A press conference is scheduled for 4 p.m.

Mawae, 39, played in eight Pro Bowls during his 16-year NFL career. He played the past four seasons with the Titans, who elected not to re-sign him this year.

“I’m very proud of my career, and what I was able to accomplish. I am happy with where I am and looking forward to the next phase of my life,” Mawae said. “The only regret I have is the fact I have never won a Super Bowl. But there are thousands of players who come into this that never make it into the playoffs. I’ve had chances, I have been to AFC championship games, but I’ve never won a Super Bowl.

“But all the other things I accomplished and what this league has allowed me to do, you can’t put a price tag on any of that.’’

Mawae will be eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in five years.

“I will seriously consider voting for him because of his longevity, his Pro Bowls and that he helped teams go to the playoffs,” said Houston Chroniclesports writer John McClain, a Hall of Fame voter. “I have talked to players who played against Mawae, and all of them have told me they think he deserves to be in.”

Mawae spent his first four seasons with the Seahawks then played for the Jets from 1998-2005. The Titans signed him in 2006. Playing center last season he was part of an offensive line that paved the way for Chris Johnson to become just the sixth player in NFL history to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a single season.

This offseason the Titans opted to go in a different direction at center. They promoted rising fourth-year player Leroy Harris to guard and moved veteran Eugene Amano to center.

Mawae said he attracted little interest as a free agent in part because he is president of the NFL Players Association. Mawae will remain in that capacity until his term ends in March 2012.

Google already had walking directions built-in to the Maps app, but they’ve added those directions to the turn-by-turn navigation portion of Android, allowing you to use pedestrian paths and other sometimes easier routes than driving navigation would give you. They’ve also included the Street View smart navigation that we’re used to on the desktop. As shown in the above video, you can now enter street view and navigate through it by dragging and dropping Pegman to different locations on the screen.

Among these larger updates, Google also added the search bar to the top of the main Maps window, so you no longer need to hit the search button every time you open maps. The bar will not only search maps, but open Places, use the Layers menu, or instantly zoom in on your location. Hit the link for a full rundown of the new features, and head to the Market to download the update.

Maps is a free download for Android devices.

Courtesy: Lifehacker

The study concluded that men with excess body fat develop more female sex hormones that influence their sexual performance.

The hormone oestradiol is found in high levels in overweight men and allows them to last an average of 7.3 minutes compared to 1.8 minutes for men with lower BMI scores.

Jay-Z said,

“We at Roc Nation are excited to work with Willow. She has an energy and enthusiasm about her music that is truly infectious. It’s rare to find an artist with such innate talent and creativity at such a young age. Willow is about to embark on an incredible journey and we look forward to joining her as she grows in all aspects of her career.”

The 9-year-old daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith has her first single out called “Whip My Hair,” produced by newcomer Jukebox.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Military bases across the U.S. have banned the sale of a new video game that lets a player pretend to be a Taliban fighter and “shoot” U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“Medal of Honor” by Electronic Arts, a major game developer based in Redwood City, Calif., hits stores Oct. 12. Gamers are scoffing at the decision, saying that advanced technology has made it commonplace in the gaming world to let players switch sides and play the bad guy.

After public protests, including by British Defense Secretary Liam Fox, U.S. military officials decided not to stock the game in any of the nearly 300 base exchange shops.

The game also won’t be sold at any of the 49 GameStop stores located on various military bases. Troops will be allowed to own copies, but they would have to buy them off-base.

“We regret any inconvenience this may cause authorized shoppers, but are optimistic that they will understand the sensitivity to the life-and-death scenarios this product presents as entertainment,” said Maj. Gen. Bruce Casella, who commands the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, which oversees more than 180 base exchange shops.

Casella made the decision last week, with the Navy quickly following suit. Kathleen Martin, a spokeswoman for the Navy Exchange Service Command, said the game won’t be sold at any of the Navy’s 104 exchange shops “out of respect for the men and women serving and their families.”

Past versions of the 11-year old “Medal of Honor” game have been set in World War II, allowing players to act as either members of the Allied force or the Nazi regime.

The latest version is set in modern Afghanistan, where some 140,000 U.S. and NATO troops are fighting the Taliban. The story is told through a small group of characters known as “Tier 1″ operators, elite fighters who take their orders directly from the president and defense secretary.

“Operating directly under the National Command Authority, a relatively unknown entity of hand-picked warriors are called on when the mission must not fail,” according to an online description of the video game by Electronic Arts.

The website does not advertise the fact that the multiplayer version allows a player to role-play as a member of the Taliban.

One online promotion features video interviews with Special Operations personnel who the company says served as consultants to improve the authenticity of the game. The faces of the men interviewed were blurred and their names not given.

“By me being a part of it, I at least have some say on how the community is represented,” one man says.

Britain’s Fox said last month that he was “disgusted and angry” by what was a “tasteless product.” Fox called on retailers to show their support for the troops by not selling it.

“At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands,” Fox said. “It’s shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers.”

Electronic Arts did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Spokeswoman Amanda Taggart was quoted last month by the Sunday Times as saying video gamers routinely play both good guys and bad guys.

“Most of us have been doing this since we were 7: Someone plays cop, someone must be robber,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.

But since that was only the first graph of a blog post, that’s not the end of the story. And really, since it’s Ron Artest, there should be no surprise that there’s more. Here’s the latest development, which just might be more surprising than Artest’s school speaking adventure. From NBA.com’s Scott Howard-Cooper:

Artest finally won a title in June after 11 regular seasons of trying … and now he’s planning to sell the championship ring as a fundraiser to put more psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists in schools.

“I’m never going to put it on,” he said.

Artest plans to soon announce details of what he hopes will become a worldwide auction, and he takes possession of the jewelry in an Oct. 26 pre-game ceremony before the Lakers open against the Rockets. It’s an incredible gesture. But it’s even more meaningful as a statement.

“You work so hard to get a ring, and now you have a chance to help more people than just yourself, instead of just satisfying yourself,” he said. “What’s better than that? For me, this is very important.”

Awesome? Awesome. No one was happier to win last year’s title than Ron Artest, so to see him give up something that obviously means the world to him — just to help people — is really cool. Better than cool, actually. Splendid? Heartwarming? Delightful? No words, really, but let’s go with “astonishing.” Yeah, that fits.

Ron Artest is a complicated dude — one day he’s getting pulled over for driving a miniature race car and the next he’s selling his championship ring for charity. Seems like a chill bro, nowadays. Pretty decent basketball player, too.

From TMZ:

A rep for AXE tells TMZ they’re “troubled by [T.I.'s] arrest” and have been forced into “reviewing our promotional activities” with the rapper. Translation — it doesn’t look good for T.I.

T.I. — real name Clifford Harris — locked down a deal with AXE earlier this year after promising the company that he was “working to become a more positive role model.”

So far, T.I. is still featured on the company’s website… but it smells like that could change at any moment.

Las Vegas Metro Police were called to the home around 5:00AM this morning after a 911 call was placed by Josie Harris, the mother of Floyd’s children.

Harris claimed the world-famous boxing champ assaulted her during an argument.

According to TMZ.com, a neighbor reported hearing a “blood-curdling scream that sounded like someone was being murdered,” and witnessed two cars speeding away from the scene.

The pair have had a rocky relationship. In 2003, Harris claimed Mayweather choked her and beat her inside of his Bentley in Las Vegas.

