In 2011, 21 moved more than 5.6 million copies in the U.S. By Gil Kaufman
Adele Photo: Getty Images
The music industry has been stuck in a rut for nearly a decade. But every once in a while, it still manages to produce one of those unstoppable hit albums that give everyone that good old feeling.
This year's model is Adele's 21, which not only sold more copies than any other album in the U.S. in 2011 (more than 5.6 million to date), but which has also moved the most units of any artist since 2004. According to a Reuters report, those gaudy figures (which top 15 million worldwide) make the British songbird the first artist to cross the 5 million mark in one year since Usher did it with his fourth studio album, Confessions, which sold 7.9 million units more than seven years ago.
There have been other big hits along the way to Adele's mark, including Eminem selling more than 3.4 million copies of his comeback Recovery album last year and Taylor Swift taking the honors in 2009 with Fearless, which sold 3.2 million copies. But none have come as close to Usher's mark in the interim.
There doesn't seem to be any chance Adele will be surpassed by the end of the year: The closest contenders are Lady Gaga's Born This Way (2.08 million) and Michael Bublé's Christmas (2.4 million). The other good news is that overall music sales are expected to be up slightly (3 percent) by the end of this year, marking the first time that's happened since 2004.
While we already rode the white unicorns of HP's now disintegrated webOS series, there was one little filly we didn't get to saddle up. A developmental model of the seven-inch TouchPad Go has now made it into the hands of webOSnation and has been given a thorough going over. The major differences from its bigger brother? A rear-facing 5 megapixel camera and a smudge buffering matte finish on the back are the main signifiers. Aside from those (and an experimental build of the next firmware update), it's a tiny TouchPad. The Go matches the resolution of the original, also packing the same processor innards of the defunct white TouchPad. Those unwilling to accept the future of webOS can still absorb the full critique of what could have been in a video review after the break.
Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir resumed the Indian first innings after lunch against Australia on Day 2 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. (AFP Photo)
NEW DELHI: Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag resumed the Indian first innings after lunch on the second day of the Boxing Day Test against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday.
Scorecard
Gambhir and Sehwag took the Indian first innings to 6/0 at lunch.
Earlier, Zaheer Khan took four wickets and Umesh Yadav and R Ashwin scalped three each as India bowled out Australia for 333 runs in their first innings.
The last Australian wicket fell when Nathan Lyon was bowled round his legs by Ashwin.
Australia lost their ninth wicket when R Ashwin had Ben Hilfenhaus caught by Virat Kohli at long-on.
Zaheer Khan took his fourth wicket when he had Peter Siddle caught behind by MS Dhoni.
Siddle played well to score 41 runs but fell to Zaheer who was reversing the ball both ways.
Zaheer had Brad Haddin caught by Virender Sehwag at gully in the second over of the day.
Zaheer broke the stubborn 72-run stand between Haddin and Peter Siddle as Sehwag took a good low catch.
The day's play started with Haddin and Siddle resuming the Australian first innings.
Australia ended Day 1 at 277/6 after being 205/5 at one stage.
Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma, both playing under the shadow of recent injuries and lay-offs, struggled with their line and length under an overcast sky on a moisture-laden pitch that aided lateral movement when the ball was pitched up.
The hosts opened with debutant Ed Cowan and the belligerent David Warner who were off to a steady start after skipper Michael Clarke won the toss and surprised many by choosing to bat first.
Cowan betrayed no nerves and displayed a fine defensive technique and the right temperament to succeed in Test cricket.
Warner made a sketchy 37 that included a breath-taking pull for six off Umesh Yadav and several airy-fairy shots. He was out off the first ball after a brief rain-induced stoppage at the stroke of the first hour of play when he top-edged a Yadav bouncer that ballooned up to Dhoni behind the stumps.
Shaun Marsh, who has usurped Ricky Ponting's No. 3 position, hardly did justice to the promotion when his intended off-drive off Yadav flew to point, where Virat Kohli held a low catch.
Ponting received a warm welcome from the fans and a hot one from Yadav. The Indian pacer tested the Aussie great with a well-directed bouncer. Ponting, who was late in reacting, was struck just above his elbow and on the grille of his helmet before he regained his bearings and managed to kick the ball away from close to his stumps.
The former Australian captain struggled right through his innings of 62 in the course of which he got beaten several times, overbalanced on a couple of occasions but hung in there to raise 113 runs for the third wicket with the dormant Cowan.
