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5 Mar 10

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Otlx Japan Society Gallery Showaces Utagawa Kuniyo

From March 12 to June 13, 2010, the Japan Society Gallery will be showcasing the work of Japan’s Utagawa Kuniyoshi in several different family-friendly exhibits, lessons, and tours.

Professor Arthur R. Miller, one of America’s leading lawyers and legal scholars, was an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York before his move into teaching at Columbia University School of Law, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Michigan. In 1971 he joined Harvard Law School, where he became Bruce Bromley Professor of Law. Since 2007 Professor Miller has been University Professor in the School of Law at New York University and in 2008 he became Special Counsel to Milberg LLP. A renowned commentator on law and society, he appeared on “Good Morning America” for two decades as its legal editor and on PBS in several celebrated seminars. He received two Emmy awards for his work as host of several TV series and has published more than forty books. An avid art-lover, Professor Miller has been collecting prints by Kuniyoshi for nearly thirty years. In 2008 he began to donate his collection of nearly two thousand prints to the American Friends of the British Museum. The collection is presently on loan to the British Museum.

Timothy Clark is Head of the Japanese Section in the Department of Asia at The British Museum. He was educated at Oxford, Harvard and Gakushuin universities and joined the staff of the British Museum in 1987. In 1998 he was awarded the Uchiyama Susumu Prize by the International Ukiyo-e Society. He has recently curated the new permanent displays Japan from Prehistory to Present, which opened in the Mitsubishi Corporation Japanese Galleries at the British Museum in October 2006. He has authored and edited many works on subjects relating to Japanese art, including ukiyo-e painting, Kyosai, Utamaro, early ukiyo-e, images of Mt Fuji, Hokusai, Osaka ukiyo-e and Kuniyoshi. In 2009 he curated and wrote the catalogue for the highly successful exhibition Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection, held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. His other research interests include the Maruyama-Shijo School of painting and the development of the art market and exhibitions in pre-modern Kyoto; also the history of erotic art (shunga) in Japan.
Konnichiwa Friends Family Tours of Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters
Saturdays, March 13, April 10, May 15, June 12, 2 pm-3 pm
Slated for the second Saturday of every month between March and June, this series of tours engages young children ages 2-4 and their families in fun, interactive learning experiences. Using games, puzzles, storytelling, and other techniques for discussing art and culture, these tours explore exhibition themes and include Japanese vocabulary and language acquisition activities. Tickets: Free with adult admission to the exhibition; no reservation required. For more information call 212-715-1224.

Symposium – Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection
Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 1 pm
Organized in collaboration with the Japanese Art Society of America and supported by the Japanese Art Dealers’ Association, this half-day symposium brings together exhibition curator, Timothy Clark, Head of the Japanese Section in the Department of Asia at The British Museum, Dr. Sarah Thompson, Curator of Japanese Prints at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Edward Kamens, Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University, to discuss and contextualize Kuniyoshi’s work within historical and art-historical frameworks. Moderated by Joe Earle, Vice President and Director, Japan Society Gallery. Tickets: $11/$7 Japan Society and Japanese Art Society of America members, seniors & students (includes exhibition entry). For tickets call the Box Office at 212-715-1258.

Art Cart: The Magic of Printmaking
Sunday, May 16, 2010, 2-4 pm
Led by a Japan Society educator, children and their families participate in a gallery lesson focused on child-friendly themes contained Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters, such as mythological creatures, pretty ladies, super-heroes and outdoor places. In the hands-on portion of the program, participants handle old Japanese woodblocks and printmaking tools as an aid to understanding the printmaking process, and make vegetable prints to create patterned works on paper to take home. Recommended for children ages 8-12 years old. Tickets: $15 per family (up to five people), $10 per family, including at least one Japan Society member. For tickets call the Box Office at 212-715-1258.
Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection has been organized by the Royal Academy of Arts in collaboration with Arthur R. Miller and The British Museum. Support for this exhibition at Japan Society is provided by Chris A. Wachenheim, Edward and Anne Studzinski,uggs for sale, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Education programs for Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters are funded by the Japanese Art Dealers Association. Media sponsorship is provided by WNYC. Exhibitions at Japan Society are made possible in part by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund, and the Friends of the Gallery, and with ongoing support from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency. Japan Society also wishes to thank The W.L.S. Spencer Foundation for its catalogue support.

Japan Society Gallery is among the premier institutions in the U.S. for the exhibition of Japanese art. Extending in scope from prehistory to the present, the Gallery’s exhibitions since 1971 have covered topics as diverse as classical Buddhist sculpture and calligraphy, contemporary photography and ceramics, samurai swords, export porcelain, and masterpieces of painting from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. Each exhibition, with its related catalogue and public programs, is a unique cultural event that illuminates familiar and unfamiliar fields of art.

