Jemblog

Singer Amerie is back! She talks to GIANT Magazine about her personal style and upcoming album in her photo shoot for GIANT’s Celebrity Style section.

Don’t call it a comeback. I’ve been here for years, Whitney Houston sings on what is, in fact, her latest comeback album.

The 46-year-old pop singer, a long-term resident of the record charts during the 1980s and ’90s, officially ends a seven-year hiatus on Monday with the U.S. release of her sixth studio album, “I Look To You.”

Early reviews are promising and Houston’s Sony Corp-owned Arista Records label hopes it will become one of the biggest sellers of the year.

The music industry desperately needs a hit. Annual U.S. sales in 2009 are on track to slide for the eighth time in nine years, ravaged by the recession, piracy and competition from other forms of entertainment such as video games.

Houston could also do with a hit. Her previous album “Just Whitney” in 2002, also was billed as a comeback and was the worst-selling of her career. She got more attention in the ensuing years for her rocky personal life, including multiple stints in drug rehab and a bitter divorce from former R&B star Bobby Brown. (more…)

Microsoft Corp plans to slash the price of its high-end Xbox 360 video game console by $100, or 25 percent, stepping up the price war in the video game console market.

Effective Friday, Microsoft will drop the price of the Xbox 360 Elite to $299.99 in the United States, just days after Sony Corp cut the rival PlayStation 3 to $299 from $399.

Analysts have said the cuts will pressure Nintendo Co Ltd to lower the price of its best-selling Wii console, which retails for $249, but for now the company is standing firm.

“We don’t have such a plan,” Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said when asked about a price cut.

Among this generation of game consoles, the Xbox is No. 2 in the United States behind the Wii. But U.S. sales of the Xbox are up 17 percent this year, the only console to show growth.

The price on the entry-level Xbox Arcade model will stay at $199.99, and Microsoft will phase out its mid-range Xbox Pro model, leaving it with two models. The Pro will sell for $249.99 until supplies run out. (more…)

Time Warner Cable Inc has signed up at least seven large media companies for a test that will offer television programs on the Internet to paying subscribers, the Wall Street Journal said on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Networks participating in the trial are expected to include General Electric Co’s Syfy, Time Warner Inc’s TNT, Cablevision Systems Corp’s AMC and the British Broadcasting Corp’s BBC America, the people told the paper.

Other companies that could be involved in the trial are CBS Corp, Discovery Communications Inc and Viacom Inc, the paper cited some of the people as saying.

The test involves TV shows being made available on the Web to a limited number of homes, the paper said.

In July, Comcast Corp signed up CBS along with 17 more cable networks to participate in the cable company’s trial to make more television shows available to its subscribers on the Web.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.      — E.F. Schumacker

(“This video shows that Michael was still alive after his dead body was transported to the Los Angeles Dept. of Coroner I checked the license plate number and it looks like the King of Pop is jumping out of the same van, his dead body has been in. I got the original video tape from a trustworthy source. I know him for years. And I am sure it´s real and Michael is alive.”)

Via

http://www.youtube.com/user/LosAngelesCot24

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.

— Mark Twain