CES 2010 - Alienware M11x laptop $1000, runs Modern Warfare fast

CES 2010 (the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas) has this bit of shocking news: Alienware, the Dell company brand known for producing powerful computers for gaming, as well as having a really massively cool logo, has introduced a blockbuster new laptop called the Alienware M11x, which reportedly costs less than $1,000.

At a CES 2010 Dell press conference attended by CNET's Scott Stein, the 11.6 inch Alienware M11x was touted as a light, powerful laptop with six hours of battery life and powered by a Nvidia GT335M GPU. The battery life reportedly and logically drops with the power requirements of the game; Engadget reports that switching to "gaming mode" drops the batterly life from six hours to two hours of "intense gaming." It's said to run Modern Warfare 2 in high def at over 30fps.

That claim has drawn the attention of a lot of skeptical gamers. "Quadzilla" at Notebook.com's forum wrote:

Those performance numbers were probably taken with everything on LOW@1024x768 ... It says Modern Warfare was in HD but im not sure what HD(Highly Doubtful ?) they are talking about lol..

Still, at $1,000, the Alienware M11x just placed itself in competition with the education-oriented Apple Mac Book.  The comparison is appropriate because a good portion of college students play online games and that means using a computer.  Pew Research estimated that 70 percent of college students "reported playing video, computer or online games at least once in a while, and 65% of college students reported being regular or occasional game players."

So which computer is a college student who's most likely to play Modern Warfare going to pick, an Apple Mac Book or an Alienware M11x?

Apple better wake up, Alienware M11x's coming.

Stay tuned.

Miley Cyrus wins People's Choice Award for ...movie actress?

Miley Cyrus has earned a high place in pop culture for her songs like Party In The USA, a melodic voice, and her role as Hanna Montana on television. But Miley Cyrus winning an award as a movie actress in the People's Choice Awards is a shock.

 

Miley Cirus and pole at Teen Choice Awards

Miley Cyrus beat out the following for the People's Choice Awards of Breakout Movie Actress:

Anna Kendrick
Emily Osment
Ginnifer Goodwin
Zoe Saldana

That Miley Cyrus beat out Zoe Saldana, who plays top acting roles in two 2009 blockbuster movies, Avatar and Star Trek for a movie actress award is worthy of conversation because Cyrus appeared in Hannah Montana: The Movie. Hannah Montana: The Movie earned just $32 million at the box office and received at best luke-warm reviews.

Miley Cyrus is an incredible singing talent, but to put her in a space with Zoe Saldana and Ginnifer Goodwin is unfair to them. Ginnifer Goodwin is known for her roles in movies like Mona Lisa Smile.

It's even less fair to Anna Kendrick, who's a decorated Broadway actress, who has a list of movie credits, from Up In The Air to The Twilight Saga.

For Miley Cyrus to be in the same list as Emily Osment makes sense because they were both in Hannah Montana: The Movie, and both sing. But other than Osment, the deck was stacked, especially against Zoe Saldana, who's really should have got the award.

Zoe Saldana doesn't have a legion of 13 to 17 year old girls who follow her every move. She also doesn't have daring and controversial actions like Miley Cyrus' stripper pole dance at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, either.

>

Follow that with her Twitter following (before she took her page down) and product endorsement commercials, her concert tour, and a crack publicity team and you have an automatic win in a category she really should not have been in at all.

That leads to this question: was the People's Choice Award just some kind of setup to make sure certain celebrities won awards? If so, by whom? How? Why? Why does Taylor Swift show up the winner on so many award programs?

At some point this appearance of our pop culture taste having the appearance of being engineered can and should be the subject of a Congressional investigation.

Stay tuned.

Good Girls Go Bad from People's Choice Awards

The popular American Pop band Cobra Starship gang Good Girls Go Bad at the People's Choice Awards, Wednesday night. Former Pussycat Dolls star Nicole Scherzinger helped burn up the stage.

Still, it did not win Favorite Music Collaboration; that went to Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West’s Run This Town.

