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28 February
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mcsk Are You Ready for the iEconomy-_24

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The Wish List: 7 Things We Hope Will Come True in 2010

10 Must-Have Google Chrome Extensions

Web Worker Lessons from a Cable Service Problem


Mozilla Raindrop Aims to Solve Message Glut in 2010



I am looking forward to more Mophies and Squares!

O.K., you can see I am just way too excited about this stuff. Why not? I am encouraged to see such experimentation. It ties in with my big belief: The marriage of computing and connectivity without the shackles of being tethered to a location is the the biggest disruptive force of our times, and it will redefine business models for decades.

For a long time, companies like Symbol Technologies, a division of Motorola (MOT), have been making point-of-sale and handheld computing devices for non-office environments such as retail locations and warehouses. It is becoming obvious by the day—they are among those being disrupted.

Mophie, a Los Angeles-based company that makes accessories for the iPod/iPhone devices will release a credit-card reader at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2010. The device is going to have a reader and a software that would allow small businesses to take credit cards. No more details are available just yet.

Also from the GigaOM network:

Where Are Oil Prices Heading in 2010?

By focusing on the consumers, these companies can overcome a somewhat finite number of likely small business customers and get scale, which would allow them to get cheaper. And this would also help them overcome the slower adoption rates normally encountered when chasing the small business market. In fact, companies such as Visa (V), MasterCard (MA), and large banks should be trying hard to figure out how they can put these kinds of readers in the hands of both merchants and consumers, thus shifting even more transactions into the electronic realm.

I, for one, would like to see Mophie or one of these other startups come up with a way for me to scan my own credit card to enter it into an app or Web site. Even better, I’d love it if they married their hardware with the functionality of something like 1Password. In doing so, they could enable e-commerce via the iPhone apps. Think of it as the iEconomy.

I know, I know—it’s easier said than done, considering it would need some deep, system-level mucking around, and Apple (AAPL) isn’t going to let that happen. But it should! By opening up, it would make the iPhone an even more useful platform. While I can understand Apple’s hesitation at opening up the iPhone, it can start with the iPod touch, which is not tethered to a wireless phone company’s network.

Are You Ready for the iEconomy?

Jack Dorsey’s Square, Incase, VeriFone (PAY), and now Mophie—these companies’ credit-card readers are turning the iPhone/iPod touch platform into an e-commerce engine.

Scaling Up Via Consumer Use

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27 February
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igcs Apple unveils anticipated iPad tablet_83

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The iPad is “so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smartphone,” he said.

Jobs, who appeared thin but healthy, said Apple was launching an online “iBookstore” for the iPad and touted its abilities as an electronic reader of books, newspapers and magazines.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has revealed the culture-changing company’s latest must-have device, a touchscreen tablet computer anointed the “iPad”.

He showed off various iPad features which include browsing the web, checking email, working with spreadsheets and charts, playing videogames, listening to music or watching video.

Some technology analysts believe the iPad will render other e-readers obsolete, while a number of publishers are counting on it to sell digital versions of their publications.

“Amazon has done a great job of pioneering this functionality with the Kindle,” Jobs said. “We are going to stand on their shoulders.”

“Do we have what it takes to establish a third category of products in between a laptop and a smartphone?” he asked. “We think we’ve done it.”

“You can have black-and-white, colour, video in your books - whatever the author wants,” he said. “We think the iPad is going to make a terrific e-book reader, not just for popular books but for textbooks as well.

“We are going to be able to bring all of the other great EA games for the iPhone from the App Store to this device in no time,” said Travis Boatman of EA’s mobile studios.

“We want to make something that combines the best of print and the best of digital,” Times digital operations vice president Martin Nisenholtz said as he showed off an early version of an app for the device. “We are incredibly psyched to pioneer the next stage in digital journalism.”

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary product,” said Jobs, who underwent a liver transplant last year and on Wednesday was making just his second public appearance since September.

 


Apple unveils anticipated iPad tablet
January 28, 2010

AFP

Besides serving as an e-reader, the iPad runs almost all of the applications available through the Apple App Store for the iPod and iPhone.

The long-awaited iPad has a 25cm colour screen and resembles an oversized iPhone. It is 1.3cm thick, weighs 0.7kg and comes with 16, 32, or 64 gigabytes of flash memory.

Dressed in his trademark blue jeans, black turtleneck and sneakers, Jobs walked around the stage and sat on a couch at the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts Theatre as he unveiled the hotly anticipated gadget.