Established in 1907, Japan Society has evolved into North America’s major producer of high-quality content on Japan for an English-speaking audience. Presenting over 100 events annually through well established Corporate, Education, Film, Gallery, Language, Lectures, Performing Arts and Innovators Network programs, the Society is an internationally recognized nonprofit, nonpolitical organization that provides access to information on Japan, offers opportunities to experience Japanese culture, and fosters sustained and open dialogue on issues important to the U.S., Japan, and East Asia.

Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street between First and Second Avenues (accessible by the 4/5/6 and 7 subway at Grand Central or the E and V subway at Lexington Avenue). The public may call 212-832-1155 or visit www.japansociety.org for more information.

Japan Society Gallery hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 11:00 am-6:00 pm; Friday, 11:00 am-9:00 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 am-5:00 pm; the Gallery is closed on Mondays and major holidays. Admission: $12/$10 students and seniors/FREE Japan Society members and children under 16. Admission is free to all on Friday nights, 6:00-9:00 pm. Docent tours are available free with admission Tuesday-Sunday at 12:30 pm.

Photo &copy,discount timberland boots; Trustees of the British Museum.

March 12-June 13, 2010, at Japan Society Gallery


Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection

Thrashing sea creatures, samurai warriors, and a giant, looming skeleton are among the distinguishing subjects of the brashest of Japan’s Ukiyo-e masters, Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), whose populist oeuvre is to be presented by Japan Society Gallery from March 12 to June 13, 2010.

Fresh from its spring 2009 showing at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, where it was the surprise smash hit of the season, Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection marks the first major exhibition of Kuniyoshi’s work in the United States in nearly 30 years. The exhibition has been organized by the Royal Academy of Arts in collaboration with Arthur R. Miller and The British Museum. The vast majority of over 130 color-woodblock prints on display are from the Arthur R. Miller Collection, New York, generously loaned to Japan Society by the American Friends of The British Museum.

Like Hokusai, Hiroshige, and other masters of the school of Ukiyo-e printmaking (“Pictures of the Floating World”), Utagawa Kuniyoshi pursued the themes of landscape, kabuki theater, and beautiful women. He was unique, however, in his mastery of lesser known subjects: action-packed tales drawn from the history, religion, folklore,ugg, and myths of Japan, China, and other Asian countries; comic “crazy pictures” often featuring animals impersonating humans; and exotic experiments with foreign subject matter and European techniques of visual representation.

Kuniyoshi practiced as a woodblock printmaker during the last decades of the Tokugawa shogunate, which routinely censored popular printed materials. “There is a sense in which censorship spurrEd Kuniyoshi’s imagination, as he sought to circumvent the government bans,” says Earle. Certainly, the artist became adept at applying his graphic inventiveness to the coding of political meaning into seemingly innocuous scenes.

Japan Society Gallery Showaces Utagawa Kuniyoshi, March 12-June 13




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5 Mar 10

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dzly It’s official- MySpace to acquire iLike_302

But it’s unclear as to how the deal will affect iLike’s relationship with Facebook. The social network’s developer platform has been home to much of iLike’s activity, and now that it will be owned by Facebook’s closest rival,ugg, there’s a chance that Facebook could restrict or block the app. Van Natta, Facebook’s former chief operating officer, said that iLike’s apps are part of “a lot of different social networks’ experience. We’re excited about just continuing to expand that experience to other areas of entertainment that MySpace has assets in.”

It's official: MySpace to acquire iLike

MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta has confirmed in a Wednesday conference call that the News Corp.-owned social network has “entered into an agreement to acquire iLike,” following rumors earlier in the week.

This post was last updated at 12:13 p.m. PT.

No terms of the deal were disclosed, but reports have indicated that iLike was sold at quite a bargain–something in the neighborhood of $20 million total–because its ad-supported, streaming music model failed to rake in the profits that investors hoped it would.

Van Natta denied that the deal had been delayed due to iLike board disputes or tax issues, as some reports had suggested.

Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer,chi turbo flat iron, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline.


iLike’s co-founders will remain at the company and stay headquartered in Seattle; the service will be “unaffected by the acquisition” in the short term.

Van Natta explained in the conference call that the acquisition is on behalf of MySpace Inc. rather than its MySpace Music division, a joint venture with the major record labels,timberland boots uk, because the company plans to extend its technology to other areas of entertainment such as gaming and possibly film. He highlighted the “discovery” technology that iLike has built and suggested that MySpace planned to integrate it into some of its other properties.

Meanwhile, Van Natta claimed that MySpace Music is “doing extremely well” and that “we absolutely expect MySpace Music to be an important part of MySpace…for years to come.” Several months ago, rumors were swirling around the music industry that its performance hadn’t been up to expectations.




