OBAMA TO FOCUS ON CYBERSECURITY IN HEART OF SILICON VALLEY 06 OSCAR RACE IS ALL ABOUT TIMING (EXCEPT WHEN IT’S NOT) 14 DRONES RULE: PROPOSED RULES FOR COMMERCIAL UNMANNED AIRCRAFT 22 DRAWING AND PAINTING IN THE DIGITAL TOUCHSCREEN ERA 32 DIDDY, SNOOP DOGG HOLD ALL-STAR HIP-HOP CONCERTIN NYC 56 ARE YOU A HACK WAITING TO HAPPEN? YOUR BOSS WANTS TO KNOW 62 RAPPER DRAKE RELEASES SURPRISE ALBUM ON ITUNES 70 NOW SOMEONE CAN MANAGE YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT AFTER YOU DIE 72 POP PHENOMENON MEGHAN TRAINOR TAKING OVER THE WORLD 76 ACTOR EDDIE MURPHY RELEASES REGGAE SINGLE 92 REVIEW: WHY SUBSCRIBE TO OFFICE WHEN SO MUCH IS FREE? 98 iTUNES REVIEW 106 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PLANS TO FILM ALL SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY 124 REVIEW: ‘SATIN ISLAND’ BY TOM MCCARTHY IS DAZZLING, FUNNY 130 SCIENCE: SHOULD WE CALL THE COSMOS SEEKING ET? OR IS THAT RISKY? 134 HEALTH: DEMOCRATS SEEK RELIEF FROM HEALTH LAW PENALTIES 144 ‘FIFTY SHADES’ TIES UP A COOL $93 MILLION DEBUT 152 TIGHTER ONLINE CONTROLS IN CHINA POINT TO WIDER CLAMPDOWN 160 MSNBC’S BRZEZINSKI TO HOST EVENTS FOR WOMEN 172 NY FASHION WEEK: NAOMI CAMPBELL WOWS ZAC POSEN CROWD 178 TOY MUSEUM ANNOUNCES HALL OF FAME FOR VIDEO GAMES 184 REVIEW: LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA’S ‘HAMILTON’ IS A ROLLICKING SHOW 188
6
OBAMA TO FOCUS ON CYBERSECURITY IN HEART OF SILICON VALLEY
Responding to unprecedented data breaches and cyberattacks, President Barack Obama is trying to spark alliances between policymakers who want to regulate the online world and tech innovators who traditionally shun Beltway bureaucracies. In California’s Silicon Valley on Friday, Obama was participating in a White House summit on cybersecurity and consumer protection, joining hundreds of administration officials, tech and other CEOs, law enforcement officials and consumer and privacy advocates. The focus is on encouraging every player to do better at sharing information that can help the private sector prevent and respond to costly and potentially crippling threats to the security of their online networks. Obama was delivering the keynote address at the daylong event, as well as leading a round-table discussion with a group of business leaders.
7
J.J. Thompson, CEO and managing director of Rook Security, a consulting firm founded in San Jose, California, said the symbolic significance of the gathering could not be overstated, despite its “dog and pony show” aspects. The summit is being held at Stanford University, a hub of tech innovation. “Cybersecurity is at the forefront of everyone in America right now, from the Beltway to California,” Thompson said in an interview. Jeff Zients, a top economic adviser to Obama, said a goal of the summit is to drive home the message that strong cybersecurity can provide companies with a competitive edge. “Cybersecurity is not a problem for just one or two sectors of the economy,” he told reporters. “All industry sectors and types of businesses face cybersecurity risks.”
8
9
Numerous companies, ranging from mass retailers like Target and Home Depot to Sony Pictures Entertainment to health insurer Anthem, have suffered costly and embarrassing data breaches in recent months. The Twitter feed of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the volatile Middle East, was hacked recently, while the White House reported detecting “activity of concern” last October on the unclassified computer network used by White House staffers. While a growing cadre of information security experts have for years grappled with cybersecurity as online communications boomed, their concerns have largely been downplayed. But with record public and private sector data breaches last year - the Identity Theft Resource Center found that 85 million records were exposed last year - the discussion has moved from the tech geeks to policy wonks. And the federal government itself is struggling: cyberattackers trumped terrorists as the No. 1 threat to national security, according to an annual review by intelligence officials last year. The Obama administration wants Congress to supersede an existing patchwork of state laws by setting a national standard for when companies must notify consumers that their personal information has been compromised. Obama was signing an executive order Friday to encourage members of the private sector to share information about threats to cybersecurity with each other and with the federal government, but he also wants Congress to pass legislation. “What we as an industry, spanning across public and private sector security teams, need to improve on is breaking down the silos of `how’ and `to whom’ threat data and threat intelligence is being shared,” said Barmak Meftah, president of the San Mateo, California, cybersecurity startup AlienVault.
10
11
Stanford is in the heart of the Silicon Valley, home to Google, Apple, Facebook, Intel and most other tech leaders. The valley is also a national hub of innovation, with the most patents, venture capital investment and startups per capita in the U.S. The university launched a $15 million initiative in November to research the technical and governance issues involved in maintaining security online. A sore point for the private sector is that while most states require them to report breaches, the federal government isn’t required to publicize its own data losses.
12
13
14
OSCAR RACE IS ALL ABOUT TIMING (EXCEPT WHEN IT’S NOT)
Timing is everything in the Oscar race. Except when it’s not. This year’s Academy Awards field has done more than most to upend traditional rhythms of Hollywood’s awards season, a normally finelytuned red-carpet ballet. “Not my tempo” - the indelible line from J.K. Simmons’ music instructor in the best-picture nominated “Whiplash” - has been the season’s mantra. The critical favorite, Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” was the front-runner for much of the season, only to be seemingly usurped by the industry’s choice, “Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance),” which swept the guild awards. Momentum - the most cherished, carefully sought ingredient in any Oscar campaign - has been elusive, just as the normal parameters of awards season appear to be shifting. “Boyhood” (six nominations) and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (nine nods) were released early in the year, long before most Oscar movies were even in the blocks. At the same time, the other end of the calendar no longer seems so safe.
15
16
Of the last three movies to debut - “Selma,” “American Sniper” and “Unbroken” - only one emerged as an awards juggernaut. The timing was perfect for Clint Eastwood’s Iraq War sensation, which was eagerly embraced by conservative America, leading to record-setting box office in addition to six nominations. But “Selma,” which director Ava DuVernay completed shortly before its Christmas Day release, didn’t catch on with awards the way many expected. The reasons could be numerous, and certainly many read racism into the film’s snubbing (though it landed two Oscar nominations, including best picture). But the lesson of “Selma” in Hollywood was more straightforward: It arrived too late to sufficiently screen for the industry’s guilds or to solidly stake its place among the top contenders. “A lot of companies, including us, should open a lot of these films a lot earlier if we can in that last quarter of the year because it becomes so freaking crowded,” says Michael Barker, copresident of Sony Pictures Classics, which this Oscar season, landed 18 nominations, its most ever. “A lot of these we couldn’t open earlier because they weren’t ready.” Last year, Barker faced a similar choice with Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher,” a film originally slated to be a fall 2013 release. But with Miller needing more time to edit, SPC chose not to rush it out, instead debuting it to acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival (where Miller won best director), setting it on a path that eventually led to five Oscar nominations. Sony Pictures Classics has had success with a handful of summer releases that were still remembered by the Academy Awards (notably Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” and “Midnight in Paris”). But every film is different, Barker noted. After acquiring the Alzheimer’s drama “Still Alice” at the Toronto Film Festival in September, SPC
17
18
immediately slated it for a December release, seeing the strong response to Julianne Moore lead performance. Now, Moore is considered a shoo-in for best actress. Paramount Pictures had good reason to rush “Selma.” The film was bursting with relevance, arriving while protesters were flooding the streets over the Eric Garner and Darren Wilson grand jury decisions. The same timing that may have hurt “Selma” didn’t have the same effect on “American Sniper” partly because Eastwood’s film was finished far in advance and so it had no trouble getting screeners to guilds, many of which vote in December. The thing is that no one wants to “peak” early. Oscar season shares much with president campaigns, where candidates fear entering the ring too soon. But being the last to jump into turbulent award season waters with a holiday release now appears risky, too. “When the Oscars were at the end of March, a December release was advantageous, but not any longer, due to a number of factors, primarily the calendaring of the ballots, busy holiday schedules, colliding releases, etcetera,” veteran awards season consultant Tony Angellotti said in an email. “Two films released early on, `Boyhood,’ and `Budapest,’ have successfully weathered all seasonal bends and curves.” If either were to win best picture, it would be the first film released before the fall to take the award since 2009’s “The Hurt Locker” (a June debut) and only the fourth pre-autumn best-picture winner in the past two decades. (The others were 1999’s “Gladiator” and 1995’s “Braveheart.”) Angellotti believes the biggest winners from this awards season may be the fall film festivals in Telluride, Toronto and New York - the launching pads of the majority of awards-seekers. It’s the route Fox Searchlight took with “Birdman” and
19
20
last year’s winner, “12 Years a Slave.” It’s a delicate dance: trying to create buzz but not so much that the inevitable backlash topples chances come Oscar voting. “Nobody wants to be the early frontrunner because they know that it’s so difficult to sustain that position,” says Scott Feinberg, awards analyst for The Hollywood Reporter. Feinberg believes the guilds may be urged to delay their voting periods to accommodate later releases. But he thinks few films will emulate the releases of “Boyhood” or “Budapest”: “What’s still true is voters get very excited toward the end of the year when these highly anticipated, much discussed movies start screening.” Either way, the clock has almost run out on this year’s nominees. Oscar voting ends Tuesday.