“I think it’s a home run,” said Gartner analyst Van Baker. “It becomes a viable alternative to a netbook and I get the 140,000 applications in the App Store. It is a pretty compelling value.”

Enderle believed iPads could also pose a threat to hand-held gaming systems and eventually videogame consoles.



He said it has about 10 hours of battery life.

Jobs said he expected the device to carve out a place between the laptop computer and the smartphone.

Apple said it would start shipping the Wi-Fi version of the iPad, which has a virtual keyboard but can also dock with an external keyboard, in late March.

Apple shares gained 0.94 per cent to close at $US207.88 ($A232.55) on Wall Street, but slipped a tad in after-hours electronic trading.

Analyst Rob Enderle of Silicon Valley’s Enderle Group said the iPad could be “disruptive for a lot of markets.”

“I have a hard time believing after seeing this that folks are going to want an e-reader that just does plain text and doesn’t do format or colour,” he said.

The cheapest iPad model, with Wi-Fi connectivity and 16GB of memory, is $US499 ($A558) while the most expensive - which includes 3G connectivity and 64GB of memory - costs $US829 ($A927).

Jobs said the iPad has support from five big publishers and Apple will “open the floodgates for the rest of the publishers starting this afternoon.”

Gameloft and Electronic Arts showed off slick games they had crafted with just a few weeks of preparation, saying the iPad opens countless “new doors.”

The 3G version will reach the market in late April. The iPad is “unlocked,” meaning buyers can pick preferred telecom service providers.

The New York Times, Time magazine and National Geographic were among the partners whose content was displayed on the iPad on Wednesday.

“If you are thinking about buying a Kindle, you are probably reconsidering that decision. If you are a developer, you have one more reason to develop applications for Apple,” said Interpret analyst Michael Gartenberg.

Apple simultaneously released a kit for software developers to tailor applications for the iPad.

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27 February
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3msy Apple iPad Adds to Pressure on AT&T_2

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If Cupertino (Calif.)-based Apple (AAPL) has its way, iPad users will consume a lot of bandwidth-hogging media. The iPad lets users purchase and download books, movies, and other large files. Marketers may also find ways to deliver multimedia ads and other content wirelessly to the device. If the iPad is successful, "the volume of data would be the same the iPhone consumes plus another 50%," says Mike Manzo, chief marketing officer at Openet, a maker of software that helps carriers manage network traffic.

AT&T to Spend $2 Billion on Upgrades

AT&T’s data-plan pricing may go part of the way toward alleviating network strains. Users who pay $29.99 a month can consume unlimited data. That plan "certainly could tax an already taxed network," says Gerard Hallaren, director of research at TownHall Investment. Those who opt for the cheaper plan may deliberately consume less data for fear of exceeding caps. Because they’ve spent less, they’ll also feel less obligated to use big allotments.

The reaction reflects dismay with the performance of AT&T’s wireless network and concern that adding the iPad will only add to the strain. AT&T is the exclusive U.S. carrier of Apple’s iPhone, a device that already places heavy bandwidth demands on AT&T’s equipment. Even executives of the phone company concede the network isn’t up to snuff in New York and San Francisco. "Consumers may expect more from their iPad than the network can deliver at this point," says Shira Levine, an analyst with Infonetics, a telecommunications market research firm. "There’s potential for more consumer dissatisfaction."

For those who opt for AT&T’s 3G service plans, the company says it’s working on upgrades designed to reduce the number of dropped calls and poor connections. AT&T will spend about $2 billion to improve its ability to deliver wireless calls, John Stankey, CEO of AT&T Operations, said during the Jan. 28 conference call. AT&T is adding twice as much capacity to its network in 2010 as it did last year, he said. The company is also adding 2,000 cell sites, which play a role in delivering wireless calls, and says it will extend 3G coverage by 400,000 square miles through the acquisition of certain wireless assets.

AT&T spent $21 billion improving its network between 2006 and September 2009, Ralph de la Vega, president of AT&T’s wireless division, told attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January.

Now, AT&T will need to get the message across to users.

Apple iPad Adds to Pressure on AT&T

As Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the tablet-style iPad computer Jan. 27, many of his pronouncements were greeted with cheers. In contrast, his revelation that AT&T (T) would be the exclusive U.S. provider of high-speed wireless connections for the Internet-capable device was met with audible sighs.

