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Monthly Archives : February, 2010

ahia AmEx Presale Tickets for AMERICAN IDIOT Now A

February 23, 2010, 04:36:00 PM

AMERICAN IDIOT will be produced on Broadway in association with Berkeley Repertory Theatre.For more information, visit www.AmericanIdiotOnBroadway.com.

“Experiencing American Idiot on stage in Berkeley was incredible,” says Billie Joe Armstrong. “We have really enjoyed working with Michael, Steven, Tom and the cast. The energy and chemistry of the group is contagious. Michael Mayer was able to bring life to the characters of American Idiot and Tom Kitt’s musical arrangements are breathtaking. We’re so proud that the show is coming to Broadway!”

The limited engagement of AMERICAN IDIOT at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre began previews on September 4, 2009, opened on September 16, 2009, extended twice and played its final performance on Sunday, November 15, 2009. AMERICAN IDIOT’s record breaking run brought in the biggest advance sale in the Theatre’s 41-year history, the biggest day at the box office, 17 of the top 20 days ever and due to ticket demand had to announce the first extension before it had played its first performance.


Michael Mayer comments, “Green Day’s iconic album is one of the most brutally honest, eloquent, and poetically theatrical responses to the post 9/11 world that I have encountered. I hear in these amazing songs the frustration and anger and dreams of a lost generation of Americans. Collaborating with Billie Joe and the band has been a mind-blowing thrill from day one.”

“American Idiot is that rare and tricky creature, a true rock opera,” says Charles Isherwood of The New York Times. “Directed with polish and precision by Michael Mayer, American Idiot has its own voice: bitter and melancholy, attuned to an era more doubting than hopeful. Perhaps most strongly - and promisingly? - the show’s story of young men on a confused search for themselves during a time of changing social mores and foreign wars recalls Hair, the musical about the make-love-not-war generation. (Both musicals also do most of their storytelling in song.) Mournful as it is about the prospects of 21st-century Americans, the show possesses a stimulating energy and a vision of wasted youth that holds us in its grip.”

AmEx Presale Tickets for AMERICAN IDIOT Now Available

Related Links Full Cast Announced for AMERICAN IDIOT; Cast to Appear on Grammy Awards STAGE TUBE: A Look Back at the Berkeley Rep Production of AMERICAN IDIOT AMERICAN IDIOT Moves To Broadway; Opens at St. James Theatre April 20, 2010 Cast of AMERICAN IDIOT Featured On Green Day’s New Version of Their Single ‘21 Guns’

Purchase TicketsAmerican Idiot On BWW.TV

The show features scenic design by Tony-nominee Christine Jones (Spring Awakening), costume design by Baryshnikov fellow Andrea Lauer (The Butcher of Baraboo), lighting design by two-time Tony-winner Kevin Adams (Hair), Sound design by Obie Award-winner Brian Ronan (Cabaret), as well as video design by Darrel Maloney.

Based on the Reprise Records Grammy® Award-winning album of the same name, AMERICAN IDIOT features the music of Green Day and the lyrics of its lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong. The show is directed by Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening), who also collaborated with Armstrong on the book, and choreographed by Olivier Award-winning Steven Hoggett (Blackwatch). The Tony-winning composer Tom Kitt (Next to Normal) is the music supervisor, orchestrator and music arranger. In addition, Kitt also provided string arrangements for Green Day’s latest album 21st Century Breakdown.

The cast of AMERICAN IDIOT collaborated with Green Day to record a new version of the hit single “21 Guns.” Produced by the band’s singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, the track was released by Reprise Records on December 22, 2009 for purchase through all digital retailers. “21 Guns” is the second single from Green Day’s gold album 21st Century Breakdown. The digital version of the track has gone platinum, selling more than one million downloads, earned 2010 Grammy® Nominations for “Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals” and “Best Rock Song”, while the video won three 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in September, including “Best Rock Video.”

AMERICAN IDIOT follows working-class characters from the suburbs to the city to the Middle East, as they seek redemption in a world filled with frustration - an exhilarating journey borne along by Green Day’s electrifying songs. This high-octane show includes every song from the album, as well as several new songs from 21st Century Breakdown. Green Day won two Grammys ®- Best Rock Album and Record of the Year - for its multi-platinum American Idiot, which sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. Now the band brings this explosive album to the stage with the director of Spring Awakening, which won eight Tony Awards in 2007.

