During promotions for her upcoming flick “Big Sur,” Kate Bosworth stopped by “Late Night” to chat with host Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday night (October 29).
A glowing blondie chatted about her brand new collaboration with Top Shop, which is called simply The Collection, and her marriage to director Michael Polish.
“I worked on this collection very much the way I like to see design in the world. This particular collection was very minimal, more luxury because it’s fall. You want to bundle up more and feel more luxurious,” Kate explained about her new line with the European retail store.
“My father always taught me to maintain a sense of classic style," she added.
As for her hubby Michael Polish, Kate quipped to Fallon, “I heard we both married our bosses.”
“We worked together and I was just blown away by him as a filmmaker and a man, and we just got married,” Kate joyfully explained.
NEW YORK (AP) — Jerry Ferrara feels relieved that the controversy surrounding the long-planned movie version of the HBO series, "Entourage" is finally over.
"We start shooting in January, and now we can get to work. All the other stuff is in the past and now we have one goal, to make a great movie for the fans," Ferrara told the Associated Press Tuesday night on the red carpet for his new movie, "Last Vegas."
He equated the chemistry in the buddy movie starring Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, and Kevin Kline with his former series.
"Having worked on a show where chemistry between four guys was crucial, these guys made it instantly ... you bought it from moment one that these guys knew each other," Ferrara said of the "Last Vegas" cast.
"Entourage" creator Doug Ellin confirmed the movie's production on Monday evening when he tweeted a photo of himself and the cast arm-in-arm.
Since the film was announced early last year, various rumors surfaced about the why the movie had not gone into production, including cast members holding out for more money.
"There was a moment early on where it was a little frustrating, but then after a while, it was just kind of bewildering. Like, wow, I can't believe it's being talked about like this and none of it is even really true. It just got blown out of proportion," Ferrara said.
But the 33-year old actor stopped short of saying the rumors were fabricated.
"There weren't lies being told," he said. "In the same breath, it was amplified."
He added: "We always knew the movie was a go and the deal was gonna be done."
"Entourage" is a light portrait of Hollywood and young stardom that ran for eight seasons on HBO before ending in 2011.
Ferrara, who plays the character, "Turtle" in the show, is joined in the Warner Brothers big screen version by Jeremy Piven, Adrian Grenier, Kevin Dillon and Kevin Connolly.
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AP Film Writer Jake Coyle contributed to this story
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Follow John Carucci on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jacarucci
A new vector-based, natural handwriting note-taking app
The Galaxy Note products make up one of Samsung's most recognizable device lineups, and we've heard plenty at the Samsung Developers Conference about developers can take advantage of the S Pen stylus to create great handwriting-based apps. One app that's doing just that is Papyrus, a handwriting-based note-taking app that works across many devices, but is optimized for the S Pen.
In our Android Central Live interview segment today, Papyrus founder Andrew Hughes caught up with AC's Andrew Martonik to show off the app. You'll find the video above; be sure to check out the rest of the day's coverage over at our SDC13 portal page.
TOKYO (AP) — Video game maker Nintendo sank to a loss in the latest quarter as sales of its Wii U game console continued to be eroded by a shift to gaming on smartphones and tablets.
The Kyoto-based maker of Pokemon and Super Mario reported an 8 billion yen ($81 million) loss Wednesday for the three months ended Sept. 30. That virtually wiped out an 8.6 billion yen profit the previous quarter. Sales totaled 115 billion yen, a slight drop from the same quarter last year.
Quarterly Wii U sales nearly doubled to 300,000 units from 160,000 in the previous three months, but the total remained far short of the company's goal of 9 million units for the fiscal year ending next March.
The company's business has been shaken in recent years as more people play games on their smartphone and tablets. So far Nintendo has resisted offering its games on those platforms, but analysts say continued poor performance could force a change in strategy.
The company cut the price of Wii U console last month.
"The Wii U hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo's profits," the company said, "owing mainly to its markdown in the United States and Europe."
Nintendo Co. recorded an operating loss of 23.3 billion yen in the first half. Despite the weak performance, it didn't change its forecasts for Wii U sales and a 100 billion yen operating profit.
Sales are likely to pick up over the year-end holiday season, but the Wii U will face competition from Sony's new PlayStation 4, due out next month, and Microsoft's coming Xbox One.
In this cover image released by Vertigo, "The Sandman Overture," the first issue of the six-issue limited series, illustrated by artist J.H. Williams III, is to be made available on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo/Vertigo)
In this cover image released by Vertigo, "The Sandman Overture," the first issue of the six-issue limited series, illustrated by artist J.H. Williams III, is to be made available on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo/Vertigo)
In this image released by Vertigo, the character Morpheus is shown in "The Sandman Overture," the first issue of a six-issue limited series illustrated by artist J.H. Williams III which is to be made available on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo/Vertigo)
Some questions remain unanswered for what may seem lifetimes. In "The Sandman Overture" writer Neil Gaiman hopes to answer at least one that has puzzled fans for more than two decades: How could Sandman have been captured so easily to begin with?
