MiltonSearch.com blog

The Apple iPhone arrived in Toronto this week to a Beatles-like reception

It’s arguably the most-hyped consumer electronics gadget in history and Apple’s iPhone is finally available in Canada through Rogers Wireless. With all the media hoopla surrounding this sexy smartphone there’s probably very little you don’t already know about it.

Here are the things people are saying they love about the iPhone 3G, and the things they don’t, as compiled by the Toronto Star last week:

What people love

1. It’s so wireless. Ten different radios are under the hood of the iPhone 3G, including Wi-Fi (to surf the Net while on a wireless network), Bluetooth (for hands-free headsets), GPS (to navigate to a destination) and 3G connectivity for high-speed wireless connectivity through Rogers’ HSPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) network.

2. The display. The 3.5-inch multi-touch screen makes it a breeze to navigate through the phone’s features. Use your fingertip to flick down your contacts like a digital Rolodex. Pinch and expand to zoom into your photos. Tap to preview and play music via the iTunes Wi-Fi store.

3. Shhh, it’s really a computer. You haven’t surfed the Net on a phone until you’ve used an iPhone, thanks to a real HTML-based Safari browser with support for photos and some videos (such as QuickTime). Turn the iPhone sideways and the built-in accelerometer automatically flips the screen horizontally.

4. It’s an iPod. Store up to 8GB or 16GB (depending on the model) of music, podcasts, audio books, photos and videos – all copied over when synched with your iTunes software. But unlike any previous iPod, the iPhone also has a built-in speaker so you don’t need ear buds if you don’t want to wear them.

5. Programs galore. Apple opened up the platform for third-party developers. The AppStore means you can download thousands of applications to run on the iPhone, ranging from 3-D video games and song-writing software (think GarageBand for your pocket) to medical encyclopaedias and digital cookbooks with video tutorials.

6. It’s stable. The operating system is rock solid. We haven’t experienced a crash once. Any time you want to get out of a program you don’t have to look for an “X” to tap in order to close it – simply tap the solitary “Home” button at the bottom of the iPhone. It might not be a sexy feature, but there’s nothing more un-sexy than a crashing OS with a complicated interface.

7. Coffee is close by. Type in something you’re looking for in the Google Maps search field – such as “coffee,” “gas station,” “Indian food,” “CIBC” or “hotel” – and you’ll immediately see pushpins fall onto the satellite image. Tap the closest “point of interest” and it will present the phone number (tap to call), website, address and directions.

What don’t people love about the iPhone 3G?

1. The soft QWERTY keyboard takes some getting used to – especially for those with fat thumbs. And while you can hold it horizontally while surfing the web (to make the keyboard bigger), emails must be typed on the vertical layout.

2. No video recording. What gives? Plus, the 2-megapixel camera is the same as last year’s model (5 megapixels would’ve been nice).

3. No MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) support. You can take a photo and email it to someone but you can’t send it to a friend’s phone with a message.

4. No voice-activated dialling (e.g. “Call Home”), as you can with most other phones. On a related note, there is no voice recording feature (an invaluable tool as a journalist).

5. Google Maps doesn’t give you audio-based turn-by-turn instructions, so it’s basically useless while driving.

6. You can’t copy and paste text on the iPhone, such as a copying some words from a website to the Notes section. With any luck this oversight will be fixed with a firmware update.

7. More memory, please. Rumour has it a 32GB version is in the works. At the very least offer support for expandable memory cards, no?

– Compiled by Marc Saltzman, special to the Toronto Star

Plasma TVs, which use more electricity, can offer a superior picture because they can display truer black colours and have higher contrast ratios than LCD screens.

Choosing between the two technologies may hinge on price and how the TV will be used

It’s an inevitable question when looking for a flat-panel HDTV these days: Will it be plasma or LCD?

It was easier when there were only cathode-ray tubes and choice came down to size and brand. Now, we are confronted with different and confusing technology options. How do you choose between plasmas and LCDs?

Price could be one way.

Plasma HDTVs 50-inches or larger cost less than similar sized LCD HDTVs, but the price gap is closing, especially with the popular 42- to 46-inch sizes.

As for life expectancy, both plasmas and LCDs are capable of running around 60,000 hours, or eight hours a day for 20 years, before half brightness occurs. And they are both now capable of an exceptional 1080p HD resolution.

Plasmas are known to be somewhat of an electricity hog, but Barry Murray, marketing director at Panasonic Canada, feels that tag is a bit unfair.

“Government regulations require plasmas to list the maximum watts used, when, in fact, they consume closer to half that power in real-world conditions,” he says. “Plasmas light each pixel individually, as required, but LCDs always have a backlight running and block the light to produce colours.”

With all this in mind, how do we choose?

Ultimately, it comes down to how you want to use your HDTV.

If you are a videophile looking for the true home-theatre experience, an HDTV plasma might be the way to go.

Generally, plasmas are known for their superior picture performance because they can display truer black colours than LCDs. Plasmas can run a very low level of luminance to create the colour black and have higher contrast ratios than LCDs, producing a more detailed true-to-life picture.

LCD HDTVs are no slouches on picture quality but they still can’t block out enough of the underlying backlight to produce the same level of blacks as plasmas.

Plasmas are also believed to offer smoother and more realistic video motion with quicker pixel refresh rates, but LCDs are quickly catching up.

The new 120Hz refresh technology being incorporated in LCDs is considered one of the biggest breakthroughs in some time, according to Patrick Lapointe, director of marketing for LCDs at Sony Canada.

“Our MotionFlow technology (120Hz refresh) provides smoother motion and seamless action for sports scenes,” he says. “By doubling the number of frames on the screen every second, the eye perceives much less judder (instability) and blurriness than before.”

Viewing angles are also better on plasmas, up to an extreme 160 degrees. At that angle, you would be just about beside the screen with no loss of brightness or colour saturation. Higher-end LCDs like ones from Sony have decent viewing angles and are fine for most family room seating arrangement.

Of course, if you don’t have an HDTV set-top box from your television program provider or a Blu-ray DVD player, you just won’t get the video quality you’d expect. If your TV set-top box or DVD player doesn’t support the new HDMI interface, they probably don’t provide HD video.

If you plan to also hookup a PC/Mac or a game console such as an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, you might want to consider an LCD HDTV.

While plasmas can do an excellent job projecting these, they still have a slight risk of burn-in, a permanent ghostlike image associated with prolonged display of a static image. LCD HDTVs are immune to burn-in so they are the safe bet, but they do suffer from stuck or dead pixels (permanently lit or unlit).

