As far as specifications go, the Motorola XOOM zooms (sorry). It touts a spec brigade you could only dream of a year or two ago: a 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 10.1-inch WXGA 1280 x 800 resolution display, a 5-megapixel rear camera with 720p video recording, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, HDMI 1.4 out, 32GB of built-in storage, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, an accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope and even a barometer. The tablet also includes a microSD card slot, though it doesn’t function yet. Motorola tells us it will be enabled with an OTA software upgrade at some point in the future. Additionally, the Motorola XOOM will be fully upgradable to 4G for free for all customers, but we’re hearing users will need to ship your unit somewhere as opposed to walking into a Verizon Wireless store and having the upgrade performed there. This hasn’t yet been confirmed, however.

There are volume up and down keys on the left side of the tablet, a 3.5mm headset jack on top, a microUSB port, mini-HDMI out port, and… a charging port. That’s right, the Motorola XOOM is unable to be charged via traditional microUSB chargers or USB, and requires it’s own proprietary charger you have to lug around. The accessories that are available with the XOOM — such as the Standard Dock ($59.99)and Speaker HD Dock ($149.99) — will oddly charge the tablet through the microUSB port, however. The unlock / power on / off button is on the back of the device, and while it’s not the end of the world and I was able to locate it pretty quickly most of the time, it’s definitely not as easy as having it right in front of you.

Also of note, the battery on the Motorola XOOM is incredibly good. In standby mode, the tablet can go for days and days, and in my testing it came very close to matching the iPad in normal usage.

Random annoyance: in daily use, when picking up the XOOM, I can hear a weird clicking sound that comes from the back of the device. It’s extremely faint, though worth mentioning because it’s annoying. It’s possible that it’s just my review unit.
Display

The Motorola XOOM’s display is swathed in Gorilla Glass and is very bright (especially in manual mode; I noticed the tablet tends to err on the side of being too dim than too bright most of the time with auto-brightness enabled), and colors are rich. Text generally looks good, though pages rendered in the Web browser looked a bit blurry and unclear — and that includes photos as well as text. The touch sensitivity on the device was exceptionally good in my tests. It’s responsive and very accurate. Motorola seems to be using a new capacitive layer that’s different than the one it uses on its smartphones, and though we couldn’t get a photo of it due to lighting (it’s barely visible), you can faintly see little copper triangles overlaid on the display.

The black plastic bezel surrounding the display on the XOOM is a decent amount thinner than the bezel on an iPad, and while I like the idea of a thinner bezel, it makes holding the tablet in one hand pretty difficult due to the XOOM’s weight and thickness. I’m not saying the XOOM is thick and heavy, I’m just saying that the limited surface area to grip with your thumb makes one-handed use a tad uncomfortable.
OS

You can almost think of Android 3.0 Honeycomb as a brand new operating system for all intents and purposes, though it does run existing apps pretty well. As far as the UI goes, it’s dark and much more unified than any previous Android release. The home screen has five pages that form a sort of virtual wall of five boxes that are swipeable to the left and right. There’s an ever-present Google search button and voice search button in the upper left corner, and in the upper right corner is the button to open the apps drawer along with a button to add app shortcuts, widgets, or change the wallpaper of your home screen.

Navigation in the new OS is done exclusively using soft buttons that take a little getting used to. One plus is that they rotate with the display so they’re always in the same position (the bottom right), though not everyone will be a fan of these, we think. There is one button that didn’t make the cut in the transition to soft keys and that’s the menu button. It’s been removed because there is a menu button in the upper right corner in apps, and while it’s a little strange at first, it definitely works as part of the tablet experience as a whole.

Gmail and other apps with the two-column layout look and work incredibly well, and are desktop-grade in my opinion. Switching to the browser, and well, it’s pretty much like having a full-fledged Chrome browser on your tablet. Your bookmarks sync effortlessly, the browser renders pages very quickly. Adobe Flash support doesn’t ship on the device, contrary to the XOOM’s advertised specs, though it will be coming in the near future (10.2 instead of 10.1 in a couple weeks, most likely).

Notifications have been redone, and honestly, I’m a bit sad. I loved the drop down shade setup in Android, though I can see how it might not be that practical on a 10-inch tablet. Growl-like notifications now appear in the lower right corner of the device and will stack up on top of each other as they appear. Following each initial notification, messages then reduce to small icons that represent each message in the status bar. You can quickly get rid of notifications by tapping the “X” next to each one, and the remaining ones will fall on each other to fill any resulting gaps.

