earlier this week on Radio 4's Start The Week , Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, who has written a book called Delete:The Virtue of Forgetting in a Digital Age, argued that the internet's infinite capacity to remember can be a real threat to our future reputations. He said that it was so much cheaper and easier now to store data on the internet than to delete it. I thought at the time he was overstating the problem - but looking at my vast collection of online documents, photos and other detritus, I begin to worry that he may be right.

Is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Terrorist Gameplay Artful?

Now that we've collectively gasped and had a chance to pull the paper sacks from our faces, is last week's Modern Warfare 2 footage worth getting our camouflage in a bunch?

Friendly warning, gameplay (less story) spoilers ahead. I don't think the reveal that you can ruins anything, personally, but some people don't want to know the sun might come up tomorrow.

Okay, deep breaths. Ready then?

Activision's modern military shooter arrives next week for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows. Unless you're a visiting extraterrestrial, you've probably read about this video clip from the game, which shows a player-controlled massacre of innocent civilians in an airport. As the video begins, a load sequence displays blurred words like "madman" and "body count" onscreen. When it completes, several men--one of them controlled by the player--step from an elevator into a baggage reclaim area, leveling high-caliber machine guns at clustered civilians, then unloading into the crowd. The player hesitates, then joins in, firing indiscriminately at the seething huddle.

The gunfire pauses, the smoke partly clears, and bodies are strewn everywhere. Terrified, heart-rending screams issue from somewhere beyond. The player advances through the baggage area, spotting fleeing civilians and firing in bursts. He proceeds up stairs, scanning for victims, zooming down his iron sights to better aim, finishing off the crawling wounded, and lobbing ballistic grenades across the concourse.

It's the screams that got to me.

Why so serious, I know. Because the game takes itself seriously, for starters. This isn't an on-sides situation where the developers have your squad mates slapping at friendly bullets--misfired or not--like bees and muttering "Hey watch it!" It's not like picking up tiny yelping villagers by their toes and flinging them across hills and mountains to watch them hobble home broken-limbed in Lionhead's Black & White. These aren't victims of "collateral damage" (an abhorrent military term, but you get the point) betwixt you and some equally violence-dealing opponent. It's violence for the sake of violence--ostensibly to intimidate in pursuit of some political or ideological aim.

If you've got a pulse, it's disturbing stuff

The big question, though, is whether it's good disturbing stuff. Like Jack Harkness's gut-wrenching choice in Torchwood Children of the Earth. Like the scene in Mad Men where Don Draper assaults one of his more wily paramours in the bathroom. Like nearly everything that happens in Lars von Trier's Antichrist. Is it artful, in other words.

A word about art, without--I promise--going overboard. In On The Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction, Brian Boyd calls art simply "cognitive play with pattern." Just as "play" over time refines our behavioral palette, says Boyd, so art "increases cognitive skills, repertoires, and sensitivities."

"A work of art acts like a playground for the mind, a swing or a slide or a merry-go-round of visual or aural or social pattern," he says, arguing "Like play, art succeeds by engaging and rewarding attention, since the more frequent and intense our response, the more powerful the neural consequences."

It's that last sentence that resonates when thinking about this Modern Warfare 2 sequence. What we've seen of it certainly fits Boyd's criteria. We know it's a game, therefore we know it's not real. We take it as given that the computer avatars standing in for airport-going citizenry are empty shells, that they're not alive, and that flies exhibit more sentience. We know those aren't really guns on-screen, that they're not firing actual bullets, and that we're not, in fact, harming anyone.

And yet most players will almost surely be stirred. We're visualizing grievous injury inflicted on a massive scale, and there's no letting you off the hook--the horrified wailing will turn your blood. Unless you're undead, the sequence kindles something atavistic. You can't help but react.

Ergo Boyd: The more intense our response, the more powerful the neural consequences.

The best analysis I've read of the footage is by Tom Hoggins, writing for Telegraph. Give it a read. Hoggins asks all the right questions, like "Has this scene done its job in the way it was intended?" or "Is the use of grenades in this scene a totally unnecessary inclusion?" or "Have Infinity Ward approached the scene from the wrong direction?"

