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The Dancing with the Stars fan bases of Season 13 are mobilizing and the votes are in! In week 1, Rob Kardashian, Ron Artest and Nancy Grace found themselves in jeopardy with Ron (who tonight went by his new name Metta) and his partner, new pro Peta Murgatroyd eliminated from the competition. Curiously absent were host Tom Beregon’s constant reminders that the three in jeopardy do not necessarily represent the bottom three by the combination of votes and scores. So we don’t really know for sure if Rob and Nancy were red herrings or were really in the bottom. The only one we can be certain of was the eliminated couple. Despite the controversy and some hateful public backlash as a transgender DWTS contestant, Chaz Bono was declared safe. This victory is even sweeter when you know how many people were rooting against you. Good for Chaz, he gave good performance and deserved to stay in. The message seems fair and clear, focus on the performance and not the celebrity’s personal life choi

The third season of Glee has premiered. A few things were cleared up - mainly that Tina and Artie are juniors. Emma and Will are now sleeping together and Will is determined for the glee club to win Nationals this year. The glee club needs new members after Sam and Lauren are gone and Quinn is rocking a punk and pink hairdo. Some of the kids are worried about getting into college and Finn feels pretty directionless. And Sue is on a kick to destroy again - but this time she's decided to accomplish this by becoming a politician. In the September 27 episode of Glee, Idina Menzel makes a return appearance as Shelby Corcoran, who will be taking on a teaching post at McKinley High. Menzel will be guest starring in multiple episodes throughout the season. Quinn is clearly not happy about Shelby's return, concerned that she's back to remind Quinn about the daughter she gave up for adoption. Mr. Schuester will hold a boot camp for some of the New Directions members and Kurt

Airtel digital TV, the DTH service of Bharti Airtel today announced that it has entered an agreement with leading kids and family producer Cookie Jar Entertainment to bring its powerful library to Airtel digital consumers beginning immediately. The first series to launch this new venture will be the number one boys show in America this past summer, “Johnny Test” Having had a successful run of 5 seasons, the series will be available to Airtel digital TV customers on Channel no 158. With this, Airtel digital TV becomes the First DTH operator to offer screenings of globally hit and award winning animated television series on its Pay per View platform. Adding to Airtel digital TV’s varied portfolio of content offerings, the initiative is sure to capture the hearts of young viewers. Customers can sit back and enjoy the series on Airtel digital TV’s Pay per View Channel 158 that would be free until Sep 27, 2011 and priced at INR 25/month thereafter. The successful animated television curren

Arasu Cable might be a “blow” to DTH operators in Tamil Nadu, if the state-owned multiple system operator (MSO) adds prominent pay channels to its bouquet and still offers connection at Rs 70 a month, said industry sources. The DTH industry has already been burdened with ‘entertainment tax’ in the State, making a DTH connection at least twice as expensive as cable connection. “This (Arasu) will only hamper the digital penetration in the State,” said a highly placed source in the industry. DTH operators pay around 30 per cent of the revenue to the Government by way of licence fee and taxes, and 50 per cent to broadcasters. For example, if a subscriber pays Rs 135 a month, the DTH operator pays around Rs 40 to the Government by way of taxes and a little over Rs 65 to broadcasters. That leaves only Rs 30 with the operator. With the average revenue per user (ARPU) remaining a big challenge for DTH operators, it will take years even to recover the subscriber acquisition cost (which is hove

Putting an end to the wait of the viewers, the State-run Arasu Cable Corporation has announced airing of a bouquet of pay channels without paying any extra charges from today. Customers of Arasu Cable Corporation, which was launched by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on 2 September, were provided with 90 Free-To-Air channels for a monthly subscription of Rs 70 across Tamilnadu (except Chennai). An official press release here said that from today they would receive a list of pay channels. It includes include Vijay TV, Zee Tamil, Discovery Tamil, Pogo, Cartoon Network, Animal Planet, Neo Cricket, Sony Max, AXN, HBO, National Geographic, NDTV, CNN, Times Now, ESPN, Star Sports, Star Cricket and Ten Sports without paying any extra subscription. Jayalalithaa after assuming office for the third time accorded paramount importance to liberate cable TV industry from the monopoly control of a few individuals. She revived the defunct Arasu Cable Corporation to release the subscribers and cable TV