As much as Google’s OS has improved, I still found the software a bit clunky to use at times — not because of a lack of processing power or RAM, but because it’s not always as straight forward as alternative platforms. It’s almost as if Google decided to try and pack as much in as possible to advance the tablet category forward, yet I;m not sure it has succeeded entirely. I want a tablet that’s powerful and that works as it should with minimal effort, and I kind of feel like Honeycomb is a bit scattered for my taste.
Conclusion

I’m not sure how much better an Android tablet can get right now — and this is the first one we’ve reviewed here at BGR. The Motorola XOOM packs a serious punch, and doesn’t have room to store an ice pack. I love that Motorola has been pushing forward with innovate ideas and concepts, most notably with the ATRIX 4G, and the XOOM isn’t an exception. It features great hardware, impressive specifications, and the latest Android OS designed just for tablets. There are many things to rave about with the XOOM, though there were some annoyances and frustrations that stemmed from Google’s OS for the most part and not from Motorola’s hardware.

Tablets are the new craze, and while they are selling, I personally still don’t see a huge need to have a tablet. As a toy used to discover new and incredible apps, and to use for 20 or 30 minutes a day to read and catch up on Twitter or do some emailing, sure. But the XOOM definitely can’t replace a laptop. I think that the Motorola XOOM is a great product, I’m just not 100% sold on Honeycomb at this point as an operating system. I don’t believe it’s very innovative, and I don’t find it to be any better than alternatives in terms of ease of use, intuitiveness, or wide availability of apps.

The 16-room clinic, which is scheduled to open in January 2011, will be located in the tiny village of Béznar, in the Lecrín Valley, near the city of Granada not that far from Marbella and the Costa del Sol.

Martin, whose clients include world-famous pop celebrities and movie stars, hopes to attract a celebrity clientele to Béznar from  Marbella  and countries all over the world, particularly from Britain, the USA and his native Ireland.

The clinic will offer exclusive “holistic holidays” in which various complementary therapies and techniques – from acupuncture to Zen meditation – will be combined with activities including horse riding, sailing, skiing, scuba diving and golf, which sounds just great if you want to escape the hustle and bustle of Marbella.

The centre will also offer courses and seminars in mind training and personal and creative development and offers an ideal place for a weekend retreat.

Irish-born Zak Martin is one of the world’s foremost psychics, a leading figure in the New Age movement and a best-selling author he has been featured extensively on TV, radio and in the world press.

He made headlines in the UK for his psychic detection work with Scotland Yard, his role as advisor to famous pop singers and TV personalities, his friendship with Princess Diana, and his founding of the Mayfair Clinic of Holistic Medicine at York Street and the London Psychic Centre at Baker Street.

He is author of several books, including Quantum Perception, a scientific exploration of the mind and consciousness, and the worldwide best-selling guide to psychic growth, How to Develop your ESP (Harper-Collins).

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These are the games which invite you to tear around various historical and contemporary military locales shooting everything in sight while utilising an impressive array of weaponry and vehicles.
Plot and characterisation have rarely troubled the game designers unduly and increasingly, the repetitious nature of the single player missions has been leavened by the sophistication and scale of the online multiplayers.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the latest installment in the hit series that sees you take control of soldiers in far-flung locations such as Vietnam and Russia during the Cold War.

Despite the most complicated back story to date, Black Ops represents an incremental advance upon what has gone before, with the multiplayer’s attractions overshadowing the single player’s inadequacies more than ever. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the action begins with you, a macho American Special Operative called Alex Mason, being tortured by an invisible foe determined to establish the role you played in a bunch of controversial military engagements.

As the truth drugs kick in, Mason dredges up various memories – the Cold War, Bay Of Pigs era Cuba, Vietnam – and you are summarily plunged into them and tasked with staying alive, while blasting as many bad guys as you can.
Whatever the context and wherever the story takes you, the game remains more or less the same: kill, kill, torture, kill. You do this mostly with guns and grenades, sometimes in vehicles of varying sophistication and always in the knowledge that your victim will perish in ‘glorious’ Technicolor.