The charges were dismissed against Mayweather, in 2005 when Harris testified that she lied about the incident because she was jealous over another woman.

Harris is currently seeking a restraining order against Mayweather, whose whereabout are currently unknown.

Think of the SLS AMG as a reincarnated 300SL. It’s got the same gullwing doors. And, the design is remarkably similar, both inside, and out.

Where the two cars differ is under the hood. The 300SL was powered by…a light summer rain. The SLS AMG on the other hand, is powered by a Category 5 hurricane.

“Hurricane Benz” gets its power from an all aluminum, 6.2-liter V8. This powerplant is built by Mercedes’ in-house tuner, AMG. So, you know it’ll boogie.

Depress the launch pedal, and the SLS will rocket to 60 mph in a mere 3.8 seconds. Keep the go pedal depressed, and the SLS will eventually reach a top speed of 197 mph.

But, the most interesting thing about this supercar is, the SLS is the first car to be built entirely by AMG.

That’s all well and good. But, according to Edmund’s Inside Line, anonymous sources claim that the SLS AMG’s aluminum chassis actually came from the forthcoming 2012 Dodge Viper…not AMG.

The story goes; Dodge engineers had already designed an aluminum chassis and suspension for the next generation Dodge Viper. When Mercedes learned of the new chassis design, they decided to use it for their upcoming SLS supercar.

At the time, Dodge was owned by Mercedes. And since the two companies had already collaborated on several chassis designs, the idea of a shared supercar chassis seems entirely plausible.

The Knicks have limited assets to offer the Nuggets, which makes the Bulls a more appealing potential trade partner. The Bulls can offer a replacement small forward in Luol Deng, as well as two young forwards in James Johnson and Taj Gibson. New York officials would like to make a run at signing Anthony next summer if he were to opt to become a free agent. The Knicks will have salary-cap room with Eddy Curry’s contract expiring after the season.

While Anthony would prefer a trade to either the Bulls or Knicks, he knows the Nuggets could decide to send him elsewhere. Yahoo! Sports has previously reported that the Los Angeles Clippers, New Jersey Nets and Houston Rockets have expressed interest in Anthony.

The Nuggets have offered Anthony a three-year, $65 million contract extension, but Anthony is reluctant to sign the deal because of concerns about the franchise’s future. Coach George Karl is returning from his second battle with cancer and entering the final year of his contract. ForwardKenyon Martin and guards J.R. Smith and Arron Afflalo will be free agents after this season and center Nene could join them if he opts out of the final year of his contract. Point guard Chauncey Billups also could hit the market because the Nuggets are obligated to pay only $3.7 million of his $14.2 million salary for 2011-12 if he’s waived at the end of the season.

With so much uncertainty surrounding the Nuggets, Anthony would like to be traded before the season starts. New Nuggets vice president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri has not had a face-to-face meeting with Anthony since he was hired on Aug. 31.

Courtesy: Yahoo! Sports

On Tuesday night, it was his turn.

Hoffman added another milestone to his illustrious career, earning his 600th save by closing out the Brewers’ 4-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Brewers players hoisted Hoffman on their shoulders and carried him toward the dugout as his wife Tracy and three sons, Brody, Quinn and Wyatt, ran onto the field to hug him.

“You saw how my teammates reacted,” Hoffman said. “Those are the type of moments you see when teams have success and they head into the postseason. To have your teammates have that kind of outpouring is hard to describe.

“I guess it shows that you’re doing things right and you’re having an impact in a positive manner,” he said. “You appreciate the game, you appreciate them and they are appreciating you back.”

Hoffman had an 11.65 ERA in his first 18 appearances this year and lost his closer’s job to rookie John Axford. Instead of sulking or lashing out at management, Hoffman quietly tutored Axford and worked in middle relief during the summer to improve.

His numbers have been much better lately with a 2.63 ERA in his last 29 appearances. He’s been getting ninth-inning work lately as the team tried to help him reach No. 600.

“It was probably the best hold of my entire life right there for his 600th save,” said Axford, who recorded two outs in the eighth.

Axford has converted 20 of 22 saves while being mentored by Hoffman.

“In all honesty, he’s meant everything to my development,” Axford said. “He carries about his business perfectly. He’s been the best mentor for me.

“I see what he does and I try to build upon that. I try to do right by Trevor and that’s by doing things the right way.”

Milwaukee manager Ken Macha pointed to an example of the leadership Hoffman has provided the young Brewers pitchers.

“Today, we’re out there taking extra [batting practice] and we’ve got all these pitchers [led by Hoffman] running around in the parking lot with their shirts off, so it’s something else that he’s done for these guys,” Macha said.

The team presented Hoffman with a large painting of him pitching at Miller Park, and sold commemorative T-shirts to fans after the game. His teammates gave him praise in the locker room and a gift of cigars.

“He’s taught me a lot of things as far as being a teammate and being a team player and going about the game,” slugger Prince Fielder said. “Everything he says is good knowledge. His work ethic is through the roof. He works hard every day.”

Besides Hoffman’s milestone, it was a game where four people were ejected by the umpires, including Macha. The manager was tossed in the second inning, but watched the game from the clubhouse. He said pitching coach Rick Peterson came in to ask him about the ninth inning, and he told him to send Hoffman to the mound.

The right-hander entered in the ninth to his traditional music — “Hells Bells” by AC/DC — and gave up a bloop single to Colby Rasmus. Pinch-hitter Randy Winn then grounded into a double play.

Hoffman got pinch-hitter Aaron Miles on a grounder to shortstop for the final out and raised his arms in triumph as teammates rushed to mob him near the mound. Fireworks went off and the No. 599 was peeled off to reveal ’600′ on a sign next to the Brewers’ bullpen in left-center.

“He’s one of the best relievers the game’s ever seen,” Miles said. “I always look forward to competing against him in the ninth inning. Congratulations to him.”

It was Hoffman’s ninth save in 13 chances this season and 600th in 676 career opportunities. He earned his first save for Florida in 1993, then spent most of his career with the San Diego Padres before joining the Brewers last season.

He said he hasn’t decided whether he’ll return to pitch next season or retire.

Hoffman passed Lee Smith as the career saves leader, earning No. 479 while pitching for San Diego against Pittsburgh on Sept. 24, 2006.

Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees is second in major league history with 555 saves.

Courtesy: ESPN

The Heisman Trophy Trust is expected to strip former USC running back Reggie Bush of his 2005 Heisman Trophy and leave the award vacant, Yahoo Sports reported.

Two sources close to the trust said the organization is completing its investigation and will agree with the NCAA’s finding that Bush accepted improper benefits while at USC and was ineligible during the 2005 season, according to the report. The NCAA cited USC for “lack of institutional control” and handed the Trojans four years’ probation, a two-year bowl ban and a reduction in football scholarships.

Bush would become the first player in the 75-year history of the Heisman Trophy to have the award taken away.

In July, USC president C.L. Max Nikias ordered the school’s athletic department to return its copy of Bush’s 2005 Heisman to the Heisman Trophy Trust. Nikias also ordered the school to remove nearly all references to Bush and former basketball player O.J. Mayo, including murals, as part of the NCAA’s directive to disassociate the school from the athletes.

As that time, Bush had not been asked to return his copy and the Heisman Trophy Trust said it had not yet decided whether Bush would be stripped of the award.

Bush met with Heisman representatives last month at the New York law offices of Emmet, Marvin & Martin, the sources said, according to the report.

