Nike Snowboarding released Gigi Ruf's part from their latest project, "Never Not." Gigi's riding blends freestyle and big mountain freeriding with a unique and legendary finesse. Watch closely for each detail, the way he sets up for a spin, precisely choses his landings, or chases his own sluff down a runout. Also, for anyone interested in doing half-cab-methods, pay close attention at 1:00. That is how it's done.
Want to watch Never Not in its entirety? Check out Part 1 and Part 2.
The prettiest tooth fairy of them all! Lauren Conrad got in the Halloween spirit this year by once again making her very own costume. On Oct. 31, the newly engaged Paper Crown fashion designer revealed how she created her pale blue tooth fairy costume via laurenconrad.com.
"Every Halloween, I have so much fun making my own costumes from scratch. This year I decided to dress up as the tooth fairy," the 27-year-old bestselling author wrote alongside pictures of the hand-making process. "I bought all of my supplies the week before (including yards and yards of tulle) and spent a few hours crafting my costume on a dress form. I was quite pleased with the end result!"
Indeed, the Hills alum shared a final picture on the blog wearing the finished product. Conrad wore a nude slip for the costume and used tulle fabric for wings. She also swept her blonde locks up in a bun and carried a tooth bag for the photo-op. (Another photo also gave a close-up look at her stunning new engagement ring!)
This isn't the first time the former Laguna Beach star revealed her fairy outfit. Last week, the Sweet Little Lies author debuted the costume while attending Matthew Morrison's Halloween party at Hollywood hotspot Warwick on Oct. 26 with her fiance William Tell.
Lauren Conrad showed off her stunning engagement ring from fiance William Tell as she shared photos of her handmade Tooth Fairy Halloween costume via her personal site laurenconrad.com Credit: Courtesy of laurenconrad.com
"They sat in a booth in the back with friends most of the time," an insider revealed to Us Weekly about the couple's time at the party. "She was showing off her ring but there was no wedding talk."
Conrad announced she was engaged to the 33-year-old Something Corporate rocker turned law student via Twitter on Oct. 13. "I am very excited to share with you guys that William and I got engaged over the weekend," she wrote at the time. "I am beyond thrilled! Get ready for lots more wedding content here on LaurenConrad.com as we begin the planning process."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of a Senate panel that oversees U.S. intelligence issues said Thursday it has approved a plan to scale back how many American telephone records the National Security Agency can sweep up. But critics of U.S. surveillance programs and privacy rights experts said the bill does little, if anything, to end the daily collection of millions of records that has spurred widespread demands for reform.
Legislation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was approved by an 11-4 vote, would increase congressional and judicial oversight of intelligence activities. It also would create 10-year prison sentences for people who access the classified material without authorization, according to a statement released by committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the panel's top Republican.
Just how far it would scale back the bulk collection of Americans' telephone records was unclear.
The statement said the plan would ban bulk collection of records "under specific procedures and restrictions." Chambliss spokeswoman Lauren Claffey said some of the telephone metadata collection would continue, so long as intelligence officials followed rules for how it can be used.
Only certain people would have access to the phone data, according to the bill. It also would bar the NSA from obtaining the content of the phone calls. The current program only allows the NSA to collect phone numbers and times of calls and cannot listen in on phone calls without a warrant from a secret court.
"The threats we face — from terrorism, proliferation and cyberattack, among others — are real, and they will continue," Feinstein said in the statement. "Intelligence is necessary to protect our national and economic security, as well as to stop attacks against our friends and allies around the world."
She said "more can and should be done" to increase transparency of the surveillance and build public support for privacy protections.
But Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said the legislation allows the bulk collection to continue under certain safeguards. He called the safeguards a positive first step but said the NSA should stop sweeping up Americans' phone records and only obtain those that are connected to a specific terror plot.
Privacy advocates who have long called for the end of broad government snooping bristled at the bill, which they said would merely legalize the surveillance that the NSA has quietly undertaken since 2006.
"It's fitting that Senator Feinstein took Halloween to remind us why she's the favorite senator of the NSA's spooks," said David Segal, executive director of advocacy group Demand Progress. "Using squishy public relations language, she is striving to leave the impression that her bill reins in the NSA's mass surveillance programs — but it does nothing of the sort. ... Lawmakers must immediately recognize this legislation for the sham that it is — and reject it outright."
The Senate intelligence bill rivals one put forward earlier this week, by House and Senate judiciary committees, that would eliminate the phone data collection program that was revealed earlier this year in classified documents that were released to the media by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
The dueling legislation means that Congress ultimately will have to decide how broadly the U.S. government can conduct surveillance on its own citizens in the name of protecting Americans from terror threats.
Polls indicate that Americans widely oppose the surveillance program.
Meanwhile, the NSA issued a more forceful statement rejecting reports that it illegally collected millions of records from communications links between Yahoo and Google data centers around the world.
The Washington Post, citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, has reported that the NSA sent records from the companies' internal servers to data warehouses at the agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.
The NSA said such reports have "misstated facts, mischaracterized NSA's activities, and drawn erroneous inferences about those operations." In a detailed statement, the agency said its activities are conducted in accordance with law and policy. And it said the data collection goes after valid foreign intelligence targets that often use communications over satellite links, microwave towers and fiber-optic cables.
"U.S. service provider communications make use of the same information superhighways as a variety of other commercial service providers," the agency said. "NSA must understand and take that into account in order to eliminate information that is not related to foreign intelligence."
Under normal procedures, the NSA is required to sort data based on relevant potential threats and seek additional legal authorities to access the information if the communication involves an American.
___
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
Newly identified proteins make promising targets for blocking graft-vs.-host disease
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Nicole Fawcett nfawcett@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System
Finding could help improve outcomes from bone marrow transplants
ANN ARBOR, Mich. Researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified new proteins that control the function of critical immune cell subsets called T-cells, which are responsible for a serious and often deadly side effect of lifesaving bone marrow transplants.
