All for 'Pakistan Appeal'

Imran Khan joins the charity event in Dubai to raise funds for flood victims, you can too

“A father lifts his newborn son above his head as he submerges under water. His prayer is for someone to lend a helping hand. That helping hand is you.” The millions of flood victims who lost everything in the greatest natural disaster ever to hit Pakistan need the power of positive thought and action - that’s just what ‘Pakistan Appeal’ is all about. And you can be a part of the landmark UNICEF charity event! The event, organised by Quintessentially, takes place Friday, March 4, at the Armani Hotel, Burj Khalifa. And it brings together several influential and high-profile participants. The opening address will be made by H H Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Imran Khan, former cricketer and international humanitarian, will also speak about his personal relief efforts, the acute need for funding and his own account of the tragedy on the ground.

In an interview with Masala!, Imran Khan revealed, “As I travelled through the villages washed away by the floods, I saw displaced families scattered in the makeshift shelters without food, adequate clothing and health services. I saw distressed families squatting together in the most unhygienic conditions. I could see the unfolding tragedy and knew that in order to cope with devastation of such a high magnitude and severity, we all needed to lend a helping hand.”
At the ‘Pakistan Appeal’ event, H E Engin Soysal, UN Special Envoy for Assistance to Pakistan will also explain the scale of the tragedy and the UN response as a whole. H E Shaukat Aziz will highlight the importance of continued efforts towards the recovery of flood affected areas in Pakistan. There will also be a presentation by UNICEF on the disaster and relief efforts. The evening will end with a live concert by the famed Mekaal Hasan Band.

You can show your charitable side for the flood victims by being a part of ‘Pakistan Appeal’. Premium Seat Invitations (limited availability) - Dhs2000; and General Seat Invitations (Dhs1000) are available, and at the event you can participate in a signature raffle draw featuring over $150,000 worth of prizes, a live auction for priceless items, and individual and corporate monetary/in-kind pledges throughout the evening. Go on, make a difference in the lives of people who really need it.
INFO
Date: March 4, 2011
Venue: Armani Hotel, Burj Khalifa
Time: 7:30pm
For seat and table reservations, contact 04 437 6820 or email eventsdubai@quintessentially.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
For more details, visit www.pakistanappeal.com

Facebook Like button takes over Share button

Say goodbye to the Share button because the Like button is taking over.

After months of updates to its Like button, Facebook has released an update that fundamentally changes the button's functionality to that of a Share button. Now after hitting the Like button, a full story with a headline, blurb and thumbnail will be posted to your profile wall. You'll also be given an option to comment on the story link. Previously, only a link to the story would appear in the recent activity, often going unnoticed by users.

Though users may now think twice about hitting the button, given how prominently it will appear on their walls and in their networks' newsfeeds, it should ultimately increase traffic to publishers' websites.

Facebook has slowly been rolling out updates to its Like button and has stopped developing the Share Button. Facebook Spokeswoman Malorie Lucich told us that while the company will continue to support the Share button, Like is the "recommended solution moving forward."
However, Lucich today called it a test, saying "We're always testing new products that incorporate developer feedback as we work to improve the Platform experience, and have no details to share at this time." It's unlikely that the change is just a test, however. Typically such tests from Facebook only affect a small number of users, whereas this change affects all Like buttons.

Perhaps the change was necessary. Because it was never made clear to users that the Like button would function differently than the Share button, many never understood what it meant to click Like on a piece of content. Making the result the same as the Share button could build stronger user expectations, ultimately fashioning a better user experience.

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez Make It Official

We've seen them hold hands before. And cameras caught them on a movie date in early February. But Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez put to rest any remaining debate over their status by showing up together on Hollywood's biggest night. The 100% confirmed, official, adorable couple stopped on the red carpet and posted for pictures at the annual Vanity Fair Oscar party. Turn away now, ladies, if you don't wanna see your dream man wrapping his arms around another woman. Both dressed in Dolce & Gabbana, you must admit: Justin and Selena look happy, don't they?

2011 Academy Awards: Full List of Winners!

And the Oscar goes to ...

The King's Speech. Other films too, of course, but it was a royal victory for the picture about King George VI, which won Best Picture, and Best Actor Colin Firth.

Director Tom Hooper and Screenplay writer David Seidler also triumphed for the film. Natalie Portman, as the troubled dancer in Black Swan, won Best Actress.



The four big winners at the 2011 Oscars.