Nonetheless, here's a kick-ass video of the performance of Good Girls Go Bad thanks to PCDworlddotcouk on YouTube:

2010 People's Choice Award winners show voting youth

The 2010 People's Choice Award is over and the winners show the youthful demographic of the voters. Congratulations to Taylor Swift, who's continuing her 2009 awards success, in 2010 winning "Favorite Female Artist". Ashton Kutcher is wins as "Favorite Web Celeb", a category that reflects how media has changed over the past decade. Taylor Lautner was "Favorite Breakout Movie Actor" for Twilight: New Moon, which itself was voted the favorite movie franchise. And, not surprisingly, Lady Gaga is Favorite Pop Artist.

In this, it must be noted that Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was voted "Favorite Independent Movie", thereby cementing its cult status with the people who voted. It's the largest grossing of all of Quentin Tarantino's movie creations.

Celebrity Gossip Blog has this complete list of the winners:

Favorite Talk Show - The Ellen DeGeneres Show

Favorite On Screen Team - The Twilight Saga

Favorite TV Obsession - True Blood

Favorite TV Competition Show - American Idol

Favorite Animal Show - Dog Whisperer

Favorite Family Movie - Up

Favorite TV Comedy - The Big Bang Theory

Favorite R&B Artist - Mariah Carey

Favorite TV Comedy Actor - Steve Carrell

Favorite TV Comedy Actress - Alyson Hannigan

Favorite Country Artist - Carrie Underwood

Favorite TV Drama Actor - Hugh Laurie

Favorite TV Drama - House

Favorite Movie Actress - Sandra Bullock

Favorite Breakout Movie Actor - Taylor Lautner

Favorite Action Star - Hugh Jackman

Favorite Movie Actor - Johnny Depp

Favorite Male Artist - Eminem / Keith Urban

Favorite Female Artist - Taylor Swift

Favorite Comedic Star - Jim Carrey

Favorite Breakout Music Artist - Lady Gaga

Favorite Breakout Movie Actress - Miley Cyrus

Favorite Rock Band - Paramore

Favorite Music Collaboration - Run This Town

Favorite Comedy Movie - The Proposal

Favorite New TV Drama - The Vampire Diaries

Favorite Movie - Twilight: New Moon

Favorite New TV Comedy - Glee

Favorite Web Celeb - Ashton Kutcher

Favorite Frandchise - The Twilight Saga

Favorite TV Drama Actress - Katherine Heigl

Favorite Sc-Fi / Fantasy Show - Supernatural

Favorite Independent Movie - Inglourious Basterds

Favorite Pop Artist - Lady Gaga

Casey Johnson death - Tila Tequila battles Perez Hilton on Twitter

While the LA County Coroner's Office continues its examinations related to the death of Caset Johnson, and celebrities from Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton to Lindsay Lohan share their grief online, blogger Perez Hilton has launched a full-scale Twitter attack on Casey Johnson's wife-to-be, Tila Tequila.

Perez Hilton, who on his blog describes Casey Johnson as "drug plagued" and having recently "left a stint in rehab" and filed the post under "Drugs", started the tweet attack 14 hours ago from the writing of this blog post.

Perez Hilton believes and has said that Tila Tequila is using the passing of Casey Johnson to promote herself:

@officialtila Tweet away, honey. The more you Tweet, the more your true colors reveal themselves. And they are vile!
about 14 hours ago from web

@officialtila I'm amazed you're not broadcasting live, showing us you're "grieving"! That's totally something trash like you would do!
about 14 hours ago from web

Tila Tequila responded back with a slew of tweets, starting with this one:

@PerezHilton have some decency! You love poking fun at people who have passed away dont you? First Mocking MJ's Death & now My FIance's?
about 14 hours ago from web in reply to PerezHilton

Which Perez elected to answer back with...

@officialtila You should try and get custody of her daughter. That'd be GREAT publicity, all you crave in life!
about 14 hours ago from web

Tila responds:

@PerezHilton Actually Casey & I were going to do that next. That was my Wife's wish was for me to adopt ava. Ur jus jealous nobody loves u.
about 14 hours ago from web in reply to PerezHilton

And..

