Show I ' I “ Section t Wednesday October 29 20C ©elm Market share war Internet boasts gets ugly movie reviews I By Matthew Symo t t m® r X like movies Actually I like good movies Bad movies I can do without So to save myself the ticket price and more importantly my time I turn to the movie review page to see what the aides think And while I do enjoy reading die occasional movie review that viciously pans a bad movie or discover a hidden gem recommended by our resident critic Brian McCuskey it’s rare that I can agree with a single ' reviewer 100 percent of the time So what’s a discerning movie buff to do? Why turn to the Internet of v course But there you run die risk of encount voices many of dubious credentials Happily a couple of ingenious sites not only filter out the noise but will V V well-writt- en i QDndI : Klf ever there® was a product crit-iesfio- m that could ' S'V: iThese called meta- so-- V: f1 sites:- - y L - & '£ V is rotten-4- v My favorite meta-sit- e tomatoescom Perhaps the earliest v incarnation of a jneta-siits tomato- ' based rating convention reminds you this endeavor is for entertainment purposes A movie that scores greater than 60 percent favorable reviews V garnishes a “fresh” label A movie that misses that mark snags a “rot-- '' vj ten v : " it’s But even for a meta-sit- e always best to seek a second opinion Metacriticcom functions in basically the same way and like rottentoma- toes the site allows you to read snippets of each critic’s review or even link to the entire text Metacritic however calculates its final grade on a weighted average (some notable critics or institutions are given more credence than others) that in my mind unfairly skews the results Nevertheless Metacritic does prominently display each review’s assigned score value in a quickly identifiable color code Both sites have now ventured into g computer games with Metacritic also including music and reviews specific to home video or W7 0 JTl te y : meta-ratin- - DVD releases Even if you’re put off by movie critics’ opinions altogether you can still find more democratic means of assessing a movie’s value by visiting the granddaddy of all movie sites imdbcom At the Internet Movie Database all registered members are encouraged to voice their opinion via a 10 star rating system With the number of votes on record displayed you can decide for yourself whether the movie has been adequately assessed and even add your own opinion after you've seen a movie As a final note as anyone rightly confused by the ever shifting lines between PG PG-1- 3 and movies can attest Hollywood does a ed rather poor job of policing itself Fortunately there are several family oriented movie ratings on the Internet For a good example visit Initially a bit con“Lifesaver” the colorful fusing guidance system rates movies by four independent criteria assigns an threshold and also provides a star ranking for overall common-sensemediao- rg enjoyability So before buying your next ticket to 100 minutes of movie paradise or film purgatory take just a minute to fire up the web browser and get a few hundred opinions beforehand Matthew Syma la an Intamat Project Manager at a local technology company: : Photo Bustration by Mitch Mascara ne movie - By Jasmine Michael son store organize buy and listen to digital music It’s smaller than a 3x5 note-ca- rd features writer sA'i he only way to get " me interested in elec- -' tronics andor technology is to - V somehow incorpo- - rate rock and roll y' ' v Everytiiing I already " & : know I know only because the rock band I played electric guitar for in high school spent ridiculous amounts of time toggling with flaky amplifiers cords and effects pedals Outside of that my knowledge has been strictly need-to-kno- w Then I married computer geek of the most intense breed: an Apple computer geek He tried without success to get me interested in gigahertz and wireless connections and it processors He showed me convenient and cute little But my interest was lukewarm until he presented me with the iPod — Apple’s flavor of the personal MP3 player the thing that got me interested in computers and the gadget that could possibly revolutionize the way we 64-b- about a centimeter deep lighter than two CDs and it fits perfectly in my back pocket The front is white with a screen that shows my menus and delicate little touchpad buttons that make soft clicking sounds when you touch them OK I’ll say it I found it adorable The thing curled up in my hand like a new- bom puppy But here's the clincher it can hold 5000 songs That’s about two weeks of straight music for y anyone who’s counting “No more carrying CDs around in duffel bags” to quote rap legend and iPod supporter Dr Die And at 20 gigabytes ours is only the middle model There are also 10 gigabyte and 40 gigabyte g models currently runs at $299 the 20 at $399 and the 40 at $499 The benefit of going with either the 20 or the 40 is that Apple throws in the carrying case the dock and the headphone extension with the remote for free (all three come with the token matching white head lie phones) At any ike I tell you he had 'V my attention Indeed this was one I was willing to learn Here’s how it works: I bum my copy of Radiohead’s “Hail to the Thief” onto our computer I set the iPod in its dock which is ' " plugged into the computer 's Firewire port and interfaces with the computer An iPod icon pops up I click on “Hail to the link” and drag it onto the iPod icon The album gets transferred onto the iPod in literally seconds and I’m done The system also works with MP3 AAC WAV and