It was Sandman's ensnarement that saw Gaiman launch his telling of the DC Entertainment character for Vertigo Comics in 1988, a move that pushed him, the character and the publisher into a new level of storytelling and sales, with collected editions quickly becoming best-sellers.
"You had people, like Norman Mailer, describing it as a comic for intellectuals; bless him," Gaiman said.
"Sandman" has remained a critical darling and fan favorite, though it's been 17 years since the book concluded what Gaiman dubbed its "75-issue limited series" run.
Now, said Gaiman, it's time to provide answers of sort as the first issue of a six-part limited series — illustrated by artist J.H. Williams III — begins its year-long run Wednesday, with "moments" he's been "looking forward to writing for 25 years."
It could be likened to riding a bicycle again after a long time away.
Gaiman said it wasn't hard to get back on the bicycle, but now there's a huge audience. Imagine, he said, "if the first time you learned to bicycle and had ridden your bicycle around it was just you," and then "gradually a few people went 'Look, I really like the way he rides the bicycle.'"
"It was a small, organic phenomenon, but over the years your bicycle riding had become kind of legendary. Now, you're in a world in which 25 million people are going 'Oh my god, he's getting back on the bicycle!' There's a little bit of worrying how wobbly your bicycle riding is going to be."
So far, the bike is on a smooth path.
The scope of the storytelling is galactic, even otherworldly in its scope and reach, a testament that Gaiman's story was aimed to give Williams a sprawling canvas for whom pages are vistas of verdant and concussive forces of color, emotion and energy.
Rich Johnston, a writer of comics and chronicler of the industry, noted on his website Bleeding Cool that Gaiman "has written for the strengths of the artist and in 'Sandman Overture' that means drawing the impossible, a flower that resembles Morpheus, dreams within dreams, and a quadruple page spread that opens up, portraying every aspect of Dream across the universe."
Gaiman said the return has been a reunion of sorts, too. Dave McKean, an artist from the first run, is providing alternate covers and letterer Todd Klein is back for the series, too.
"I'm enormously proud that I think the characters feel like the characters, the story feels like the story and I think J.H. Williams' art is probably the finest I have ever seen in a mainstream periodical comic," he said.
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Moore reported from Philadelphia. Follow him at http://www.twitter.com/mattmooreap
NEW YORK (AP) — Barnes & Noble Inc. is releasing a new Nook e-book reader for the holidays, while it evaluates the future of tablet computers.
Nook tablets haven't sold well amid intense competition with Apple's iPad, Amazon's Kindle Fire and others. Barnes & Noble had a slim 2 percent share of the worldwide tablet market in the fourth quarter of 2012, but fell off IDC's top 5 list this year.
The company said it isn't giving up on tablets, but it will focus on a new e-reader this year while continuing to sell last year's tablet models. The move comes as research firm IDC says the market for dedicated electronic-book readers is declining. Instead, consumers have been more interested in tablets, which can do much more, including video, email, Facebook and games.
Barnes & Noble's new e-reader, Nook GlowLight, is available in its retail stores and online starting Wednesday for $119, the same as the standard model of Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Paperwhite reader. At 6.2 ounces, the GlowLight is 15 percent lighter than the Paperwhite. It's also ad-free, while Amazon charges $20 more for a Paperwhite without ads on its screensaver or home screen.
Barnes & Noble officials say the new e-reader's design is based partly on feedback received at the company's retail stores, where Nook devices are prominently displayed. Consumers' suggestions led to a brighter screen on the brightest setting and more durability in the form of a rubber-like silicone edge, which also provides comfort in the hands. In addition, the frame is white, not black, to match the screen color.
Jonathan Shar, general manager for emerging digital content at Barnes & Noble, said that even as attention has turned to tablets, e-readers are still popular for long-form reading. The GlowLight has an electronic ink touch screen, which has better battery life and less glare than typical tablet screens.
Unlike Kindles, which are tied to Amazon's bookstore, Nook devices are compatible with books bought at other stores that use the EPub standard, including Apple's iBookstore.
The new Nook device replaces the $99 Nook Simple Touch GlowLight model from last year. Barnes & Noble will still sell the $79 Simple Touch e-reader, without the built-in reading light, and Nook HD tablets with screens measuring 7 and 9 inches diagonally. The smaller tablet starts at $129 and the larger one at $149.
Nook's future had come into question after Barnes & Noble said in June that it would stop making its own Nook color touch-screen tablets and would farm out manufacturing to a third-party.
But its CEO left a few weeks later, and the company said instead it was reviewing its Nook strategy. Michael Huseby, the head of the company's Nook business, said in August that the 4-year-old Nook business has had some success, with 10 million devices sold and a 22 percent share in the e-book market. But he acknowledged the company had been overly optimistic about demand.
In an interview this week, Mahesh Veerina, chief operating officer for the company's Nook Media business, said Barnes & Noble will be looking to make devices that enhance the reading experience, as opposed to building an all-purpose device.
