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High-end gaming on just about any PC or Mac, all streamed to your system through a tiny desktop client? That’s the promise of OnLive, a remarkable but controversial new “in the cloud” gaming service that launched this month. I’ve been playing big-name titles like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Unreal Tournament III and Red Faction: Guerrilla on my middle-of-the road MacBook Pro for almost a week now and have some hands-on impressions.

I’ve been pretty jazzed about the idea behind OnLive ever since the service was first announced more than a year ago. The concept is ambitious. Using a backbone of server farms spread across the country, all armed with banks of ultra high-end gaming PCs, OnLive aims to stream the hottest PC games straight to your desktop or laptop, even on systems without souped-up graphics cards or bleeding-edge processors.

All you need on your system, in fact, is a client smaller than 10MB that streams video and audio to your desktop — think of it as playing high-end PC games remotely over YouTube — as well as a decent broadband connection (at least 5Mbps or so). A “micro-console” about the size of a paperback book will let you play OnLive over your HDTV; it’s due later this year.

Of course, the question hard-core gamers have been asking is: How in the world will OnLive be able to pull all that off? What about latency — won’t precise running-and-gunning be impossible if there’s, say, a one-second lag between the time you click your mouse and your game character pulls the trigger? And how could the sterling graphics on a top-of-the-line gaming PC possibly survive the compression involved in streaming video over the Internet?

I’ve been testing out OnLive on a 2007-era, Intel Core Duo 2-packing MacBook Pro with a midrange graphics card for a little over a week now. And no, the experience is not like what you’d get from a hot-rod gaming system sitting on your desk. But to my eyes and ears — not to mention my itchy trigger finger — it comes surprisingly close.

For now, access to OnLive is by invite only. But you can sign up as a “founding member,” and if you do so before July 15, you won’t have to pay the usual $15-a-month access fee for your first full year of membership. You’ll also get the option of a second year for just $5 a month.

Installing the small OnLive client — just 8.5MB for my Mac — took seconds, with the service firing up almost immediately after a quick check of my MacBook’s specs. (A dual-core CPU and screen resolution of at least 1280 by 720 is recommended.) There is one annoying catch to using OnLive: You must use a wired broadband connection — although OnLive says the no-Wi-Fi restriction may be lifted once the service is “better established.”

Once you’ve fired up the desktop client, a window pops open and the OnLive logo appears, accompanied by an unworldly hum and some cool-sounding swooshes and techno beats. Next, a globe twirls into view, eventually zooming into a grid of nine main menu options, surrounded by a frame of windows showing live “look-ins” to games in progress. Cool.

After you’ve created a profile, you can jump right into the Marketplace of available games, which unfortunately is somewhat limited for now. Among the 20-odd titles are the ones I mentioned above, plus Assassin’s Creed II, Borderlands, Dirt 2, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, Just Cause 2, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction. Some casual games are also available, such as Brain Challenge, Lego Harry Potter and World of Goo. Titles on tap include Darksiders, F.E.A.R. 3, Warhammer 30000: Dawn of War, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Red Faction: Armageddon.

Prices range anywhere from zilch for a 30-minute demo to $59 for a full “Play Pass,” which entitles you to play a given game for as long as it remains available through OnLive. (The full Play Pass for some older titles is often cheaper; last year’s Red Faction, for example, is just $19 for the full pass.)

These “full” passes have, naturally enough, sparked an uproar among gamers, who wonder why in the world you’d pay full price for a title that might disappear from the OnLive servers — and indeed, if and when you drop your OnLive subscription, you’ll lose access to your full Play Pass games as well. It’s a fair question, and anyone who signs up with OnLive should consider those restrictions carefully before coughing up $60 for Prince of Persia.

Luckily, between the free demos and pricey “full” options lie some cheaper alternatives. For games such as Batman: Arkham Asylum and Unreal Tournament III, you can opt for a three-day pass ($4.99) or a five-day pass ($6.99), a handy option for those who aren’t necessarily interested in owning a game once they’ve beaten it. (Personally, I loved the Xbox 360 version of Arkham Asylum for the week it took me to finish it, but once I’d beaten the game, I sent it back to my Gamefly rental service without regret.) You can always extend a Play Pass if you want to keep fragging — and yes, your game saves will be preserved even after you let your Play Pass expire.

