Google Maps Restores Order to the Universe

Well, that pretty much settles it. Everyone please go back to whatever you were doing.

Today, Google (GOOG) released its free Google Maps for iPhone app in Apple’s (AAPL) App Store. Besides reestablishing galactic tranquility, the new app brings iPhone users all the features they were missing by using Apple’s new home-grown Maps app. Apple’s Maps were pretty and slick, but the service was crippled from the get-go. Sure, turn-by-turn directions were great to have, but losing such things as transit information was a pretty severe price to pay for it.

Google Maps also adds a delightful new feature that Apple’s map app was lacking: accuracy. Reports from Apple Maps users of wrong directions and incorrect information have been legion. I, for one, used Apple’s Maps app to find a bookstore to buy a present for a seven-year-old girl’s birthday party. Apple’s Maps sent me to a Barnes & Noble (BKS), but it was a Barnes & Noble-operated college bookstore at St. Francis College (I’m sure the birthday girl is smart, but the gifts there weren’t terribly festive). When I looked it up on Google’s app after the fact, the special status of the bookstore was indicated.

Google’s new, native app (in this weird interregnum, iPhone users could continue to use a Web version of Google Maps, but the new app is faster, smoother, and more feature-laden) includes old friends such as Street View, so you can see what a destination looks like, as well as public transit information: Bus lines, subways, and commuter rail are all part of the navigation mix. Try to look that information up in Apple’s Maps, and the app suggests third-party apps to provide this data. That’s like a restaurant serving you an appetizer, then refusing to provide an entrée but very nicely suggesting some other places you can go to get a main course. Um, thanks, but I’m already here—why can’t I have a full dinner?

Google’s new app also incorporates more data for the locations you may be looking for. Look up a restaurant on Apple’s maps app, and you could pull some data from Yelp (YELP), but the same search on Google Maps yields Zagat ratings, menus, links to OpenTable and other useful information.

Here’s what you don’t get with Google Maps instead of Apple’s Maps: You’ll lose Flyover, Apple’s gee-whiz feature where you can see a satellite-image of an area in a 3D-like perspective. Flyover was impressive to look at, but it’s always been little more than a gimmick. After all, being able to travel virtually over land and between buildings is not nearly as useful as Google’s Street View, where you can actually see where you’re going. Unless you’re Superman, I suppose. OK, fine—if you’re Superman, Flyover is incredibly useful. The rest of us are better off with more terrestrial navigation capabilities.

You also lose Siri integration, so you can’t activate Google Maps by voice. That’s a bummer, but not a dealbreaker. Google Maps more than compensates for that by linking to your Google account, so any Maps search you’ve performed on your PC will be listed in the history of the Google Maps app. This is particularly helpful if you’re planning a trip: You can find your destinations on your laptop or tablet at home (which is easier than entering all that info on a tiny touch screen), and all your places will be a tap away on your phone when you get in the car.

Last but not nearly least, Google Maps now has turn-by-turn navigation, a feature that had previously been reserved for Android users only. Find a destination, and Google will guide you by voice and image, showing and telling you the next turn you have to make.

And for this, we actually have Apple’s Maps app to thank. Turn-by-turn navigation was the one feature you couldn’t get through Google Maps, part of the ongoing blood feud between the two companies. But once Apple offered the feature in its mapping app, Google was forced to respond. Presumably, Apple engineers and coders are hard at work at their answer to this latest salvo from Mountain View.

As consumers, we should be happy, as all this competition works to our benefit. Think about it that way, and Apple Maps was the best thing that ever happened to Google Maps.

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Cuban lawmakers meet to consider economy, budget

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban lawmakers are holding the second of their twice-annual sessions with a year-end report expected on the state of the country’s economy.

Legislators are also to approve next year’s budget.

Cuban leaders have sometimes used the parliamentary gatherings to make important announcements or policy statements.

Observers will be watching for word on the progress of President Raul Castro‘s economic reform plan and efforts to promote younger leaders.

The unicameral parliament will reconvene in February with a new membership following elections. It is then expected to name Castro to another five-year term.

State-run media said Castro presided over Thursday’s session.

It was not open to international journalists.

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iPhone 5 hits China as Apple market share slips

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The China release of its iPhone 5 on Friday should win Apple Inc some respite from a recent slide in its share of what is likely already the world’s biggest smartphone market, but its longer-term hopes may depend on new technology being tested by China‘s top telecoms carrier.