"We are evaluating our road map and product plan," he said. "We don't want to play in this general tablet market and compete with everybody."
Game 6, which could make the Red Sox the world champions, is Wednesday night in Boston. It starts just after 8 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on Fox. If the Cardinals win Wednesday, Game 7 would be played in Boston Thursday night.
For us, the eye-popping number of the Series so far is .733.
That's the batting average during the Series for Boston's David Ortiz. He's got 11 hits in 15 at-bats. As USA Today points out:
"All Red Sox players not named David Ortiz have combined for just 22 hits in the World Series. That's a batting average of .144."
According to BaseballReference.com, Ortiz is flirting with a record: Billy Hatcher, then of the Cincinnati Reds, set the single-Series batting record in 1990 when he hit .750 (with nine hits in 12 at-bats) against the Oakland A's.
Ortiz, who's known as "Big Papi," has slugged two home runs and has six runs batted in so far in the Series.
As for Monday's game, the other big star for Boston was pitcher Jon Lester. The Associated Press writes that he "enhanced his reputation as an October ace with every pitch. He allowed one run and four hits in 7 2-3 innings, striking out seven without a walk."
This morning's headlines from each team's city tell the Series story, as you would expect:
Twitter became an Internet phenom as a tool for posting short text messages, but now it also wants to feature multimedia content more prominently.
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Previews of photos and videos will now appear on users' timeline streams, whereas before people had to click on links to see them. The new feature is available on Twitter's iOS and Android apps, as well as on its Web version.
The changes apply only to photos uploaded using Twitter, and to videos created with Twitter's Vine app. People still have to navigate to an outside page to see photos or videos from third-party services.
Users can expand the photos or watch the videos by tapping them on mobile and clicking on them on the desktop.
With this feature, Twitter wants to provide a more media-rich experience for users and to better compete against big rivals like Instagram and Snapchat. "These rich tweets can bring your followers closer to what's happening," the company said in its announcement.
But the changes also come as Twitter faces pressure to build out its advertising business, as its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange looms.
Video ads constitute a major element of Twitter's advertising business, which generated 85 percent of the company's revenue last year, the company said on its IPO documents. Placing more video and photo content front and center in users' feeds, therefore, could give marketers an added incentive to advertise with Twitter.
Twitter has already partnered with more than a dozen broadcasters and media networks through its Amplify program, which places promotional video content in users' feeds. Some of those partners include Bloomberg TV, A&E, and BBC America.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com
FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1999 file photo, Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, right, poses with his defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky during Penn State Media Day at State College, Pa. A lawsuit by Joe Paterno's family and others against the NCAA is scheduled to go to court Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, one day after Penn State announced settlements with 26 young men over claims of abuse by Jerry Sandusky. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1999 file photo, Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, right, poses with his defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky during Penn State Media Day at State College, Pa. A lawsuit by Joe Paterno's family and others against the NCAA is scheduled to go to court Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, one day after Penn State announced settlements with 26 young men over claims of abuse by Jerry Sandusky. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)
BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) — A hearing on a lawsuit filed by the family of longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno began Tuesday as his relatives seek to reverse the NCAA's penalties against the school over the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
The courtroom swelled with lawyers ahead of the hearing that began at 10 a.m., and some Paterno family members were there, including Paterno's son Scott.
The lawsuit by Paterno's family challenges penalties the NCAA imposed against the school — including voiding 111 wins while Paterno was head coach. The NCAA alleges the wins were tainted by school administrators' alleged mishandling of the Sandusky scandal.
The NCAA also fined the school $60 million, which is being paid in installments, banned the football team from bowl games for four years and cut the number of football scholarships it could offer.
The Paterno family contends the NCAA violated its own rules in imposing the sanctions, which resulted in, among other things, Paterno no longer being officially recognized as the Division I coach with the most wins, at 409.
Judge John Leete scheduled Tuesday's court session so he can hear lawyers argue if he should throw out the claim.
Paterno's family maintains that he didn't know Sandusky was a pedophile and didn't cover up child sex abuse allegations against the assistant coach.
The hearing comes a day after Penn State said it was paying 26 young men $59.7 million over claims of child sexual abuse at the hands of Sandusky, the school's former longtime defensive coach.
He was convicted of abusing 10 boys, some of them at Penn State facilities. Eight young men testified against him, describing a range of abuse they said went from grooming and manipulation to fondling and rape when they were boys.
Sandusky, 69, did not testify at his trial but has long asserted his innocence. He has acknowledged he showered with boys but insisted he never molested them. Sandusky is pursuing appeals while he serves a 30- to 60-year sentence on 45 criminal counts.
The abuse scandal rocked Penn State, bringing down Paterno and resulting in unprecedented sanctions against the university's football program.
Three former Penn State administrators await trial in Harrisburg on charges they engaged in a criminal cover-up of the Sandusky scandal. Former president Graham Spanier, retired vice president Gary Schultz and retired athletic director Tim Curley deny the allegations, and a trial date has not been scheduled.
