Feature: Berlin film festival to start with spotlight on Chinese movie

BERLIN, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The 60th Berlin Film Festival is set to kick off Thursday with a special opening spotlight on Chinese cinema.
Chinese director Wang Quan'an will lead the opening ceremony with a special screening of his new film "Apart Together."
"Apart Together" is a story about "a reunion of a family that separated years ago," festival director Dieter Kosslick told Xinhua. Because 2010 is the 20th anniversary of Germany's reunification, he said, the film is "very symbolic to us, and we really like it."
Wang won the highest accolade at the Berlin Film Festival, the Golden Bear, in 2007 with his movie "Tuya's Marriage".
This year a total of 400 films will be presented throughout the festival. Two of the 10 Chinese language films in the festival will vie for the anniversary Golden Bear on Feb. 21, the last day of the festival.
This year's big Jubilee festivities will be hosted by Kosslick and German director Werner Herzog, the jury festival president.
Another well-known Chinese director, Zhang Yimou, will compete again in the festival with his new film "Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop."
Zhang won the first Golden Bear in 1988 for Chinese filmmakers with his directoral debut, "Red Sorghum." The classic film will be screened during the festival's retrospective series "Play It Again."
"The Ghost Writer," a new political thriller from controversial Oscar winning director Roman Polanski, will also premiere at the festival.
"The Ghost Writer," based on the novel by Robert Harris, tells the story of a ghostwriter who discovered a number of political secrets while writing the personal memoirs of a former British prime minister.
The film was expected to grab public interest not only due to its story, but also because Polanski is currently under house arrest in Switzerland, where he awaits possible extradition to the U.S., which he fled in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio team up again to tell the tale of "Shutter Island" about a U.S. marshal, played by DiCaprio, who is sent to an isolated island to re-capture a criminally insane murderess only to question his own sanity.
The Berlin Film festival, started in 1951, will also take a look back at the filmmaking history of the past six decades.
A premiere screening of the restored orginal version of Fritz Lang's 1927 silent sci-fi classic, "Metropolis," will be held Feb. 12 as a salute to great masters.

Microsoft and Apple stole our technology

ISRAELI SOFTWARE OUTFIT Emblaze has accused Microsoft and Apple of infringing its US patent for media streaming technology.
Emblaze, whose companies include Magic Software and Matrix IT, said that the Vole's IIS Smooth Streaming system and Apple's HTTP Live Streaming application use its technology.
Reuters reports that Emblaze had banged off a letter to Microsoft offering to licence it the technology but had not heard back yet. The Vole apparently has until March 15 to reply. Apple had a similar letter in the post.
Emblaze Chairman Naftali Shani said that while the company was happy to license its technology to third parties, the outfit would defend its rights and competitive position.
Microsoft uses Smooth Streaming to deliver multimedia, graphics and animation including high-definition video via its Silverlight software, while Apple uses HTTP Live Streaming in its Iphone, Ipod Touch and Ipad, as well as in its OS X Snow Leopard operating system.

Microsoft Talks Office 2011

On Thursday, Microsoft took the wraps off the next version of Office for the Mac. After announcing new compatibility, collaboration, and user interface features to the world, Eric Wilfrid, the general manager of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit, stops by the Macworld Podcast booth to talk about Office for Mac 2011.
• AAC version (9.3 MB, 10 minutes)
• MP3 version (9.1 MB, 10 minutes)
Show Notes
You can get an overview of what's new in Office 2011 as part of our ongoing Macworld Expo coverage. But my conversation with Eric Wilfrid touches on the user experience with the new version of Office, the changes planned for Outlook (which Microsoft first discussed last August, and the suite's new online collaboration features.
Look for Office 2011 to be on retail shelves later this year in time for the holiday season.
You can find previous episodes of our audio podcasts at Macworld's podcasting page.
Got any feedback on this podcast? Send regular podcast host Christopher Breen an e-mail; audio comments in the form of an AAC or MP3 file are particularly welcome. You can also leave us a message at 415/520-9761 if you'd like to have your comments included in a future podcast.