Tickets for the Broadway run of AMERICAN IDIOT are now available exclusively to American Express card holders. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on February 14th. AMERICAN IDIOT will begin previews on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 and open on Broadway Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at the ST. James Theatre.

Nnml Al-Qaeda destabilising South Asia- Gates_406

February 23, 2010, 04:35:00 PM

He linked Taliban militants operating along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with Lashkar-e-Taiba extremists accused of orchestrating the 2008 terror attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, saying both groups worked under the umbrella of al-Qaeda.

India is spending billions annually on US-made military hardware, although Gates said current agreements prevent India from being able to buy some US weaponry or technology.

Al-Qaeda destabilising South Asia: Gates
January 20, 2010

AFP

When one group succeeds in carrying out an attack, all of them gain in capability and reputation, he said. “A victory for one is a victory for all.”

Gates arrived in India on Tuesday and met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other top officials. He urged them to finalise long-pending security cooperation agreements between the two countries, he said.

India blames the November 2008 attack on Mumbai, which killed 166 people, on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group. Following the assault, India froze talks with Pakistan that had been aimed at resolving the long-running dispute over Kashmir, which both countries claim in its entirety.

A syndicate of terror groups is working to sow violence and destruction across South Asia, and India and Pakistan need to work together to combat the mutual threat, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.



Gates, who spoke during a visit to India, said no nation was immune from terror.


The neighbours have fought three wars and remain wary over each other’s intentions. Pakistan is unhappy with India’s significant influence in Afghanistan, and India accuses Pakistan of harbouring terror groups plotting attacks here.

“It’s dangerous to single out any one of these groups and say, ‘If we can beat that group, that will solve the problem,’ because they are in effect a syndicate of terrorist operators intended to destabilise this entire region,” Gates said.

He urged a coordinated effort by India and Pakistan to fight the terror groups, but such cooperation is likely to be a tough sell.

Gates praised both nuclear-armed nations for their restraint in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, but cautioned that it might not hold.

The groups were hoping to spark a conflict between India and Pakistan, or provoke instability in Pakistan, he said.

“It is not unreasonable to assume that Indian patience would be limited were there another attack,” he said.

jkwk Amazon’s Early Holiday Cheer_104

February 23, 2010, 04:35:00 PM

On Oct. 21, eBay gave investors a relatively gloomy outlook for the holidays when it forecast fourth-quarter earnings of 38¢ to 40¢ a share, compared with 40¢ expected by analysts. The company also forecast sales of $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion, while analysts had expected $2.26 billion.

The day after the earnings announcement, Amazon shares surged 27% to a record, closing at 118.49. The increase suggests investors have little concern the company, now trading at 78 times earnings, is overvalued compared with eBay (EBAY), another e-commerce company, which is trading at almost 20 times earnings.

Outpacing Other E-Tailers

Investors Shrug Off Fears


Still, Amazon’s fortunes ride on far more than e-books. Even as it boosted book sales, Amazon also nabbed share of the larger e-commerce market. While the company has typically outperformed other e-tailers by 19% over the past two years, it outpaced the market in the third quarter by 26%, according to Piper Jaffray (PJC) analyst Gene Munster. He says the company is getting smarter at using online advertising to goose sales and knowing which products to promote, and when. "They’re gaining share because of experience," he says.

Customers of Amazon are snapping up not only Kindles, but also digital books that can be stored and read on the devices. Sales at Amazon’s media segment, which includes e-books, video games, and digital music, grew 17%, to $2.93 billion. That’s a big turnaround from the second quarter, when the media division showed no growth. "The explanation is a very strong performance from Kindle books," says Sandeep Aggarwal, analyst with financial-services firm Collins Stewart (CLST.L).



Whether Amazon can keep the Kindle magic remains a matter of debate. On Oct. 20, book retailer Barnes & Noble (BKS) released its own e-book reader, the Nook, which many analysts said is more feature-rich than the Kindle.

On Oct. 22, Amazon said third-quarter net income surged 68%, to $199 million, while revenue jumped 28%, to $5.45 billion, compared with Wall Street’s estimate of $5 billion. "This looks like holiday-season performance and they’re doing it in the third quarter," says Jeff Lindsay, analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein. For the quarter that ends in December, Amazon forecast sales of $8.1 billion to $9.1 billion, compared with $8.19 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Amazon's Early Holiday Cheer

Booming sales of e-book readers and material to read on them brought early holiday cheer to online retailer Amazon.com (AMZN) in the third quarter. And judging from the company’s better-than-expected forecast for the current quarter, robust sales will continue through yearend at Seattle-based Amazon.