The Tamil Nadu government imposed 30% entertainment tax (e–tax) on direct to home (DTH) operators. Jawahar Goel, managing director of Dish TV said that their revenues are impacted almost 7% because of the entertainment tax across the country. “With the E-Tax imposed by the Tamil Nadu government, the revenues will be impacted a quarter percent more,” he told CNBC-TV18 in an interview. Dish TV’s last quarter EBITDA was in the range of 24-26%. Goel further indicated that the company will improve their EBITDA by 1.5-2% every quarter. Here is the edited transcript of his interview. Q: What do you think about the 30% e-tax? What kind of material impact would it have on Dish TV? A: Most of the state governments are preparing themselves for the GST role out for the next financial year. It will probably be June 12, when the GST will be rolled out. The state governments have levied the tax to get extra money from the central government. DTH is not the only category for e-tax. There are several

In what would be a first for a public service broadcaster anywhere in the world, Prasar Bharati is set to outsource the operational and technical management of its free-to-air direct-to-home (DTH) service DD Direct+ to private DTH operators like Dish TV, Tata Sky and others based on a tendering process. Sources said Doordarshan will float a request for proposal (RFP) this week which will invite eligible private DTH and teleport operators to take over the operational command and control of DD Direct+ for the next five years for a fixed monthly fee. The move, according to DD officials, is aimed at cutting costs and maximising the revenue of DD Direct+, especially when it is gearing up to boost its channel capacity from 59 to 200 and beyond in 6-8 months. “Why should government officials manage DTH services at a higher cost when private agencies can do it more efficiently,” an official said, justifying the need to involve private agencies to run DD Direct+. Doordarshan spends R35-40 cror

The State government expects to raise Rs.150 crore annually from entertainment tax on direct-to-home (DTH) services and matches in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the doubling of tax on feature films. While bringing DTH under the entertainment tax net is likely to yield about Rs.75 crore, IPL may contribute Rs.18 crore to the exchequer, official sources say. Regarding entertainment tax on films, the government recently modified the previous regime’s policy of giving exemption from the levy for any film with a Tamil title. The concession will be available only to films free from violence and obscenity, according to the present regime’s formulation. The removal of the blanket exemption for films with Tamil titles may yield up to Rs.60 crore, officials say. The Film and Television Producers Guild of South India has said that the hike in entertainment tax on cinematography films on theatrical exhibition has come as a rude shock to the Tamil film industry. This blow is intolerable for

DTH service provider Tata Sky’s MD and CEO  Harit Nagpal’s  career started as an export manager in erstwhile Lakme, and later at Pepsi. He was group marketing director at Vodafone Essar before joining Tata Sky. In the past ten years, he has seen the exponential growth of mobile subscribers backed by a continuous drop in call charges, before he moved to the DTH space in Aug 2010. In over a year, he revamped the operator’s customer service infrastructure and repackaged its products to make them more customer-friendly. In an interview to FE’s  Sohini Mitter , Nagpal sheds light on synergies between telecom and DTH, the need for outsourcing operations, challenges in penetrating semi-urban markets, shortage of bandwidth and high level of taxation that cripples the sector. Excerpts: How was the transition from mobile telephony to DTH? Did synergies between the businesses come in handy? DTH is now at a stage where the telecom industry was eight years ago. Both business are similar in terms o

