The Sims Online closed and merged into the new EA-Land world in February this year, but it appears that whatever targets EA management might have set for the project weren’t met, and it is now going to go away, closing around Midnight on the last day of July, this year.

Subscription billing for EA-Land terminates immediately. EA-Land will be free-to-play until closure. Currency purchases with Paypal are likewise closed.

Support will continue until closure (or until further notice, whichever comes first) and your EA-Land account/subscription may be terminated at any time.

EA is offering $15 off any game at the EA Store or three months of Club POGO subscription time (your choice) to paying subscribers. Those eligible subscribers will be emailed with the offer information within 30 days.

Luc, the prominent figure behind EA-Land, has posted a heartfelt and sorrowful message to EA-Land users. Reactions range from supportive to bitter, and all points in between.

On a number of occasions in the over the last couple of years, Second Life has seen influxes of new users from The Sims Online, and it is expected that it will receive more as a result of the pending closure. However, while Second Life is one of the best-fit virtual worlds for The Sims Online users, it isn’t a very close fit at all, and not many TSO refugees feel comfortable in Second Life’s open and unstructured environment.

Love EA-Land or hate it, it is sad to see it pass into history.

Original URL: http://www.massively.com/2008/04/30/ea-land-shutting-down/

Minogue’s spokesman also confirmed she had discussed the possibility of a world tour in 2008, when she will be 40, but that no decision had been made.

The Daily Mail newspaper reported on Monday that Minogue had cancelled a forthcoming tour due to concerns over her health.

“Kylie has not been told by her doctors that touring ‘could seriously harm her health’,” Murray Chalmers of record label EMI said in a statement.

“Touring is something that she is still considering for the future. Her health remains excellent,” he said, adding that Minogue’s representatives had demanded a “prominent apology for today’s highly damaging story” from the Mail.

Minogue, one of the most successful female artists in Britain with hits from “I Should Be So Lucky” to “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head,” released her new single “2 Hearts” digitally on Monday. It will be in shops a week later.

Her album “X” appears on November 26.

“2 Hearts” has already been branded a “surefire No.1″ by the Sun tabloid, reflecting Minogue’s popularity in Britain. Her worldwide album sales are estimated at around 40 million.

SOAP ACTRESS TO POP FAME
Having transformed herself from a 1980s soap actress into an international fashion icon and top-selling pop star, her appeal was further enhanced by her battle with cancer.

“If Kylie won admiration for her pop success, her courage and dignity in the face of her 2005 battle against breast cancer earned the public’s enduring respect,” Hello magazine wrote.

Minogue was forced to suspend her “Showgirl Tour” when she underwent surgery in Melbourne, followed by chemotherapy in Paris where her then boyfriend had a home.

“When you are stripped of everything and you have to grow your eyelashes back, grow your hair back, it’s astonishing,” Minogue told Glamour magazine in a recent interview.

“It’s hard to express what I’ve learnt from that, but a deep psychological and emotional shift has obviously taken place.”

During her recovery, Minogue penned a children’s book and made occasional public appearances before returning to the stage in Sydney a year ago to resume her tour.

To coincide with the new single, Minogue has launched her own social networking Web site www.KylieKonnect.com allowing fans to register on their mobile phones, blog, communicate with other users and upload images and video.

Its designers, New Visions Mobile, believe it is a more mobile and flexible model than social network sites like MySpace and Facebook, already important marketing tools for pop stars. It also allows Minogue to sell music online.

“The whole thing is set up so that Kylie can update her blog and have a closer connection with fans,” said Julia McNally, business development director at New Visions Mobile.

Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071105/wr_nm/kylie_dc

Rolly, a unique new “audio entertainment player” from Sony, is capable of twisting and turning while playing music. The player, which Sony has been teasing for the last couple of weeks, is egg-shaped and can fit into a hand.

It has speakers on each end that are normally hidden by dish-like covers, but the covers move to reveal the speakers and reflect their sound when the Rolly is switched on.

There’s just one button on the player — an on/off switch — with the other functions being controlled by a pair of rings that circle its body.

One ring is used to move from track to track or album to album while the other controls the volume. The same two rings are connected to motors that enable the Rolly to scoot around a table-top in time to the music being played. Alternatively it can be set to sit motionless. In that case it’s possible to control the Rolly by moving it back and forth to switch tracks, or in a circular motion to increase or decrease the volume.

Rolly has 1GB of flash memory built-in and can playback MP3, Atrac, or AAC songs (AAC songs with copy protection from iTunes Music Store aren’t supported). In addition to playing back music from its internal memory the Rolly can also receive music streamed via a Bluetooth connection.

Sony demonstrated the device running with its “Sonic Stage” software but Rolly will accept streams from other software and devices capable of Bluetooth streaming, the company said.