"This is insane," she said in her acceptance speech. "I truly, sincerely wish the prize tonight was to work with my fellow nominees. I am in such awe of you."

The Fighter's Melissa Leo and Christian Bale won Supporting Actress and Actor. The technical awards were monopolized by Inception and Alice in Wonderland.

Were you happy with how the Oscars turned out? Did anyone get snubbed? Follow the jump for the full list of winners at the 2011 Academy Awards ...
Best Picture

* Black Swan
* The Fighter
* Inception
* The Kids Are All Right
* The King's Speech - WINNER
* 127 Hours
* The Social Network
* Toy Story 3
* True Grit
* Winter's Bone

Best Actor

* Javier Bardem, Biutiful
* Jeff Bridges, True Grit
* Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
* Colin Firth, The King's Speech - WINNER
* James Franco, 127 Hours

Best Actress

* Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
* Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
* Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
* Natalie Portman, Black Swan - WINNER
* Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor

* Christian Bale, The Fighter - WINNER
* John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
* Jeremy Renner, The Town
* Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
* Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Best Supporting Actress

* Amy Adams, The Fighter
* Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
* Melissa Leo, The Fighter - WINNER
* Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
* Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Best Director

* Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
* David O. Russell, The Fighter
* Tom Hooper, The King's Speech - WINNER
* David Fincher, The Social Network
* Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit

Best Original Screenplay

* Another Year
* The Fighter
* Inception
* The Kids Are All Right
* The King's Speech - WINNER

Best Adapted Screenplay

* 127 Hours
* The Social Network - WINNER
* Toy Story 3
* True Grit
* Winter's Bone

Best Animated Film

* How to Train Your Dragon
* The Illusionist
* Toy Story 3 - WINNER

Best Foreign Language Film

* Biutiful
* Dogtooth
* In A Better World - WINNER
* Incendies
* Outside the Law

Best Art Direction

* Alice in Wonderland - WINNER
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
* Inception
* The King's Speech
* True Grit

Cinematography

* Black Swan
* Inception - WINNER
* The King's Speech
* The Social Network
* True Grit

Costume Design

* Alice in Wonderland - WINNER
* I Am Love
* The King's Speech
* The Tempest
* True Grit

Editing

* Black Swan
* The Fighter
* The King's Speech
* 127 Hours
* The Social Network - WINNER

Sound Mixing

* Inception - WINNER
* The King's Speech
* Salt
* The Social Network
* True Grit

Sound Editing

* Inception - WINNER
* Toy Story 3
* Tron: Legacy
* True Grit
* Unstoppable

Original Score

* How to Train Your Dragon
* Inception
* The King's Speech
* 127 Hours
* The Social Network - WINNER

Original Song

* "Coming Home" from Country Strong
* "I See the Light" from Tangled
* "If I Rise" from 127 Hours
* "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 - WINNER

Documentary Feature

* Exit through the Gift Shop
* Gasland
* Inside Job - WINNER
* Restrepo
* Waste Land

Documentary (short subject)

* Killing in the Name
* Poster Girl
* Strangers No More - WINNER
* Sun Come Up
* The Warriors of Qiugang

Makeup

* Barney's Version
* The Way Back
* The Wolfman - WINNER

Animated Short Film

* Day & Night
* The Gruffalo
* Let's Pollute
* The Lost Thing - WINNER
* Madagascar, a Journey Diary

Live Action Short Film

* The Confession
* The Crush
* God of Love - WINNER
* Na Wewe
* Wish 143

Visual Effects

* Alice in Wonderland
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
* Hereafter
* Inception - WINNER
* Iron Man 2

Double Oscar loss for Rahman

Misses Best Original Score and Best Song awards

Music maestro A R Rahman lost the Oscar for best original score to composer duo Trent Rezmor and Atticus Ross who took home the award for 'The Social Network' at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles. He also lost the Oscar for best original song to Randy Newman, who won it for 'We Belong Together' in 'Toy Story 3'. Rahman was nominated with Dido and Rollo Armstrong, who wrote the lyrics for the song 'If I Rise' from '127 Hours'. Earlier this year, the 45-year-old had also lost the Golden Globe award as well as British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for best original music in '127 Hours'.

Other Oscar winners announced so far include Christian Bale for Best Supporting Actor in 'The Fighter', Melissa Leo for Best Supporting Actress in the same movie, 'In A Better World' (Denmark) for Best Foreign Language Film, and 'Toy Story 3' for Best Animated Feature Film.
'The Social Network' won for Best Adapted Screenplay, while 'The King's Speech' won Best Screenplay.