He also notes the BBFC (the British Board of Film Classification) already passed Modern Warfare 2 with an 18 ("Suitable only for adults") certification. Our own Entertainment Software Rating Board has done the same, awarding the game a "Mature 17+" rating. They've even folded that specific scene into their ratings summary:

The most intense depiction of violence occurs during a "No Russian" mission where players take on the role of an undercover Ranger: Several civilians are gunned down at an airport as players are given a choice to participate in the killings (e.g., players can shoot a wounded civilian that is crawling on the ground), or walk by and observe without opening fire.

You can participate in the killings, but you can also choose not to, simply observing what would then play for all intents and purposes like a movie in which terrorists are portrayed doing terrible things. You can probably come up with half a dozen offhand that depict worse atrocities.

The difference in this instance is that you're given the option to participate. That choice--to do or avoid doing something horrible--occurs in safe "play-space," a kind of "experimental authenticity" unique to gaming.

I'm not suggesting anything goes. Handling is everything here, and I won't know for sure on which side of the divide between "artful" and "excessive" this sequence falls until I've played and analyzed it myself. It's certainly possible to take something too far. Art isn't a catch-all for any conceivable endeavor. Imagine a game that let you participate in rape, or child molestation.

I'd rather not.

One thing's certain: With the response it's already received, Activision won't be wanting for press coverage. Wait until the usual legislative suspects wrap their tendrils round this, then expect to see the sequence trotted out with the same oblivious bombast cable news networks gave the vaguely amorous sequences in BioWare's Mass Effect. The company's already received plenty of attention for its depiction of Washington in flames.

Review: Motorola's Droid is a serious smart phone

By RACHEL METZ
AP TECHNOLOGY WRITER


The new Motorola Droid smart phone is shown in San Francisco, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009. (AP Photo/Russel A. Daniels)
SAN FRANCISCO -- Since its debut in 2007, millions of people have gravitated toward Apple's iPhone, wooed by its sleek hardware, simple user interface and abundance of applications.

Other smart phone makers have been trying since then to dispel the notion that the iPhone is the be-all and end-all of mobile gadgets. The latest push comes from Verizon Wireless and Motorola, whose Droid is a good alternative for those seeking a feature-packed smart phone with a full keyboard and strong wireless service.

The Droid stands out from the crowd of iPhone wannabes with a slim but weighty body, noticeably angular look and large touch screen.

Its 3.7-inch screen is bigger than the iPhone's 3.5-inch one, and the extra real estate really makes it easier to navigate Web pages and play with applications. It also offers plenty of space on the home screen (and two side screens that you swipe to see) for software "widgets" that give a quick look at such things as your friends' Facebook status updates or the song you're playing on the built-in music player.

And the Droid's cost is comparable with the iPhone's - $200, after a rebate, with a two-year service contract with Verizon Wireless, its exclusive U.S. distributor.

The Droid runs the latest version of Google Inc.'s operating system, Android 2.0, which includes some enhancements such as the ability to zoom in on Web pages and photos by double-tapping on the screen. With one tap on a photo in your contacts list, you can also quickly see the ways in which you can contact your friends.

When it comes out on Friday the Droid will also be the first phone to include a cool, free mapping application from Google that can announce turn-by-turn directions.

Google Maps Navigation is easy to use and helped me out on a late-night ice cream run - I put the Droid in my pocket, turned up the volume and followed its female-robot-voice instructions while riding my motorcycle across town.

I was glad to see that the application quickly recalculates your route if you're prone to making wrong turns as I am. And if you live in a busy city with unpredictable traffic, you might like an option for getting alternate routes, all of which you can see overlaid on the same map along with their distances and estimated driving times.

Like other Android phones, the Droid has a voice search function. It can be used, for instance, to help navigate routes when you're in the Maps Navigation application. Saying "Navigate to Starbucks in San Francisco" should give you a list of Starbucks Coffee shops. Pick one, and you'll get turn-by-turn directions.

I'll probably stick with using the Droid's keyboard to get directions, though, as it had a hard time understanding me. The phone tried to send me to Ikea when I asked it to take me from my office to my apartment. It offered me all sorts of unrelated results when I tried to get directions to a French restaurant near my home.

That's not to say the keyboard is perfect. Unlike many other phones with standard, "QWERTY" keyboards, the Droid has keys that are pretty much flat, which often made it hard to type accurately. This wasn't helped by the fact that, aside from the space bar, the keys are all the same size. Two blank key-sized spaces on the bottom of the keyboard - one on the left, one on the right - made me wonder why Motorola didn't try to at least enlarge the often-used "return" key.