The school said 23 deals are fully signed and three are agreements in principle. There are six other claims, and it believes some of them are meritless.
The settlements have been unfolding since mid-August, when attorneys for the accusers began to disclose them. Penn State has not been confirming them, waiting instead to announce the deals at once.
Penn State has spent more than $50 million on other costs related to the Sandusky scandal, including lawyers' fees, public relations expenses and adoption of new policies and procedures related to children and sexual abuse complaints.
The 32 claimants involved in negotiations with Penn State include most of the victims from the criminal trial and some who say they were abused by Sandusky many years ago. Negotiations were conducted in secret, so the full range of the allegations wasn't disclosed publicly.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trayvon Martin's mother told a panel of senators Tuesday that state "stand your ground" self-defense laws do not work and must be amended, reviving the politically charged gun control issue a year ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.
But little besides politics emerged from the session, held in the Senate's made-for-television hearing room. Democrats who hold majority power in the Senate and are trying to keep it supported Sybrina Fulton's call.
"This law is an invitation for confrontation," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chaired the session.
Republicans, led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said the matter should be left to the states that passed the laws.
"The states are doing quite well ... without our interference," Rep. Louie Gohmert testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Said Cruz: "This is not about politicking. This is not about inflaming racial tensions. This is about the right of everyone to protect themselves and protect their families." Cruz made reference to statistics which, he said, show that blacks invoked stand your ground defense in prosecutions at least as often as whites.
Race and politics were unmistakably woven into the event and in the broader public policy debate. There is little willingness in Congress to weigh in on the laws of at least 23 states that have some form of the policy. These laws generally cancel a person's duty to retreat in the face of a serious physical attack.
Members of Congress are busily engaged in their re-election efforts for next year's midterms, with 35 seats at stake in the Senate, all 435 seats in the GOP-controlled House and the majorities of both chambers hanging in the balance. Gun control is a politically divisive issue, more so in the wake of mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., the Washington Navy Yard and more.
The 2012 shooting death of Martin, 17 and unarmed, and the acquittal this year of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman stirred racial tensions and sparked debate over stand your ground laws in Florida and at least 21 other states.
Martin's mother told the panel that she attended the hearing so senators can "at least put a face with what has happened with this tragedy."
"I just wanted to come here to ... let you know how important it is that we amend this stand your ground because it certainly did not work in my case," Fulton said, speaking without consulting prepared remarks. "The person that shot and killed my son is walking the streets today. This law does not work."
Lucia Holman McBath, the mother of Jordan Russell Davis, implored the Senate to resolve the nation's debate. Her 17-year-old son was shot and killed nearly a year ago when Michael David Dunn, 46, allegedly opened fire on a Dodge Durango with four teenagers inside after complaining of their loud music and saying he saw a gun and thus a threat. Jordan had been inside. Authorities never found a gun in the vehicle, the Florida Times-Union reported. Dunn's trial is set for next year.
"You can lift this nation from its internal battle in which guns rule over right," McBath told the panel.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 22 states have laws that allow that "there is no duty to retreat (from) an attacker in any place in which one is lawfully present." The states are Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia, according to the NCSL.
Alaska also passed a stand your ground law this year, which makes clear a person has no duty to retreat if he or she is in a place legally.
At least nine of those state laws include language stating one may "stand his or her ground": Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, according to the NCSL.
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Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.
2013 iPad buyers guide: How to choose between Rogers, Bell, TELUS, and their discount subsidiaries, Fido and Virgin Mobile.
Once you've decided you're getting a new iPad Air and picked your capacity and color, now you have the option of picking a carrier if you want wireless data. The vast majority of users just stick to Wi-Fi networks for their fix, but you can also get data over cell towers. If you're in Canada, that means going with one of the big three carriers: Rogers, Bell, or TELUS, or one of their lower-price subsidiaries. All of the big three have confirmed that they'll be offering the latest and greatest iPads and Apple announced the iPad Air with cellular connectivity would start at $649. So which carrier should you go with? We've chewed through the plans and coverage, and here's what we've found!
The big three: Rogers, Bell, and TELUS
Across the board, the 16 GB iPad Air with cellular costs $649, the 32 GB model is $749, the 64 GB iPad Air is $849, and the gigantic 128 GB iPad Air with cellular is $949.
Plans differ a bit depending on if you're getting a stand-alone plan or if you're attaching it to an existing account. Unlike smartphone plans, iPad data plans don't have to be on contract, though you can sign up for two-year plans to save a little bit. Exact pricing details on that front aren't yet solidified.
Bell and TELUS share the same towers for their GSM/LTE network but have different back-hauls (different connections to the internet from the towers). That means the Bell/TELUS tower near your home, school, or work could still provide better speeds on one or the other networks. For a comprehensive look at speed and network quality, be sure to check out PC Mag's in-depth study.
