Something was lost when music moved to a digital format. Not to MP3, but CDs. The move from cassette players to CD players practically killed the boombox. Sony's disc Walkman put headphones in our ears, and since then the only place we share music is in the car. That's why the Philips Fidelio DS8550 is all John Cusack would need in a remake of Say Anything.more>>&...

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Tags: gadget review

Muammar Gaddafi says he wants to negotiate with Nato powers, as air strikes hit government complex in Libyan capitalMuammar Gaddafi called for a mutual ceasefire and negotiations with Nato powers in a live speech on state TV early on Saturday, while Nato bombs struck a government complex in the Libyan capital.The targeted compound included the state television building, which was not damaged. Gaddafi spoke from an undisclosed location.In his rambling pre-dawn speech, the Libyan leader appeared subdued but defiant, repeatedly pausing as he flipped through handwritten notes.more>>&...

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Tags: politic

The monarchy sidesteps the awkwardness of patriotism and allows us to feel a rare British prideWhat memory will live on? For those who lined the Mall, painting their faces red, white and blue, or who just stayed home watching on television — what will they remember? The kiss on the balcony will be the image replayed in perpetuity, just as it was when William's mother and father married 30 years ago — the difference being that this time they looked like a couple genuinely in love. Others will talk about the pageantry, a show no one lays on quite like the British. It's a fair bet that almost no one will remember the words. Even the eyes of the wedding couple wandered during the spoken bits.more>>&...

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Tags: artist

Peter Moss, a British travel writer, was among 16 victims of a remote-controlled nail bomb explosion at a busy tourist cafeA British travel writer and novelist has been named among the 16 victims of a terrorist bomb explosion at a busy tourist cafe in Marrakech.Peter Moss, 59, was at the Argana cafe in the popular Jamaa el-Fnaa square when a remote-controlled nail bomb was detonated at lunchtime.A video released before the attack by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb reportedly claimed responsibility, with terrorism experts saying the group was one of several likely candidates.Moss, a father-of-two, was a writer, broadcaster and comedian, who had earned praise for several screenplays and novels including The Singing Tree and The Age of Elepha...

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Tags: news

Technical fault in the power unit derails launch during countdown to liftoffThe penultimate space shuttle launch was postponed on Friday because of mechanical problems, dashing the hopes of the biggest crowd of spectators in years, including the mission commander's wife, Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who survived an assassination attempt earlier this year.Nasa hopes to try again to send space shuttle Endeavour on its final voyage on Monday.President Barack Obama and his family visited Kennedy Space Centre anyway and met Giffords, who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head and has been in Cape Canaveral since Wednesday to attend her husband's launch.The White House said Obama saw Giffords for about 10 minutes before...

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Tags: tech

Since the 1950s, scientists have been striving to create computers that can think like humans. And each year they pit their efforts against a panel of real humans. Brian Christian went head to hard drive...It's early September and I wake up in a Brighton hotel, the sea crashing just outside. In a few hours, I will embark on what I have come here to do: have a series of five-minute-long instant-message exchanges with strangers. It may not sound like much, but the stakes for these quick chats are high. On the other side of the conversation will be a psychologist, a linguist, a broadcaster and a computer scientist. Together they will form a judging panel, evaluating my ability to do one of the strangest things I've been asked to do: convince...

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Tags: tech

One minute Jesse Eisenberg was a small-time actor in indie movies, the next he was starring in the film that defined a decade. He talks about life after The Social Network and why he'll never be comfortable with successFrom a certain perspective, Jesse Eisenberg's acting career resembles a darkly ironic cosmic joke, with Eisenberg as the victim. The story goes like this: you are a shy and awkward child, deeply uncomfortable in your skin. Then, one day, you discover acting, which you find "enormously comforting". Performing a prescribed role soothes your paralysing self-consciousness; hiding inside a character, you get the attention you crave, minus the deer-in-the-headlights panic of trying to "be yourself". Unsurprisingly, you prove particularly...