The performance and forecast reflect growing demand for the Kindle electronic book reader, which now sells more units and contributes more revenue than any other product on the site, Amazon said. The company doesn’t release individual sales numbers for the device, but Citigroup (C) analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that it will sell 1.5 million, worth $700 million. An international edition of the reader went on sale the same day Amazon announced its third-quarter results.

hdza Alt Theatre Stages Holiday Spoof A CHRISTMAS

February 23, 2010, 04:27:00 PM

Twist is a vaudevillian, head-on collision of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and “Oliver Twist.” This rapid-paced holiday parody follows poor, orphaned Tiny Twist who learns the ropes of pick pocketing by the conniving, filthy Fagin and Little Artful Annie. Soon, the perennially abused Bob Cratchit and his long-suffering wife Emily, adopt Twist. But, Ebenezer Scrooge’s nefarious nephew Mr. Bumble has dastardly plans for Twist, which miserly Scrooge will pay handsomely for. Scrooge is soon visited by gate crashing ghosts to teach him a thing or three about his wicked ways as he discovers that Christmas is about more than gluttony and a stuffed goose.

Not your grandma’s Christmas tale - a holiday spoof for all!

Peter Michael Marino returns to Buffalo to direct the WNY premiere of the witty, wild and irreverent A Christmas Twist presented by The New Alt Performance Group, playing through December 27, and with a special performance on New Year’s Eve.

Alt Theatre Stages Holiday Spoof A CHRISTMAS TWIST Through 12/27

Tickets are $20 on-line www.alttheatre.com or $25 at the door.

The shows evening performance dates are: December 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 26, 29 & 30 at 8pm, Matinees: December 19, 26, & 27 at 3pm New Years Eve at 7pm. The Alt Theatre located at 255 Great Arrow Ave., 3rd Floor (Entrance has a blue awning next to McClellan Music).


Reht All I Want for Christmas 2010 Is My Own Web_7

February 23, 2010, 04:27:00 PM

Vizit: Visual news feed photo frame

Batteries Too Costly for Grid Energy Storage: Analysts

We’re getting ever-closer to such personalized, push delivery of information via the Web. Case in point: I started trying to compile a list of deal-related tweets on Twitter so that I could find out whenever certain Web sites were offering bargains on specific products.

Both examples show off a key tenet of this new Web vision: I don’t need to access the Internet from my computer. It comes to me via my phone, my navigation device, TV, or that fancy photo frame. It’s my Web, delivering the information that it thinks I want, based on my preferences, friends, and eventually, my location. I think that by Christmas 2010 everyone will be well on their way to having a "my Web" of their own.

All I Want for Christmas 2010 Is My Own Web

I’m not really comfortable making broad technology predictions, but I recently ran across two things that perfectly illustrate for me the nature of the next-generation Web. Some of us are already living it, using offerings such as Twitter, Hunch, or any service that instead of forcing us to search, asks for our interests, preferences, or even location—and then delivers the information we want. The Internet’s next-gen version will consist of services that tell us what we want to know at the exact moment we want to know it, possibly without our having to ask.

Smartbook No More—What Should We Call Them?

Also from the GigaOM network:

I had been using Twitter this way for news, but hadn’t yet applied it to my personal life. Here was an exciting development: Scoring New Balance Sneakers for 70% off, thanks to a tweet, is pretty sweet. Frankly, I can see how a lot of people who currently view Twitter as a home for self-promoting bloggers and celebrities would value the ability to get deals delivered to them. That’s the kind of promotion consumers can believe in.

Given my friends’ current stage of life, I’m going to be receiving a lot of baby photos. Since I’m not so into infants, I can hop onto the Vizit online service where the pictures are actually stored, which is why this is cooler than some of the other digital photo frames, to delete such pics. I can also do it from the frame itself. The frame is essentially a visual newsfeed for my friends and we don’t even have to log on to Facebook to see it.

This morning, I received an e-mail about a two-way digital photo frame that’s coming out next year. The Vizit frame from Isabella Products is pricey—at $279 for the frame and either $5.99 a month or $79.99 a year for a subscription to the wireless service, which allows people to e-mail or MMS pictures directly to the frame—but it doesn’t require me to work hard.