The sources declined to discuss the details of that meeting, according to the report.

Last week, Texas coach Mack Brown said former Longhorns quarterback Vince Young, who finished second in the 2005 Heisman voting to Bush, should be given the award if Bush is stripped. Young led the Longhorns past USC to the BCS national championship that year, after Bush was awarded the Heisman in a landslide.

The NCAA ruled that Bush received lavish gifts from two fledgling sports marketers hoping to sign him. The men paid for everything from hotel stays and a rent-free home where Bush’s family apparently lived to a limousine and a new suit when he accepted his Heisman in New York in December 2005.

Courtesy: Yahoo! Sports

“I had butterflies,” the New York Jets’ cornerback said with a grin Monday.

For a guy who routinely shuts down opponents’ best wide receivers, the acknowledgment of insecurity was stunning.

“I didn’t know how my teammates were going to accept me,” Revis said, “because I haven’t been here for a month.”

After some loud, welcoming cheers and good-natured ribbing, Revis knew he was finally back home. He signed his four-year deal Monday afternoon, apologizing to fans for not getting back sooner and officially making his return after a 36-day holdout.

“It was a good feeling just to see the guys,” Revis said, “just wanting to be around them because I haven’t been here for a while.”

Revis agreed to a new contract late Sunday night and took an early morning flight Monday from his home in South Florida. He arrived at the Jets’ training facility after 1 p.m., rejoined his teammates and signed the deal.

“It was a long process,” he said. “It was rough on me. You know I’m a football player and I love to play the game and I’m happy it’s over with. I can go play football now.”

And, he’ll get started right away. Revis is expected to practice Tuesday and be ready to play in the season opener next Monday night against Baltimore.

“I do think we may play Revis, I’m not sure,” coach Rex Ryan quipped. “I think he might need to practice for several weeks before we play him, but don’t be shocked if he’s out there.

“In other words, he’s definitely playing.”

Revis said he has stayed in shape by working out during his holdout, but he acknowledges that he’s not necessarily in football shape.

“I haven’t had pads on and I haven’t had contact,” he said. “So that’s something I have to get back into and just take it slow in the process.”

The Jets and Revis’ agents declined to announce financial terms of the deal, but it is reportedly worth at least $46 million, including $32 million guaranteed. Revis said all along he wanted to be the highest-paid player at his position, something agent Jonathan Feinsod said the Jets cornerback would be— without releasing terms.

“The numbers would reflect in our minds that he’s being paid as the highest-paid cornerback,” Feinsod said.

After months of waiting and wondering about his future, the All-Pro cornerback was just happy to be back on the field.

“This experience humbled me so much just because I love to play football,” Revis said. “At one point, it was something that was taken away, that I love to do. I’ve never had anything taken away from me that I love to do. So this was a point in my life where it was serious.”

Perhaps the most crucial moment of the negotiations came Saturday, when both Ryan and owner Woody Johnson flew to South Florida to meet with Revis, mother Diana Gilbert and uncle and former NFL player Sean Gilbert to try to solve the contract impasse.

“It meant a lot to me,” Revis said, “to show the passion they have for me to come down to Florida and just chat with me and see if we can come to a common ground and both sides can see the right thing.”

Both the Jets and Revis’ agents spoke all weekend until reaching what general manager Mike Tannenbaum called “a breakthrough” before coming to an agreement around 11 p.m. Sunday night.

“I think the thing was, the season is upon us,” Johnson said. “It was basically, let’s see if we can leave this room with something.”

During the discussion with Revis, Johnson brought up the cornerback’s Hall of Fame potential.

“We talked about how important it is to keep on the right track,” Johnson said. “If he continues his progress, I think Hall of Fame and Darrelle Revis don’t sound like they’re a strange pair.”

Revis began his holdout Aug. 1, when the team reported for training camp in Cortland without him. Agent Neil Schwartz said the nearly $600,000 in fines Revis accrued for sitting out would be given to an undetermined charity.

Since early August, the team and Revis’ agents agreed to keep all negotiations confidential after things got testy through the media. With the silence came the fear that Revis could sit out the entire season, as his uncle once did.

“I didn’t think it was going to get done,” linebacker Bart Scott said. “I was preparing myself to go into the game without him. Thankfully, we got it figured out and I think we’re a better team because of it.”

Ryan said he heard Revis was at his New Jersey home a week or so ago, and drove there to try to meet with his star player. But, Revis wasn’t home. He also acknowledged storming out of a meeting room Sunday night in frustration while negotiations with Revis’ agents were being done over the phone.

“I was ripping everybody on both sides,” he said. “After I threw my little tantrum and the deal was getting done, they brought me back up.”

Revis made it to practice in time to address the team and break down the practice huddle, with NFL Films cameras capturing the moment for HBO’s “Hard Knocks” series. Some Jets players shouted, “Revis Christ!” at him, while others poked fun at Revis’ bushy beard.

“It was kind of funny,” safety James Ihedigbo said. “A bunch of guys started the Rudy clap, that nice slow clap, as he came out. We welcomed him with open arms.”

Courtesy: Yahoo! Sports

On the four major wireless networks — Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T, Sprint (S, Fortune 500) and T-Mobile — there are 13 smartphones priced at $199 with a two-year contract. There are no phone models with a higher starting price (add-ons like more memory can increase the price tag), and there are more smartphones selling at $199 than at any other single price point.

But spending $199 doesn’t guarantee you a top-of-the-line phone. On AT&T’s (T, Fortune 500) network, $199 will buy an iPhone 4, the best-selling smartphone of all time. But you’ll need to fork over the same amount for a BlackBerry Bold 9700, a nine-month-old phone that lacks a touch screen.

It will also cost you $199 to get an HTC Tilt 2, which runs Windows Mobile 6.5 — an operating system so out of date that Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) is set to completely abandon it in the next few months.

So what’s so special about $199?

“The obvious answer is that $199 is a magic price point for smartphone volume,” said George Appling, partner at consulting firm Booz & Co. “The not-so-obvious reason is that carriers are not charging customers what they pay.”

In other words, wireless carriers pay significantly more for smartphones than you do. In exchange for your signature on an expensive two-year contract, they’ll offer you the smartphone for less than it costs them but as much as they think you’ll pay for it — and right now, that’s $199 across the board. Buy an unsubsidized iPhone 4 straight from Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and you’ll pay $599 for the 16 GB phone that AT&T sells for $199 with a two-year contract.

Smartphones generally cost carriers around $500 per unit. Volume deals and other negotiations with manufacturers can shave down that price tag, but the hotter the phone, the more a carrier will pay to buy it.

But that’s just the start of their calculations of what a phone “costs.”

Phones that tend to eat up more bandwidth — hello iPhone! — add to the carrier’s overhead. Put together the upfront cost of the phone and the back-end cost to service it, and you’re left with the phone’s profit margin. For a model with really tight margins, the carrier might find itself essentially forced to charge more upfront than it otherwise would — it can’t discount the purchase price and still scrape out a profit. That sometimes leads to inferior phones, like the BlackBerry Bold, carrying the same price tag as more advanced rivals, like BlackBerry’s Torch.

It wasn’t always that way. Before the age of tricked-out smartphones with expensive touch screens and processors, cell phones were much cheaper to manufacture. That gave wireless companies more leeway to compete on cost, and prior to the iPhone’s mid-2007 release, phones had a wide variety of price tags.