Cupertino, California-based Apple has been in talks about a tie-up with China Mobile for four years. A deal with China’s biggest carrier is seen as crucial to improve Apple’s distribution in a market of 290 million users – which is forecast to double this year.

China is Apple’s second-largest and fastest-growing market – it brings in around 15 percent of total revenue – but the company’s failure to strike a deal with China Mobile means it is missing out on a large number of phone users. As the China pie grows, Apple’s sales increase, but without China Mobile, it’s losing ground at a faster rate compared to other brands.

“In absolute terms, this (iPhone 5) launch will certainly result in strong sales for Apple in China. However, in relative terms, I don’t believe it will move the needle enough in market share,” said Shiv Putcha, a Mumbai-based analyst at Ovum, a global technology consultant.

China Mobile and Apple initially said they were separated only by a technical issue – as the Chinese carrier runs a different 3G network from most of the world – but that has evolved into a broader and more complex issue of revenue-sharing.

“China Mobile and Apple still have to solve many issues, such as the business model, articles of cooperation and revenue division, but I believe we will reach an agreement eventually,” China Mobile CEO Li Yue was reported by Chinese media as saying in Guangzhou last week.

Apple China declined to comment. China Mobile said it had no update to the Apple discussions.

STRONG PRE-ORDERS

Apple’s ranking in China’s smartphone market slipped to sixth in July-September, according to research firm IDC, [ID:nL4N09G1QK] but investors, primed to look to China product launches for an uptick in Apple’s quarterly sales, have good headline numbers to digest – more than 300,000 iPhones pre-ordered on one carrier alone. But it’s the lack of a deal with the No.1 carrier that prevents those numbers being stronger.

The iPhone is currently sold through Apple’s seven stores, resellers and through China Unicom and China Telecom – which together have fewer than half the mobile subscribers of bigger rival China Mobile.

“Apple’s market share declined because of the transition between the iPhone 4S and 5. Their market share will recover (with the iPhone 5), but if you don’t have China Mobile, the significant market share gains will be very difficult,” said Huang Leping, an analyst at Nomura in Hong Kong.

TD-LTE: STILL DISTANT

Cutting a deal with a Chinese state-owned carrier may be less optimal than the deals Apple is used to in other markets, and analysts note that China Mobile wouldn’t necessarily open the flood gates for Apple.

Ovum’s Putcha believes Apple and China Mobile will eventually strike a deal – though this would be for an iPhone running on China Mobile’s next-generation network rather than its current 3G network.

Of China Mobile’s 704 million subscribers, only 79 million are on its 3G network, and Apple has been reluctant to sign up to China Mobile’s under-utilized, homegrown TD-SCDMA technology. “Apple likely doesn’t see the return-on-investment in extending themselves for TD-SCDMA,” Putcha said.

China Mobile is currently trialling its next-generation network, TD-LTE, which could be of more interest to Apple, but full-scale commercial use – and an iPhone tie-up – could still be years away.

ANDROID THREAT

Meanwhile, rivals are circling, eating away at Apple’s smartphone market share. Samsung Electronics, Lenovo Group and little-known Chinese brand Coolpad held the top three slots in the third quarter, according to IDC.

All three have relationships with China Mobile and offer smartphone models at different price points. Apple competes exclusively at the high-end, and even there, rivals are rolling out models with China Mobile. Last week, Nokia said it planned to release its latest Lumia smartphone with China’s top carrier, which is also expected to launch Research in Motion’s new Blackberry 10, analysts predict.

“The threat will still come more from the Android camp where they have many vendors already working with China Mobile and offering high-end phones,” said TZ Wong, a Singapore-based IDC analyst.

While these smartphones don’t generate the buzz of a new iPhone, Chinese buyers are not known for their brand loyalty, and this could siphon away users considering an Apple upgrade.

“I’ve used a Blackberry, Android and iOS and, personally, I want to try the Windows 8,” said Andy Huang, a 37-year-old fund manager, who owns most iPad models, an iPhone 4 and a 4S. “I think the Windows 8 is very innovative.”

With a China Mobile deal looking some way off, Apple could always boost market share by offering cheaper models – the basic iPhone 5 will cost 5288 yuan ($ 850) without a contract – though this appears an unlikely route for a high-end brand.

“If they want to expand market share, probably the only way to do it here dramatically would be to put out a lower cost phone,” said Michael Clendenin, managing director at RedTech Advisors. “It’s really uncertain if they’d decide to go that route … Apple’s a mystery in that regard.”

