Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - Trailer Debuts Online

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - Trailer Debuts Online

By Unknown → Thursday, November 21, 2013

With the summer movie season set to begin with next week's release of comic book movie "Iron Man," Hollywood is holding its breath, hoping for a big start to the lucrative moviegoing period.

Matching last summer's record $4.1 billion box office haul won't be easy, experts said, in large part because of comparisons with the likes of "Shrek the Third, "Spider-Man 3" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."

Still, Hollywood is launching a 2008 salvo that includes "Speed Racer," "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," with Harrison Ford reprising his role as the daring adventurer, "Indy" Jones.

Yes, the pressure is on for a blockbuster summer season, which runs from May through August and can account for nearly 40 percent of the annual box office. But at least one man is reveling in all the hype: "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau.

"I think it's great. You know, my last movie got sucked into obscurity because there was so much else going around it," Favreau said, speaking of his 2005 special effects-filled "Zathura: A Space Adventure." The movie earned good reviews but failed to catch fire early in a crowded holiday movie season.

By contrast, "Iron Man" makes its debut on May 2 as summer's first major release, and there is little competition in its way.

Based on the Marvel Comics series, the movie stars Robert Downey Jr. as a wealthy chief executive and high-tech weapons maker who invents a powerful suit armed with secret technology. His goal: use the armor to kill bad guys and achieve good in the world.

Paul Dergarabedian of Media by Numbers, a Los Angeles-based box office watcher, said expectations for the movie's ticket sales are "all over the map," but he believed it had a good chance to do well. That would be good news for Hollywood.

North American ticket sales are down roughly 3.5 percent at $2.47 billion so far this year, compared with $2.56 billion at this time last year. Attendance is off 6.5 percent, Dergarabedian said.

"We need summer and we need it now because we are definitely in a downturn," he said.

Plotter Turns the Map on Your iPhone Into a Social Discovery Tool

Plotter Turns the Map on Your iPhone Into a Social Discovery Tool

By Unknown → Friday, October 4, 2013

The iPhone 5 -- thinner, lighter and with a 4-inch screen – goes on sale in stores across the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia, with mobile carriers reporting record demand that looked likely to stretch Apple's supply capacity.

The iPhone 5 -- thinner, lighter and with a 4-inch screen -- went on sale in stores across the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia, with mobile carriers reporting record demand that looked likely to stretch Apple's supply capacity.

"The line for the iPhone 5 was 70 percent greater than the line for the iPhone 4S despite Apple taking two (times) as many online pre-orders," said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. He expects Apple to sell 8 million of the new smartphones over the weekend.

The long lines of excited buyers prompted optimism on Wall Street. Deutsche Bank raised its target on Apple stock to $850 from $775, saying "demand indicators are tracking very strongly."

The iPhone is Apple's highest-margin product and accounts for half of the company's annual revenue. Apple shares were up 0.5 percent to $702 in afternoon trading in New York.

JPMorgan estimates the phone could provide a $3.2 billion boost to the US economy in the fourth quarter - a boost almost equal to the whole economy of Fiji.

Apple's rival and component supplier, Samsung Electronics Co, tried to spoil the party, saying it plans to add the iPhone 5 to its existing patent lawsuits against Apple.

Apple began taking pre-orders for the iPhone 5 last Friday and booked more than 2 million orders in the first 24 hours - double the first-day sales of the previous iPhone, the 4S. Shipping time for online orders is three to four weeks.

Prices for the iPhone 5 start at $199 for a 16 GB model and range as high as $399 for a 64 GB model.

As Apple began delivering the new phone, struggling competitor Research in Motion, which makes the BlackBerry, had to admit that it was once again having service problems in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The iPhone 5 supports faster 4G mobile networks and also comes with a number of software updates, including Apple's new in-house maps feature, which is based on Dutch navigation equipment and digital map maker TomTom's map data.

But not everyone was impressed. Some users criticized the maps feature for a number of geographical errors, missing information, and a lack of features.

And not everyone was thrilled with Apple's success.

Hundreds of French iPhone fans lining up at Apple's main store in Paris got an earful from disgruntled store employees and others protesting against Apple policies.

Marching in front of the Paris store were about 20 former staffers of independent Apple distributors that closed after struggling to compete with Apple's own stores. Joining them were three Apple store employees striking to protest Apple's refusal to offer staffers meal vouchers and a yearly bonus of an extra month's pay - perks that are standard for many French workers.

In San Francisco, Apple store worker Cory Moll, who is seeking to start a union and is the founder of the Apple Workers Retail Union initiative, stood outside the main downtown store with a placard showing his support for the French workers and those who assemble Apple products in Asia.

The line of buyers at the store wound around several blocks.