Rolly’s movements need to be preprogrammed into the device for each track. There are six that are possible. The dish-like speaker covers can flap in and out, the ends of the device to which the speaker covers are attached can twist around and the wheels can turn. With just these six motions is possible to program a surprisingly complicated sequence of moves.

Sony will supply a software application called “Motion Editor” for move-by-move choreography or a rough set of moves can be automatically generated. The latter won’t necessarily match in detail the music being played but it’s a much quicker way of setting the Rolly in motion that programming by hand.

Sony also plans to launch an online community where the company and users can share movement files.

Users should get about five hours of audio playback from Rolly. This drops to four hours when the device is in motion and three and a half hours when Bluetooth streaming is also enabled.

The Rolly isn’t an iPod-killer nor is it meant to be. At a relatively heavy 300 grams and measuring 104 millimeters long and 65 millimeters in circumference the player is not very practical for those wanting a portable audio player. But it is certainly unique and likely to be a talking point whenever people see it.

It will go on sale in Japan on Sept. 29 and cost about ¥40,000 ($353). Sony has yet to decide plans for an international launch.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu37TSfKx2A]

Original URL: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/09/10/…/player_1.html

Beginning in September, NBC.com will showcase such networking capabilities as profiles containing user-generated content, online communities in which users can interact with network personalities, Widgets (interface items like dialog boxes and pop-up windows) will also be part of the site, as well as user blogs and photo and video galleries.

“You’ll see us place multiple bets on a lot of different technologies,” said Beth Comstock, president of integrated media at NBC Universal, at the company’s presentation Monday at the Television Critics Assn. at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.

On August 27, NBC will begin streaming episodes of “Conan” on the site. Daily episodes will be available the next day at 5 a.m. PDT.

Also in late August, NBC will unveil a corporate site for Dunder-Mifflin, the fictitious paper company at the center of “The Office.” Users will be able to log on to this site, join branches and complete challenges relating to the show.

The network will ratchet up the online presence of “Heroes” this summer, as well, presenting sites dedicated to specific characters. NBC also will introduce Season 2 characters from the drama on the portal.

The site for “The Biggest Loser” also will have a new look in the fall, when the show begins its fourth season. New host Alison Sweeney will write a blog, and NBC will offer online exclusive video segments on contestants and scenes that weren’t on the broadcast.

“Coastal Dreams,” a Web-only soap opera geared toward a younger audience, is set to debut in October on NBC.com. This project previously was announced in May, during the upfronts, the networks’ annual programming presentations to advertisers.

Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070717/wr_nm/media_nbc_dc

TiVo, a maker of digital video recorders, said Tuesday that its subscribers “can now browse, purchase, and rent movies and television shows from Amazon Unbox on TiVo without leaving [the] couch and without using a PC.”

While the health benefits of this approach leave something to be desired, the price and the instant gratification factor will likely make NetFlix customers, at least those armed with TiVo’s hardware, think twice about continuing to receive NetFlix DVDs through the mail. Note that with a 5 Mbps broadband connection, instant gratification for a two-hour movie takes about one hour.

TiVo Series2 and Series3 subscribers with broadband connections can take advantage of Amazon’s Unbox service, which offers movies, for rent ($1.99 to $3.99) or purchase ($9.99 to $14.99), and television shows, for purchase only ($1.99 per episode).

“We are excited to make Amazon Unbox on TiVo even easier to use by making it possible to purchase and rent movies and TV shows not only on the Web but also with your remote control,” said Roy Price, director of Amazon Unbox, in a statement.

No doubt Amazon is also excited to be finally bringing an innovative service to bear against Apple’s dominance of the digital download market. In the first quarter of the year, Amazon lost its place as the third largest music retailer in the U.S. to Apple’s iTunes Store, according to the NPD Group, a shift that reflects the growing importance of downloaded music.

Amazon’s Unbox offers a selection of over 10,000 movies, TV shows, and other digital content. Apple’s iTunes Store features over five million songs, 350 television shows and 400 movies.

Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20070711/tc_cmp/201000602

The filmmaker has collaborated with Electronic Arts, the world’s largest games publisher, on three titles.

The first, codenamed LMNO, is a contemporary action adventure, said Neil Young, general manager of EA’s Los Angeles studio.

The second, with the codename PQRS, is a puzzle game designed for Nintendo’s Wii console.

In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Spielberg said the puzzle game “seemed like a great thing for the entire family to play together over Christmas; although you don’t need the excuse of a holiday to enjoy it.”

The game has been described as a mix of Saturday-morning cartoon and Jenga.

‘Chemical reaction’

Mr Young said: “Of course just playing with blocks does not a game make.

“Now imagine there are up to 50 different properties that can be associated with them. They can explode or form a chemical reaction.”

In LMNO, being designed for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the player partners with a female character who evolves over time depending on how she interacts with other characters in the game.