How to Shop on the Go This Holiday Season

Like Facebook, Data Robotics Dreams of an IPO

No Flash on Your iPhone? How About Silverlight Instead?




Vciq Algeria knock out Ivory Coast, Ghana end Ango

February 23, 2010, 04:26:00 PM

“We had a couple of chances but we didn’t have the luck, they (Ghana) did.”

Ghana’s Serbian coach Milovan Rajevic said: “Of course we are missing players like (Michael) Essien, (Stephen) Appiah and Anthony Annan. We have had to call up a lot of new players but what I have here is a team with a very competitive spirit and a competitive style of play.

“There is an excellent atmosphere in our team which is very important.”

“Ghana took their first chance to score and we did everything we could to get a goal ourselves.

Four-time winners Ghana, seeking their fifth continental crown after a yawning 28-year drought, will face the winner of Monday’s quarter-final in Lubango between surprise packets Zambia and Nigeria.

The Desert Foxes fell 2-1 behind on 89 minutes to a brilliant Abdulkader Keita goal only for Rangers defender Madjid Bougherra to level in stoppage time and unmarked substitute Hamer Bouazza headed a 92nd-minute far-post winner.

“But I am leaving proud to be coach of this team. They finish in this competition with their heads held high.

“This victory is for Algeria, some people won’t be able to speak now, we’ve silenced our critics and proved that we are worthy World Cup finalists,” said 27-year-old Bougherra.

Hard as Angola tried they were unable to cancel that out, although former Manchester United and Hull striker Manucho certainly had his chances.

Earlier, in Sunday’s first quarter-final, Angola crashed out, losing 1-0 to another World Cup-bound team, Ghana, to end their dreams of winning the title on home soil.



Didier Drogba’s Elephants had raced into a fourth minute lead when Chelsea striker Salomon Kalou scored after a goalmouth scramble with Germany-based Karim Matmour levelling on 40 minutes.

Drama continued to the end with television replays suggesting a late shot from Ivorian defender Kolo Toure that found the net was wrongly judged offside by an assistant referee.

Angola welcomed back their three-goal hero Flavio but it was Ghana, missing a raft of top players, who shot into a 16th minute lead thanks to Asamoah Gyan.

Algeria looked to be heading home early after opening their Cup campaign with a poor 3-0 loss to Malawi, but a win over Mali and a goalless draw against Angola put them into the last eight, and now they have the final in their sights.

“I have to leave for Portugal now to attend the funeral of my father,” Jose told a hushed post-match press conference.

Ivory Coast were sent packing by a 3-2 extra time loss to fellow World Cup qualifiers Algeria in the evening’s second quarter-final up in the northern province of Cabinda.

Algeria knock out Ivory Coast, Ghana end Angola's Cup dream
NICK REEVES January 25, 2010

Algeria and Ghana are one step away from the Africa Cup of Nations final after stunning favourites Ivory Coast and hosts Angola respectively on Sunday.


Both semi-finals are scheduled for Thursday as the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations reaches its climax.

A minute’s silence preceded Angola’s game, held in memory of the victims of the Haiti earthquake and for the father of Angola coach Manuel jose, who died on Sunday morning in Portugal.

Algeria’s reward could be a date with bitter rivals Egypt, in what would be a repeat of their fractious World Cup play-off in November, if the defending champions see off Cameroon in Benguela on Monday.

Eqdw Afghans postpone legislative vote- official_2

February 23, 2010, 04:03:00 PM

The reforms are demanded to prevent fraud that was widely seen in the earlier presidential polls in August won by incumbent Hamid Karzai.

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) had earlier said that the vote was to take place on May 22, a date required by the Afghan constitution.



Afghans postpone legislative vote: official
January 24, 2010

Afghanistan’s election authorities said Sunday that they would postpone parliamentary elections from May to September due to a shortage in funding and lack of security in the troubled country.


Afghanistan’s international backers, the US and the United Nations had earlier called for the election authorities to be reformed before funding the next ballot.

oywd Airborne Laser sticks to test regimen_269

February 23, 2010, 04:02:00 PM

A number of increasingly complex tests still lie ahead for the ABL, including firing the high-energy laser through the Lockheed Martin-developed beam control/fire control system and out of the nose-mounted turret. Before the end of the year, Boeing expects to do a full-fledged intercept test against a ballistic missile.

The Airborne Laser in flight.