AIFF formats The little guy also has a calendar an alarm clock games and an address book And it works just as seamlessly with PCs First released in October of 2001 the iPod was a big deal but a little ahead of its time It cost $400 and required a Firewire port Which wasn’t as common as it is now But with each improvement to the system the iPod ownership grew five-gigab- 10-gi- - for these two US technology stalwarts— and for the companies schools and governments that spend j billions on their products — IBM is ' doing its utmost to keep HP a wannabe7' HP picked this fight last year when it bought Compaq Computer Corp for $19 billion the biggest h ' acquisition ever and said it would challenge IBM’s lead in lucrative corporate computing markets1: And while there is little sign that HP is even close to beating IBM at its own game IBM isn’t taking chances It has doubled the commissions it ' pays resellers who oust HP products It beats its chest whenever it beats ' HP to a big contract like one coining next week with Alpine Electronics Inc And its people portray HP as a bit player in services and software — ' high-tec- convert N: iV technophobes do this is itfd " ‘assemble movie reviews from newspaper tele-- critics then assign vision and on-lieach review a score and finally cal- - - v : culate an average grade for die r Hewlett-Packar- ucts In a rivalry with big implications D actually con- solidate die reviews of j': IBM Corp made a bigger incursion than usual at this year’s HP World — a trade show for thousands d of Co customers equipment resellers and companies whose technologies work on HP computer systems IBM traditionally has a booth at HP World to display software that runs on HP systems But at the August show in Atlanta Big Blue urged attendees to depart Iff World for a seminar about IBM’s own sys- terns sweetening the offer with a drawing for a free convertible Meanwhile IBM marketers drove around the Georgia World Congress Center handing out Lego building blocks to brag about the toy company’s decision that week to replace HP computing systems with IBM (nod- - : : across the country f By Brian Berg stein AP Technology Writer ' ' Pagel The Herald Journal See IPOD on C2 ' : which generate two-thu- ds of IBM’s revalue “I don’t ever see HP” said Scott Hebner an IBM software vice presi- ' dent ‘They don’t bring any real software assets to the table” The head of IBM’s systems group William Zeitler contends HP is so ' t worried about losses in the that it is aggressively cutting prices and possibly “stuffing” its sales channel — artificially boosting revenue by giving resellers more products than they need HP denies the charge Zeitler also predicts that most customers who spurn IBM servers will choose specialist Dell Inc not HP IBM now pays a 10 percent commission up from 5 parent to certain resellers who get businesses to replace their HP equipment with IBM gear IBM gives the same cut if it’s Sun Microsystems Inc that’s on the losing end HP says it considered all the IBM broadsides a compliment And it too servo-marke- low-co- st " See WAR on C2 Cell phone can double By Jason Strazluso Associated Press Writer PHILADELPHIA — Imagine a whose range is so wide it reaches halfway around walkie-talki- e the world That’s what a Seem new software program for cell phones promises — and for the most part delivers Although the Fastchat software promised to deliver instant munication with my friend in Paris from my desk in Philadelphia I was a bit skeptical when I first powered up my handset and -pressed the talk button now dou- button bling as a walkie-talki- e But after a relatively short delay my Parisian friend was talking right back to me although the flow of the conversation was slightly slower and scratchier than you’d get on a walkie-talki- e Nextel and Motorola pioneered the use of cell phones as walkie-talkiusing a special “push-to- d? es talk” button on the side of the handset The other major wireless carriers now plan to introduce the increasingly popular service But even when all carriers offer it users will only be able to walkie-talkwith other sub-soibers to the same cell phone ie company With Fastchat subscribers to different cellular companies in this country and abroad can do so They don’t even need a phone ' equipped with a special button because the service uses the phone’s regular buttons The software made by Fastmo-bil- e Inc of Chicago automatically downloads to your phone through a wireless transmission after you sign up either at Web site or through a chain of retail wireless stores called American Connection Fast-mobil- For now however the service is only compatible with two phone models sold in the US: the Nokia 3650 and Sony as walkie-talki- e Ericsson P800 Even so Fastmobile says it already has signed up 2000 users in 44 countries since its May launch In reality Fastchat is more like a voice version of “instant mes- saging” than a walkie-talkThe software converts your voice into packets of data and transmits them just like a text message via the Internet data seri vice now provided on most cell phones When the message arrived V at another cell phone with the software the data is converted back into voice But this is no ordinary walkie-talki- e conversation where your message is heard once before disappearing into thin air Because your voice is converted to data messages can be archived I can scroll up and down on the phone’s AP photo screen and listen to messages from 30 seconds or three days Amber Grose holds a Fastchat phone In her ago midtown office In New York ie ' 3 i:- - |