From Gaga to Gates, Clinton to Chopra -- the best of Maria's interviews this year with the movers and shakers in the world of finance, politics and entertainment.
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PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico ? Authorities in northern Mexico say police have found five severed human heads at several points around the city of Torreon accompanied by threatening message referring to drug gangs.
Coahuila state prosecutors spokesman Fernando Olivas says the male heads were tucked inside bags along with handwritten notes attached. He hasn't revealed the exact messages.
Olivas says the slain men's bodies have not yet been located. The heads were found late Friday and early Saturday.
Authorities say the Zetas and the Sinaloa drug cartels are fighting each other over control of smuggling routes in the state of Coahuila.
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Tim Tebow's first NFL playoff appearance has been shaping up as a battle for the soul of modern-day professional football.
The cult of the quarterback has been threatened since the day Tebow started winning games for the Broncos. If his team beats the Steelers on Sunday, expect the cult's true believers to do one of two things: Blame the Steelers' injuries or credit John Elway, who became a Denver deity through prototypical quarterbacking mastery.
The Broncos' defense will be deemed irrelevant, even if Von Miller and Champ Bailey stymie the Steelers, or an injured and aging Brian Dawkins can play at an inspiring peak. Defenses don't win championships anymore; they support the divinity of quarterbacks. That's the gospel of the NFL, where God speaks through sublime reads and celestial deliveries.
If the 49ers or Ravens reach the Super Bowl, with Alex Smith or Joe Flacco at quarterback, the effect could be similar to Columbus not sailing off the end of the Earth. Their defenses outperformed all other playoff teams in the red zone, and the 49ers ranked first in one of the most important categories in the game - turnover differential.
But they don't have Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees at quarterback, so they aren't feared. Brady was considered unstoppable last year, but the Jets took his Patriots down in the second round of the playoffs by playing superior defense - only six weeks after a 45-3 regular-season shellacking in New England.
This year's Patriots defense presents even more of an obstacle for Brady. It has been atrocious, and there is little reason to believe that it can elevate for the playoffs. For New England to win it all, Brady will have to bear a heavier load than any quarterback in Super Bowl history.
The Saints and Packers have also been rather vulnerable defensively, but they each have a bigger upside than the Patriots. Green Bay has genuine talent, from Clay Matthews to Charles Woodson, and a great defensive coordinator in Dom Capers. In the playoffs last season, the unit tripped up the potent Eagles and humiliated the Falcons. The shortcomings this year may simply reflect a softness that comes from sitting on big leads.
The Saints have a little less pure defensive talent than Green Bay, but they own a ruthless streak supported by a blitz-happy coordinator, Gregg Williams. As they proved by brutalizing Brett Favre two years ago, the Saints will push the boundaries of the law, administering late hits and accepting the penalties until the definition of "late" turns blurry for the officials.
But the question of these playoffs isn't whether a great quarterback will be knocked out. It's whether an average or spectacularly unconventional one can thrive in support of a strong rushing game, great defense or even a remarkable kicker.
Against Pittsburgh, Tebow will face the top-ranked pass defense, which makes the advice recently offered by Elway seem rather risky.
Now the lead football executive for the Broncos, Elway played out of position this week by telling the Denver Post that Tebow had to "pull the trigger" on passes instead of holding the ball too long while seeking the perfectly open receiver.
That sort of talk should come from the coach. But Elway has been everything in the Colorado sports world since 1983. He had to reject pleas to run for governor before he became the Broncos' vice president of football operations. This mile-high brand Tebowing started before the current quarterback was born.
The backlash against Tebow's evangelical faith has been surprisingly virulent, given how openly many athletes profess their religious beliefs. Baltimore's Terrell Suggs joined that chorus this week, mocking Denver's three-loss limp into the playoffs and saying in an ESPN interview: "When our quarterback prays, he be like, 'You know what, God? You know what? You sit on your couch and enjoy this.' "
Tebow did violate certain canons by writing an autobiography at age 23, and by doing virtually nothing to deter the breathless fans who sponsored billboards demanding that he replace Kyle Orton.
