Kanye Musical is Being Produced in Australia

Kanye: The Musical will come alive in Australia.

A duo of thespians, Phillip Roser and friend Damien Higginbotham, at Australia’s University of Sydney is staging a play based on the biopic of controversial hip-hop artist Kanye West.

“Kanye: The Musical” is an hourlong work and it will tell the story of Kanye West’s humble beginnings as writing songs for Jay-Z to conquering the Billboard charts with his own hits.

“I’m a big Kanye fan,” Roser told the media. “I thought that a musical in his honour would be a lot of fun to put on. I really just meant the show to be something fun for my friends to see and I’m pretty excited by all the attention it’s been getting.”

Roser is also playing the role of Kanye. Higginbotham, an alum of the univeristy with a degree in music, will portray West’s mom, the late Donda West.

The play is set to run Sept. 5 through 7 at the university’s Cellar Theatre with ticket prices ranging from 3 to 6 Australian dollars.

According to the production’s Facebook page, “This is a story of a struggle against the man to become the man. It’s about a guy who took a shot at the throne and didn’t miss. This is the tale of Kanye.” But there’s also a caveat: “It won’t let the truth get in the way and will be a lot of fun.”

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Kanye Musical is Being Produced in Australia

Kanye: The Musical will come alive in Australia.

A duo of thespians, Phillip Roser and friend Damien Higginbotham, at Australia’s University of Sydney is staging a play based on the biopic of controversial hip-hop artist Kanye West.

“Kanye: The Musical” is an hourlong work and it will tell the story of Kanye West’s humble beginnings as writing songs for Jay-Z to conquering the Billboard charts with his own hits.

“I’m a big Kanye fan,” Roser told the media. “I thought that a musical in his honour would be a lot of fun to put on. I really just meant the show to be something fun for my friends to see and I’m pretty excited by all the attention it’s been getting.”

Roser is also playing the role of Kanye. Higginbotham, an alum of the univeristy with a degree in music, will portray West’s mom, the late Donda West.

The play is set to run Sept. 5 through 7 at the university’s Cellar Theatre with ticket prices ranging from 3 to 6 Australian dollars.

According to the production’s Facebook page, “This is a story of a struggle against the man to become the man. It’s about a guy who took a shot at the throne and didn’t miss. This is the tale of Kanye.” But there’s also a caveat: “It won’t let the truth get in the way and will be a lot of fun.”

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KC Concepcion is Being Taken for Granted by BF Piolo Pascual?

No less than the Megastar herself, Sharon Cuneta, dropped a hint about the current status of the relationship of her daughter KC Concepcion with her boyfriend Piolo Pascual.

In an interview with TV Patrol last night, August 24, the Megastar said she’s not free to talk about what her daughter is going through with her lovelife. But then she addressed her concerns to KC because she said she “couldn’t help speaking her mind.”

“Basta, Kristina, mama’s here. Don’t forget you’re my daughter. We love you. We went through so much when you were little. You don’t have to go through it yourself,” she said.

Then she continued, “Kasi, ‘di ko pinalaki ‘yan para i-take for granted lang at balewalain.”

Earlier this year, Piolo admitted on national television that he and KC have been a couple since October 2010. And KC herself testified last Sunday on her showbiz talk show “The Buzz” that she and Piolo have been going out for 10 months.

However, rumor has it that the power couple had broken up.

The speculations started last April when Piolo did not show up on KC’s birthday. KC even wished that she receives a birthday greeting from her boyfriend but it never happened.

Then KC reportedly visited Piolo in one of his shoots unannounced to catch a glimpse of him. She went in front of him, yelled “Happy Anniversary” and left the scene abruptly. People who witnessed it said there’s something odd about what happened.

Is Piolo avoiding KC? Have they really broken up? These issues are yet to be answered by either one of them.

It took them more than 3 months to admit that they are in a relationship. How many months will it take this time for them to admit that it’s over?

Image courtesy of Century Corned Tuna

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Flash Mobs are Now Being Used by Criminals

Flash mobs, a spontaneous gathering of people for a fun event like dancing, has now becoming dark after several instances of criminal activities being associated with it.

Social networks like Twitter and Facebook are becoming a vehicle why the so-called flash mobs are being organized leaving police scrambling to keep tabs on the spontaneous assemblies.

When flash mobs started to get viral, it was just for fun. But now, people with bad intentions are using the event to practice their criminal activities.