Motorola To Split Into Two Companies Next Year

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Motorola Inc. (MOT) said late Thursday that it would split into two publicly traded companies by the first quarter of next year as it looks to reinvigorate its disparate businesses.
The Schaumburg, Ill., company has long sought the separation of its mobile devices business, but in the last few weeks shifted its existing plans. Motorola will now group together the mobile devices unit with the home division, which includes television set-top boxes, placing them under co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha. Together, the divisions accounted for roughly half of the company's $22 billion in sales last year.
Fellow co-CEO Greg Brown would oversee the enterprise mobility and networks businesses.
The new plan represents a "cleaner and more compelling configuration for our shareholders and our customers," Brown said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.
"We are firmly committed to this," Jha said.
Jha, meanwhile, talked up the potential business that comes from creating products that can address both the home entertainment and mobile device interests. He added that the telcos and cable companies that buy Motorola set-tops view the move positively.
"There's is a new opportunity to market our new converged devices," he said during a conference call.
As recently as late January, when Motorola reported its fourth-quarter results, executives stuck to the original plan. The last-minute change was reported by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Investors, including billionaire activist shareholder Carl Icahn, have long pushed for a break-up of Motorola, because there are few natural connections between the various divisions. Further shake-ups may be in store; the Wall Street Journal said the wireless network equipment business may be auctioned off.
""What they do in the next six months would either validate these plans or cause a train wreck. ... If they screw up, if they have a bad piece of hardware that doesn't ship in volume, if they get beat up by the iPhone or something else, I bet they'll have to take some other direction," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner.
The separation comes as the company looks to turn around its various flagging units. The higher profile mobile devices unit has shown some signs of life with the success of its Droid smartphone, which benefited from a heavy push by Verizon Wireless. The unit, though, remains under pressure as it changes its focus to a more profitable segment of the cellphone market, but still faces competitive pressure from the likes of Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPhone. Jha said late last month that he expects the unit to return to profitability by the fourth quarter.
"They're doing well on their smartphone strategy, and there remains a lot of opportunity there," said Matthew Thornton, an analyst at Avian Securities LLC.
The mobile-phone business had sales around $7 billion in 2009. The home division had sales of nearly $4 billion.
The various other businesses continue to see declines as a result of weakened consumer and government spending. Customers have held back spending on entertainment, keeping sales of new set-top boxes in check. Local governments, many of which are facing budget deficits, are less inclined to invest in new public radio systems. The networks business, meanwhile, suffers from lower demand from legacy equipment as the unit looks to growth in fourth-generation, or 4G, wireless technology.
Jha acknowledged that the mobile devices business, which has seen the most dramatic drop-off of the divisions, has weighed on the rest of the company.
"We have been at times a drain on resources on other business, and we've reduced shareholder value," he said.
The break-up will occur as a tax-free dividend of shares in a new company to Motorola shareholders. The enteprise mobility and networks business will assume the debt, which will be $3.3 billion by early next year.
The two companies will share the Motorola name. Jha's company will own the brand, and license it out for use to Brown's business. Brown said both companies would end up with "a good bedrock of [intellectual property rights]."
Motorola shares rose 3.9% to $6.91 in after-hours trading.

Valentine's Day Movie Review

Their real-life romance may have fizzled, but Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift still heat up the screen in the star-studded date movie, Valentine’s Day. Check out Kidzworld’s movie

review of this hot holiday flick!

Valentine's Day Movie Rating:


Valentine’s Day follows couples and singles as they find love, heartbreak and everything in between on the most romantic day of the year. The movie opens on Reed (Ashton Kutcher), a flower shop owner who proposes to his girlfriend Morley (Jessica Alba) in the first three minutes of the movie! Reed’s story is tied to many others, including a doctor (Patrick Dempsey) and his girlfriend (Jennifer Garner), a sports reporter (Jamie Foxx) and two high school kids (Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner).