21
22
Image: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
DRONES RULE: PROPOSED RULES FOR COMMERCIAL UNMANNED AIRCRAFT
23
Drone on, the government says. Just not through the night sky. Or close to an airport. Or out of the operator’s sight. And probably not winging its way with a pizza or package, any time soon. Long-anticipated rules proposed Sunday will open an era in which small (under 55 pounds) commercial unmanned aircraft perform routine tasks - crop monitoring, aerial photography, inspections of bridges and cell towers, and much more. But not right away. Final rules are probably two to three years away. And when they are in place, they may include a separate category with fewer restrictions for very small drones, likely to be defined as less than 4.4 pounds. The Federal Aviation Administration released a variety of proposed requirements for commercial operators to meet, such as passing a knowledge test administered by the agency as well as a federal security check. The small drones could travel as fast as 100 mph, at altitudes of 500 feet or lower. Flights over people except those involved in the drone’s operation would be prohibited. “We have tried to be flexible in writing these rules,” said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “We want to maintain today’s outstanding level of aviation safety without placing an undue regulatory burden on an emerging industry.” The agency is researching technology that he hopes will eventually enable small drones to fly safely beyond the sight of operators, Huerta said. He emphasized that introduction of commercial drones into the national airspace will be a staged process. The government is also looking ahead to how larger drones might be allowed to fly in airspace shared by manned aircraft, for example, he said. One of the key safety concerns is that without a human on board the ability to “see and avoid”
24
25
26
other aircraft is limited. Another concern is that the link between the operator and a remote control aircraft can be broken, causing the drone to fly away until it loses power or collides with something. Cases of flyaway drones getting stuck in trees or hitting buildings are rampant. Last month, a drone that its operator lost control of flew over the White House fence and crashed on the lawn before Secret Service agents could block it. Even with the proposed safety restrictions, drones can transform urban infrastructure management, farming, public safety, coastal security, military training, search and rescue, Image: AP Photo/Gregory Bull
27
28
Image: Brendon Thorne
disaster response and more, the White House said in a presidential memorandum on privacy released in conjunction with the rules. The memorandum lays out measures federal agencies must follow to guard against abuse of data collected in their drone flights. Among other steps, the order requires agencies to review privacy and civil rights protections before deploying drone technology and to adhere to a range of controls. Personally identifiable information collected in drone flights is to be kept no longer than 180 days, although there are exceptions. It’s questionable whether such steps will satisfy civil liberties advocates, who’ve objected strongly to the government’s vigorous use of digital surveillance in the name of national security. But drone advocates were generally happy with the proposal, although they disagreed with some of the details. “I am very pleased to see a much more reasonable approach to future regulation than many feared,” said Brendan Schulman, a New York attorney who unsuccessfully challenged FAA’s restrictions on drone flights. The agency currently bans commercial drone flights except for a few dozen companies that have been granted waivers. That ban will stay in place until regulations become final, but FAA officials plan to continue granting waivers case by case. About 300 waiver requests are pending and new requests are being filed almost daily. The proposed rules are “a good first step” bringing the U.S. closer to realizing the benefits of drone technology, said Brian Wynne, president and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a trade group. An FAA analysis points to an estimate by the trade association that drones will create 70,000
29
jobs with an economic impact of more than $13.6 billion in the first three years after their integration into U.S. skies. In a big concession to industry, the FAA said it won’t require an “airworthiness certificate” for small drones. The design and manufacture of each model of manned airplanes and helicopters go through a rigorous approval process by the FAA before they are granted airworthiness certificates. That can take years. The FAA decided that drone technology was changing so rapidly that by the time a model received an airworthiness certificate the remotecontrolled aircraft might already be out of date, Huerta said.
30
Image: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
31
32
Image: Aleksi Briclot
33
34
NO LONGER ARE YOU STUCK WITH JUST PENCILS AND PAINTS For years and years, if you aspired to be a visual artist, at least in the more traditional sense, your task was clear - you needed to buy some pencils, paints and palettes, set up an easel and get practicing. In today's digital age, though, things are much more ambiguous. You now don't need to invest in any artistic tool other than your iDevice, making the most of the many creative apps available in the App Store. When you think about it, it shouldn't be such a big shock that the iPad - in particular - is commanding popularity as a replacement in some quarters for the stretched canvas and easel. After all, digital art is almost old enough to count as traditional in and of itself these days, and that 9.7-inch multi-touch display gives you a lot of real estate to play with. Even more importantly, a lot of developers have worked hard to come up with apps that allow you to reel off a masterpiece with (relative) ease. These powerful apps enable the brilliant replication of real life drawing and painting textures and effects, making them the perfect means of improving your creativity beyond the world of real pens, papers and oil paints.
Image: Alon Chou
35
36
Image: Alon Chou
37
SOME ARTISTIC APPS TO TRY TODAY If you want to get started with a bit of drawing to see what making art on the iPad is really like, you can't do better than Paper by FiftyThree. That's partly because it is free - indeed, all of the original tools on the app have also recently been made free, meaning that you can draw, write, sketch, outline and color to your heart's content without having to shell out a cent. The clean and simple to use interface only makes your experience all the more fun. Alternatively, you might be a little betteracquainted with the world of digital art, and there's no bigger brand name in that world than Photoshop - so why not pick up the iPad equivalent of the venerable imageediting program? Adobe Photoshop Touch admittedly doesn't have all of its desktop counterpart's more advanced features, but that shouldn't be a big shock for something that will only set you back $9.99. The iOS app does still offer such core features as layers, selection tools, adjustments and filters, however, and plenty more besides. These include a camera fill feature that allows you to fill areas on layers with your iPad camera, a Scribble Selection tool for selecting part of an image to extract, Refine Edge for the capturing of such difficult-to-select elements as hair... there's even integrated Google Image Search.
A TRULY ASTONISHING RANGE OF CREATIVE APPS
38
#01 – Paper by FiftyThree By FiftyThree, Inc. Category: Productivity Compatibility: Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPad.
#02 – Adobe Photoshop Touch By Adobe Category: Photo & Video Compatibility: Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPad 2, iPad (3rd gen), iPad (4th gen), iPad mini, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad Air and iPad mini 3.
39
40
Image: Raphael Lacoste
Image: Marta Dahlig
41
#03 – ArtRage By Ambient Design Ltd. Category: Entertainment Compatibility: Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPad.
#04 – Procreate By Savage Interactive Pty Ltd Category: Entertainment Compatibility: Requires iOS 8.1 or later. Compatible with iPad.
42
Whatever ambitions you may have for your digital art - modest or monumental - you are sure to find an app in the App Store to match them. ArtRage, for instance, takes a slightly different approach that makes it the perfect choice for those who hanker for the nuances and unpredictability of real life oil paints. What other app would allow you to squeeze out some (virtual) paint and smear it with your palette knife? The intuitive and natural feel of the painting tools that ArtRage offers makes you feel like you're in a real art studio, experimenting with color blends and textures on an actual canvas. Such a dynamic feel is due to the app even keeping track of the amount of paint on your canvas and its wetness. It all means that you really can create whatever painterly textures and effects you want to create when you choose ArtRage. Another of the unquestioned leaders among iOS artistic apps is Procreate. The most recent version of this digital illustration app, 2.2, has been optimized to make the most of iOS 8 and the iPad Air 2, with a generous specification sheet encompassing everything from studiograde features and groundbreaking drawing tools to new color tools and an advanced layering system. The latest version also has a more streamlined interface, making an already highly intuitive app even more so.
Image: Marek Okon
43
44
Image: Robert Kim
Image: Tae Young Choi
45
THOSE APPS YOU MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT... Although Procreate represents good value for such an app at $5.99, for one dollar less, you do also have the option of ArtStudio for iPad, which is quite impressive as well. It calls itself "the most comprehensive sketching, painting and photo editing tool in the App Store", and backs up that billing with such features as a flexible canvas size, custom brushes, fully customizable stroke settings and a choice of 16 tools. The latter includes pencil, wet paintbrush, dry paintbrush, dots, spray, eraser and many more. Let's not forget, though, that iGadgets are hardly the only devices on which the finest digital art continues to be created. If any evidence of that was necessary, you'd only need to look to such apps as the completely free to download Krita. The desktop version can be downloaded for Windows, GNU/Linux or Mac OS X, the source code also being available for those who would like to build it themselves. Whichever of those options you plump for, you will be rewarded with a fullyfeatured tool for digital painting and illustration, offering every obvious feature from CMYK support and HDR painting to perspective grids, dockers and filters even painting assistants. You'll also get an easy to use interface with lots of scope for customization, as well as a wrap-around mode enabling the effortless creation of seamless textures and patterns.
46
Image: Goro Fujita
#05 – ArtStudio for iPad By Lucky Clan Category: Photo & Video Compatibility: Requires iOS 4.3 or later. Compatible with iPad.
47
48
Images: Jason Chan
49
Add to the specification sheet the likes of multiple brush engines and blending modes, advanced selection and masking tools, symmetry tools and drawing aids and so much more, and it's clear that Krita is a worthy addition to the already heaving pantheon of digital illustration applications now on the market.
THE DIGITAL ARTISTS BRUSHING THEIR WAY TO LEGEND STATUS If there's anything more impressive than the latest digital apps themselves, it has to be the art that is being created from them - and, by extension, the artists that are making names for themselves in the digital medium. Those to have distinguished themselves in the digital art field in recent years include the longstanding DeviantArt artist Marta Dahlig. Hailing from Poland, she has become a popular fixture on the site since 2003, her series of the seven deadly sins being a particular must-see for any current or aspiring digital artist. UK artist Daniel Conway, meanwhile, has attracted admiration for his impressive self-taught digital painting portfolio. Another big Polish talent among digital painters is Marek Okon, who is known for his futuristic sci-fi scenes. Then, there's Canada-based Cris de Lara, who has built her reputation on a broader portfolio of digital painting subjects. Unlike many digital artists, she has a background in traditional oil painting, which she then transferred to
50
Image: Bobby Chui
51
52
Images: Cris de Lara
53
54
Image: Linda Bergvist
screen-based creations in such fields as illustration, comic books and TV. We must also confess to being big fans of the German freelance digital artist Lorenz Hideyoshi Ruwwe, whose digital painting skills have landed him work with entertainment industry clients in the likes of video games, movies and books. Or what about Alon Chou, the digital painting freelancer whose character and scene designs you might have already seen - however unwittingly - in many games and movies?