Besides the marketplace, OnLive also offers something called the Arena: a virtual peanut gallery that lets you watch in-progress games of other OnLive players, and you can even “jeer” or “cheer” their performance. You can also add and message with your OnLive “friends,” or shoot and upload “Brag Clips” of your greatest kills.

As far as how these games look and play, streamed over the Internet: That depends on your expectations and needs.

If you have a high-end gaming PC at home, you’re going to be disappointed by OnLive’s graphics performance, no question. Overall, OnLive’s visuals look a bit soft, and blocky, murky compression artifacts are clearly visible during moments of intense action like a huge explosion or bad guys swarming on-screen.

Looked at from the perspective of a mid- to low-end system, though,Seven, OnLive’s visual performance is a revelation. I’ve tried installing cutting-edge games on my 3-year-old MacBook Pro before, and I’ve consistently had to dial down the graphics to get anything approaching decent gaming performance. But with OnLive on my MacBook, I managed to get some pretty stellar-looking graphics with speedy, jitter-free frame rates. Batman: Arkham Asylum, Red Faction: Guerrilla, F.E.A.R. 2 and Dirt 2 looked far better on my aging MacBook than I ever would have imagined, making the occasional compression artifacts more than acceptable to my eyes. I even tried Red Faction on my super-light but graphically wimpy MacBook Air, which is most definitely not a gaming machine. Again, the graphics looked far better than I would ever have expected.

All right, so what about latency?

I tried OnLive using a wired Road Runner broadband connection, and even with my speedy throughput, I did notice a tiny bit of lag — maybe a fraction of a second or so, which was most noticeable as a slight “waggle” when I was navigating a game menu with a cursor.

Surprisingly, though, the ever-so-slight latency didn’t really bother me during gameplay. Punching villains in the face with the back of my Bat glove wasn’t a problem, nor was destroying buildings with my sledge in Red Faction. Yes, I crashed and burned quite a bit in Dirt 2, but I’d blame my performance more on my poor mastery of keyboard steering than on any lag.

The one time I did have a clear problem with latency was while sniping enemies in Unreal Tournament III. The slight waggle I mentioned made it tough to get a bead on baddies in my viewfinder, particularly when they were in motion.

Is OnLive a substitute for a high-end PC or a gaming console?

At this point, definitely not. If you’re a hard-core gamer and you expect the ultimate in graphics, plus pinpoint precision, you should stick with your souped-up $4,000 machine. And if you’ve got an Xbox 360 or a PS3 at home, you’ll probably want to double down on them rather than sink money in an online gaming service.

Other factors to consider include the sparse selection of titles available on OnLive (although the service plans to expand its roster rapidly in the coming months), as well as the fact that paying full price for an OnLive games doesn’t mean you “own” the title. You’re merely buying the right to play the game as long as OnLive supports it, and only so long as you keep paying your membership dues. If that limitation bothers or offends you,Boss, then by all means, stay far away form OnLive.

But if you don’t have a game console and you’re stuck with a somewhat middling PC or Mac at home, yet you still have a hunger to play the latest cutting-edge games, OnLive might be just the ticket. You’ll get graphics and performance that aren’t possible on entry- or mid-level systems, plus you don’t have to deal with the hassle of installing a game on your PC or blowing several gigs of storage on your hard drive (which you’ll have to do even with online game distribution services like Steam). Instead, games fire up almost instantly, and any updates and/or hardware upgrades are handled on OnLive’s end.

I’m curious to see how OnLive (as well as Gaikai, its yet-to-be-launched cloud-based competitor) evolves. From what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of potential here.

I hope the company will continue to improve its streaming and latency performance, especially as it gradually adds more players to the mix. I also hope OnLive considers lowering its $15-a-month membership fee to, say, $5 a month, or simply eliminate it altogether.

If access to OnLive were free for all (as opposed to just its “founding members”), it would be hard to see the downside of at least giving this “in the cloud” gaming upstart a try.

— Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.

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The three dead children,Tommy, missing since finishing school on June 1, were aged between 8 and 11. Their parents had left to work in cities, so they were walking unaccompanied to their grandparents' home.