“They’re gathering with an intent behind it – not just to enjoy the event,” Shaker Heights Police Chief D. Scott Lee said. “All too often, some of the intent is malicious.”

Flash mobs were introduced in 2003 as peaceful and often humorous acts of public performance, such as mass dance routines or street pillow fights. 9 years later, the term has taken a darker twist as criminals exploit the anonymity of crowds, using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to coordinate crimes like robbery.

The term “flash mob robbery” was just derived this year after thefts are bedeviling both police and retailers, initiating flash mobs in malls as a way to shoplift without getting caught.

In recognition of the problem, the National Retail Federation issued a report last week recommending steps stores can take to ward off the robberies. It even came to the extent that a petition has been initiated to criminalize flash mobs.

The Cleveland City Council, for example, has passed a bill to make flash mobs illegal. They also want to prohibit the use of social media to organize a violent and disorderly flash mob. However, the mayor vetoed the measure after the ACLU of Ohio said that such move is unconstitutional.

“Retailers are raising red flags about criminal flash mobs, which are wreaking havoc on their business, causing concerns about the safety of their customers and employees, and directly impacting their bottom line,” the federation said in a report. They also advised retailers to monitor Facebook and Twitter and report planned heists to the police.

Upper Darby police officer Chitwood noticed that some perpetrators are underage.

“They’re 12 years old and not around the corner from their home. Where’s their parent?” He said.

“If they’re out doing flash mob thefts when they’re 12, what the hell are they going to be doing when they’re 16?,” he added.

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Worker dies after being sucked into plane engine

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — An engineer working at an airplane testing facility has been sucked into an engine and killed.

Don't miss these Travel stories Where are the people of color in national parks? The U.S. population has grown more diverse, but visitors within national park borders remain overwhelmingly white.

Cricket spitting? Wacky events lure fairgoers Get your fill at fun August food festivals Shhh! Dealing with loud talkers on airplanes Airlines collect $21 billion in fees in 2010

Domestic carrier Air New Zealand confirmed the man was performing routine maintenance on a Lockheed C-130 Hercules airplane engine just after 8 a.m. Monday (4 p.m. ET Sunday) at the Woodbourne air field in Blenheim when he the incident occurred.

An Air New Zealand spokeswoman said the engine was sitting on a stand without propellers attached and was not affixed to a plane at the time of the accident.

TVNZ identified the engineer as Miles Hunter, 51.

'Very routine procedure'
Rob Fyfe, chief executive of Air New Zealand, told ONE News that officials were at a "complete loss" as how the incident occurred.

"It was a very routine procedure with very experienced people involved," he added.

Tasman Police communications manager Barbara Dunn said emergency services personnel performed CPR on Hunter but couldn't revive him.

Hunter worked for a Safe Air, a subsidiary of Air New Zealand.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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Are you being served?

21 July 2011 Last updated at 23:04 GMT By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News Many retailers now see bricks and mortar stores as an old fashioned, inefficient way of doing business Shops. We go there, we browse, we buy.

But in the last few years, our increasingly mobile and digital society has been trying to achieve this successful money-product exchange without much need for bricks and walls.

One of the first solutions has been moving the catalogues online - first onto your desktop computer and, lately, on your smartphone's tiny, shiny screen.

Remote villages

Nowadays, almost every major retailer has a website; those that yet don't, are certainly moving in that direction.

But for some, the traditional formula of simply setting up a web page and waiting for customers to click "buy" just does not work.

Pixel Electronics, a home appliances company in Belarus, first began selling its products - coffee makers, digital cameras, TVs, sound systems, fridges - at the main store in the capital Minsk.

But it wanted to expand and reach the most remote corners of the ex-Soviet country.

There were two options, says CEO Andrei Simonovich: either to start dotting the map with new shops, or to go online.

But in both cases, there were problems.

Not many Belarusians who live in rural areas and small towns have internet access - or carry around 3G smartphones.

So it seemed tricky to rely on e-commerce alone.

Opening new shops was not a much better alternative, says Mr Simonovich.

"In many small towns and villages it is simply not profitable to set up a store.

Pixel Electronics decided not to build new shops - they set up e-terminals instead

"We'd never have enough regular sales to generate profit and cover expenses such as rent fee, salaries, and so on - so we dropped the idea."

Faced with a dead end, the firm started to seek out new marketing initiatives.

