Microsoft plots living room domination with 43 new entertainment apps for Xbox 360

Game consoles are no longer simply for video games, as evidenced by last week’s announcement that the PlayStation 3 is the top Netflix (NFLX) streaming device of the year. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s (MSFT) chief marketing officer for its Interactive Entertainment Division, said this past March that Xbox 360 owners were spending more hours watching online entertainment than playing online games. And now, in a bid to bolster its efforts to conquer the living room, Microsoft Director of Programming for Xbox Live Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb announced in a blog post that 43 new entertainment apps (mostly video) will launch between now and spring of 2013 in various regions. Ten new apps including ARTE, CinemaNow, CNET, Karaoke, Maxim, Napster, SkyDrive, SPORT1, VEVO and Zattoo will arrive this week. Microsoft’s full list of upcoming apps follows below.

1. All3M (United Kingdom, United States)
2. Ameba TV (Canada, United States)
3. ARTE (Germany, France)
4. Azteca (Mexico)
5. Canalplay Infinity (France)
6. CBC’s Hockey Night (Canada)
7. CrunchyRoll (Majority of LIVE Regions)
8. Deezer (Majority of LIVE Regions)
9. Eredivisie Live (Netherlands)
10. Fightbox (Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom)
11. Flixster (United States)
12. GameTrailers (Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States)
13. Globosat Muu (Brazil)
14. Gulli Replay (France)
15. HBO Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
16. IndieFlix (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States)
17. Livesport.tv (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom)
18. Machinima (Majority of LIVE Regions)
19. Maxim (United States)
20. MTV (United States)
21. MyTF1 (France)
22. MyTF1VOD (France)
23. Napster (Germany, United Kingdom)
24. Pathe Thuis (Netherlands)
25. PBS (United States)
26. PopcornFlix (United States)
27. Rai TV (Italy)
28. Sainsbury (United Kingdom)
29. Saraiva (Brazil)
30. SBS (Netherlands)
31. SF Anytime (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
32. Slacker Radio (Canada, United States)
33. SPORT1 (Austria, Germany)
34. The CW Network (United States)
35. Televisa (Mexico)
36. TV3 (Spain)
37. Viaplay (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
38. Vidéo à la Demande d’Orange (France)
39. Vimeo (United States)
40. VIVO Play (Brazil)
41. Watchever (Austria, Germany)
42. Zattoo (Germany)
43. Ziggo (Netherlands)

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Tevin Hunte Is 'So Happy' After His Voice Elimination

TV Watch

The Voice

By Jessica Herndon and Julia Haskins

12/12/2012 at 07:45 PM EST

Team Cee Lo's Trevin Hunte was eliminated on Tuesday's episode of The Voice, but the soulful singer isn't letting the end of this journey hold him back.

"I feel like the best person on the planet Earth. I am so happy and excited to be honest," Hunte told PEOPLE after the show. I feel like a weight has been lifted. Being away from family and friends and what you're used to was definitely a hard thing for me."

Hunte is looking forward to his mom's cooking and seeing his friends back home, and he won't waste a second wondering what if he'd made it further.

"I have no regrets. I am glad that I took a leap of faith and auditioned," he said. "I auditioned for American Idol and told my family I didn't have the strength to do it again. But I am definitely happy and excited that I made it this far."

And he still has a long way to go. "I'm only 18," he said. "I'm just really excited."

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.

Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.

The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.

Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."

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Kidnappings Fuel Extremists in Western Africa

Issouf Sanogo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Fighters with the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa in northern Mali in July.

BAMAKO, Mali — Oumar Ould Hamaha, a notorious Islamist commander in the deserts of western Africa, has nothing but disdain for the international powers he opposes or the hapless Westerners he and other militants subject to extreme deprivation, hunger, thirst and proselytizing for months on end.

But he openly appreciates them for helping Islamists acquire the one thing they cannot do without.

“Lots of Western countries are paying enormous sums to the jihadists,” he said in a telephone interview from northern Mali, crowing about the hefty ransoms militants have collected in the region. “The source of our financing is the Western countries. They are paying for jihad.”

Kidnapping is such a lucrative industry for extremists in western Africa, netting them tens of millions of dollars in recent years, that it has reinforced their control over northern Mali and greatly complicated plans for an African-led military campaign to take back Islamist-held territory.