Napalm streaks the jungle as your Black Ops soldier launches yet another attack

There is nothing wrong with it exactly but neither is there anything spectacularly ‘right’, and the game’s popularity will doubtless be determined by the multiplayer. Here, thing get very exciting very quickly. Proper stealth and stalking skills are de rigeur, patience is more richly rewarded than an itchy trigger finger and immense effort has gone into improving almost every element of gameplay.

The star, though, is the setting – or rather settings. Myriad diverse battlefields, four distinct match types, 14 levels (some of them epic), and enough guns to keep the Tea Party’s most ardent activist happy. To cap it all, a new Theater mode which lets you keep, edit and fileshare 30 of your most cherished games.

The player mainly controls two characters: Special Forces operative Alex Mason and CIA agent Jason Hudson, both members of the Studies and Observations Group, a clandestine black operations unit tasked with carrying out critical missions behind enemy lines.

Many retailers have started a price war on the game with Asda offering it for just £4.97 if gamers trade in a recent title such as EA Sports’ Formula One. Blockbuster is selling Black Ops for just 99p but gamers must trade in two from a small list of recent releases.

By JAMES O’BRIEN

Judge Ricardo Puyol named the James Bond star as one of the individuals who must deposit the combined sum as surety in the probe into a number of property deals, including the 1998 sale of the actor’s beachfront mansion near Marbella, Spain.

Connery and his wife Micheline made £5.6 million in the sale but allegedly failed to pay £1.3 million to the local authority. The property was knocked down to allow for 72 luxury apartments to be built, despite planning permission for just five family houses. The condominiums were said to have yielded a £50 million profit.

Connery was given ten days to pay his undisclosed contribution or risk the impounding of personal assets, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The 80-year-old star failed to appear at a Spanish court to testify last month citing age and unspecified health problems.

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Joanna Lumley has revealed she will be reunited with Jennifer Saunders, 52, in a revival of the hit television sitcom.
The actress said she was in talks with Miss Saunders – who created the show – to bring back the champagne-guzzling, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking fashionistas for a comeback.

Even though the characters Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone would by now probably be pensioners, Miss Lumley said:
‘Jen wrote to me and said, “Let’s talk through it. What do you think?” And I said, “Bring it on.” Because we’re all still here.

‘Mother’s still alive – the wonderful June Whitfield. Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks, the basic five Js. We’re all still alive and available – ish – to do it, and I think we just have to do it.’

The final episode of the BBC show aired on Christmas Day in 2004 after seven successful years, from 1992 to 1996 and then from 2001 to 2004. Since then it has continued to be repeated on BBC2 and on satellite channels. The series, affectionately nicknamed Ab Fab, followed the lives of the fashion and fad-obsessed PR women who valued fame and fortune over everything else in their lives, including their families. They spent most of their time in Edina’s London home in swish Holland Park, where her daughter Saffy, played by Julia Sawalha, and senile mother, played by June Whitfield, would berate them for their childish and outrageous behaviour.

A revival of the sitcom would mark a much-anticipated return for Miss Saunders, 52, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Her husband, comic actor Adrian Edmondson, told the Daily Mail last month that she was still being treated for the disease.
He said: ‘No one gets the all-clear. The treatment lasts five years and we’re only a year into it.
‘The big chemotherapy’s finished and the radiotherapy’s finished. There’s this low-level treatment that carries on for five years, but you know from the beginning of the treatment when it’s going to stop.

‘So, there is no battle. I hate the word battle. You just get battered with a load of drugs. People want the words “trauma”, “battle” and “ life-changing”, but it’s not a great three-part TV drama full of moments, it’s a long grind, like a slow car crash that will last five years and then, hopefully, we’ll get out.’

A spokesman for Miss Saunders said: ‘Though there have been rumours circulating that the show is coming back, Jennifer will not be releasing any statements about it at this time.’

Bring A FAB back! Please.

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5th Avenue Ctra de Cadiz Km 175, (next to Dreamer’s) Puerto Banus 29660

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RockMelt, available for the first time today, is built on the premise that most online activity today revolves around socializing on Facebook and searching on Google

Down the side of each web page visited is a selection of each user’s most-used Facebook Friends and Twitter contacts.
The hype behind the project over the past few months has meant that an early version was launched today by invitation-only so its servers were not instantly overloaded.

A statement on the firm’s blog read: ‘With RockMelt we’ve re-thought the user experience because a browser can and should be about more than simply navigating Web pages. ‘Today, the browser connects you to your world. Why not build your world right into your browser?’

