Apple Renting & Selling Over 50,000 Movies Per Day
CUPERTINO, Calif., June 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple(R) today
announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded over five billion
songs from the iTunes(R) Store (http://www.itunes.com). iTunes is the
number one music retailer in the US* and features the largest music catalog
with over eight million songs. Also, iTunes customers are now renting and
purchasing over 50,000 movies every day, making iTunes the world's most
popular online movie store.
iTunes features movies from all of the major movie studios including
20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount,
Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent
movies and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods**,
iPhone(TM) and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV(R). iTunes Store customers
can also purchase new movie releases from major film studios and premier
independent studios on the same day as their DVD release.
The iTunes Store is the world's most popular online music, TV and movie
store with a catalog of over eight million songs, over 20,000 TV episodes
and over 2,000 films including over 350 in stunning high definition video.
With Apple's legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as iTunes
Movie Rentals, integrated podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, the
ability to turn previously purchased tracks into complete albums at a
reduced price, and seamless integration with iPod(R) and iPhone, the iTunes
Store is the best way for Mac(R) and PC users to legally discover, purchase
and download music and video online.
*Based on data from market research firm the NPD Group's MusicWatch
survey that captures consumer reported past week unit purchases and counts
one CD representing 12 tracks, excluding wireless transactions. The iTunes
Store became the largest music retailer in the US based on the amount of
music sold during January and February 2008.
**Movie rentals work on iPod classic, iPod nano with video and iPod
touch.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the
Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the
Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with
its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and
professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media
revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online
store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary
iPhone.
(C) 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac,
Mac OS, Macintosh, iTunes, iPhone, Apple TV and iPod are trademarks of
Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
See Also
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Thursday, 26 June 2008
Former Busted Members To Appeal Over Royalties Rejection
Ki Fitzgerald and Owen Doyle, two original members of the boy band Busted, are to appeal after a judge rejected their claim that they were owed millions of pounds in unpaid royalties.
Both Fitzgerald and Doyle claim to have written songs for the band alongside eventual Busted members James Bourne and Matt Willis before being sacked by the groups record label.
Prior to Busted, the four musicans performed together under the band name Termites.
Mr Justice Morgan, who dismissed their case, questioned the pair's reliability as a witnesses in court, reports the BBC.
A statement released on behalf of both men said that they would now be recredited as “original co-owners” of a number of Busted songs, including 'What I Go To School For'.
Busted, who eventually launched with frontman Charlie Simpson, split in 2005.
See Also
Monday, 9 June 2008
"Saving Luna" recalls the riveting and polarizing tale of the killer whale
Two years after a tragic accident ended the saga of the wayward killer whale known as Luna, documentary makers Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit bring the gregarious little orca to the Seattle International Film Festival in a thought-provoking account likely to stir debate. From the opening montage of watery coves and misty mountainsides that establishes the remote setting of Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, "Saving Luna" sets out to transport audiences beneath the surface of this compelling story, and does so.
As was widely reported, the 2-year-old orca had gone missing and was presumed dead before he mysteriously appeared in the waters of Nootka Sound in July 2001. One of our endangered southern resident orcas, Luna was alone, some 200 miles from his pod's prime territory.
Killer whales are among the most social of mammals and, having no other orcas with which to communicate, Luna made startling contact with people and boats. Some locals were delighted, but others were alarmed. This put the young orca at risk and created a dilemma that posited science, politics and cultures at an impasse.
Marine-mammal experts were at odds with policymakers over whether and how to reunite the orca with its pod, while the indigenous people of Nootka opposed any intervention, maintaining that nature be allowed to take its course.
On assignment for Smithsonian Magazine, Chisholm and Parfit traveled to Gold River, B.C., in the spring of 2004 to cover Luna's attempted capture by Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The married couple wound up living in that inlet town for nearly three years, becoming advocates for a whale.
As the film begins, Parfit narrates, "There is a wall, built of fear and respect, which normally stands between humans and wild beings. We humans tell sweet and magical fables about going through that wall and making friends with a mysterious creature on the other side. ... But we don't think it could actually happen."
That theme resounds throughout the film: Was it possible to actually befriend a wild animal such as Luna, and could friendship have saved him?
To some, this idea might verge on anthropomorphism, but for Parfit, it is a legitimate way of understanding how Luna broke down that barrier.
"My sense of it," explains the filmmaker, "is that the social need that he had and that we have, that we call friendship, is extremely complicated in our lives and in theirs. In the details it's going to be different. But that big thing we think of as 'friendship,' which encompasses all of those emotional structures, is a good metaphor for what he needed and a good metaphor for what we sensed when we looked in his eye."
And a look into Luna's eyes is what viewers get. We are virtually introduced to the playful, charismatic orca, sometimes through stunning underwater photography, and sometimes through the moving accounts of people whose encounters and interactions with Luna are captured on tape. We are also afforded a view from the cultural perspective of Nootka's Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation Band, for whom orcas are esteemed protectors of the sea and who believed Luna embodied the spirit of their recently deceased chief.