And in the spirit of merging online and offline, it decided to set up electronic terminals - ordinary computers with the store's online catalogue - in other stores all over the country.

The concept is similar to, but a step forward from the French Minitel - a closed network of e-terminals in the pre-internet era of the 1980s.

People used Minitel to search the telephone directory, communicate via a special mail system and even make purchases online - just like we do now on the web.

Pixel Electronics' idea is only different in the way that its terminals are internet-connected - but only to the store's website.

"Since these small shops in remote places have very limited floor space, they can only put a small fraction of our products on their physical shelves - or none at all," says Mr Simonovich.

Continue reading the main story

We recognise that increasingly, people wish to be able to shop at home or when they are on the move, as well as in our stores”

End Quote Spokesperson Tesco "But with the e-terminals, when shoppers come into the store, they can choose not only from what they see on the shelves, but also from our entire catalogue on the internet.

"It's like opening a store in a small town for just $500 - because that's what it costs us on average to invest into a terminal, and after that we only pay for the internet connection, as well as commission from sales to the shop."

Mr Simonovich explains that with this solution, it is a win-win for everyone involved.

Pixel Electronics gets their sales' profits, the regional client - the shop - gets its commission from sales of products that do not even take up any physical space in the shop, and individual buyers living in some tiny village are able to bring home a 3D television that they otherwise could have only dreamt of.

"If you make your order online before the end of the day, our delivery van will leave the Minsk base the next morning at 6am - and the buyer will receive the purchase that same day.

"And the price is the same everywhere, no matter if you buy your TV in our Minsk store or online."

And the sales are not limited to the e-terminals in stores - people who do have a computer and internet access can also place an order from home, and it then gets delivered either to their door or to the town shop.

"For us, e-commerce brings in additional money of some 7-10% of total revenue - a substantial sum," says Mr Simonovich.

And the company has recently started to embrace mobile shopping, too - it has developed an app for smartphones to allow orders on the go.

Offline & online

This gradual metamorphosis of e-commerce into m-commerce has been especially visible in recent months.

Giants such as eBay are looking for ways to engage shoppers - for instance through m-commerce

There are places such as China, for instance, where most people go online on their mobiles as opposed to home computers - and turning them into buyers is many retailers' ultimate goal.

Martin Gill from Forrester Research thinks that the smartphone is becoming that crucial glue destined to bind the online and the offline experiences together.

"Apps like bar code scanning, store locator, checking physical stock online via your phone - all of these features are turning your mobile into a shopping buddy or a shopping assistant," he says.

"These technologies are compelling and quite playful ways of engaging shoppers - they make the experience interesting, they make it unique to you, trying to build an emotional connection and create a link that resonates on a personal level."

Even such giants and pioneers of online commerce as eBay and Amazon that have never even had physical stores, have eventually joined the crowd and followed you from your living room right into your car, train or your child's playground.

"Mobile shopping is a hugely-growing trend," says Angus McCarey, eBay's retail director.

"In 2010 we tripled the amount of global business that we did over the mobile, reaching $2bn (£1.2bn), and this year, we're on track to double it - we'll do $4bn (£2.4bn) or more."

In the UK, considered the most rapidly-developing European market in m-commerce, during last year's Christmas holiday season eBay had 10% of its turnover through some kind of mobile application.

And eBay is not stopping at simply dragging you onto their website via your phone.

With ever-evolving technology and consumer habits, the company has had to innovate to constantly stay ahead of the game.

For instance, book lovers in a store now have a choice of either buying the item in front of them or using a special smartphone app to find that book on eBay - for less money.

"The world of offline and online shopping is blurring through the mobile, and with scanning technologies such as Red Laser, you can check the price of a book that you're looking at in the shop and order it really quickly online," says Mr McCarey.

And although this technology is still mostly limited to scanning easily-catalogued products such as books and DVDs, it soon might be possible to snap a photo of that stunning but crazy pricey red dress on a mannequin in a shop's window - and through some internet magic instantly find it far cheaper on the web.

Tesco concept Home Plus, the South Korean branch of Tesco, has developed a concept of bringing stores into subway

And some are going even further in their quest of bridging the online, offline and mobile worlds.

The UK retail giant Tesco already has a multitude of stores around the planet, but its South Korean branch Home Plus, jointly owned by Tesco and Samsung, has decided to try out a new initiative.

It now thinks of bringing the supermarket shelves right into the subway.

