Superman found: 'Tudors' star Henry Cavill cast

by Mandi Bierly

 Henry Cavill, 27, best known for playing Charles Brandon on Showtime’s The Tudors, has been cast as Clark Kent/Superman in the new Superman movie to be directed by Zack Snyder, Warner Bros. announced today. “In the pantheon of superheroes, Superman is the most recognized and revered character of all time, and I am honored to be a part of his return to the big screen,” Snyder says in the release. “I also join Warner Bros., Legendary and the producers in saying how excited we are about the casting of Henry. He is the perfect choice to don the cape and S shield.” The film is expected to hit theaters in December 2012. David S. Goyer is writing the script, based on a story by Goyer and Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight and Inception, who is among the movie’s producers. Cavill was at the top of EW’s list of contenders last October. The British actor had been in the running for 2006′s Superman Returns, which ultimately starred Brandon Routh.

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Firefox 4 entering the home stretch

by Stephan Shankland- CNet
 

With plenty of competitors breathing down its neck--Microsoft's IE9 in particular--Mozilla is fixing the final bugs that lie in the way of a Firefox 4 release.
Last night, Mozilla released Firefox 4 beta 10 (click to download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux). This version focuses mostly on stability and performance rather than on new features--although one new option is the ability to start Firefox in safe mode by holding down shift when launching on Windows.
Flash should work better on Mac OS X with the new beta, and memory usage should be better, Mozilla said in a blog post yesterday.
Next up are one or two more beta versions, then the release candidates, and if all goes well, a final Firefox 4 release in February. In a planning message last night, release manager Christian Legnitto said Mozilla will build beta 11 and, if too many bugs remain unfixed, beta 12.
Mozilla recently divided its blocking bugs into two categories, soft and hard, with only the latter able to hold up release of the new software. As of Wednesday morning, excluding security bugs, there are 194 soft blockers and 76 hard blockers.

Panasonic stacks new Lumix cams with 1080p, 3D, social networking features

Molly McHugh – Tue Jan 25, 12:01 am ET

Panasonic may have just dropped a slew of new cams just weeks ago at CES 2011, but it wasn’t the entire payload. On Tuesday, Panasonic offered a little more variety with expansions to its point-and-shoot series.

Lumix FX78 

 

 Like its predecessors, it’s an incredibly slim camera with an intuitive touchscreen, but will upgrade to a 3.5-inch LCD display. The FX78 will also feature a 24mm ultra-wide angle lens with 5x optical zoom and f 2.5 aperture, meaning poor lighting conditions shouldn’t be an issue.
The point-and-shoot also has what are becoming standard built-ins with touchscreens: smart touch for auto focus, scene selection, subject tracking, and of course, easy finger flipping and dragging to browse through photos. The enlarged touchscreen is one of the camera’s most attractive upgrades, but it also comes equipped with in-camera editing (including Art and Beauty Retouch) and an improved 12.1-megapixel CCD sensor, and 1080p HD video recording.
Just to save you a potential future purchase, the FX78 also includes 3D capability. Panasonic’s 3D technology

What Facebook's New Security Features Mean For You

A day after Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook page was hacked, Facebook has rolled out a set of new security features.
There are some important changes that Facebook users should be well-acquainted with so they can protect themselves and their information on the social network. We've spelled out everything you need to know about the new tools below.
The first new feature, HTTPS-enabled browsing, will let users create a secure connection, even if their network is insecure.
HTTPS will help protect password stealing on public networks, as well as protecting you against programs like Firesheep, a Firefox plug-in that lets you log in to other users' Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts (to name just a few).

To Get Over Her/Him

When a person feels bad more than a year after the break up, it's because he or she has spent the past year reliving the relationship. This comes in the form of trying to figure out exactly what went wrong, fuelled by the inaccurate belief that if you could just figure it out, then you could let go or even make everything right.
The reality is that spending so much time trying to figure out what went wrong keeps you attached and prevents you from moving on. Relationships are messy things, and many times we can never really know exactly what went wrong.
Our brains are very obedient at times. If you keep asking your brain to figure out what you did wrong, it's going to search for all kinds of reasons, and you are going to wind up feeling like a failure.
Truth is the relationship failed, you didn't.
If you handle yourself well, feel good about your behaviour and choices, and even use what you learnt in other relationships, then you are successful.
You need to create an exit door in your heart and then show this person, and the pain and hurt, right out the door. Here's a fun little trick to help show your partner the exit door of your heart:
Imagine a picture of the relationship in your mind. It feels like it's right out in front of you, a few inches from your face and difficult to see past. Take that picture and imagine moving it off to the side of you, out of view. Feels better, doesn't it?

courtesy: MAG The Weekly

Oscar Nominations: ‘King’s Speech’ Tops List

By MICHAEL CIEPLY AND BROOKS BARNES LOS ANGELES — The Oscar race turned into a wild scramble on Tuesday morning, as “The King’s Speech” moved out front when nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards were announced.