Newsweek described the title as “North by Northwest meets ET”.

Spielberg told Newsweek: “The challenge is, can the game have an emotional impact on players while they are actively manipulating the world?”

In a separate statement about his involvement with EA, he said: “I am truly enjoying the creative collaboration and we hope that gamers will be as excited as we are about what we can bring to the medium through our shared vision.”

No details about the third game Spielberg is working on were released.

Original URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6287628.stm

Organizers estimate television broadcasts of the live concerts staged to raise awareness about climate change will be available to up to 2 billion people, though there is no estimate of how many people will actually watch the shows.

But that viewership may be trumped online where a generation hooked on social networks like MySpace.com and video site YouTube share ideas, photos and videos with their peers.

“Users can create their own program from all the show assets from around the world,” said Kevin Wall, Live Earth founder and CEO of Control Room which is producing the shows.

“They’re going to be able to share those experiences in a way that’s never ever been done in history.”

The global Live 8 concert to fight poverty in 2005 was the first major multi-venue event successfully streamed live with Time Warner’s AOL portal on the Web.

But Control Room, which produced Live 8, found it was the on-demand streams days after the event that had the most impact, especially after clips were passed around by e-mail.

Live 8 was streamed by users over 100 million times in six weeks. Live Earth is expected to be three times bigger.

“The viral nature of the streams at Live 8 really came off the back of that huge water-cooler moment with people asking their friends if they’d seen a particular clip,” said Wall.

Live Earth is working with Microsoft Web portal MSN on live online broadcasts. MSN will also be the only media platform to feature every minute of all the shows.

But in the age of Google’s YouTube, MSN and Control Room realize providing technology that helps friends share clips of their favorite Live Earth moments on other sites will be even more important than the live event.

“When you think about the control we’ve given the user, you could put together your own Live Earth show after the event,” said Joanne Bradford, chief media officer at MSN.

Organizers expect more than 80 percent of the viewership will be on-demand in the days following Saturday’s event.

The live music performances by stars like the Police and Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as 60 original short films, will be edited into short clips by Control Room for easy sharing.

For example, a user could add a video clip of Madonna performing her specially penned song “Hey You” to a blog or social-network page and add a feature allowing visitors to buy a download with proceeds going to an environmental cause.

That flexibility has become possible with the artists agreeing to give up their rights without charge for the cause.
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Though details are still being finalized, Wall expects Live Earth to have rights to show the clips for months afterward.

Media experts say over-restrictive limitations over broadcast rights on on-demand viewing are fast becoming a thing of the past, particularly for an event that is trying to make a difference by getting in front of many eyeballs as possible.

Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at New York’s Fordham University, says video clips will show up eventually on YouTube or elsewhere outside of MSN, so it makes more sense to enable video sharing.

“The idea that any organization can keep something in popular culture to itself is 19th-century thinking,” he said.

Original URL: http://news.com.com/2100-1026_3-6195314.html

Directors were looking for actors aged between 15 and 18 years old.

The audition is now closed.

* Edit: Apologies for the mix up, this was an audition for the Half-Blood Prince and NOT the Deathly Hallows movie. As far as we know, casting has not yet begun for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we do not know any further information about this. Please do not contact us regarding auditions or any further information.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. A decision on whether to bring the show back, probably for a midseason run, is imminent, the source said.

“We are tired of the networks (not just CBS) tossing aside quality programming,” was the message carried by jericholives.com, one of several web sites protesting the cancellation. “Enough! We’re going to fight for this one.”

Clarke Ingram, a “Jericho” fan from Pittsburgh, Pa., and a spokesman for jericholives, said he was optimistic that CBS would find a way to revive the drama about a Kansas town isolated by a nuclear terrorist attack.

“People would paint this as teenagers in tinfoil hats” rallying behind the show, said Ingram, 50, an operations manager for two radio stations. “That’s not what this is. These are educated professionals.”

The show’s daring premise, its writing and acting make the case for its survival, he said.

Several factors could work in the show’s favor: It appeals to the young adult viewers sought by advertisers and was one of CBS’ most popular shows streamed online, indicating an audience beyond that measured by traditional ratings.

CBS may also be considering the dent a long hiatus put in the show’s viewership, the same scheduling misstep that hurt ABC’s “Lost” and NBC’s “Heroes.”

The network apparently has been impressed by the display of viewer passion, which included the delivery of 50,000 pounds of peanuts to its New York offices. In the season finale, a character replies “Nuts!” to a demand that the beleaguered town of Jericho surrender.

That’s the same response that a U.S. general in World War II made to a German demand for surrender at the Battle of the Bulge.

There’s already been one positive outcome: CBS is donating the protest peanuts to charities, including one that sends care packages to troops overseas.

Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070606/ap_en_tv/tv_cbs_jericho

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHtk5z5VpVQ]