These new proteins have not previously been associated with T-cell responses. T-cells help fight infections but also can trigger autoimmune diseases or graft vs. host disease, a side effect of bone marrow transplant in which the new donor cells begin attacking other cells in the patient's body.
"We identified new targets within the T-cells that regulate the immune response to foreign antigens. If these proteins can be targeted, it may prove helpful in reducing graft-vs.-host disease," says study first author Yaping Sun, M.D., Ph.D., internal medicine research investigator at the U-M Medical School.
Reducing the incidence of graft-vs.-host disease could make bone marrow transplant an option for more people with blood-based cancers. About half of people who receive a transplant from donated cells develop graft-vs.-host.
In this study, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the researchers looked at the landscape of mRNA and micro-RNA after the T-cells were activated by different kinds of stimuli. mRNA are made from the genes present in the DNA and serve as templates for making proteins. Micro-RNA are also copied from the DNA but do not code for proteins; instead they fine tune the expression of other genes and proteins.
By looking at both simultaneously, the researchers were able to tease out only the mRNAs that were regulated by micro-RNA. They found that two mRNA's that express the proteins Wapal and Synj1 were among the most differentially expressed. Both these proteins have been implicated in other cellular functions, but had not previously been linked to a role in T-cell immune responses.
The researchers validated their findings in laboratory studies to look at T-cell functions in cell cultures and in mice. Importantly, when they blocked the proteins, it impacted the T-cell function and reduced graft-vs.-host disease in mice.
"We know a lot of proteins play a role in T-cell responses. We're adding more to the armory. Our initial validations in mice are preliminary, but a promising start," says senior study author Pavan Reddy, M.D., professor of hematology/oncology at the U-M Medical School.
This research is still in its early stages. No compounds currently are known to target Wapal or Synj1. Additional research is needed.
###
Additional authors: Isao Tawara, Mie University Hospital, Japan; Meng Zhao and Zhaohui S. Qin, Emory University; Tomomi Toubai, Nathan Mathewson, Hiroya Tamaki, Evelyn Nieves, and Arul Chinnaiyan, University of Michigan
Funding: National Institutes of Health grants AI-075284, CA-173878 and HL-090775; clinical research award from the Leukemia Lymphoma Society; basic science investigator award from the American Society of Transplantation
Disclosure: None
Reference:Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vol. 123, No. 11, November 2013
Resources:
U-M Cancer AnswerLine, 800-865-1125
U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center, http://www.mcancer.org
Clinical trials at U-M, http://www.mcancer.org/clinicaltrials
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Newly identified proteins make promising targets for blocking graft-vs.-host disease
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Nicole Fawcett nfawcett@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System
Finding could help improve outcomes from bone marrow transplants
ANN ARBOR, Mich. Researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified new proteins that control the function of critical immune cell subsets called T-cells, which are responsible for a serious and often deadly side effect of lifesaving bone marrow transplants.
These new proteins have not previously been associated with T-cell responses. T-cells help fight infections but also can trigger autoimmune diseases or graft vs. host disease, a side effect of bone marrow transplant in which the new donor cells begin attacking other cells in the patient's body.
"We identified new targets within the T-cells that regulate the immune response to foreign antigens. If these proteins can be targeted, it may prove helpful in reducing graft-vs.-host disease," says study first author Yaping Sun, M.D., Ph.D., internal medicine research investigator at the U-M Medical School.
Reducing the incidence of graft-vs.-host disease could make bone marrow transplant an option for more people with blood-based cancers. About half of people who receive a transplant from donated cells develop graft-vs.-host.
In this study, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the researchers looked at the landscape of mRNA and micro-RNA after the T-cells were activated by different kinds of stimuli. mRNA are made from the genes present in the DNA and serve as templates for making proteins. Micro-RNA are also copied from the DNA but do not code for proteins; instead they fine tune the expression of other genes and proteins.
By looking at both simultaneously, the researchers were able to tease out only the mRNAs that were regulated by micro-RNA. They found that two mRNA's that express the proteins Wapal and Synj1 were among the most differentially expressed. Both these proteins have been implicated in other cellular functions, but had not previously been linked to a role in T-cell immune responses.
The researchers validated their findings in laboratory studies to look at T-cell functions in cell cultures and in mice. Importantly, when they blocked the proteins, it impacted the T-cell function and reduced graft-vs.-host disease in mice.
"We know a lot of proteins play a role in T-cell responses. We're adding more to the armory. Our initial validations in mice are preliminary, but a promising start," says senior study author Pavan Reddy, M.D., professor of hematology/oncology at the U-M Medical School.
This research is still in its early stages. No compounds currently are known to target Wapal or Synj1. Additional research is needed.
###
Additional authors: Isao Tawara, Mie University Hospital, Japan; Meng Zhao and Zhaohui S. Qin, Emory University; Tomomi Toubai, Nathan Mathewson, Hiroya Tamaki, Evelyn Nieves, and Arul Chinnaiyan, University of Michigan
Funding: National Institutes of Health grants AI-075284, CA-173878 and HL-090775; clinical research award from the Leukemia Lymphoma Society; basic science investigator award from the American Society of Transplantation
Disclosure: None
Reference:Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vol. 123, No. 11, November 2013
Resources:
U-M Cancer AnswerLine, 800-865-1125
U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center, http://www.mcancer.org
Clinical trials at U-M, http://www.mcancer.org/clinicaltrials
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Ken Branson kbranson@ucm.rutgers.edu 732-932-7084 x633 Rutgers University
The intermediate waters of the Pacific Ocean are absorbing heat 15 times faster over the past 60 years than in the past 10,000
Some climate change skeptics have pointed out that global atmospheric temperatures have been stable, or even declined slightly, over the past decade. They claim it's a sign that global warming has either ceased, slowed down or is not caused by human activity.
