- BlackBerry may be a dying brand, but at least the company
is making a legitimate effort for its new BlackBerry 10 operating system to succeed. With
the promotion and support for the new OS, it has finally topped the 100,000
mark in applications after two months. BlackBerry announced Thursday that
customers now have access to more than 100,000 apps for the BlackBerry Z10
smartphone, including OpenTable, The
Wall Street Journal and Amazon Kindle. Other popular apps already
available for other smartphones are expected soon for BlackBerry, including
sports (MLB at Bat, PGA), music (MTV News, eMusic, Rdio and Skype) and news
(CNN, Maxim). "The response to the BlackBerry 10 platform and applications
has been outstanding," said Martyn Mallick, vice president of global
alliances at BlackBerry. "Customers are thrilled with the applications
already available, and the catalog just keeps growing." The BlackBerry 10 platform
already provides access to apps and games like Angry Birds Star Wars, Delta Air
Lines, Facebook, The New York Times,
Slacker, Songza, Twitter, and WhatsApp, but it clearly lags behind competitors
Apple and Android in terms of both the sheer number and variety of appss. In
fact, a recent survey of more than 100 popular apps for Apple’s iOS and Android
showed that only 34 percent of the apps had BlackBerry 10 versions or
equivalents, while 63 percent had Windows Phone 8 versions or equivalents. Much
work is left to do before the Z10 hits shelves and BlackBerry is pinning its
hopes on the rate of app development snowballing prior to that release date. The
Z10 is set to launch on AT&T on Friday, but not on Verizon until March 28.
T-Mobile doesn’t have a release date for its version and Sprint won't carry the
phone……..
- The NCAA Tournament began Thursday and normally, it’s a
cause for celebration and excitement, especially amongst top teams. Syracuse is
the fourth seed in the East Regional and will face Montana on Thursday in San Jose,
Calif., but on Wednesday head coach Jim Boeheim was answering questions about
an alleged a wide-ranging NCAA
investigation instead of how his team plans to defeat the Grizzlies. According
to multiple reports, Syracuse has received a letter of preliminary inquiry from
the NCAA, which has been investigating the school for a multiyear period. The
date the letter was received is unknown, but the violations have been
classified as “major” and the investigation reportedly extends beyond last
year’s NCAA inquiry into possible drug-related violations. It has expanded to
include the school's handling of Fab Melo's academic eligibility and an alleged
sexual assault case involving three players in 2007. So far, NCAA investigators
have interviewed Syracuse employees and former school employees over the course
of the past year, but Boeheim had no time for questions about the case
Wednesday in San Jose. "Same story they had last year at this time,"
Boeheim said dryly. "I guess that's annual. I guess next year we'll get it
again." Melo played one year for the Orange, but the school surprisingly
declared last March that he was ineligible for the 2012 NCAA tournament just
prior to its opening game. Melo also missed three games earlier in the season
due to an academic issue. "Last year was completely different,"
Boeheim said. "We didn't have Fab Melo; that's a little different. That
was not a distraction; it was an absence. And they handled it as well as they
could." He insisted the new rumors would not be a distraction for his team
because the Orange are used to facing pressure and distractions. In an ironic
twist, James Southerland is one of Syrcause’s leading scorers this season after
being declared academically ineligible. Unlike Melo last year, he is eligible
to play in the tournament. Kevin Quinn, Syracuse's vice president for public
affairs, insisted that the current investigation n does not involve the 2007
sexual-assault case, but several news accounts claimed that an NCAA official
questioned a school professor in August about the university's handling of the
alleged assault. While the matter seems unlikely to be the reason the Orange
will ultimately lose in the tournament, having another scandal swirling around
can’t help the image of the program………
- Waaaaaiiiit a minute….all Hispanics aren’t the same? Since
when? Clearly, this is news to a lot of Americans, according to a study by the
granola-eating, left-wing free spirits at Brown University. The study showed that
most Americans simply peg all Hispanics as Mexicans, regardless of where they
come from. "When studies are done of Hispanics, the results mostly reflect
the experience of Mexicans, who are more than 60% of the total," the study’s
authors wrote in their report. "But observers would be mistaken if they
thought they knew Hispanics in the U.S. by looking only at Mexicans." Yes,
Mexicans may comprise the majority of the Hispanic population in the U.S., but
the study showed that some non-Mexican groups are actually growing at a faster
rate, and doing better economically, than their Mexican compatriots. Another
interesting development from the study was the revelation than Hispanics other
than Mexican are much less segregated than often assumed. Population increase
rates for both Mexican and non-Mexican Hispanics have increased substantially
over the past 20 years. The number of Hispanics who identify as Mexican has
increased 137 percent in the past two decades, but the Honduran population in
the U.S. has increased by 383 percent, Guatemalans by 289 percent and Peruvians
by 204 percent. "Mexicans are not losing their weight, but some groups
who were small and not on the radar now number in the millions," said John
Logan, one of the report's authors. "South Americans are now everywhere,
and if you add them up, they are a huge number." Mexicans, Puerto Ricans
and Cuban are the three largest Hispanic sub-groups, comprising 62, 9 and 4
percent of the Hispanic population, respectively. Those three nationalities
were the only Hispanic groups with more than 1 million U.S. residents in 1990,
but the study showed that Dominicans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans have also
reached that mark. What these groups do not share with Mexicans in the U.S. is
a tendency to segregate themselves in ethnic communities, the study found. "The
very stable trend of high segregation is one attributed to Hispanics, but it
turns out it is mainly a characteristic of Mexicans," Logan said.