($ 1 = 6.2518 Chinese yuan)

(Additional reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom and Jane Lee; Editing by Kazunori Takada and Ian Geoghegan)

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How “Life of Pi” animators visualized Ang Lee’s blank slate

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Life of Pi” is a movie that has the proverbial cast of thousands… of animals, that is. In one shot set on the ocean, there are 40,000 flying fish. In another one set on a floating island, there are 60,000 meerkats. And not one of them was living and breathing, of course.

“No real meerkats were used,” senior animation supervisor Erik-Jan De Boer told the audience at an effects-themed Q&A following TheWrap’s screening of the movie at the Landmark Theatre on Monday night. “Except of course we went to meerkat sanctuaries and zoos to shoot a lot of reference footage…”

“And the two of us watched every episode of ‘Meerkat Manor,’” interrupted visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer. “We were gonna watch one, but it gets addictive.”

That was about all the time these two had to indulge in reality TV during the long gestation and post-production of Pi, which establishes a new benchmark for awe-inspiring digital trickery – particularly in 3D, or “stereo,” as Westenhofer and De Boer refer to the effects-complicating process.

“In total,” De Boer told TheWrap’s editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman, “we animated 580 animals in about 290 shots for the movie, which includes a giraffe, a fox, a fish, and of course the hyena and orangutan.” Not to mention the little matter of the tiger, “Richard Parker,” whose appearances as one of the movie’s co-leads are 15 percent real, 85 percent digital.

That’s not including the aforementioned meerkat and flying fish extras, brought to life via a software program appropriately titled Massive. (If only it had been around in Cecil B. DeMille‘s day.)

“The flying fish sequence is where we start to take some artistic liberties, since Pi’s telling you a tale,” said Westenhofer. “Maybe there were a thousand flying fish in reality, or even a hundred, but you’re seeing his mind’s eye, which saw this multitude, so we have 40,000 in one particular spot. The Massive software is almost artificial intelligence, where you write a little program that’s the brain for each individual fish, and it decides if it’s going to hop out of the water, and how long it’s going to fly; if it sees someone in its path, it does avoidance.”

But before any of that was animated, there was the live-action filming that took place on a 70 meter-by-30 meter wave tank that director Ang Lee had specially built for the film. And there, said Westenhofer, “you had (star) Suraj Sharma on a boat with two guys in rubber rafts just chucking rubber fish at him as hard as they possibly can. It’s a good mixture of the low-tech and the high-tech.”

Of course, it wasn’t fish but previous experience with big cats that got Rhythm & Hues the assignment from Lee to go from lions to tigers and Pi. “He knew we had done the lion in the first Narnia movie. He asked, ‘Does a digital character look more or less real in 3D?’ We looked at each other and thought that was a pretty good question.”

As well as a leading one, since Lee had already made the decision at that point, in 2009, to shoot in 3D. “We took one of the shots and rendered it in stereo and said ‘Yeah, it gives it a little more presence and makes it more real.’” Good answer! “That was the start of our relationship with him.”

Although “Life of Pi” doesn’t exactly go for documentary-style realism, every effort was made to keep the tiger’s actions and reactions to what experts and trainers told them a creature would really do in those situations. Not having him spout any Aslan-style aphorisms was a nice start on that de-anthropomorphizing.

“We always strive for photorealism,” said De Boer – even when they’re working on a Narnia or Cats and Dogs. “Motion-wise we strive for perfect physicality and try to get that animal to behave as characteristically as possible – and then we always have to make them talk or dance or do something really weird, and the realism goes out the window and everybody knows that we were there. For me what was really cool about this movie is not only do we stick with the real animal but we also have to intercut it with a live-action animal, so that made the challenge for us that much bigger.”

Added Westenhofer, “We told the crew we wanted to work ourselves out of any recognition by making it look as real as possible.”

It was at least as big of a challenge, as far as Westenhofer was concerned, to make the digital waves match or amplify the real tank waves – and to create the film’s skies completely from scratch. “There’s not many films where we spend this much time on the water. I think ‘Old Man and the Sea’ harkens back! But even with ‘Titanic,’ you’ll see the water and then go inside.” For much of “Life of Pi,” “inside” amounts to a few furtive peeks under a tarp.

Hence what, on a project like this, becomes a fine line where digital effects providers are also, to some extent, taking over the role of cinematography and art direction. Going to work on filling up these blue-screen shots, the Rhythm & Hues people might well have been humming Bruce Springsteen’s “Empty Sky” to themselves.