The duo made the Indian pacers pay for their lack of length in the post-lunch session that was delayed by around 40 minutes because of yet another spell of light rain. Just when frustration was creeping into the Indian ranks, Ponting departed much like he had started: a touch shakily. Yadav, having softened him up with a snorter that Ponting somehow managed to evade, got his next delivery to move away late and the batsman edged it to Laxman at second slip.
Clarke, who looked fluent in making a sparkling 31 with five crisply struck boundaries, added a further 46 runs in association with Cowan, but gifted Zaheer his wicket dragging a short ball on to his stumps.
LOS ANGELES?? "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" cruised to No. 1 at box offices on Sunday, even as major new movies opened on Christmas Day which may change top 10 results when final numbers are tallied.
The new Tom Cruise movie rang up an estimated $26.5 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales over the three-day weekend, according to studio estimates, after expanding from a limited release in Imax and other large-screen theaters last week.
Paramount Pictures, which released the movie, said it expects a four-day tally of slightly more than $40 million by Monday, when final estimates are reported. The film's cumulative ticket sales are expected to reach just over $72 after Monday.
Indeed, the weekend box office race truly will finish on Monday because Christmas day annually is among the most crowded days in theaters and on Sunday, director Steven Spielberg's widely-anticipated "War Horse" makes its debut along with another newcomer, thriller "The Darkest Hour."
Hollywood's major studios loaded the release schedule last week heading into the holiday, expecting the films to play well between now and New Year's Eve while parents and kids are away from work and school. As a result, a clear picture of how the movie studios fared this Christmas season awaits the full week of box office reports.
Meanwhile, over the weekend Warner Bros' "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" took the No. 2 spot on U.S. and Canadian (domestic) box office charts with $17.8 million, according to Sunday's estimates. Cumulative ticket sales for "Sherlock" after two weeks now stand at roughly $76.5 million.
Another holdover from last week, family comedy "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" squeaked into No. 3 with $13.3 million, pushing its total domestic ticket sales to $50.3 million after two weeks in theaters.
Following it were a trio of last week's newcomers, widely-anticipated "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," family film "The Adventures of Tintin" and comedy "We Bought A Zoo."
"Dragon Tattoo" landed at No. 4 on Sunday with $13 million, a hair behind the chipmunks, and a Sony spokesman cautioned the studio's figure could change when Sunday's figures are final.
"Today and tomorrow should be our strongest days of the holiday frame," the spokesman said, noting that the studio did not have a Monday estimate.
"Dragon Tattoo" now has estimated total domestic ticket sales of $21.4 million since its debut.
"Tintin," another Spielberg film released by Paramount, landed at No. 5 over the weekend with $9.1 million. The studio sees it rising to $14.3 million after Monday. Total ticket sales by Monday are seen at $22.3 million since its debut.
Finally, another new entry this weekend, the comedy "We Bought a Zoo," landed at No. 6 with $7.8 million.
Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom Inc. Warner Bros. is part of Time Warner Inc.. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" was released by the movie studio division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a unit of Sony Corp. "Chipwrecked" and "Zoo" were both released by film divisions of 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp..
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Africa, the birthplace of the human species, has long been a magnet for archeologists.
Now South Africa wants to draw leading astrophysicists to the continent as well with the world?s most powerful radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an instrument that would be able to look back to the infancy of the universe.
South Africa and Australia are the two finalists in the competition to host the project, which will eventually link thousands of radio dishes to make a massive antenna with a total surface area of 1km2.
The telescope, the brainchild of an international consortium of scientists, will be 50 to 100 times more sensitive than today?s best radio telescopes and is projected to cost in the neighborhood of US$2 billion.
Like an archeologist digging into ever deeper layers of soil, the telescope will pick up radio waves from deeper in space than ever before, ones whose sources are billions of years old and might not even exist anymore.
Scientists say that power will help them look back in time and see how the universe took shape after the big bang.
For African astronomers, next year will be decisive.
Scientists will decide by early March whether the South African and Australian SKA site proposals pass muster. The consortium will then choose the winner, a decision the South Africans say will be political and economic as well as scientific.
South Africa also plans to start construction next year on a 64-antenna radio telescope called MeerKAT that would be one of the five most accurate in the world.
Observation slots at the MeerKAT are already fully booked for its first five years.
A prototype, the KAT-7, is up and running in the Karoo, an arid expanse of sparsely inhabited land stretched across South Africa?s western side.
The government has said the site, a silent, rocky landscape that looks like a western movie cast with a few sheep, a ?Radio Astronomy Reserve.?