Lonely @perezhilton Cant find anyone else to pick on so now he thinks he can pick on me cuz I'm in a vulnerable state with my wife passing
about 14 hours ago from web

But Perez Hilton has to "up" the nastiness:

@officialTila OF COURSE that's what she wanted! Suuuure! Why would anyone believe YOU???? You are a PATHOLOGICAL LIAR!
about 13 hours ago from web in reply to officialTila

@officialTila And I DO have decency. That's why I will NEVER mention you on my site again. I care too much about my readers!
about 13 hours ago from web

@officialTila Go back to grieving and exploiting her death. You're great at being soulless!
about 13 hours ago from web

And Tila continues her tweets in kind:

@PerezHilton oh after watching your bitch crying snot throwing video about how my friend @Iamrealwill punched U..it was 2 embarassing!
about 14 hours ago from web in reply to PerezHilton

Truly a sad individual @perezhilton first u Mock the death of Michael Jackson and now this? U seriously need God. Wait. God Rejected you.
about 14 hours ago from web

And it went on for some time this morning, with Twitterers taking sides. But this is one place where Perez Hilton's best move would have been to leave Tila Tequila alone. The death of a loved one is sacred ground, even in the blogosphere.

While it's certainly true that Tila Tequila has done some questionable things over the past year (and surely didn't have to call 911 on Paris Hilton in the matter of Casey Johnson's dog)  it does not give Carte Blanch for the kind of attack Perez Hilton has leveled on her.

 Moreover, there's a certain way a man should talk to a woman, and that way should not stop because Perez Hilton is gay.

The "news" here is that the exchange is a path-breaking moment in New Media. Seeing how far Perez Hilton stretches the bounds of decency without being hit with a defamation lawsuit is interesting. It's not an approach bloggers should adapt at all, regardless of whatever traffic it produces.

Has Perez been sued? Yes, and for $25 million in the case of Wargo v. Lavandeira but that was dismissed. The reason is that the plaintiff, Diane Wargo, had claimed that Perez did not have the right to print an email she wrote which contained homophobic slurs. As a result of the posted email, which contained Wargo's place of work, address, and contact information, Wargo claims she was fired from her job.

Wargo sued Perez Hilton, aka Mario Lavandeira and 25 anonymous comment posters. The case was dismissed after several motions because of lack of "personal jurisdiction": the lawsuit was filed in Ohio, but because Perez Hilton does not transact business there, the lawsuit was considered invalid.

In other words, Perez prevailed on a legal technicality.

Even with that, while it's true that celebrities are public figures - and anyone that attracts "Internet chatter" is called a limited purpose public figure - the law does not mean that you can just tee-off on someone as Perez has done.

Moreover, as one who's lost six friends over the past two years, the most recent funeral on Tuesday of this week, the key word is always sympathy. If Tila Tequila's destiny is to have a larger audience because of the death of Casey Johnson, so be it. That may very will be God's will; Perez Hilton has no power to reverse the outcome. Indeed, his tweets just helped it along.










Related topics:

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Tom Hayes: Is Gary Hart downplaying the threat?

I disagree that the tea-baggers and others referred to in Hart's Huffington Post OpEd today, "Getting the Government We Seem to Want," hurt only themselves - by acting to disrupt civil discourse and undermine the effectiveness of our government they drag the country toward a path that will parallel the outcomes of "no taxes but no government" as currently practiced in Somalia.

"...the cynics and trolls who scream like banshees at town hall meetings and scan the blogosphere to post cynical put-downs of their country's government are hurting no one but themselves."

I'm forced to disagree: They hurt me. They hurt everyone else living in the U.S. In fact, it goes beyond today; such actions threaten the well-being, liberty, standard of living, and the intent of the founding fathers when they inserted the language pertaining to "pursuit of happiness" for my descendants (and yours, and theirs.)

I do share Hart's concern that, "the most qualified Americans will continue to choose not to serve their country and we will continue to be weaker for it."