Direct-to-Home operator Dish TV has approached broadcast tribunal TDSAT seeking a direction to broadcaster ESPN to give signals of its sports channels in accordance with the reference interconnect offer (RIO) as mandated by the regulator TRAI. RIO is a document that specifies commercial terms for DTH operators to get signals from broadcasters as per norms laid down by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). A TDSAT bench headed by Chairman Justice S B Sinha has issued notice to ESPN Software, the holding company of ESPN for distribution and marketing channels. The tribunal would decide on September 28, 2011, Dish TV’s interim prayer for a direction to ESPN. Dish TV has requested the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) to direct ESPN to sign an agreement with the DTH operator on the basis of tariff recommended in RIO. Dish TV and ESPN had entered into an agreement for three channels ESPN, Star Sports and Star Cricket in March 12, 2009, but it w

If I had to stand back and think hard, I wouldn’t say that Microsoft has very rarely come up with something really cool. The Xbox 360 is as close as I can think of to an interesting invention by the software giant. A new patent app has surfaced that shows a very cool smartphone that has a slider design and under the main screen has a slot for different accessories. The idea is that the phone could slide out had have accessories that are made for specific tasks. One is a remote control for media from across the room, the other appears to be a battery, and there are keyboard and what appears to be a video accessory as well. The downside and thing that would make this not so cool is that you would need to carry all those accessories with you to be able to use them on the road. In the world of touchscreens today it seems the easier and more practical approach would be a thin removable LCD of some sort in that slot that can virtually act as all those accessories. Granted for some uses real

This is pretty awesome. Researchers at UC Berkeley have been able to recreate what people are seeing as they watch YouTube videos using brain activity. The quality of the videos they recreate isn’t good at all. In fact, in the video on the ABC News story the clip of the jet seems to be missing the jet. The participants in the project were members of the research team headed by Jack Gallant, a professor of psychology. The study was published recently in Current Biology. The study had the participants in an MRI machine for hours at a time watching YouTube videos. The data gathered by the MRI machine was used to create a computer model that matched the features of the video like colors, shapes, and movements with the brain activity. The video was recreated by looking at slight changes in blood flow to visual areas of the brain were used to predict what was on the screen at the time. The team thinks that one day the tech could be used to broadcast imagery that plays in the mind independent

The Roush name in America is closely tied to NASCAR and modified Mustangs. Roush has unveiled a new series of other 2012 Mustang fans out there that is called the Hyper-Series. These cars start out as your typical black 2012 Mustang GT with the 5.0 V8 and 6-speed transmission and then head to Roush for some tweaks. The package costs $27,300 on top the price of your typical Mustang GT, which costs roughly $30,000 to start. The key component of the RS3 package as far as the performance goes is the 2.3L ROUSHcharger supercharger that pumps the 412HP 5.0 V8 up to 540hp and 465ft-lb of torque. The remainder of the package is suspensions bits, new wheels and tires, and a lot of show. The Hyper- Series RS3 cars are all black with the a choice of four bright colors for trim. I am really digging the colors too. Frankly, it was too much for our sensible resident Brit, Chris Davies. He couldn’t take that much cool and had to go lay down for a bit to recover. The colors in the Hyper-Series package

Earlier this week I mentioned that the UARS was falling back to Earth much faster than NASA had expected. Starting today and Tomorrow the satellite will enter the atmosphere and fall to the ground. NASA has no idea where the satellite will hit but they know a bunch of chunks will survive re-entry and hit the ground. The odds on you being hit by one of those chunks are 1 in 3200. If you are the sky is falling sort and want to know where that satellite is, the Satellite AR app for Android is what you need. The app supposedly tracks the location of the UARS satellite in real-time. It uses the GPS signal on your device as a compass and the augmented reality path of the UARS is placed on the screen when you face the camera in the right direction around you. It plots the path on the image your camera is seeing so you know where exactly the satellite is headed. I planned to use the app to stand in the path of the satellite and if I survived being clobbered by a satellite chunk, I was going to