Another reason to consider an LCD is viewing distance. LCDs tend to have a smoother picture in a shorter viewing distance, making it optimal for using a computer or game console with it when you want to get up close. But note that if you are hooking up a computer, you won’t get a decent picture unless it has a DVI or HDMI video card.

– by Tom Katsiroubas of YourHome.ca and the Toronto Star

A full day of Canada Day celebrations in Milton will certainly end with a bang!

With another successful Downtown Milton Street Party behind us, it’s time to look forward to the next signature Milton summer event, Milton Canada Day at the Fairgrounds on July 1st.

First, a couple of thoughts on this year’s edition of the Downtown Street Party….

It wasn’t quite as busy as last year, and there were a few less vendors, but overall it was a fantastic day again! The weather, like last year, was fabulous. The DBIA did an amazing job organizing the event. MiltonSearch.com participated again, offering face-painting at our booth, and from a vendor point of view, it was incredible how easy it was to register and access the area for setup - all thanks to the efforts of the Milton DBIA and their volunteers. A special thanks to Jacqueline Garrard of the DBIA for everything.

The event may have been a little busier last year based on the fact that it was the Town’s 150th Anniversary, who knows. I encourage everyone to mark it on your calendars for next year - the event is a fantastic day to get out and explore what Milton really has to offer – participating vendors (like AJS Filipino Grocery who were located beside our booth for the 2nd year in a row: mmmmmm), local musical talent, downtown businesses and just the chance to stroll leisurely along Main St. and feel the positive energy.

MiltonSearch.com was celebrating our 1st anniversary also, as our site officially launched last year at this event. In honour of the occasion, we’re running 4 promotions which can be found here, which include a kids’ colouring contest, classifieds contest, forums contest and our 2nd photography contest.

Anyhoo, summer is in full swing now, so get out and enjoy it! Next up is annual Canada Day celebration at the Fairgrounds, and here are all the details:

Milton Canada Day 2008 Events & Participants:

Veterans’ Breakfast from 10-11:30am at Victoria Park - open to everyone.

A “Moment to Remember” ceremony at 11:30am at the Cenotaph in Victoria Park, to honour our veterans.

The Veterans’ Parade starts at 11:50am from the Cenotaph to the Fairgrounds.

The Kidz Zone runs from Noon to 7pm featuring activities for kids.

The Teen Zone runs from Noon to 7pm featuring:
- Guitar Hero
- Dance Revolution
- Rock Climbing Walls
- Henna Tattoos
- Giant Sand Hills
- Playdough centre
- Bubble machine

At noon, there will be a Canada Day Message, the National Anthem will be performed by Terry Wheelen and a birthday cake for Canada will be cut.

As well, there will be a Swearing-in Ceremony for New Canadians.

The bands “Sokey” and “District” will perform in the afternoon, followed by “Scarecrow” (a John Cougar Mellencamp tribute band) and “Fleetwood Dreams” (a Fleetwood Mac tribute band) at 7 and 8:30pm respectively.

There are a number of other performers including:

- The Arial Angels
- Martial Arts exhibitions
- K9 Dog Show
- 5 Star Ranch
- Sciensational Snakes
- Mountberg “Birds of Prey”
- Petting Zoo
- Pony Rides
- Steam Era Display
- Remax Balloon

You will also have the opportunity to add a personal message to a banner being sent to Canada’s Olympic team, bound for Beijing, China.

The Amusement Park runs from noon until 10pm, followed by the Northern Lights Fireworks at 10pm.

Oh yeah, and the Beer Gardens and food vendors will be open from noon until 10pm!

For more information and details, we encourage you to visit the official Milton Canada Day website!

Viva la Vida, although darker, still retains Coldplay’s signature sound

MiltonSearch.com Album Review:

(3 out of 4 stars)

The cumbersomely titled Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends marks the Oxford quartet’s most public effort yet at contributing some serious substance to their discography, enlisting the help of Brian Eno to put a bit of an unconventional spin on the band’s stadium-filling ruminations on love, death and religion.

The album comes with a few conservative risks that may please the critics, but for longtime, hardcore fans of the band, it’s not the total sonic overhaul that was feared. To me, it proves the band does have some interesting, if not earth-shattering, ideas up its sleeve.

After conveniently downloading the album from Apple’s iTunes (now without the maximum security digital encoding features to allow easier copying between computers and burning to CD’s I should add), my new preferred way to purchase music (life with a busy work schedule and two young children doesn’t often permit time to even make it out to the local music store for such hedonistic purchases) and putting the album through it’s paces, here are my thoughts:

Viva la Vida begins with the tasty intstrumental “Life in Technicolor”, before “Cemeteries of London” provides a little mood with some “Edge-like” guitars, reminiscent of U2’s “The Unforgettable Fire” album.

“Lost!” is a winner, employing a pipe organ and rhythmic percussion along with a signature Coldplay melody, despite it’s use of a lyric like: “You might be a big fish…. in a little pond”. The song also appears again at the end of the album with Martin singing solo on the piano. It’s a great version, but unless your name is Roger Waters or Neil Young, I’m against including songs twice on an album or cutting them in half etc. C’mon, save the solo version for concerts or a B-side album… geez.

Speaking of questionable lyrics, how about “those who are dead, are not dead, they’re just living in my head”? That beauty can be found on an otherwise solid “42″, the fourth track.

“Lovers in Japan” has a great energy and boucny, driving rhythm, followed up by “Reign of Love”, a slower, lower track – Martin has seriously toned down the “falsetto” vocals on their fourth studio album.

“Yes” is another solid, but darker song followed up by a great hidden track, mostly instrumental with a tight, driving beat and blaring guitars reminiscent of New Order which ends on a Neil Young-esque grungy, distorted chord (enough artist comparisons for you?).

“Viva la Vida” has the catchy, anthematic-sound Coldplay has become known for with a fresh twist – some nice violin work. From there, we jump into the first single, “Violet Hill”, an aggressive, head-pounding, fist-pumping tune.

“Strawberry Swing” brings out the “foot-stomping hillbilly” side of the band, while “Death and All His Friends” starts quietly before building into open-armed soccer-pitch anthemics.

Overall, a solid album from the British rockers. It doesn’t appear to be full of obvious smash radio hits for the masses like 2002’s “A Rush of Blood to the Head”, but it has a more refined, cohesive, moody feel, while again, retaining enough of the band’s loved (and criticized) signature sound.

Life-altering? No. Important? Not really. But it’ll do.

What do you think? We invite your comments below.