One Droid feature touted heavily in Verizon's television commercials is its ability to run several applications simultaneously, which is something the iPhone can't do. Generally, I found that the Droid does this pretty well.

There were hiccups, though. As I was listening to music, I tried to take a photo to send in a text message to a friend. Elvis Costello started to stutter as I pressed the shutter button. Another time, I tried to make a call while the Maps Navigation application was running and had to endure very loud instructions about where to turn while the phone was ringing.

I did like the Droid's five-megapixel camera, which matches the resolution of another new Motorola phone that runs Android, the Cliq, and can take sharper shots than contemporaries like the iPhone, whose camera hovers around 3 megapixels. There's also a very bright flash - another thing the iPhone and Cliq lack - so you can take photos in low light.

The Droid's big screen makes for a nice viewfinder, and a small menu of camera settings slides out from the left side of the screen so you can adjust the white balance and use different color effects. You'll have plenty of space to store the photos you take, too, because the Droid includes a 16 gigabyte microSD memory card.

The Droid runs on Verizon Wireless' network, and I was pretty impressed with its speed as I surfed the Web, looked up directions or checked e-mail. It also got a generally solid reception for making calls, and while my friends' voices didn't sound as clear as they could, I didn't have problems with dropped calls.

Motorola has been struggling to come up with a phone that comes close to matching the popularity of 2005's Razr, and the Droid is the latest indication that Motorola is really trying to figure out what consumers want.

It's also one of the most promising challengers to the iPhone, a field that now includes Palm's Pre and Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm2.

Some Verizon Wireless customers have been holding out on getting the iPhone - available in the U.S. only through AT&T - because it means switching away from a service they are already used to and like. For them, the Droid might be a good reason to stick with that wireless provider.

Even if you aren't already using Verizon, if you're not swayed by the iPhone, you might fall for the Droid.

What data is Google collecting on you?

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California - Google is offering a new privacy control that will make it easier for people to see some of the information being collected about them.

The Dashboard feature unveiled overnight pulls together all the data that pours into Google's computers whenever web surfers log in to one of the company's services.

That includes summaries of an individual's email, search requests and viewing habits on Google's video site, YouTube.

Before, a user would have to check multiple places for all that.

The snapshot doesn't include any activity that occurs when a person isn't logged into a Google service.

Dashboard represents Google's latest step to give its users more control over their personal information and appease privacy watchdogs.

- AP

Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: November 6, 2009
In “The Men Who Stare at Goats” George Clooney wears a heavy mustache and a somewhat shaggier version of the military haircut called a high and tight, two adjectives which also describe his performance in this likable, lightweight, absurdist comedy.

As Lyn Cassady — a fictional member of an Army unit that was weirder and possibly truer than most science fiction — Mr. Clooney has shed his cool cat skin to embrace his inner clown. Juggling tics, double takes, eyeball bulges and explosive gestures, he leaps in the air and splats in the sand with cartoon abandon, buoyed by the jokes and the big bounce of his own stardom.

With his thrusting jaw, Lyn looks as if he could have been drawn by Milton Caniff, the creator of the comic-strip tough guy Steve Canyon. Instead Lyn has been drawn in crude if generally effective strokes by Mr. Clooney and his producing partner, Grant Heslov, who together also wrote “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Mr. Clooney directed that film, but for this one Mr. Heslov has moved behind the camera to make a somewhat ragged directing debut. Though he never settles into a groove, moving between would-be parody and could-be sincerity, Mr. Heslov does keep the parts more or less in play, aided by the outlandishness of his story and by the performances of Mr. Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Stephen Lang.

Written by Peter Straughan and based on the nonfiction book by Jon Ronson, also titled “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” the film tells parallel stories that finally join. One involves a journalist, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who after his marriage tanks, heads to Iraq to give his life meaning. What he discovers is Lyn, a recruit in the mysterious New Earth Army, an experimental Army program centered on parapsychology that was developed by a Vietnam vet, Bill Django (Mr. Bridges) and pushed into creation by the gonzo General Hopgood (Mr. Lang). Realizing that he has the makings of a juicy story, Bob tags after Lyn, a decision that leads him both into Iraq and Lyn’s past in the New Earth Army.