But his biggest sin appears to be succeeding even though he's not made in the image of Elway or Marino or Brady. "A good running back," Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher called him after a loss to the Broncos.
Results from the past few weeks suggest that defenses have figured out how to shut down Tebow and the Broncos' specially tailored option offense. But until they contain the dogma about quarterbacks, they'll never really put him in his place.
Bengals at Texans, 1:30 p.m. Channel: 11 Channel: 3 Channel: 8
Lions at Saints, 5 p.m. Channel: 11 Channel: 3 Channel: 8
Falcons at Giants, 10 a.m. Channel: 2 Channel: 40
Steelers at Broncos, 1:30 p.m. Channel: 5 Channel: 13 Channel: 46
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San?Francisco?Chronicle
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All Critics (64) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (65) | Rotten (0) | DVD (2)
The film wraps us, with stunning directness, in the complex folds of its characters' passions.
A Separation is not the work of a constrained artist. It's a great movie in which the full range of human interaction seems to play itself out before our eyes.
The miracle of A Separation is that it doesn't spare any of its characters, nor does it seek to indict them. It is a democratic portrait of a theocratic world.
Tensely involving Iranian drama with niche potential.
Tense and narratively complex, formally dense and morally challenging.
A constant surprise, a film that captures the drama and suspense of real life as urgently as any picture released this year.
The audience is rocked back and forth in sympathy. . . in a tangled predicament. [N]one is one-dimensional in the superb ensemble [as] the point of view changes by minutes.
Farhadi's true focus is the flawed capacity for any law -- any form of cold rationality, period -- to address the slippery nature of human affairs. It's a frantic microcosm of life itself.
So much fun to watch that you could very nearly miss the important fact that it is also as piercing a critique of Iranian society as that country has produced in some time.
There are no heroes or villains in this story: there are only everyday figures who try their best and struggle to survive.
One of the year's most engrossing films, directed by Asghar Farhadi from his richly layered screenplay (some advice: pay particular attention to what occurs in the sequence following the opening credits)
It has an external layer that comments upon Iran's complex and seemingly unfair divorce system, as well as other social customs, but underneath it's not much more than a standard potboiler.
More Critic ReviewsSource: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_separation_2011/
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(Reuters) ? Online game developer Zynga Inc is releasing a new mobile word game called "Scramble with Friends" on Thursday to expand its user base beyond Facebook and catch up with rivals in the handheld market.
Zynga shares have fallen below their initial public offering price since the company began trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange on December 16. On Thursday, the shares were trading at $9.04, about 10 percent below the IPO price.
While Zynga was one of the earliest game makers on the Facebook platform, it lacks that first mover advantage on mobile, where companies such as Walt Disney Co and Electronic Arts Inc have released successful games.
To try to replicate its popularity on Facebook, Zynga is trying to create a network of mobile games under one brand where users can play the same friends across all titles.
In the new game released on Thursday, players race against the clock to unscramble words. "Scramble with Friends" is made for players who already play "Words with Friends" and "Hanging with Friends," two other Zynga word games.
"The most difficult thing on mobile is creating a network effect because mobile doesn't have the inherent built-in social network that a platform like Facebook does," said Paul Bettner, vice president and general manager of Zynga With Friends, the Texas-based studio formerly known as Newtoy, which Zynga acquired in 2010.
"A network of existing players -- that's what we're trying to build with the brand. If players are enjoying 'Words with Friends,' they already have a network of friends they've built up," he said.
Given Zynga's dependence on Facebook -- 95 percent of revenue comes from the social network -- investors are closely watching its mobile strategy. Zynga said on its IPO roadshow in December that it had 13 million daily players on mobile, up from 11.1 million in October.
According to Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, Zynga finished December with roughly 47 million daily average users on Facebook, 5 percent less than a year earlier. Bhatia, citing AppData figures, said it was the first time Zynga finished the month of December with fewer daily players than it began the month with.
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus told Reuters in an interview on December 16 that the company's mobile user base is growing quickly and catching up to its Facebook users.
"It's important to note that's 13 million daily active users (on mobile) compared to some north of 40 million daily active users on Facebook -- it's already more than 20 percent of the traffic," Pincus said.