RAFT OF LIES Jack was the one who made up the cover story while it was finally revealed who was in the coffin: John Locke, aka Jeremy Benthem

A Moving Ending: While Locke and Ben succeed in their mission to displace the Island, we learn why only the Oceanic 6 escaped, why they lied, and why Jack feels the need to go back

The season finale of Lost was a major leap backward for the show, and I mean that with a big wink and much admiration for a powerful conclusion to a bold, winning season. ”Rewind” was the operative word for ”No Place Like Home (Parts 2 and 3).” An orientation film mysteriously looped back on itself. Old moments were revisited and re-examined, if not reinvented. Heck, the whole show was rebooted from the beginning, with Jack the Hero falling from the sky and rising to action and building a community out of lost souls, just as he did in the pilot. The final moments even ironically echoed the first season’s famous twin cliff-hangers, with a raft at sea and two men peering into the abyss of a dark box — the coffin of one Jeremy Bentham, who looks a lot like a certain boar-hunting bald man we’ve come to know, love, and fear the past four years. ”No Place” wasn’t the magic act of last year’s flash-forward fake-out, but it was more meaty, more emotional, more epic, and, with a gulpy leap into WTH? sci-fi, maybe more ballsy.

”OH, AND ONE MORE THING: YOUR BEARD SMELLS LIKE WET VINCENT!”

Here’s what I mean by rewind: The episode began where last season’s flash-forward fake-out finale left off, with Kate driving away from Beaver Pelt Jack, and then — screeeeeeeeeeech! — the former fugitive came to an abrupt stop and floored it in reverse. Apparently, Kate had a few things she wanted to get off her chest — stuff she forgot to unload on Jack in last year’s finale. She told him that his ”we have to go back!” crap was galling, especially in light of what happened on their final day on the Island; that a man they both knew — the man in the obituary, one Jeremy Bentham — had come to her a few days earlier and tried to make the same wacko ”going back” argument; that Aaron still doesn’t quite understand why Jack isn’t around anymore to read Alice in Wonderland to him before bedtime. She slapped him and told him to keep his distance and then drove off in a heartbroken huff.

I’ll keep the Wikipedia-informed digressions to a minimum in this TV Watch, but a couple words about Jeremy Bentham, another classic loaded Lost name. Bentham was a 19th-century philosopher associated with utilitarianism and liberalism. He also designed the ”panopticon,” a cylindrical-shaped prison that requires minimal security and facilitates intense paranoia. He was also buried in a bizarre box designed for public display called an ”auto-icon.” Bizarre. Clearly, one must consider comparing and contrasting philosopher John Locke to philosopher Jeremy Bentham, but one should consider those things when one is not falling asleep at his computer at midnight.

More interesting to casual Lost fans is this: The name Jeremy Bentham all but confirms as legit the obit text that has circulated throughout fandom since last year. There are many more curious details in this notice — including the suggestion of suicide that was raised by Sayid later in the episode — but why don’t you go over to lostpedia.org and read the obit yourself. We’ll analyze the implications next Friday in my last Doc Jensen column of the season.

FREIGHTER BOMB = ISLAND?

Desmond, Jin and Michael tried to prevent an intricately wired bomb from going boom by freezing it with liquid nitrogen. We learned that the explosives were linked to a dead man’s switch strapped to Keamy’s arm. If his heart stopped beating, the bomb would explode. In other words, Keamy had forged a symbiotic relationship with the freighter — kinda like the way the Island has formed a symbiotic relationship with all these castaways who it won’t let die until they complete their destined service. And how about all that ice? Later in the episode, we saw that the massive gears in the bowels of the Island were covered in frost. Was that ancient machinery deliberately frozen to keep the Island from going ballistic, as with the freighter bomb?

EXIT: FREIGHTER MERCS

The cliff-hanger from the previous episode resolved itself pretty quickly when Richard Alpert and the band of merry Others ambushed Keamy’s men and liberated their once-exalted leader. Did you hear the Whispers start their whispering just before the Others made their move? (We’d hear them one more time in the episode, and in a more unexpected, unprecedented locale.) I liked Keamy’s Hacky Sack action with the grenade, expertly kicking it over to another mercenary, who was then blown away by it. Ultimately they were all subdued, with Sayid taking down Keamy in a nicely choreographed mano a mano struggle marked by quit cuts and bloody loogies — but it ultimately took the last-second intervention of Alpert to settle the matter. ”Thank you for coming, Richard,” said Ben, sounding a touch surprised that Alpert even bothered. After all, last season, Richard tried very hard to manipulate Locke into taking over the Others from him. Indeed, and judging from his halfhearted acceptance of Ben’s salutation, Alpert wasn’t wild that the devilish Dharma kid was still in the picture. But he’d get his regime change soon enough.

Just as intriguing was Ben’s reaction to the arrangement Alpert had made with Kate and Sayid to secure their help in springing Ben: He had agreed to let them go. Ben affirmed the deal with a casualness that was almost glib. ”Fair enough,” he said. Even Kate was shocked. ”We can leave the Island, and that’s it?” she said hopefully. Ben gave her one of his patented bug-eyed stares and line readings that suggest layers of meaning. ”That’s it,” he said, clearly not meaning a word of it. The whole sequence echoed the end of season 2, when Ben fulfilled the bargain his people had made with Michael. Ben is a shifty dude, but he does good by the people who risk their lives for his — even if he never quite fills them in on the fine print that stipulates that those who leave the Island never really leave it until the Island itself is through with them.

”LEADERSHIP STUFF”

While the liberation of Benjamin Linus was under way, Jack and Locke met in the ruins of the old Dharma greenhouse to discuss ”leadership stuff,” as Hurley put it. Once again — for the final time — the man of science and the man of faith had one of their super-heated philosophical smackdowns about design and chance, mysticism and science. The battle was specifically about the whole notion of miracles and whether such things were possible or credible. And wouldn’t you know, it just so happens that season 4’s author-philosopher in residence, C.S. Lewis, wrote a book called Miracles that tackled the empirical debate that Jack and Locke embody. I’ll let you investigate that one at your leisure.

Spooky how Locke was able to see the dark road that lay ahead for Jack. He told his rival that he was going to have to lie about the existence of the Island and the remaining castaways, and he knew that doing so would eat away at Doc Integrity. I also thought this was painfully catty: ”If you do it [lie to the world] half as well as you lie to yourself, they’ll believe you.” Rrrowww! Frankly, it’s that kind of insight — and button pushing — you usually get from Ben. Guess the Other is starting to rub off on John. The Jack-Locke standoff climaxed with their eyeballs blazing at each other. ”You’re crazy!” ”No, you’re crazy!” But I got the sense that something like doubt was beginning to creep into Jack’s position.