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5 Mar 10

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xyjh It’s official- MySpace to acquire iLike_302

No terms of the deal were disclosed, but reports have indicated that iLike was sold at quite a bargain–something in the neighborhood of $20 million total–because its ad-supported, streaming music model failed to rake in the profits that investors hoped it would.

Van Natta explained in the conference call that the acquisition is on behalf of MySpace Inc. rather than its MySpace Music division, a joint venture with the major record labels,ghd iv, because the company plans to extend its technology to other areas of entertainment such as gaming and possibly film. He highlighted the “discovery” technology that iLike has built and suggested that MySpace planned to integrate it into some of its other properties.

Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer,ghd mk4, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline.


iLike’s co-founders will remain at the company and stay headquartered in Seattle,timberlands boots; the service will be “unaffected by the acquisition” in the short term.

But it’s unclear as to how the deal will affect iLike’s relationship with Facebook. The social network’s developer platform has been home to much of iLike’s activity, and now that it will be owned by Facebook’s closest rival, there’s a chance that Facebook could restrict or block the app. Van Natta, Facebook’s former chief operating officer, said that iLike’s apps are part of “a lot of different social networks’ experience. We’re excited about just continuing to expand that experience to other areas of entertainment that MySpace has assets in.”

Meanwhile, Van Natta claimed that MySpace Music is “doing extremely well” and that “we absolutely expect MySpace Music to be an important part of MySpace…for years to come.” Several months ago, rumors were swirling around the music industry that its performance hadn’t been up to expectations.



This post was last updated at 12:13 p.m. PT.

Van Natta denied that the deal had been delayed due to iLike board disputes or tax issues, as some reports had suggested.

It's official: MySpace to acquire iLike

MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta has confirmed in a Wednesday conference call that the News Corp.-owned social network has “entered into an agreement to acquire iLike,” following rumors earlier in the week.


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5 Mar 10

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tqdk ‘Nearly 170,000′ bodies counted in Haiti_78

Haiti President Rene Preval says “nearly 170,000″ bodies have already been counted since the January 12 earthquake, substantially higher than previous toll estimates of 150,000.

Although the global focus is now on helping the hungry, stunned rescuers on Tuesday wrenched a survivor from the rubble after 12 days entombed in the ruins.

US troops on Wednesday pulled a 31-year-old man from the rubble, although he may have been buried by a building that collapsed after the earthquake.


“In 15 days many efforts have been made. The National Equipment Company (NEC) has made great efforts in removing nearly 170,000 dead from the streets and clearing the roadways to facilitate traffic,” Preval told a press conference on Wednesday.

Oxfam has launched a “cash-for-work” scheme to employ people to clean up makeshift camps and improve their living conditions, which will be expanded to nine other sites housing some 80,000 people.

Just four blocks from the destroyed presidential palace as crowds queued under a blazing sun, Immacula Cadet said she was hungry, but was afraid of being hurt in the long lines if fighting erupts over the handouts.

Canada said its troops had cleared Haiti’s Jacmel airfield of debris in a bid to ease the aid logjam. The main Port-au-Prince airport is under US military control, but aid is still said to be backed up there.

“I’m not going to Croix des Bouquets or anywhere for that matter,” said Martine Desir, 24, referring to one new community being set up some 15km outside the capital.

Some 20,000 US troops have been sent in to help distribute food and water, with the US saying it had begun to hand out 14 million meals and was aiming to supply half a million people with fresh water within a few days.

The US State Department separately urged prospective parents to be patient when adopting Haitian children after the country put the brakes on airlifts to prevent mistakes and trafficking.

Haitians are “desperately in need of meals ready to eat” and tents ahead of the rainy season, senior UN humanitarian official Catherine Bragg said at the World Economic Forum at the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.

Up to a million people were left homeless and destitute by the 7.0-magnitude January 12 quake, which destroyed much of the capital city of the impoverished Caribbean nation and left 150,000 dead.

The Haitian government has embarked on program to relocate 500,000 people in villages outside the capital, but the scheme has been greeted with some suspicion by a people scarred by decades of political upheaval.

“We need jobs, but we are angry. The radio told us (the government) is setting up a camp, but there is nothing here,” said Saint Louis Clevens, 32,mbt shoes review, as he waited in vain outside the site.

An AFP reporter in Croix des Bouquets on Wednesday said the area was a vast, gravel wasteland with just a few people hanging about hoping for work.

Pillagers have run rife in the ruins of the capital, while there is no sign of the tent camps promised by the government for the hundreds of thousands of homeless people fleeing grim conditions in Port-au-Prince.

Ronald Waldman, coordinator of US health efforts in Haiti, said US medics had carried out “thousands” of amputations and that the figure could reach tens of thousands by the end of the relief effort.