DIGITAL DRAWING AND PAINTING IS HERE TO STAY As you can see, digital art is far from the bold young upstart these days - dare we say it, it is rapidly building up a heritage and prestige of its own. Meanwhile, if you're a humble layperson wishing to dabble in art but who is hesitant about the heavy investment required for a 'real' art studio and all of the messiness and awkwardness of 'real' art materials, you may just find that one of the many available, professional and affordable apps for creating digital art represents the perfect alternative. by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan
55
56
DIDDY, SNOOP DOGG HOLD ALL-STAR HIP-HOP CONCERTIN NYC
57
58
The NBA All-Star Game is not until Sunday, but hip-hop music’s all-star team - featuring Diddy, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Nas and others - played in top form at a New York City concert Thursday night. Snoop Dogg and Diddy hosted the show for radio station Hot 97 at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, which also included Lil Kim, T.I., Doug E. Fresh and The Lox. The multi-hour event kicked off with a video of Marion “Suge” Knight dissing Diddy at the 1995 Source Awards. After, Diddy emerged as the audience roared, performing the late ‘90s hit, “Victory.” Knight has been charged with murder in a deadly hit-and-run last month. “I also came here to set some (expletive) right, as y’all saw on the screen. That negative energy started right here, right on this very stage,” Diddy said. “If you about positivity, make some noise. So that’s what this is about, man. This is setting that scene straight, as if we can go back, but we can’t. But we get to celebrate on this stage.” Instead of beef, Diddy and Dogg wanted to promote peace among East and West Coast rappers. Diddy went on to perform a catalog of his hits, getting assists from Busta Rhymes and Jermaine Dupri at the top of the show as West and Kim Kardashian watched from the side of the stage. West hit the stage, too, performing “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” as his wife filmed him with her phone. The outspoken rap star even directed the camera operator filming the show, telling the person to move around more. “More action,” he yelled. “This is hip-hop.” The night was a mix of old and new school - but the common denominator was hit songs. Dre joined Dogg - who entered the stage in an onesie and changed three other times - to rap West Coast anthems, while former Bad Boy Records
59
60
signees 112, Faith Evans and Black Rob performed alongside Diddy. Diddy, who also changed multiple times, handed two bottles of alcohol to fans upfront, and Dogg even passed one man a joint. Other guests at the show included younger rappers, such as Big Sean, 2 Chainz, French Montana, A$AP Ferg, O.T. Genasis of “CoCo” fame and iLoveMakonnen, whose hit “Tuesday” was nominated for a Grammy Award last weekend. Nas was one of the highlights, performing “Hate Me Now” and “Made You Look,” while Naughty by Nature hit the stage to perform classics like “O.P.P.” and “Hip Hop Hooray.” Rap group The Lox and Lil Kim joined Diddy onstage with back-to-back jams, including “Money, Power, Respect.” Notorious B.I.G. videos played in the background - as did one from Tupac Shakur - while the crowd and rappers danced excitedly. A choir joined Diddy, Evans and 112 for “I’ll Be Missing You,” the song dedicated to the late B.I.G. “I do this song for him,” Diddy said, looking to the crowd. “I know you got somebody special up there.” But the night didn’t end on a sad note - most of the performers hit the stage to celebrate with the classic, “Mo Money, Mo Problems.”
61
62
ARE YOU A HACK WAITING TO HAPPEN? YOUR BOSS WANTS TO KNOW
The next phishing email you get could be from your boss. With high-profile security breaches on the rise, from Sony Pictures to Anthem, companies are on the defensive. And they want to make sure their employees are not a hack waiting to happen. Data show phishing emails are more and more common as entry points for hackers. Unwittingly clicking on a link in a scam email could unleash malware into a network or provide other access to cyberthieves. So a growing number of companies, including Twitter Inc., are giving their workers a pop quiz, testing security savvy by sending spoof phishing emails to see who bites. “New employees fall for it all the time,” said Josh Aberant, postmaster at Twitter, during a data privacy town hall meeting recently in New York City.
63
Falling for the fake scam offers a teachable moment that businesses hope will ensure employees won’t succumb to a real threat. It’s even a niche industry: companies like Wombat Security and PhishMe offer the service for a fee. Phishing is very effective, according to Verizon’s 2014 data breach investigations report, one of the most comprehensive in the industry. Eighteen percent of users will visit a link in a phishing email which could compromise their data, the report found. Not only is phishing on the rise, the phish are getting smarter. Criminals are “getting clever about social engineering,” said Patrick Peterson, CEO of email security company Agari. As more people wise up to age-old PayPal and bank scams, for example, phishing emails are evolving. You might see a Walgreens gift card offer or a notice about President Barack Obama warning you about Ebola. The phishing tests recognize that many security breaches are the result of human error. A recent study by the nonprofit Online Trust Alliance found that of more than 1,000 breaches in the first half of 2014, 90 percent were preventable and more than 1 in 4 were caused by employees, many by accident. Fake phishing emails are indistinguishable from the real ones. That’s the point. In one sent out by Wombat, the subject reads “Email Account Security Report - Unusual Activity.” The email informs the recipient that his or her account will be locked for unusual activity such as sending a large number of undeliverable messages. At the bottom there’s a link that, were this a real phishing email, would infect the recipient’s computer with malicious software or steal password and login information.
64
Image: Robyn Beck/AFP
65
66
IF YOU CLICK? Up pops a web page: “Oops! The email you just responded to was a fake phishing email. Don’t worry! It was sent to you to help you learn how to avoid real attacks. Please do not share your experience with colleagues, so they can learn too.” It also offers tips on recognizing suspicious messages. In the 14 years since PhishMe CEO and cofounder Rohyt Belani has been in information security, he says the industry has changed from something a “geek in the back room” was supposed to take care of to something companies now handle at the highest level of management. The nature of the intruder also has changed, from pranksters to criminal organizations and nation-states. As the security industry developed, he said, so did the idea of the user as “stupid” and the “weakest link,” destined to continue to fall for phishing attempts and other scams. Belani disagrees with that, faulting the security industry for not better training workers. “We posted posters in hallways, gave out squishy balls, (made) screen savers,” he said. “When was the last time you changed your password because of a squishy ball?” While phishing training emails are a “good cautionary measure,” they aren’t “actually going to strike at the core of the issue,” believes Agari’s Peterson. He, along with large Internet companies such as Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., support establishing a standard that makes it impossible for scammers to impersonate your bank, social network or other business in an email. Think of it as a verification system for emails. For now, though, this seems a long way off. So, at Pinnacle Financial Partners in Nashville, Tennessee, employees will continue to receive fake phishing emails, about one a quarter. The Image: Dimitri Otis
67
68
results are reported to the company’s audit committee and board of directors, said Chief Information officer Randy Withrow. Since the 800-employee company started the Wombat program Withrow said it has seen a 25 percent drop in successful phishing attempts. Workers “take it very personally” when they fall for it, he said. “They become apologetic and wonder, `how did I miss it?’” Luckily for Pinnacle, it was only a test.
69
70
RAPPER DRAKE RELEASES SURPRISE ALBUM ON iTUNES
Drake was featured on Beyonce’s surprise album and now he’s taking a page from her book. The Grammy-winning rapper released a new album called “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” early Friday morning on iTunes. It includes 17 tracks and features Lil Wayne, Travi$ Scott and PARTYNEXTDOOR. The release comes more than a year after Beyonce released her self-titled album on iTunes without announcing it. Others have dropped albums in surprise form, from alternative rapper Kid Cudi to Australian rockers Wolfmother to rap group G Unit. Drake’s last album was 2013’s “Nothing Was the Same,” his third studio album. It sold more than 650,000 units in its debut week. Drake’s hits include “Started from the Bottom,” “Take Care” and “Best I Ever Had.”
71
NOW SOMEONE CAN MANAGE YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT AFTER YOU DIE
Facebook is making it easier to plan for your online afterlife. The world’s biggest online social network said Thursday that it will now let users pick someone who can manage their account after they die. Previously, the accounts were “memorialized” after death, or locked so that no one could log in. But Facebook says its users wanted more choice. Beginning in the U.S., Facebook users can pick a “legacy contact” to post on their page after they die, respond to new friend requests and update their profile picture and cover photo. Users can also have their accounts deleted after their death, which was not possible before. If you want someone to manage your account after you die, click on the upside-down triangle on the top right corner of your page, open “settings” and find “security.” For U.S. users there will be an option to edit your legacy contact, who must be a Facebook user. But you don’t have to pick someone else to manage your account. You can also check a box to permanently delete your account when you die.
72
73
74
Image: Karen Bleier/AFP
The person you choose to manage your account won’t be notified of your choice until your Facebook account is memorialized. But you can send them a message before. Facebook will also send you an annual reminder of your pick. This could help if the person dies before you do, for example, or if your friendship cools as the years pass. If you give your contact additional permission, they will be able to download and archive your photos, posts and profile information after you die. They will not be able to access your private messages. To log into your account, they will have to use their own Facebook login - they won’t be able to sign in as you. Facebook accounts are memorialized at the request of loved ones, who must provide proof of the person’s death, such as an obituary. Facebook tries to ensure that the account of the dead user doesn’t show up as a “suggested friend” or in other ways that could upset the person’s loved ones. Facebook, which has nearly 1.4 billion users, won’t say how many accounts are memorialized, though Facebook product manager Vanessa Callison-Burch said there have been “hundreds of thousands” of requests from loved ones to do so. Other Internet companies also offer ways to posthumously manage your accounts. On Google, a tool called “inactive account manager” lets you choose to have your data deleted after three, six or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can choose someone, such as a parent or a spouse, to receive the data. The tool covers not just email but also other Google services such as Google Plus, YouTube and Blogger. Twitter, meanwhile, will deactivate your account if contacted by a family member or a person authorized to act on behalf of your estate, after verifying not only that you died but that the Twitter account is yours, since many people don’t use their full names on the site.
75
76
Image: Amy Sussman
77
"ALL ABOUT THAT BASS" CAPS REMARKABLE RISE TO STARDOM When it was confirmed in late January that Meghan Trainor had dethroned the previously all-conquering Taylor Swift at the top of Billboard's Artist 100 - a measure of artist activity across the most influential U.S. charts - there was little surprise. After all, it wasn't the first time she had even been ranked the country's top artist in this way. Indeed, it just completed her rise to the top on the basis of what turned out to be one seriously empowering song about body confidence. We are, of course, referring to "All About The Bass", the monster viral hit that has topped singles charts across the world, including the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, in the process accomplishing something much more important: making people across the world, particularly women, feel a little better about themselves. There are so many ways of measuring the cultural impact of "All About That Bass". You may have watched the bubblegum pop and doo-wop number's accompanying cute, candy-colored video and instantly been brought to mind of all of the parodies that have instantly made it iconic. Alternatively, you could look to its two Grammy Award nominations, for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, or even just the raw numbers - it's sold more than six million copies worldwide.