One last observation: I have often made the mistake of articulating the ideological conflict between these two in ways that suggest Jack and Locke are exemplars of their respective stances. That’s wrong. Rather, I think Lost has used each to dramatize the limitations of adhering dogmatically to either worldview. Jack is a humanist who believes solely and foolishly in his own agency, while Locke submits himself to an external, exotic agency he doesn’t even understand. I love how Matthew Fox and Terry O’Quinn don’t play the heady ideas but rather the desperate, murky psychology underneath them. Jack stubbornly refuses to believe in anything but himself, while Locke has a hard-on for the purpose and power his exalted Island status has brought him. For Locke, the moment at hand held the promise of rectifying an entire lifetime of being kicked in the nuts by that ”fickle bitch,” destiny. ”Just wait until you see what I’m about to do,” he declared. Be very afraid.

WALT. WOW.

Damn, did that kid get big or what? There have been rumors that actor Malcolm David Kelly’s real-life growth spurt has impacted the show’s ability to use him, and now we can see why: There’s no way he can play the Walt we knew when he left the Island. He can only make sense in the far-future flash-forward scenes, now the show’s present, which happens to be our present: spring 2008. Chaperoned by his no-nonsense grandma, Walt paid a visit to Hurley in the mental hospital. ”I was waiting for one of you to come visit me, but nobody did,” he said, sounding almost hurt, if not downright neglected, and I couldn’t help wondering if some winky meta-resonance was intended in light of so much ”Where’s Walt?” wondering this season. The moment was brief: more cryptic Bentham name-dropping, more justifying the lie of the Oceanic 6 cover story. But it made me wonder if this scene was a setup for Walt’s joining next season’s Island search party. And we still need an explanation for the kid’s spectral appearance in last year’s finale. So hopefully not the last we’ve seen of Big Walt. PS: This is where you guys tell me about all the drawings on the wall I’m not talking about, like the ladybug painting, which, yes, I know, has been a recurring motif this season, but it’s already 2 a.m. and I’m only this far into this freakin’ thing. Another time, I swear!

THE FREIGHTER FOLK PUNT

As the last of the beach castaways were ferried to the freighter, we got some cryptic moments with the season’s much heralded new arrivals, the freighter folk — scenes clearly meant to set up arcs for next season. Psychic hustler Miles Straume announced he was staying on the Island — all the better to give Lost someone who can make sense of the show’s mounting infestation of poltergeists. Miles also confronted Charlotte on her big secret: that she’s been to the Island before, and was perhaps even born there. (I let out a whoop when I heard that bit of business, as this has been my Charlotte theory all season long, dating back to my recap of the second episode.) When Charlotte played dumb and asked Miles what he meant, the quippy ghost whisperer responded with perhaps one of the best line readings in Lost history: ”Yes…what do I mean?” We’ll talk about Lapidus and Faraday in a minute, but allow me say, one final time, that the freighter-folk story line got screwed by the strike, but I’m glad that the show gave us reason to believe that these promising characters will get their respective due next year.

MOVING THE ISLAND: ”EXOTIC MATTER,” INDEED

We come now to what will probably be the most debated parts in the finale, as it involved sci-fi stuff that I know scares a chunk of the viewing audience. Deep below the dilapidated greenhouse (how deep? ”Deep,” Ben said) lies the laboratory level of the Orchid, a Dharma station devoted to time travel. This whole sequence was dotted with great humor the Ben-Locke bit about not knowing what anthuriums look like; Ben sitting Locke down in front of the TV to watch the orientation video while he loaded metallic objects into the Vault — all the better to ease us gently into the weirdness to come.

The newest orientation film included a laundry list of sci-fi buzz terms: Casimir effect, space and time, electromagnetic energy, negatively charged exotic matter. All of these are necessary ingredients for wormhole theory. Or in the quippy-smooth words of Ben, it means ”time-traveling bunnies.” The most baffling part of the orientation-video experience was how it stopped and rewound before the narrator, Edgar Halliwax, could demonstrate how the machine was used. But this is a staple element of all the Dharma videos: the possibility of mind-game tomfoolery, which invites the viewer to question the legitimacy of the narrative.

Before Ben and Locke could get down to moving the Island, an interruption. A not-dead-yet Keamy crashed the party and tried to flush Ben out by bragging about his bomb and mercilessly taunting him about his daughter ”bleeding out.” Ben cracked, allowing emotions to get in the way of ”command decisions” (or so he claimed; you never know with this guy), and beat and stabbed Keamy. The merc died soon after, activating his heart-monitor detonator. Locke castigated Ben for dooming the freighter, which may have been his intention all along. ”So?” Ben said. (My wife wanted to know why, when Keamy passed, Locke didn’t just quickly transfer the heart monitor to his own arm.)

After coming to his senses, Ben dropped a whopper on Locke. Yes, while Jacob may have told Locke he had to move the Island, Ben reasoned that the actual work fell to him, because (1) Jacob never told Locke how to do it, and (2) ”moving the Island” has a consequence to the mover — he or she must leave the Island — and Ben figured Locke, being Jacob’s new golden boy, was indispensable. He told John his destiny was to become his replacement as leader of the Others, a coronation that would bring a proud, dangerous smile on Locke’s face later in the episode but in the Orchid made him a little angry. Wasn’t it his job to move the Island? Once again, Ben had pushed him aside. ”Goodbye, John,” says Ben. ”Sorry I made your life so miserable.” That’s pretty provocative wording for all of you who’ve speculated that Ben and his minions have been using the Dharma time machine to meddle with Locke life since the beginning.

Ben then donned a Dharma parka and descended further, into a subterranean region that was either ancient (the remains of Atlantis?) or extraterrestrial (the engine room of a big spaceship?) in nature. Maybe it was both. Inside an icy cave, Ben beheld something that came as no suprise to him: a massive stone wheel embedded in a glyph-spotted wall crusted over with frozen snow. Spitting some bitter words to an unseen Jacob, Ben started pushing on the wheel, activating energy on the other side of the wall. As he did, Ben whimpered, and for the first time ever on Lost, I found myself not totally convinced by Michael Emerson’s performance. Then again, maybe I’m just not used to seeing Ben playing big emotional moments that are unquestionably genuine, especially when he’s pushing on giant sci-fi donkey wheels. But basically, it was a breakup scene; the deep, profound symbiotic relationship he had with the Island, apparently already weakened by his faithlessness, was now being severed.