So, where did all that heat that we're supposedly producing go?
Climate scientists say it went into the ocean, which over the past 60 years has acted as a buffer against global warming. However, a new study led by Rutgers' Yair Rosenthal shows that the ocean is now absorbing heat 15 times faster than it has over the previous 10,000 years. Although the increased heat absorption by the ocean may give scientists and policymakers more time to deal with the issue of climate change, Rosenthal says the problem is real and must be addressed.
"We may have underestimated the efficiency of the oceans as a storehouse for heat and energy," Rosenthal said. "It may buy us some time how much time, I don't really know to come to terms with climate change. But it's not going to stop climate change."
Rosenthal, a professor of marine and coastal sciences in Rutgers' School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; Braddock Linsley of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; and Delia W. Oppo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, used the shells of tiny single-celled, bottom-dwelling foraminifera found in sediment cores to reconstruct the Pacific Ocean's heat content over the last 10,000 years. Their paper has been published in Science.
The heat content of the ocean had been measured before, but only instrumentally, and only back to the mid-20th century.
Their research was undertaken on marine sediment collected from the seas surrounding Indonesia, where the waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans overlap. The researchers measured the ratio of magnesium to calcium in the shells of a particular species of foraminifera, Hyalinea balthica. The warmer the waters when the organism calcified, the greater the magnesium to calcium ratio.
Yair Rosenthal
The shell chemistry of these tiny creatures provides a record of intermediate water temperatures going back 10,000 years, not only in the part of the Pacific where they were collected but from the higher latitudes in the Pacific as well. That's because the intermediate water in the western Pacific depths between 450 and 1,000 meters consists of water that once was near the surface in the northern and southern Pacific. The waters became saltier and colder over time and sank, then flowed very slowly toward the equator and through the passages between islands in Indonesia.
"Our work showed that intermediate waters in the Pacific had been cooling steadily from about 10,000 years ago" said Linsley. This places the recent warming of Pacific intermediate waters in temporal context. The trend has now reversed in a big way and the deep ocean is warming."
###
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Global warming as viewed from the deep ocean
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Ken Branson kbranson@ucm.rutgers.edu 732-932-7084 x633 Rutgers University
The intermediate waters of the Pacific Ocean are absorbing heat 15 times faster over the past 60 years than in the past 10,000
Some climate change skeptics have pointed out that global atmospheric temperatures have been stable, or even declined slightly, over the past decade. They claim it's a sign that global warming has either ceased, slowed down or is not caused by human activity.
So, where did all that heat that we're supposedly producing go?
Climate scientists say it went into the ocean, which over the past 60 years has acted as a buffer against global warming. However, a new study led by Rutgers' Yair Rosenthal shows that the ocean is now absorbing heat 15 times faster than it has over the previous 10,000 years. Although the increased heat absorption by the ocean may give scientists and policymakers more time to deal with the issue of climate change, Rosenthal says the problem is real and must be addressed.
"We may have underestimated the efficiency of the oceans as a storehouse for heat and energy," Rosenthal said. "It may buy us some time how much time, I don't really know to come to terms with climate change. But it's not going to stop climate change."
Rosenthal, a professor of marine and coastal sciences in Rutgers' School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; Braddock Linsley of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; and Delia W. Oppo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, used the shells of tiny single-celled, bottom-dwelling foraminifera found in sediment cores to reconstruct the Pacific Ocean's heat content over the last 10,000 years. Their paper has been published in Science.
The heat content of the ocean had been measured before, but only instrumentally, and only back to the mid-20th century.
Their research was undertaken on marine sediment collected from the seas surrounding Indonesia, where the waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans overlap. The researchers measured the ratio of magnesium to calcium in the shells of a particular species of foraminifera, Hyalinea balthica. The warmer the waters when the organism calcified, the greater the magnesium to calcium ratio.
Yair Rosenthal
The shell chemistry of these tiny creatures provides a record of intermediate water temperatures going back 10,000 years, not only in the part of the Pacific where they were collected but from the higher latitudes in the Pacific as well. That's because the intermediate water in the western Pacific depths between 450 and 1,000 meters consists of water that once was near the surface in the northern and southern Pacific. The waters became saltier and colder over time and sank, then flowed very slowly toward the equator and through the passages between islands in Indonesia.
"Our work showed that intermediate waters in the Pacific had been cooling steadily from about 10,000 years ago" said Linsley. This places the recent warming of Pacific intermediate waters in temporal context. The trend has now reversed in a big way and the deep ocean is warming."
###
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction in New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction in New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction at Christie's New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
NEW YORK (AP) — The sunburst Fender Stratocaster that a young Bob Dylan played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he famously went electric, perhaps the most historic instrument in rock 'n' roll, is coming up for auction, where it could bring as much as half a million dollars.
Though now viewed as changing American music forever, Dylan's three-song electric set at the Rhode Island festival that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock 'n' roll was met by boos from folk purists in the crowd who viewed him as a traitor. He returned for an acoustic encore with "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."
The guitar is being offered for sale Dec. 6, Christie's told The Associated Press. Five lots of hand- and typewritten lyric fragments found inside the guitar case — early versions of some of Dylan's legendary songs — also are being sold. The lyrics have a pre-sale estimate ranging from $3,000 to $30,000.
With a classic sunburst finish and original flat-wound strings, the guitar has been in the possession of a New Jersey family for nearly 50 years. Dylan left it on a private plane piloted by the owner's late father, Vic Quinto, who worked for Dylan's manager.
His daughter, Dawn Peterson, of Morris County, N.J., has said her father asked the management company what to do with the guitar but nobody ever got back to him.
Last year, she took it to the PBS show "History Detectives" to try to have it authenticated. The program enlisted the expertise of Andy Babiuk, a consultant to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and owner of an upstate New York vintage instrument shop, and Jeff Gold, a Dylan memorabilia expert. Both men, who appeared on the episode, unequivocally declared the artifacts belonged to Dylan.