78
Image: Seventeen
79
AN EXTREMELY EMPOWERING SONG While Trainor is seemingly singing at first in the song about a literal bass - "You know I'm all about that bass, 'bout that bass, no treble" - it soon becomes obvious, especially from the video, what the true message of this feelgood track is. The 21-year old Massachusetts native is, in fact, talking about that subject that concerns so many of us, especially women - body confidence. "Yeah it's pretty clear," she continues into the first verse, "I ain't no size two... but I can shake it, shake it like I'm supposed to do... 'cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase... and all the right junk in all the right places." Cuddy metaphors abound throughout the track, the reference to a bass clearly a wordplay on the instrument's traditional status as the support, or "bottom" of a song. To a backdrop of a throwback soul beat, Trainor persists in her call to empowerment for women everywhere, through her use of such lines as "I see the magazines working that Photoshop... we know that sh*t ain't real... come on now, make it stop... If you got beauty beauty just raise 'em up... 'cause every inch of you is perfect... from the bottom to the top". Add the appearance of Vine star Sione Maraschino performing his trademark "Maraschino Step" and plenty more good old-fashioned fun, and you have the ingredients for a seriously memorable song and video - as confirmed by the immense response from the wider world.
80
81
82
THE "CRAZY STORY" OF A CHILD PRODIGY It's impossible to truly appreciate the story of "All About That Bass" without also delving into the history of Trainor herself, born on December 22, 1993, who picks up the "crazy story": "I'm from a little island off of Massachusetts, Nantucket. It's hard getting into the music business from there, but my parents took me to songwriting festivals because I would write and produce my own music. And then one of those songwriting places in Colorado, a publisher was there from Nashville and she found me and signed me at 18 years old." That was just a few years ago - but by then, it had already been quite the journey for Trainor. She had begun singing at the age of six, and had been a songwriter since the age of 11. As a high school student at Cape Cod's Nauset High School, she sang and played trumpet in a jazz band, in addition to studying guitar - the NRBQ and Incredible Casuals' Johnny Spampinato teaching her. Trainor also spent four years as a singer, guitarist and keyboardist for a local Nantucket band called Island Fusion and in 2009 and 2010, was a student of the Performance Program at Berklee College of Music, gaining high marks and reaching the finals of their songwriting competition. She had already selfreleased three albums of her own material by the time she was 18. Eventually, after contributing compositions for such artists as Rascal Flatts and Macy Kate through a
83
84
publishing deal with Big Yellow Dog Music, she was signed by Epic Records.
THE BACKGROUND OF "ALL ABOUT THAT BASS" "All About That Bass" was instrumental in landing Trainor that deal. Written by her and songwriter and producer Kevin Kadish in just 40 minutes, the song demonstrated the creative chemistry between the two, based on a shared love of 1950s music. However, she hadn't intended to keep the song for herself until Epic Records chairman and CEO L.A. Reid intervened. As Trainor recalled it: "My publisher and everyone else said, 'It's a great song but there's not a lot of artists who can sing this.' And that's when L.A. Reid heard it and was like, 'You are the artist. Be one.'" She added of the song's gestation process with Kadish in an interview with EW: "When he started making the beat I freestyled, 'It's pretty clear I ain't no five-two', and I was like, 'Girl anthem. This is for me. Let's do it.'" There are many other influences that one could mention for "All About That Bass" Trainor, for instance, had approached the sessions wanting to write a song akin to the 1958 track "Lollipop", while the doo-wop sound was chosen due to its catchiness. This was combined with the modern, Kadishdeveloped beat and Trainor's self-acceptance themed lyrical ideas, and viola - a song speaking to so many of today's women and dare we say it, men, came into being.
Image: Amy Sussman
85
86
A REMARKABLE SONG AND ARTIST It's staggering now to think that when the song was initially being pitched to recording labels and singers - including Beyoncé and Adele - it drew criticism on account of its lack of a synthesizer or AutoTune. Naturally, Trainor and Kadish had little time for such sentiments, and neither - eventually - did Reid, who decided that the demo would be the final version, albeit given additional mastering. It proved an inspired call - the song's vintage feel is very much central to its charm. To say that the track has made a big impact would be quite the understatement, as demonstrated in part by the fact that it has been so widely parodied. One version on YouTube rather inaccurately imagines Trainor as a hater of skinny women, incorporating such lyrics as "If you are super thin, super thin, you're evil". Another posits the idea of a singer lacking in ideas for lyrics, simply searching for "a goofy phrase... that will appeal to kids as well as soccer moms". For sci-fi fans who are also partial to attractive dancing women with considerable cleavage - and which of them aren't? - there's even a Star Wars-themed version of the song, with the lyrics "I'm all about that base, 'bout that base, no rebels". Yes, in case you're wondering, Stormtroopers, C-3PO and R2D2 all make appearances. It takes quite an impactful song to earn this kind of tribute. But could there be any greater tribute to "All About That Bass" than the profoundly Image: Seventeen
87
88
Image: Isaac Brekken / Jeff Vespa
89
90
Image: Amy Sussman
positive effect that it has had on so many of its listeners? We'll leave Trainor with the last word. Asked by EW about how people seemed to be relating to the song's message, the artist replied: "Oh my gosh. It makes me tear up. These girls sent me, like, essays about how they hated their lives and hated themselves because of their bodies and the way people were treating them. And they said they heard my song and they said "Forget it, I'm just going to love myself." "It's insane. They'll send me pictures of them dancing to my song, and videos. It's amazing." by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan
91
92
ACTOR EDDIE MURPHY RELEASES REGGAE SINGLE
Veteran actor-comedian Eddie Murphy is on a different chart these days, with his latest single rising to the top of the most downloaded reggae songs on iTunes. Released Jan. 27, “Oh Jah Jah” was inspired by recent news events, Murphy said. “I was watching CNN about two or three months ago and all this craziness was going on with the terrorism and chopping off people’s heads and then St. Louis, Ferguson. A bunch of police brutality going on (at the) same time and I had that progression, but I didn’t have any lyrics, but I had that groove. I’d been playing that progression for about a month and then I was watching the news and it all came together one day,” he said. Murphy, who will appear on NBC’s “SNL 40th Anniversary Special” on Sunday, recently spoke to eNews Magazine about his music, film and comedy.
93
94
eNews: If you were to release a reggae album would you put it out as Eddie Murphy or would you think of a reggae name? Murphy: I’ve got 25 years of stuff on the shelf. I could go right now and pick six, seven, eight reggae songs and put out a reggae album. I could go back there and pick seven or eight country songs and do a country album, or I could do a regular dance/R&B album. I’ve had people say, `You should put a record out because it’s a good song and if they didn’t know it was you they’d like it under a different name,’ but, hey, these are my tracks and I’m not hiding behind any of it. It is what it is. eNews: Will there be an upcoming album or any collaborations? Murphy: I have collaborations with all kinds of different artists over the years. Stuff with B.B. King, I’ve recorded with Paul McCartney, Snoop, I’ve recorded with a bunch of different interesting artists. Raphael Saadiq. As far as future collaborations, that all has to come together organically. As far as an album coming out, if one of these tracks jumps off, if one of them connects with the people digging it and I get some momentum going, I’ll put an album but I’m not planning an album until I’m sure people want to hear something. Otherwise it’ll stay on the shelf for years and years. A hundred years from now they dig through everything and I’m totally fine with them finding hours and hours and hours of collaborations and they’ll say, `We didn’t even know Eddie Murphy.’ I’m totally fine with that. eNews: What about any upcoming film projects? Murphy: About two weeks ago I just finished a movie, it’s not a comedy though. It’s called `Cook’ and it’s got a really strong director, the guy that directed `Driving Miss Daisy’ and `Tender Mercies,’ a guy named Bruce Beresford, a really strong director from Australia. We just finished it two weeks ago.
95
96
eNews: Any plans on returning to stand-up comedy? Murphy: When I was doing stand-up it was a hundred comedians, now it’s a hundred thousand of them. So if I got onstage again I’d have to be doing something that makes me different from all these other hundred thousand comics. My fantasy when I think about live performances is playing with a really strong band playing a halfhour or 40 minutes of music and having the curtains go down then doing an hour of stand-up comedy. I’d have a really fly show if I could pull that one off.
97
98
Image: iMore
REVIEW: WHY SUBSCRIBE TO OFFICE WHEN SO MUCH IS FREE?
Just as I was warming up to choosing a Microsoft Office 365 subscription over making a one-time software purchase, Microsoft started giving away a lot of subscription benefits for free. The company now offers Word, Excel and others at no cost on most mobile devices. It’s a smart move by Microsoft, but it makes me wonder whether you really need a subscription, which starts at $70 a year. The subscription will appeal to people who use Office apps on traditional Windows or Mac computers or Windows tablets, such as the Surface Pro 3. Those who primarily use iOS and Android mobile devices can probably stick with free apps. What’s right for you comes down to whether you need a PC or can get things done with just your smartphone or tablet. Here’s what to consider.
99
100
THE FREEBIES Microsoft’s newly released Office apps for iPhones, iPads and Android tablets are quite good. Microsoft offers Word for text documents, Excel for spreadsheets, PowerPoint for presentations, Outlook for email and OneNote for organization - all for free. (Access for databases and Publisher for desktop publishing aren’t available yet.) I’m writing this review on Word using an iPad and Android tablets from Samsung and Google - the latter with a wireless keyboard. I’ve edited documents on an iPhone and am pleased it has the same features that are available on the iPad, though with some menu changes to account for the smaller screen. I’m still not totally used to the mobile apps, especially for cutting and pasting text in Word and inserting cells in Excel spreadsheets. There are also missing features, such as green underlines of potential grammatical mistakes. But the apps include most of what I use on PCs. You do have to sign in with a Microsoft account, but you can create one for free. On Apple devices, a subscription would unlock about two dozen features, such as inserting section breaks and tracking changes between drafts. (Some power users might need these, but I don’t.) There are fewer features available for Android phones and tablets, whether free or for pay. Microsoft says the Android apps will catch up, as well as the version for Windows phones. Note: If you have a Windows tablet, you must pay for Office unless you’re running a lightweight operating system called RT.