Anyways, there was a big sound and a blinding flash and the Island disappeared, and with it a whole bunch of people, including Locke and the Others. Combined with the freighter explosion, that left a lot of characters in drastically changed circumstances:

Sawyer sacrificed his spot on Lapidus’ chopper to make it lighter to save fuel. But before he jumped into the drink, he tasked Kate to execute an errand for him in the real world — presumably, I think, checking on his daughter, Clementine — and then planted a big kiss on her. And now we know why the ladies love Sawyer. As an added bonus, when he returned to the Island, he emerged from the surf sans shirt. (The yin to this yang: plenty of Kate cleavage shots for the guys.)

Juliet stayed behind to help everyone get to the freighter — then had a front-row seat on the beach to watch it blow up. Last seen chugging rum with shirtless Sawyer. You sense a setup for romance next season?

Faraday was last seen taking a raft of castaways to the freighter when the Island disappeared. Since the smaller Hydra Station island also disappeared, I have to assume that the move extended beyond the Island into the ocean. So I’m betting Faraday got caught up in that.

Jin was last seen on the freighter when it exploded. But if he survived and swam into the circumference of the move, he too could be wherever — or whenever — the Island is now.

Michael the castaway traitor earned his redemption by staying with the bomb. Moments before the blast, however, he heard the Whispers. Looking around, he noticed what appeared to be a videocamera in one corner (was it on?) and the ghost of Christian Shephard in the other. ”You can go now, Michael.” Then: Boom!

As for Ben, we now know how he wound up in his Dharma parka in the Tunisian desert at the start of ”The Shape of Things to Come”: Apparently, that’s where he landed after he moved the Island. The date: October 24, 2005, or about 10 months from when Ben moved the Island. So…where did the Island go? Nowhere. My guess is that it’s in the same spot where it’s always been — it just rematerialized in reality 10 months in the future, just like Ben.

Let’s blow through the rest of the episode quickly:

THE CREEPY KATE DREAM (?) SCENE

According to a sound file sent to me by reader Russ Boyd, the backward voice on Kate’s phone said, ”The island needs you….You have to go back before it’s too late.” The dream encounter with Ghost Claire — who told Kate, ”Don’t bring him back” — suggests that each of the Oceanic 6 is getting a ghost to haunt him or her. Kate and Aaron get Claire; Jack gets Christian; Sun would get Jin (though I hope not); Sayid would get (?) (he’s clearly the flaw in my theory); and Hurley has Charlie and…

”CHECKMATE, MR. EKO”

My other favorite line of the night — even Sayid seemed to smile. In Hurley’s second flash-forward scene, Sayid killed a mystery man keeping tabs on Hurley and persuaded the troubled castaway to come with him to a safer location. Hurley asked him if he was taking him back to the Island. Sayid said no. Was he telling the truth? Unresolved Season 4 Hurley Mystery: In the season premiere, Hurley told Jack he wished he had stayed with him instead of going with Locke. Now that you’ve seen all of season 4, if someone asked why Hurley felt that way, how would you respond?

HERE COMES THE SUN KING

The season finale included two great Sun moments: her out-of-her-skull hysteria over watching Jin’s apparent death and her attempt to form an alliance with Charles Widmore in the flash-forward future. (We finally got confirmation: Mr. Paik and Widmore are buddies. How much did Sun’s dad know about the Island before his daughter crashed there?) The anguish clearly established a lady with desire for vengeance — but who is she really after? Widmore? Ben? Jack?

THE LIE

After getting to the freighter for fuel, and then following the most suspenseful gas-pumping scene in recent pop-culture history, the Oceanic 6 (plus Lapidus and Desmond) took to the sky to escape the soon-to-explode freighter, then watched the Island disappear in a flash of light, and then crashed into the water. Everyone survived, thanks in large part to Jack. Repeating his lifesaving from the pilot, the good doc revived a waterlogged Desmond. Later that night, amid yet another conversation about miracles in which Jack flat-out denied the extraordinary event his two eyes had beheld earlier, the Island’s disappearance (this guy is as stubbornly scientific as Dana Scully), Lapidus spotted a boat approaching, evoking the Others’ tugboat advancing on the raft at the end of season 1. The castaways would soon learn that the boat belonged to a much friendlier entity, Penelope Widmore, setting up an emotional, smoochy reunion between the two time-tossed constants. But before that happened, Jack came around to Locke’s way of thinking: They would have to lie. About everything. The plane crash, the Island, their friends. I had a little trouble following the logic. The primary motivation for covering up is to protect their friends. But how can they even be sure if their friends still exist? I just wish Jack had rallied around the best, simplest argument for lying: No one would ever believe the truth. Of course, there’s a whole psychological theory for why someone like Jack would concoct this lie — but that’s analysis for another day.

THE COFFIN

Why is Locke in it? Why is he calling himself Jeremy Bentham? How did he get off the Island? Did he really kill himself? What happened on the Island after he left? How are Ben and Jack going to motivate their friends to go back to the trippy tropics — with a dead body in tow, no less? What are Ben’s ideas? And was it me, or did Ben did look unnaturally Alpertesque young? Do ex-Islanders start aging backward once they leave?

My mind, as you can tell, is now mush. I’m going to let it congeal, then think anew and return next week with more cogent analysis. It’s been a blast TV Watching with you this season; I hope to see you again in this space in eight months.

Until then, a prediction: I’ll bet you 20 bucks that either the teaser or the final scene of the season 5 premiere episode will feature one character — I’m betting Sawyer — renewing one of the oldest Lost mysteries by repeating the iconic question of the pilot episode. As they wrap their minds around the riddle of their mysteriously displaced Island, Sawyer — or someone — absolutely must say:

”Guys…where are we?”

BONG!

– By Jeff Jensen of EW.com

Harrison Ford returns to play the familiar role of Indiana Jones in this summer’s 4th installment of the Indiana Jones franchise: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Not great cinema but it’s great fun and good to have old friends back

You know you’re dealing with Indy-sized entertainment when surviving an atomic bomb blast is a minor plot point.

Harrison Ford’s intrepid archeologist manages this feat and much more in his stirring new relic hunt, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Indy IV for short), which had its global debut at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday in advance of its Thursday theatrical release.

But a greater threat awaits offscreen: the impossibly high expectations of fans who have been jonesing for 19 years for the fourth instalment of this beloved adventure franchise.

Whether Indy wriggles out of that scrape depends on viewers counting their blessings rather than quibbling over details. Moviegoers will likely find, as many critics did here, that Indy IV is great fun without necessarily being great cinema.

It’s a solid summer blockbuster, in other words, just like its three predecessors.

All involved in it are working at the top of their game: director Steven Spielberg, series mastermind George Lucas, screenwriters David Koepp (Spider-Man, Jurassic Park) and Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can), plus actors both familiar (Ford, Karen Allen) and new to the series (Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone and John Hurt).