Network improvement plans by AT&T have met with Apple’s approval, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, said during a Jan. 25 conference call. "We have personally reviewed these plans, and we have very high confidence that they will make significant progress toward fixing them," Cook said.


Not everyone who buys an iPad will use AT&T’s network. Three iPad models that work with AT&T’s 3G wireless-phone network will go on sale in April for $629 to $829, with an additional $14.99 or $29.99 a month for a service plan. In all, Apple may sell 3 million to 4 million iPads in the first year, and 8 million in 2011, says Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray (PJC) in Minneapolis. As few as one-quarter of new iPad purchasers will add a wireless data plan, predicts wireless-industry consultant Chetan Sharma.

Many iPad users will instead access the Internet using Wi-Fi networks in homes and other locations, AT&T executives said on a Jan. 28 conference call discussing the company’s fourth-quarter results. Three iPad models will be Wi-Fi only. The iPad "will be used a substantial amount of time in a Wi-Fi environment," AT&T Chief Financial Officer Richard Lindner said on the call. While the iPad’s 1.5-pound frame makes it easy to carry from place to place, the device’s 9.7-inch screen makes it too big to fit into a pocket.

Only 25% of iPad Buyers May Get Data Plans

27 February
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Qale Apple net profit up sharply on strong iPhone

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Oppenheimer said Apple expects revenue in the current fiscal quarter to range from 11.0 billion to 11.4 billion US dollars and for diluted earnings per share to wind up between 2.06 to 2.18 US dollars.

However, sales of iPods slid eight percent to 21 million units in a year-over-year comparison of quarters.

“We are very pleased to have generated 5.8 billion US dollars in cash during the quarter,” said Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer.

The firm’s quarterly profit amounted to 3.67 US dollars per share in a leap from the 2.50 US dollars per share, or 2.26 billion US dollars in net profit, in the final three months of 2008.



Apple said it sold 3.36 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, 33 percent more than a year ago, and 8.7 million iPhones, up 100 percent from a year ago.

Apple has maintained trademark secrecy regarding a Wednesday event at which it is expected to unveil a tablet computer along the lines of a “iPhone on steroids,” according to analysts.

“The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

Apple net profit up sharply on strong iPhone sales
January 26, 2010

Strong iPhone sales helped Apple post a 50-percent increase in quarterly net profit on Monday of 3.38 billion US dollars.


“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a 50-billion-dollar-plus company,” said the iconic California firm’s chief executive Steve Jobs.

Apple said revenue in the first quarter rose to 15.68 billion US dollars from 11.88 billion US dollars in the corresponding quarter a year ago.

27 February
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zbhq Apple Stock Price Hits Record_31

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Google (GOOG), based in Mountain View, California, rose $4.39 to $622.87 on the Nasdaq. The shares have doubled this year.

The 51 percent increase in downloads compares with 22 percent for Android, Flurry said. Downloads for the iPod Touch, a device that offers many of the iPhone’s features without the phone, soared more than 1,000 percent on Christmas Day, compared with previous Fridays in December.

(Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. (AAPL), maker of the iPhone and Macintosh computer, climbed to a record $211.61 on the Nasdaq Stock Market today, following a report that sales of its devices may have surged over the Christmas holiday.

"Apple downloads continue to grow at staggering rates," said Peter Farago, a spokesman for San Francisco-based Flurry. "IPod Touch devices must have flooded the market over Christmas."

Apple rose $2.57, or 1.2 percent, marking the sixth straight day of increases. The shares have more than doubled this year, compared with a 61 percent rise for the S&P 500 information-technology index.

Apple Stock Price Hits Record

By Kelly Riddell and Nick Turner

"Despite the enormous success of the iPhone since inception in July ‘07, we strongly believe the device is still in its infancy," he said today in a report. Marshall, who recommends buying Apple stock, expects the shares to reach $260 within the next year.



‘Staggering Rates’

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, offers more than 100,000 applications on its iTunes online store, giving its phones and media players an edge over rivals. Google Inc., whose Android operating system runs phones made by Motorola Inc. (MOT) and HTC Corp., has about 12,000 applications.


The download volume for Apple is more than 13 times larger than for Android, according to Flurry data. Android application downloads increased 93 percent on Christmas Day.

Software downloads for Apple’s devices grew 51 percent in December from the previous month, according to research firm Flurry Inc. That signals that sales of the iPhone and iPod Touch jumped during the holiday season. The iPhone has less than 1 percent of the total global market, giving it plenty of room to grow, said Brian Marshall, an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech Inc. in San Francisco.