Bill’s initiative, born in the fields of Vietnam and baptized in the hot tubs of the New Age movement, brings together Buddhism, pantheism, militarism and old-fashioned hooey-ism, the idea being that war can be waged with love, eagle feathers and assorted paranormal techniques — with a few martial arts moves thrown in. General Hopgood and Lyn take to the program with a seriousness bordering on devotional, partly because Bill, or rather the irresistible Mr. Bridges, could inspire lemmings of any genus. His batty smile and loosey-goosey gestural performance, which brings to mind a modern dance teacher stoned on good vibes, perfectly complements Mr. Lang’s spring-loaded turn. (Mr. Lang is having a very nice year, with roles also in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” and James Cameron’s “Avatar.”)

Mr. Clooney doesn’t play his part as straight as Mr. Lang or Mr. Bridges and, especially during the flashbacks when he’s forced into a sloppy pageboy, he seems to be enjoying the joke too much. What makes Mr. Lang’s performance work so well is its unwavering seriousness: he never lets self-amusement cloud his eyes, or his acting. Not so Mr. McGregor, a predictably attractive if superfluous presence. What makes this a story worth telling, it emerges quickly, isn’t the journalist but the men who thought they could travel the world or stop a goat’s heart with their minds. The journalist hook is an easy way into the material, but both Bob and the flashbacks, which probably account for some of Mr. Heslov’s unsteadiness, get in the way.

There’s more in the mix, including another New Earth Army member, played by an agreeably malevolent Kevin Spacey, and many goats. (They stare right back, by the way.) They’re all fine company, but like Bob and Lyn’s drifting adventures in Iraq, which finds them tooling down dusty roads on a mystery mission, they don’t leave much of a trace. There’s a curious evanescence to the movie, which while apparently based in truth — it recalls a multimillion-dollar project called Star Gate dedicated to parapsychology research that came to light in the mid-1990s — doesn’t add up to anything. It’s wacky, amusing. But that’s about it. If there are truths to be drawn from the military’s use of men to locate hostages psychically, they’re not evident here.

There is a Lyn in Mr. Ronson’s book, Lyn Buchanan, who wrote about his experience in Star Gate in “The Seventh Sense: The Secrets of Remote Viewing as Told by a ‘Psychic Spy’ for the U.S. Military.” If you think that sounds outlandish, consider that a document on the Central Intelligence Agency Web site claims that the Defense Intelligence Agency has a psychic center, and that the National Security Agency studies parapsychology. Furthermore, the C.I.A. “reportedly is a member of an Incident Response Team to investigate U.F.O. landings, if one should occur,” the site says. “This team has never met. The lack of solid C.I.A. documentation on Agency U.F.O.-related activities in the 1980s leaves the entire issue somewhat murky for this period.”

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Fisticuffs, war violence and one psychically sacrificed goat.

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Grant Heslov; written by Peter Straughan, based on the book by Jon Ronson; director of photography, Robert Elswit; edited by Tatiana S. Riegel; production designer, Sharon Seymour; produced by George Clooney, Mr. Heslov and Paul Lister; released by Overture Films. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

WITH: George Clooney (Lyn Cassady), Ewan McGregor (Bob Wilton), Jeff Bridges (Bill Django), Kevin Spacey (Larry Hooper), Stephen Lang (General Hopgood), Nick Offerman (Scotty Mercer), Tim Griffin (Tim Kootz), Waleed F. Zuaiter (Mahmud Daash), Robert Patrick (Todd Nixon) and Rebecca Mader (Deborah Wilton).

Rihanna admits she was wrong to go back to Brown

Pop star Rihanna says she was "wrong" to reconcile with boyfriend Chris Brown after he assaulted her, saying she did not want other victims of domestic abuse to follow her example.

In an interview broadcast in the US on Good Morning America, the Barbados-born singer said returning to Brown had been a mistake which arose because she was "so far in love".

"That's embarrassing that that's the type of person that I fell in love with," the 21-year-old said in her first televised interview about the assault.

"So far in love. So unconditional that I went back. It's humiliating to say this happened. To accept that? It's a traumatising experience."

"I stayed. I even went back after he beat me, which was wrong," she said.

Rihanna said she had decided to speak about the attack because she did not want other women to follow her example of returning to an abusive partner.

AFP

Beyonce thanks Jay-Z at MTV Europe Music Awards for ‘putting a ring on it’

BERLIN, Germany -- A host of stars stepped out in Berlin, Germany on Thursday night for the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, but two in particular made major splashes – Beyonce and Katy Perry.