Babiuk took the instrument apart and also compared it to close-up color photos of the guitar taken at the 1965 festival.
"I was able to match the wood grain on the body of the guitar ... and the unique grain of the rosewood fingerboard. Wood grains are like fingerprints, no two are exactly alike," Babiuk said in an interview. "Based on the sum of the evidence, I was able to identify that this guitar was the one that Bob Dylan had played in Newport."
Dylan's attorney and his publicist did not respond to email and phone requests for comment. Dylan and Peterson, who declined to be interviewed, recently settled a legal dispute over the items.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed but allowed Peterson to sell the guitar and lyrics, according to Rolling Stone, which wrote in July about Peterson's quest to authenticate the guitar.
"Representatives for Bob Dylan do not contest the sale of the guitar, and are aware of Christie's plan to bring it to auction," a statement issued through Christie's said.
Dylan has generally looked upon his instruments to convey his art, akin to a carpenter's hammer, Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, said last year. "I don't think he's dwelled on a guitar he hasn't played for 47 years," he said. "If he cared about it, he would have done something about it."
Festival founder George Wein told the AP that when Dylan finished playing, Wein was backstage and told him to go back out and play an acoustic number because that's what people expected. Dylan said he didn't want to do it and said he couldn't because he only had the electric guitar. Wein called out for a loaner backstage and about 20 musicians raised their acoustic guitars to offer them.
The lyrics for sale include "In the Darkness of Your Room," an early draft of "Absolutely Sweet Marie" from Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" album, and three songs from the record's 1965 recording session that were not released until the 1980s: "Medicine Sunday" (the draft is titled "Midnight Train"), "Jet Pilot" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover."
Dylan's "going electric changed the structure of folk music," the 88-year-old Wein said. "The minute Dylan went electric, all these young people said, 'Bobby's going electric, we're going electric, too.'"
___
Associated Press writer Michelle R. Smith in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.
River celebrated his 23rd birthday—on Aug. 23, 1993—and then flew down to Costa Rica with all his siblings and his father. John was opening a vegan restaurant, but his real agenda was to get his children, especially River, to leave behind the corruption of the USA and live by the Phoenix family values again. John explained, “The idea was for them to spend more time here, helping with the cooking, making music, writing, harvesting the organic fruit, and living off the land like we used to.”
John implored River to get out of the movie business before it ate him up. Eventually, River acceded, either because John had convinced him or because he was tired of arguing about it. But he had to fulfill his agreements, he told his father: He had signed contracts to appear in Dark Blood and Interview with the Vampire, and he had promised William Richert that he would be in his version of The Man in the Iron Mask. After he made those three films, he could quit and move down to Costa Rica.
“As it turned out,” John said, “that was too many.”
When River left Costa Rica, he said, “I’ll see you after this movie, Dad”—a commonplace sentiment that nobody would ever have remembered if things had turned out differently.
“Well, he did,” John said, “only he was in a box.”
George Sluizer, the director of Dark Blood, had heard rumors about River’s drug use, but he didn’t worry about them. “I knew of his drug habit,” he said. “The actors in Hollywood, at the top level, all are, I would say, drug addicts in some way or another. I worked with Kiefer Sutherland: He was a whiskey addict, two bottles a day. He wanted to compete with me: ‘You drink one bottle, I drink one bottle, let’s see if you’re drunk.’ I never on set noticed that he had drunk anything—in the morning, he was sober.”
Sluizer asked River to come out to the film’s desert location five days before everyone else. “I wanted him to breathe the Utah air, to readjust, and let him remember the relationship we had to build for the next seven weeks,” Sluizer said. Those five days also provided some time for River to detox, but apparently he arrived clean and healthy.
Actor and director went hiking in the Utah mountains, bringing a few sandwiches and spending all day tramping about: Breathing the fresh air, they attuned themselves to the desert landscape. River was gradually submerging himself in his character. More than ever, he liked shedding the person he had become so he could transform into somebody else’s invention. “That’s the only time I have security, he said. “Myself is bum! Myself is nothing!”
The movie was centered on the house of Boy, ramshackle but scenically located. Sluizer had found the location he thought was ideal visually, but it was far from any vestiges of civilization: “Maybe 20 miles from the nearest village,” Sluizer said. “I’m not like Werner Herzog, saying, ‘There’s a nice tree, but it’s 30 miles away,’ when the same tree is 1 mile away. But the location was important.”
Sluizer had actually worked with Herzog, the famously uncompromising German director, on his 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo, about a European rubber baron attempting to bring a steamer ship across land in the Peruvian jungle. The movie was originally intended to star Jason Robards and Mick Jagger, but Robards dropped out when he got dysentery, and Jagger then had to depart for Rolling Stone commitments. “All the Americans left,” Sluizer said dismissively. “That’s why they lost Vietnam.”
Sluizer took pride in working on that movie, as he did in the documentary he made for National Geographic in the ’60s that required him to spend five months in Siberia at temperatures reaching 70 degrees below zero (Celsius). “Very difficult, but I loved it,” he said. “There’s something that attracts me to extreme circumstances, the opposite of the Hollywood people who are used to a swimming pool and a shower.”
So Sluizer scoffed at the relatively mild deprivations of Dark Blood: The production booked a local motel and rented some nearby houses. The theme of Hollywood people being unable to cope with the real world is a major aspect of Dark Blood: A Hollywood couple drive their Bentley into the desert on a second honeymoon, and get in big trouble when it breaks down. The couple, Harry and Buffy, were played by British actor Jonathan Pryce and Australian Actress Judy Davis (Oscar-nominated for her work in David Lean’s A Passage to India and Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives).