The budget carriers: Fido and Virgin Mobile
Each of the big three carriers owns a subsidiary that typically offers lower-cost options by way of a tab system. Rogers owns Fido. Bell owns Virgin Mobile. TELUS owns Koodo. When it comes to the iPad Air, these don't offer much beyond what you'll get on the primary carriers, since they're all on the same network, and you aren't getting a contract with device subsidy anyway. Koodo doesn't even have a tablet plan - they suggest you just use your existing smartphone line as a portable hotspot if you want your iPad to have connectivity - but Fido and Virgin will be supporting the iPad Air.
Who should get their iPad on Rogers?
Rogers is the big boy on the block. Since the spring, Rogers has spread to Manitoba, offering LTE coverage to Winnipeg and other nearby areas. Of course all of the major centers are covered with LTE, including Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Regina, Edmonton, and lots of others.
This is going to get repetitive, but if you're in those areas and speed matters more to you then money, go with Rogers. All of their tablet plans are "Flex Rate," which means simply that they'll bump you up to the next tier after you've gone through the cap of your original one. For some reason, you get half as much data on their $20 plan compared to the other guys, but that may get amended prior to launch. If you already have a Rogers line, you can share you data bucket with your iPad for an extra $10/month on select Share Everything plans. You can also use mobile hotspot on your phone so long as your plan is over 1 GB.
For coverage, you'll see that there are a few areas where Bell reaches that others don't, namely up north. Bell regularly boasts to having Canada's largest LTE network, but take that claim with a grain of salt. When it comes to speed, Bell has the same kind of 150 Mbps LTE as Rogers in the Greater Toronto Area, Cambridge, and Kitchener-Waterloo.
Bell has Flex Plans like Rogers, and provides a lot more data at the $20 tier. Bell also has the best overage rates beyond the 5 GB limit at a cent and a half per MB. As an alternative to the Flex rates, Bell also has fixed 30-day passes, but the only real appeal there is for their 5 GB package, which is $5 less than the Flex plan. Apparently this is still active, and may be worth your while. If you're a lighter user, you can also use mobile hotspot on any smartphone plan. If you already have a Bell line, you can share your data bucket to your new iPad for $10/month. If you end up getting a new data plan with Bell for your iPad Air, you'll get access to some popular public Wi-Fi hotspots, including McDonald's Tim Hortons, and Chapters. They'll also toss in 10 hours of tablet TV per month for the first two months, which doesn't count towards your data cap. After that two months, Tablet TV costs $5/month. All in all, Bell is looking like a very attractive offer, assuming they provide coverage in your area.
I've always been a big fan of TELUS, mainly because among The Big Three, I find it's easiest getting plan information from them. Also, the cute branding and nice-looking stores help too. You can see from the coverage map that the Ontario corridor is well covered, as well as the Maritimes. Alberta's also looking pretty good, and it looks like there's even some decent service in the Northwest Territories. I've generally been happy with the speeds I get on TELUS, though I haven't spent too much time on their LTE.
Like Rogers, the TELUS iPad plans are all Flex plans, so they automatically get bumped up when you exceed your cap. Beyond the top tier, it's $0.05 / MB. The $20 plan on TELUS is much better than Rogers, and the overage rate beyond 5 GB is also half (though not as good as Bell). If you want to get your iPad on your existing TELUS smartphone plan, it would costs an extra $10/month, or you can use mobile hotspot on any plan.
Even the discount carriers like Fido and Virgin Mobile offer data plans for tablets, though Koodo doesn't. T-Mobile also getting the iPad Air, so you can expect a version that works on WIND or Mobilicity. Though the rates at WIND and Mobilicity are great for mobile internet, you'll be taking a hit in coverage - make sure they can keep you covered in the important places.
If you're still not sure about which Canadian carrier to get for your iPad Air jump into our iPad discussion forums and the best community in mobile will happily help you out, or hey, maybe Wi-Fi-only is good enough for you. Let know in the comments - which one did you go with and why?
London (AFP) - Juan Mata made a point to Jose Mourinho as the Chelsea midfielder's superb strike inspired his side's 2-0 win at Arsenal in the League Cup fourth round on Tuesday.
Mata has struggled to convince Mourinho he is worthy of a regular place in his team and the Spanish midfielder has started just six games this season.
But he was back in the starting line-up at the Emirates Stadium and made the most of his opportunity with an influential display capped by a fine second half strike which booked Chelsea's place in the quarter-finals.
Mata's first club goal of the season came after Blues defender Cesar Azpilicueta had opened the scoring before the break.
Chelsea, twice League Cup winners under Mourinho, were always in control despite 10 changes to the team that beat Manchester City 2-1 on Sunday.
Mourinho had been incensed that Chelsea were forced to play twice in just three days, claiming that Arsenal had been given an unfair advantage because their weekend fixture against Crystal Palace took place at Saturday lunchtime.
He insisted he would send out a weakened team in protest and was true to his word as only Gary Cahill retained his place, although the strength of Chelsea's squad was clear to see as the likes of Mata, Willian and Samuel Eto'o hardly constituted a significant drop in class.