Think of Indy IV as a toy crafted by expert jewellers and you won’t be far off the mark, even if its theme is – on the face of it – anything but child’s play.

The story is set in 1957, post-World War II and in the thick of paranoia over the Cold War and “Red Menace,” atomic aggression, McCarthy witch hunts and celestial visitations from little grey men.

Add to this some heavy mythology about supernatural crystal skulls in a temple deep within the South American jungle and you have a very convoluted plot, one that might leave kids (and Indy newcomers) scratching their noggins. (Note to parents: melting faces and man-eating ants may make this a little too intense for tots.)

But what a pleasure it is to watch all this talent at work and play. Rather than pretend Indy hasn’t aged a day since he rode off into the sunset at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the story capitalizes on the good humour of Ford, 65, and Allen, 56, reuniting as older and not necessarily wiser versions of the squabbling romancers they played in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the 1981 series debut.

They both look great, better than most people their age, and the movie is also a triumph of old-school artistry: Spielberg insisted that most of the heroics be done for real, using stunt performers rather than CGI, so Indy IV retains the same feel as movies made in the pre-digital age. So does the familiar Indiana Jones theme by John Williams, which you will undoubtedly be whistling as you exit the theatre.

Yet the film introduces some welcome new faces. LaBeouf, Hollywood’s hot It Boy, is terrific as Mutt, the motorbike-riding and switchblade-snapping greaser who teams with Jones in twin quests for lost friends and family, and also for the meaning of the crystal skulls. LaBeouf would make an excellent successor to Ford, should the Indiana Jones series continue without the original man in the fedora.

Blanchett, she of a thousand faces and voices, follows her stellar Bob Dylan impersonation of I’m Not There with sexy sword-swishing KGB villain Irina Spalko, for whom obtaining the crystal skulls is both a matter of career advancement and intellectual curiosity.

British journeymen Ray Winstone and John Hurt are good fun in their respective roles of George “Mac” McHale and Prof. “Ox” Oxley, old Indy accomplices who get their pal into and out of trouble.

The whip doesn’t always snap sharply. As nice as it is to see Allen reprising her role as Marion Ravenwood, who loves both Indy and adventure, her screen time is brief (she doesn’t show up until near the one-hour mark) and her role is awkward and underwritten.

There’s also a feeling of déjà vu about the story, partly because it’s the fourth time around for Indy, partly because the best gags have already been used for the trailer, and partly because so many similar movie adventurers have followed in Indy’s wake.

The second half of Indy IV seems a lot like the second half of the recent National Treasure sequel, and the movie also has some of the campy tone of The Pirates of the Caribbean series. There’s even a nod to Caddyshack in a running gag about curious gophers.

But the two previous sequels, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, also seemed less fresh than the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was intended as an homage to 1930s movie serials.

For those keeping score at home, I’d rank Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as a tie for second place in the series: on a par with Last Crusade and above Temple of Doom, while falling a respectable distance short of the high mark set by Raiders.

In short, Indy IV may not entirely be the grand return that everyone had hoped for, but it’s still great to see a good old friend come around again.

– by Peter Howell, Movie Critic for the Toronto Star

No Da Vinci Curse

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull earned a respectful – though far from glowing – reception yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival, avoiding the sort of thrashing the event’s harsh critics gave to The Da Vinci Code two years ago.

Fans at the early afternoon showing cheered and clapped wildly as the screening was about to start. The applause at the end was more subdued.

Still, the film received none of the derisive laughter or catcalls that mounted near the end of Da Vinci’s first press screening.

“The movie was absolutely effective enough to score with audiences everywhere,” said Anne Thompson, deputy editor of Hollywood trade paper Variety. “This played way better than Da Vinci Code.”

– Associated Press

NUMBERS, PLEASE! Hurley can’t lose those digits

The Oceanic 6 present their cover story to the press but have to face their old demons; plus Ben and Locke try to move the island

Ominous signs of impending doom abounded in last night’s Lost. There was Flash-Forward Hurley’s T-shirt, the one that said ”Ace of Spades” — the death card, the card of war. There were also his accursed Lotto numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42), taunting him from the speedometer of his symbolically loaded Camaro, causing the soon-to-be loony-bin returnee to run like a proverbial madman. And there was the Orchid, our newest Dharma station, also known as ”the greenhouse,” perhaps the most foreboding omen of all. Operation Greenhouse was the code name for America’s A-bomb testing program in the South Pacific during the 1950s — a terrifying allusion in an episode where we learned that the freighter is a ticking bomb and that ”moving the Island” could be a perilous, possibly catastrophic endeavor. ”Doing it is both dangerous and unpredictable,” said a glibly cryptic Ben. ”It’s a measure of last resort.” Whatever it is that the Orchid can do, it was enough to cause Faraday to make an I-think-I-just-peed-myself face: ”We have to get off this island,” he told Charlotte. ”Right now.”

It’s probably premature to be jumping to conclusions about what any of this could mean: We’ve only seen part 1 of ”No Place Like Home”; the rest of it will air in two weeks. Then again, since when have these recaps been governed by common sense? ”No place like home” comes from The Wizard of Oz, of course, though the line is actually found in (Numbers alert!) chapter 4 of L. Frank Baum’s book, not at the end as in the Judy Garland movie. The title of that chapter? ”The Road Through the Forest.” Perfectly fitting for an episode that saw much jungle trekking and emphasized the importance of following carefully marked if treacherous paths, be it the route from freighter to beach or the scripted lines of the Oceanic 6 cover story. The episode ended with Ben getting knocked out in the greenhouse — and whaddya know, if we continue to use the Numbers as a guide, chapter 8 of Oz, ”The Deadly Poppy Field,” finds Dorothy passing out in a field of flowers. Perhaps the two-hour finale will correlate with chapter 15 (could ”The Discovery of Oz the Terrible” = Jacob?), chapter 16 (could ”The Magic Art of the Great Humbug” = Ben’s twisty, tricky secret plan?), chapter 23 (could ”The Good Witch Grants Dorothy’s Wish” = Charlotte fulfilling her promise to Jin to make sure Sun gets away), and chapter 24, which is 42 backwards (”Home Again” is clearly a reference to reincarnation/eternal-recurrence theory — I mean, clearly). (You’re going to miss me during the impending hiatus, aren’t you?)

