| The Cairo Film Festival Reborn
At press time, the festival's organizing committee was still reviewing which of seven entries from Egypt would be selected to enter the competition. Among the contenders: Sayyad El-Yamama (The Dove Hunter), directed by Ismail Murad and starring Ashraf Abdel-Baky and Basma; Mafeesh Gheir Keddah (Nothing But This), directed by Khaled El-Haggar and starring Nabila Ebeid and Rola Mahmoud; Ostoghommaya (Hide and Seek), directed by Emad El-Bahat and starring Ahmed Yehia and Amr Mamdouh; and Qass We Lazq (Cut and Paste), directed by Hala Khalil and starring Hanan Turk and Sherif Mounir. Worth mentioning: two films co-starring Abou-Ouf himself might make the cut, director Ahmed Youssry's big-screen debut 45 Youm (45 Days), starring Ahmed El-Fishawy, and Mateegy Norqoss, the Inas El-Degheidy version of Shall We Dance, starring Youssra and Tamer Hagrass.
Current News
Apple Computer Inc. is not worried over the threat posed by Microsoft Corp.'s digital music player Zune, chief executive Steve Jobs has said in a magazine interview. Jobs told the Newsweek magazine he is unimpressed with Zune, touted by the software maker as answer to Apple's versatile iPod, as "It takes forever... By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left!" He was also unconcerned about Zune's ability to share music wirelessly. Jobs highlighted the change that iPod brought about in the attitude of people saying music will always be the core even as iPod and iTunes are evolving. He said, "It's hard to imagine that music is not the epicenter of the iPod, for a long, long, long, long, long time ... Music is so deep within all of us, but it's easy to go for a day or a week or a month or a year without really listening to music.
Beyond the Point of No Return
To live without at least an open-ended sense of future (even if it's not an optimistic one) is to open one's self to a morass of conflicting impulses — from the anticipated thrill of a reckless plunge into hedonism to a profoundly demoralizing sense of hopelessness and a feeling that a lifelong guiding sense of purpose has suddenly evaporated. This slow-motion collapse of the planet leaves us with the bitterest kind of awakening. For parents of young children, it provokes the most intimate kind of despair. For people whose happiness derives from a fulfilling sense of achievement in their work, this realization feels like a sudden, violent mugging. For those who feel a debt to all those past generations who worked so hard to create this civilization we have enjoyed, it feels like the ultimate trashing of history and tradition.
High speed rail board chooses San Jose route
It looks like San Jose will be on the main line of the 200-mile-per-hour electric train service that would connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. The board of directors of the California High Speed Rail Authority voted Wednesday to choose the proposed route that goes through San Jose's Diridon Station. The San Jose route uses the Pacheco Pass to connect to the Central Valley and ultimately Los Angeles. The trip from San Jose to Los Angeles would take about 2-1/2 hours. The Pacheco Pass route was the original path suggested by the Rail Authority's staff. But some environmentalists and State Senate Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, preferred an alternative route through the Altamont Pass, saying it would serve more communities in the burgeoning East Bay area and would be less destructive of pristine land in the Diablo Mountain range.
LinkShare Selected by MSN Shopping as Provider of Coupons and Special ...
NEW YORK, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- LinkShare, a leading pay-per-action marketing network, has announced that it has been selected by MSN Shopping to provide coupons and special shopping offers. As one of the world's most popular Internet destinations, MSN Shopping is one of the biggest online marketplaces on the Web today. Through its Showcase Offer Access, a new service, LinkShare will distribute advertisers' offers to the MSN shopping site, as well as MSN's syndication partners. "MSN Shopping is one of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet, so it's crucial for advertisers to show up prominently when shoppers are looking for a product," said Steve Denton, president at LinkShare. "LinkShare is providing our advertisers that heightened exposure and distribution on MSN Shopping virtually risk-free since they only pay when shoppers take action with their coupons or special shopping offers." LinkShare's new partnership with MSN will give its advertisers access to MSN's growing audience of online shoppers.
Marketers Cooking Up Plans for Mobile Ad Blitz
The wireless industry deserves credit for its caution, said Ari Schwartz, a privacy advocate with the Center for Democracy and Technology. Advertising and technology companies are the ones having to first prove to wireless carriers "that they have put in a lot of thought about how to do it in a way that won't raise the creepiness factor," he said. Linux with a Lineage: Verio Dedicated Servers deliver SAS70 Certification for critical data security and scalability, a Tier-1 Global IP network and premier data centers, and a dedicated, certified support team. From Verio, an industry leader with more than 500,000 business customers. Make the move. .
Online shoppers still getting security sweats
Businesses are still not doing enough to soothe consumer fears about buying online, says the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). In its latest market report into internet shopping, the OFT said shoppers still have significant worries about privacy and security which is limiting the growth of the sector - despite its obvious successes. Although internet sales have been increasing for years, online sales comprised just three per cent of all retail sales, and only six per cent of businesses were selling online to consumers, according to the latest OFT data from 2005. And while there are many reasons why people choose not to shop online, it identified security worries as a significant factor holding back the sector. The OFT said 79 per cent of web users it surveyed were "very concerned" about the security of their payment details when shopping online.
Hot Ticket
When I stumbled onto it last week, the video had a total of 21 views. Next time, they should hire son-of-a-salesman Tagg Romney, whose video just passed "Sexy Girl Store" to move into eighth place with 145,000 views on Jumpcut. Ridge isn't the only Homeland Security washout on Homeland Security Television. Former FEMA Director Michael Brown has a video pitching "inferencing technology." While Brownie and George Bush might seem better suited for a cautionary video on the use of infer and imply, this video shows a photo of them together, as Brown recounts how he told the president that Katrina would be "the big one." Remarkably, Brown is pitching his data-mining company's ability to anticipate the unexpected: "It's easy to prepare for the things we know are going to happen, but not the things we don't know are going to happen." In his old job, he failed to prepare for either one—but then, FEMA didn't have inferencing algorithms.
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