Arsene Wenger had hoped Arsenal would be able to inflict a psychological blow on one of their main challengers for their current position on top of the Premier League.
But Wenger made eight changes from the win at Palace and his stand-ins can have no complaints if they go back to the bench after a disjointed performance.
Mourinho and Wenger had a spikey relationship at the best of times during the Chelsea manager's first stint in England, but their relationship seems to have thawed a little judging by the warm smile and handshake the old rivals exchanged before kick-off.
That good-natured exchange set the tone for a surprisingly tame opening to a usually frantic London derby.
Yet with Arsenal struggling to find any rhythm, it wasn't a surprise that the opening goal in the 25th minute came from a miscue in the Gunners rearguard.
After clearing a corner, Chelsea broke at speed with Eto'o leading the charge before Aaron Ramsey's challenge on Michael Essien sent the ball looping towards the edge of the Arsenal penalty area.
Carl Jenkinson and Jack Wilshere hesitated over who should clear and when Jenkinson finally took action his attempt to head back to Lukasz Fabianski lacked both the power and direction to reach the Gunners goalkeeper.
Azpilicueta took full advantage of the gift, lunging in bravely to poke the ball past Fabianski into the far corner.
The Chelsea right-back nearly returned the favour when his careless play moments later let Nacho Monreal in for a low strike that flashed just wide.
That was Arsenal's only serious chance of the half, which spoke volumes for the way the Gunners were hamstrung by Nicklas Bendtner's lack of sharpness in a rare start for the Danish striker.
Eto'o wasn't far away from increasing Chelsea's lead with an opportunistic long-range strike early in the second half, prompting Wenger to send for the cavalry in the shape of German playmaker Mesut Ozil, who replaced ineffective Japan winger Ryo Miyaichi.
But before Ozil had a chance to make an impact, Mata had put the game beyond Arsenal with a brilliant strike in the 66th minute.
A loose ball fell to Mata on the edge of the Arsenal area and the Spaniard took one touch to control with his left foot before unleashing a ferocious right-foot strike that bent away from the despairing dive of Fabianski.
Students who sign up for Duolingo’s language courses will be tasked with translating BuzzFeed articles, one sentence at a time. The translated stories will then appear online.
Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photo by STR/Reuters
The idea that electronic media would bring the world together is not particularly original—remember Marshall McLuhan’s “global village”?—but its proponents have always been hazy on the details. Are we to celebrate the fact that the “Gangnam Style,” a satire of South Korean hipster lifestyle, has garnered roughly 1.8 billion views on YouTube when most viewers probably never got the joke?
Thanks to social media, ideas can now spread at rapid-fire speed. Just look at “Kony2012,” last year’s ill-fated viral campaign to hunt the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. Alas, the speed doesn’t easily translate into action: Instead of deep engagement with an issue by a dozen committed people, we get rather shallow engagement by a few million—and in ways that might undermine efforts to promote global awareness about a problem like guerrilla warfare in Africa. Such viral campaigns might work for highly targeted interventions like fund-raising, but anything beyond that is tricky.
The latest innovation in digital cosmopolitanism comes from BuzzFeed, a site that has rapidly become one of the most visited online properties. In August 2013, BuzzFeed had 85 million visitors, three times more than just a year ago; by next year, it expects to become one of the most popular sites in the world.
By and large, BuzzFeed’s stories are written to be shared—the site used to prominently display the slogan “The Viral Web in Real-Time”—which explains why, according to one recent study, its stories receive more shares on Facebook than stories by any other site, including those of the New York Times and the Guardian. (A typical BuzzFeed story: 10 quotations, with pictures of Kanye West and Freddie Mercury, presented in a quiz-like format under the headline “Who Said It: Kanye West Or Freddie Mercury?”)
Judging by the spectacular results, BuzzFeed has turned “virality” into a science: Thanks to advanced analytics and tools of Big Data, they know exactly what needs to be said—and how—to get the story shared by most people. Its approach is best described as Taylorism of the viral: Just like Frederick Taylor knew how to design the factory floor to maximize efficiency, BuzzFeed knows how to design its articles to produce most clicks and shares. The content of the article is secondary to its viral performance.
Until now, there was just one barrier to BuzzFeed’s plan for world domination: While many of its stories are highly visual, they still contain a fair amount of text—a barrier to non-English speakers. Well, this barrier is no more: BuzzFeed has struck a deal with Duolingo. Duolingo is a promising startup for studying languages that was founded by Louis von Ahn, the person we have to thank (or blame) for inventing the anti-spam CAPTCHA system that prompts us to type what we see in two pictures to make sure we are not robots on a spamming mission. Initially, the CAPTCHA system relied on random text, but then Von Ahn realized that he could get people to fight spam and help to digitize books at the same time: Why have people enter random text if they can be entering hard-to-read text from scanned books?