Beyond the immediate risk to the 10 Europeans and 3 Algerians still being held — “At the first strike, the hostages will have their throats cut like chickens, one after the other,” Mr. Hamaha threatened — an intervention could face formidable opponents. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the factions that have seized northern Mali, is estimated to have amassed as much as $90 million or more in ransoms over the past decade, turning it into one of the region’s wealthiest, best-armed militant groups.

But Mali and its neighbors are still scrambling to cobble together soldiers, money and a workable plan to recapture lost ground. In fact, Mali, which is supposed to lead the international offensive against the Islamists, does not even have a stable government. On Tuesday, the nation’s prime minister resigned after being arrested by soldiers the night before, part of the continuing political disarray that allowed the Islamists to take the north in the first place.

As the United Nations debates plans for a military intervention in northern Mali, Islamists in the region appear to be on the hunt for more hostages. Three weeks ago, a French tourist was abducted in Mali and five humanitarian workers were seized in Niger in October, after a lull in kidnappings that lasted for months.

The abductions often follow the same frightening script: a sudden burst of movement, usually in the dark; guttural orders and shoves at gunpoint; then days of harsh driving deep into the desert.

The days stretch into weeks, months and even years in a sea of sand, waiting for deliverance or death. A gaunt acacia thorn-tree might be the only shade, the desert ground the only bed, and water — when it is given — often comes from a gasoline jerrycan.

“I lived through an experience that is absolutely unimaginable,” said Françoise Larribe, a Frenchwoman kidnapped in 2010 in northern Niger, where her husband was working at a uranium mine operated by the French company Areva. Her husband, Daniel, is still a captive; she was released unexpectedly after five and a half months that were “extremely tough.”

“The separation from my husband was rapid and painful,” she added.

Mr. Hamaha was with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb when he helped kidnap a Canadian diplomat, Robert Fowler, late one December afternoon in 2008 outside the capital of Niger, Niamey. Now the jihadist says he is “in charge of security” for the Malian offshoot of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Mujao, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, another of the three radical groups that control northern Mali.

The brigade commanded by Mr. Hamaha zoomed ahead of the diplomat’s car in “a slick, violent, well-coordinated and impeccably executed grab,” Mr. Fowler wrote in a new memoir, “A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda.” He and an aide were on their way to dinner in the capital.

He lived through weeks of fear, sleeping on the sand, exposed to the brutal Sahara sun, to snakes and scorpions, fed meager bowls of rice, bounced from barren desert outpost to outpost.

“I spent nearly five months terrified,” Mr. Fowler said in a recent interview. “I was terrified that it would end in a tent with a knife at my throat, and my family would see it on YouTube.”

Mr. Hamaha, his captor, who takes calls from reporters, said: “Ah yes, the Canadian that we kidnapped. I don’t regret it at all. He was in a state of being lost,” referring to what he considered the Westerner’s perilous spiritual condition. The Canadian, Mr. Hamaha said, “learned many things from us.”

During his captivity Mr. Fowler, who was the United Nations special envoy to Niger, gained perhaps the sharpest insight yet into the mentality of some of the men who now hold northern Mali. “There’s no doubt of their faith: they would sit chanting in the full Sahara sun for hour after hour.”

Maïa de la Baume contributed reporting from Paris.

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Fandango launches Oscar-themed web series with Dave Karger

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Fandango is elbowing into the Oscar horse race.

The movie-ticket seller launched its first original digital video series Wednesday, “The Frontrunners,” which will cover the major contenders for the top awards. The show will feature conversations with a star-studded group of Oscar hunters that includes Richard Gere (“Arbitrage”), Amy Adams (“The Master”), Hugh Jackman (“Les Miserables”) and Ben Affleck (“Argo”).

During the broadcasts, actors and directors will deconstruct key scenes from their movies, explaining how they crafted a moment of domestic conflict, in the case of Gere, or decided to intercut between a Hollywood script reading and the Iranian Hostage Crisis, as with Affleck.

However, commerce will be mixed in along with the art. Fandango will offer ticketing information along with the digital videos, with the hopes that the clips will inspire users to check out the movie being discussed.

The show, shot at Soho House in Los Angeles, will be hosted by Fandango’s Chief Correspondent Dave Karger, the movie guru the company lured over from Entertainment Weekly in September. It’s part of a bold bet that Fandango is making on original content.