The site, which had no trace of human settlement eight years ago, is an hour by road from the nearest town, itself an hour?s flight from Cape Town. Like giant white saucers turned to the sky, seven dish antennas capture the noise of the universe with a small, refrigerator-like hum.
?It is a very difficult place to do farming,? said Justin Jonas, an astronomer and engineer and the operating director for SKA Africa. ?Which is good for us. It means the fewest people, fewest cellphones and fewest interferences.?
South Africa?s SKA bid would also put the core of antennas in the Karoo.
Other antennas would be scattered around the continent in Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia.
Design and pre-construction on the SKA are scheduled to begin in 2013. The project is expected to be finished sometime near 2024.
It is not an ideal time to be raising money for massive science projects. The US pulled out of the SKA last year, leaving it to Australia, Britain, China, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands and South Africa to fund. India is still on the fence.
However, South Africa is undeterred. It says it can build the SKA for less money than Australia, which would co-host with New Zealand.
The government has already invested 635 million rand (US$75 million) in seven years to build MeerKAT and plans to spend another 500 million rand a year to 2016.
?With a project like this, you don?t make money, but you get a lot more. You develop scientific capacity,? said Nadeem Oozeer, 36, a researcher from Mauritius. ?In Mauritius, we?ve got five graduates with terminal [doctorate] degrees. Why not an African Nobel prize winner??
Bobbie Gardner is an animal lover who is allergic to dogs and cats. She no longer owns pets, but she knows firsthand that they are cherished companions for many.
The Boise grandma is part of a group of volunteers trying to prevent homebound seniors in the Treasure Valley from losing their pets because they can?t afford to feed them. Once a month, she loads up her Suzuki with bags of donated pet food and delivers it to a half-dozen or more residents in Boise and Meridian.
?They?re very appreciative,? said Gardner, a nurse who works part time. ?They say it?s so important to them to keep their animals with them, and if we didn?t help them they wouldn?t be able to.?
The pet food delivery service ? run through the Idaho Humane Society ? is done in collaboration with Elks Meals on Wheels. Volunteers with Meals on Wheels deliver meals each day to 800 seniors in Ada County, including 400 homebound seniors and 400 at dining centers.
?For many of these people who receive Meals on Wheels, it is their only daily source of nutrition,? said Grant Jones, development director for Elks Meals on Wheels. ?It?s very critical that they eat all of that and that they don?t have to make a choice between themselves and their pet.?
The Idaho Humane Society has been assisting with pet food donation for needy seniors for years. In late 2008, the nonprofit launched a separate delivery service to ease the burden on Meals on Wheels volunteers.
?It was just asking them to do a lot extra. In some cases, that pet food is very heavy, very bulky,? Jones said. ?It just made it easier.?
At about the same time, shelter officials began to notice that many families were giving up their pets due to financial hardship.
?We determined that people were using food stamps to buy food for their pets ? tuna for their cats, little wieners for their dogs,? said Christine Wiersema, development director at the Idaho Humane Society. ?That?s taking food away from the family, so that?s not good.
?We reassessed things because we want to keep these families together,? Wiersema said. That?s when the shelter?s Pet Food Pantry was launched.
The pantry, housed in a construction trailer, is also a collection site for the Meals on Wheels pet food delivery service. They collect and distribute about 7,000 pounds of pet food a month.
?This could be my whole job,? Wiersema said. All of the food is donated by the community or purchased with cash donations.
There are pet food donation drop-offs at 60 locations in the Valley, including Zamzows stores and veterinary offices.
Some businesses hold food drives to help out. The Idaho Athletic Club held four drives this year and donated 10,000 pounds of pet food. Hewlett-Packard employees contributed 640 pounds and $780 in cash.
Twice a month, about 100 families pick up food to feed for up to four pets. They may receive the donated pet food for up to six months.
The Meals on Wheels pet food delivery service is separate from the food pickup operation. It currently provides food to 225 animals at residences throughout Ada County.
About 10 to 15 volunteers gather the first week of the month to pack the pet food into their vehicles. They spend an hour or two delivering it over the next day or so.
Wiersema said many of the seniors in the delivery program have older and/or special-needs pets. Grants from two foundations allow the shelter to offer medical treatment and other care for those animals.
While talking to one pet owner, volunteer Gardner discovered that he was living in frigid temperatures due to a broken furnace. She called local agencies and businesses until she found one that would work with him on a payment plan for a new furnace.
In that way, the pet food delivery service is about so much more than pets, Wiersema said.
?It?s just one more touch from the community ? that sense we can all take care of each other,? she said.