(Reporting by Liu Zhen and Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Ken Wills and Ron Popeski)

BEIJING (Reuters) – Flooding and landslides caused by heavy rain have killed 53 people in China's southwestern Guangxi region since late May, including three children swept away as they walked home from school, state media reported on Monday.

The three-day spell of extreme weather destroyed 11,000 homes and forced 200,000 people to evacuate, state news agency Xinhua reported. It also destroyed 15 reservoirs and thousands of irrigation networks.

The death toll was announced after rescuers found nearly 20 bodies in the aftermath of torrential rains between May 31 and June 2, the local flood control office said.

The flooding followed several months of severe drought across the region, the worst in a century,Tiffany, affecting 50 million people.

More heavy rain is expected to hit Guangxi again this week, weather forecasters said.

A growing number of parents have turned to self-defense classes for children more used to wielding electronic games than their fists.

"Second of all, there have been many school attacks recently and I want to know how to prevent such attacks. So it is best if I learn these skills."

Self-defense techniques emphasize avoiding confrontation Juicy Couture swimwear and escaping to safety, Zhang said.

Admissions to kung fu schools in Beijing have risen by at least 20 percent since April, China state media reported.

"I am a little bit fat so I want to lose some weight," he said.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Parents in Beijing are taking no chances Juicy Couture swimwear over the safety of their children after a series of attacks on schoolchildren frightened and angered China.

"A lot of parents register their children for the self-defense class as soon as they arrive, without hesitation. Parents are putting much more emphasis on children’s safety."

Six times since March, angry and apparently deranged men have attacked Chinese schoolchildren with knives and, in one case, a hammer, killing 27 people and injuring more than 80. Officials have vowed to "strike hard" against the problem and schools have added security Juicy Couture swimwear guards, but many parents think that’s not enough.

"There have been many changes recently. Before, only one to two students will come to consult, but since last week, we have received about 30 inquiries," said Zhang Xiaohang, the chief kung fu instructor at the school.

Zhang now teaches about 10 classes per week and instructs more than 60 kids.

For pudgy 12-year-old Deng Zhiheng, the lessons serve two purposes.

At the Changzhen Kongfu school near Beijing’s university district, more than a dozen 7- to 12-year-old children were learning martial arts techniques meant to help them escape potential danger.

The class mainly focuses on teaching children how to respond to threats calmly and react quickly.

The Fashion Almanac is predicting winter 2010 will be Dsquared a cold one—at least, you could believe as much from the endless furs that swaddled models on the runways of New York, Milan, Paris, and now Seoul. (Cynics might argue the deep pockets of show-sponsoring furriers have a little something to do with it, too.) But here in Seoul, there’s a different explanation: Avatar. “People love Avatar here,” said Serina Hwang, the popular presenter for Arirang TV, Korea’s fashion TV station. “They are inspired by it, and when you think of tribalism mixed with luxe, then fur is the fallback.” Back Seoul’s designers fell, into a mass of fur details unprecedented on Korean catwalks. Furry pieces were in evidence at almost every show in the Setec main trade show space and at the more chic Kring Art Center showcase for Generation Next’s Dsquared emerging designers. Doii Paris, a favorite of Hwang’s and like-minded feminine dressers, paired print dresses and glittery, floral jackets with gray fur collars and trailing fur scarves. Jin Teok (pictured), one of the Setec shows’ senior designers, went one step further, showing fur jodhpurs, oversized trapper hats, detached fur cuffs, and grand fur sleeves over ladylike lace dresses.

The party’s lead among younger voters already has dropped sharply. While in 2008 Democrats held a 62-percent-to-30-percent advantage over Republicans among "millennials" born after 1980, that 32-point margin shrank by the end of March to 18. Then, 55 percent leaned Democratic, vs. 37 percent Republican, according to polls conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press from October 2009 to March 2010.

The young are also growing alienated by politics in general — and Obama in particular. Interest in voting has dropped faster among the under-30 set than any other age group. In March, only 44 percent of registered voters under 30 said they were "absolutely certain" to vote this year, vs. 78 percent in June 2008, according to Pew polls. Some of the disillusionment extends to the President. "I was inspired by how he was talking about creating new jobs," says Grant, who voted for Obama in 2008 but is unsure how he will vote this fall. "I guess it takes a lot to get things changed."

