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My hometown is 200 miles away from Chernobyl, not to mention on the day of the accident the wind was blowing our way. We even got some precipitation from the mushroom cloud that day. Yes, it is scary, but so is living next to a coal power plant. The radiation-poisoning problems we got are probably comparable to what people get while leaving next to the coal "acid rain" plant.

My point is that the planet is dying a little every day, and nuclear is the only cheap, powerful alternative that can be made safer to operate. Unfortunately, people in US associate nuclear power with nuclear weapons and fail to see the benefits. For example, my operations professor, who also works for US army, admitted yesterday in front of the class that he is extremely scared of nuclear power. Looks like Americans can only regain their senses if an earthquake-tsunami combo hits them.

"Xbox360 has had a huge struggle with hardware failures. WinMo is old and clunky, Vista left a really bad taste in peoples mouth, Office is facing competition from Google Docs and OpenOffice, and Play For Sure failed publicly."

Not exactly. Xbox 360 is far ahead in the media center game, which is what people want, the days of a $300 gaming only system are over. Only thing PS3 still has going for it is the built-in blu-ray drive, but to do something as simple as stream Netflix requires a Netflix disc that the Xbox 360 does not. Microsoft designed the Xbox 360 to be a media center, while the PS3 seems to be focused on being a blu-ray player, probably so Sony can protect and encourage movie sales.

We're still waiting for our all-in-one solution, the company that will provide us with all our devices. Apple has surprisingly made some great strides in the last ten years with the iPhone, Apple TV and being a major media content provider with iTunes. They appear to be the front runner in this game, all they need now is to add gaming to the Apple TV and they'd be hard to beat. Only thing they keep missing on is Flash support: iPhone/Touch only does Youtube streaming, no other sites. If they removed that limitation it'd be a far more attractive form factor.

We already have element 115: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium

But it was uninteresting.

Personally, I'm drawn to The 5th Element.

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/thefifthelement/
Yes, especially the 5th...

Agreed, Moon was fantastic. It draws a lot from 2001, but that's not a bad thing. It was refreshing to see such a well made sci-fi movie that was not dressed up for mass audiences. In other words, they didn't add explosions, comic relief characters, etc. for the sake of selling tickets.

The movie website has a release schedule - go see it if you can!

As someone pointed out in the last article about this asshat, he used to be the CEO of AOL Europe

...why don't you put your money where your mouth is? Take your site down (in case you didn't know it's at http://www.sonypictures.com/), then I'll pay attention to what you have to say.

Until then, you would do well by keeping your mouth shut whenever there's a microphone or a reporter in the room.

agree with you 100% Furniture

I don't think Seinfeld is hurting for money either. His show got picked up again for another season of syndication and they are also doing the Seinfeld Campus Tour trying to get a younger generation to attach to the show.

I worked as a camera operator on the Campus Tour when it came through Jacksonville, FL and the marketing guy for Seinfeld said that it is the 3rd highest ranked show of any comedy show out there today, new or syndicated. That's pretty amazing for a show that has been off the air for a decade.

I read that as they should have let MirrorMask design it for them. Now that would be freaky!

I for one welcome our new steam-based economy

In a recent rerun of "Ripley's Believe It or Not!", they had a bit about a flying car.

In the problem, it took Sweeny and his wife 20 minutes to attach the wings of the plane to their car. Somewhow, I think wings are one of the greater obstacles for a flying car. ;)

the Movie industry is hoping Sony succeeds because Sony will help "protect their profits",

You didn't really think they include what consumers think in any of their decisions, do you?

I've bitched about this earlier. You're quite right. They don't care. this is Sony pictures' Web site.

Can you see a "contact us" link? An email address? A telephone number? Any means to contact them to tell them what you think? There's a support email address buried in the help section but that's all.

A more consumer oriented company like Apple have a contact us link on the main page. Gives corporate address, a feedback form for the website, product feedback, technical support contacts and corporate contacts.

But I don't understand it. Companies pay a fortune for market research, and here are people willing to go out of their way to provide it for free. they should be listening.

Viacom owns Dreamworks. Not Sony.