The captivity contingency
These vantage points shed new light on the dramatic events in June of 2004, when the First Nation band intervened in the DFO's effort to relocate Luna with his family and pod. At the time, department officials acknowledged that their attempt might well meet with failure. Now we hear from DFO marine scientist John Ford, "most of us were not convinced that it would be successful."
One contingency was to place the orca in a marine park aquarium. In "Saving Luna," some locals voice suspicions that Luna was likely bound for captivity, and the film presents some evidence to support that notion. We are shown correspondence from one such facility to the DFO expressing "considerable interest" in the orca, stating Luna "will enhance our breeding program."
Parfit notes that their investigation neither points to any conspiracy nor concludes that Luna's captivity was a fait accompli, but it does indicate the contingency was elaborate. "Logistics were already in place to take him to a captive facility soon after his release, if he continued to play with boats," he says. "It was a very advanced and detailed plan, and that's the one place where the department was not frank with the public."
To the tribe, however, it was a foregone conclusion that Luna was headed straight to captivity. In the film, hereditary chief Jerry Jack speaks adamantly. "That was their bottom line. They were going to sell him to an aquarium."
Stewards of Luna
The film presents an eye-opening depiction of the attempted capture, as tribal members paddle out in wooden canoes to rally for Luna's freedom. The sound of their chanting fades beneath Parfit's narrative, evoking a mythical image.
"Luna followed the song, and they turned into the wind. An ancient people trying to make a modern legend of sea and spirit with a little whale."
The tribe ultimately prevailed and was granted a stewardship permit to keep Luna from interacting with boaters. No longer a dolphin-size infant, Luna had damaged some boats by playing too roughly, and a handful of anglers had threatened to kill him.
Here we become aware of a powerful emotional bond between Luna and First Nation steward Jamie James. By examining this fablelike connection, the filmmakers make perhaps their best argument that friendship, or something akin to it, could indeed keep Luna from harm.
Getting personal
This poignant portrayal of an interspecies relationship does invite debate, as the filmmakers reveal their own personal involvement in the tale. Chisholm acknowledges to the audience, "For us, the idea of getting involved in a story that we're trying to cover was a fundamental break from journalistic rules."
Venturing into the political arena, Parfit and Chisholm proposed that Luna be provided consistent and structured human interaction to hopefully eliminate haphazard encounters. Chisholm says the decision to cross over into advocacy took a lot of soul searching.
"We were still reporting the facts; we were reporting the truth," offers Chisholm. "We didn't feel that we were losing our objectivity in that sense, but we did get involved in that we tried to change the outcome of this individual's life. It really felt like morally we had no choice."
Things become even more personal, if not more controversial, when Parfit jumps in and assumes an unauthorized role after the First Nation's permit had expired.
"We felt compelled and driven," explains Chisholm, "based on the evidence that showed again and again that you couldn't keep Luna away from people. Mike's goal in going out there was to have a presence on the water when there was no stewardship and hopefully prevent unwanted interactions."
"It was agonizing," confides Parfit. "Yet we felt so strongly about it because of all the information we had gathered. We felt that when Luna was with us, he was safe."
The end isn't everything
In a story rife with human conflict and finger-pointing, "Saving Luna" navigates deftly through these contentious waters. It does, however, pose a curious footnote to the orca's sad demise in a freak accident with a tugboat: "The department, which had prosecuted a woman for petting Luna's nose, did not conduct a serious investigation into his death."
Yet the film doesn't dwell on the tale's heartbreaking conclusion. Instead, it succeeds by keeping its focus on the live Luna.
"The fact that the story ended is not the point," muses Parfit. "Luna represented something extraordinary, and we didn't want to overshadow that by the circumstances that ended the story."
Stephan Michaels is an award-winning freelance journalist who covered the saga of Luna the killer whale for several publications, including the San Francisco Chronicle and Peninsula Daily News.
See Also
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Mariah Carey - Carey Denies Surgery Rumours
Singer MARIAH CAREY has blasted reports her newly slender figure is the result of plastic surgery, insisting her weight loss is down to diet and exercise.
Earlier this year (Apr08), the R+B superstar unveiled a svelte new look when she began doing promotional work for her eleventh studio album, E=MC2, sparking speculation she had gone under the knife to lose a remarkable 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms).
But the Hero hitmaker, 38, is adamant it was an all-natural regime that helped her shed the pounds.
She says, "I know the U.K. is freaking out that I had some crazy plastic surgery done, but... honestly, it's working out and diet. Look at what I'm eating right now: olives!
"It makes me upset that people think I've had surgery, 'cause let's discuss how annoying the dieting process was. My girls will eat really good fried food, and I also love sweet plantain and rice and peas, but I can't eat it! If I eat it, it's small!"
See Also
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Son Seals
Artist: Son Seals
Genre(s):
Blues
Discography:
Lettin' Go
Year: 2000
Tracks: 14
Spontaneous Combustion
Year: 1996
Tracks: 12
Midnight Son
Year: 1990
Tracks: 9
Living in the Danger Zone
Year: 1989
Tracks: 11
It entirely started with a sound call from John Wesley Race, world Health Organisation was at the Flamingo Club on Chicago's Southward Side, to Alligator Records possessor Bruce Iglauer. Race was raving virtually a fresh feel, a lester Willis Danton True Young guitarist named Son Seals. He held the sound in the direction of the bandstand, so Iglauer could fix an on-site paper. It didn't ingest foresightful for Iglauer to scramble into action at law. Gator issued Seals' eponymous debut album in 1973, which was followed by sestet to a greater extent.