Internet guru Clay Shirky sees such logic—which he has dubbed “cognitive surplus”—at work in many other parts of digital culture. In his 2010 book of the same name, Shirky argued that we must find ways to harness this “cognitive surplus” and turn it into social good. Duolingo is Von Ahn’s attempt to build a business by leveraging “the cognitive surplus” that is inherent in language learning. Millions—perhaps billions—of sentences are translated every day by students of foreign languages. All those sentences tend to disappear into the void of language textbooks and student notebooks. This is where BuzzFeed comes in: Students who sign up for Duolingo’s language courses would be tasked with translating BuzzFeed articles, one sentence at a time. The translated stories will then appear online. The model is quite elegant: Students have to translate sentences anyway; Duolingo doesn’t charge students for language learning, but BuzzFeed does pay it for the final translations.
Here is BuzzFeed’s version of “global village”: If its plan works, more and more people around the globe will be reading about U.S. popular culture in their native languages. No, what it is interested in is taking viral stories that have already proven their worth in English and taking them global, conquering even more eyeballs that were previously hard to reach due to language barriers.
Instead of deep engagement with an issue by a dozen committed people, we get rather shallow engagement by a few million.
In the process, it gains even more traffic and could someday enter local advertising markets—BuzzFeed is launching local editions in Spanish, French, and Brazilian Portuguese, too. National news players that produce genuine hard news—the kind that takes money to report and might not receive many likes and shares on social networks, as it focuses on issues that are grim rather than viral—would have a powerful new competitor. There’s no scenario in which BuzzFeed’s “cosmopolitan turn” is good for foreign news sites: They will be pressed to either soften up their own news coverage—to boost social media friendliness—or be faced with the prospect of making even less money off their online advertising.
In some respect, BuzzFeed is putting the toolkits of Big Data and crowdsourcing to logical use—assuming that it doesn’t really see itself as being in the news business. BuzzFeed’s goal, after all, is to get the maximum number of shares and likes on social media—for it’s the shares and likes that determine how much money the site is making. In this, BuzzFeed thinks more like a Silicon Valley startup rather than a traditional journalistic entity, with its outdated civic concerns that go beyond the need to maximize and monetize traffic.
The BuzzFeed-Duolingo partnership reveals the difficulty of operating with apolitical concepts like “cognitive surplus” that are not properly grounded in economics or theories of globalization. On the face of it, Duolingo and BuzzFeed are harnessing plenty of “cognitive surplus,” having found an effective way to tap into the vast market of people who want to learn English to succeed in today’s global economy. But what is here to celebrate?
This particular instance of harnessing of “cognitive surplus”—in the name of building a global village, with BuzzFeed as its most popular international news outlet—might actually undermine the work of news outlets that keep the world informed about news that do not revolve around Kanye West, Hollywood, or cats.
Will there still be any serious news outlets in the “global village”? Or will it, like most villages, thrive on gossip alone? So far, the latter seems more likely—and for reasons that have everything to do with economics and little to do with technology.
Correction, Oct. 29, 2013: This article originally used different analytics platforms to compare the BBC’s and BuzzFeed’s traffic. The sentence about the BBC has been removed because the comparisons are not exact. The piece also said that“The Viral Web in Real Time” is BuzzFeed’s motto. It was a prominently displayed tag line on the site for some time, but no longer is.The article also said that BuzzFeed is not interested in bringing local foreign news to the English-language blogosphere; BuzzFeed has a foreign editor and correspondents in Turkey, Syria, and Moscow. That sentence has been removed.The article also originally suggested that BuzzFeed is entering local advertising markets in foreign countries. BuzzFeed is not currently in local markets.
This article arises from Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, the New America Foundation, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the Future Tense blog and the Future Tense home page. You can also follow us on Twitter.
Harlem-born and Brooklyn-bred, Richard Torres is the author of the novel Freddie's Dead. He has written for many publications including XXL, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and The New York Times, and has also penned album liner notes for a number of artists including Marvin Gaye, Richard Pryor and Dave Brubeck.
Well, would you look at that. It seems the recent rumblings and trademark paperwork for the reportedly low-cost Moto G had some merit. The unannounced device popped up in the navigation of Motorola's site despite leading to a dead link (moto-g.com) but has since been removed. Details are quite ...
Employees were the only people at Planned Parenthood Women's Health Center in Lubbock, Texas on Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. New abortion restrictions passed by the Texas Legislature are unconstitutional and will not take effect as scheduled on Tuesday, a federal judge has ruled. (AP Photo/Betsy Blaney)
Employees were the only people at Planned Parenthood Women's Health Center in Lubbock, Texas on Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. New abortion restrictions passed by the Texas Legislature are unconstitutional and will not take effect as scheduled on Tuesday, a federal judge has ruled. (AP Photo/Betsy Blaney)
FILE - In this July 12, 2013 file photo, abortion rights supporters rally on the floor of the State Capitol rotunda in Austin, Texas. New abortion restrictions passed by the Texas Legislature are unconstitutional and will not take effect as scheduled on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, a federal judge has ruled. (AP Photo/Tamir Kalifa, File)
File - In this July 9, 2013 file photo, opponents and supporters of an abortion bill hold signs near a news conference outside the Texas Capitol, in Austin, Texas. New abortion restrictions passed by the Texas Legislature are unconstitutional and will not take effect as scheduled on Tuesday, a federal judge has ruled. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal appeals court judge is considering whether to grant an emergency appeal that would allow the state to enforce a law that could shut down a dozen abortion clinics in Texas.
