TurkmenPost

Adult entertainment giant Vivid Entertainment Group said Wednesday it will start next month selling downloadable movies that viewers can burn to DVD and watch on their TVs.

Vivid said it will start selling burnable movies May 8 through online movie service CinemaNow, an Internet provider of on-demand movies, which had previously agreed to distribute Vivid films.

Vivid’s move to enable viewers to burn the films onto a DVD for about $19.95 apiece and then be able to watch them on the TV marks a first for Hollywood.

"With this, we’re giving users the ability to download and burn a movie. And not just a movie, but all the things that come along with a standard DVD, like menus, graphics, art," said Bill Asher, co-chief executive officer and co-owner of Vivid.

vis msnbc.

Apple, might be finding out that the problem with having a dual boot alongside Windows is that users can compare both operating systems better.

According to Penny Arcade, the introduction of Boot Camp makes it a lot easier to benchmark what the two operating systems can do.

One of its hacks installed Boot Camp onto his MacBook, installed Windows and then World of Warcraft. To test how the two operating systems compared he ran WoW at 1440 x 900 with all the graphic settings on maximum.

It was barely playable of course but he managed to get a frame rate reading of 15 and 20 FPS under Mac OX.

On the same lap top under Windows and the same settings he managed to get between 35 and 40 FPS. This is a pretty big difference.

The reviewer said that he preferred using OS X, but it was a little difficult to justify when a game runs twice as fast under Windows.

via theinquirer.

The online edition of The New York Times, one of the most viewed U.S. Web sites, was off-line for nearly four hours before being restored, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

The site was completely down from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday, and was inaccessible to anyone outside the Times until 11 p.m., said Catherine J. Mathis, a spokeswoman for New York Times Co.

The cause for the disruption was not immediately known, Mathis said.

The Web site was ranked ninth among the 50 most visited sites last month, according to figures released Monday by comScore Media Metrix, which tracks Internet traffic. It received 36.3 million unique visitors, just behind the myspace.com online community, part of News Corp., and ahead of Verizon Communications Inc. and The Weather Channel sites, comScore said.

In September, the Times began charging $49.95 annually for those who don’t subscribe to the newspaper’s print edition to access marquee columnists for its Op-Ed page and other columnists for the paper’s business, metro and sports sections.

That service, TimesSelect, includes access to the paper’s archives, early looks at some sections and online tools for tracking and storing articles from the Times Web site. The Times maintained a separate premium service for its crossword puzzles.

The Associated Press

An Arab airline has hijacked the look of the cartoon kids from television’s "South Park" to market its flights throughout the Middle East.

Air Arabia, a discount carrier based in the United Arab Emirates, features on its website the images of animated children who bear a striking resemblance to characters such as Stan, Kyle and Eric from the Comedy Central hit.

When users return to the airline’s homepage or simply click refresh on their browser, they’re treated to several different characters.

The imagery and facial expressions are similar to the boys from "South Park," but the kids are adorned in Arab-themed clothing and headgear, and thus, are not an exact match.

While no one from Air Arabia responded to WorldNetDaily’s requests for comment, it appears the campaign began at some point in 2005.  

Tony Fox, executive vice president of corporate communications at the Comedy Central network, said he was completely unaware of the purloined look until informed by WND.

"While I’m not a copyright expert," he said, "I don’t know how we could have legal recourse for something that looks a lot like a ‘South Park’ character but actually isn’t."

"South Park" has made its mark on society by poking fun at countless people and topics, and Fox noted there are certain liberties people can take to skewer others.

"As satirists we can do that," he said. "Satire is protected by the First Amendment."

Fox added he’d bring the matter to the attention of Comedy Central’s legal department for its opinion about the airline’s use of similar characters to market itself.

via worldnetdaily.

• I know you want to see what Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes‘ baby looks like. So here you go. (Pink is the New Blog)
• Is Eva Longoria getting married? (Hollywood Tuna)
• Britney Spears wants to sue the makers of her baby chair. I don’t get it. It’s not their fault she’s a moron. (DListed)
• Further proof that Tom Cruise is a Tool: spamming online polls to make himself seem more likeable. (IDLYITW)
• Pink got a "help" button tattooed on her arm. Maybe she could get a brain tattooed on her head. (Hollywood Rag)
• Howard Stern is in love with Rosie O’Donnell. Yuck. (CityRag)
• Scarlett Johansson wasn’t the cutest kid in the world. (Yeeeah!)
• In case you missed it, check out this video of Mandy Moore and Sarah Chalke kissing on scrubs. (College Humor)

via egotastic.