River played Boy, who takes them in, but develops an infatuation with Buffy, whom he recognizes from her days as a Playboy pinup, and becomes hostile when Harry attempts to leave. It emerges that Boy is mourning the death of his Native American wife (a motif overlapping with Silent Tongue). She died from cancer, a result of the fallout from the nuclear bombs the U.S. government had tested—and while Boy may be a prophet of the desert, he is also unbalanced. The movie ends in violence and fire: Harry kills Boy with an ax and Boy’s house burns down.
River revered Pryce: He had starred in River’s favorite movie, Brazil, the absurd urban dystopia directed by Terry Gilliam (formerly of Monty Python’s Flying Circus) that River had seen 13 times. Things were tougher with Judy Davis, who was brilliant, but famously acerbic. Dark Blood producer Nik Powell said, “Since David Lean could not get Davis to do what he wanted her to do in his film, it is no surprise that George Sluizer had difficulties.”
“We were not the best of friends, Judy and me,” Sluizer said. “She made my life very tough, and I have never had to deal with a person making it so difficult.” Having agreed to the script, he said, she started demanding various changes; as Sluizer told it, some were to correct what she saw as the screenplay’s antifeminism while others were to cater to her vanity.
River, used to playing the peacemaker, tried to intercede between Davis and Sluizer, only to find himself the object of her scorn: She nicknamed him “Frat Boy.” When River, trying to be friendly, asked Davis when her family would be visiting the set, she snapped, “What is this, Frat Boy’s question time?” She also believed River was using drugs. “I thought he was doing something when I first got there,” she said. “There was one day when he came in so out of it. River said he’d had too much sodium the night before. OK, I’ve never had a sodium overdose. Maybe that’s exactly what they’re like.”
“He did not use anything during the period we were in Utah,” Sluizer insisted. “I would put my hand in the fire and swear to it.”
River’s difficulty with the script derived from the quantity of Boy’s monologues; he was having a hard time memorizing them accurately, and would sometimes flip the word order. “He had difficulty with certain lines,” Sluizer said. “He asked me a few times in rehearsal if he could change the line—it’s too complicated or too long. I was strict. I said, ‘We’ve been thinking about the story and the character for two years now—we’re not going to change it because you’re dyslexic.’ And that might hurt a little bit—I’m saying, ‘I don’t care if you’re blind. You have to see anyway.’ ” Ultimately, Sluizer said, he consented to the modification of one line.
Davis’ version was that River was having problems with the character: “In my opinion, that was made more difficult by the director constantly telling him how he should play it. Whether he should be angrier, loonier, whatever. It was a difficult part because it could so easily be absurd. He had most of the dialogue in the film, huge speeches; he kept trying to cut the lines down. Any change freaked the director out. River said to me one day, ‘Maybe I should give up acting.’ ”
Leave it to Matt Lauer to steal the spotlight in a swimsuit. With Halloween-themed morning shows cancelled in 2012 due to Superstorm Sandy, the Today show celebrated the holiday, full force on Thursday, Oct. 31 to compensate for last year.
As the hosts of the program slowly trickled out in their costumes -- Al Roker as Mr. T, Natalie Morales and Savannah Guthrie as Laverne and Shirley, Kathie Lee and Hoda Kotb as Flintstone characters, Carson Daly channeling Larry Wilcox' CHiPs character Jon (with the show's former star Erik Estrada in tow) -- the clear and apparent winner of Halloween 2013 was Lauer dressed as Pamela Anderson's Baywatch character C.J. Parker.
Kathie Lee Gifford (L) and Hoda Kotb attend NBC's "Today" Halloween 2013 in Rockefeller Plaza on October 31, 2013 in New York City. Credit: D Dipasupil/FilmMagic
Natalie Morales (L) and Savannah Guthrie attend NBC's "Today" Halloween 2013 in Rockefeller Plaza on October 31, 2013 in New York City. Credit: D Dipasupil/FilmMagic
The Today show host made a memorable entrance as he mimicked C.J.'s opening credit run in slow motion. Dressed in the iconic form-fitting red swimsuit, Lauer completed his Halloween costume with a makeshift tan and long blonde wig -- his face caked with make-up. The crowd outside Rockefeller Center roared in response.
Credit: NBC
But that's not all! Willie Geist accompanied Lauer dressed as David Hasselhoff's character on the show. The dynamic duo was then joined by real-life Baywatch cast member Carmen Electra.
Carmen Electra (L) and Willie Geist attend NBC's "Today" Halloween 2013 in Rockefeller Plaza on October 31, 2013 in New York City. Credit: D Dipasupil/FilmMagic
With the Today show pulling out their biggest Halloween surprise yet, the theme of classic TV show costumes worked out well for the group. The hosts of ABC's Good Morning America, meanwhile, celebrated its Halloween "Buzzy Awards" with George Stephanopoulos dressed as George Clooney's character in Gravity, Robin Roberts channeling Oprah in The Butler and the best of this bunch? Lara Spencer coming in like a wrecking ball.
The quarterfinals ended with a bang on Wednesday night's episode of The Ultimate Fighter 18. Despite being Team Tate's No. 1 male pick, Cody Bollinger pulled a Gabe Ruediger and failed to make weight -- in rather dramatic fashion, I might add -- which led Team Rousey's Anthony Gutierrez to advance to the semis by default. Then Team Tate's Sarah Moras evened the score at four wins apiece, overpowering Peggy Morgan en route to first-round armbar victory.
Now just one fight stands between the remaining eight fighters and a spot in November's live finale. On the men's side it's Chris Holdsworth (Tate) vs. Michael Wootten (Rousey) and Anthony Gutierrez (Rousey) vs. David Grant (Rousey), while on the women's side it's Raquel Pennington (Tate) vs. Jessica Rakoczy (Rousey) and Sarah Moras (Tate) vs. our own Julianna Pena (Tate).
If you have any questions for Pena, feel free to drop them in the comments below and she'll answer you during next week's TUF Mailbag. Now without further ado, let's gets to it.