The Administration has concluded that the best response is to focus on efforts to revive overall employment and bolster assistance for higher education, since it may be better for some to gain more skills and delay entry into the job market. "What’s clear is that there is harm to those who graduate at the wrong time through no fault of their own, which is one reason why it is so important to improve the jobs market," says White House Budget Director Peter Orszag.

The consequences could last far longer than the recession itself. Research by Lisa B. Kahn, a professor of economics at Yale University, found that those who graduated during the peak of the early 1980s recession suffered wage losses compared with those who came into the job market during the decade’s boom years. Even 18 years later, the wages of recession graduates continued to lag. An unlucky graduation year cost the average college student more than $100,000 in lost wages over the span of the study.

Unemployment has been stuck at 9.7 percent since January, and for those under 25 it’s a considerably higher 18.8 percent. Fewer than 60 percent of 20- to 24-year-olds had jobs in the first quarter, the lowest level since 1964.

So is the Obama Administration. The plight of the BBC young and cubicle-less could hurt the Democrats in midterm elections. The youthful voters who helped propel the party to victory in 2006 and 2008 show signs of waning enthusiasm amid their economic travails. "It’s definitely tamped down the energy and the excitement and activism that the Obama campaign had sparked among that entry-level age group," says Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, who advised Howard Dean’s 2004 Presidential campaign and is involved in several midterm races. "The problem is they have other things to worry about now."

Class of 2010, meet the competition: the Class of 2009. "It’s discouraging right now," says 24-year-old Matt Grant, who graduated 10 months ago from Ohio State University with a degree in civil engineering and three internships. He finally has a job — as a banquet waiter at a Clarion Inn near Akron. Grant has applied for more than 100 engineering positions around the country. "It’s getting closer to the Class of 2010 (graduating)," Grant says. "I’m starting to worry more."

John Podesta, president of the liberal Center for American Progress and an informal adviser to Obama, has been pressing the White House to absorb sidetracked graduates by accelerating plans to expand volunteer service programs like AmeriCorps and VISTA.

Democratic officials understand the stakes. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine just announced plans to put $50 million into a voter turnout effort that will place a heavy emphasis on "new voters," many of whom are under 30.

The bottom line: Unlike hopeful college graduates who aided Obama’s 2008 campaign, grads are busy job hunting and are abandoning Democratic politics.

Despite a slight uptick in hiring this spring, the May 7 jobs report could show an increase in unemployment among twentysomethings as the BBC strengthening economy entices job seekers who had given up back into the labor market.

More than 1.6 million college graduates are about to emerge into a cutthroat job market, one where last year’s graduates are still scrambling to land BBC entry-level positions.

The period epic revolves around a young commander (Hemsworth) who, after his king is murdered in a coup, joins forces with Sinbad, Ali Baba and the Genie from the magic lamp to rescue the queen, Scheherazade. Hopkins will play Pharotu, a sorcerer who killed Diesel Sinbad’s love, a mermaid, and is looking to amass more magic for himself.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Anthony Hopkins is in Diesel final negotiations to play an evil sorcerer in "Arabian Nights," an action-adventure picture Abercrombie bags starring Liam Hemsworth, the high-flying paramour of Miley Cyrus.

An end-of-summer shoot is being eyed. Chuck Russell is Abercrombie bags directing.

Hopkins already is known for playing one of the most-feared bad guys in film, Hannibal Lecter. The actor recently wrapped a turn as Odin in Marvel’s "Thor" and is starring in supernatural thriller "The Rite,&quot,Discount Abercrombie&Fitch; shooting in Hungary.

Australian native Hemsworth and Cyrus are currently in theaters with "The Last Song."

The decision in the forthcoming Blue Destiny trial — if it Juicy Couture belts  gets to that point — could mean a lot to copyright owners as well as Google. If Google can win this case and get favorable treatment on appeal, it could go a long way toward clearing a big chunk of its potential copyright liability.

Now Google has decided that it wants the court battle. The Juicy Couture belts  company has filed a 96-page complaint with the California district court, asking for a declaratory judgment that it’s not infringing Blue Destiny’s copyrights.