Google has quietly set up operations as an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) in Spain, buying bulk network capacity from existing carriers and providing employees with a special Google SIM in order to use it. Intended initially to allow Google to perform Google Voice quality testing when paired with a Nexus S handset, members of Spanish forum ElOtroLado report, the SIMs variously use Movistar, Orange and Vodafone. By negotiating with carriers directly to buy bulk data, voice and messaging provisions, MVNOs can secure better rates than individual or enterprise customers. Usually, that data, etc., is then sold on to consumers at a mark-up, thus allowing the MVNO to operate a mobile business while not actually investing in spectrum or network hardware itself. In Google’s case, however, the purpose looks to be more about getting its employees connected in a controlled and cost-effective way when mobile. Spanish trials are only reportedly the start of things. Google is expected to unde

Einstein’s theory of special relativity, one of the core tenets of modern physics, could have been discovered flawed according to particle speed experiments by a group of Italian scientists. The team found sub-atomic particles fired from the CERN particle research facility in Geneva toward the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy arrived quicker than light would be expected to, Reuters reports, with the neutrinos turning up at the scientists’ sensors 60 nanoseconds earlier than light could. 60 nanoseconds isn’t long in the scheme of things, but for physicists it could be one of the biggest time issues of modern science. Einstein’s theory claims that nothing in the known-universe can travel faster than light does, a 1905 argument that has so far stood up to repeated testing. “We have high confidence in our results” research spokesperson Antonio Ereditato insisted. ”We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing.” The three year proje

iPhone 5 stocks could be constrained after touch panel defects have been discovered to affect some units, it’s reported, with issues in the lamination process supposedly to blame. Some of the panels supplied by Wintek have been found to suffer “delayed bubble” problems, DigiTimes reports, where bubbles of gas are trapped in-between the multi-layer films used. There’s no word on exactly what proportion of Wintek’s touch panels are believed to be affected. Wintek is providing up to a quarter of the iPhone 5 touch panels, the sources claim, with Apple supposedly aiming to ship as many as 26m units of the fifth-gen smartphone in Q4 2011. The company has only publicly said that all of its products are being delivered “on schedule” and has not commented on specific orders or customers. With the application process of the iPhone 5 touch panels being identical to that of those in the iPhone 4, industry insiders don’t envisage that Wintek will experience any significant delays in rectifying the

Two alleged members of Anonymous and LulzSec have been arrested by the FBI, the law enforcement bureau has confirmed, with a further suspect facing more charges. One of the men, Cody Kretsinger who goes by the LulzSec handle “recursion,” is accused of assisting in the Sony hack earlier this year, Foxreports, and attempted to cover his tracks by wiping his hard-drives. The others, Christopher Doyon and Joshua Covelli, were charged with involvement in a DDoS attack on Santa Cruz County servers last year. Doyon is believed to have been arrested by the FBI while homeless in San Francisco, and said to be a member of Anonymous. The arrests follow more legal action earlier this month, when police grabbed two more computer pros in Englandbelieved to be involved in LulzSec and Anonymous activity. Nonetheless, the nature of both organizations means there’s still plenty of work left for enforcement agencies to do: Anonymous is believed to have organized a so-called “Day Of Vengeance” intended to

This week the folks at Facebook released a firestorm of updates for their social networking environment including enhancements to both the user interface on their webpage and to their apps. As part of the apps expansion, the eReading specialists at Kobo have announced to their 4.9 million users worldwide that they’ll be working with Facebook in the near future to provide both integration and ease with and for Facebook, particularly through their Kobo Reading Life app. For those of you not in the know, you can download or load Kobo’s Reading Life app by heading over tohttp://www.kobobooks.com/readinglife and checking in for iPad, iPhone, Android, and the Kobo eReader itself. This app was social eReading at its finest well before they found out that Facebook would be giving them a boost, and the platform is only going to be made better with the teamwork they’ll be jamming out next. As Kobo’s chief technology officer Dan Leibu notes: “Our extremely popular Kobo Reading Life app was the fi