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Tags: artist

One family holiday was enough to leave our resident chef well and truly hooked on his very own spice odysseyFew temptations could winkle me out of my own corner of England during a warm spring or hot summer. For one thing, the exquisite tyranny of the fruit and veg plot demands so much of my time (I give it willingly, of course). And for another, I happen to think there are few more beautiful places on earth.Try me in January or February, though, and I'm not waving my union flag quite so enthusiastically. In fact, I'm easily lured away by the romantic notion of tropical heat. And tropical fruits (in the widest sense of the word). This winter, we spent some time in Sri Lanka doing a bit of diving, plenty of fishing and some...

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Tags: cuisine

Twenty years after her assault at a college party, Liz Seccuro received a letter of apology from her attacker. The correspondence that followed led her to pursue justice at lastIt was late summer 2005 and we were about to set out on an extended vacation with our two-year-old daughter, Ava. "Hey, you got a letter," said my husband Mike, tossing it to me like a Frisbee. It smelled faintly of vanilla, nice paper. I ripped it open and began to read the very precise, almost feminine cursive script.Dear Elizabeth:In October 1984 I harmed you. I can scarcely begin to understand the degree to which, in your eyes, my behaviour has affected you in its wake. Still, I stand prepared to hear from you about just how, and in what ways you've been affected;...

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Tags: story

'In the early years I tried leaving many times, but my husband would threaten to kill me and I was demoralised enough to believe him'When my husband John died from double pneumonia at the age of 54, I was relieved. It felt like a paving slab had been lifted from my head. We'd been married for 30 years, and for the last 10 of those, I hadn't been outside our five-bedroom house in Northampton.I left school at 15, which most people did in those days, and got a job as a waitress, which I loved. The cafe was next door to a cinema where John worked as a projectionist. I knew from the moment we met he was terribly insecure. He had ginger hair, walked with a limp and had been badly bullied as a child. But I hoped my love...

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Tags: story

Protest groups claim Facebook has taken down dozens of pages over the weekend in a purge of activists' accountsFacebook has removed dozens of profiles from its site, causing an outcry from campaigners trying to organise anti-austerity protests this weekend.The deactivated pages include UK Uncut, and pages created by students during last December's university occupations.A list posted on the Stop Facebook Purge group says Chesterfield Stop the Cuts, Tower Hamlet Greens, London Student Assembly, Southwark SoS and Bristol Uncut sites are no longer functioning.more>>&...

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Tags: facebook

Forget republicanism – the closest Britain got to a revolution is people pushing down barricades and rushing to the palaceWhether it was history repeating itself as history, or farce repeating itself as farce, depends entirely on your point of view. The marriage of His Royal Highness Prince William to Catherine Middleton was washed down by that cocktail of fevered excitement and irate lack of interest that constitutes public opinion these days – so consider it a day when the country split into two, with each side accusing the other of madness. Much like a standard marital row, in fact.But along with binge-drinking and misplaced self-regard, royal occasions are something at which Britain is undeniably world class, and anyone still poised for...

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Tags: artist

Considering the huge guest list, the crowds, and the massed ranks of cameras, the royal wedding proved an intimate affairConsidering the size of the audience, the two sets of trumpeters, two choirs and several of the most senior clerics in the land, the presence of the entire British royal family, 45 crowned heads from around the world and a guest list stretching to nearly 2,000, it was quite an intimate wedding. And, confounding all the understandable fears, nerves and precautions, it went off without a hitch.Miss Catherine Middleton of Bucklebury, Berkshire went into Westminster Abbey at 11am and came out an hour and a quarter later, holding the hand of the second in line to the throne as Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge – she...

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Tags: artist

Anti-terrorist officers from several countries comb site for clues to who was behind remote control deviceAnti-terrorist experts from several countries have been sifting through the wreckage of the Marrakech cafe where 15 people died on Thursday, as officials said a remote control bomb caused the blast.A video released before the attack by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack, with terrorism experts saying the group was one of several likely candidates.While police from both Morocco and Spain could be seen working at the wrecked cafe in Jamaa el-Fnaa Square, friends and family of the victims gathered at the city's Ibn Tofail hospital.more>>&...