But as phones got more expensive, a tiering of prices developed. Even the iPhone couldn’t hold the high ground: Initially priced at $599 — yes, even with a two-year contract — the phone plunged to $399 just two months after its debut. By 2008, it had settled into the $199 groove.

If you don’t need the latest and greatest, you can certainly score a gadget for less. Older, less exciting smartphones like the LG Ally, Palm Pre and Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500) Devour go for $149, or even $99.

But you won’t find many phones priced outside those $50 tier increments.

“There’s no $189 price point any more because operators don’t want to suggest that one phone is a little better or a little worse than another at the same tier,” said Charles Golvin, analyst at Forrester Research. “Carriers are looking for simplicity, even if that doesn’t reflect their margins.”

So will any carrier try to shake up the market and sell a cutting-edge phone for less? Don’t hold your breath.

“No price war is going to happen,” Appling said. “If Verizon got the iPhone tomorrow, it would probably sell for $199. They’re already in a $300 hole when they add a customer, so they’ll be extraordinarily hesitant to make that worse.”

That’s not to say the wireless carriers are getting a bad deal. They’re happy to take the initial hit in exchange for a data plan that costs subscribers an extra $30 or so a month on their bill. And smartphone users tend to stick with their networks longer than low-end phone users, according to Soumen Ganguly, principal at Altman Vilandrie & Co. That makes them dream customers: They pay more and churn less.

The $199 price point has another perk for carriers. We’re in the midst of a smartphone innovation boom, with companies pumping out new top-of-the-line phones every few months with better screens, memory and features. When those new phones are offered at the same price point older models once were, they seem like a steal in comparison. That draws new customers into the market — and inspires those with aging phones to trade up and lock themselves into a fresh contract.

“There will always be a next big phone coming out in two months that will justify the $199 price,” Ganguly said. “Manufacturers are innovating faster than the willingness of carriers to compete on price.”

Courtesy: CNN Money

Let us say from the beginning that the guys behind this rogue like to copy big-time. They start by auto-detecting what browser the user is currently using, and then faking the malware warning page if the browser is Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox.  This is meant to be a social engineering scheme in order to trick the user into downloading and installing the rogue, relying on the user’s trust of his day-to-day browser.

The similarity between the fake warning pages is so accurate that it can trick even highly trained eyes.

In the Firefox page, for example, you can see it’s not the real warning page because they misspelled ‘out’ and wrote ‘Get me our of here’.

But for all three browsers, a common indication that you are not looking at the actual browser warning is the offer of some sort of an “update” or “solution”. All the “updates” point to a copy of MSIL/Zeven that promises to provide “a new approach to windows detection”. Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome do not offer such a solution when a website is blocked.

When installed, the product looks very genuine: it allows you to scan files, tells you when you’re behind on doing your updates, and enables you to tweak your security and privacy settings. These features are usually available in various legitimate antivirus solutions. However, the features don’t work; everything is there just to look nice, not to offer any kind of protection (just like in all other rogue antivirus programs).

Of course once it scans your computer it’s bound to claim it found something scary (malicious), as shown below:

As usual with rogue scanners, although it “found” malicious files, it claims it cannot delete them unless you update. That implies that you need to pay for the full version, which has the ability to download updates. However, these files are totally bogus; no such files exist in the user’s computer.

If you decide to buy the product, this rogue opens an HTML window enabled with ‘Safe Browsing Mode’ and high strength encryption to “help” and ”protect” you while completing your purchase. Of course these features are totally worthless and don’t actually do anything in the way of securing your credit card details.

The main page of the rogue antivirus program itself looks awfully close to the Microsoft Security Essentials webpage – more copying from the bad guys. The people behind it have even copied the awards received by Microsoft Security Essentials and link to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center -  pretty sneaky of them.

This is a screenshot of the rogue’s main webpage:

And, by way of contrast, this is a screenshot of the genuine Microsoft Security Essentials page:

It seems that these guys want to profit on the good reputation and success of Microsoft Security Essentials in order to make money – but we remind our customers that Microsoft Security Essentials can be downloaded at no cost. And it really does protect your computer from malware!

We detect both the downloader of the rogue and the rogue itself as Rogue:MSIL/Zeven.

Courtesy: TechNet Blogs

“Me and [Interscope Records CEO] Jimmy [Iovine] talk about this all the time. It was supposed to be my album promoting the headphones, but it’s gonna be the other way around now. It’s gonna be a two-for-one thing. As soon as we finish this interview I’m going into the studio and get it on. I know it’s taking a long time but it’s not 100 percent work on my album that I’m doing every day. That’s why it’s taking so long. It’s been almost ten years since my last album — but I haven’t been sitting on my hands. Keeping it real with you, I just started really getting involved in it and really feeling it this year. Around January or February. Before now I was kind of doing it more out of obligation, but now I really feel it inside and it’s pouring out right now. Music comes out much better when you’re in that frame of mind.”

Courtesy: Rap Basement

In “The Grand Design,” co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday.

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,” Hawking writes.

“It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

Hawking, 68, who won global recognition with his 1988 book “A Brief History of Time,” an account of the origins of the universe, is renowned for his work on black holes, cosmology and quantum gravity.

Since 1974, the scientist has worked on marrying the two cornerstones of modern physics — Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which concerns gravity and large-scale phenomena, and quantum theory, which covers subatomic particles.

His latest comments suggest he has broken away from previous views he has expressed on religion. Previously, he wrote that the laws of physics meant it was simply not necessary to believe that God had intervened in the Big Bang.

He wrote in A Brief History … “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.”

In his latest book, he said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God.

“That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions — the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings,” he writes.

Hawking, who is only able to speak through a computer-generated voice synthesizer, has a neuro muscular dystrophy that has progressed over the years and left him almost completely paralyzed.

He began suffering the disease in his early 20s but went on to establish himself as one of the world’s leading scientific authorities, and has also made guest appearances in “Star Trek” and the cartoons “Futurama” and “The Simpsons.”

Last year he announced he was stepping down as Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a position once held by Newton and one he had held since 1979.

“The Grand Design” is due to go on sale next week.

(Editing by Steve Addison)

And the song’s pretty catchy, too!

Cee-Lo Green’s “F**k You” video was viewed over a million times on YouTube in its first three days on the site. It now has over 4 million views — pretty impressive for a video that features nothing but scrolling lyrics.

The song is similar in concept to Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.” The singer’s girl has left him for another, richer guy, and he’d just like to politely say to them both: “F**k You.”

In fact, the song is sung so sweetly that the F-word (which can easily be bleeped out for your PG-rated pleasure) is not even as off-putting as the N-word (which sneaks in just once).

And no one is more shocked by the video’s success than Cee-Lo, who is also a member of the group Gnarls Barkley.

The video was only supposed to be a temporary placeholder while Cee-Lo shoots his official video for the song in the coming weeks, Urlesque reports.

Sometimes, the more simple the delivery, the more powerful the message.

As for who will have the viral video hit of 2010, Cee-Lo has plenty of competition.

Tween heartthrobs Greyson Chance and Justin Bieber will duke it out with icon-in-the-making Lady Gaga and a little 13-year-old opera singer.

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Located At :

407 Murfreesboro Road
Nashville, TN 37210

(One block from Purity Dairy and across the street from Ozburn Hessey Carpet Center)

Cafe Hours:

Monday thru Thursday 10:30 AM – 9:00 PM
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Last Sunday in every month 11:30 – 7:00 pm

The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the blast, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the area Thursday morning. All 13 people aboard the rig have been accounted for, with one injury. The extent of the injury was not known.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said some of those from the rig were spotted in emergency flotation devices.

Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile, Ala., Ben-Iesau said. She said authorities do not know whether oil was leaking from the site.

The Department of Homeland Security said the platform was in about 2,500 feet of water and owned by Mariner Energy of Houston. DHS said it was not producing oil and gas.

The Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP was in about 5,000 feet of water when it exploded and sank in April, killing 11 workers and triggering a leak of about 206 million gallons of oil.

The rapper was arrested Wednesday night in West Hollywood during a traffic stop, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy Mark Pope told The Associated Press. Authorities said they smelled a strong marijuana odor but would not say if any other drugs were found in the car.

The 29-year-old rapper and his wife, Tameka Cottle, were released from jail at about 4 a.m. Thursday after posting $10,000 bail each, sheriff’s Deputy Luis Castro said.

T.I.’s publicist declined to comment.

The arrests follow last week’s detention of socialite Paris Hilton, who is being investigated for felony cocaine possession after a motorcycle officer smelled pot wafting from her car.

The Atlanta-based rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., is a multiplatinum hitmaker. Known as the “King of the South,” he has emerged one of music’s most profitable stars.

He also has a key role in the current top box office movie “Takers.” The shoot-’em-up about an armored truck robbery that goes bad was released last week and topped the box-office chart.

Cottle, 36, sang with the 1990s group Xscape and has recently been the star of the BET reality series, “The Tiny & Toya Show,”

She and the rapper, who is a father of five, married in late July.

T.I. served seven months in an Arkansas federal prison and three months in a Georgia halfway house on federal weapons charges and was released in March. He was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release after his prison sentence ended.

He was ordered not to commit another federal, state or local crime while on supervised release, and also ordered not to illegally possess a controlled substance. He was also told to take at least three drug tests after his release and to participate in a drug and alcohol treatment program.

Patrick Crosby, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, had no immediate comment Thursday on whether Harris violated the terms of the judge’s order.

Since his release, the rapper, who previously spent time behind bars for drug offenses, has vowed to live a better life. He spoke to children about the dangers of drugs and guns, and former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young was one of his supporters. As he prepared for his most recent sentence, he starred in the MTV reality show “T.I.’s Road to Redemption: 45 Days to Go.”

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, T.I. talked about living a more positive life.

“Right now, it’s all about moving forward and just acknowledging the blessing that are here today. … Just moving past the regrets of yesterday — the things that could’ve been done better,” T.I. said in a July interview.

Courtesy: Yahoo! News

A few weeks after the Nashville rapper (real name: David Darnell Brown) filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection and saw his assets seized by the Internal Revenue Service, Young Buck’s lawyer says he’s trying to get his property back and plans to sue fellow rapper Curtis Jackson (you may know him as 50 Cent), with whom he’s been feuding for the past few years.

“Mr. Brown intends to reorganize his debts and pay off the IRS in a timely manner through Chapter 13. We hope to secure the return of his personal property quickly. He will also be filing a lawsuit in the next 30-60 days against his former manager, G-Unit label and Mr. Curtis Jackson,” Lynda Jones, Young Buck’s bankruptcy attorney, told the Nashville City Paper.

Young Buck’s beef with 50 Cent (who holds a contingent claim of $5 million in Young Buck’s bankruptcy) dates back to his time as a member of G-Unit, the crew of rappers that 50 Cent signed to his record label and called on to back him up in his songs. 50 Cent told MTV in 2008 that he kicked Young Buck out of the group after he made disparaging comments about it in public. However, 50 Cent kept Young Buck on his G-Unit record label, which Young Buck told MTV in early August that he’s still fighting to be released from (he currently has his own label, Cashville Records).

As for the rapper’s financial problems, Young Buck filed a payment plan in his bankruptcy proceeding on Aug. 19 that commits him to paying $12,500 a month for the next 60 months. According to court papers, his creditors are owed $1 million, and he’s required to pay them at least $750,000.

Among Young Buck’s debts are $33,100 owed on a 2009 Cadillac Escalade and about $700,000 on two mortgages. There’s also the IRS (owed about $300,000 for several years’ worth of unpaid taxes) which on Aug. 3 seized such assets from Brown’s home as a Breitling diamond watch, more than $20,000 in music-recording equipment, 50 Cent and G-Unit memorabilia, a faux fur coat, six televisions and X-Box. The City Paper reported that the feds took about $70,000 worth of goods in all, which didn’t leave Young Buck too pleased.

“The worst part of this isn’t the material stuff – that will all be replaced,” Buck said in a statement to MTV. “It’s what it does to the people around me. They took my kids’ PlayStation, my assistants’ computers, and baby’s mothers’ jewelry. They took my home studio so I can’t even record.”

But the rapper said amid all the drama, he’s learning a valuable lesson.

“I have a new team in place, but I am also paying full attention now,” he said. “Nothing like this will ever happen again. This is a huge wake-up call for all entertainers to stay on top of your own trusted employees and team members, and replace anyone that was put in place by your record label if the situation you have goes sour. This IRS situation came about because I trusted accountants, lawyers and managers to handle my business for me while I focused on making music. From now on, I am going to stay on top of my own business.”

Courtesy: The Wall Street Journal

But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren’t entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does tend to increase one’s risk of dying, even when you exclude former problem drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers’ mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers. (See pictures of booze under a microscope.)

Moderate drinking, which is defined as one to three drinks per day, is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies. Moderate alcohol use (especially when the beverage of choice is red wine) is thought to improve heart health, circulation and sociability, which can be important because people who are isolated don’t have as many family members and friends who can notice and help treat health problems.

But why would abstaining from alcohol lead to a shorter life? It’s true that those who abstain from alcohol tend to be from lower socioeconomic classes, since drinking can be expensive. And people of lower socioeconomic status have more life stressors — job and child-care worries that might not only keep them from the bottle but also cause stress-related illnesses over long periods. (They also don’t get the stress-reducing benefits of a drink or two after work.)

But even after controlling for nearly all imaginable variables — socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on — the researchers (a six-member team led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin) found that over a 20-year period, mortality rates were highest for those who were not current drinkers, regardless of whether they used to be alcoholics, second highest for heavy drinkers and lowest for moderate drinkers.

The sample of those who were studied included individuals between ages 55 and 65 who had had any kind of outpatient care in the previous three years. The 1,824 participants were followed for 20 years. One drawback of the sample: a disproportionate number, 63%, were men. Just over 69% of the abstainers died during the 20 years, 60% of the heavy drinkers died and only 41% of moderate drinkers died.

These are remarkable statistics. Even though heavy drinking is associated with higher risk for cirrhosis and several types of cancer (particularly cancers in the mouth and esophagus), heavy drinkers are less likely to die than don’t drink, even if they never had a problem with alcohol. One important reason is that alcohol lubricates so many social interactions, and social interactions are vital for maintaining mental and physical health. As I pointed out last year, nondrinkers show greater signs of depression than those who allow themselves to join the party.

The authors of the new paper are careful to note that even if drinking is associated with longer life, it can be dangerous: it can impair your memory severely and it can lead to nonlethal falls and other mishaps (like, say, cheating on your spouse in a drunken haze) that can screw up your life. There’s also the dependency issue: if you become addicted to alcohol, you may spend a long time trying to get off the bottle.