Hopefully, this report will help Americans learn to differentiate between Mexicans
and those other people who speak Spanish and kinda, sorta look like Mexicans……..
- Why stop with one? After a Kickstarter
campaign to fund a film version of the cult favorite detective drama TV
series “Veronica Mars” obliterated expectations and raised show creator Rob
Thomas and star Kristen Bell’s goal of $2 million within 11 hours, the project
received a green light from Warner Bros. Thomas was clearly inspired by the
show of support and has hinted that one “Mars” movie may not be enough. The
amazing rush from no money to $3.7 million and counting from more than 57,000
separate backers indicates that fans of the show haven't forgotten the small
town of Neptune, Calif. or Veronica Mars and her quirky collection of friends
who make their home there. Thomas and Bell intend to begin filming this summer,
but it appears they will enter the endeavor with one eye on a potential sequel.
"Veronica will survive the movie. I can't promise anyone else does though.
But there will be an opportunity for Veronica do to her thing again,” Thomas
said before being asked if he was thinking about a second movie. "I'd be
lying if I didn't say I didn't think of those things. I am hopeful it is the
birth of [much more] Veronica Mars."
It’s difficult to blame a man who was just bequeathed nearly $4 million by
strangers to make a movie for dreaming of a second such occurrence. The first
film will bring Bell’s title character back to Neptune 10 years after her high
school graduation. Thomas previously said that had the series gone on past its
three-season run (after which the CW ass-hattedly canceled it), the focus would
have shifted to Veronica pursuing a career as an FBI agent. The plot for the
movie is still under wraps, but Thomas has mentioned that Veronica’s 10-year
high school reunion will be a part of it, as will life for her father Keith
after falling short in the sheriff’s election at the end of the show’s final
season………
- Russia’s world-famous Bolshoi Theater has more to offer than acid
attacks by angry boyfriends of ballerinas who aren't receiving the best parts
in its productions. While the Jan. 17 acid attack on the ballet’s artistic
director, Sergei Filin, was interesting, a man potentially losing his sight and
being disfigured by an acid attack doesn’t have quite the same sizzle as an
allegation in a television interview by former prima ballerina who claims that
dancers were essentially used as high-class prostitutes. Former Bolshoi prima
ballerina Anastasia Volochkova made the claim on Russia’s state-controlled NTV
station, alleging that the Bolshoi was a "big brothel." The ballet
quickly denied the allegation, which came amidst a contentious struggle for
control of the company in the aftermath of the attack on Filin, but Volochkova
was adamant. "An administrator would call them to say they are going to a
party and a dinner ending in bed," she said. "When the girls asked
the administrator what would happen if they refuse, the answer was: You will
have problems in the Bolshoi then.” She claimed that she had such a
relationship with f a billionaire businessman and was fired in 2003 after they
separated. Her comments indicting the ballet’s current leadership could
obviously have ulterior motives given the fact that she appeared on a TV
broadcast with principal dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who is vying to take over
from the Bolshoi’s General Director Anatoly Iksanov, who has been in the top
job for 13 years. The pair is believed to have support from high-ranking
government officials and Kremlin-connected business tycoons looking to increase
their influence over the state theater. Iksanov has accused Tsiskaridze of
creating an atmosphere of intrigue that led to the attack on Filin, but
Tsiskaridze rejected the claims and countered that the theater’s descent into
chaos and crime has come Iksanov's watch. In his own TV appearance, Tsiskaridze
mocked Iksanov for botching the Bolshoi's reconstruction and accused him of
treating dancers like slaves. Ironically enough, Volochkova is accusing the
theater of treating dancers like slaves as well – sex slaves. Of course,
ballerinas are incredibly limber and flexible and any billionaire businessman
would obviously find a tutu and ballet slippers to be incredibly attractive……..
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