'Nearly 170,000' bodies counted in Haiti
January 28, 2010

AFP

“I don’t want to battle in the road to have a little bread,” she told AFP. “We really have problems. We need all that (aid). We need food, we have no water.”

Across the city, walls have been scrawled with messages. “We need help. Food, water, medicine,” said one in Spanish and English.

The UN warned meanwhile that child traffickers and gangsters could try to exploit the chaos triggered by the quake to step up their criminal activities.

Desperate Haitians still face a battle for survival more than two weeks after a deadly quake, as aid trickles in and fears grow that child traffickers could exploit the tragedy.

Dermot Carty, deputy director of the UN children’s fund UNICEF, said the chaotic situation in Haiti offered a “conducive environment” for traffickers and smugglers to abduct Haitian children.

In the Cite Soleil slum on Tuesday, several thousand desperate people converged on a walled police compound for sacks of relief supplies, surging against the steel gates.



“She was in a pocket surrounded by concrete,” he added.

“She just said ‘thank you,’ she’s very weak, which suggests that she’s been there for 15 days,” Commander Samuel Bernes of the rescue team told AFP on Wednesday.

Pillagers armed with small handcarts again swarmed across the rubble on Wednesday removing anything salvageable, especially wood and metal to help throw up temporary shacks.

Meanwhile, a French rescue team has pulled a 16-year-old Haitian girl alive from under the rubble in Port-au-Prince, 15 days after the January 12 earthquake, they said.

“She was treated on the spot, she wasn’t able to get out alone,North Face Trousers Sale,” said Bernes,timberland womens shoes, explaining that neighbours had been searching in the rubble of their home in the central Carrefour-Feuilles district when they heard a voice.

A massive aid effort has swung into place, but many Haitians, left living in makeshift camps dotted around Port-au-Prince, say they have yet to receive vital supplies of food or water.

Dehydrated, covered in dust and with a broken leg, the 31-year-old emerged alive from the ruins of a road called the Rue de Miracles after surviving on small amounts of water.

He was not buried by the January 12 quake but two days later, according to the US military who rescued him, probably by an aftershock. His ordeal was the longest of any Haiti quake survivor so far.


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5 Mar 10

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vkoa Is MySpace Buying Imeem-_77

Unlike Imeem and MySpace Music, Rhapsody charges most of its 700,000 users $14 to $15 a month to stream any song they want online. Similar subscription service eMusic has around 400,000 subscribers. That’s a fraction of the number of users of the popular free services. Imeem, for instance, recently reported more than 4.5 million users, according to comScore (SCOR). Rhapsody, too,ugg for sale, has had a hard time generating enough revenue from subscriptions to make up for rising royalty expenses. "There hasn’t been enough traction in the paid subscription model," Smith admits.

Spotify, a U.K.-based music startup that also lets surfers access free music and relies mainly on revenues from advertising, recently said it would delay its entrance into the U.S. market because it couldn’t reach favorable deals with record labels. MySpace Music, the social network’s own ad-supported free streaming service, has deals in place with the four major labels for free streaming. Yet MySpace Music has made recent cutbacks, such as no longer automatically playing songs each time a user visits a profile page, that leave outsiders suspecting it, too, is having a hard time wringing profit from ad revenue.



As a result of the travails facing online music services, buyers may be scarce, and investors are less likely to fund startups. "It’s not an ecosystem that creates a lot of value; it’s an ecosystem where a lot of value gets destroyed," says David Pakman, a partner at Palo Alto (Calif.) venture capital firm Venrock. Pakman says he has been approached by new music startups in the past year but has turned all of them away.

At least one business is building a relatively successful model in free streaming music on the Web. Pandora, founded in 2000 by Tim Westergren, expects to turn its first profit by the end of this year by selling ads on its online radio service. The key difference between Pandora and companies like Imeem has been setting limits on what users can hear; listeners can’t simply pick any song. That brings the cost of licenses down, says Westergren. "There’s no secret that it’s a real challenge to support on-demand services with just advertising," Westergren says.

 


Is MySpace Buying Imeem?

Imeem’s expected fire sale to MySpace shows that the plight of ad-supported streaming music services is worsening.

Blaming the Record Labels

News Corp.’s (NWS) social networking site MySpace is close to clinching an agreement to purchase Imeem, an online music business started in 2003, a person familiar with the matter says. MySpace would pay about $1 million in cash and as much as $9 million to employees, the person says. That would amount to an abysmal return on a company that raised $24.8 million in funding, and it bodes ill for other ad-supported online music services once considered a ray of hope for the hobbled music industry.