Maybe I have a pirated copy then.. ;-) I have the box in my hand right now. I wish I could scan the back and post the logos..

Lower left corner on the back.. COLUMBIA PICTURES

Lower right corner on the back.. SONY PICTURES Home Entertainment

Just left of the SONY PICTURES.. www.SonyPictures.com

Following the link..
http://www.sonypictures.com/ Open Season is right on the main page "OPEN SEASON
Go wild with official mobile downloads from the animated tale."

Viacom may own it, but it's SONY who is distributing it. I blame them for the defective by design distribution.

And I thought this idea was a bit over the top.

I wonder if they're going to ask themselves for a refund later?

Been there, done that.

Will Component (YPbPr) video outputs be disabled by Windows Vista's content protection?

Similar to S/PDIF, Windows Vista does not require component video outputs to be disabled, but rather enables the enforcement of the usage policy set by content owners or service providers, including with respect to output restrictions and image constraint.

• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Home Ultimate
• DVI or HDMI video support with HDCP
• A non-revoked DVI driver (version 2.11 or higher) or a non-revoked HDMI driver (version 1.53 or higher)
• an authorized media player (such as Windows Media Player 10)
• video card, sound card, etc...

Wow, it's too early to deal with clowns like you.

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/

PS3 as the ultimate media hub. Cell(Broadband Engine) cranks through HD movies an order of magnitude faster than any other chip architecture. With WiFi and a PSP, the PS3 can on the fly broadcast your personal video collection to you anywhere in the world that has WiFi access. With the Sony media store integrated with the PS3 and PSP, Sony has the ultimate complete home media package.

Too bad Jobs blew the IBM relationship resulting in Apple being denied access to Cell chips.

And, Skype, yeah, whatever Einstein...

So you've never watched a movie from Sony Pictures? You don't like Seinfeld or Jeopardy? I'm willing to take a bet that you have their products in your home. Try looking here http://www.sonypictures.com/ and then make sure you've never come into contact with any of that either. Also don't use Mac's or a large amount of laptops. I'm too lazy to look up more.
 
And yes, failure, I wish I too could "fail" by your terms. You have the term failure and one of the largest electronics and entertainment companies in history mixed up.

• James Bond: Casino Royale
  
• Open Season
  
• Monster House
  
• Spiderman 3
  
• Stranger Than Fiction
  
• The Da Vinci Code
  
• Zoom
  

• The King of Queens
  
• JEOPARDY!
  
• Wheel of Fortune
  
• Ripley's Believe It or Not!
  
• Dragon Tales
  
• The Boondocks
  

• James Bond: Casino Royale
  
• Open Season
  
• Monster House
  
• Spiderman 3
  
• Stranger Than Fiction
  
• The Da Vinci Code
  
• Zoom
  

• The King of Queens
  
• JEOPARDY!
  
• Wheel of Fortune
  
• Ripley's Believe It or Not!
  
• Dragon Tales
  
• The Boondocks
  

Is that URL from the trailer? Googling "talladega nights" gets me to this Sony Pictures page, with no MySpace hits in the first few pages of results.

Dang, I'd intended to link the Sony licensing page.

I strongly suspect that Sony, owner of amongst others Sony Pictures will never make hardware with capabilities which might negativelly affect other parts of their business - like for example PVRs which would affect sales of movies and TV series on DVD ...

Just look at how they are risking the success of their latest generation gaming console (PS3) by bundling hardware (Blu-Ray drive) with it in an attempt at becoming the next generation de facto standard for motion pictures distribution (and in the process pricing the PS3 above the commonly acceptable range).

For quite a while now, the decisions on the types and characteristics of the products their consumer goods and electronics division put out have been molded by the wishes of their music and film production division to get consumers to buy the same music/movies multiple times for multiple devices (forget about piracy, the real point of DRM is to avoid that people copy the contents of the media they have aquired to different devices - as in, to technologically eliminate fair-use).

...and if you wanted to give someone a wedgie, you would pick Daniel Craig??? Sorry, you forgot the funny part...
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/casinoroyale/

Oh, yeah? Until the Da Vinci Code movie came out, I didn't know Mr. Christ had a wife and kids. :P

SONY and RootKit-gate. 'nuff said.