PAY ONCE, NEVER AGAIN Can’t live with just a smartphone or tablet? You can buy Office for personal computers and Windows tablets the traditional way, by
101
102
paying for the software just once. For $140, you get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Comparatively, an Office 365 subscription costs $70 a year for one user, so by year three the subscription is costing you more. You’re guaranteed the latest version of Office, which comes out every three years, but the one-time fee is still cheaper.
SO WHY PAY AGAIN AND AGAIN? - For iOS and Android mobile devices, you get extra features you can’t get any other way. - Most Windows tablets, including the Surface Pro, require a one-time purchase or subscription, even for basic features. The subscription also gives you three apps you don’t get with the $140 one-time purchase: Outlook, Access and Publisher. (You can buy all seven Office apps for a one-time fee of $400, but the subscription is cheaper.) - For PCs, a $70 one-user annual subscription lets you use all seven Office apps on multiple PCs and tablets by signing in and out. The $140 one-time purchase limits you to one device and four of the seven apps. - The subscription is a great deal for multiple users or multiple PCs. For $100 a year, rather than $70, you can install the software suite on up to five Mac or Windows PCs, so you don’t have to keep signing in and out. That can be five PCs you have, or five individuals in a household. You can switch up the PCs as often as you like. (A subscription also allots you an additional five tablets and five phones, but Microsoft doesn’t really enforce that limit.) - If you have a lot of files to store, a subscription gives you 1 terabyte of online storage through OneDrive, compared with just the 15 gigabytes you get with a free account. You also get 60 minutes a month of Skype calls to anyone.
103
104
Image: iMore
Typically, free Skype calls are limited to other Skype users.
THE VALUE The days of keeping your digital life on a single machine are long gone, and the subscription makes it easy to manage multiple PCs. But people tend to have multiple mobile devices, not PCs. Microsoft’s giveaway of iOS and Android apps eliminates a major need for a subscription. Then again, Microsoft has little choice when it’s competing with cheap and free apps that recognize the Office file format. The company would rather people stick with Office, even for free, in hopes they will buy premium features later. There are signs that’s working: Excluding business customers, Office subscribers grew 30 percent to 9.2 million in the last three months of 2014 - the same period Microsoft released its latest iPhone and iPad apps and made core features free.
105
Trailer
Movies &
TV Shows
106
Rotten Tomatoes
79
%
The Theory of Everything There can be few more inspirational stories than that of the British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking - and we aren’t even referring to his colossal achievements in physics. Instead, this biographical romantic drama centers largely on his devastating motor neuron disease diagnosis at age 21 followed by achievements that would have once seemed inconceivable.
FIVE FACTS:
by James Marsh Genre: Drama Released: 2014 Price: $14.99
106 Ratings
1. The Theory of Everything is based on Jane Wilde Hawking’s memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen. 2. Eddie Redmayne stars as Stephen Hawking, and Felicity Jones as Jane Wilde Hawking. 3. Other cast members include Charlie Cox, Emily Watson, Simon McBurney, David Thewlis and Maxine Peake. 4. Director James Marsh has described the film as “a very unusual love story in a very strange environment, a very strange sort of landscape, and that is I think the abiding theme of the film. It is how these two characters, these two real people transcend all the complications and curveballs that life throws at them.” 5. Archival images were closely studied and reproduced to ensure the film’s authenticity.
107
108
Interview with Eddie Redmayne
109
The Last Five Years Based on the hit Jason Robert Brown musical of the same name, The Last Five Years retells the five-year love affair of struggling actress Cathy Hiatt, played by Anna Kendrick, and upand-coming novelist Jamie Wellerstein, whose role is taken by Jeremy Jordan. Or, to be more specific, it is the couple who do the retelling.
FIVE FACTS: 1. The original musical premiered at Chicago’s Northlight Theatre in 2001. 2. It was then produced Off-Broadway in 2002. 3. The film was written and directed by Richard LaGravenese. 4. It premiered in the Special Presentations section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. 5. Shooting took place in New York City.
by Richard LaGravenese Genre: Comedy Released: 2015 Price: $14.99
238 Ratings
Trailer
Rotten Tomatoes
60
110
%
111
112
Interview with Jeremy Jordan and Richard LaGravenese
113
Music 114
If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late Drake Is it a mixtape? Is it an album? Whatever status you give it, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is the latest produce from Canadian superstar rapper Drake, its release with zero prior announcement drawing comparisons to the similar stunt that Beyoncé pulled with her selftitled LP in 2013. It has proved itself a quick commercial and critical hit, too.
FIVE FACTS:
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap Released: Feb 13, 2015 17 Songs Price: $12.99
1. Drake is the mononym of Aubrey Drake Graham.
8708 Ratings
2. He was born in Toronto on October 24, 1986. 3. Kanye West, Jay-Z, Aaliyah and mentor Lil Wayne are among his cited influences. 4. A short film for “Jungle” has been released, directed by Karim Huu Do. 5. The mixtape is set to be followed by the studio album Views From The 6.
Jungle
115
Interview with Drake
116
117
I Love You, Honeybear Father John Misty You may know him better as former Saxon Shore and Fleet Foxes member Joshua Tillman, but for I Love You, Honeybear, the folk star adopts the pseudonym of Father John Misty for the second time. He has described the release as a concept album about himself, focusing on his relationship with his wife Emma, as well as other aspects of his personal life.
FIVE FACTS: 1. Joshua Tillman was born in Rockville, Maryland on May 3, 1981. 2. He grew up in an Evangelical Christian household, the oldest of four children. 3. Tillman has said that his childhood “wasn’t a good experience” and was “culturally oppressive”. 4. He has said of the Father John Misty moniker: “What I call it is totally arbitrary, but I like the name. You’ve got to have a name. I never got to choose mine.” 5. Tillman has added that the new album shows him “engaging in all manner of regrettable behavior.”
118
Genre: Alternative Released: Feb 10, 2015 11 Songs Price: $9.99
243 Ratings
Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)
119
120
Bored in the USA
121
124
STRATFORD FESTIVAL PLANS TO FILM ALL SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY
Playing the mad title role in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” was never supposed to be easy. That’s just what Colm Feore wanted. The classical actor chose to make his Lear “absolutely hateful” and “corrosive” for the Stratford Festival in Canada this past summer. He turned 56 in the role and his Lear, recorded on high-definition cameras, is a vigorous, fit monarch. “If you do it properly, you should be legless and speechless from scene to scene. And I decided to do it that way,” Feore said. “It takes an enormous amount of energy and I think a certain amount of balls and daring to do it at all.” The same could be said for what the Stratford Festival intends to do with the movie: It will kick off a massive initiative to film and broadcast all of Shakespeare’s plays over the next 10 years.
125
126
Feore’s “Lear,” which hits 350 movie screens across America on Feb. 25, leads the way, with “King John” following in April and “Antony and Cleopatra” in May. Three or four new films will be broadcast each year as part of the almost $40 million effort. The attempt to bring the complete works of William Shakespeare to audiences around the world is the first by a North American arts organization and the dream of the Festival’s artistic director Antoni Cimolino, who also directed “King Lear.” “For the almost 400 million people that live on this continent, and for young people especially, hearing the language spoken the way they speak it is very important because then you realize that Shakespeare is not foreign,” Cimolino said. “He belongs to all of us. It’s our birthright.” The company has a seven-month season every year with about a dozen plays in four Ontario venues performed by some 120 actors. Performing Shakespeare is at its core - there are usually three of four of his plays done a season. But works also range from ancient Greek plays to modern tales. Feore, who has logged 17 seasons with the company, was called on to do more than just Lear last year. He alternated the role with a part in the romantic comedy of manners “The Beaux’ Stratagem.” The actor, who has joined the Fox series “Gotham” as the Dollmaker, said not doing his Lear for eight shows a week likely made his performance even better. “I could shred the voice. I could be physically destroyed and emotionally completely finished at the end of every performance knowing that I had a day or so to recover,” he said. Cimolino will decide which upcoming shows will be recorded after seeing how audiences respond.
127
128
“When it really works well for the audience, it works well for the camera, we’ve found.” Down the line, he also hopes the possibility of broadcasting a Shakespeare play live might be attempted. “We wanted to walk before we ran,” he said. The live cinema event company BY Experience is helping distribute The Bard’s canon. Julie Borchard-Young, who runs BY Experience with her husband, Robert, said theater-goers will now be able to sample great Shakespeare productions without having to cross the northern border. “It’s not really realistic to expect audiences be able to visit in person at all times so this is a really great way for Stratford to reach them where they are,” she said. “We hope the Stratford series will really excite viewers across the U.S. and they’ll support it and it will have a chance to grow.” Online: http://www.stratfordfestivalHD.com
129
REVIEW: ‘SATIN ISLAND’ BY TOM MCCARTHY IS DAZZLING, FUNNY
“Satin Island” (Knopf), by Tom McCarthy “Events! If you want those, you’d best stop reading now.” So proclaims Tom McCarthy’s “Satin Island,” a rather dazzling array of sentences and paragraphs and snippets of memory and thought that aren’t quite sure where they are. The cover of “Satin Island” bears a number of possibilities: it could be a treatise, an essay, a manifesto, and so on, but each of these is crossed out, leaving only “A Novel.” Anyone familiar with the history of the novel should get that joke.