Neil Smith, vice-president for business management at Rhapsody, an online music service owned by Real Networks (RNWK), lays blame on the record labels. &quot,discount ghd styler;The music industry is trying to charge way too much for their content," Smith says. "That is creating an environment where it is not possible to have sustainable businesses." Representatives of major labels didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Even as valuations drop and investors steer clear, innovation in online music isn’t dead. Consider Rdio, a secretive service yet to be launched by Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. Rdio will try to make money through subscriptions that let users share playlists with their friends on the Web and on their mobile phones.

More than a dozen startups are struggling to make a profit using a formula similar to Imeem’s. The service, which lets users play virtually any song over the Web at any time for no charge, pays record labels small fees for each play. As it grew in popularity and reached millions of Web users,timberland classic boots, Imeem was unable to generate sufficient ad revenue to offset the resulting higher royalty fees. Technology blog TechCrunch first reported that MySpace was in talks to acquire Imeem on Nov. 16.


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5 Mar 10

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Rary Is the next iTunes challenger iLike-_478

Partovi on downloads: “Everybody in our business is talking to the major labels almost continuously (about downloads), and for good reason. The licensing landscape has evolved a lot, and it continues to evolve. If and when a deal is available that can offer an even better experience to our users at reasonable costs to us, we’ll always be interested. I can’t discuss any specific negotiations, product ideas, or rumors.”



Facebook most’s popular music application comes from iLike, and soon the company will try to turn that social-networking cachet into song sales.

iLike CEO Ali Partovi was not immediately available to comment.

A CNET examination of SpiralFrog, the first ad-supported download site,chi 2 inch turbo flat iron, which went out of business in March, indicates that advertisers just aren’t willing to pay these sites premium rates. Music listeners, as it turns out,ugg, don’t want to stare at ads when they’re listening to songs.

Others have tried this tact, including Microsoft, MTV, and Wal-Mart and all have ended up either scurrying away or scratching out a living by servicing a niche market. By all appearances, Apple continues to be an unstoppable force in music.

Nonetheless, Partovi impresses me as someone who’s not afraid of a fight. Last week, I interviewed him via e-mail and while we didn’t agree on many of the questions surrounding the ad-supported model, there’s no doubt in my mind he thinks he has it figured out.

“What’s our secret? It’s simple: we’re not trying to help consumers get unlimited music without paying for it. Instead, we’re focused on music discovery: we deliver all the other things that music consumers love without risking a lawsuit or paying high royalties. Besides sampling music,ugg discount, people use iLike to get concert notifications, recommend new bands to friends, see video messages or tweets from their favorite artists–all of which has built iLike an audience of more than 120 million uniques per month across all our apps and widgets while maintaining very low costs.”

Is the next iTunes challenger iLike?

Partovi on the ad-supported model: “I think the jury is out as to whether ad-supported music consumption will work. However, I think it’s important to remember that there’s much more to music. At iLike, we’ve built a self-sustaining ad-supported business (positive cash flow over the past 8-month period), and that’s with only one full-time ad sales person.”

Updated at 10 p.m. to correct spelling of iLike CEO Ali Partovi’s name.

As the ad-supported music sites cast about for ways to generate revenue, some of them are turning to selling downloads. This means they hope they can entice iTunes users, which represents the vast majority of the digital music market, away from Apple.

This is a strange time for ad-supported music services, and iLike’s foray into downloads comes as skepticism about the business model is higher than ever. Earlier this year, Ruckus shut its doors and Imeem, which is also testing a download store, faced a financial crisis before securing a round of funding and better licensing terms from the big recording companies.

The new store will debut as a beta version and will feature songs from at least three of the four top major recording companies, according to the sources. On Tuesday, iLike changed the name of its Facebook app to “Music.”

Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET.


Seattle-based iLike, a social music service, is expected to launch a music download store in coming days, perhaps as soon as Thursday, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. Last month, CNET News reported that iLike was in talks with the top four recording companies about securing licenses for downloads.


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3 Mar 10

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5lmy Federer, Williams sisters stride into tennis

Venus is in her 11th Australian Open campaign but is yet to win the singles crown, in stark contrast to Serena.

She faces Li next after the 16th seed upset Danish fourth seed Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 6-3.

Tsonga won a thriller against Spanish 26th seed Nicolas Almagro, 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 6-7 (6/8), 9-7.

She said she could break her Australian drought this year.

“I have always had some great battles with Lleyton, he’s a champion and has the ability to make you nervous in a match.”

The Russian sixth seed ensured he stayed alive by coming through a marathon five-setter against Spanish ninth seed Fernando Verdasco, prevailing 6-2, 7-5, 4-6, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3.

Li is looking forward to meeting Venus, who she beat in their only previous match at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Her victory broke new ground for Chinese tennis with the 27-year-old joining compatriot Zheng in the last eight, the first time two Chinese players have reached that stage of a Grand Slam.

