Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Choose-an-Engagement-Ring
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Monday, November 29, 2010
How to Choose an Engagement Ring
Shopping for an engagement ring doesn't have to be a dreaded experience. With the right amount of knowledge about what to look for in a ring, coupled with your excitement about asking the girl of your dreams to marry you, this can be an enjoyable exercise matching your newly discovered ring expertise with the money you've got available to spend. In this article, you'll learn the most important things to consider when choosing an engagement ring for your beloved.
Chase Carey Likes MySpace So Much He's Willing To Sell It
News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) COO Chase Carey already expressed frustration over the performance MySpace on the conglomerate’s last earnings call earlier this month. Now there’s new evidence that even his limited patience may have worn just a wee bit thinner.
Source: http://feeds.paidcontent.org/~r/pcorg/~3/htGHyZdfWro/
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Windows Phone 7 outsold by Android 15:1 in UK suggests retailer
With Microsoft still refusing to provide Windows Phone 7 sales figures, retailers are stepping in with their own anecdotal evidence about the new smartphone platform’s market success – or lack of it. UK store�deal aggregator�MobilesPlease has announced�that Windows Phone 7 has accounted for just 3-percent of their smartphone sales, with Android devices outselling WP7 handsets [...]
Source: http://feeds.slashgear.com/~r/slashgear/~3/3ncxQyGsnyg/
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It's Maize Day, so try something different. How to Make Ugali, African Cornmeal Porridge
Ugali (pronounced oo-ga-ly) is a staple starch component of many African meals, especially in southern and east Africa. It is generally made from maize flour (or ground maize) and water, and varies in consistency from porridge to a dough-like substance. When ugali is made from another starch, it is usually given a specific regional name. This is a filling dish and you won't need to eat anything else for hours. Enjoy and to good health!
Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Cook-Ugali
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Spotify could launch in US without all major labels
Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI may not all be on board for American version of the music-streaming service
Spotify is moving closer to a US launch for its music-streaming service, though it could reportedly be prepared to do so without having the four major record labels on board.
People familiar with the company's negotiations with Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI ? it has been in discussions with EMI for more than a year ? told the Financial Times Spotify is considering launching in the US without having all four on board at launch.
The company's accounts for 2009, filed only last week, paint a bleak picture with a net loss of �16m on revenues of �11.3m. The company's auditors, Ernst & Young, warned that "material uncertainty" could cast "significant doubt about the group's ability to continue".
Spotify has expanded into seven European countries since its 2008 launch, though protracted negotiations with major US record labels have halted its ambition to expand into north America. In October, the music-streaming service said it had around 10 million users ? though only about 500,000 of these are paying for the premium offering.
But now the European startup is likely to hasten to a US launch as its board grow impatient at the delay. Daniel Ek, Spotify's co-founder and chief executive, has previously said the service would have a US presence by November.
A Spotify spokesman said: "2009 saw us focus on establishing a new and innovative music service and bringing it to millions of people across Europe. The groundwork laid in our launch year has been crucial to the significant achievements made in 2010. Further strengthening and expansion of the service remains our top priority."
Spotify has risen to prominence across Europe as a legal alternative to free-at-the-point-of-access music. Users can download the Spotify application for free-to-listen-to music punctuated by occasional advertising, similar to commercial radio. It also offers a premium service where users pay for extra features such as a mobile app and offline streaming.
This business model, which the company has said is fundamental to its attraction, lies at the heart of its wrangle with US record labels, which have failed to warm to the idea of free streaming. Spotify converts 5% to 7% of its free customers into subscribers, the Guardian understands.
The company's report for 2009 shows it made �6.8m from subscriptions and �4.5m in advertising revenues. But Spotify's cost of goods, which includes licencing fees paid to record labels, reached �18m.
Mark Mulligan, a music analyst at Forrester Research, estimated that the best case scenario for Spotify would be to convert 10% of its user base to paying customers. He said the company is "making great progress" but really needed to hit the 10% mark "before they can start patting themselves on the back".
"Free music itself is never going to work as a business model while there is such a disparity between ad revenues and license fees. But the freemium model has solid merit," Mulligan added.
"More promising though is the subsidised model whereby music feels free to the customer but is in fact paid for by someone else, such as an ISP or phone company. That is the mass market way to square the circle of people not wanting to pay for music but record labels needing to be paid."
Kieron Donoghue, founder of the Spotify-associated ShareMyPlaylists.com, said that the �4.5m advertising revenue for 2009 was "no mean feat" for a startup. The company's proportion of revenue from subscriptions ? 60% ? was a "huge testimony to the viability of the business model", Donoghue added.
"By taking their time and making sure they get the US launch right, they have done exactly the right thing. You only get one chance to launch in the US so they must make sure that they have got the right model in place before they do," he said.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/23/spotify-us-record-labels
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Splatterhouse ? review
PS3/Xbox360; �44.99; cert 18+; Namco
Violence. Everybody loves a bit of it, don't they? Punch, kick, rip, smash, gouge and dismember your way through this reboot of the classic beat-'em-up series, and you should have had enough violence to last you 10 bloody years.
Gratuitous swearing! That's great too, right? Splatterhouse is jam-packed full of it. You can't go more than two minutes in this game without a "shit" this or a "bitch" that.