130
131
And “Satin Island” is very funny; intellectually, culturally, uncannily funny, in that way that absurd, dystopian stories about hyperbureaucracy are funny - think Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil,” and you’re halfway there. U. (“You”? Or perhaps “Ulysses”?), is a corporate ethnographer, a job title that at once makes no and yet total sense, tasked with writing The Great Report. “What I want you to do,” his boss says, “is name what’s taking place right now.” He dismisses U.’s questions about form and audience as secondary. “It will find its shape.” As the novel opens, U. is stuck at the airport in Turin, reading flight departure screens and TV screens and the news on his laptop, following multiple threads at once, from a football match to the airport’s layout, a skydiving accident to an oil spill, while his colleagues text him about work and his girlfriend pings him on Skype. It’s a normalized scenario made weird, an anthropological exercise. What meaning is gained from these exchanges of information? How does one determine the quality, let alone quantity, of that meaning? U. latches onto both the oil spill and the dead parachutist, finding in them metaphors for his work, his friend’s cancer and government conspiracies. In my favorite part of the book, he fantasizes about delivering a lecture arguing that oil spills are nature perfected: “When oil splatters a coastline, Earth wells back up and reveals itself; nature’s hidden nature gushes forth.” Those familiar with McCarthy’s previous work will recognize these themes; I’d wager that anyone unfamiliar but interested in, say, the architecture of information in the 21st century, both as the novel’s subject and its structure, would find this book thoroughly engaging. Online: http://www.randomhouse.com/ book/203430/satin-island-by-tom-mccarthy
132
133
134
135
Astronomers have their own version of the single person's dilemma: Do you wait by the phone for a call from that certain someone? Or do you make the call yourself and risk getting shot down? Instead of love, of course, astronomers are looking for alien life, and for decades, they have sat by their telescopes, waiting to hear from E.T. It didn't happen, and so now some of them
136
want to beam messages out into the void and invite the closest few thousand worlds to chat or even visit. Others scientists, including Stephen Hawking, think that's crazy, warning that instead of sweet and gentle E.T., we may get something like the planet-conquering aliens from "Independence Day." The consequences, they say, could be catastrophic.
But calling out there ourselves may be the only way to find out if we are not alone, and humanity may benefit from alien intelligence, said Douglas A. Vakoch, whose title - for real - is director of interstellar message composition at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and until now it's been mostly a listening-type thing.
This dispute - which mixes astronomy, science fiction, philosophy, the law, mathematics and a touch of silliness - broke out Thursday and Friday at a convention in San Jose of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And this week several prominent space experts, including Space X founder Elon Musk and planet hunter Geoff Marcy, started a petition cautioning against sending out such messages,
137
saying it is impossible to predict whether extraterrestrial life will be benign or hostile. Vakoch is hosting a separate conference Saturday at the SETI Institute on the callingall-aliens proposal and what the messages should say. The idea is called active SETI, and according to Vakoch would involve the beaming of messages via radar and perhaps eventually lasers. We've been inadvertently sending radio and TV signals out to the cosmos for some 70 years though less now, with cable and satellite sending shows directly down to Earth. In fact, each day a new far-off planet may be just now catching the latest episode of the 1950s sitcom "I Love Lucy," said astronomer Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute. There have been a few small and unlikely-towork efforts to beam messages out there in the past, including NASA sending the Beatles song "Across the Universe" into the cosmos in 2008. NASA's Voyager probe recently left the solar system with a "golden record" created by Carl Sagan with a message, and the space agency's New Horizon probe will also have greetings on it by the time it exits the solar system. But what scientists are now talking about is a coordinated and sustained million-dollar-a-year effort with approval from some kind of science or international body and a message that people agree on. It's an "attempt to join the galactic club," Vakoch said. He assured a crowd of reporters: "There's no danger of alien invasion from active SETI."
138
139
But as a science fiction author, as well as an astrophysicist, David Brin thinks inviting aliens here is a bad idea. Even if there is a low risk of a nasty creature coming, the consequences could be extreme. "I can't bring myself to wager my grandchildren's destiny on unreliable assumptions" about benevolent aliens, Brin said. Brin noted that European explorers brought slaughter and disease to less technologically advanced people in the Americas more than 500 years ago. He called for the science community
140
Image: FOX
141
142
to put efforts on hold for an ethical and scientific discussion on "why it won't go the same way as between Cortez and the Aztecs." As Brin, Shostak, Vakoch and others sparred at a news conference, 84-year-old Frank Drake sat in the back quietly. Drake, a pioneer in the search for extraterrestrial life, created the formula called Drake's Equation that scientists use to estimate the chances that other life is out there. More than 40 years ago, Drake and Sagan beamed a message into space to look for aliens, a first for Earth. It was a short message from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and it was aimed at a star cluster called Messier 13. It will take 25,000 years to get there, Drake said. "The probability of succeeding is infinitesimally small," Drake said, rolling out calculations about the incredible amount of time it takes messages to go back and forth and his estimate that the average civilization will last only 10,000 years. So why'd he do it? Curiosity, Drake said. And it doesn't matter if our civilization is gone by the time E.T. answers, if he does. "We get messages from the ancient Greeks and Romans and Socrates all the time, long since gone. Still valuable," Drake said. "We're going to do the archaeology of the future."
143
144
145
146
The official sign-up season for President Barack Obama’s health care law may be over, but leading congressional Democrats say millions of Americans facing new tax penalties deserve a second chance. Three senior House members strongly urged the administration Monday to grant a special signup opportunity for uninsured taxpayers who will be facing fines under the law for the first time this year. The three are Michigan’s Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, and Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, and Lloyd Doggett of Texas. All worked to help steer Obama’s law through rancorous congressional debates from 2009-2010. The lawmakers say they are concerned that many of their constituents will find out about the penalties after it’s already too late for them to sign up for coverage, since open enrollment ended Sunday. That means they could wind up uninsured for another year, only to owe substantially higher fines in 2016. The fines are collected through the income tax system. “For the many families who may now be about to pay a penalty, there should be an opportunity to avoid both further penalties and to obtain affordable health insurance,” said Doggett. This year is the first time ordinary Americans will experience the complicated interactions between the health care law and taxes. Based on congressional analysis, tax preparation giant H&R Block says roughly 4 million uninsured people will pay penalties. The IRS has warned that health-care related issues will make its job harder this filing season and taxpayers should be prepared for long callcenter hold times, particularly since the GOP-led
147
148
Congress has been loath to approve more money for the agency. “Open enrollment period ended before many Americans filed their taxes,” the three lawmakers said in a statement. “Without a special enrollment period, many people (who will be paying fines) will not have another opportunity to get health coverage this year. “A special enrollment period will not only help many Americans avoid making an even larger payment next year, but, more importantly, it will help them gain quality health insurance for 2015,” the lawmakers added. So far, administration officials have deflected questions about whether an extension will be granted. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell has authority to grant special enrollment periods under certain circumstances. Supporters of the law say an extension would mainly help low- to middle-income uninsured people, the same group that Obama’s coverage expansion was intended to serve. But Republicans may criticize it as another tweak to what they see as unworkable “Obamacare.” The health care law imposes fines on uninsured people whose incomes are deemed high enough to enable them to afford coverage. The goal is to broaden the pool of insured people, helping to keep premiums in check for everybody. The law also offers subsidies to lower the cost of private coverage for people who don’t have job-based health care. That financial assistance is provided through a new tax credit. Although the tax credit subsidies cover most of the premiums for many people, the coverage requirement and the fines that enforce it remain deeply unpopular. And the cost of being uninsured in America is going up significantly.
149
150
For 2014, the fine was the greater of $95 per person or 1 percent of household income above the threshold for filing taxes. That fine will be collected when taxpayers file their 2014 returns. But this year the fine will jump to the greater of 2 percent of income or $325. By 2016, the average fine will be about $1,100, based on government figures. Polls show that many taxpayers are unaware of the potential financial exposure. Floyd Cable, a real estate agent from Wichita Falls, Texas, said the escalating fines were part of the motivation for him and his wife to sign up last week. Both are self-employed, and stretching to pay health insurance premiums has been a struggle. “We have been going without insurance the last couple of years just because the rates are so astronomical,” Cable said. But they were also concerned they could wind up on the wrong side of rising penalties. And, being in his early 60s, Cable said he recognizes the value of having health insurance against unexpected illness. An extension would probably help people still on the fence, like he was. “Anything that could be done to give people more time to sort through this, is not only a good move for the administration, but just makes common sense,” Cable said. Since both the subsidies and penalties under the health law are administered through the tax system, some experts have urged the Obama administration to permanently schedule sign-up season to overlap with tax-filing season.
151
152
‘FIFTY SHADES’ TIES UP A COOL $93 MILLION DEBUT
The heat on “Fifty Shades of Grey’s” blockbuster debut cooled ever so slightly as the final four-day weekend numbers were revealed on Tuesday. The R-rated movie, which cost only $40 million to produce, took in $93 million from 3,646 locations across the long President’s Day holiday. Although initial estimates put the four-day gross at over $94 million, director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s adaptation of EL James’ steamy best seller still took the crown for best February opening ever, unseating the 2004 record set by “The Passion of the Christ.”
153
154
Matthew Vaughn’s R-rated comic book adaptation “Kingsman: The Secret Service” also exceeded expectations in its first four days in theaters, bringing in $41.8 million from 3,204 locations, helping to solidify an overall recordbreaking President’s Day weekend at the box office. The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Monday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Tuesday by Rentrak: 1. “Fifty Shades Of Grey,” Universal, $93,010,350, 3,646 locations, $25,510 average, $93,010,350, 1 week. 2. “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” 20th Century Fox, $41,761,512, 3,204 locations, $13,034 average, $41,761,512, 1 week. 3. “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water,” Paramount, $40,007,494, 3,654 locations, $10,949 average, $103,140,055, 2 weeks. 4. “American Sniper,” Warner Bros., $18,779,843, 3,436 locations, $5,466 average, $306,478,136, 8 weeks. 5. “Jupiter Ascending,” Warner Bros., $10,755,447, 3,181 locations, $3,381 average, $33,876,593, 2 weeks. 6. “Paddington,” The Weinstein Company, $5,770,559, 2,244 locations, $2,572 average, $63,963,867, 5 weeks.