27 February
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bbsw Apple says it’s not to blame for ‘exploding’

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The investigation’s findings don’t mean much to France’s Frank Benoiton, a consumer who said his wife’s iPhone cracked, and it “was not dropped and experienced no unusual shock,” he told the Associated Press.

“The iPhones with broken glass that we have analyzed to date show that in all cases, the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone,” Apple said in a statement cited by the BBC.

However, after conducting an internal investigation into the cause of the broken touch-screen glass, Apple denies that there is an underlying iPhone flaw. In fact, Apple said that in all cases it investigated, some kind of force was applied to the iPhone, causing the glass to break, according to a BBC report Friday.

Apple says it's not to blame for 'exploding' iPhones

Apple’siPhone may be the darling of the mobile-phone industry right now, but some users in France aren’t singing its praises, claiming that the device explodes or cracks without warning.

As part of its investigation, Apple also looked into complaints of the iPhone battery overheating but again said it found no problems. “To date, there are no confirmed battery-overheating incidents for iPhone 3GS, and the number of reports we are investigating is in the single digits,” according to the statement.

The European Commission also issued a warning using its rapid-alert system, Rapex, which warns of dangerous consumer products.

(Credit:Apple)



Jim Dalrymple has followed Apple and the Mac industry for the last 15 years, first as part of MacCentral and then in various positions at Macworld. Jim also writes about the professional audio market, examining the best ways to record music using a Macintosh. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. He currently runs The Loop. You can follow him on Twitter @jdalrymple.


Last Tuesday, in response to a European Commission investigation into accusations of overheating and exploding iPhones, Apple referred to its internal investigation, saying, “We are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers.”

France’s trade minister declined to comment on a meeting with Apple about an investigation that the country’s consumer protection agency is conducting into the reports, according to Bloomberg.

27 February
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uqzo Apple vs. Google- Tech’s Newest Rivalry-_207

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By most measures—revenue growth, stock appreciation, magazine cover stories—Apple and Google are the two most successful and influential companies of the past decade. Yet their visions for how the computer industry will shape up in the next one could hardly diverge more. "They are both very innovative companies with very different ways of innovating," says Henry Chesbrough, director of the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California at Berkeley. "They’ve both been very successful, but there’s a contest of different approaches going on here."

Google is the standard-bearer for a wide-open world of Web standards in which programmers should be able to run nearly any software on almost any computing device. From Google’s perspective, the more the merrier—so long as those programs, devices, and Web sites create places for Google to sell online ads.

Apple’s view is sharply different. The company keeps its ecosystem of software developers carefully manicured and maintains tight control over what software can be sold for its iPhone. The reasons range from filtering out schlock applications to what some observers say is putting the kibosh on applications that compete with Apple’s own offerings or those of iPhone wireless carrier AT&T (T). That may have been why Apple blocked Web-calling software Google Voice from the iPhone last month.

Apple and Google take different approaches to computer hardware, too. Google seeks out many hardware makers to manufacture cell phones and other devices that run its Android operating system, and it will probably take the same approach if it releases its Chrome OS software as a commercial product. Apple doesn’t let anyone else build Macs, iPods, or iPhones. "Apple thinks it’s all about selling hardware. There’s a deep, deep confidence at Apple that they can continue to make the best devices—and why shouldn’t there be?" says Trip Hawkins, CEO of game developer Digital Chocolate and founder of game giant Electronic Arts (ERTS) in the 1980s.

Until now the companies’ differences have been papered over a bit by Schmidt’s presence on Apple’s board, which he joined in 2006. Both companies insist their relationship is fine, and to be sure, there’s collaboration between the two. "Eric has been an excellent board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion, and wisdom to help make Apple successful," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in an Aug. 3 statement.

Apple vs. Google: Tech's Newest Rivalry?

Over the past three decades, a few titanic rivalries have defined the technology industry’s megatrends, ultimately determining which products eventually end up in consumers’ and companies’ hands.

Open World vs. Tight Control

Now, adding to the annals of competition that include Microsoft’s (MSFT) clashes with Apple (AAPL) in the ’80s, IBM (IBM) in the ’90s, and Google (GOOG) in this decade, the new defining rivalry in tech may be between Google and Apple. Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s resignation from Apple’s board on Aug. 3 highlights the degree to which these companies are more foe than friend.