“What I’m absolutely most proud of is with these visual effects is that we were given a blank slate for a lot of these shots,” Westenhofer told the audience. “We were given a boat in front of a blue screen, and it was the visual effects team who really were a lot of the creative innovators on the movie. Certainly it was Ang’s vision we were creating. But we’d start a shot, and though Ang absolutely knows what he wants, his communication is sometimes not as specific as you want. Instead of saying ‘I want a three-quarters cloudy sky with yellow over here and some blue,’ he’d say ‘I want a pensive sky.’

Or, ‘I want it to be operatic.’ So it would be our job to go translate that, and the team did a great job of supplying that.

“And Claudio Miranda did an awesome, awesome job on the cinematography, but a lot of the cinematography on the ocean is digital effects.”

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Mandela’s Infection May Be Pneumonia

Nelson Mandela is being treated for a lung infection, a term often used synonymously with pneumonia.

Elderly people are at an increased risk for infections in general – more so if the person has many chronic medical problems, but as people age their immune systems are less capable of fighting off infections.

South African officials say Mandela’s lung infection is “recurring.” The former president is 94 years old.

As elderly people become more and more infirm, they have a decreased cough response and may aspirate oral secretions into their lungs, raising the risk of infections. And if someone is bedridden, their breaths become more shallow, raising the risk even more.

It may seem surprising that it took so long for Mandela’s diagnosis to be made public. However, it’s possible that it took this long to make a diagnosis.

Elderly people respond differently to pneumonia, meaning they might lack common symptoms like fever and cough, and instead show signs of confusion. The evaluation of change in physical or mental condition in someone of Mandela’s age is broad with much testing needed to make a diagnosis.

There are different types of pneumonia including viral (caused by influenza), bacterial (caused by pneumococcus or tuberculosis), fungal and parasitic. I suspect Mr. Mandela most likely has a viral or bacterial pneumonia. If he does, they are likely treating him with antibiotics and providing respiratory support.

Pneumonia is a leading infectious cause of death in the elderly. But with proper treatment, many do recover.

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Fed ties rate pledge to a threshold as new stimulus set

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve, announcing a new round of monetary stimulus, took the unprecedented step on Wednesday of indicating interest rates would remain near zero until unemployment falls to at least 6.5 percent.

It was the latest in a series of unorthodox measures taken by central banks around the world as major economies face erratic, sub-par recoveries from the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009.

The Fed said it expects to hold rates steady until its new threshold on unemployment was reached as long as inflation does not threaten to break above 2.5 percent and inflation expectations are contained.

Fed officials, who cut their forecasts for both economic growth and inflation next year, also replaced an expiring stimulus program with a fresh round of Treasury debt purchases.

“The committee remains concerned that, without sufficient policy accommodation, economic growth might not be strong enough to generate sustained improvement in labor market conditions,” the Fed’s policy-setting panel said in a statement at the close of a two-day meeting.

Fed officials committed to purchase $ 45 billion in longer-term Treasuries each month on top of the $ 40 billion per month in mortgage-backed bonds the U.S. central bank started buying in September. They also repeated a pledge to keep pumping money into the economy until the outlook for the labor market improves “substantially.”

The Fed will fund the new Treasury purchases with an expansion of its $ 2.8 trillion balance sheet. Under the “Operation Twist” program, the Fed bought an identical amount but paid for them with proceeds from sales and redemptions of short-term debt.

Some policymakers view actions that expand the Fed’s balance sheet as economically more potent than those that do not. However, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told a news conference that the stimulus would remain about the same, given that the central bank is still purchasing a combined $ 85 billion per month in longer-term securities.

“They see an anemic economy, and they’re doing all they can to get any economic progress,” said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates in Toledo, Ohio.

The Fed’s actions initially gave a small lift to U.S. stocks prices, but the major stock indexes closed mostly unchanged, while government bond prices fell. Oil prices rose and the dollar weakened against the euro.

Fed policymakers voted 11-1 to back the new plan. Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, dissented, as he has at every meeting this year, expressing opposition both to the bond buying and the new economic thresholds.

SWEATING A WEAK RECOVERY

The newly unveiled numerical policy guidelines offered the most specific suggestion yet that the Fed is willing to tolerate slightly higher inflation as it tries to juice up a moribund economy and spur stronger job growth.

A drop in the unemployment rate to 7.7 percent in November from 7.9 percent in October was driven by workers exiting the labor force, and therefore did not come close to satisfying the condition the Fed has set for trimming its stimulus.

“Decisions taken today further strengthen the Fed’s commitment to generate a stronger recovery and substantially improve conditions in the labor market,” said Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays in New York.