155
156
7. “Seventh Son,” Universal, $4,841,540, 2,874 locations, $1,685 average, $14,111,980, 2 weeks. 8. “The Imitation Game,” The Weinstein Company, $4,179,402, 1,551 locations, $2,695 average, $80,311,825, 12 weeks. 9. “The Wedding Ringer,” Sony, $3,707,333, 1,456 locations, $2,546 average, $60,050,350, 5 weeks. 10. “Project Almanac,” Paramount, $3,300,551, 1,732 locations, $1,906 average, $20,130,127, 3 weeks. 11. “Black or White,” Relativity Media, $3,166,371, 1,591 locations, $1,990 average, $17,882,673, 3 weeks. 12. “Still Alice,” Sony Pictures Classics, $2,076,621, 502 locations, $4,137 average, $4,994,406, 5 weeks. 13. “The Boy Next Door,” Universal, $2,003,705, 1,192 locations, $1,681 average, $34,038,525, 4 weeks. 14. “Taken 3,” 20th Century Fox, $1,265,978, 691 locations, $1,832 average, $86,940,705, 6 weeks. 15. “Old Fashioned,” Freestyle Releasing, $1,083,308, 224 locations, $4,836 average, $1,126,199, 2 weeks.
157
158
16. “Birdman,” Fox Searchlight, $1,030,070, 481 locations, $2,142 average, $36,630,755, 18 weeks. 17. “Selma,” Paramount, $1,250,195, 566 locations, $1,794 average, $48,514,386, 8 weeks. 18. “The Theory Of Everything,” Focus Features, $904,301, 466 locations, $1,941 average, $33,339,004, 15 weeks. 19. “Big Hero 6,” Disney, $890,686, 317 locations, $2,810 average, $219,482,366, 15 weeks. 20. “Whiplash,” Sony Pictures Classics, $705,539, 515 locations, $1,370 average, $10,552,001, 19 weeks.
159
TIGHTER ONLINE CONTROLS IN CHINA POINT TO WIDER CLAMPDOWN
Working out of a Beijing office full of video game designers from around the world, Chinese-born Pin Wang and his startup Substantial Games should be the face of the innovative, forwardlooking China that the country’s leaders say they want to build. Pin and his team are attracting investors from across China while launching online games full of swords and sorcery that they hope will dazzle global eyeballs. But for several weeks, Pin’s team has struggled with a decidedly down-toearth problem that’s hit countless companies nationwide: They’re unable to access their email, shared documents and other online services blocked by China’s Internet censors.
160
Image: Substantial Games
161
162
Image: Substantial Games
163
“Something that should take 15 seconds takes three or five minutes, and it screws with the way you flow or you work,” Pin said. “We don’t have the resources to move because we’re a startup. But we talk about it all the time.” Chinese controls on information have tightened and loosened over the years, but Pin and others are feeling what many say is China’s most severe crackdown in decades on how people learn about the world around them, talk to each other and do business. On the Internet, in college classrooms and in corporate offices, the Chinese Communist Party has raised the virtual wall separating the most populous country from the rest of the globe. Experts say it reflects a distrust of outside influences that the party thinks could threaten its control on society. Companies that have depended for years on virtual private networks, or VPNs, to get around Chinese online censors and access business tools have seen those channels squeezed or shut down since the start of the year. Academics who have long helped Chinese authorities distill foreign ideas into public policy have been told to watch what they say, especially about so-called Western ideas that clash with party doctrine. And many foreign companies that were welcomed into China’s booming economy have seen their offices raided by investigators and been forced to pay record fines in antitrust investigations. Despite Chinese government pledges to create an innovation economy that leads the world, China ranked 22nd out of 50 countries, between Ireland and Spain, in a global innovation index released this month by Bloomberg financial news service. “To have the best educational system and the best university has nothing to do with how many high-rises you have and how many good dining halls you have,” said Rowena
164
Image: AP Photo/Andy Wong
165
He, a Harvard University lecturer. “The most important thing at the core is the intellectual freedom that makes up life in a university and academia,” she said. “But instead of opening up to reforms, we see the opposite.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded to the concerns of foreign businesses by pointing to a U.N. report showing China became the world’s top destination for foreign direct investment in 2014. Hua also echoed previous government arguments that people online needed to first obey Chinese regulations on “healthy” Internet use. “As long as foreign companies in China observe the Chinese law and refrain from undermining China’s national security and consumers’ interest, China will protect their legal rights and welcome their business expansion,” Hua said. The tighter controls reflect instability within the party as President Xi Jinping shakes up the political landscape in a much-publicized anticorruption campaign that’s netted thousands of government officials, said prominent China scholar Perry Link. The strategy echoes back to the political purges of Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, Link said. “Since Xi Jinping has come in, the clampdown has been stronger and more unidirectional than anything since the Mao era,” Link said. Professor Xia Yeliang was among the first to feel the consequences when the economics faculty of prestigious Peking University voted to expel him in October 2013. Xia had long been an advocate for democratic reforms in China and helped draft Charter 08, a bold call for sweeping changes to China’s political system. Xia said more than 20 professors in China have been expelled or otherwise disciplined for their political teachings since Xi came to power. “Through my colleagues, I can sense that the ideological controls are getting much tighter,” said
166
Image: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
167
Xia, now a visiting fellow at the libertarian U.S. think tank the Cato Institute. In that political climate, the government sees the Internet as a top threat and has responded by building a ubiquitous system for censoring what people in China can see online. Xi presides over the powerful Central Internet Security and Information Leading Group, which formed after he took power. The list of controls grows every month. Late last year, Chinese censors finally blocked all Google services after the U.S. company refused to cooperate with them in 2010. This month, officials required that all Chinese blog and chat room users register with their real names and promise in writing to avoid challenging the political system. In the coming weeks, new cybersecurity regulations will reportedly require foreign companies to turn over sensitive intellectual property and submit their products to security checks. The party has paid especially close attention to the microblog Weibo and censored messages that touch on sensitive subjects, said Rogier Creemers, a research officer at Oxford University’s Programme for Comparative Media Law and Policy. “Weibo has become a venue for chaotic discussion, and part of the effect it had was it essentially meant the party had lost the initiative and couldn’t say what got into the public sphere,” Creemers said. The latest moves are in line with Beijing’s longtime approach to regulatory change: It eases control on commercial or other activity, sees how it develops and then promotes aspects it wants while suppressing those it doesn’t. Chinese Internet users, for example, still are avid consumers of social media, e-commerce and video streaming sites, even if the censors are
168
Image: Paresh
169
170
Image: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
always lurking, said Dali Yang, faculty director of the University of Chicago’s center in Beijing. “This is a society with a tremendous level of information, people who are very well educated in terms of actual information and they know of history going back centuries,” Yang said. Still, while Chinese leaders see the Internet as a source of prosperity and jobs, they are willing to give up commercial gains to enforce political controls. When the government clashed with Google, people in the industry warned that driving out the U.S. search giant would hurt China’s development. Walling off China’s Internet has allowed some local websites such as search engine Baidu and Weibo to prosper in the absence of foreign competition. Other local companies, such as Pin’s startup, chafe at the restrictions. Foreign entrepreneurs and companies, meanwhile, are trying to figure out whether the costs of doing business in China outweigh the benefits of tapping the world’s secondbiggest economy. Rich Chinese also are looking to leave the country. A survey by the British bank Barclays last year found that 47 percent of more than 2,000 high-worth Chinese are hoping to move within five years. The poll found that their top reasons were greater educational and economic opportunities for their children and overall economic security. “Beijing is an attractive place to be because of the amazing talent,” said Beijing-based entrepreneur Nils Pihl, who heads the database startup Traintracks. “But it’s getting harder for us to stay, and my social feed is full of other CEOs saying they’re worried they will have to leave.”
171
172
MSNBC’S BRZEZINSKI TO HOST EVENTS FOR WOMEN
The NBC Universal News Group is launching a series of live events where “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski offers empowerment tips to women, a venture that illustrates an effort to find revenue-raising activities outside the traditional definition of news. The tour, loosely based on Brzezinski’s book “Knowing Your Value,” will begin in Philadelphia in April. Subsequent stops will be in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston and Orlando, the network said on Tuesday.
173
174
Brzezinski said she frequently hears from women inspired by her book, where she describes fighting to close a salary gap between her and co-host Joe Scarborough. She’ll be part of each conference, which will feature women offering strategies to be more successful at work, personal finance, health and wellness. Through its partnership with Kara Swisher and Walter Mossberg’s Re/code, NBC has some experience running live events. NBC Universal also produces programming for elementary and secondary schools. Like many news organizations, NBC Universal is looking for ways to make money beyond advertising within television news programs. Not only is there increased competition online for ad dollars, ratings troubles have cut into revenue for shows like “Today” and “Meet the Press,” and now “Nightly News” faces a threat with the suspension of top anchor Brian Williams. “For the health of the news industry, we need to keep evolving our business model,” said Elisabeth Sami, a senior vice president in charge of business development at NBC Universal. Brzezinski, who is releasing another book, “Grow Your Value,” this spring, organized one conference on her own, in Hartford, Conn., and was heartened by the response. Even successful women can use help in fighting for themselves in the workplace, including nutsand-bolts advice on body language and what to wear while seeking raises, she said. “If you do a conference in New York City, you see your friends in the audience, and you see the people we have on the show and then you see a few women who look a little lost - and they walk away feeling that what they aspire to is even further away than what they thought,” she said. “And that’s not how you want to have a conference. The women in Hartford ... walked out
175
joyful, excited about going to work the next day and feeling that they had really tangible pieces of advice.” Johnson & Johnson is the lead sponsor of the tour, joined by other companies like Prudential, JetBlue, Tivo, Milly and NBC Universal owner Comcast. There are no plans for NBC News employees to hawk products during the event, Sami said. News personnel need to make sure they are not creating conflicts of interest when they get involved in these other ventures, said Aly Colon, a professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University. “Generally speaking, you’re at your best when you’re doing what you normally do,” Colon said. “Anytime you extend beyond that you have to take care because you’re going to affect how people see you as a news organization. The news groups are always better off, in my opinion, when you stick to the news.” Sami said the goal is to be as transparent as possible and “make sure we get it right.” The MSNBC.com web site will maintain a “Know Your Value” link with content and the ability to live stream some of Brzezinski’s events.