Under the adopted camouflage of the Boston Tea Party, which was about the unfair nature of being taxed without representation not anarchy, these short-sighted, loud-mouthed, anti-government anarchists threaten the values predicating, and described in, the Constitution of The United States.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Avatar, Star Trek, two of seven films in Visual Effects Oscar race

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that seven films remain in the competition to pick three nominees for the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Here's the list of films:

2012
Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Star Trek
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

That list came from the original tally of 15 movies competing for the Visual Effects prize. Coraline, Angels & Demons, Disney's A Christmas Carol, G-Force, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Sherlock Holmes, Watchmen, and Where the Wild Things Are did not make the cut.

It also means the buzz for Avatar,  Star Trek, and District 9 continues to grow, as Tuesday, the Producers Guild annouced that the popular 2009 Sci-Fi epics were part of its list of the 10 best films vying for the Zanuck Award of Best Picture.  

On January 21st, Academy members representing the Visual Effects branch will gather to look at 15-minute excerpts  from the seven films; from that review, three nominees will be selected for the 2010 Academy Award for Visual Effects.

2010 Oscar nominations will be announced Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 5:30 PM PST.   The Oscars will be presented Sunday, March 7, 2010.

Stay tuned.

Chicago to try Oakland-style parking strategy

The cash-strapped City of Chicago is turning to an Oakland, California-style way of raising money for its coffers: parking meter rates around Chicago go up 75 cents to $4.25 per hour  to park in downtown Chicago in 2010. According to the Chicago Tribune, residents are not happy.

Melody Fillier, a a pharmaceutical salesperson, told the Chicago Tribune "I think it's really expensive. It just blows me away."

Parking rates have quadrupled in some areas of Chicago. And before the meter rate change, the old meters broke down; more tickets were written as people stuffed coins in broken meters.

Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has drawn fire for a parking meter lease deal that has given the City a cash windfall but led to the increased meter rates. But the parking deal was defended as giving money to a Chicago that needed it. But the result is a parking fee cost that threatens to drive away residents from using stores in downtown Chicago and harm Chicago's poorest citizens.

Still, the Chicago approach is not anywhere near the level of harm that Oakland's exacts on its citizens. Oakland has not only high parking meter rates, but aggressive ticketing and towing policies.

Plus, Oakland's consideration of a new parking study reveals a concern for parking as a revenue generator, but no mention of the fact that it's a regressive tax on the poor. That is shown in this Oakland City Council Staff Report that was considered by the City of Oakland at last night's City Council meeting. You can download a copy of the report, which calls for a comprehensive city-wide parking study, here at this link:

http://clerkwebsvr1.oaklandnet.com/attachments/23626.pdf

Meanwhile, talks forming an Oakland Parking Initiative continue; the date of the next meeting has not been set as of this blog report.

Stay tuned.

Avatar and Star Trek up Oscar buzz in the air - producer's guild

The Producers Guild of America announced its ten nominees for the Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award and three of them, Avatar, District 9, and Star Trek have the Sci-Fi World buzzing in the hope that a film representing that genre will earn a Best Picture Academy Award.

The Producers Guild award takes on a special significance this year for two reasons: first because its an important (not perfect) "precursor" in predicting which film will get the coveted Best Picture Oscar, and second, because there will be ten nominees competing for the prize this year.

Here's the overall list from the Producers Guild of America's website:

Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures:

AVATAR
Producers: James Cameron, Jon Landau
DISTRICT 9
Producers: Carolynne Cunningham, Peter Jackson
AN EDUCATION
Producers: Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey
THE HURT LOCKER
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Producer: Lawrence Bender
INVICTUS
Producers: Clint Eastwood, Rob Lorenz, Lori McCreary , Mace Neufeld
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
Producers: Lee Daniels, Gary Magness, Sarah Siegel-Magness
STAR TREK
Producers: J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
UP
Producer: Jonas Rivera
UP IN THE AIR
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.

Will Star Trek and District 9 cause Avatar's elimination from a win?  Avatar's a beautiful movie but Star Trek and District 9 have tight story lines. Star Trek, of course, has a multi-generational legion of fans.  


Stay Tuned.  

Casey Johnson's death like Brittany Murphy's appears linked to diabetes

Johnson and Johnson Heiress Casey Johnson, who was in the news for a reported engagement to reality TV show star Tila Tequila, died tragically at the age of 30, Monday.