Beyonce picked up awards for Best Song for “Halo,” Best Female and Best Video for “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).” According to MTV U.K., Beyonce thanked her husband, Jay-Z, who also performed at the event, while accepting the statue.

“There is only one person I want to thank and that is Jay for putting a ring on it,” she said.

But beyond her wins, Beyonce wowed the crowd in a sexy red corset and black eye mask, which she wore as she stepped on stage to perform “Sweet Dreams.” The dramatic performance featured the chanteuse emerging from a red heart carried by masked men, before she made her way down to the front of the stage to dance seductively with her female backup dancers in red corsets with hoodies and lacy stockings.

And Katy Perry, host of the MTV Europe Music Awards for the second time in a row (she hosted last year’s gig in Liverpool), was present again for the ceremony, which took place this time in Berlin, Germany.

Katy rocked a host of outlandish outfits throughout the show, just as she did the year before.

She first hit the stage in an “Alice in Wonderland” style corset and top hat, with knee high boots. She donned one princess-like gown that had holes cut out of it while another corset that had “Rusty” written on the bottom (perhaps an homage to her boyfriend, MTV U.S. Video Music Awards host Russell Brand whose nickname is “Rusty Rockets”). Another time, she entered the stage while coasting on a glittering moon, and at one point she swung in on a swing.

U2, which won Best Live Act, also performed at the event, playing “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” with Jay-Z in front of the Brandeburg Gate.

Jay-Z picked up a gong award too for Best Urban act.

Other stars at the event included The Jonas Brothers, Green Day, Foo Fighters, “Hills” star Brody Jenner, Jesse Metcalfe, Tokio Hotel, Shakira and Juliette Lewis.-chinadaily

Lonely Planet puts country among best-value places to visit

LONDON: Malaysia is among world’s best-value destinations, according to travel guide firm Lonely Planet.

The British-based company, in its Best In Travel 2010 guide, said Malaysia “is a clever choice for travellers on the lookout for a bargain”.

Thanks to the economic crisis, Iceland and London were also among the top 10 destinations, which included Thailand, South Africa, India, Mexico, Bulgaria, Kenya and Las Vegas,

The annual snapshot book captures “the world’s hottest travel trends, destinations, journeys and experiences for the year ahead”, Lonely Planet said yesterday.

The economic collapse in Iceland meant the island was no longer punitively expensive, said the guide, putting the beleaguered country at the top of its best-value list.

Thailand, at number two, remained “perennially good value”, said the book.

Meanwhile, London’s days as a costly destination were now over, Lonely Planet said, thanks to the exchange rate which made it “much more affordable for visitors from abroad”.

The top 10 countries overall for travellers were El Salvador, Germany, Greece, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, New Zealand, Portugal, Suriname and the United States.

The top 10 cities were Abu Dhabi, Charleston (South Carolina), Cork (Ireland), Cuenca (Ecuador), Istanbul, Kyoto (Japan), Lecce (Italy), Sarajevo, Singapore and Vancouver (Canada).

Bali (Indonesia), Goa (India), Koh Kong (Cambodia), Southern Africa and southwest Western Australia featured among the top 10 regions. — AFP

Official ‘Prince of Persia: Sands of Time’ Trailer

Published by Jeff Leins on: November 2nd, 2009
Disney has released the official trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an adaptation of the video game series produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. A rogue prince (Jake Gyllenhaal) reluctantly joins forces with a mysterious princess (Gemma Arterton) and together, they race against dark forces to safeguard an ancient dagger capable of releasing the Sands of Time—a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world. Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina also star.
Arterton is a beautiful woman and her voice is sexy, but does the entire trailer need to have her whispering over it? The visuals look pretty great to me though, almost exactly like the games, though I’m still not convinced Gyllenhaal was the best choice.
The usual grainy bootleg leaked online earlier today, but I wanted to wait a bit and post the high-resolution version for you guys. Here’s the better quality version from IGN:

Malaysian girls easily duped

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian lasses are an easy lot to charm. They are easily smitten by sweet words and gifts, making them an easy target for drug-trafficking syndicates looking for mules.

This is the view of Deputy Foreign Minister A. Kohilan Pillay, who said young Malaysian girls, some fresh graduates, were easily conned by men from the syndicates to travel abroad with a package.

