Friday, December 30, 2011

load01 12/30/2011

  • Box office revenue at movie theaters "lagged far behind 2010," an article by the AP's David Germain reports. Partly that was because the year lacked an "Avatar." Partly because a solid summer slate fell off in the autumn. Germain talks to several Hollywood insiders who tried to account for the general decline of ticket sales; 2011 had "smallest movie audience since 1995." I have some theories of my own, fueled by what people tell me.

    tags: news

  • Next year is one of those years that can't come soon enough for Microsoft.
    It's not that 2011 was a particularly difficult year. The company posted record revenue for the fiscal year that ended June 30. And its 2-year-old PC operating system, Windows 7, hit 500 million copies sold, further embedding it as the most widely used operating system in the world. But 2011 had few big product launches at the company, Office 365 and Internet Explorer 9 notwithstanding.
    Next year will be altogether different. Microsoft is prepping the big kahuna of its product arsenal, Windows 8. The company hasn't set a date, though most analysts expect the flagship operating system to debut before the end of the year, and perhaps in time for back-to-school shopping. From that product, much else from Redmond flows.
    So here are five things to look for from Microsoft in 2012:

    tags: news

  • The Federal Aviation Administration has its reasons for preventing passengers from reading from their Kindles and iPads during takeoff and landing. But they just don’t add up.

    Since I wrote a column last month asking why these rules exist, I’ve spoken with the F.A.A., American Airlines, Boeing and several others trying to find answers. Each has given me a radically different rationale that contradicts the others. The F.A.A. admits that its reasons have nothing to do with the undivided attention of passengers or the fear of Kindles flying out of passengers’ hands in case there is turbulence. That leaves us with the danger of electrical emissions.

    tags: news

  • A member of the Occupy London protests was stopped from boarding his flight home for Christmas after he was found carrying anarchist literature, it has been claimed.

    The demonstrator, who is part of the group occupying the empty UBS building dubbed the "Bank of Ideas", said he was told he would not be allowed on the Ryanair flight to Malaga because the pilot feared he might distribute leaflets and "upset other passengers".

    tags: news

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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