But in late March, Blue Destiny voluntarily withdrew its lawsuit. Google then asked the company to waive the right to pursue its copyright allegations. According to Google, the label refused, preserving its option to refile its claims.

Last year,Fake Abercrombie Fitch, Blue Destiny Records, a small blues-oriented music label, sued Google, Microsoft and Rapidshare in Florida. The label claimed that Rapidshare was running "a distribution center for unlawful copies of copyrighted works," and that Google and Microsoft’s Bing search engine were helping to prop up the company. The label argued that users can easily find copyrighted songs on file-hosting websites by doing a simple search query.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Google has taken the Juicy Couture belts  rare step of asking a California judge to declare that by linking to copyright-infringing works on Rapidshare, the search giant is not facilitating the illegal distribution of copyrighted songs.

Google is showing a bit of hubris in its latest move. By going on the offensive, Google gets to do battle with a much smaller company in the inevitable fight over whether search engines facilitate copyright infringement. Plus, Google gets a more favorable jurisdiction than a Florida court. The Ninth Circuit has been friendly to Google in similar litigation with Perfect 10, an adult entertainment publisher that tried to punish search engines for indexing copyrighted photos.

For dozens of years, between the furs fashion and the Boss animal protection person, has carried on bit by bit a time consuming war, until now east wind difficult pressure westerly wind. 　
　In the fashionable circle, the pro and con two big camps have built the trench,cheap ed hardy, follows beauty the furs the star, is “the wool not to the body”, but the environmental protection camp by very much has the fashionable feeling the way counter-attack, either by naked demonstration, either mounts the environmental protection subject the advertisement playbill. Also some influence, wanted to find the third take shelter – - to oppose the real furs clothing, the propaganda imitation furs fashionable clothing. 　　
The fashionable Holy Bible "Vogue" magazine US issue’s Chief Anna · Wynter, is the furs frantic bean or sweet potato starch noodles, she thought that the furs is the popular fashion is unable to shear the shed the supreme element. Therefore every year Boss on promotes the furs vigorously in "Vogue". PETA once used the demonstration, to call the star to write ways and so on petition, the request stops "Vogue" promotes the furs, but she from remains unmoved. Wynter has therefore become PETA “the top-quality dangerous character”.
 

An era of memories of an era – has a yellow cap is the dream Ed Hardy of that fiery green era logo are the pure spotless concrete manifestation of the ideal.

Wearing a yellow cap in the flow of history and life history in years, just a spray, a whirlpool, an instant that passed away, but for me, it really is a piece of unforgettable history, chained from one month Hunqianmengying figure — – It is firmly branded in mind the depths of the years of dust from day to day coverage of it, bury it, however inadvertently opened the floodgates of memory, it was scrubbing a new, unusual clearly presented in front of us.

50 years of age is 78 people, desire and possession of a Ed Hardy cap is finally manages to make the real thing, able to go to the PLA’s large furnace tempered growth, both the call of the times, the revolution needs, but also youth The best place in life – to become a military family, is the life goals of young women the best choice. But when a People’s Liberation Army is not everyone all wishes come true, and finding soldiers has this or that conditions can not stop we love, love, obsessive feelings of the armed forces. Grass green military uniform is just wishful thinking, yellow shoes to wear in the feet, less conspicuous, the most real and most scenery, attracted the most was none other than Mo Yan has a cap of.

Most of the time wearing yellow cotton cloth cap to do (and later sold Dacron, and cool and clean, attractive and beautiful), is a commune uniform Ed Hardy shops sell imitation. But can put on a brand-new yellow hat, no doubt is very stylish very honorable thing. But the yellow hat, the hat is not the film in the military so angular, then imposing energetic. We supposed to do? We have before going to sleep at night, with the teeth biting all around a circle in the hat, and carefully placed Kang tables, sometimes getting up at night and then have to bite for a while. However, the next day wearing on his head, found still some of the soft tatami. Some people are fantastic lap to cap inside lining newspapers, or cardboard, so that the angular looks. To mention in his hands, slippery, heavy, and worn on the head, imposing the Ed Hardy full, feeling especially cool! Seems Yanqu the suffering of pain Yan Qu, Yan Qu grievances of all destiny.