Al-Shatti: So right off the bat, I want to ask because I wasn't sure, did Cody Bollinger get kicked off the show?
Pena: Yep.
Al-Shatti: Wow. I know you and him didn't exactly get along, so how did you feel as everything was going down?
Dana White confronts Cody Bollinger
Pena: It's not like I was over the moon happy, but I wasn't crying or upset or anything like that. I felt like he had been rude to me and caused me a lot of problems earlier on in the season.
But I think (him being kicked off) was merited. On The Ultimate Fighter show, if you don't make weight, you go home.
Al-Shatti: So walk me through this. He was Team Tate's No. 1 male pick. How exactly did something like this happen?
Pena: I wasn't watching him too closely. I just remember one time him eating ice cream and being like, ‘Oh, I'll burn this off in 15 minutes in the sauna. It's not even a big deal.' We were all kinda like, I wouldn't do that if I were you. And he was just, ‘Bah, child's play. This is only a few minutes in the sauna.' He'd read the label and be like, ‘Oh, only 150 calories for a quarter of a cup? Child's play. I'll burn this off in 10 minutes in the sauna.'
I just think that he was wrapped up in being friends with everybody and wrapped up in eating all the food that he wanted. He wasn't taking into account how much he was going to have to lose and he wasn't being very intelligent when it comes to weight cutting. The pressure of being No. 1 pick was probably too much. I wouldn't say that it was a direct result as to why he left, but it's definitely a lot of pressure when you're the No. 1 pick. You automatically have a target on your back and you're trying to go out there and prove why you were picked No. 1. It's a lot to deal with.
Al-Shatti: Cody quit more than a few times during the cut. What was the reaction around the team as he kept repeating that feeling?
Pena: I think everybody couldn't believe it. Nobody could believe that was actually happening. At least, I couldn't. Like, are you kidding me?
We just couldn't believe the fact that somebody would give up and not try to make weight, just throw in the towel when there was so much riding on the line.
Al-Shatti: Cody might have screwed up bad, and that's probably an understatement, but do you respect the way he owned up to it and didn't make excuses?
Pena: He wouldn't have told Dana (White) if he didn't have to. He got called out. Do I respect him for owning up to it? I mean, what else can you do? Deny it?
Al-Shatti: True. Okay, last thing on this and then we'll move on. Anthony Gutierrez ended up getting a choice between a free pass to the semis or having to cut weight all over again and fight. He chose the free pass. I'm just curious, if you were in that situation, would you do the same?
Pena: I'd probably have done the same thing. (You have to do) whatever advances you further on into the competition without risking getting hurt or risking putting your body on the line an extra time when you wouldn't need to.
Al-Shatti: Fair enough. So next up, in the season's last quarterfinal Sarah Moras made short work of Peggy Morgan. She's next in your sights. Were you impressed by her performance?
Pena: I completely predicted it! I sat there doing my makeup -- they didn't show it -- but I'm like, ‘Yeah, it's going to be an armbar in the first round, for sure.'
Al-Shatti: Wow, nicely done. What made you think that?
Pena: Once we caught rumors of who the list was going to be for the cast, who was going to maybe make it and get a chance to compete for the elimination fights, Peggy Morgan's name was on there. I remember watching a couple fights she'd been a part of, studying her ground game a little bit, and [analyzing] her as a fighter.
Because I've already fought Moras before, and judging from the fights that I'd seen online of Peggy, I just knew that Moras' ground game was world class, and Peggy, she wasn't going to have an answer. And she didn't. Moras proved it.
Al-Shatti: You've been a team-first cheerleader the entire season. So be honest with me, after everything that happened, it had to be sweet satisfaction for you Team Tate girls to go 3-1 against Rousey, right?
Full Fight: Peggy Morgan vs. Sarah Moras
Pena: Absolutely! I was absolutely happy. On top of the world. I wanted our team to win. I'm always the first one screaming in the mic. During every fight you can see me in background standing up and cheering. I can always hear myself screaming and yelling for my team. So yeah, I was very happy when that happened.
Al-Shatti: Well now we've finally reached the semis, and bam, you're fighting Sarah Moras, who's not just a teammate, but also the girl who handed you your first professional loss. What's going through your mind when Dana White announces those match-ups?
Pena: It completely threw a wrench into what I'd been preparing for. The thing is, I knew I wasn't going to get (Jessica) Rakoczy. Me and Moras had already fought before, and Moras had already fought Raquel (Pennington) before. We knew that one of us was going to have to fight a teammate, and so since Sarah had already fought both me and Raquel, we were thinking they'd give Sarah the match-up against Rakoczy, so that she could have somebody she's never fought before. I was mentally (preparing for that).
Then Dana changed it last second. When they said I was fighting Moras, I was like, What? What just happened? I wasn't expecting that at all.
Al-Shatti: You're so competitive though. Was it a pleasant surprise? I mean, you get a chance to avenge a loss on national TV.
Pena: When I was in the interview to get into the house, they asked me, ‘So, Moras is here. You lost to her. How's that going? What happened there?' I was like, ‘Man, I'll fight her right here, right now, for free. Where is she? I'll do it right now.' (Laughs.) When I fought Moras the first time, it hit me hard. I'd just got hit by a car, then fought up a weight class and took my first loss. I was just devastated. It took me a long time to come back from martial arts after that. I pretty much hid under a rock and died. I'd never experienced a loss before, so to get another opportunity to fight her, it was like, I've been waiting for this.
TUF MAILBAG
@wrestling_1000 asks: Favorite music before a fight?
Pena: That's tough, because when I first started, I would only listen to classical music before I'd fight. Like, straight classical music. But then I switched it up because one time I remember listening to classical music, then going out there and just getting rocked within the first 30 seconds, and being like, the music didn't pump me up enough. I would've never got hit like that if I was listening to some Kayne! So now I like to listen to anything with a good, fast beat. Something that gets me revved up, something that makes me hot and angry and ready to throw down. I love a lot of music, and so anything that just gets the blood boiling.