“Some of the girls meet the men abroad and some meet them in Malaysia.

“There have been cases where girls just knew the men for a day and were willing to travel around with a bag, not knowing the contents,” he said at the launch of the Wanita MCA women and children’s aid and public complaints bureau in Kepong yesterday.

Also present at the event was Wanita MCA chief Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun.

He said there were currently 1,565 Malaysians jailed abroad and 60% of the cases were drug mules.

“Thailand has the highest number of jailed Malaysians at 52. In Peru, 12 out of the 15 Malaysians jailed are girls,” he said, quoting 2007 statistics.

He added that 25 Malaysians were jailed in Taiwan, 11 in China, 12 in Spain and one in Chile.

“Six in China have been sentenced to death. Since 2007, about 30 Malaysians are in death row,” he said.

Kohilan added that the syndicates, mostly comprising African men, would give the young girls free flight tickets and cash for shopping as part of the trip abroad.

“There is no such thing as a free trip.

“Parents should be mindful of such trips and keep a close watch on their children,” Kohilan said.

Shorter, fatter and having sex earlier

WHAT will the woman of the future look like?

Scientists predict that she will be shorter, fatter and have babies earlier.

Yale University researchers have traced the effects of natural selection among two generations of women and predict that their descendents will be slightly shorter and chubbier.

They will also have lower cholesterol and blood pressure and have their first child earlier in life.

The results show the medical value of evolutionary biology principles, 150 years after Darwin published The Origin of the Species.

Facebook Revamps Homepage, News Feed

Facebook on Friday again revamped its homepage, getting rid of its "Highlights" section and instead creating separate tabs for the news feed and real-time events.

When users sign into their accounts, they can select to view either the "News feed" tab or the "Live Feed" tab. The news feed will feature items Facebook believes are of most value to you, while the live feed will list everything that is going on with your friends.

"News Feed picks stories that we think you'll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story," Facebook wrote in a blog post.

If you're on the news feed tab, the live feed tab will keep track of how many new posts have been added, much like how the most recent news feed notified you when new posts were added.

Facebook also re-added things to the news feed, like when friends are tagged in photos, when friends become fans of pages or join a group, when they RSVP to events, and when they add friends.

Facebook did away with the Highlights section "to be sure you don't miss other interesting content." The social networking site first introduced the feature during a March re-design that saw a lot of user backlash, though most redesigns have had their critics. The real-time news feed was added in May.

"Some of you may ask why we are changing the home page again. Like you, we know it can be disruptive when things are moved around, but we hope that these changes make Facebook a more valuable experience for you," Facebook said. "We put a lot of thought into all the changes we make to the site and do a lot of testing before releasing anything."- pc mag

Ka Chuan rescues rape victim at highway rest area

GEORGE TOWN: A teenager who was allegedly abducted and raped was rescued by an MCA politician when she sought help at the North-South Expressway’s Slim River rest area.

The 19-year-old girl from Kelantan bumped into Perak MCA party adviser Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan, who drove her to the Slim River police station at about 1pm on Thursday to lodge a report.

When contacted, Ong said he was on his way to Tanjung Malim at the time.

“When I reached the Slim River toll plaza, I saw a blue Proton car with a Malay man who seemed to be arguing with a Chinese girl.

“The girl then opened the door and ran for help. I confronted the man and he claimed that the girl was his girlfriend and she had been sleeping with him.

“I asked the girl if it was true and she burst into tears and said she was threatened into sleeping with him,” he said.

The girl had earlier told her two abductors that she wanted to use the bathroom at the rest area.

The girl’s ordeal began after midnight on Wednesday when two men who claimed to be policemen went to her hotel room in Trang Road here where she was staying with her two sisters and a male friend.

State police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Wira Ayub Yaakob said the men took her away after claiming the girl was needed to help in an investigation.

However, they drove her to a hotel in Alor Setar where she was raped.

He said they then drove off towards Kuala Lumpur but the girl told them that she needed to use the restroom. When they stopped at the rest area, she ran out and sought help from a Chinese man, who turned out to be Ong.

“One of the culprits, aged 36, immediately went to the same police station to lodge a counter-report, claiming that he did not rape the girl but had paid for her services,” DCP Ayub told a press conference at the state police headquarters yesterday.

He said the man, who had 13 previous criminal records, was arrested with another person at about 3am yesterday at Seri Manjung. the star