Taylor + Taylor

Taylor Swift makes her acting debut as Felicia, an immature high school girl obsessed with her track star boyfriend. Taylor’s on-screen boyfriend is played by her off-screen ex-boyfriend, Taylor Lautner. And yes, in case you were wondering, there is a steamy on-screen kiss. There’s also a very funny moment when Taylor Lautner’s character, Willy, who’s supposed to be a shy jock, says, “I’m a little uncomfortable about taking my shirt off in public.” This is clearly not the same guy from New Moon.

The Bottom Line

Valentine’s Day is a cute movie, but gets weighed down by too many stories and a long running time—a fluffy date movie shouldn’t be more than 2 hours. The movie feels a lot like Love Actually, but with more star power and less substance. The cast of Valentine’s Day includes dozens of young stars like Anne Hathaway, Emma Roberts, and Jonathan Morgan Heit. Hollywood’s hottest don’t let you down, but Valentine’s Day still leaves that chalky, bad candy taste in your mouth. Oh well, there’s always next year—a sequel is already in the works.

The Flower, the Leaf And the Lobby: A Valentine's Tale

It's odd that we celebrate love with perishable tokens.Valentine's Day approaches, which means it's the season for florists to work themselves into a tizzy—and not just in the frantic provision of product for the holiday. There is also much huffing and griping at those who make unkind comments about flowers. The Society of American Florists complains on its Web site about "Negative or misleading references about flowers and florists," and promises to confront "offenders" that publish Valentine's Day stories encouraging consumers "to purchase a product rather than flowers."
The florists' lobby also is piqued at anyone who notices that the cost of certain flowers rises as the 14th approaches, denouncing an article in this month's Better Homes and Gardens for making "negative statements about the price of Valentine's Day roses." Yet the florists' highest dudgeon is reserved for those who suggest buying products other than flowers for one's beloved. When technology correspondent Natali Del Conte was on CBS's "Early Show" Monday talking about new computer goodies, she made the mistake of saying: "Chocolates and flowers are nice, but they go away. These [techno-gadgets] last longer." The florists' association fired off a demand that she "refrain from making negative references to flowers in future stories."
Don't even get them started on the cupidity of competitors. Successories, a company famous for mawkish motivational posters, sent out an email this month touting the value of "art that will last a lifetime," whereas "flowers only last a week." The Society of American Florists flew into action, telling Successories that "more sharply focused, creative, successful advertisements" are those that don't belittle blossoms. When the Danbury Mint said in a Valentine's Day catalog that its bric-a-brac is "more precious than a dozen roses," which "fade quickly," the Mint got an SAF missive, too.
In other words, the florists are mighty touchy on the subject of decay. They are sensitive to suggestions that ephemerality is a fault with flowers (rather than the essence of their charm). They must hate Plato, since he disdained sensual love with an unkind floral metaphor, dismissing as vulgar and dishonorable those attractions based on "the bloom of youth." Those in the bouquet business must also have a bone to pick with St. Peter, who likens the transient and worthless glory of man to a flower—it withereth and falleth away. Particularly objectionable would be the English poet Robert Herrick, who wept that daffodils "haste away so soon," and that the "same flower that smiles to-day/To-morrow will be dying."
And yet, the florists and their high anxieties aside, one thing is true: It is odd that we are in the habit of celebrating love with such perishable tokens. Do we mean to declare that our affections are as fleeting as roses, to be gathered while ye may? Or could we use a metaphor d'amour that suggests rather more staying power, something that eschews flash and show—perhaps, instead of the flower, the leaf?
In the incubators of our modern notions of love and romance—the late-medieval courts of France and England—the question was vigorously argued: Is love a passing fancy or a durable good? "Playful debates over the superiority of either the leaf or the flower were a great fad in the late 14th century," says Michael Hanly, who teaches medieval literature at Washington State University. The fashion got going in earnest with a quartet of poems by Eustache Deschamps, a French contemporary of Chaucer, debating the comparative virtues of flowers and leaves. One of the poems made the case for the leaf as a symbol of perseverance and enduring love, but the others championed the flirty delights of the daisy.
But the greatest elaboration of the debate can be seen in John Dryden's rendering of a 15th-century poem, "The Floure and the Leafe." Dryden's "The Flower and the Leaf" tells of two fairy courts that gamboled in a verdant field on May Day. One group of ladies and knights wears garlands of flowers; and they pay homage to the bright new daisies. The other group has woodbine on their brows, crowns of leaves and chaplets of oak. Gathered in the shade and shelter of a spreading laurel, the leafy crowd "found retreat" and "shunn'd the scorching heat." But the followers of Flora soon find themselves wilting in the noonday sun. When a sudden storm appears, they're blasted by the rain and hail. The flower, and the sort of love it represents, is "A short-lived good, and an uncertain grace," Dryden writes. "This way and that the feeble stem is driven/Weak to sustain the storms and injuries of heaven." And what of the laurel-like love? "From winter winds it suffers no decay/For ever fresh and fair, and every month is May."
Our more modern poets have kept the debate alive. Cole Porter asked whether real love was made out of marble or out of clay, "a new Rolls [or just] a used Chevrolet." We still haven't decided what we think love is all about. We have our modern champions of the Order of the Flower—Christina Nehring and her passion-pushing book, "A Vindication of Love," come to mind. Arguably, Mark Sanford, when "hiking the Appalachian Trail," was embracing flower power. But the popular prejudice is for love that lasts (notwithstanding the odds).
So why don't we declare our faith in fidelity with gifts of ever-greenery? As appealing a notion as that may be, I shudder to think of the look on my wife's face if I should show up Sunday with a potted plant.
For his part, Dryden entertained the tender charms of those flowery things "for pleasure made/ [that] Shoot up with swift increase, and sudden are decay'd." But when asked "Whether the Leaf or Flower I would obey?" he says, "I chose the Leaf." Good for him. And a good thing, too, that he's beyond the reach of miffed missives from the Society of American Florists.