In response to the financial crisis and recession, the Fed slashed overnight rates to zero almost exactly four years ago and bought some $ 2.4 trillion in mortgage and Treasury securities to keep long-term rates down.

Despite its unconventional and aggressive efforts, U.S. economic growth remains tepid. Gross domestic product grew at a 2.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter, but a Reuters poll published on Wednesday showed economists expect the economy to expand at just a 1.2 percent pace in the current quarter.

Businesses have hunkered down, fearful of a tightening of fiscal policy as politicians in Washington wrangle over ways to avoid a $ 600 billion mix of spending reductions and expiring tax cuts set to take hold at the start of 2013.

Bernanke has warned that running over this “fiscal cliff” would lead to a new recession. He told reporters the Fed could ramp up its bond buying “a bit,” but emphasized that monetary policy has limits and could not fully offset the impact.

NEW TACK ON RATES

By setting thresholds to help guide its decision on when to eventually hike rates, the Fed was able to jettison a previous prediction that borrowing costs would remain at rock bottom levels until at least mid-2015.

Officials were uncomfortable with guidance that relied on a calendar date, and they are hopeful the new framework will help financial markets assess incoming economic data in a way that helps them correctly guess were monetary policy is heading.

Bernanke emphasized that the central bank would look at a range of indicators, not just the rates of unemployment and inflation, in determining when to finally raise rates.

“Reaching the thresholds will not immediately trigger a reduction in policy accommodation,” said Bernanke, adding that the central bank would not be on “auto pilot.”

“No single indicator provides a complete assessment of the state of the labor market,” he said.

The prior practice of fixing an end point was criticized by some economists as sending a message that the Fed expected the economy to be weak until then. Bernanke said the new framework was consistent with the earlier calendar guidance, because officials do not expect the unemployment rate to reach the 6.5 percent threshold level until sometime in 2015.

Indeed, a fresh set of economic projections from the Fed put the jobless rate in a 6 percent to 6.6 percent range in the fourth quarter of 2015. At the same time, the projections showed that at no point over that forecast horizon does the central bank see inflation topping its 2 percent target.

Officials held to their assessment that they could eventually push the jobless rate down to a 5.2 percent to 6 percent range without sparking inflation, although Bernanke cautioned that policy would have to start tightening before it fell so low. In its statement, the Fed said its long-term asset purchase program would end well before any rate hike.

Fed policymakers see GDP expanding between 2.3 percent and 3.0 percent next year. That’s down from the 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent they forecast in September, but is still a bit more optimistic than most private forecasters. The Reuters poll of economists found a median U.S. growth estimate of 2.1 percent for next year.

(Writing by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Tim Ahmann and Leslie Adler)

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The Hobbit: Richard Armitage Talks Preparations For Playing Thorin Oakenshield

British actor Richard Armitage admitted it wasn’t a walk in the park to play a J.R.R. Tolkien character in Peter Jackson’s reimagining of “The Hobbit,” the first installment of which is on its way into theaters.

Upon touching down in New Zealand, where the trilogy was shot, the cast had a lot of character preparation to do.

PLAY IT NOW: Martin Freeman Discusses The Hobbit’s ‘Good Chemistry’ & Playing Bilbo Baggins

“We arrived in February 2011 and we went straight into a training program, which was called ‘Dwarf Bootcamp,’ which was literally boots — these huge boots. We learned how to walk, we wrestled with each other, we did archery together, we did sword fighting, hammer fighting, horse riding — everything you could possibly think of,” Richard, who plays Thorin Oakenshield in the film told Access Hollywood at the film’s junket.

In addition, the cast, which includes his former “Cold Feet” co-star James Nesbitt as Bofur, found ways to get to know each other better off set.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — New York City Premiere

“We went round to each other’s houses and we cooked food together, we went to the pub and got drunk together, so there was an incredibly great bonding time between the dwarves,” he said.

Richard had plenty of experience sword fighting and horse riding in the BBC America series “Robin Hood,” but it was something else that came in handy during the long days on set.

“I’d done a number of shows where I’d had to use sword fighting and I’d also done horse riding. I’d also pulled guns out of my pocket. That was less useful,” he laughed, likely referring to his recent role in the PBS-import series “MI-5,” where he played a British spy. “But, yeah, you draw on everything. I’d worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company, so the vocal work was really useful to kind of pull that from there. I’d worked in a circus, there were… all sorts of things that were really useful, but the one thing that I do have — for lack of talent — is stamina and that’s the one thing I think everybody needed on this job.”