In court papers filed with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked the judge to make a decision by the end of the day Tuesday. Clinic operators have said a third of their facilities will have to stop providing abortions if the law takes effect.
District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled Monday that a requirement that doctors have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of an abortion clinic does nothing to protect women's health.
Abortion doctors have had difficulty getting such privileges since hospitals have different standards.
She and Tom Cruise ended their marriage over a decade ago, and now Nicole Kidman opens up about the couple's struggle with attention and fame in the December 2013 issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
During her interview with the publication, the "Eyes Wide Shut" beauty shares details about her previous marriage and reveals her true feelings about moving away from Hollywood.
Check out a few highlights from Miss Kidman's interview below. For more, be sure to visit Vanity Fair!
On her marriage to Tom:
"I was so young. And you know, with no disrespect to what I had with Tom, I've met my great love now. And I really did not know if that was going to happen. I really did not known if that was going to happen. I wanted it, but I didn't want it for a while, because I didn't want to jump from one relationship to another. I had a lot of time alone, which was really, really good, because I was a child, really, when I got married. And I needed to grow up."
On being Hollywood's "it" couple:
"There is something about that sort of existence that, if you really focus on each other and you're in that bubble, it's very intoxicating, because it's just the two of you. And there is only one other person that's going through it. So it brings you very close, and it's deeply romantic. I'm sure Brad and Angelina have that- because there's nobody else that understand it except that person who's sleeping right next to you. Having experience extreme fame and now getting to a place where it's not so dominating in my life, I'm always surprised when I go somewhere and people who I am."
On her time away from Hollywood:
"The whole business side of it - it's too present. It doesn't suit me. There's an enormous amount you have to give up if you want to have a family. You can have a certain career, but you can't be living in Hollywood, [where] absolutely everything, everything revolves around it. That wasn't my choice. I'd rather revolve around somebody else's career and then still find my own because I can kind of have a very odd, idiosyncratic kind of path. I have stepped away from the fame part of it. I didn't find what i was looking for in fame. So I went, OK, this is not for me. And it was such a blessing that I found somebody who said, 'Well, are you willing to move to Tennessee?' and I was, 'Oh, am I willing to move!'"
On having children with her husband, Keith Urban:
"[It] gives you some glue, [so] you're both kind of in there together and you're having to work through raising them, which brings up an enormous amount of personal things in terms of history and your own life. Yet if you kind of move into each other, you discover and heal a lot of things in each other, too. Well, that's what I've found for us - very, very, healing, when it's gently, gently done."
Following last week’s teaser, “X-Men: Days of Future Past” has just unleashed the full-length trailer for all to enjoy.
The much-anticipated Marvel flick is slated to hit theaters on May 23rd, 2014 and brings together the modern-day mutants and those of the “First Class” era.
This month’s security breach at Adobe is turning out to be much more widespread than the company first let on. At least 38 million users have been affected by the early October incident.
When Adobe announced the breach on October 3, it said that attackers stole user names and encrypted passwords for an undisclosed numbers of users, along with encrypted credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates for 2.9 million customers. Krebs on Security now reports on the full extent of the attack, confirming the 38 million figure with Adobe.
The total damage could go beyond 38 million users if a recent file dump at AnonNews.org is any indication. According to Krebs on Security, the 3.8GB file includes more than 150 million usernames and hashed passwords, all taken from Adobe. The same file also apparently turned up on a server with the other stolen Adobe data.
Adobe says that 38 million active users users were affected, whereas the other usernames and passwords could include inactive IDs, test accounts and IDs with invalid passwords. However, Adobe is still investigating, and given the tendency of users to repeat the same usernames and passwords across multiple Web services, inactive account holders could still face a security risk. Adobe is trying to notify inactive users of the breach, and has already reset passwords for active users who were affected.
To make matters worse, Krebs on Security and Hold Security both claim that the hackers stole source code for flagship products such as Photoshop, Acrobat, and Reader. Adobe acknowledged that at least some Photoshop source code was stolen; the company is trying to get the data taken down.
In a blog post, Hold Security suggested that the source code theft could have far-reaching security implications. “While we are not aware of specific use of data from the source code, we fear that disclosure of encryption algorithms, other security schemes, and software vulnerabilities can be used to bypass protections for individual and corporate data,” the firm wrote. “Effectively, this breach may have opened a gateway for new generation of viruses, malware, and exploits.”
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Well, would you look at that. It seems the recent rumblings and trademark paperwork for the reportedly low-cost Moto G had some merit. The unannounced device popped up in the navigation of Motorola's site despite leading to a dead link (moto-g.com) but has since been removed. Details are quite ...
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