That said, the new study provides the strongest evidence yet that moderate drinking is not only fun but good for you. So make mine a double.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014332,00.html#ixzz0yI0WpV36

Courtesy: Time

The insurance was obtained through Lloyd’s of London, which did not reveal what must be done to Polamalu’s hair for anyone to collect on the policy.

Authorities told leaders of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro that four pieces of heavy construction equipment on the site were doused with an accelerant and one set ablaze early Saturday morning. The site is now being patrolled at all hours by the sheriff’s department.

Federal investigators have not ruled it arson, saying only that the fire was being probed and asked the public to call in tips. Eric Kehn, spokesman for the Nashville office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said arson is suspected.

The site has already seen vandalism, said Joel Siskovic, a spokesman for the FBI in the Memphis office. A sign at the site was spray-painted with the words “Not Welcome” and then torn in half. The FBI is investigating the fire in case it is a civil rights violation.

“We want to make sure there are not people acting with the intent to prevent people from exercising their First Amendment rights,” Siskovic said.

Essam Fathy, chairman of the planning committee for the mosque, said he has lived in the city about 25 miles southeast of Nashville for almost 30 years and has never run into problems with his faith until now. He’s concerned that outsiders could be involved.

“I don’t think this is coming out of Murfreesboro,” he said. “There were no issues at any time, even after 9/11, there were no issues. It just seems like there’s a movement in the United States against Islam.”

The debate in New York over a proposed Islamic community center and mosque two blocks away from ground zero has pitted advocates for religious freedom, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg andPresident Barack Obama, against opponents who think it is insensitive to the victims of the terror attacks.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, weighed in on the project for the first time on Monday.

“I guess I would ask everybody to remember that this is a country whose deepest origins are in religious freedom — it was founded by people who escaped to it to practice their religions — and to ask people to please have great respect for anyone’s religious preferences and their rights to practice those in the United States. I think it goes right to the heart of what this country is about.”

Supporters of the Tennessee mosque and some leaders in other faiths hope the fire could be a wake-up call to support religious freedom.

Two years ago, several men broke into the Islamic Center of Columbia, about 30 miles southwest of Murfreesboro, and torched it with molotov cocktails, stealing a stereo system and painting swastikas and “White Power” on the front of the building.

In some ways, the Muslim community in Columbia has emerged stronger than ever. After being welcomed at a local Presbyterian church for a few months, the group bought a new building with the support of people of many faiths from across Tennessee and across the country, Daoud Abudiab said.

But the firebombing affected him, and others, in ways that are harder to see.

“Every night, after that incident, I’ve activated the alarm at my house,” he said. “Every night I arm it and I think of that incident and I think of my kids.”

A candlelight vigil was planned Monday night in support of the Murfreesboro project by the group Middle Tennesseans for Religious Freedom, or MT4RF.

The group formed earlier this year to show support for the new mosque and Murfreesboro’s Muslim community. Group leaders previously organized a counter-protest when mosque opponents marched on the courthouse in July demanding approval for the new mosque be rescinded.

“This definitely shakes up the community,” spokeswoman Claire Rogers said. “These actions are not encouraged by any member of this community. This simply portrays us in such a negative light.”

Some opponents of the mosque said they were concerned about how the project went through the city planning process and increased traffic. But many of the opponents at a recent rally expressed a fear that Muslims want to overthrow the government and bring Islamic law to the U.S.

Kevin Fisher, organizer of a July demonstration and petition drive against the mosque said he is opposed to any type of violence. But he wants to wait for the investigation of the fire before concluding that it was set by a mosque opponent.

The hack, dubbed PS Jailbreak, allows users to play illegally distributed but also legitimate ‘homebrew’ games on a retail PS3 by essentially making it function like a “debug” unit–a special version of the PS3 used by developers and some in the press to interact with non-retail versions of games.

The group responsible for the hack claims it can also block Sony’s mandatory firmware updates, which might otherwise disable the hack, or render the system unusable.

The Australian injunction, which only runs through August 31, orders that anyone “importing [the devices] into Australia with the intention of providing selling them to another person” must refrain from distributing them to anyone else, offer them to the public, provide them to another person, or “otherwise [deal] in them.” If that all sounds a bit pleonastic, I guess a little legal redundancy goes a long way.

Solicitors must also hand over existing stock to Sony for holding through August 31. What’s more, the injunction orders “that such limited number of PSJailbreak Devices as to the Court seems appropriate be released to the Applicants and their advisers (technical, legal or otherwise) for such analysis, including destructive analysis, as the Applicants think fit, upon the payment to the applicable respondent of its retail price for each such PSJailbreak Device.”

In other words, pass Sony a clutch of PSJailbreaks, allow them to analyze said devices, then Sony can opt to destroy them–so long as it pays the “applicable respondent” the “retail price” per each. Whatever you think of the PSJailbreak’s legality, that sounds like the court overstepping its bounds to me.

Sony has the weekend and the first two days of next week to convince the courts to either render the injunction permanent or extend it. Failing that, the device will go on sale in Australia September 1.

It’s hard to say where this goes next, though a permanent injunction seems likely given the venue. This February, an Australian court halted sales of the R4 Nintendo DS mod chip and ordered an Australian distributor to pay Nintendo nearly half a million dollars. And in late July, London’s High Court ruled the R4 cartridge as well as similar devices illegal in the UK.

In the U.S., by contrast, a court recently ruled iPhone jailbreaking was “fair use.”

The question this side of the pond then is: How is jailbreaking a PS3–intentionality notwithstanding–any different?

Eighty percent of today’s personal computers use Intel processors. But Intel is absent in smart phones, which are threatening PCs as gateways to the Internet. One reason is that Intel still doesn’t have good ways to design chips to use less power, so Intel’s products drain batteries more quickly — something smart-phone makers won’t tolerate.

The dynamic has put Intel at risk of missing out on the next great opportunity for semiconductor companies. That is why Intel has decided to buy the wireless-chip division of Germany’s Infineon Technologies AG for $1.4 billion. With it, Intel gets the chips used in Apple Inc.’s popular iPhone.

The all-cash deal, announced Monday, is an acknowledgment that Intel has missed the boat on mobile phones, and it gives the company an opportunity to correct its course.

The challenge is similar to the one Microsoft Corp. is facing with Google Inc. as software is increasingly being delivered over the Internet instead of being stored on PCs, the way Microsoft has long approached it. Like Microsoft, Intel is the undisputed leader in a market that’s under attack from a fast-rising force from the outside.

Intel is trying to play catch-up before it falls too far behind.

Intel bought mobile software maker Wind River Systems for $884 million last summer, and the company has spearheaded development of the open-source Moblin software, which is designed to run on mobile devices that use Intel chips.

Two weeks ago, it announced plans to buy computer-security software maker McAfee Inc. for $7.68 billion, which would be the biggest acquisition in Intel’s 42-year history once it gains the expected approvals.

As mobile phones become increasingly enticing targets for hackers, security companies have been developing ways to protect those devices. With McAfee, Intel would be able to bake security into its mobile chips — including those from Infineon.

But even as Infineon’s products give Intel quick entry into the mobile-chip business, Intel is fighting its own history with the Infineon deal, which could prove to be a costly distraction. Many analysts aren’t optimistic about Intel’s chances, pointing to its spotty track record with acquisitions.

“We feel like we have seen this movie before,” analyst Craig Berger with FBR Capital Markets wrote in a research note to investors.