Rootkit it's about Sony Music. It's like say that Sony Playstation isn't going to sell because you don't like Spiderman 3.

I Like Sony HDR-HC1, the first afordable Hight Definition Camcorder.
I love my Sony PSP.
I have also a Sony TFT 19".
And the Sony VAIO line of Notebooks are great.

And PS3 is gonig to have Linux preinstalled, and ready to be amateur-developed.

So I don't understand why you are never going to buy, recommend, anything SONY again. SONY sells pretty god products.

I think a lot of independent film-makers would be happy to get that kind of audience.

Yeah, particularly independent film makers like SONY PICTURES .

If you want to see a live action movie with some of the spirit of the Aeon Flux shorts, I suggest you see Run Lola Run (unfortunately a Sony product.. caveat emptor)

"The system is well designed and performs well, launching the next-generation of gaming consoles."

I don't know about you, but to me, having even 1% of the sold consoles experiencing problem as trivial as PSU overheating, makes the console not well designed and performing well. When you design a piece of hardware, you don't check only if the processors can compute 1+1=2, but also if, you know, you can power on the damn thing.

"Sony, who currently relies on its gaming division to prop up its electronics division, continues to develop the PS3 with more limited resources."

I don't know if the author realizes that Sony also has huge revenues from movies (via Sony Pictures) and music (via "a href="http://www.sonybmg.com/">Sony BMG).

"With a 6-month head start, the Xbox 360 claims the dominant location in households who are unable to afford owning both the PS3 and the Xbox 360."

That's my own interpretation here, but Microsoft might not dominate the market as stated in the article. Microsoft suffers from bad reputation. Even the lamest user know that Windows crashes a lot ("duh! My computer is bugging!"), gamers know that the original Xbox had severe issues (early units couldn't read later games because of a crappy DVD player that could read multi-layer discs), not to mention the above-mentionned defective PSU for the X360.
As far as I know (and I may be wrong), PS2 never suffered any thing of that kind, and Sony has overall a good reputation (since people think they do great electronic device, which is kind of true unless you can afford to spend a few more bucks for higher quality equipment). And no, I'm not an anti-Microsoft. I run Windows XP and I bought a Xbox, kthx.

I have to agree. For this historic occasion could they have picked a sh**ier movie? Sony Pictures has a HUGE catalog of titles. I mean, even the complete first season of Fantasy Island would have been a better choice

But Sony just announced that the Sandman will be in Spiderman3 and that all the regulars are coming back to entertain us!!! Can I boycott Sony except for one little jaunt into the theater next summer? I promise to boycott them again immediately after ingesting their corporate goodness.

Considering http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/deucebigaloweur opeangigolo/index.html. Uhm. Nothing.

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/mirrormask/thea ters/Theatre List

Quick synopsis:

MIRRORMASK tells the story of Helena, a fifteen-year-old girl who works for her family's circus. Helena juggles, sells popcorn, and wishes that she could run away from the circus and join the "real world." Then, one day she wakes up to find herself in a magical world filled with fantastic beings and creatures, an alternate reality. It is a land of opposing kingdoms, one perpetually existing in light, the other in constant darkness. These lands have existed in perfect balance, until now. And Helena finds herself about to embark on a most remarkable journey.

MIRRORMASK is a new fantasy feature film in the tradition of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Gaiman wrote the screenplay and McKean directed, using a combination of live-action and CG animation. Lisa Henson, Michael R. Polis and Martin G. Baker are Executive Producers and Simon Moorhead is Producer. The film stars Stephanie Leonidas as Helena, Gina McKee as Helena's mother Joanne, as well as the two Queens, Rob Brydon as Helena's father and Jason Barry as Valentine.

"Dave McKean and I created the story and the script for MIRRORMASK in the Henson family home in London, surrounded by memorabilia and artifacts from Jim Henson's astonishing career in television and fantasy filmmaking," says Gaiman. "It was a true challenge and inspiration to try to make something today that would be as visually rich, creative, funny, and as moving as Jim Henson's original works."

But they're bad films: badly written, badly plotted and largely badly acted.