Son Seals was max Born Wienerwurst Seals on Aug 13, 1942 in Osceola, Arkansas. His crop up operated a juke stick called the Dipsy Doodle Golf club in Osceola where Laddie Boy Williamson, Henry M. Robert Mosquito hawk, and Albert Billie Jean King cavorted upfront piece little Frank listened intently in support. Drums were the youth's first-class honours degree nucleotide tool; he played them behind Nightbird at age 13. Merely by the time he was 18, Son Seals tartness his talents to guitar, fronting his possess band in Little Rock.
Spell visiting his sis in Newmarket, he aquiline up with Earl Hooker's Roadmasters in 1963 for a few months, and on that full point was a 1966 erolia minutilla with Albert King that sent him behind the drumkit erstwhile to a greater extent than. Just with the demise of his don River in 1971, Seals returned to Chicago, this condemnation for effective. When Gator gestural him up, his years fronting a band at the Flamingo Club and the Expressway Lounge were numbered.
Seals' jaggy, inflexible guitar riffs and gruff vocals were showcased very effectively on that 1973 debut set, which contained his "Your Honey Is care a Cancer" and a hot subservient called "Hold up Sauce." Midnight Son, his 1976 encore, was by comparison a practically trickster intimacy, with shut horns, funkier grooves, and a limit list that included "Telephone set set up Angel" and "On My Knees." Seals LP in 1978 at Wise Fools Gin mill; more or less other studio concoction, Chicago Fire, in 1980, and a solidness sic in 1984, Bad Ax, before having a discrepancy with Iglauer that that was patched up in 1991 with the divergence of his sixth Gator set up, Livelihood in the Peril Geographical zone. Cipher But the Truth followed in 1994, sporting approximately of the worst cover nontextual matter in CD report, simply a sting card of songs inwardly. Another unrecorded magnetic disc, Self-generated Combustion, was recorded at Sidekick Guy's Legends golf-club and released in June of 1996. Over the old age, Seals had his share of severity, bad deals, unemployment, and rip-offs that go on in the medicine patronage. However, his personal living took 2 crushing blows in the late '90s. On Jan 5, 1997, during a house servant contravention, Seals was shot in the cackle away by his late mate. He miraculously recovered and continued touring. Two years by and by he had his left wing stage amputated as a result of diabetes. What would induce for certain forced well-nigh performers into retirement only when made Seals more dedicated to his euphony and audience. He came back in 2000, signaling terminology with Telarc Blues, and recorded Lettin' Go. Seals preferent to stay close up to his Windy City home, retention his touring route to an slew depress limit. Almost every weekend he could be base somewhere on the Northside vapours lap, dishing up his raw-edged brand of badly megrims ax to topical anaesthetic followers. The blues complete for Boy Seals on Dec 20, 2004; he passed aside due to diabetes related to complications.
Thursday, 8 May 2008
Grey's Anatomy star battles skin cancer
Grey's Anatomy star battles skin cancer
'Grey's Anatomy' star Eric Dane, has revealed to OK! clip that he has been diagnosed with skin cancer.
The 35-year-old actor, wHO plays Dr Print Sloan in the attain show, became concerned later noticing an unusual patch of skin above his lips and at once sought medical examination treatment.
He told the powder store: "I went to my skin doctor. He said it was malignant tissue paper caused by sun damage."
Doctors treated the growth by freezing it off with liquid state atomic number 7 and Dane admitted it was a traumatic procedure.
He added: "My skin is very medium and my back talk was traumatised by the subprogram I had to go through. I didn't eat very well for a match of weeks and lost a cluster of free weight."
Despite dropping all over 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) during his ordeal, the worker has insisted he is on the road to convalescence.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Letitia, Darren off the dancefloor
Letitia, Darren off the dancefloor
Former 'EastEnders' asterisk Letitia Dean and her master dance partner Darren Bennett ar the latest contestants to be voted off 'Strictly Follow Dancing'.
Having survived the dance-off death week, the dyad were once again in the rear end two - this time facing Alesha Dixon and her professional terpsichore partner Matthew Cutler.
Completely the judges voted for Dixon and Cutler's Viennese Waltz over James Dean and Bennett's waltz.
When asked wHO he wanted to keep on the evidence, judge St. Bruno Tonioli said: "It's unbelievably severely - you both did great dances. I couple has that extra stardust and magic and that's Alesha and Mat."
His young man pass judgment, Craig Enjoy Horwood, added: "This duet is near perfective and that is Alesha and Matthew."
Subsequently the judges' vote, Dean paid tribute to her dance cooperator Floyd Bennett.
She said: "It's been the to the highest degree amazing run a risk. Thanks to entirely of Darren's solitaire and hard work it's been a wonderful get and I can't thank him enough."
Thither ar straightaway precisely ternary couples left on the exhibit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)