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Meet ‘The Hobbit’ Cast!

An imagination was useful also, but Richard said what turned out on the big screen was still wilder – and more beautiful – than he dreamed of.

“So many moments… Actually, apart from the eagles — which every single time I’ve seen this film absolutely blows my mind and I can barely keep the tears back and [it has] nothing to do with the pathos of the scene, just that feeling of flight moves me — is the throne of Aragorn, in the beginning of the prologue,” he told Access of the moment that moved him most. “When it got to [filming] that scene, I walked on and… it was just a green cross on the floor with a tiny green chair… [But in the film], they just made this incredible, almost space aged, sort of suspended seat in the middle of this stalagmite. It just blows my mind when I see that.”

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Brit Pack: Hot Shots Of Stars From The UK!

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters on December 14, 2012, followed by “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” on December 13, 2013 and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” on July 18, 2014.

– Jolie Lash

Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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‘The Hobbit’: Like One Bad Video Game

Perhaps the most exciting thing about Peter Jackson‘s landmark, blockbuster Lord of the Rings films was that they made fans, through a combination of stunning landscapes and intricate special effects and soaring music and dramatic spectacle, feel as though we were seeing an almost impossible elevation of the potential size and scope of movies. Here was a rich, dense, sprawling series of films that thundered like myths, that were breathtaking in their realization of some pretty huge ambitions. Sure, they were massive corporate projects that earned lots of people millions of dollars, but to the regular moviegoer they were feats that proved the majesty of the movies, the potential to tell enthralling stories that also played like art. And so it’s hugely disappointing, if not all that surprising, that Jackson’s first foray back into the land of Middle Earth, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, is such a sullenly, basely commercial and junky affair, a movie that feels not crafted with Jackson’s seemingly divine inspiration but by the hands of studio executives. Perhaps the reason that Warner Bros. is forgoing the usual console video-game tie-ins for simple mobile games is because the damn movie already looks like a video game, and not a very fun one at that.

RELATED: ‘The Hobbit’ Trailer Needs to Get Out of the Shire

The Lord of the Rings series succeeded aesthetically because it was such an elegant, painting-like wonder to behold. The textures and palettes all had the look of a particularly vibrant illustrated story book, the kind of immersive vision that exists somewhere between imagination and the real world. For The Hobbit, though, Jackson chose to film at a high frame rate and with Real 3D technology in mind — because 3D movies are doing well these days and, hell, doesn’t hurt that the tickets cost more — but the results are frequently hideous. Those among us who have bought shiny new flatscreen TVs over the past few years are likely familiar with the dreaded “Soap Opera Effect,” which turns what should be stunning, glossy images into cheap-looking messes, all strange movement and lighting, like any network soap or cheap British show. (Think Children of Men looking like Torchwood.) It’s the problem of technology over-thinking or over-performing, and it is on startling, gruesome display in The Hobbit. When you’re wearing the 3D glasses (and admittedly sitting a little off to the side), this hugely expensive movie looks like it was shot on a nice handheld digital camera on the cheap. Actors stand in strange contrast to the digital backgrounds behind them, motion looks too slick or unnatural. Gone are the somber vistas and rugged terrain, replaced by eye-aching shine and plastic-y smoothness. The most special effects-heavy sequences look very much like the non-playable parts of modern video games — the exposition bits that can amp up the graphics a bit because they don’t have to worry about the randomness of play, the stuff you see in the commercials, right before the “rated T for teen” part. I don’t know if I just had a bad projector or what, but I spent the bulk of this long movie distracted by how dreadful everything looked. With a few small exceptions — The Shire glows with lovely green, a mountain cave fight/chase sequence is bracingly rich — this is a dismally unattractive movie, featuring too many shots that I’m sure were lovely at some point but are too often ruined and chintzified by the terrible technology monster.

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So on its aesthetic merits, The Hobbit comes up more than short. The trouble is, it’s not rescued by many narrative successes. Jackson has taken largely from the first third of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s novel — about an expedition to reclaim a lost dwarf kingdom from a dragon — but he’s also added in some elements found in appendices detailing an expanded universe that Tolkien included in an edition of The Lord of the Rings. This is partly to flesh out the story as Jackson believes Tolkien meant it to be, but it’s also meant to satisfy the needs of a supersize film trilogy based on one mere book. And so we get several pointless and uninteresting diversions, mostly about dwarves and their bitter enemies the orcs, that read exactly like the filler they are. Jackson is trying to flesh out dwarf mythology, because we spend so much of our time with these little guys, but it feels tediously synthetic, as if there are two movies competing for attention with neither one getting its due. We go to the goblin caves of The Hobbit and then, upon deliverance from that dark place, are thrust right into some kind of honor-and-revenge-based conflict with a snarling, giant, one-armed orc. It’s all very crowded and strangely hurried for a movie that, all told, takes its sweet time.