Tom Sherak, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the actress Mo’Nique announced the nominations for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Tuesday. List of Nominees | Slide Show | More Coverage on The Carpetbagger

“True Grit” surged into second position, and “The Social Network,” which had seemed a frontrunner, was matched by “Inception,” followed closely by “The Fighter.”
“The King’s Speech,” about friendship and speech therapy, got 12 nods, including ones for best picture, best director (Tom Hooper) and best actor (Colin Firth as a stammering King George VI). It won top honors from the Producers Guild of America over the weekend and emerged as the leader in an unusually competitive pack of contenders for the best picture Oscar.
In the morning’s biggest surprise, “True Grit,” a western remake from the filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, was second, with 10 nominations, including ones for best picture, best director (the Coens) and a best actor nod for Jeff Bridges, who won the award last year for “Crazy Heart.”

Kevin Smith Rejects Hollywood, Buys 'Red State' Rights

PARK CITY, Utah -- Kevin Smith has premiered his latest movie at the Sundance Film Festival and sold it to the highest bidder - himself, for $20.

Smith had indicated he would auction off distribution rights to his fundamentalist horror film "Red State" after its Sundance premiere Sunday night, and he brought up the movie's producer, Jonathan Gordon, to handle the sale.
Gordon told the audience the bidding was open, Smith offered $20, and his producer proclaimed the film sold.
The auction was a stunt to emphasize Smith's real plans - to release "Red State" himself, without the tens of millions of dollars in marketing money that Hollywood pours into its releases.
Smith says he will take "Red State" out city to city beginning in March.
Smith also announced that his upcoming hockey film, 'Hit Somebody,' will be the final film he directs. He hopes to have top cast members from 'Red State' back for the movie, including John Goodman -- who would play a hockey coach -- and Melissa Leo.
After 'Hit Somebody,' he said he plans on helping other filmmakers on their projects.

courtesy The Huffington Post

Is a white iPhone 4 still in the pipeline? Really?

By Ben Patterson 

 

Believe it or not, there may still be a white iPhone 4 in our future. The mythical beast was recently sighted in carrier inventory systems and on AT&T's subscriber website.
The ridiculously late white iPhone was spotted just a week ago in these screenshots of Vodafone Germany's inventory database, before surfacing again on Best Buy's internal website with a listed "in-stock" date of Feb. 27 — although as Boy Genius Report points out, the "in-stock" date might not represent the actual launch day.
The latest white iPhone 4 sighting comes (again) courtesy of Boy Genius, which found the MIA handset listed among the choices in AT&T's "online account management" site for subscribers.
Being an AT&T subscriber myself, I logged in and checked it out. Lo and behold, there it was, the white iPhone 4 (in both 16GB and 32GB models).

Hmmmm, very interesting. As MacRumors points out, though, it's not clear how long the white iPhone 4 has been listed on AT&T's "OLAM" system, or whether AT&T added the listings based on actual news from Apple.
Boy Genius and others have speculated that the white version of the latest iPhone, first announced six months ago and later delayed — twice — by Apple, might at last see the light of day in late February or early March.
The last official word on the white iPhone came in October, when an Apple spokesperson told Reuters that the tardy handset wouldn't hit stores until this spring.
The first delay came in July, when Apple admitted that the white iPhone 4 was "more challenging to manufacture" than originally thought.
But wait — didn't we put a man on the moon? How hard is it to make a white iPhone?
Well, apparently there's more to it than just slapping on a coat of white paint. Various sources claimed that Apple's manufacturing partners were having a terrible time getting white versions of the iPhone 4's glass front and plastic "home" key to match. Another (unconfirmed) headache, according to Cult of Mac, was light leaking into the iPhone 4's camera lens because of the white glass backing.
Given that a brand-new iPhone is expected to be revealed by June or July, you'd think it might be time to call it a day and cancel the white iPhone altogether.
Yet it looks like the white iPhone 4 may yet make an appearance, late though it is. Stay tuned.
Related:
White iPhone 4 appears in AT&T's online system [Boy Genius Report]

— Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.

New Firefox 4 Beta Released as February Target Nears

Mark Long, newsfactor.com – Mon Jan 17, 2:28 pm ET


Mozilla developers are pushing hard to bring the final release candidate of Firefox 4 to market by the end of next month. The organization unleashed the ninth beta to testers on Friday, just three weeks after the prior beta. By contrast, the previous beta update round took six weeks.

Due to competitive pressures from Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 9 release and Google's steady stream of Chrome browser updates, it appears that Mozilla intends to finish work on Firefox 4 swiftly to keep from losing more ground in the global market.
"We have to reach release candidate status as quickly as possible," wrote Mozilla Senior Director of Platform Engineering Damon Sicore in a letter to developers last week.
Marketplace Pressures
According to Net Applications, IE held 57 percent of the global browser market at the end of 2010, followed by Firefox with 22.8 percent. Chrome ranked third with 9.98 percent, followed by Apple's Safari with 5.89 percent.

5 Reasons to Try Zorin OS Linux

Katherine Noyes Katherine Noyes – Fri Dec 31, 9:30 am ET PC World

One of the best features of the open source Linux operating system is that there are so many distributions to choose from.
Ubuntu gets by far the lion's share of the media's attention, it's true--largely by virtue of its top ranking at the top of DistroWatch's popularity list--but there are hundreds of other options out there as well, many tailored to particular kinds of users and situations.
I've already looked briefly at several of the Ubuntu derivatives that are available and more specifically at Linux Mint, which is currently third in popularity. Today, however, I'd like to make a pitch for Zorin OS, an Ubuntu-based distribution that offers a number of advantages with particular appeal for Windows users.
Zorin OS 4 was just released earlier this month. Why should you consider it? Here are just a few reasons.