Factoring in the flash-forward story, the second to last episode of the season mirrored the second episode of the season, ”Confirmed Dead.” Where that story whooshed into the near pasts of five new characters (Faraday, Charlotte, Miles, Lapidus, dead Naomi), ”No Place Like Home” whooshed into the near futures of five familiar faces: Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, and Sun. Moreover, each of their scenes was tethered to iconic life-trajectory markers. We had Hurley’s birthday. We had the Sayid-Nadia romantic union. We had pregnant Sun’s fortune-making career move. We had Jack eulogizing his dead (?) father. ”No Place Like Home” cycled through the whole circle of life — and, possibly, beyond, if I’m reading the winks and clues correctly. I’ll explain as I recap.

THE MEMBATA AIRLIFT

The episode began with the Oceanic 6’s turbulent flight home. I’m not talking about the choppy air: I’m talking about the underlying tension aboard that Coast Guard rescue plane. From the jittery copilot rubbing his rabbit’s foot because of his bad-luck passengers (”the cargo back there…bad mojo”) to antsy Jack almost conspiratorially coaching his fellow Oceanic 6 members on the press conference to come. Jack seemed desperately invested in the bundle of lies the Oceanic 6 was about to spew. Why? As for the others, they were admittedly shell-shocked by…something. What? For a bunch of rescued castaways, their saggy body language screamed defeat instead of euphoria. There was also a slight whiff of disappointment with Jack. I wonder: In the denouement to come, will Jack’s sweaty, desperate zeal to fulfill his exit-strategy oath lead to shocking choices that will cost him their respect?

Regardless, these preoccupations were washed away when the plane reached Hawaii and the castaways met their families. The theme song could have been Paul Simon’s ”Mother and Child Reunion,” for it was the moms who got most of the love. Sun and her mom. Jack and his mom. Hurley and his mom. Cheech got an affectionate pat, but Mr. Paik didn’t even get a glance from Sun. Sayid was sidelined, though not for long; Hurley shared his family with him. But Kate and Aaron — poser mother and orphan Island child — stood alone and awkward. (By the way, I loved the wink-wink of the Oceanic Airlines publicist’s saying, ”They’re referring to you as the Oceanic 6. It’s not the best branding as far as we’re concerned, but it’s catchy.” For those of you who felt ABC didn’t play fair with its O6 puzzle marketing — Aaron wasn’t technically an Oceanic 815 passenger! — consider this your apology.)

HITLER WAS WRONG

”The Big Lie” is a propaganda conceit — attributed to Hitler — that argues that the bigger and more perverse the lie, the more people are likely to believe it. (Yes, I have reason for dragging Hitler into this; the Oceanic Airlines publicist, Mrs. Decker, shares her last name with Nazi flack Will Decker.) But the Oceanic 6 spin strategy went the other way: presenting a credible substitute for their utterly incredible situation. Decker gave us the overview. Oceanic 815 crashed in the Indian Ocean south of Indonesia. Eight people survived and made it to an uninhabited island called Membata. According to one online dictionary, ”membata-bata” in Indonesian means “ambivalent.” As in The post-rescue demeanor of the Oceanic 6—profoundly conflicted; hearts divided — is a compelling definition of ambivalence. On day 108, six of them made it to the inhabited island of Sumba. And that was that. Not one word of ghosts, polar bears, or smoke monsters. (Interesting fact about the inhabitants of Sumba: They’re known for their megalithic burials, in giant stone crypts. Megaliths usually bear symbols called ”cup and ring marks,” pervasive throughout prehistoric cultures; they resemble a series of concentric circles, just like the Oceanic Airways logo, or a spiral, just like the Orchid logo, spotted in Faraday’s notebook. These symbols reflect the belief of earlier cultures that there is spirit inside earthly substance, that all is connected, that time is eternally recurring. Or these markings could be some early Martha Stewart’s good idea of sprucing up a crypt.)

The Oceanic 6 had some curious things to share personally, too. Jack embellished the cover story with some survival-at-sea detail. Hurley defused a question about their healthy appearance by humorously accusing the reporter of commenting on his weight. (He also boldly announced he was giving up his restored lotto winnings.) Sayid flatly denied that any of the other castaways had survived. Sun seemed to struggle the most as she reluctantly, bitterly claimed that Jin never made it off the plane. But Kate’s lie had the most readily apparent implications. She claimed Aaron was her child — and tacitly confirmed a reporter’s conclusion that she was five or six months pregnant when she got on the plane. One would think that this claim could be easily disproved; time will tell if anyone investigates. Just as intriguing, Kate’s story messes up a lot of fan theories — including my own — that the Oceanic 6 would leave the Island by way of the anomaly and move forward in time. But who knows? Maybe when Locke reboots the space-time continuum with Orchid magic, we’ll get a new timeline that helps Kate’s yarn — and saves our theories.

A STITCH IN JACK’S SIDE = A STITCH IN TIME?

One of my favorite scenes in the episode was the sequence in which Jack and Kate stopped for a water break as they chased after Lapidus’ chopper. Kate noticed that Jack was bleeding from his appendix suture. He tried to pass it off as a harmless routine infection. Kate nailed him with that great line about Jack’s knack for lying like a politician by looking you straight in the eye.

But the scene started getting really interesting when Miles stumbled into it, resulting in a guns-drawn encounter that echoed their first meeting in ”Confirmed Dead.” Then Sawyer came bumbling in carrying baby Aaron. In the span of a couple lines, Sawyer quoted the concept of ”déjà vu” and likened Jack to a ”broken record.” Given how reincarnation and eternal-recurrence theories gained considerable traction last week with Richard Alpert’s Dalai Lama test of John Locke, hearing ” déjà vu” and ”broken record” in a sequence that deliberately echoed another scene in a previous episode — well, it’s enough to make you wonder if Lost was trying to tell us something. Or maybe it was just playing with us. Or maybe just me. Maybe Lost is a lot like the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, duping people into thinking his city is made of glittering emerald by making them wear dazzling, green-tinted glasses. In truth, his city was made of plain old white marble. I just got severely depressed writing those sentences. Back on with my crazy glasses!

Seriously, though: None of this has to do with why I loved the scene. I dug the Jack-Sawyer tension as much as anyone. How about Sawyer rubbing it in Jack’s face about how Locke was right concerning the freighter people? And how about Jack striking back by accusing the rogue of running away? But I dug it even more when these two put the sniping aside, find common ground, and play Superman and Batman together — in this case, saving Hurley from mad Island mystics Ben and Locke. I’ve always been a sucker for the rivals-who-become-allies arc in any kind of story. Rushing off to help Jack, Sawyer quipped, ”You don’t get to die alone.” Perfect.