Given that an aircraft in flight can be a fidgety beast, the ABL’s ability to maintain precise alignments was a notable accomplishment, according to a Thursday press release from Northrop Grumman, which designed and built the high-energy laser:

Jonathan Skillings is managing editor of CNET News, based in the Boston bureau. He’s been with CNET since 2000, after a decade in tech journalism at the IDG News Service, PC Week, and an AS/400 magazine. He’s also been a soldier and a schoolteacher. E-mail Jon. 


Airborne Laser sticks to test regimen

Beam control optics in the Airborne Laser system stabilize and shape the beam emitted by the chemical oxygen iodine laser en route to the nose turret of the aircraft.

Ambitious plans for the Airborne Laser, however, have been considerably scaled back. Earlier this year, in revamping the Pentagon’s budget and operations priorities, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that a second prototype would not be built.



Last week, in a continuing series of piecemeal tests, the ABL engaged in an in-flight trial run against an instrumented target missile. The aircraft used its infrared sensors to locate the missile, then fired a pair of solid-state illuminator lasers that tracked the missile and gauged atmospheric conditions. “This test demonstrates that the Airborne Laser can fully engage an in-flight missile with its battle management and beam control/fire control systems,” Michael Rinn, Boeing vice president and ABL program director, said in a statement. “Pointing and focusing a laser beam on a target that is rocketing skyward at thousands of miles per hour is no easy task.”

(Credit:Russ Underwood, Lockheed Martin)

(Credit:Boeing)

The Airborne Laser may have lost favor in Washington, but it’s still going strong at Edwards Air Force Base.

The core of the existing ABL is a chemical oxygen iodine laser, or COIL, and it’s hardly man-packable machinery. The COIL system itself takes up the back half of a modified 747-400F, while the front half of the jumbo jet is given over to the beam control/fire control system.

The one-of-a-kind ABL was built to test out and ultimately show off what a laser beam can do to a ballistic missile fired in anger. The goal, if and when all systems are go, is for the laser-equipped aircraft to home in on an ICBM while it’s still early in its trajectory, holding the laser beam on the missile long enough to rupture its skin and thus knock it out of commission.

ABL has to keep all of the powerful laser’s optical components perfectly positioned as the aircraft vibrates and flexes during flight…Since we were unable to fly the kind of large concrete pads used to hold a ground-based laser’s optics in place, we had to isolate the COIL’s optics from the structure but also maintain alignment. So the team developed an optical bench isolation system that isolates disturbances caused by normal aircraft operations while maintaining alignment to the gain medium, or the source of a laser’s optical power. It’s like an automobile’s ’smart suspension’ that keeps the car riding smoothly at the same level over a bumpy road.

Boeing, the prime contractor for the directed-energy weapons system, said Thursday that the ABL’s high-energy laser earlier this week was fired in flight for the first time–though not at an external target. Instead, in a flight over California, the laser beam traveled only as far as an on-board calorimeter, which measured the beam’s power. Boeing didn’t say what that measurement was, but the system is generally referred to as “megawatt-class.”

2usj Aicon Gallery Presents Home and the World Pho

February 23, 2010, 04:01:00 PM

Exhibition runs from January 28th 2010 to February 27th 2010

Aicon Gallery Presents Home and the World Photography Exhibition

The exhibition takes Rabrindranath Tagore’s novel ‘Home and the World’ (Ghare Baire) and Satyajit Ray’s film as its starting point and examines the ways in which artists in India have used photography to capture the state of affairs unfurling in concentric circles from within their most immediate space, and moving outward to the shared environments of the nation and the region.




They examine what is at stake in trying to document a country which has quickly moved from independence to being a nascent superpower; where different groups clamor for their own self-determination and the forces of globalization bring both welcome and unwelcome change.

mwnw Aicon Gallery Presents Home and the World Pho

February 23, 2010, 03:55:00 PM

Exhibition runs from January 28th 2010 to February 27th 2010

Aicon Gallery Presents Home and the World Photography Exhibition

The exhibition takes Rabrindranath Tagore’s novel ‘Home and the World’ (Ghare Baire) and Satyajit Ray’s film as its starting point and examines the ways in which artists in India have used photography to capture the state of affairs unfurling in concentric circles from within their most immediate space, and moving outward to the shared environments of the nation and the region.

They examine what is at stake in trying to document a country which has quickly moved from independence to being a nascent superpower; where different groups clamor for their own self-determination and the forces of globalization bring both welcome and unwelcome change.




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