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| Film School Rejects

Over the course of the last few months we’ve received somewhere in the vicinity of 9 million emails from activists groups complaining about the casting of M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action adaptation of the hit Nickelodeon cartoon The Last Airbender. You see, these groups are not happy that the show has deeps roots in Asian culture, yet all of the main characters that have been cast thus far are pale-faced white kids. It would be like making a movie about an Indian Guru, then casting Mike Myers. Absolutely absurd.

Some of these angry folks can rejoice though, as today Variety is reporting that one of the more controversial casting choices has been overturned in their favor, sort of. Shyamalan has found a new actor to fill the role of Zuko, a part originally intended for pop singer Jesse McCartney. Instead of McCartney, who had conflicts with his career as a musician, the role will be played by Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel. Now I know that Patel isn’t exactly Asian — hell, he’s not even exactly Indian, as he was born in the UK (to Hindu parents from Kenya) — but at least he’s not white, right? Doesn’t that count for something, activists groups who just won’t let this go?

While I can’t say for sure how much this is going to affect the quality of the movie — I’ve never read the book — I do acknowledge the appropriate nature of the reaction from fans. They are probably expecting Shyamalan to make an earnest adaptation of an animated series that they dearly love, and in doing so they are right to expect that he cast appropriately. The disconnect could be in Shyamalan’s vision — could it be that his version will be fit for a much ‘whiter’ cast? Maybe he is dumping some of the Asian culture and giving it all a different spin. Then again, that would probably create even more outrage from the fans. Either way, I don’t think this is what fans had in mind when they started a letter-writing campaign.

What do you think about this Last Airbender situation?

rises from the ashes as a rapper - The Ampersand

Remember when Joaquin Phoenix announced that he was quitting acting last October? And that he was doing it to become a musician?

Well, a bearded and bedraggled Phoenix performed his first announced concert over the weekend, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Doug Elfman.  It was a real head-scratcher too, seeing has how Phoneix rapped (you read that correctly – rapped) the whole time.

It was also a head-scratcher because nobody’s sure if this is some kind of strange hoax a-la Andy Kaufman or if Phoenix is actually trying to build viability as a musician. It doesn’t help that the entire escapade is being documented on film by his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck.

But Phoenix personally told Elfman that this is no hoax, that he is actually putting himself out there, risking outright rejection, to pursue what he wants to do: “I have to be true to myself,” he said.

Reactions to Phoenix’s performance were mixed, Elfman writes, with some people cheering and others saying “he sounded like Big Bird.”

Still, Elfman is offering this sage advice to Phoenix:

“Do the art you want to do; if you compromise and fail, you’ll hate yourself.”

Clones:

Now that cloned animals are having babies, as well as spawning second and third generation clones, there’s no telling when the cloning madness will stop.

The kittens pictured here are the children of CC, the first cloned cat. They were born healthy and cute in 2006.

But this year, scientists in Korea announced that they created healthy cloned cats from clones. In a paper published in Theriogenology journal, the creators of the clone-of-clone kittens write:

We successfully produced second-generation cloned cats by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) using skin cells from a cloned cat. Skin cells from an odd-eyed, all-white male cat (G0 donor cat) were used to generate a cloned cat (G1 cloned cat). At 6 months of age, skin cells from the G1 cloned cat were used for SCNT to produce second-generation cloned cats.

No word yet on whether the second-generation clones are cute, but they are definitely alive and thriving.

Think that’s crazy? In Japan, scientists have successfully created fourth-generation clone pigs.

Photo via AP Photo/Texas A&M University, Larry Wadsworth.

| AndroidGuys

This is the type of Android enhancements we’re talking about!  A major update is coming in the first quarter of 2009 to Android and it’s not all bugs and security fixes.  Code named “cupcake”, we’re looking at some much needed/wanted stuff like stereo bluetooth, video recording, and on-screen keyboards.

Not confined to just the G1, these updates are coming in the form of a “development branch” and not a “release”.  At some point, possible January, it will be merged into the “master branch” so we’re hoping to see a nice little update notification sometime in the coming weeks.

While some of these changes are obvious to users, others will be less apparent.  There’s still going to be the requisite bug fixes that people don’t detect.  And in the middle are changes like having your music player fade in after hanging up a call, rather than going full-on and tactile feedback with the security password. Oh, and the phone’s screen won’t time out so quickly during calls!