176
177
178
NY FASHION WEEK: NAOMI CAMPBELL WOWS ZAC POSEN CROWD
The eNews Magazine is all over New York Fashion Week, from its runway fashions to celebritypacked events. Here’s what some AP writers are seeing: ZAC POSEN HEARTS NAOMI CAMPBELL What does a runway queen wear? A ruby glitter ballgown, of course. Naomi Campbell had Zac Posen’s crowd collectively uttering that fashion word of all words - wow - when she closed his Monday night show in the flocked taffeta bustier number against the grandeur of Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal. Compared to a sea of muted grays, blues and blacks on other runways- and the gloom of winter’s deep freeze - Posen’s show of color was a welcome sight. It included a range of reds, emerald green, plum, burnt orange and sparkly disco silver in a column gown done up in bugle beads that glistened under the hall’s stately chandeliers.
179
180
And Campbell wasn’t the only royalty in the house. Rihanna selfied with Lee Daniels and sat front row with Mary J. Blige, while Christina Hendricks and Coco Rocha beamed from their prime seats. Uzo Aduba and Katie Holmes were also among Posen’s guests. Of the runway, Posen said in a backstage interview he was looking to mix and match his muses for fall. He worked in stretch jersey, included more day looks and ran with a `70s vibe in sparkle. And there was mink, in scarves tied close to the neck, a coat and a bright orange top paired with a long loose skirt of a similar shade. “We wanted more fluidity on the runway. I was feeling the glamour of Grace Kelly meets the spice of Chaka Khan. I draped most of the collection myself, on weekends. In my quiet moments,” the affable designer said. So what’s on Posen’s mind for the Oscars? It’s not all about the red carpet. “I’m a big film geek,” he smiled, declaring his love for “Birdman.” “I don’t believe in pushing hard for red carpets. Getting something on a red carpet shouldn’t have to be a notch every awards show,” he said. What else might be up for Posen? There’s a documentary in the works about his life. And the avid home chef who delights followers on Instagram with his recipes and hashtag of CookingwithZac may just do a cookbook. He likes thinking up new recipes in the same way he likes taking fabric to a mannequin. “Finding your ingredients is like finding a great fabric,” he said. “Both are sensual in the same way.” -Leanne Italie
181
A COLD BEER -- AND `90s COOL -- AT RAG & BONE Let no one underestimate the power of a cold beer and some spicy nuts to raise the spirits of a weary Fashion Week crowd. Often an 8 p.m. show feels like one too many on a freezing day, but the mood inside Rag & Bone’s Fall/Winter show Monday night felt truly jovial. Did we mention they were offering beer? As for the clothes, designers David Neville and Marcus Wainwright channeled a `90s vibe with lots of layering, including interesting combos like a slip dress over skintight trousers with a huge parka on top. Colors were bright - especially a nice “spicy orange” - and there was a refreshing “anything goes with anything” vibe. Especially noticeable were satiny slips (silk charmeuse, actually) in all sorts of styles - slip dresses, slip skirts, even a slip jumpsuit. These came in luscious colors like licorice and chocolate. The designers, whose guests included actor Dylan McDermott, dancer Lil Buck and of course Vogue editor Anna Winter, also used innovative projections on the room’s massive walls, covering up windows on one side and showing constantly alternating angles of the show in progress. There were close-up runway shots, long-distance shots, and most enticingly, inside-the-wings peeks at models getting primped just before being ushered onto the catwalk. Shoes came in fun colors like bright yellow and orange, and included Mary Janes and comfy loafers. Parkas were huge and inviting, especially given the weather. All in all a very user-friendly show - and, did we mention the beer? -Jocelyn Noveck
182
183
184
TOY MUSEUM ANNOUNCES HALL OF FAME FOR VIDEO GAMES
185
The museum that houses the National Toy Hall of Fame is establishing a World Video Game Hall of Fame. The Strong museum in Rochester says the video hall announced Tuesday will recognize electronic games of all types: arcade, console, computer, handheld and mobile. The toy hall of fame will provide the model for the video version. Anyone will be able to nominate a video game, and an internal advisory committee will choose finalists. An international selection committee of experts will choose inductees from there, based on four criteria: icon-status, longevity, geographical reach and influence. Nominations for the inaugural class are being accepted through the end of March. The Strong has been preserving and collecting video games and artifacts for years through its International Center for the History of Electronic Games.
186
187
188
REVIEW: LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA’S ‘HAMILTON’ IS A ROLLICKING SHOW
It sounds screwy and yet here it is - a hip-hopbased musical on Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary of the United States. Over-hyped? Perhaps. But this almost three-hour show, with some 50 songs, reprises and song fragments - is also rollicking, messy, and earnest just like America’s founding. The new musical reunites the team from “In the Heights” - director Thomas Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the show’s book, music and lyrics, and stars in the title role. Structured chronologically and, in a brilliant stroke, narrated by Aaron Burr, the man who would kill Hamilton, the musical opened Tuesday at the Public Theater with money on it finding a bigger home at some point. It stresses the orphan, immigrant roots of “the $10 Founding Father without a father,” his vices and ambition, and his almost Greek tragedy of a death. It’s clever and ambitious, yes, and also in need of some editing.
189
190
It’s the kind of show that Broadway insiders are already applauding: Edgy without being scary, historical without being dry. It’s hip-hop with a master’s degree. Could it be the thing that rescues Broadway? It’s true that Miranda seems to be one of those unique artists who manages to mashup disparate worlds. He’s fluent in Sondheim and Tupac, and has a sly, smart sensibility. He’s like that cool-nerd slouched in the front row of AP History class with his hand permanently in the air. But there’s a danger here of putting too much on an already overstuffed “Hamilton.” The Public Theater even tries to equate Miranda’s embrace of common speech with Shakespeare’s in its program note. Really? Will generations really celebrate the rhyming of mello and Monticello? Or quote Hamilton to John Madison? “Hey, turn around, bend over, I’ll show you where my shoe fits.” The standout performances are Leslie Odom Jr. as Burr; Phillipa Soo as Hamilton’s wife; Renee Elise Goldsberry as Hamilton’s sister-in-law; and Daveed Diggs as a sarcastic Thomas Jefferson (his Marquis de Lafayette in Act One isn’t as strong). And Brian d’Arcy James, as a foppish and peevish King George, sings three songs to his former American colonies like a jilted lover - “You’ll be back,” he croons - and will have you crying with laughter. The show is inspired by a Ron Chernow biography - the historian actually gets a bio in the Playbill - yet is filtered through Miranda’s cultural and musical world. And what a world that is: The songs range from breezy pop to rap battles to gospel to sexy R&B. Hip-hop fans will hear shards of lyrics by Notorious B.I.G., Lauryn Hill and LL Cool J, like little Easter eggs. The sparse wooden-and-rope set by David Korins has a revolving center, which, if you think about it, is a perfectly appropriate turntable.
191
192
The audience will get a tremendous amount of information about Hamilton. Did you know he had a thing for his sister-in-law? And they’ll also get too much about the smaller moments in American history. The Whiskey Rebellion, anyone? The Battle of Monmouth? When everything works, it’s thrilling to watch. “The Room Where It Happened” is a real feat of choreography, performance and stagecraft, led by Odom, who is an anguished, multidimensional Burr. “The Duel Commandments” is a clever riff from the Notorious B.I.G’s “Ten Crack Commandments,” and “Satisfied” is a “Rashomon” love moment led by a glorious Goldsberry. Miranda and Kail clearly know when to go big but also when to bring it down. Soo’s song “Burn” is a heartfelt ballad with the only special effects being real flames. But the final duel pitting Burr and Hamilton has both men with guns drawn, dancers spinning, the stage turning - it’s like a John Woo film. But so much churning also creates a series of stuttering Act One would-be closers, unnecessary tunes like “One Last Ride” and one that was oddly marooned: “Hurricane,” with new information about Hamilton’s childhood, sounds like a tentpole number but curiously ends up at the threequarter mark. “Hamilton” is nothing less than a reclaiming of America’s founding story, a retelling of the 18th century story by a nontraditional cast wearing vests and cravats and singing about “dropping knowledge.” In its own way, it’s a revolution, all right. Online: http://www.publictheater.org
193
MASTHEAD
TECHLIFE NEWS
SOCIAL NETWORKS
WRITERS
Twitter
Benjamin Kerry (UK) Gavin Lenaghan (UK) Jane Lasky (US) Laura Tucker (US) Russ Boswell (US) Steve Hughes (US) Tim Baker (AUSTRALIA)
@apple_magazine twitter.com/#!/Apple_Magazine
Facebook
facebook.com/applemagazineinternational
SUBSCRIPTIONS TechLifeNews Website
COLUMNS
TechLifeNews.com
INSIDE APPS / INSIDE GAMES Russ Boswell
Zinio LLC.
zino.com
iTUNES REVIEW Laura Tucker
CONTACTS Executive Director -
[email protected] Relationship Management -
[email protected] Magazine and Website Editor -
[email protected] Advertise -
[email protected] Social Network -
[email protected] Promotions -
[email protected] BOARD
FINANCE Associated Press REVISION Steve Hughes Laura Tucker SPECIAL THANKS
Ivan Castilho
Executive Director / Design Conception
Glauco Ribeiro
Rui da Costa Talita Nakazato Held Souza Matt Winwood Robert Fluellen Doug MacMillan Savannah Farnan
Art & Graphic Design
Laura Tucker
Website Editor
ART & GRAPHIC DESIGN Glauco Ribeiro
Art & Graphic Design
PRIVACY POLICY
Rodrigo Senna
applemagazine.com/privacy-policy/
Animation / 3D Computer Graphics Modeling
TERMS OF USE
Lena Dourado
applemagazine.com/terms-of-use/
Digital Conversion
Authorized Publisher
TECHLIFENEWS . MINDFIELD DIGITAL © Copyright 2013-2011. All Rights Reserved. No part of the document may be circulated, quoted, or reproduced for distribution without prior written approval. Proper Trademark Notice and Attribution iPad™, iPhone™, iPod™, Mac™, iMac™, Macbook™, iOS™, OS X™ are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the US and other countries. Please contact support for additional trademark ownership rights information. The following is a list of Apple’s trademarks and service marks http://www.apple.com/legal/ trademark/appletmlist.html. All other trademarks are the properties of their owners.