27 February
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6vle Ancestry.com Hopes to Stand Test of Time_89

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But the company’s sluggish growth rates are a concern. In 2008 revenues were $197.6 million, up 18.8% from 2007, when revenues were $166.4 million. That’s respectable for most companies, but a bit slower than investors may want to see in a newly public tech company. "This is a company that’s growing, but not at a speed that is typical for a technology company," says David Menlow, founder of IPO Financial. "It’s not really moving the needle off the scale." Also of concern is a high attrition rate: About 4% of users leave the site each month, which means that nearly half of its subscribers leave over the course of a year.

One person that disagrees is Paul Allen, who helped found what would become Ancestry.com when his company Infobases bought the brand in 1997. After leaving the company in 2002, Allen now runs FamilyLink, a free Web community for family members. Allen calls Ancestry’s IPO "fantastic" for the whole genealogy business. "Ancestry.com is about building your historic family tree," he says. "Facebook and [FamilyLink] are focused on your living relatives. I think it’s a different market."


Will the family tree Web site have the staying power of other publicly traded Internet companies, like eBay (EBAY) and Amazon.com (AMZN)? Analysts applaud the subscription model of Ancestry.com, which sees more than 1 million users paying over $150 per year for access to genealogical records they can’t find elsewhere. "They’ve built an incredible subscription model, which is not easy to do. To get any online consumer to pay for anything is a monumental task," says Tom Taulli, an independent analyst of IPOs.

Ancestry.com Hopes to Stand Test of Time

In 1997 a a publisher of genealogical reference books and magazines launched a Web site, Ancestry.com, to complement its other offerings. More than a decade later, the site has eclipsed the magazine and grown into a profitable online destination for genealogical research, with 11 million family trees and the world’s largest online database of birth certificates and marriage records.

Facebook Is a Threat

Sluggish Growth Rates

But the popularity of free social networking sites such as Facebook, which many people use to look up and interact with family members, is a growing threat to Ancestry. Facebook has more than 300 million users. And even larger Internet players may present unforeseen challenges. "If Google (GOOG) can copy every book in the world, you’ve got to wonder if they can do the same thing with birth certificates," says analyst Taulli.

On Nov. 5, Ancestry.com (ACOM) is slated to begin a new chapter in its history as it lists on the Nasdaq stock market. Before the start of trading, the stock was expected to be priced between $12.50 and $14.50 per share, with $100 million in total proceeds. Morgan Stanley (MS) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC) are listed as the lead underwriters of the public offering.

Ancestry.com’s public offering comes after a relative drought for IPOs, owing to the weak economy and lack of investor confidence that prevented businesses from going public. A handful of other technology companies, including software maker Solar Winds (SWI) and Internet startup OpenTable (OPEN), have gone public this year with some success. And if it performs well, Ancestry’s offering could help open up the market for IPOs. "During the challenges of the last year, most investors didn’t have an appetite for risk," says Lise Buyer, founder and principal of Palo Alto (Calif.)-based Class V Group, an adviser to companies going public. "Now that things have stabilized there’s more of an appetite."

The company is a leader in the relatively small space of online genealogy. In September, Ancestry.com sites saw 4 million unique online visitors, according to the market research firm ComScore (SCOR), compared with 1.1 million for its next largest competitor, FamilyLink. The main attraction is a collection of census lists, birth and death certificates, military, marriage, and other records in which the company has invested more than $80 million. "They’re obviously the market leader in online family history research," says Eric Guja, analyst with Renaissance Capital.



27 February
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7tft AmEx Presale Tickets for AMERICAN IDIOT Now A

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The limited engagement of AMERICAN IDIOT at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre began previews on September 4, 2009, opened on September 16, 2009, extended twice and played its final performance on Sunday, November 15, 2009. AMERICAN IDIOT’s record breaking run brought in the biggest advance sale in the Theatre’s 41-year history, the biggest day at the box office, 17 of the top 20 days ever and due to ticket demand had to announce the first extension before it had played its first performance.

The show features scenic design by Tony-nominee Christine Jones (Spring Awakening), costume design by Baryshnikov fellow Andrea Lauer (The Butcher of Baraboo), lighting design by two-time Tony-winner Kevin Adams (Hair), Sound design by Obie Award-winner Brian Ronan (Cabaret), as well as video design by Darrel Maloney.

Tickets for the Broadway run of AMERICAN IDIOT are now available exclusively to American Express card holders. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on February 14th. AMERICAN IDIOT will begin previews on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 and open on Broadway Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at the ST. James Theatre.