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Tags: news

• 24 killed in Deraa after thousands take to streets• UN approves inquiry into government violenceThousands of Syrians defied their government's bloody attempts to suppress protests, braving gunfire from security forces to demonstrate in Damascus and across the country.Initial reports said at least 24 people had been shot dead, most of them in the opposition stronghold of Deraa, where villagers tried to break through the security cordon to relieve its besieged population.Further deaths were reported in Latakia and Homs after the security forces opened fire on demonstrators. There was news of protests in 50 towns and villages including Hama, Aleppo, the coastal cities of Latakia and Banias, Deir Ezzor in the east, and Qamishli in the north-east....

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Tags: politic

Esther Addley discovers that sharp elbows are the weapons of choice for position-protecting royalistsOne doesn't choose to spend the night on the pavement, wrapped in a union flag and wearing a Burger King cardboard crown, for the quality of the rest, and so the huddled forms stretched out on the Mall were in no position to complain about the impromptu bursts of God Save the Queen, some time before 5am.What does matter a great deal, however, is the view. And so any attempt to step over an occupied sleeping bag and into a prime spot was policed ferociously by the early arrivals on behalf of their neighbours.more>>&...

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Tags: news, story

Intelligence analyst suspected of passing government secrets to WikiLeaks has undergone a medical and mental evaluationThe intelligence analyst suspected of illegally passing government secrets to the WikiLeaks website has been found competent to stand trial, the U.S. Army has said.Spokesman Gary Tallman says a panel of experts completed its medical and mental evaluation of Bradley Manning on April 22, and had informed Army officials of the conclusion.Tallman says no date has been set yet for the initial court hearing, and added that the evaluation board's findings "have no bearing on the guilt, innocence, or any potential defences of the accused."Manning's case is under the jurisdiction of the Army's Military District of Washington.The Army...

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Tags: sport

Attempt by Libya loyalist soldiers to retake a key crossing from rebel hands leads to border skirmish with Tunisian forcesThe Libyan civil war has briefly spilled into Tunisia as the west of the country saw heavy fighting on two fronts and Nato reported that Muammar Gaddafi's forces were laying anti-shipping mines in the sea off Misrata.Loyalist troops made incursions over the border into Tunisia in a battle to retake a key crossing from rebel hands, drawing condemnation from Tunis.Libyan soldiers were captured by Tunisian forces after firing indiscriminately in clashes that lasted about 90 minutes, according to reports. Witnesses said three Tunisians were injured.more>>&...

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Tags: news, politic

New York festival honours Man and Boy but top awards go to Swedish and Israeli directorsA British film about the death of a suspected paedophile has won the award for best narrative short at the Tribeca film festival in New York.Man and Boy, which was directed by David Leon and Marcus McSweeney, stars Eddie Marsan. It was inspired by the case of Scott Campbell, who fell to his death from a tower block in 2008 after trying to flee a mob who thought he had sexually assaulted a boy.The jury said: "The jury liked this film's marriage of brilliant acting, superb technical prowess and provocative subject matter. It's a movie memorable for upending expectations."There was another UK success at the festival when the British writer and director Jerry...

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Tags: movie

The former work and pensions secretary describes Blue Labour as the most interesting element of debate within the partyJames Purnell, the former work and pensions secretary, is to call on Labour to rethink its approach to welfare, relying less on cash transfers and instead offering guarantees of jobs and access to housing.He also proposes a revival of the contributory principle whereby a claimant's benefits are linked more closely to the amount they have put into the system. Describing "Blue Labour" as the most interesting element of the current debate within the party, he says it is central to understanding why the party lost so many voters – symbolised by Gillian Duffy, the Rochdale pensioner branded a bigot by Gordon Brown in the seminal...

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Tags: news

 Diehard royal fans celebrate Kate and William's nuptials but for most it's business as usual"He knocked off my fascinating!" cried Laura Martin, 55, in full evening dress complete with enormous jewelled brooch ("Fake – don't tell the Queen!") as she glared at a jogger disappearing towards the Hudson River, before stooping down to pick her fasincator off the sidewalk."It's a fascinate, Laura," said her friend, in a similarly implausible outfit for 6am. "Fascinate."It wasn't so much a tale of two cities in New York as a tale of two sides of the street. On one side of Greenwich Avenue stores were decked with union flag bunting in preparation for the afternoon's street party. People took fashion cues from Me and My Girl and Four Weddings...

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Tags: artist, fashion, movie, news