RELATED: No One Likes Peter Jackson’s New ‘Hobbit’ Footage

I suspect that another of Jackson’s reasons for including all this extra dramatic battling is that, on its own, The Hobbit is something of a children’s book. We’ve got wacky, food-crazed dwarves, a mean old dragon, and a funny little guy to take us along on the journey. Jackson doesn’t deny his movie the kiddie flourishes — there’s snot humor and butt jokes and lots of other goofy stuff involving some trolls, plus two little musical numbers involving all the dwarves — but he then tries to complement them with the big, booming faith and honor stuff and it never properly congeals. One moment we’re on a sprightly children’s adventure, the next we’re talking in big fashion about all that warlike serious business. It’s a discordant mix, and I’d imagine it will leave both kids and adults out in the cold.

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The film is not without its bright spots, rare as they may be. Ian McKellen is a feisty, spirited, mysterious Gandalf as ever before, and Martin Freeman nicely and genially projects everyday hobbit-ness, even if he’s a tad underused in the film. (Yeah, in the movie called The Hobbit, there’s barely any time to focus on the darn Hobbit.) Cate Blanchett turns up once more as the ethereal elf Galadriel, lending the movie a cool classiness and a welcome dose of feminine energy. And, of course, we’re back, for one mesmerizing scene, with our beloved Gollum, so winningly and creepily played by Andy Serkis, and here yet another marvel of computer innovation. In some ways Gollum’s innate cartoonishness works better now than it did in the original trilogy, which is probably the only time that can be said of this movie. There are one or two moments in Gollum’s pivotal scene where he’s given a bit too much modern humor to play, but all told he’s the most welcome sight in the film. Maybe that’s just the newfound purist in me, yearning for the old days, but I suspect it has more to do with Gollum being the only genuinely realized character we’ve so far encountered in this new trio of films. Everyone else is a snoozy lesser version of someone else, especially the ridiculous bloodthirsty orc leader, who snarls and growls like something out of the Underworld movies. Sometimes, in the jumble of the The Hobbit‘s many cluttered and dull action scenes, the frantic blur looks like any sequence from one of those schlocky ’00s B-movies; all roughly hewn CGI clashing around nonsensically, with this orc fellow leading the charge.

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Despite all the technical advancements, if we can call them that, most moments in The Hobbit feel like Peter Jackson is sadly trying to make all those familiar LOTR elements work for him once more, without ever really being able to reignite the old flame. The supposedly awe-inducing visit to the elf city of Rivendell is a ho-hum experience in this new frame-rate-ruined world. A silly battle sequence involving a wizard, a silly Radagast the Brown, riding around pell-mell on a rabbit-drawn sled looks like an interstitial from late-era Super Mario. Even Elijah Wood, appearing briefly as Frodo, looks strange — a pale ghost of himself, as if stitched in from another movie by some forlorn and desperate hand. The film is inevitably resonant with memories of the original trilogy, and little about it can hold up to the comparison. There’s too much effort in the wrong places — action instead of story, technical tricks instead of actual design — and the constant rhythm of arbitrary event after arbitrary event becomes tiresome well before the film’s two hours and forty minutes have lurched to a halt. I’m sure there are kids who will like this wan, distracted effort — they might not yet have anything else to compare it to, depending on their age — but as a human who remembers what came before, I’m afraid The Hobbit left me nothing but frustrated, sad, and tired. Frustrated that these big-budget visionaries seem to consistently feel they have to taint their earlier masterpieces with techno-junk followups, sad that once magical lands now flicker cheap and garish in my head, and tired at the prospect of two more of these things. I exited the theater trying to remind myself that Attack of the Clones was way better than Phantom Menace and that Revenge of the Sith was better still. I then realized how depressing it was that I was making that comparison. Oh, Middle Earth. What has become of you?

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Lawsuit claims A&E’s ‘Storage Wars’ show is rigged

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some of the valuables found hidden in abandoned lockers on A&E’s “Storage Wars” have been added by producers to deceive viewers, a former cast member of the show claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

David Hester‘s suit claims producers have added a BMW Mini and newspapers chronicling Elvis Presley‘s death to lockers in order to build drama for the show and that his complaints about the practices led to his firing.