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With a glossy 14.0" display, the Dell Inspiron laptop PC brings convenience and ease back into your technological world. Featuring an 8-in-1 card reader and USB connectivity, this Dell notebook computer has the multimedia connectivity to keep your social media presence current and up to date.Dell 14.0" Inspiron Laptop PC:
4GB DDR3 SDRAM system memory (expandable to 6GB) Gives you the comfort for multimedia videos and images, video conferencing, basic gaming and all the other simple duties
320GB SATA hard drive Store 213,000 photos, 91,000 songs or 168 hours of HD video and more on your Dell notebook computer
8x CD/DVD burner Watch movies, and read and write CDs and DVDs in multiple formats
10/100 Network Connector and 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Connect to a wired network or Wirelessly connect to a Wi-Fi signal or hotspot with the 802.11b/g/n connection built into your Dell 14" laptop PC
14.0" LED widescreen display Intel HD Graphics 3000
Additional Inspiron Laptop PC Features:
1.0MP webcam
8-in-1 memory card reader
3 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x headphone jack, 1 x HDMI
6-cell Li-ion battery
Software:
Genuine Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition. To learn more about the features of Windows 7 Click here
Microsoft Office Home & Student 2010 Full Version Pre-installed (To learn more about the features of Office 2010, click here)
McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days complimentary service
Backup and Restore options built into Windows allows you to create safety copies of your most important personal files, so you're always prepared for the worst
Support and Warranty:
1-year limited warranty and mail-in service
Restore discs are no longer included with PCs. We recommend you use the installed software to create your own restore and backup DVD the first week you use the Dell notebook computer.
What's In The Box:
Power cord
6-cell Li-ion battery
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To see the manufacturer's specifications for this Dell notebook computer, click here.
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Battery Type:
6-Cell Lithium Ion
Primary Color:
Black
Multi Pack Indicator:
No
Model No.:
I14RN41101090DB
Shipping Weight (in pounds):
6.56
Product in Inches (L x W x H):
13.5?x?1.26?x?9.68
Walmart No.:
007221182
Dell Black 14" Inspirion 14r-1090DBK 14" Laptop PC with Intel Processor, Windows 7, Microsoft Office Home & Student Full edition Pre-loaded and Pop.Click.Switch Lid. 4.4 5 18 23
Great value as an economy laptop computer. I bought this computer as an upgrade to an old netbook I've been dragging around since May of 2009. I do most of my work on my desktop computer, but I've been very impressed with this computer in the three weeks I've had it.For having the lower-end Intel chip, it is very fast at performing the things I like to do with it (having 12+ tabs open in several Chrome windows, iTunes, work in Word, Excel, and OneNote). I'm often doing these at the same time and it doesn't miss I beat. I know this isn't exactly power computing, but it's about all I ever need to do on my laptop.I did notice that it would sometimes freeze and require a hard restart upon resuming from sleep. I wonder if that is the cursor issue the other reviewer was experiencing; that is what I thought I was encountering at first. Instead, I did a little reading online and discovered that the default Dell settings for powering down the harddrive before sleep could cause the freeze on resume from sleep. I changed the power settings to not turn the harddrive off until sleep and I haven't had an issue.Considering the relatively small battery, I was also impressed with the battery life. I've been able to get 3 to 4 hours of use per charge with the display settings held to a low level of brightness.Overall for under $500 with Office included, I thought this was a fantastic buy. 07/26/2011
great computer for college student, includes office programs, smaller size fits in backpack with books, love it 07/25/2011
Good computer for the price After my Mac got water damaged after 5 years of ownership I wasn't really in the market for an expensive replacement computer... all I really needed was Microsoft Word and Excel to get through my last year of college. I found this computer at my local store and thought for having Office pre-loaded it was a very good value. I have had this computer for about a month now and I am very happy with it. I have had the cursor jump while using Word..but I use a wireless mouse and I don't seem to have the issue. I feel like I got a good computer for the price paid. I also enjoy being able to change the lid. 07/31/2011
Excellent laptop for the price! Great industry-standard laptop! Solid build, good equipment, Dell didn't fill it with useless software and utilities. Has some awesome quick-keys to access utility functions (like turning wireless on and off).Only problem I've had is it tends to take a while to boot. Haven't identified why yet, doesn't seem to be anything in particular bogging it down, but 60% of boots take double the time it should... I'll amend the post if I find the reason.Other than that, GREAT. Love it so-far, it's sleek and fun, and every cost-effective. 08/08/2011
1-4of19 total reviews
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