Like Federer,mbt reviews, women’s defending champion Serena Williams was a class apart as she devoured Australia’s Sam Stosur 6-4, 6-2.

“I think the first two sets I was very dominant on the court, then he lifted up his level of the game a little bit,” he said.

They join Li, Justine Henin, Nadia Petrova, Maria Kirilenko and Zheng Jie in the last eight.

She will play seventh seed Victoria Azarenka as she guns for a fifth title after the Belarrussian beat ninth seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.

“I’m in for a good match for sure. I favour my chances in a best-of-five set match. We’ll see how it goes,” Federer said of Davydenko, while paying tribute to Hewitt.

“It’s important when you’re playing a local girl to not let the crowd get too involved or else they’ll kill you,” she added. “That was the plan, to not let them get involved.”

Djokovic was impressive in his rout of Kubot.

Federer, Williams sisters stride into tennis Open quarters
MARTIN PARRY January 25, 2010

A dominant Roger Federer joined the Williams sisters in the Australian Open quarter-finals Monday while Li Na ensured China has two players in a Grand Slam last eight for the first time.

Third seed Novak Djokovic, the 2008 winner, also progressed with an emphatic 6-1, 6-2, 7-5 win over Poland’s unseeded Lukasz Kubot and will next meet French 10th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who he beat in the 2008 final.

The world number one Swiss shattered the hopes of local fans by crushing Lleyton Hewitt 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 for his 15th consecutive win over the Australian 22nd seed.

“It’s really good to match my game against her serve, because she’s one of the best servers on the tour,” Williams said of Stosur.

Her sister Venus, seeded six, found the going tougher against Italian 17th seed Francesca Schiavone, losing the first set before bouncing back for a 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 win.


“Yeah, I’m ready to go and I feel very good,discount ghd styler,” said Venus, who has won five Wimbledons and two US Open titles.

It was an imperious display which set up the 15-time Grand Slam champion with an intruiging last eight showdown with the in-form Nikolay Davydenko, who has won their last two meetings.

“It was a good experience for me,discount ugg boots, for my tennis,” she said of the Olympic win. “But I just want to forget because I play her again. I want to look forward.”

They join Spanish defending champion Rafael Nadal, British fifth seed Andy Murray, American seventh seed Andy Roddick and 14th seeded Croat Marin Cilic in the quarters.

“In general, I was very happy with the way I performed today.”



But the elder Williams is not beating herself up about her comparative lack of success, insisting a major part of her game plan was staying positive.

He struggled with his form in the opening two rounds, but has moved up a gear and is back with the touch he displayed in the second half of last year.


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3 Mar 10

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ojcc FCC takes a closer look at wireless industry_

Another issue that is coming to a head right now has to do with network openness. AT&T and Apple have been criticized for rejecting a voice application for the iPhone App Store from Google called Google Voice. This application allows users to choose a phone number that if called will ring on multiple phones. It also offers other services, such as low-cost international calling and free text messaging. 

FCC takes a closer look at wireless industry

The Federal Communications Commission plans to look more closely at the wireless industry as it scrutinizes everything from the industry’s billing practices to the state of innovation and competition in the market.

What’s more, the next generation of wireless broadband service is being led by wireless operators in the U.S., who are starting to deploy the world’s first mobile LTE and WiMax networks. He also pointed out that U.S. cell phone subscribers use more 3G data services than any other subscribers throughout the world. And even though Americans may pay more per month for cell phone service, they actually use more voice minutes and services than their counterparts in other countries,Mens North Face Trousers, which means on a per-minute basis, they actually pay far less than cell phone users in other parts of the world, he said.

Guttman-McCabe said the CTIA is also looking forward to providing information to the FCC about its “truth in billing” inquiry. He said the CTIA’s biggest concern on this front is the fact that cell phone operators are being asked to be “tax collectors.” He said that there are many charges on cell phone bills that the government has imposed that are essentially a tax. And he said in some instances those fees are not being applied appropriately. For example, he claims that much of the money collected for 911 emergency service is not used by some states to improve or maintain 911 services, but is instead used to fill funding gaps in other parts of the government.

“It’s good for the industry to be discussing these issues,” he said. “But things are evolving so rapidly. The issues that were of concern a few years ago no longer exist today. And as long as the commission is looking at the facts, we think that will benefit the industry and consumers.”

TheiPhone, which many experts believe was a major step forward in terms of design and functionality for a mobile phone,black ugg boots, was created in the U.S. It was also offered to wireless subscribers in the U.S. before anywhere else in the world. The same is true of other innovative phones. For example, the first device to use Google’s Android operating system debuted first in the U.S.



“There is a misimpression out there that the U.S. lags behind in wireless,” he said. “And that’s simply not true.”