Berger said Intel would gain a strong business with a “sizable presence” among big cell-phone makers and the expertise in building chips based on a low-power design that is widely used in cell phones.

However, he said he is skeptical of Intel’s ability to execute outside of its core market, which is making microprocessors that act as the “brains” of PCs.

Intel needs to branch out because that market is under pressure. Last week, Intel lowered its forecast for the third quarter, blaming weaker-than-expected consumer demand for PCs. PC makers also have been cutting prices drastically in recent years, and in lean times have been buying cheaper chips from Intel just to maintain slim profits.

Intel had a division that made chips for smart phones, but sold it off four years ago in a round of cost-cutting. Since then, Intel has focused on its core business. Meanwhile, use of the Internet on mobile phones has exploded, and companies that make chips for phones have benefited from demand for more capable — and expensive — chips.

Phone chips need to sip power instead of guzzle it, and even Intel’s energy-efficient designs are criticized as too power-hungry for today’s smart phones. Phone makers need to make awkward contortions, such as building bigger devices, to accommodate the need for a bigger battery — which most are loath to do.

With an annual research-and-development budget of nearly $6 billion, Intel is equipped to pour incredible resources into essentially any chip project it chooses. After its exit from the mobile-phone chip market in 2006, it focused on other types of communications technologies. Buying its way back into the market is the fastest way for the company to make up for lost time.

David Perlmutter, an Intel executive vice president, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the decision to sell the mobile-chip business in 2006 was “the right decision at the time,” and that Intel is buying a more complete lineup of technologies from Infineon than those available in the business it sold.

“I hope that we’ve learned our lessons and that we’re way more focused,” he said.

With Infineon, Intel would become the fifth-biggest supplier of mobile-phone processors if the deal closes as expected in the first quarter of next year.

It would get a running start in a market dominated by Qualcomm Inc., Texas Instruments Inc. andSTMicroelectronics, which together own about half the total market for processors and other communications chips for cell phones, according to Gartner Inc.

Still, Intel would be a small player: the Infineon division owns only about 5 percent of the market.

Analyst Tristan Gerra with Robert W. Baird & Co. warned that the deal might be “too little, too late” for Intel’s push into smart phones, and he said that Intel will have to invest heavily to keep Infineon’s products competitive with the rollout of the next-generation cellular networks known as 4G.

Gerra noted that the mobile-phone business moves faster than the PC business.

“Whether a PC company such as Intel can move nimbly given more rapid new product cycles within the mobile-phone industry remains a significant question mark,” he said.

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer

According to a post on Major Nelson’s blog, after eight years’ of Xbox Live at the $50 a year price point, the service is finally seeing a price hike. Starting on November 1, a year Gold subscription to Xbox Live will run $59.99, versus the current price of $49.99. One month subscriptions will jump from $7.99 to $9.99, while three month subs will rise from $19.99 to $24.99.

Other regions will be seeing increases as well. In the UK the price of one month will jump from 4.99 GPB to 5.99 GPB. The price of a month in Canada rises a dollar to $9.99. Finally, a year subscription in Mexico rises from 499 to 599 pesos.

Microsoft is running a special deal right now for North American customers, allowing them to lock in a year at $39.99, $20 less than the new rate. For details, visit the deal website.

Jesse Divnich with industry analyst EEDAR sent out a statement accompanying the news, insuring consumers that $60 is still “an incredible value.”

“When originally launched in 2002, a Gold subscription cost the same as an AAA video game, $49.99. When taking into account for inflation ($50 in 2002 is roughly $60 in 2010) and the additional services available to Gold subscribers in 2010, such as ESPN, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Last.fm and Video Kinect, a $10 price increase still represents an incredible value to consumers”

Whether or not $60 a year is an incredible value is ultimately up to consumers.

Courtesy: Gizmodo

If you get a new computer and have a bunch of multimedia and apps (purchased or not)installed on it, you’ll most likely want to transfer it all to another machine. There are a few different ways this can be done, and here we’ll show you some of the easiest.

Use Home Sharing Feature

The Home Sharing feature in iTunes 9 allows you to share and stream music between computers over a home network with up to 5 machines. This can be handy if you have a central computer with all of your iTunes data and you want to share it with other machines like a Netbook on your network. It also makes it easy to transfer your iTunes collection to another machine. This is probably one of the easiest ways to transfer everything over to a new machine.

To use the Home Sharing feature you’ll need iTunes 9 installed on both computers.

Here we take a look at the first machine with its iTunes Library. Notice we have some Podcasts, Music, Playlists, Apps…etc.

Enable Home Sharing

One of the features in iTunes 9 you can use to transfer your music, videos, and more on your home network is Home Sharing. Open iTunes and select Home Sharing on the left side of iTunes under Shared.

If you don’t see it go to Advanced and select Enable Home Sharing.

Next you’ll be prompted to enter your iTunes Store account to use Home Sharing. Then click the Create Home Share button.

You will need to set this up on all computers you want to share your iTunes media with. When going through the steps to enable Home Sharing on the second machine, we were prompted to authorize the computer first.

After a few seconds you’ll get a message letting you know the authorization was successful and the number of computers that are authorized. Keep in mind that iTunes only lets you authorize up to 5 machines.

If you’ve authorized iTunes on different machines throughout the years, you might get a message telling you 5 computers have already been authorized.

To solve the problem check out our article on how to deauthorize computers associated with your iTunes Account. Apple lets you deauthorize all 5 machines through your account once a year.

After setting up sharing on the second machine, everything from the first machine will be shared over to the new machine including music you’ve purchased or added to the Library, Podcasts, Videos, Playlists, Apps…basically everything.

While Home Sharing is a pretty cool feature for sharing media between machines on your network, both machines need to be on with iTunes running. If you try to close out of iTunes on one of the machines you’ll get the following message.

Then if you quit, the other machine will no longer have access to the first machine’s media.

Permanently Move Content Between Shares

Sharing between machines is all well and good, but we want to move the data to the new machine permanently. To do that there are a few different ways to go about it. For instance, here we want to move a Playlist to the new computer. Simply highlight the Playlist from the Shared Library on the first machine, and drag it up to the new machine’s Library.

Then you can close out of iTunes on the first computer you’re sharing the library with…and now you have the Playlist on the second machine.

If you want to transfer specific Apps for your iOS device or an entire collection highlight what you want and click the Import button.

You’ll see the progress while all the files are transferred from the old machine to the new one. In this example we transferred all of our apps.

And there you go… all your apps have been transferred to the second machine.

Transfer Everything

If you’re moving data to a new machine it’s nice to have the ability to pick and choose what you want to move, but perhaps you want to move the entire everything to the new machine. Just click on the first computers Shared Library, hit Ctrl+A to highlight everything then click the Import button.

You can also click on the Settings button and check what you want to transfer new purchases from the original computer’s Library.

Then wait while everything transfers. If you have a large collection it can take several minutes so your mileage will vary.

Now on the second machine we have our Music Collection, Movies, Books, iTunes U, Podcasts, Apps…everything!

Use an iPod to Transfer iTunes Collection

Plug your iPod into the computer you want to get your collection from and make sure you sync what you want included.

Then plug the iPod into your new machine. iTunes should launch and you can select to Erase and Sync or Transfer Purchases. Here we want to erase the contents of the new machine and transfer our iPod data.

You’ll get a second message asking if you’re sure…click Transfer.