The concept aims to place huge digital billboards with images of Tesco products on virtual shelves onto subway station walls - so that commuters could use their smartphones to scan the items' barcodes, place an order, pay and arrange a delivery while waiting for a train.

"This is a concept and is not operational - however, we are always looking to innovate for the benefit of our customers and make their lives that little bit easier," says a Tesco spokesperson.

"We recognise that, increasingly, people wish to be able to shop at home or when they are on the move, as well as in our stores."

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Emma Watson Joins ‘My Week with Marilyn’ and ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’

After her decade-long stint as Hermione in the Harry Potter franchise, Emma Watson takes on dramatic roles next.

Her first post-Harry Potter movie is the biopic “My Week with Marilyn,” an upcoming British drama film directed by Simon Curtis and written by Adrian Hodges. It also stars Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Dominic Cooper and Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe.

Emma will play the role of Lucy in the movie and it’s slated to open in theaters November of this year.

Her next project is “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” an upcoming American adaptation of the epistolary novel of the same name. It is currently being directed by the novel’s author Stephen Chbosky.

The film is scheduled to be released next year.

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Going Web-less feels like being maimed

We've heard that people express their feelings by sharing kitty videos, and that search engines are rewiring our brains, but what are the effects of going tech-free? 

A small British survey has revealed that now more than ever, people think of their tech tools as extensions of themselves, saying that going without them feels like losing a limb.

Intersperience, a British company, enlisted 1000 participants between 18 and 65 and tasked them with going unconnected for one full day, and then studied how they did. 

Based on the feedback Intersperience got, disconnecting was pretty harsh for most giver-uppers. One user wrote that was "like having my hand chopped off," and someone else said it was their "biggest nightmare." But, some people did welcome at least the idea of a Web-less few hours, responding that it made them feel "free."  

It's not surprising that Internet "addiction" has the younger crowd most tightly in its vice grip. People under 40 found it harder to put away their smartphones and unplug their computer. 

The most painful and revealing aspect of the study had to do with our social selves. Forty percent of people polled admitted they felt "lonely" without televisions, social media or the Internet. Even if everyone didn't feel like their hand was hacked off, the experience did hurt ... inside. 

— via the Washington Post, TechCrunch, etc.

More about people and the Internet:

Nidhi Subbaraman writes about tech and science at msnbc.com. Find her on Twitter and Google+ and join our conversation on Facebook.

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Are you being served?

21 July 2011 Last updated at 23:04 GMT By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News Many retailers now see bricks and mortar stores as an old fashioned, inefficient way of doing business Shops. We go there, we browse, we buy.

But in the last few years, our increasingly mobile and digital society has been trying to achieve this successful money-product exchange without much need for bricks and walls.

One of the first solutions has been moving the catalogues online - first onto your desktop computer and, lately, on your smartphone's tiny, shiny screen.

Remote villages

Nowadays, almost every major retailer has a website; those that yet don't, are certainly moving in that direction.

But for some, the traditional formula of simply setting up a web page and waiting for customers to click "buy" just does not work.

Pixel Electronics, a home appliances company in Belarus, first began selling its products - coffee makers, digital cameras, TVs, sound systems, fridges - at the main store in the capital Minsk.

But it wanted to expand and reach the most remote corners of the ex-Soviet country.

There were two options, says CEO Andrei Simonovich: either to start dotting the map with new shops, or to go online.

But in both cases, there were problems.

Not many Belarusians who live in rural areas and small towns have internet access - or carry around 3G smartphones.

So it seemed tricky to rely on e-commerce alone.

Opening new shops was not a much better alternative, says Mr Simonovich.

"In many small towns and villages it is simply not profitable to set up a store.

Pixel Electronics decided not to build new shops - they set up e-terminals instead

"We'd never have enough regular sales to generate profit and cover expenses such as rent fee, salaries, and so on - so we dropped the idea."

Faced with a dead end, the firm started to seek out new marketing initiatives.

And in the spirit of merging online and offline, it decided to set up electronic terminals - ordinary computers with the store's online catalogue - in other stores all over the country.

The concept is similar to, but a step forward from the French Minitel - a closed network of e-terminals in the pre-internet era of the 1980s.

People used Minitel to search the telephone directory, communicate via a special mail system and even make purchases online - just like we do now on the web.

Pixel Electronics' idea is only different in the way that its terminals are internet-connected - but only to the store's website.