“The FCC chairman has suggested that across all industries he wants the agency to make decisions based on analytical data,” he said. “That is good news for us, because based on the facts, we have a good story to tell. And this will help us dispel some of the misinformation that it is out there about the market.”

The CTIA fought this requirement in court, arguing that it was too expensive and counterproductive when wireless operators were already using mobile generators that could be moved from location to location based on need. The wireless industry won its fight and a federal appeals court granted a stay while it continues to review whether the FCC should have imposed such a rule.

At this point, it’s not clear what the FCC plans to do as a result of its inquiries. But it is clear that this FCC is interested in gathering data to make decisions on policy, something Guttman-McCabe said is a welcome change from the previous FCC under then-Chairman Kevin Martin.

Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E-mail Maggie.


The FCC asked the companies for more information about why the Google application was rejected from the App Store. The initial comments are due on Friday.

Guttman-McCabe said there were several decisions made by the FCC that had no data or information to back it up. One such decision involved a requirement imposed by the FCC that all wireless operators have at least eight hours of battery backup at their cell sites throughout the country.

The commission, headed up by newly appointed chairman Julius Genachowski, on August 27 will open up two “notice of inquiries” to look at some of these issues. The agency announced its plans Thursday when it published the agenda for its August open meeting.

Guttman-McCabe said the CTIA is not overly concerned with these issues.

But it may not be all smooth-sailing for the wireless industry as the FCC takes a closer look at some of the industry’s practices. FCC Chairman Genachowski has already said that he plans to look more closely at the exclusive handset arrangements that have long been a common practice in the wireless market. The FCC questions whether exclusive deals, such as the one between AT&T and Apple to offer the iPhone, are actually hurting competition and consumer choice.

Specifically, the first inquiry will look at the state of competition and innovation in the wireless market. And another inquiry will examine the need for revisions to the truth-in-billing rules to ensure subscribers know what they are paying for when they look at their monthly itemized cell phone bills.

Indeed, five years ago it would be easy to say that the U.S. was much further behind in terms of technology and services than countries in Europe or Asia. But over the past couple of years the market has changed,ugg boots usa, and the U.S. is actually leading the world in terms of innovation. Guttman-McCabe points to the smartphone phenomenon and advancements in wireless broadband services as examples.

Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs forCTIA, the organization which represents the big wireless operators in the U.S., said he welcomes the discussion on these issues. And he said his group is taking the FCC’s inquiries as an opportunity to educate policy makers and the public about advancements in the wireless industry.


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3 Mar 10

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Zntk Ex-French PM acquitted in smear trial_57

The court ruled on Thursday there were no grounds to convict the 56-year-old politician of complicity to slander Sarkozy in 2004, when the two men were angling to succeed president Jacques Chirac.

Ex-French PM acquitted in smear trial
CAROLE LANDRY January 28, 2010 – 11:59PM

AFP

The sensational trial opened in September in the courtroom where Marie Antoinette was sentenced to the guillotine in 1793,Paul Smith Coat, with Villepin accusing Sarkozy of pursuing a personal vendetta against him.



Prosecutors had argued during the month-long trial that while Villepin did not deliberately take part in a plot to smear Sarkozy,timberland pro boots, he did nothing to stop the scandal from spinning out of control as he hoped to gain political mileage.

“After many years of ordeal, my innocence has been recognised,” Villepin said. “I was hurt by the image of politics that was portrayed, of the commitment that I have made over the past thirty years.”

They had sought a suspended jail sentence of 18 months and a 45,000-euro ($A70,600) fine for Villepin.

“It was not proven that Dominique de Villepin knew that the lists were fake,” ruled presiding judge Dominique Pauthe.

Dubbed the Clearstream affair, the scandal made front page news across France in 2005 and Sarkozy,womens ugg boots, then Chirac’s ambitious finance minister, reportedly swore he would hang those responsible on a “butcher’s hook”.

Sarkozy scored a point when the court on Thursday rejected Villepin’s request that the president be stripped of his status as a civil plaintiff in the case.

Sarkozy’s name was on the list and the French leader alleged the scandal was fabricated to tarnish him ahead of his party’s nomination for the 2007 presidential vote, which he won.

“I am now looking to the future to serve the French people and contribute in a spirit of unity to the recovery of France,” he said.

In the week before the verdict, he made a high-profile visit to a Paris suburb, declaring that he offered a “political alternative” to Sarkozy and was ready to “serve France and the French”.


Three other defendants were convicted: ex-aerospace executive Jean-Louis Gergorin, who admitted to leaking the fake list to investigators; Imad Lahoud, who confessed to adding Sarkozy’s name to the list; and accountant Florian Bourges, who obtained data on account holders that were later falsified.