The web browser will see nice changes with the newest core of Webkit, support for new Javascript features, and copy/paste.  We’re also excited to see the ability to save attachments from MMS as well as the soft-keyboard feature.  Pounding out one-handed texts and emails are getting closer!

There’s still one big thing we’d really like to see, especially when more quality apps hit the market… Install apps and run them from the SD card.  Some of us might take that one enhancement over all the others if we were given the choice.

Piracy:

Whether you’re a pratin’ granny, single mom or a full-on haxxor, you no longer have to dread waking up to an RIAA summons. They still might rat you out to your ISP, though.

Alas, it took the RIAA five years and 35,000 cases to realize that suing individual for illegal downloads was not an effective deterrent. Not only was it an abject PR failure, not even the RIAA has ever pretended that it was making a difference.

That’s not to say the RIAA is not entirely out of the anti-pirate game, of course. Now, they will focus on notifying your ISP of your malfeasances, should their wide net of semi-legal piracy detection agents sniff out your IP seeding 808s and Heartbreak to 12 year old girls. The RIAA will email your ISP (if it is one of the “major” providers that has an agreement), who will then either forward the email on or send their own warning. If you don’t comply to that and subsequent warnings, your service may be canned. [WSJ

BBC NEWS | Technology |

Internet Explorer is used by the vast majority of the world’s computer users

Users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer are being urged by experts to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed.

The flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of people’s computers and steal their passwords, internet experts say.

Microsoft urged people to be vigilant while it investigated and prepared an emergency patch to resolve it.

Internet Explorer is used by the vast majority of the world’s computer users.

It’s a shame Microsoft have not been able to fix this more quickly
Darien Graham-Smith
PC Pro magazine
Q&A: Stay safe online

“Microsoft is continuing its investigation of public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer,” said the firm in a security advisory alert about the flaw.

Microsoft says it has detected attacks against IE 7.0 but said the “underlying vulnerability” was present in all versions of the browser.

Other browsers, such as Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, are not vulnerable to the flaw Microsoft has identified.

Browser bait

“In this case, hackers found the hole before Microsoft did,” said Rick Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro. “This is never a good thing.”

As many as 10,000 websites have been compromised since the vulnerability was discovered, he said.

“What we’ve seen from the exploit so far is it stealing game passwords, but it’s inevitable that it will be adapted by criminals,” he said. “It’s just a question of modifying the payload the trojan installs.”

MICROSOFT SECURITY ADVICE Change IE security settings to high (Look under Tools/Internet Options) Switch to a Windows user account with limited rights to change a PC’s settings With IE7 or 8 on Vista turn on Protected Mode Ensure your PC is updated Keep anti-virus and anti-spyware software up to date

Said Mr Ferguson: “If users can find an alternative browser, then that’s good mitigation against the threat.”

But Microsoft counselled against taking such action.

“I cannot recommend people switch due to this one flaw,” said John Curran, head of Microsoft UK’s Windows group.

He added: “We’re trying to get this resolved as soon as possible.

“At present, this exploit only seems to affect 0.02% of internet sites,” said Mr Curran. “In terms of vulnerability, it only seems to be affecting IE7 users at the moment, but could well encompass other versions in time.”

Richard Cox, chief information officer of anti-spam body The Spamhaus Project and an expert on privacy and cyber security, echoed Trend Micro’s warning.

“It won’t be long before someone reverse engineers this exploit for more fraudulent purposes. Trend Mico’s advice [of switching to an alternative web browser] is very sensible,” he said.

This could be the moment when the minnows in the browser wars finally score a significant victory
Rory Cellan-Jones
BBC technology editor
Read the dot.life blog in full

PC Pro magazine’s security editor, Darien Graham-Smith, said that there was a virtual arms race going on, with hackers always on the look out for new vulnerabilities.

“The message needs to get out that this malicious code can be planted on any web site, so simple careful browsing isn’t enough.”

“It’s a shame Microsoft have not been able to fix this more quickly, but letting people know about this flaw was the right thing to do. If you keep flaws like this quiet, people are put at risk without knowing it.”

“Every browser is susceptible to vulnerabilities from time to time. It’s fine to say ‘don’t use Internet Explorer’ for now, but other browsers may well find themselves in a similar situation,” he added.