Now everything from the iPod will be transferred to your new computer. Keep in mind that this will only transfer content downloaded through the iTunes Store and not ripped CDs or other added music.

Use an External Drive to Transfer Your iTunes Collection

Not everyone has the luxury of having a home network but would still like to transfer their iTunes collection to a new or second machine. First let’s take a look at copying and moving your collection with an external USB drive. While this isn’t the most perfect method, it will get all of your purchased items copied over, but you may need to manually add some of the content that isn’t in your iTunes folder.

Another thing you might want to do before transferring your collection is delete old content that you no longer use and check for duplicates. This will decrease the size of your collection and make the copying process to the external drive easier. If you’re looking for ways to make iTunes get rid of duplicates and run more quickly, check out our article on How to Make iTunes for Windows Run Faster.

Connect your USB drive to the computer with the collection you want to copy and move, and create a new folder in it such as iTunes Backup. Of course you’ll want to make sure there is plenty of room on the external drive especially if you have a large collection.

Then navigate to your iTunes folder…in Windows 7 it’s in your My Music folder by default orC:\Users\computer name\Music\iTunes. Where “computer name” is the name of your machine. Then just copy over the entire iTunes folder onto the external drive and wait for everything to copy over. The amount of time it takes will depend on the amount of data you’re moving.

Unplug the USB drive and plug it into the second computer. Make sure iTunes is closed, then simply copy the iTunes folder from the external drive to your My Music folder on the new machine.

Since you already have iTunes installed on the second machine, click yes to replacing the folder.

Then wait for the folder to be copied over.

You might also get a few duplicate file messages, check Do this or the next conflicts and select Copy and Replace.

Hold down the Shift key while you click to open iTunes…Make sure you keep the Shift key held down until you see the following dialog.

This will let you choose where to load your Library from.

Now navigate to the iTunes Library.itl file from the iTunes folder you just copied over.

Everything in your iTunes folder is transferred over exactly how it was on the other machine including your Playlists, Videos, Apps…etc. Although, when you go to play some files you may get a message telling you they’re missing…more on that below.

Keep Collection on External Drive

You might want to keep your collection on a larger external drive and not clutter up the local machine’s drive. Then you don’t need to copy anything to your local My Music folder. So instead of going to your local music folder, navigate to the external hard drive where theiTunes Library.itl file resides.

If you go to Edit \ Preferences \ Advanced … you’ll see the Library location is pointing to your external drive.

Now you’ll have all of your contents including Apps, Music, Playlists…etc. in iTunes on the second machine all running from the external drive.

Missing Music

After you transfer you’re iTunes collection over, you may find that some of the music can’t be located. This will happen if you’ve added files from other locations on your hard drive other than the iTunes Media folder. Like in this example it can’t find the band Cynic’s music.

Back on our original machine, you see the songs are located in My Music, but not in the iTunes Media folder. So in this instance it would be best to copy the entire My Music folder and any content you want to the external drive and then manually add them.

So we went ahead and browsed to the location of the song.

Then iTunes offered to find other missing songs from that directory. So at least it makes it easier to find the missing songs than adding each one manually.

iTunes Library Mover

If you don’t have a network to use the Home Sharing feature or think the manual method is too tedious, a nice freeware solution is iTunes Library Mover (link below). It’s very easy to use and requires no installation. Again for this method we’ll use an external hard drive.

Before you start, plug the external drive into the computer you’re transferring the content to and create a specific drive letter for it. This will be needed while setting up Library Mover. For more on how to change drive letters, check out our article on renaming drive letters to find your missing USB drive in Windows 7.

On the computer you’re transferring the iTunes content from, plug in your external hard drive and export the iTunes Library. Go to File \ Library \ Export Library.

Then navigate to a location on your external drive to backup the default library.xml.

Then download and extract the zip file it to a convenient location on your computer and launch iTunesLibraryMover.exe.

When Library Mover opens click the folder icon to browse to the library.xml file you just exported to the external drive. Then for the Destination Folder again browse to the same directory on the external where you put the library.xml file. Then for the New Source Folder, change the drive letter to the one you set it as on the other machine…where in out case we changed it to “V”. Then make sure to check Copy Files and click Go.

Then wait while everything is copied over…

When it’s complete you can close out of it. You won’t get a “Finished or Done” message, but to check to see what it did, open the directory on the hard drive and you’ll see a copy of your tunes.

And a new library.xml file as well.

Now that has completed, plug the external drive into your new computer. Open iTunes and go to File \ Library \ Import Playlist.

Browse to the new Library.xml file that was created on the external drive.

Then wait while everything is imported…

This did a good job of transferring our purchased music, playlists, podcasts, and video files. However it didn’t transfer Apps or iBooks. The process may sound a bit complicated but it really isn’t when you use it. If you have any trouble figuring out the utility, the author has a step by step tutorial on their site.

While there are many other ways to go about transferring your iTunes content from one machine to another, we tried to find the easiest ones for you. If you’re on a home network, then using the Home Sharing feature is very easy. Once you start doing it manually there are more steps involved. Also, you might have to do some extra work as far as making sure songs are found and do some tweaking to your lists.

Download iTunes Library Mover

Courtesy: How-to Geek

“I was on my way to the Staples Center that day… When I heard ‘Man In The Mirror,’ it just touched me. It wasn’t fake. I know people were trying to put extras on it, but everything was genuine. That was my ultimate apology, hands down.”

Brown’s statement is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about that sobbing performance one way or the other. It sidesteps entirely the question of whether Brown’s attention-getting breakdown, even if it was “genuine,” was an appropriate way to honor the late King of Pop. But what do you think of his latest words on the subject?

We’ve already reported that Lil Wayne is set to release his I Am Not a Human Being EP on September 27, his birthday. Its lead, Drake-assisted single, “Right Above It,” debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart yesterday. But Jermaine “Mack Maine” Preyan, the incarcerated rhymer’s Young Money label head, revealed to MTV today that the highly anticipated followup to 2008′s Tha Carter IIIcould come just weeks after that.

Since Wayne had recorded so much music before being locked down last spring, Maine said that they plan to release Tha Carter IV on November 5, the day Wayne is released from Rikers Island.

“Tha Carter IV plans we had and still have are to put Tha Carter IV out the day he comes out,” Mack told MTV. “He had so many songs for Tha Carter IV, we said let’s just put these 10 songs out [for I Am Not a Human Being] and double back for Tha Carter IV. He has more songs for Tha Carter IV that are still strong.”

Maine also said that Wayne is heavily involved in the song selection process and has picked six records already. A first single “could be as early as October. Or we might just drop the album that day, just surprise [the fans]. Just hope it don’t leak out and drop it that day. I think it would crazy, the anticipation.”

This just sounds like they’d like to capitalize on buzz and make the most money rather than make the best product. You’re telling me I’d have to wait until Tha Carter V (by the way, when will this Carter series end?) to hear a new batch of music from a post-jail Wayne? That’s nuts. For someone whose love for recording music is so robust, I’d expect Wayne to want to jump in the studio as soon as he leaves prison and give his fans some raps fresh from the oven. If there are big records on it, the album will sell either way. Just ask Eminem. I’m looking forward to the album just as much as the next rap head is. But I’m also hoping for a classic one.

Maine also confirmed that Wayne will have a concert the night he gets out, but wasn’t sure where it would be held just yet.

What do you think of Wayne’s release day plans? Is his team trying to take your money or give you the best album possible? Will you try to make it to his first concert post jail? Let us know.