Exactly. Anyone want to guess how long it took to work out the plot for Stealth? I'll bet that it was less than a day myself.

I think I could make a generalization that would go far in predicting a good movie in advance: If the movie is based on the work of a highly regarded author, then it has a good change of being worth the money. Why? Because you don't usually become a highly regarded author with out having some talent for telling a story. And if the screenwriters don't botch the plot and stay reasonably true to the storyline, you might end up with a good movie.

All of these movies that Hollywood keeps throwing together based on some off-the-wall catch phrase or popular buzz word start off with a serious disadvantage. One of the key characteristics that seem to appear in those quick-fix movies are ultra extremes. You know, where jokes aren't just meant to be funny, they has to be of such an extreme nature that they top the last three remakes that featured the same jokes (as an example, the jokes in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo come to mind -- Please note: This does not imply that Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo was a good movie).

Another Hollywood characteristic of the typical bad movie -- remakes remakes remakes. The percentage of original ideas coming out of Hollywood these days is pretty low. One reason for this (IMHO) is the perpetual extension of copyright. No need to come up with an original idea if you can simply regurgitate that same old movie modernized with new special effects.

OK, 'nough of my ranting...I now return you to the show currently in progress...

latest Sony all products keygen for Acid 5.0c, Sound forge 8.0b, Vegas 6.0d (incl mp3/mpeg plugin fix):
http://rapidshare.de/files/3667497/sonyproducts-ke ygen.zip.html

Full version Sony app:
http://download.sonypictures.com/current

Latest Sony all products keygen incl mp3/mpeg fix: http://rapidshare.de/files/3667497/sonyproducts-ke ygen.zip.html

Full version Sony app: http://download.sonypictures.com/current

You've been watching Stealth, haven't you.

Just repeat to yourself, "It's just a movie... It's just a movie..."

Latest Sony all products keygen incl mp3/mpeg plugin fix: http://rapidshare.de/files/3667497/sonyproducts-ke ygen.zip.html [rapidshare.de]

Full version Sony app: http://download.sonypictures.com/current [sonypictures.com]

Latest Sony all products keygen incl mp3/mpeg plugin fix: http://rapidshare.de/files/3667497/sonyproducts-ke ygen.zip.html

Full version Sony app: http://download.sonypictures.com/current

Latest Sony all products keygen incl mp3/mpeg plugin fix: http://rapidshare.de/files/3667497/sonyproducts-ke ygen.zip.html

Full version Sony app: http://download.sonypictures.com/current

I wonder how Sony feels about this.

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/stealth/

Personally, HD-DVD's disgraceful AACS is enough to make me cheer for Blu-Ray

Sony is a major proponent of Blu-ray Disc, and Sony is also a member of the Copyright MAFIAA. Who's to say that Sony's Columbia Tristar Home Video won't demand some sort of digital restrictions management?

but will it let us know which ones to avoid?

Acid Xpress looks like crippleware, but thanks for pointing it out!

I use GarageBand too. :)

Well, there's always the free Acid Xpress to which Apple has no compliment.

I am not arguing GarageBand isn't a good tool at a great price. I use GarageBand (and ProTools, and Cubase SX) all the time for home recording on my Powerbook and I love it. I am just pointing out the Windows equivalent.

Is it because Acid Pro has such an impressively busy interface and Garageband doesn't?

... a step in the right direction :)

I agree! That direction being following in the footsteps of others.

If anyone remembers Acid prior to Sony's acquisition of SoundForge, they had guest artists all the time who would provide tracks for public remix and then the bands would choose the best one. Not just no-name or rarely heard of groups (NOT saying Nine Inch Nails is either of those) but actual artists. I remember remixing Gravity Kills, Garbage and The Beastie Boys.

The thing that gets me about this article though, is that it says "...this is the first time such a project has been as open to the common user." but this is false on two points.

1 - As I just mentioned (and is discussed in a number of other posts) this isn't the first time this has been available.

2 - Since when (and I'm not trolling here) are Mac users "common users?" Forgive me if I am wrong, but Windows has the dominant market share. I would think Windows users would be common users.

All is not lost though, from what I understand, GarageBand is a loop-based system. So apps like Acid should be able to play with these files.