"Since these small shops in remote places have very limited floor space, they can only put a small fraction of our products on their physical shelves - or none at all," says Mr Simonovich.

Continue reading the main story

We recognise that increasingly, people wish to be able to shop at home or when they are on the move, as well as in our stores”

End Quote Spokesperson Tesco "But with the e-terminals, when shoppers come into the store, they can choose not only from what they see on the shelves, but also from our entire catalogue on the internet.

"It's like opening a store in a small town for just $500 - because that's what it costs us on average to invest into a terminal, and after that we only pay for the internet connection, as well as commission from sales to the shop."

Mr Simonovich explains that with this solution, it is a win-win for everyone involved.

Pixel Electronics gets their sales' profits, the regional client - the shop - gets its commission from sales of products that do not even take up any physical space in the shop, and individual buyers living in some tiny village are able to bring home a 3D television that they otherwise could have only dreamt of.

"If you make your order online before the end of the day, our delivery van will leave the Minsk base the next morning at 6am - and the buyer will receive the purchase that same day.

"And the price is the same everywhere, no matter if you buy your TV in our Minsk store or online."

And the sales are not limited to the e-terminals in stores - people who do have a computer and internet access can also place an order from home, and it then gets delivered either to their door or to the town shop.

"For us, e-commerce brings in additional money of some 7-10% of total revenue - a substantial sum," says Mr Simonovich.

And the company has recently started to embrace mobile shopping, too - it has developed an app for smartphones to allow orders on the go.

Offline & online

This gradual metamorphosis of e-commerce into m-commerce has been especially visible in recent months.

Giants such as eBay are looking for ways to engage shoppers - for instance through m-commerce

There are places such as China, for instance, where most people go online on their mobiles as opposed to home computers - and turning them into buyers is many retailers' ultimate goal.

Martin Gill from Forrester Research thinks that the smartphone is becoming that crucial glue destined to bind the online and the offline experiences together.

"Apps like bar code scanning, store locator, checking physical stock online via your phone - all of these features are turning your mobile into a shopping buddy or a shopping assistant," he says.

"These technologies are compelling and quite playful ways of engaging shoppers - they make the experience interesting, they make it unique to you, trying to build an emotional connection and create a link that resonates on a personal level."

Even such giants and pioneers of online commerce as eBay and Amazon that have never even had physical stores, have eventually joined the crowd and followed you from your living room right into your car, train or your child's playground.

"Mobile shopping is a hugely-growing trend," says Angus McCarey, eBay's retail director.

"In 2010 we tripled the amount of global business that we did over the mobile, reaching $2bn (£1.2bn), and this year, we're on track to double it - we'll do $4bn (£2.4bn) or more."

In the UK, considered the most rapidly-developing European market in m-commerce, during last year's Christmas holiday season eBay had 10% of its turnover through some kind of mobile application.

And eBay is not stopping at simply dragging you onto their website via your phone.

With ever-evolving technology and consumer habits, the company has had to innovate to constantly stay ahead of the game.

For instance, book lovers in a store now have a choice of either buying the item in front of them or using a special smartphone app to find that book on eBay - for less money.

"The world of offline and online shopping is blurring through the mobile, and with scanning technologies such as Red Laser, you can check the price of a book that you're looking at in the shop and order it really quickly online," says Mr McCarey.

And although this technology is still mostly limited to scanning easily-catalogued products such as books and DVDs, it soon might be possible to snap a photo of that stunning but crazy pricey red dress on a mannequin in a shop's window - and through some internet magic instantly find it far cheaper on the web.

Tesco concept Home Plus, the South Korean branch of Tesco, has developed a concept of bringing stores into subway

And some are going even further in their quest of bridging the online, offline and mobile worlds.

The UK retail giant Tesco already has a multitude of stores around the planet, but its South Korean branch Home Plus, jointly owned by Tesco and Samsung, has decided to try out a new initiative.

It now thinks of bringing the supermarket shelves right into the subway.

The concept aims to place huge digital billboards with images of Tesco products on virtual shelves onto subway station walls - so that commuters could use their smartphones to scan the items' barcodes, place an order, pay and arrange a delivery while waiting for a train.

"This is a concept and is not operational - however, we are always looking to innovate for the benefit of our customers and make their lives that little bit easier," says a Tesco spokesperson.

"We recognise that, increasingly, people wish to be able to shop at home or when they are on the move, as well as in our stores."

View the original article here

Read More