Bboyawall asks: Julianna as we head into semifinals, is it getting harder not to slip on the results of who made it to the finals? Also I feel like a little kid at work when I see my questions being answered. It's awesome, thank you!!!
Pena: (Laughs.) Absolutely! It's my pleasure to answer your questions. Thank you for taking the time to ask a question and for caring. That means a lot to me and makes me happy.
And yeah, it is (tough). Everybody wants to know the answers! It really sucks because you want to be like, just watch the show, dangit! I haven't told anybody. I was sworn to secrecy on a $5 million contract and I take that very seriously. (Laughs.)
superfknmario__ asks: 1. Who wins in a Rousey/Cyborg fight? 2. Hablas español?
Pena: 1. Cyborg. TKO/KO.
2. Si habla español un poquito. Si me español es muy mal. Yo entiendo un poquito.
Do you have a question for Julianna Pena? Ask it in the comments below and she'll answer you next week. The Ultimate Fighter 18 airsevery Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Portions of this interview have been edited for concision.
Did someone's foot get stuck on the accelerator? The worldwide smartphone market raced ahead at an astonishing growth rate of 38.8 percent in the third quarter, a number that reflected shipments of 467.9 million units, according to a report released this week by IDC. To put that number in perspective, the population of the United States is just 316.9 million. So you could sell a smartphone to every single person in the U.S., plus one to each of the 142 million people living in Russia, and still have about 8.5 million left over.
That's great news for the five leading smartphone vendors -- Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Lenovo, and LG -- not to mention all the suppliers and developers that live in their ecosystems. Great news for now, that is. But I threw those statistics at you to make a point: The smartphone market could well be approaching saturation. "That rate of growth can't be supported, unless Verizon and AT&T start selling smartphones to extraterrestrials," quipped columnist Carl Weinschenk.
Indeed, there are already early signs that the market is running out of headroom. In South Korea, home to Samsung and one of the most connected places on Earth, each quarter of this year has seen about 1.35 million new smartphone subscriptions, compared to nearly twice that number a year ago, according to that country's Ministry of Science. And smartphone sales in Australia and New Zealand actually shrank in the second quarter of the year. Meanwhile, profit growth at companies like Apple and LG Electronics is slowing as price competition takes hold.
The mobile industry is hardly on the edge of an abyss, and the sky is not falling. But all this reminds me of the PC market in the 1990s, which also grew at a phenomenal rate. When the PC market approached saturation, profits declined as vendors fought for market share, and innovation slowed to the point where PCs became commodities. We may be headed in that direction yet again.
The long upgrade cycle There use to be a fairly regular PC upgrade cycle in business: Companies would upgrade their systems every three years or so, and individuals more or less followed suit. That's been changing. Although I don't have hard numbers on that, I suspect the cycle is moving closer to five years.
Maybe systems are somewhat sturdier these days. But more important is the lack of significant innovation. Laptops have gotten lighter and more powerful over the years, but until touchscreens and Windows 8 debuted, you could hardly tell one generation of PC from the other. (Not that Windows "Frankenstein," aka Windows 8, will revive the market; in fact, Windows 8 is hurting the PC market.)
Computer buyers are no dummies. Why spend money on a new PC when the old one does everything you need quite well? PC makers reacted by cutting prices, a fratricidal strategy that resulted in shrinking margins for everybody and the deaths of major companies (remember Gateway?) up and down the supply chain. Now, even Mac sales are declining.
Open source technology provider Red Hat today announced a new initiative designed to boost the adoption of its OpenStack cloud framework in enterprise data centers.
The Red Hat initiative, dubbed On-Ramp to Enterprise OpenStack and developed with Intel, aims to educate customers about the benefits and capabilities of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform running on Intel servers.
OpenStack -- which launched last September and was recently updated with its eighth release, called Havana -- is a framework for building and managing private, public and hybrid Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds.
Red Hat's efforts to drive OpenStack adoption in the enterprise include a demonstration platform, where users can test Red Hat's OpenStack build, and a series of workshops that will be available to IT staff in North America and Europe from the start of next year.
Specifically, Red Hat's On-Ramp program includes TestFlight, a hosted multi-tenant test environment where potential users can evaluate Red Hat's Enterprise Linux OpenStack running on Intel Xeon servers, in addition to the On-Ramp to Enterprise OpenStack Road Tour.
Red Hat virtualization general manager Radhesh Balakrishnan said: "On-Ramp to Enterprise OpenStack represents the next level of our collaboration with Intel, and I am excited about the opportunity we mutually face to help demystify OpenStack and show enterprise organizations its true potential."
The move suggests that Red Hat is increasingly looking to compete with VMware in the enterprise data center space.
However, in an interview with Network World earlier this year, VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger dismissed OpenStack as a viable enterprise cloud platform, claiming that it's more of a platform for service providers to build public clouds.
"We don't see it having great success coming into the enterprise because it's a framework for constructing clouds," he said. "People have largely adopted and have extremely large deployments of VMware and the switching costs and so on of that are not particularly effective.
"Where we see it being effective though are very much in cloud providers, service providers, an area where VMware hasn't had a lot of business in the past and thus, our strategy, we believe, opens a whole new market for us to go pursue."
Alexander Ebert is best known for his band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, a folk band with a dozen members. His latest project is the score for All Is Lost, a film about one man lost at sea.
Stewart Cole/Courtesy of the artist
Alexander Ebert is best known for his band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, a folk band with a dozen members. His latest project is the score for All Is Lost, a film about one man lost at sea.
Stewart Cole/Courtesy of the artist
Alexander Ebert may be best known as the singer and songwriter of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros — a band named for his messianic alter ego — which produced the addictive and catchy song "Home" in 2009.
He has also enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist since releasing his self-titled debut album in 2011.