OTHER STUFF

Sun’s hostile takeover of Paik Industries
In one of the evening’s most surprising developments, we learned that Flash-Forward Sun leveraged her settlement from Oceanic Airlines to buy a controlling interest in her father’s company. Her motivation: getting his respect. and possibly revenge. She held him responsible for Jin’s death and for putting both of them on the plane. Depending on how you interpret her lines, she seemed to imply he deliberately conspired to kill them, as if he knew the plane was going to crash. (She also said that Paik was one of two people she holds responsible for Jin’s current corporal status, whatever that might be. Do you think she meant Paik was/is in cahoots with someone else? Maybe Charles Widmore?) But in the words of my own father, who watched the episode with me last night, ”that must be one big freakin’ Oceanic settlement.” It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Sun is receiving additional financial support from other sources, like Ben, or even Hurley. Heck, maybe the Orchid isn’t hiding a time machine like everyone thinks. Maybe the dirty little secret of Dharma was that it was actually a secret gold-mining operation, and the Orchid was where the finished bricks were stored. The Oceanic 6 found the gold, took it, and are now drawing upon it to rebuild their lives and settle old scores with wretched enemies.

”Jesus Christ is not a weapon”
This line, from Hurley’s mother, just as he was about to club her — and his surprise party guests — with a gold-plated Jesus figurine. ”Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?” Hurley muttered to himself over and over again, evidencing an aspect of psychological ambivalence: the divided self. But what was up with the blinged-up Jesus? It conjured memories of the heroin-stuffed Virgin Mary idols, themselves complex allusions to Marx’s idea that religion is the opiate of the masses. So was ”Jesus Christ is not a weapon” a political statement? A reminder in an election year that Christianity should be a pursuit of spiritual experience, not a party platform or fuel for neo-imperialism? Or maybe it’s a clue — a marker, pointing to the possibility that the Island throbs with life-after-death resurrection power. Or maybe it means nothing. Just askin’.

”When have you ever been entirely truthful?”
This line, from Locke, was my second favorite line of the night. It came just as Ben, Hurley, and Locke arrived at the Orchid and Ben confessed that he happened to know exactly why Charles Widmore wants possession of the Island. (My theory: Orchid time machine = key to eternal life.) ”I haven’t been entirely truthful,” Ben said. Then came Locke’s retort, which was followed by no response from Ben. I couldn’t tell if Ben was just ignoring Locke, or if his silence spoke volumes. But this is the fundamental question about Ben, isn’t it? Why does he does do what he does? Is he some kind of Machiavellian Ben Kenobi, ruthlessly molding his Luke Skywalker for a showdown with a phantom menace that Locke was destined to fight? (I definitely got a Star Wars vibe as Ben almost heroically walked into the greenhouse to create the distraction needed for Locke to get into the lower levels of the Orchid.) Then again, maybe Ben is just plain evil. Maybe he’s leading Locke to destruction by bringing him to the Orchid — just like the evil magician Professor Hinkle led Frosty the Snowman to his death by trapping him inside a greenhouse, melting him down so he can steal back his enchanted hat. Or maybe his motives are more self-destructive. Maybe Ben wants out of the crummy Island life that was always meant for Locke — so he’s manipulating Locke toward changing history and negating his own timeline with the Orchid’s much-speculated time machine. Can I spin one more theory for you, this one inspired by the greenhouse scenes from In the Heat of the Night and Minority Report? No, you say? Move it along? Oh, well. Maybe next recap.

Other momentous things happened. Jack capped off an episode of telling lies to himself and others by saying he loved his father and missed him. Seriously? So much for honestly processing and exorcising the daddy demons on the Island. There was also that great scene when he met Claire’s mom and learned that Aaron’s mother was actually his half sister. What was going through Jack’s mind at that moment? How about I’m guilt-racked over leaving so many people behind. Some of them intentionally. And now I learn one of them was my sister? I am scum! I triple-loathe myself now! We saw Jin and Sun reach the freighter and have a tense reunion with Michael. We learned that Keamy rigged the boat with explosives; most likely, that gizmo he taped to his arm last week will set it off should his pulse stop pulsing. And Richard Alpert and the Others popped out of the woodwork like the cavalry-cum-Robin Hood and his Merry Men! In short, a lot to talk about — so get talking. And see you in two weeks.

– by Jeff Jensen of EW.com

Waterloo, Ontario-based Research In Motion released information on its latest BlackBerry smartphone, its first 3G or third-generation GSM device, the Bold

In an effort to prove it’s more than just a multi-functional workhorse, BlackBerry is jazzing up its personal style.

Yesterday Research in Motion Ltd. launched the new BlackBerry Bold. And it was obvious from the moment the veil was lifted that the company is elevating its cool, urban style.

Through its various incarnations – first the Pearl, then the Curve – the BlackBerry has always been the serious, hard-working type. Particularly when compared to its main competitor in the U.S., Apple’s iPhone – the fun-loving party animal of the smart phone category.

And while BlackBerry still touts speed, power and functionality as its best assets, now it’s also what’s on the outside that counts.

The BlackBerry Bold, expected to hit the market this summer, has been enthusiastically described as elegant, dramatic and vivid, even confident.

The exterior is jet black with a satin chrome-finish frame and a leather-like backplate. Its QWERTY keyboard has also been redesigned. RIM is calling the BlackBerry Bold “a symbol of accomplishment and aspiration.”

The new BlackBerry marries the functional world of technology to the cool world of fashion.

Some, like Toronto realtor Kara Reed, rely on a BlackBerry for immediate access to the outside world and she’s unconcerned about its looks. But for Holt Renfrew’s Barbara Atkin, it’s important that the device look “fierce” when she sets it on a restaurant table.

RIM is banking on the Bold’s slick appearance, as much as its upgraded features, to win over style-conscious consumers.

“As a culture, we are into smart design. It has to work for us. But it also has to be sexy,” says Atkin, vice-president of fashion direction for Holt Renfrew.

Atkin’s Pearl is permanently welded to her hand. “It’s a live product. I am constantly communicating with it. So it should look good.”

Les Minion, president of Hugo Boss Canada, agrees. “There’s always a group of people looking for something more – more modern, sleeker.”

He believes men approach such devices the same way they approach cars and watches. “It’s not about the price. It’s about the innovation, the newness. It’s about people who are addicted to the specifics.”

Reed isn’t convinced new means better. The sales representative for Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd. is brand-loyal. She has owned five BlackBerrys since they were first introduced.

“I’m a text-er,” she says. For Reed her BlackBerry does it all. “I don’t really care what it looks like as long as it does its job.”

Reed says she has closed a lot of deals with her BlackBerry. And that’s good enough.

For her, looks would never be a deal breaker.

– by David Graham of the Toronto Star