To that in end, the company tapped former Disney digital executive Paul Yanover to serve in the newly created role of president and tasked him with creating a suite of programming for Fandango and its 41 million unique visitors.

“Our goal with Fandango is to make it the definitive movie-going brand across all platforms,” Nick Lehman, the president of digital for NBC Universal Entertainment Networks & Interactive Media, told TheWrap in October. “We want to continue expanding in ways that entertain and inform and video is key to that strategy. Advertisers are clamoring for it because there is a dearth of high quality original video content on the web.”

As TheWrap reported exclusively in October, Karger is also planning programs that will center on box office contenders and one program that will boast both A-List actors and below-the-line talent.

New episodes of “The Frontrunners” will air weekly through the Academy Awards on February 24, 2013. The first three installments will be available Wednesday

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Hugh Hefner's Engagement Ring to Crystal Harris Revealed

By Mike Fleeman

12/11/2012 at 07:00 PM EST

The wedding's back on – though it may be a good idea to save that gift receipt.

Hugh Hefner, 86, officially confirms that he is once again engaged to Crystal Harris, 26, telling his Twitter followers, "I've given Crystal Harris a ring. I love the girl."

And to prove it, Harris posted photos of the big diamond sparkler, calling it "my beautiful ring."

Neither announced a wedding date, though sources tell PEOPLE they're planning to tie the knot at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve.

Whether that still happens remains to be seen.

This is the plan they had in 2011 – a wedding at the mansion – except that Harris called it off just days before the nuptials were scheduled to happen in front of 300 invited guests.

Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris

David Livingston / Getty

The onetime Playmate of the Month then ripped Hef's bedroom skills, calling him a two-second man, to which Hefner replied, "I missed a bullet" by not marrying her.

A year later, Hefner's "runaway bunny" bounded back to him.

• Reporting by JENNIFER GARCIA

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DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.

No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.

That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.

"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.

Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.

His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."

Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.

Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.

Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.

"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.

Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.

Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.

Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.

The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.

"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.

Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.

Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.

Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.

Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.

Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.

"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.

Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

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Asian shares hit new highs, Fed outcome pressures dollar

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares rose on Wednesday buoyed by strength in global equities markets, hopes of a deal from U.S. budget talks and expectations for more stimulus from the Federal Reserve when it ends its two-day policy meeting later in the day.

Oil, copper and gold prices were also underpinned while the dollar remained broadly pressured, but the yen weakened against the dollar on expectations the Bank of Japan will take additional easing steps at its policy meeting next week.

European shares were expected to climb, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> will open as much as 0.4 percent higher. But a 0.1 percent drop in U.S. stock futures hinted at a soft Wall Street open. <.l><.eu><.n/>

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> gained 0.5 percent to a 16-month peak. The index has hit successive 16-month highs since December 5.

Australian shares <.axjo> were up 0.2 after touching a nearly 17-month peak, as higher commodities prices lifted the resources sector.

London copper steadied at $8,103.50 a metric ton (1.1023 tons), near two-month highs, while spot gold inched up 0.1 percent to $1,710.65 an ounce. U.S. crude futures were little changed at $85.81 a barrel and Brent rose 0.2 percent to $108.25.

"No doubt about it, the liquidity from the U.S. Fed is a good driver for prices," said Henry Liu, head of commodity research at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong, adding that copper is also supported by a recovery in China and the United States.

While mainland markets remained sluggish, Hong Kong shares <.hsi> rose to a 16-month high, underpinned by foreign investors' optimism on China.

In China, "it's tough to get a clear picture of what's happening on the ground but you can infer that domestic investors remain relatively pessimistic," a Hong Kong-based fund manager said.

South Korean shares <.ks11> added 0.6 percent, shrugging off news that North Korea launched the second rocket this year earlier on Wednesday.

Japan's Nikkei share average <.n225> rose 0.6 percent to end at its highest in nearly eight months, led by gains in tech shares and other exporters on the weak yen. <.t/>

The euro popped back above $1.3000, pulling away from a two-week low of $1.2876 plumbed on Friday.

The Fed is expected to announce a fresh round of bond buying as part of its efforts to support a fragile economic recovery threatened by political wrangling over the government's budget. The central bank looks certain both to extend its purchases of mortgage-backed debt and replace another expiring stimulus program with a new bout of money creation.

Against the yen, the dollar rose 0.2 percent to 82.65 yen.