This year, he turned his attention to yet another aspect of musical composition: the film score.
Ebert composed the score for director J.C. Chandor's new film, All Is Lost, which stars Robert Redford as a solitary man lost at sea. The film features only one character and contains almost no dialogue.
Ebert joins All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about the unique challenges — and freedoms — of his latest project.
Interview Highlights
On writing for a film with very few lines of dialogue
It really felt like stepping into nothing, and just sort of putting that first color on that gigantic canvas.
On using sounds like waves and wind between sections of the musical score
Silence was the other main character, and ... I really wanted to respect the silence — and by silence, of course, I mean the natural sounds, and the sounds that Redford is hearing.
On choosing an instrument to carry the main theme of the score
The alto flute sounds like an approaching ship, in some ways, when you just hear a single note. It sounds to me like a foghorn. And of course it's also a very breathy instrument ... that reminds me of the wind. And something calling to him ... his own surrender calling to him.
On writing a film score for the first time
Popular music usually has a chorus that needs to repeat, and people need to remember the song. That's sort of the major guideline when you're writing a song. And to be able to write something that did not have a chorus — and that would play for as long as it needed to and naturally disappear and come back whenever it needed to ... for me, that was very natural, actually. It was super liberating.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011, AT 3:07 PM Obama Gets Firsthand Look at a Tornado Damage
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
We weren't expecting to like the Pixma MG7120 as much as we did, as we're predisposed against printers with high black ink costs. But the overall experience and print quality softened our stance. At $200 (as of 10/30/2013) it's about as good as you'll get in a photo-oriented MFP, but yes, we'd prefer pay a bit less per page for ink.
Design includes front-loading cartridges
The Pixma MG7120 has a beveled-edge design distinct to certain Canon printers of the last several years, and other design improvements that were introduced last year with its cousin, the Pixma MG6320. You control the printer using an upper front touch panel: A 3.5-inch touchscreen display contains most functions, with contextually lit buttons that show up as needed. It has a very short learning curve. You lift that panel to access the ink cartridges, instead of lifting up the entire scanner bed, as with most multifunctions. You can connect via Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or USB.
Paper capacity is limited: 125 sheets of plain paper in the bottom cassette, and 20 sheets of 4-by-6-inch or 5-by-7-inch photo paper in the photo tray found directly above that. Flip over the photo tray, and you'll find the optical media tray, which inserts into a slot just above the output tray. The output tray itself is immediately above the paper trays and opens automatically when printing or copying. There's no automatic document feeder (ADF) for scanning or copying multi-page documents, which isn't unusual for a home-oriented printer, but we like it when we see it. The HP Photosmart 7520 is a like-priced competitor that has an ADF (and—ahem—cheaper ink).
Next to the ouput tray, another front panel folds out to reveal three card slots: Secure Digital, Compact Flash, and Memory Stick. You may print via any of them as well as Wireless Pictbridge.
The Pixma MG7120 comes with the usual array of remote printing features (email, Wi-Fi, though no NFC), and Canon has apps for both Android and iOS. The top-mounted scanner bed is A4/letter-sized with a lid that telescopes an inch or so to accommodate thicker materials.
Canon's My Image Garden is the main software application used for scanning, editing, printing to optical discs, and keeping track of images, But the company also provides utilities for viewing images on the desktop and launching various features of the printer (scan, copy, edit, etc.) They're especially handy if you're dedicating an office PC for printer chores, limiting the amount of time you must spend hunting through the applications for the feature you need. For occasional use, they're probably overkill.
Six-ink system produces great photos
To get the best results from the Pixma MG7120, you'll need to use good photo paper, which will always set you back a few dimes. But Canon could do better with the ink costs.The Pixma MG7120 uses a six-color system: black, pigment black, cyan, gray, magenta, and yellow. All are available in both standard and high-yield ('XL') capacities. In standard capacity, black pages cost about 5 cents, and four-color pages 16.6 cents. This is not counting the extra photo-black and photo-gray, which contribute miniscule amounts to a non-photo page. The XL-capacity cartridges are only slightly cheaper: 4.6 cents per page for black, and 12.7 cents for all four colors. If you print occasionally—tickets, web pages, and the like—then the MG7120 has decent costs. If you print lots of monochrome business documents, not so much.
The quality of the Pixma MG7120's output is where it earns its keep. Photos are superb for a $200 photo printer, and the color palette is nicely balanced, neither overly warm or cold. Text is sharp, and there was nary a defect in large areas of black, which is where you'll usually spot any problems with a print system. No striations, no banding, no muddled edges. Good stuff here.
Performance is better than average for a photo printer. Subjectively, we never felt like we were waiting an overly long time for output to arrive—especially when using draft mode, whose quality is good enough for most everyday applications (and will stretch your ink a lot further). By the numbers, the Pixma MG7120 printed text and mixed monochrome pages at an aggregate 8.6 pages per minute on the PC and 7.9 on the Mac. 4-inch by 6-inch photos printed at 2.7 per minute to plain paper and 1.7 per minute to glossy stock. A full 8.5-inch by 11-inch photo printed on the Mac took just over two minutes.
Scans were decently fast, at just under a half-minute at 600 dpi and just under a minute at 1200 dpi. Copies arrived at a sprightly 5 pages per minute.
The good outweighs the ink
The Canon Pixma MG7120 color inkjet multifunction delivers extremely nice photos, and text quality that's just this side of laser. It also automatically duplexes and has some of the easiest controls the company has produced to date. It's a printer well worth considering, even with its somewhat pricey inks.
Jon L. Jacobi Jon Jacobi, PCWorld
Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks. More by Jon L. Jacobi
Melissa Riofrio Senior Editor, PCWorld
The daughter of a mechanical engineer, Melissa grew up playing with machine parts and still loves getting into the nuts and bolts of how things work. She is never happier than when she is on a factory tour. More by Melissa Riofrio