The browser makes it particularly easy to share links with friends by dragging pictures, URLS or videos onto one of the small photos, known as ‘edges’ that line the browser’s window. Because users have to sign in before they can use Rockmelt, all of your favourite sites, blogs and friends are listed when you log in.

The browser alerts you when a new story, video of post appears on the sites you visit the most without you having to leave the webpage you are currently on.

However the fact that your entire web search history, your friends and what sites you visit are known by RockMelt will alarm some still wary of handing over personal information to tech firms with a poor record of data protection.
The firm claims that this browsing information will not be sold to advertisers from targeted ad campaigns based on a user’s interests.

RockMelt is designed to minimize the need to roam from one website to the next through the use of drop-down windows
The way you search on the internet is also different instead of a whole page of search results from Google, only the first ten results come up displaying the web page of each result before you click on it.

After Facebook users log on RockMelt with their Facebook account information, the person’s profile picture is planted in the browser’s left hand corner and a list of favorite friends can be displayed in the browser’s left hand pane. There’s also a built-in tool for posting updates in a pop-up box.

The features extend beyond Facebook and Twitter. RockMelt includes a tool that shows results from Google searches in a drop-down box that can be scrolled through to peruse the recommended websites in the main part of the browser. The browser’s right-hand pane is reserved for listing favourite websites, with automatic notifications whenever they get fresh information on them.

RockMelt stores each user’s preferences on a remote server, making them available on any computer that has the browser installed on its hard drive. Although its backers hail the browser as a breakthrough, RockMelt is borrowing some technology and ideas from other sources. Another browser called Flock has been trying to tap into the online social scene for the past five years.

No browser has come close to surpassing Internet Explorer, despite various challenges through the years. Internet Explorer still holds a roughly 60 per cent market share, according to the research firm Net Applications.
The Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox, which drew upon Netscape, ranks second at 23 per cent followed by Chrome at about 9 per cent.

RockMelt is starting off with a modest goal: it hopes to attract 1 million users as it extends invitations to people interested in trying the browser. Requests can be made through http://www.rockmelt.com. Come on guys give it ago.

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Here at justfortheguys websites we applaud all those high flyers that build organizations, run profitable companies create wealth and employment for others its like music to our ears.

But what we cannot abide condone  or indeed understand is how Barclays can set aside £4.2bn for the salary and bonus pot at its investment wing for the first nine months of 2010 even though profits are falling at an incredible rate.
Barclays is set to hand its high-flying investment bankers a 17per cent pay rise this year to an average of more than £220,000

At the current rate, it is on track to lavish an average of £222,773 on the 25,000 employees at the Barclays Capital division – compared to a typical pay-out of £191,000 in 2009. Top traders and dealmakers will receive seven-figure bonus cheques for their efforts – despite a plunge in its profits of more than three quarters between July and September.
This hefty pay increase makes a mockery of the bank’s claims that the rewards at its so-called ‘casino’ division are inextricably linked to performance and profitability

The TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber stated that it takes a special kind of arrogance to increase bank bonuses when your bank is making less profit and the rest of us are in an age of austerity. We believe that the government has been sending out the wrong signals, that its going soft on the banks and this is the inevitable result.’

News came of the rewards just days after bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland signaled that its investment bankers are on course for pay and bonus packages of £145,510 this year. Lord Oakeshott, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: ‘Big banks’ profits go up and down, but big bankers pay just goes up and up its now transparency time all banks should  disclose all £1million plus packages, in line with last year’s Walker Report (into corporate governance standards in the City).

Barclays saw its pretax profits plunge by 76per cent to £327million in the third quarter after taking an accounting charge of £765million on the value of its own debt.

Last year Barclays was enjoying a boom in currency, debt and share trading as trillions of pounds of taxpayer money coursed through the financial system since then concerns over the strength of the global recovery have ushered in a major slowdown on financial markets, which has hit investment banks such as BarCap.

BarCap which was until recently run by American banker Bob Diamond (who we hasten to add is due to takeover as chief executive of Barclays in the spring on a pay and bonus package that could net him a whopping 11.5 million a year ) watched its figures plummet into a pretax loss of 182million between July and September after revenues fell by 24 per cent to 2.8 million.

Faced with this alarming downturn, Barclays has elected to cushion the blow for staff by setting aside some 43 per cent of BarCap’s revenues for staff pay, compared to 38 per cent in 2009. It means that staff are now keeping a greater proportion of turnover than last year.