Zynga has not revealed how many paying players it has on mobile platforms. The company has a free version of "Scramble with Friends," where it makes money on advertising, as well as a premium version for $2.99 that does not have ads. Players can also buy virtual tokens in the game.
The game will come first for Apple Inc's iPhone and iPod touch; an iPad and Android version will be out at a later date.
(Reporting By Liana B. Baker; editing by John Wallace)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120105/wr_nm/us_zynga
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Bento, Filemaker's personal database software for OS X, continues to prove that it's a must-have application for Mac users looking to stay organized. Bento 4 ($49, or $20 if you're upgrading) builds upon Bento 3's foundation by adding custom labels, the ability to lock forms, location-based features, and enhanced database sharing. In short, if you enjoyed Bento 3, Bento 4 is a no-brainer install.
Getting Started With Bento 4
If you're familiar with Bento, skip to the next section. If you want to know how Bento works, here it is, in a nutshell. Bento organizes information in a hierarchy: Your database contains libraries that are collections of records, which are entries consisting of fields (individual data items, such as name or date). Libraries can also be subdivided into Smart Collections (groups of records based on criteria you specify), and folders to group related libraries. But thanks to templates, you can use Bento without worrying about all that, if you'd rather just organize those recipes or club members without thinking about the mechanics.
Bento 4 offers tutorial videos to get you started, or you can just dive in, if the thought of a database doesn't scare you. And, really, it shouldn't. Without prompting, the average user might not even think of Bento as a database, seeing it, instead, as just a cool visual way to organize data. Thankfully, Bento performs as slickly as it looks.
The Bento desktop software ties into Address Book, iCal, iPhoto, and Mail. In fact, the first time you start Bento, you see entries for these features in an iTunes-like pane along the left side of the page. The usage model for these libraries revolve around dragging information into the appropriate field. For example, you can drag the iCal Events library from the pane onto a contact form to associate events upcoming happenings with a particular person. It's extremely user-friendly. Changes made in Bento 4 reflect across Address Book and iCal and it syncs up nicely with the Bento for iPhone and Bento for iPad ($4.99, 4.5 stars) as well.
Useful Templates
Bento 4 includes useful templates, such as Vacation Planner, Health Record, Job Search, My House Search, Wine Collection, Party Planner, and Meeting Notes. You can also access Template Exchange, the online gallery that features user-designed templates.
To create a new library from a template, you either click the leftmost icon with the plus sign, or choose File > New Library from Template. A window drops down showing thumbnails of the available templates, which you can limit to Education, Personal, or Work categories. When you hit Choose, your new library appears in the right panel list, with the main window open to a sample record.
When I tried creating a library from the Vacation template, I was a little disappointed at first, because I only saw fields on the form view for the title, location, dates, pictures, and notes. But checking out fields available on the lower-left panel, I saw Flights, Hotel information, and rental car?very useful additions if you want to have all your trip particulars all in one place. With this library, not only could I keep track of all my flight, hotel, and car rental information in one place, but I could also import photos and videos I took on the trip?I liked the choices offered here. Likewise, the Home Inventory library let me catalog household possessions with their date of purchase, description, a photo, condition, and insured values?indispensible in the unfortunate event of a burglary.
Alternatively, you can just start with a blank template, and add the fields of your choice. The Create a Field dialog lets you choose from Text, Number, Choice, Checkbox, Media, File List, Message List, Simple List, and Related Data field types. Simple Lists, a featured introduced in Bento 3, now has a spreadsheet-like functions that lets you perform calculations?an incredibly handy feature for those using Bento for business purposes.
After you choose your fields, you can drag them into a form view, and arrange them however you like. You can set the size of grid elements, and choose which field from the associated table should be used for their titles. You can also display a split screen that shows individual records in the bottom half and either grid or table view in the top. In short, Bento 4 gives you lots of flexibility in shaping your databases.
One potentially overlooked features is the ability to lock forms. This insanely useful addition prevents any unwanted changes from occurring. You can lock/unlock a form by clicking the lock icon in the record's lower-right corner. The app also lets you record voice memos.
Next: Expanded Database Sharing, Custom Labels, and More
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