Hester is seeking more than $ 750,000 in his wrongful termination, breach of contract and unfair business practices lawsuit. A&E Television Network declined comment, citing the pending lawsuit.

“Storage Wars” follows buyers who bid for abandoned storage lockers hoping to find valuables tucked inside.

“A&E regularly plants valuable items or memorabilia,” the lawsuit states. Hester’s suit claims he was fired from participating in the series’ fourth season after expressing concerns that manipulating the storage lockers for the sake of the show was illegal.

He claims that producers stopped adding items to his units after his initial complaints but continued the practice for other series participants. The lawsuit alleges entire units have been staged and the practice may violate a federal law intended to prevent viewers from being deceived when watching a show involving intellectual skills.

“Storage Wars” depicts buyers having only a few moments to look into an abandoned unit before deciding on whether to bid on it at auction. The lawsuit claims some of the auction footage on the show is staged.

Hester, known as “The Mogul” on the show, has been buying abandoned storage units and re-selling their contents for 26 years, according to the suit.

Nielsen Co. has ranked “Storage Wars” among cable television’s top-ranked shows several times since its 2010 debut.

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In Search of a Better Condom

It’s hard to believe, but the condom is still the only way to protect against pregnancy and HIV at the same time. But researchers say they believe they can develop a kind of 21st-century contraceptive that offers superior protection against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and that people will like enough to use consistently.

A paper describing early work on the project was published earlier this month in the journal PLoS One. The research team, led by Kim Woodrow at the University of Washington, received a grant of nearly $ 1 million last month from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to pursue the research.

The product is an electrically spun cloth with nanometer-sized fibers that can dissolve to release drugs, such as medications that prevent pregnancy and HIV infection. The drug-eluting fibers represent “multipurpose prevention technology,” a method that simultaneously prevents sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancy through a combined physical and chemical barrier.

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“Condoms and vaginal rings and IUDs have been around for a very long time,” Cameron Ball, a co-author of the paper and graduate student in bioengineering, told TakePart. “People would like more options. No one option will be the silver bullet. The idea is to have multiple options that people can choose for their lifestyle.”

Improved methods to protect against STDs and pregnancy are needed in both developing and developed countries. The spermacide nonoxynol-9 is highly effective at pregnancy prevention but promotes vaginal inflammation, which then increases the risk of STD transmission.

“What we’re hoping to provide is a method of drug delivery that could be used with a variety of drug compounds,” Ball says. “There are multiple products in the development pipeline to address this need. These are largely vaginal rings, but vaginal rings are limited in what they are able to deliver. They deliver compounds that are less water soluble. Using fibers allows you to work with multiple drugs with different properties. You can have combinations of pharmaceutical agents that you couldn’t necessarily have with a vaginal ring or with a condom.”

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During electrospinning, an electric field is used to launch a charged fluid jet through the air to create extremely delicate nanometer-scale fibers that stick to a collection plate. (One nanometer is about one 25-millionth of an inch.) The stretchy fibers are the platform for delivering medications in the same way that drugs are delivered through pills or gels. The fibers can also carry larger molecules, such as proteins and antibodies, that are hard to deliver through other methods. So far, the team has created a fabric that serves as a physical barrier to block sperm or to release drugs, such as contraceptives and antiviral medications.

The fabric dissolves within minutes, which is considered a benefit because it offers immediate and discreet protection. But the approach also allows for controlled release of multiple compounds, Ball says. Last year, a study aimed at preventing heterosexual HIV transmission using a gel with the drug tenofovir failed—the likely result of the drug’s strength fading by the time of sex.

“If you can have a longer-lasting gel with nanoparticles, that would be beneficial,” Ball says. “We’re trying to fill a niche in terms of product lifespan.”

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The cloth could be inserted directly into the body or used as a coating on vaginal rings or other products, Ball says. While the primary goal of the research is for products that can be used in places like Africa, where HIV transmission is especially high,  the technology could appeal to a wide range of societies and cultures.

“You could have fibers that stay in place for longer or be shaped in the shape of a diaphragm,” he says. “You could include herpes medication. Herpes prevention is somewhat controversial—it’s not clear whether taking herpes medications prophylactically will help prevent the spread of the virus. That is another application, potentially.”

Question: Do you think people want new ways to protect against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? Tell us what you think in the comments.

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Shari Roan is an award-winning health writer based in Southern California. She is the author of three books on health and science subjects.

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