Saudi Arabia’s religious police out in force in run-up to Valentine’s Day

Saudi pilots weave a message of love ? but never on Valentine's Day

If you can’t stand shops filled with roses, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, teddy bears, cards and novelty gifts, Saudi Arabia is the place to be this Valentine’s Day.

The country’s feared muttawa — religious police — have launched a campaign to banish from the shelves anything that could be construed as a romantic gift. As Sunday approaches, they have been patrolling the shops and posting warnings in local newspapers to remind traders that anyone caught violating the ban will be punished.

Saudi Arabia adheres to a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam and bans the celebration of Western holidays — and Valentine’s Day is a particular target because of its nominal connection to the life of a Christian saint. The kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, also bans birthday celebrations and Mother’s Day, and even several Muslim holidays, because it considers them “religious innovations” that Islam does not sanction.

But roses and romantic gifts are legal for the rest of the year — so amorous Saudis and expatriates have been buying their gifts well in advance of the Valentine’s Day crackdown.

The interpretation of what constitutes a romantic gift can be a little arbitrary:one Western resident in the capital, Riyadh, said that the shelves in his local store had been stripped of almost all red items, with nervous storeowners taking no chances.
More liberal Arab countries in the region have no such reservations. In Cairo, the Egyptian capital, and Dubai, for example, shops and restaurants mark Valentine’s Day with an abundance of red ribbon and heart decorations, in a manner as garish as any Western capital.
In Riyadh, dating in the Western sense is not socially acceptable, though unmarried couples do meet in restaurants and cafés that have partitions to hide them. However, the arrival of mobile phones, e-mail and internet chatrooms has radically altered the dating scene, allowing couples to communicate in private.
Despite slow but steady efforts by King Abdullah to modernise attitudes, the religious establishment keeps a brake on the process of change — but tensions surface frequently. On Monday, students at a girls’ school in Mecca rioted when the head teacher confiscated their mobile phones, make-up and perfume. Female wardens from a nearby prison were called to the school after the children attacked the head and barricaded her in her office, before breaking tables and chairs and letting off fire extinguishers.