Do you want a top tier Android smartphone with a blazing fast dual-core processor and a kickstand running on US Cellular? If you answered yes then you’ll want to stick around and see our review of the new Motorola ELECTRIFY for US Cellular that was just made available to the public today. We’ve given it a one-over and enjoyed it for the past few days and so far its been a great device. Read on below for the full review. We’ll start with my hands-on unboxing video so everyone can get a feel for the ELECTRIFY and what it’s all about, then I’ll get into the nitty gritty here shortly. Motorola ELECTRIFY hands-on video Hardware Outlined nicely in the video above is just about all you need to know about this well rounded smartphone. If you remember the Motorola PHOTON 4G or saw our detailed review then you know everything about the ELECTRIFY already as they are identical twins. The ELECTRIFY is the US Cellular version of the PHOTON 4G — without the WiMAX. What we have is a powerhouse 4.3″ qH

The Federal Communications Commission will be publishing the net neutrality rules tomorrow, which will take effect starting November 20. The new rules barely passed last December with a 3-2 party-line vote, but have not taken effect yet largely due to continued opposition and the FCC dragging its feet on publishing them to the Federal Register. The net neutrality rules ban internet providers from deliberately blocking or slowing legal internet traffic. However, they do not prevent providers from offering faster traffic for companies that may need it for delivering video, games, and other services. The rules also offer more protection for consumers, requiring providers to be give more information on their services and actual speeds. Although the new rules apply mostly to wired broadband networks, it will also require wireless internet providers to have fewer restrictions. There’s been plenty of opposition, which argue that the rules would only require more paperwork and that the FCC was

According to a recent survey by UBS Investment Research, the number of iPhone owners who indicated that they would stick with Apple for their next handset is overwhelming compared to rival phone makers. The retention rate for Apple is 89 percent, while the second closest competitor, HTC, has a retention rate of 39 percent. In third place is RIM, which slipped dramatically from a 62 percent retention rate to 33 percent, followed by Samsung with 28 percent, Motorola with 25 percent, and Nokia with 24 percent. When looking at the software platforms rather than the hardware, Android fared better with a 55 percent retention rate. However, 31 percent of Android users have expressed that they are considering switching to the iPhone for their next handset. Overall, UBS finds Apple’s retention rates to have held up “incredible well.” Of all the current handset owners looking to switch for their next handset, more than 50 percent say that they plan to pick up an iPhone. Only about 10 percent pla

Western Digital unleashed two revamped models of its popular My Passport portable hard drives. The series is formatted for Macs, but can be reformatted for use with PCs as well. The two new models include a basic version called My Passport for Mac and a higher-end version called My Passport Studio. The compact My Passport for Macs no non-sense portable hard drives are available in 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB capacities and priced from $100 to $130. Each model comes with USB 2.0 connector ports, password protection, hardware encryption and Time Machine backup. The My Passport Studio drives come in 750GB and 1TB capacities priced at $160 and $180, respectively. These are more advanced, featuring a more durable metal enclosure and two FireWire 800 connector ports in addition to USB 2.0.

That mysterious new US wireless carrier we talked about just two days ago turns out to be Cellular South rebranded as C Spire Wireless. They had begun releasing teaser commercials for the new brand along with a countdown website, hinting at a major reveal on Monday, September 26. But it seems they just couldn’t contain themselves long enough. The original countdown page didn’t give any clues as to the new carrier’s name, but its domain suggested that it would be called “Personalized Wireless,” although that seemed a bit long and completely unrelated to the spikey “C” logo that was revealed in the teaser commercial. But since then, the countdown page has been updated and it’s all clear what’s going on now. Cellular South as C Spire will focus on providing a personalized wireless experience, introducing some new services around rewards, app recommendations, and social media integration. Specifically, C Spire will offer new features, including Scout for recommending relevant apps, Percs a