The verdict coincidentally came on Sarkozy’s 55th birthday and while the president was chairing a meeting at the Elysee Palace to agree on measures to curb France’s ballooning deficit.

Villepin is banking on the acquittal helping to propel his political career at a time when Sarkozy is struggling with poor approval ratings.

France’s ex-premier, Dominique de Villepin, has been acquitted of charges of plotting to smear Nicolas Sarkozy and sabotage his presidential bid in a verdict seen as bolstering his chance at a comeback.

Villepin smiled and shook hands with supporters as he walked free out of the Paris courtroom, accompanied by his family, three months after the politically explosive trial.

The acquittal was an outright victory for Villepin in the five-year legal saga and was seen as bolstering his stature as he sets his sights on the 2012 presidential vote.

Journalist Denis Robert, who introduced Bourges to Lahoud, was acquitted.

Villepin was cleared on all four counts in the case dubbed France’s trial of the decade: complicity to slander, to use forgeries, dealing in stolen property and breach of trust.

The silver-haired politician, best known for opposing the US invasion of Iraq at the UN, had defended himself, arguing during the trial he never knew the list was false and never sought to use it against Sarkozy.

The complex case centred on a list – later proved to have been fabricated – of account holders at the Clearstream financial clearing house who allegedly took bribes from the sale of French warships to Taiwan.


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3 Mar 10

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Iamm Facebook Lures Advertisers at MySpace’s Expen

"If Coke is doing a big banner buy on some content site, there’s not really a good opportunity to interact,ghd iv, whereas in Facebook a user is coming to create something," says Tim O’Shaughnessy, the CEO of LivingSocial, a company that makes applications used by tens of millions of Facebook users. LivingSocial started working with companies like Coca-Cola (KO) to develop applications themed around their brands. About 100,000 people downloaded the Coke "Pick Your Five" app and used it to show to their friends "five things that make me happy."

Williamson argues that more companies are approaching Facebook and other social sites on the advertisers’ own terms&mdash,ghds;as places where they can communicate directly with potential customers in an informal way. Her report uses the example of Zappos, the online shoe retailer that rewards people who are "fans" of the brand on its Facebook page with special deals.

EMarketer’s prediction of Facebook’s 2009 ad revenues doesn’t exactly gel with signals the Mountain View (Calif.) company has given about its overall revenues. For months, the company has been saying it’s on track to increase revenue 70% this year. And on July 6, Facebook board member Marc Andreessen told Reuters that the company will generate sales of more than $500 million this year.

The shift underscores a rough patch for MySpace, which just axed 30% of its workforce. And the site lost its lead over Facebook in U.S. visitors in June.

U.S. advertising on social networks will drop 3%, to $1.1 billion, in 2009, led by a slump at MySpace, eMarketer says. At the same time, Facebook’s ad revenue will grow 9.5%, to $230 million. MySpace’s ad revenues are expected to fall more than 15%, to $495 million, and its share of the roughly $1 billion market for social network advertising will slip about 7 percentage points, to 43%. Facebook’s will rise 2.3 percentage points, to 20.2%.



The eMarketer report shows evidence of a growing willingness of companies to advertise on social media sites other than MySpace. That’s good news for Facebook, which has in the past struggled to attract advertisers because of a perception that its users are not receptive to ads. Unlike search advertising,uggs for sale, which frequently gets brands in front of consumers when they’re looking to buy a product, social network users—the thinking goes—are too busy communicating with friends to care about ads.

Facebook Testing Virtual Currency

Even as overall U.S. advertising spending on social networks declines this year, ad sales are on the rise at Facebook, and the company is gaining a larger slice of the pie at the expense of News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace, according to a new report from marketing researcher eMarketer.

O’Shaughnessy says advertisers are increasingly interested in Facebook. In the past six months, his company has worked with about 25 brands, more than the company did in the previous year.

Coke’s a Facebook Fan

Losing Its Visitor Lead

Facebook Lures Advertisers at MySpace's Expense

Facebook has won over millions of users from social networking pioneer MySpace. It’s becoming more alluring to advertisers, too.


Over the next two years, the growing number of marketers flocking to Facebook will fuel an ad rebound, according to eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson. "In 2010, as we start to come out of the recession, Facebook has all its guns going, and marketers will be putting more social media in [their budgets] where it makes sense," she says.

Williamson notes that ad revenues are only one piece of the pie: The company could be profiting handsomely from the sale of virtual goods. And in April, Facebook said it’s testing a virtual currency system that could charge users for transactions.

Facebook doesn’t see any revenue from promotions like that, since any brand can sign up to have its own page on the site for free. But the analyst says that as more interactions like this prove successful, marketers will grow more comfortable investing ad dollars in the site. And Facebook executives have publicly discussed plans to work with advertisers in creating new types of interactive ads on the site.


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