Data on Wednesday showed Japan's core machinery orders rose 2.6 percent in October from the previous month, up for the first time in three months but below a 3 percent rise forecast, highlighting how uncertainty over the global outlook continued to weigh on business investment and the broader economy.

India's industrial production, in contrast, soared by 8.2 percent in October from a year earlier, government data showed on Wednesday, well above a 4.5 percent rise forecast.

Investors also closely followed developments in U.S. budget talks to avert the "fiscal cliff," some $600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to start in January, which economists have warned could send the U.S. economy into recession and drag down the fragile global economy.

Negotiations to avert the "fiscal cliff" ahead of a year-end deadline intensified as President Barack Obama and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner spoke by phone on Tuesday after exchanging new proposals, in a possible sign of progress ahead of the end-of-year deadline [ID:nL1E8NB6UF]

A group of high-profile chief executives urged President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders on Tuesday to strike a deal, reflecting mounting urgency to resolve the issue with time running out.

"Definitely the momentum is to the upside," said Stan Shamu, a market analyst at IG Markets. "Everyone seems to be pricing in a fairly positive outcome to the fiscal cliff negotiations as well."

(Additional reporting by Maggie Lu Yueyang in Canberra and Vikram Subhedar in Hong Kong and Melanie Burton in Singapore; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Dec. 12

NEWS North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Wednesday morning that appeared to reach as far as the Philippines, an apparent success for the country’s young and untested new leader, Kim Jong-un, and a step toward the nation’s goal of mastering the technology needed to build an intercontinental ballistic missile. Choe Sang-hun reports from Seoul, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

Soldiers carried out a late-night arrest of Mali’s prime minister at his home in Bamako, forcing his resignation early Tuesday and casting new doubt on plans to chase out radical Islamists who control much of this troubled West African nation. Adam Nossiter reports from Bamako.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted a uniform patent system for Europe. If the plan goes into effect as expected by early 2014, it would try to remedy the country-by-country approach whose time and costs have long been an impediment to innovation across the European Union. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

The competing business dealings of former high-ranking United States officials in Kosovo may present a special ethical quandary. So many former American officials have returned to Kosovo for business — in coal and telecommunications, or for lobbying and other lucrative government contracts — that it is hard to keep them from colliding. Matthew Brunwasser reports from Pristina, Kosovo.

According to the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, an independent Scotland would have to apply for membership in the European Union. Stephen Castle reports from London.

Three weeks into an impasse over who won a leadership vote in France’s center-right opposition party, François Fillon — who was declared the loser, though he has refused to concede — proposed on Tuesday that a new election be held next spring in which he most likely would not run. Nicola Clark reports from Paris.

ARTS An all-female version of “Julius Caesar” in at the Donmar Warehouse packs a believable wallop, while two other London shows stretch credibility to breaking point and beyond. Matt Wolf on theater.

A disappointing and oddly chosen “Lohengrin’’ opens the season at La Scala, while in Rome, a fine Verdi opera is presented in regal style by Riccardo Muti. George Loomis reviews.

SPORTS There would be lots of hurdles if the 2020 European Championship soccer tournament were to be expanded to six host countries, but previous events have shown that soccer is capable of overcoming such challenges. Rob Hughes reports from London.

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Panasonic may sell Sanyo digital camera business: source

TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp may sell its Sanyo digital camera business to Japanese private equity fund Advantage Partners by the end of March, a source familiar with the plan said.

A final decision on the sale will be made by the end of the year, the source said on condition he was not identified.

Advantage Partners will pay several hundreds of millions of yen for the business, which makes digital cameras for other companies, including Olympus Corp, the Nikkei business daily reported earlier.

Panasonic declined to comment saying it had not announced the plan.

The Japanese company aims to sell 110 billion yen ($ 1.34 billion) of assets, including buildings and land by the end of March to boost free cashflow to 200 billion yen for the business year. The company expects an annual net loss of close to $ 10 billion as it writes off billions in deferred tax assets and goodwill.

Panasonic acquired rival Sanyo, a leading maker of lithium ion batteries and solar panels, in 2010. Sales of compact digital cameras are under pressure from increasingly powerful smartphones.

Panasonic’s shares gained as much as 4 percent in early trading in Tokyo, compared with a 0.5 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index. ($ 1 = 82.3900 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Reiji Murai; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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