Do you know what'll go perfectly with all this bad language and excessive violence? Nudity. And why not soundtrack it all with some really loud heavy metal music, made by bands with ridiculously metal names like Goat Whore and Municipal Waste.
A lot of people will be turned off by all this shamelessly adolescent nonsense, but there are a large number of shamelessly adolescent gamers out there. They're going to love this game.
In a plot that sticks reasonably close to the original games, lead character Rick must rescue his girlfriend from the clutches of evil scientist Dr West. He's assisted by a mysterious talking mask, which transforms him from an average college student weakling into a pumped-up Hulk-esque killing machine. In return, Rick must keep the mask happy by harvesting blood from the many Lovecraftian mutants and monsters populating the linear levels.
The combat is carried out with the usual set of kicks, punches, holds and throws you'd expect from a beat-'em-up, a few upgradeable special moves and some brutal weaponry ? planks of wood, knives, severed limbs and so on. Attack moves and combos are simple but satisfying to carry out, and the story takes in a number of impressively realised locations.
The creators have bent over backwards to please old-school Splatterhouse fans: the three original games are included as unlockable bonuses, and at various points the action switches from 3D to 2D, in sections that work both as a love letter to side-scrolling beat-'em-ups of yore, and as thoroughly enjoyable stages in their own right, smoothly shifting the game's pace to complement the relentless brawling that takes place elsewhere.
Throw in some surprisingly nuanced storytelling, some boss battles that can only reasonably be described as mega, and what Namco have produced here is something of a masterpiece of the beat-'em-up genre. Splatterhouse is a vulgar, noisy, shallow, juvenile, gruesome gem of a game that never forgets to be fun, even when going out of its way to be as appalling as possible.
? Game reviewed on PS3
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/nov/25/splatterhouse-game-review
Rupert Murdoch creates 'iNewspaper'
News Corp reportedly set to launch iPad news publication exclusively via download
Rusbridger warns of 'chilling effect' of News Corp's bid for BSkyB
Rupert Murdoch, head of the media giant News Corp, and Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, are preparing to unveil a new digital "newspaper" called the Daily at the end of this month, according to reports in the US media.
The collaboration, which has been secretly under development in New York for several months, promises to be the world's first "newspaper" designed exclusively for new tablet-style computers such as Apple's iPad, with a launch planned for early next year.
Intended to combine "a tabloid sensibility with a broadsheet intelligence", the publication represents Murdoch's determination to push the newspaper business beyond the realm of print.
According to reports, there will be no "print edition" or "web edition"; the central innovation, developed with assistance from Apple engineers, will be to dispatch the publication automatically to an iPad or any of the growing number of similar devices.
With no printing or distribution costs, the US-focused Daily will cost 99 cents (62p) a week.
According to the US elite fashion industry journal Women's Wear Daily, the Murdoch-Jobs "newspaper" will be run from the 26th floor of the News Corp offices in New York, where 100 journalist have been hired, including Pete Picton, an online editor from the Sun, as one of three managing editors. The editor of the Daily has not been announced, but observers are assuming it will be Jesse Angelo, the managing editor of the New York Post and rising star in the News Corp firmament.
Angelo, who was at school with Murdoch's son Lachlan, was formerly editor of the Post's business section and has recruited the tabloid's gossip columnist Richard Johnson to run the Daily's Los Angeles bureau. Other staff include Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at the New Yorker, who will oversee arts and culture. News Corp's pattern of hiring for the project suggests that video will be a major component of the new publication.
The 79-year-old Murdoch is said to have had the idea for the project after studying a survey that suggested readers spent more time immersed in their iPads than they did ? comparatively speaking ? on the internet, where unfocused surfing is typical.
Sources say Murdoch is committed to the project in part because he believes that the Daily, properly executed, will demonstrate that consumers are willing to pay for high- quality, original content online.
Murdoch believes the iPad is going to be a "game changer" and he has seen projections that there will be 40 million iPads in circulation by the end of 2011. A source said: "He envisions a world in which every family has a iPad in the home and it becomes the device from which they get their news and information. If only 5% of those 40 million subscribe to the Daily, that's already two million customers."
But Murdoch's success with internet ventures is mixed. The Times recently said it had gained more than 100,000 paying customers for its web edition, while the Wall Street Journal now has more than two million readers behind a partial paywall. But MySpace, once the leading social networking site, which Murdoch paid $580m for in 2005, is now an also-ran in the field, and Murdoch is running counter to current thinking that web publications need print editions to justify themselves to advertisers.
Apple has been expected to announce a subscription plan for newspapers based on the model of its iTunes music download service, but some publishers have been unwilling to let Apple in as an intermediary or let it control pricing the way iTunes has done in the music business.
"Obviously, Steve Jobs sees this as a significant revenue stream for Apple in the future," Roger Fidler, head of digital publishing at the Donald W Reynolds Journalism Institute, told the San Jose Mercury News recently.
And with Apple expected to dominate the tablet market until compelling competitors are introduced, Murdoch may have no choice but to ride with Jobs. According to Women's Wear Daily, Jobs is "a major fan" of the newsprint patriarch: "When the project is announced, don't be surprised if you see Steve Jobs onstage with Rupert Murdoch, welcoming the Daily to the app world."
? This article was amended on 22 November 2010. The original described Sasha Frere-Jones as a former music critic at the New Yorker. This has been corrected.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/21/ipad-newspaper-steve-jobs-rupert-murdoch
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