AmEx Presale Tickets for AMERICAN IDIOT Now Available

Related Links Full Cast Announced for AMERICAN IDIOT; Cast to Appear on Grammy Awards STAGE TUBE: A Look Back at the Berkeley Rep Production of AMERICAN IDIOT AMERICAN IDIOT Moves To Broadway; Opens at St. James Theatre April 20, 2010 Cast of AMERICAN IDIOT Featured On Green Day’s New Version of Their Single ‘21 Guns’

Purchase TicketsAmerican Idiot On BWW.TV

“American Idiot is that rare and tricky creature, a true rock opera,” says Charles Isherwood of The New York Times. “Directed with polish and precision by Michael Mayer, American Idiot has its own voice: bitter and melancholy, attuned to an era more doubting than hopeful. Perhaps most strongly - and promisingly? - the show’s story of young men on a confused search for themselves during a time of changing social mores and foreign wars recalls Hair, the musical about the make-love-not-war generation. (Both musicals also do most of their storytelling in song.) Mournful as it is about the prospects of 21st-century Americans, the show possesses a stimulating energy and a vision of wasted youth that holds us in its grip.”

Based on the Reprise Records Grammy® Award-winning album of the same name, AMERICAN IDIOT features the music of Green Day and the lyrics of its lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong. The show is directed by Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening), who also collaborated with Armstrong on the book, and choreographed by Olivier Award-winning Steven Hoggett (Blackwatch). The Tony-winning composer Tom Kitt (Next to Normal) is the music supervisor, orchestrator and music arranger. In addition, Kitt also provided string arrangements for Green Day’s latest album 21st Century Breakdown.

AMERICAN IDIOT will be produced on Broadway in association with Berkeley Repertory Theatre.For more information, visit www.AmericanIdiotOnBroadway.com.

AMERICAN IDIOT follows working-class characters from the suburbs to the city to the Middle East, as they seek redemption in a world filled with frustration - an exhilarating journey borne along by Green Day’s electrifying songs. This high-octane show includes every song from the album, as well as several new songs from 21st Century Breakdown. Green Day won two Grammys ®- Best Rock Album and Record of the Year - for its multi-platinum American Idiot, which sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. Now the band brings this explosive album to the stage with the director of Spring Awakening, which won eight Tony Awards in 2007.

Michael Mayer comments, “Green Day’s iconic album is one of the most brutally honest, eloquent, and poetically theatrical responses to the post 9/11 world that I have encountered. I hear in these amazing songs the frustration and anger and dreams of a lost generation of Americans. Collaborating with Billie Joe and the band has been a mind-blowing thrill from day one.”

“Experiencing American Idiot on stage in Berkeley was incredible,” says Billie Joe Armstrong. “We have really enjoyed working with Michael, Steven, Tom and the cast. The energy and chemistry of the group is contagious. Michael Mayer was able to bring life to the characters of American Idiot and Tom Kitt’s musical arrangements are breathtaking. We’re so proud that the show is coming to Broadway!”



The cast of AMERICAN IDIOT collaborated with Green Day to record a new version of the hit single “21 Guns.” Produced by the band’s singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, the track was released by Reprise Records on December 22, 2009 for purchase through all digital retailers. “21 Guns” is the second single from Green Day’s gold album 21st Century Breakdown. The digital version of the track has gone platinum, selling more than one million downloads, earned 2010 Grammy® Nominations for “Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals” and “Best Rock Song”, while the video won three 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in September, including “Best Rock Video.”


27 February
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Owus Another strong earthquake hits Haiti_417

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Residents reported a low vibration followed by a brief but more powerful rumbling shake at 6.03am (2203 AEDT).

Another strong earthquake hits Haiti
January 20, 2010

AP



Port-au-Prince was hit on Wednesday by a strong earthquake measuring 6.1 on the moment magnitude scale, eight days after the Haiti capital was razed by a 7.0 quake.

It struck at a depth of 9.9km, it said.

In nearby Petionville AFP staff said the quake was felt for around 10 seconds.

It followed the much more powerful quake on January 12 that is thought to have killed 100,000 to 200,000 people.

The quake struck 59km west of the capital Port-au-Prince, according to the US Geological Survey.

AFP reporters in the city said there was no immediate sign of damage or casualties, but a crashing sound could be heard suggested that an already damaged building may have collapsed.


The US Geological Survey initially measured Wednesday’s quake at 6.0.

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