According to CNN, Johnson's passing was first reported on Tequila's Twitter page, then confirmed by police. As of this writing there's no official cause of death, but like that of Actress Brittany Murphy, Casey Johnson's problems appear to have been related to a battle with diabetes and according to TMZ, not suicide or fowl play as of this writing.

Casey Johnson has a history of diabetes which she allegedly did not handle well. Fox411.com reports, "Casey had very severe diabetes and was not taking care of herself properly. With her condition she should have been closely monitoring her health, taking insulin, monitoring blood sugar levels, and she wasn't."

After Brittany Murphy passed away on the Sunday just before Christmas, it was revealed that she too was fighting a battle with diabetes.



Stay tuned.

President Obama's Hyde Park, Chicago house and neighborhood

While President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were enjoying their "vacation" house in Hawaii over the holidays, I was in Chicago with my Mom and her friend, who's daughter and husband are friends of the First Couple and live not far from the Obama's other home in Hyde Park, Chicago.

Chicago is my hometown, so the area around Greenwood and Hyde Park, where the Obama's home is located is familiar territory for me. Because of that, it was heart-warming for me to walk the grounds near their home because there's is such the American success story.

To be acquainted with someone who becomes President of The United States and to know people who really know that person and for everyone to be either alive and in essentially the same generation or forward of it, is just plain exciting and affirming of a life path - in this case, mine. I had to capture the moment in my video blog.

What's weird about the neighborhood is what's necessary: the security. There are barricades, government cars, and the overall feeling of constantly being watched. Overall, massively cool; that's the way it should be.

In another weird way that feeling of a presence lends itself to Hyde Park's newfound uber-coolness. I know Hyde Park, but not this Hyde Park. It's buzzing with people, stores, shops, and eateries. Real estate prices have increased to reflect the demand to live in the area, even in the lousy economy and all because of Barack Obama's assent to most powerful person in the World.

Nice.

Google Nexus One Phone draws a lot of reviews

Google's Nexus One Phone is officially out and thankfully it's not exclusively on the iPhone-user-hated AT&T Network (cheers!).   It's already drawing a lot of reviews, some comparing it to the iPhone, others to Droid, or just by itself.

The Nexus One Phone's on the T-Mobile Network, and the best news is that existing T-Mobile customers like me are eligible for an upgrade to what I will now call "The G-phone". Verizon mobile users will have to wait until spring of this year for service activation.

There are a slew of reviews of the videoblogger-ready Google Phone by everyone except Iron Man 2's Robert Downey, Jr, as "Tony Stark".

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington explains that he's (like Fred Wilson) had a G-Phone since mid-December and has used it as his primary mobile phone. That's quite a switch for Arrington, who could be seen using an iPhone as his primary mobile device for some time before the introduction of the G-Phone.

Arrington says that while the G-Phone looks like the iPhone, it's better "in most ways" and is the fastest and "most elegant smartphone" available to date. Michael's main reason is the Google Voice provision in the G-Phone. With it, Google Voice users can use their number and use it to make outbound calls and messages. And the phone comes with something called Google Voice Keyboard.

Google Voice Keyboard is such that according to Michael Arrington, you can talk into the phone and it converts your speech to text. He says it's "90 percent accurate".

Engadget is less excited about the G-Phone, stating "it's not in any way the Earth-shattering, paradigm-skewing device the media and community cheerleaders have built it up to be" and in some cases prefers Droid over it. Yikes. But in reading Engadget's review, it seems as if authors Joshua Topolsky and Chris Ziegler were so, well, nit-picky, that they left themselves without a way to escape with anything other than a somewhat negative assessment.

The New York Times' David Pogue, channeling Engadget, writes that "the Google news this week is not quite as earth-shaking as Google seems to think it is".

Interesting.

Sometimes this is done as a way to achieve what the writer feels is a certain element of "cool" but the approach has grown tired of late. It's OK to be genuinely excited, guys.

A lot of video about the Google Nexus Phone

The Google Nexus Phone is already the subject of a slew of videos, some of which are below:

Official Google Video:



MacWorld:



Even kids get into the act:



Stay tuned!