Websites to Google: 'You're killing our business!'

Google made one of the biggest changes ever to its search results this week, which immediately had a noticeable effect on many Web properties that rely on the world's biggest search engine to drive traffic to their sites.

The major tweak aims to move better quality content to the top of Google's search rankings. The changes will affect 12% Google's results, the company said in a blog post late Thursday.

"Our goal is simple: to give users the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible," said Gabriel Stricker, Google spokesman. "This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content -- both good and bad -- comes online all the time. Recently we've heard from our users that they want to see fewer low quality sites in our results."

Typically, Google's algorithm changes are so subtle that few people notice them. But these most recent changes could be seen immediately.
How to test the change: The IP address 64.233.179.104 displays Google search results as they would have appeared before the recent algorithm change, according to several webmasters posting to the WebmasterWorld.com forum.

Google would not confirm that IP address uses the older algorithm, but comparing searches of trending topics on google.com with searches using the special Google IP address reveals how the search engine now seems to be favoring certain content.

The changes appear to be affecting so-called "content farms" the most, which are websites that amass content based on the most-searched terms of the day. Demand Media, AOL, Mahalo and the Huffington Post have all been accused of such tactics, including a notable "story" from HuffPo about the Super Bowl that Slate.com media critic Jack Shafer called "the greatest example of SEO whoring of all time."

Tests using trending topics show Google's tweaks in action.

The current top Google result for a search of Charlie Sheen rant target "Haim Levine" is a New York Daily News page, followed by a story from gossipcop.com. The old algorithm would have featured two Huffington Post stories at the top, with the New York Daily News story not appearing appear until the second results page.

A controversial decision: Any change to Google's algorithm is a zero-sum game. Some websites win, some lose.

Comments from site operators lit up on the WebmasterWorld.com forum starting on Wednesday. Many webmasters complained that traffic to their sites dropped dramatically overnight, and others expressed concern that they can't adapt quickly enough to Google's changes to its algorithm.

"Why is it that every single time the search engine result page starts to stabilize and sales return, Google has to throw a monkey wrench in the system again?" asked commenter backdraft7. "Hey Google, this is not fun anymore - YOU'RE KILLING OUR BUSINESSES!"

"My God. I just lost 40% of my traffic from Google today," said commenter DickBaker. "Referrals from Yahoo, Bing, direct sources, and other sources are the same, but Google dropped like a rock."

There are many legitimate ways content creators optimize their sites to rise to the top of Google's results. But Google has been cracking down on what it regards as inappropriate attempts to do so: The company recently penalized Overstock.com and JC Penney in its search results after the companies were found to have set up fake websites that linked to their own, causing Google's algorithm to rank them higher.

When it comes to site content, the lines get very fuzzy. Operators like Demand Media (DMD) -- which now has a market valuation of $1.9 billion, more than the New York Times Co. is worth -- sit right on the ever-shifting boundaries.

"Sites of this type have always been controversial," said Daniel Ruby, research director at Chitika, Inc. a search advertising analytics company. "On one hand, they often do produce extremely informative, well-written articles. On the other hand, they put out countless articles on a daily basis, and some claim they exist only to generate the top result on as many keywords as possible."

Demand put out a very carefully worded response to Google's changes.

"As might be expected, a content library as diverse as ours saw some content go up and some go down in Google search results," Larry Fitzgibbon, the company's executive vice president of media and operations, wrote in a blog post. "It's impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term -- but at this point in time, we haven't seen a material net impact."

So will Google's changes have a lasting effect on search quality? Perhaps. But it's an arms race: Any time the company adjusts its algorithms, those determined to beat them immediately adjust.

"Content originators make money, and Google makes money," said Whit Andrews, analyst for Gartner. "Their interests will always be in conflict, and as long as there is greed, people will try to game system.

Britney Spears: Pretty Much Loaded

Britney Spears has done well for herself in the last few years.

The singer's conservatorship and marketing machine have made a killing since December of 2008, when the conservators took over $2,826,362.68.

Exactly one year later, Britney's assets controlled by the conservators swelled to $27,500,000, thanks largely to Britney's wildly successful Circus Tour.

It's good to be Britney Spears. Especially on medication.

The figures are deceiving in that conservators only control a portion of Britney's total estate - namely her business expenses. She has a lot of money and property in her various trusts and other business entitites the conservators do not control.

Basically, she's even richer than that figure indicates.