Barclays finance director Chris Lucas said 2010 bonuses won’t be finalised until the end of the year and that bank was merely paying the going rate for its talented staff, ‘It is the market at play, this is the market operating,’ he told reporters yesterday.

Barclays narrowly avoided a taxpayer bailout at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 after turning to Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour and other Middle Eastern potentates for fresh capital.

This must be the only industry in the world were you get paid fast sums of money regardless of the results.

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Club promoter and heart throb of the series Mark, 23, ended up the winner after leaving Sugar Hut nightclub owner Kirk, 22, with a bloody nose at the City Pavilion in Romford.

Mark’s latest love Lucy Meck was nowhere in site, but his ex-girlfriend Lauren Goodger was spotted ringside looking glamorous in a white dress and supporting her ex Mark.

Pow! The Only Way Is Essex star Mark Wright delivers a left hook to Kirk Norcross during their boxing match at the City Pavilion in Romford last night

There has been speculation in recent days the couple may get back together after music manager/stylish Julian Bennett warned Lucy in last night’s episode that he had heard rumours about Lauren and Mark being back together.
Of course, all the action was captured on camera for the final episode of the ITV2 reality show, which will be broadcast on Wednesday.

Both fighters gave themselves nicknames for the occasion, billing the match as Mark ‘Left Hook’ Wright V Kirk ’2 Cross’ Norcross. After weeks of goading each other, Mark proved rather more gracious after winning and paid tribute to his opponent for being a ‘great person’.

Writing on his Twitter micro-blogging page last night, Mark said: ‘Glad tonight’s over. Kirk’s a good friend and don’t wanna fight him again. He’s a great person and we’ll be friends for a long while. Well done Kirk.’
Ahead of the fight, Wright sounded pretty confident, writing: ‘I’m born ready. A born winner. Bang bang, c’ ya soon.’
Before the big fight, the crowd were warmed up with a performance by girl group Lola – comprising of of Mark’s older sister Jessica, Amba, Lauren and Linzi – and another fight between Jack Tweed and Big Brother 9 housemate Mohamed Mohamed.

Jack – best known for being the widower of Jade Goody – won the bout against Mohamed, after training alongside Mark over the past couple of weeks.

All The Only Way Is Essex cast turned out for the big fight, including glamour model Sam Faiers, beautician Amy Childs, Nanny Pat, Harry Derbidge, Candy Jacobs, Michael Woods Adam Ryan and Maria Fowler. Aside from losing the fight, Kirk also had to contend with his ex-girlfriend Amy Childs turning up with a male model and former Wimbledon footballer Jay Conroy.

After enjoying a first date at the King William IV pub in Chigwell in last night’s episode – which was filmed several days ago, Amy invited him to join her at Kirk’s fight to make her jealous, or ‘jell’ as she likes to abbreviate the word to. The 20-year-old redhead wrote on Twitter last night: ‘Is with my gorgeous date you will love him.’

Close to the action: Lauren chatted to her boss Adam Ryan and glamour model Maria Fowler (far right)

However, when Amy gets time to watch last night’s episode, she may be perturbed to see him and his friend Jack mocking her for thinking Essex was in South London. However, Kirk has also moved on and invited glamour model-turned-DJ Lauren Pope, 28, to support him.

Amy ended her brief romance with Kirk 10 days ago when she spotted him chatting to Lauren – who was famously romantically linked to Prince Harry in the tabloids. Sugar Hut employee Candy, who watched the match with her best friend Michael, also teased fans with the news there may be a Christmas special of The Only Way Is Essex next month.

Now I know all of the above must sound terrible confusing if you missed the series ,but if like me you followed the show you can stop hiding and cringing in the corner its all over now and if rumors are correct will be back till Christmas (Cant Wait ).

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Actually there are three major cinemas where you can see the latest box office releases and sometimes a few classics.

Gran Marbella Cinema

Just a few meters from the beach of Marbella, the Gran Marbella Cinemas (Cines Gran Marbella) is located in the centre of Puerto Banus, close to the Marina Banus.

The Cines Gran is a multiplex with seven screens. Multiple films run just like UK and other parts of the world. Normally, you will find more Spanish films but a couple of ‘English’ or films in their “original versions” or “VOSE” or “OV”.

Paseo Muelle de Ribera (Puerto Banus), S/N 29660 Marbella, 952 816 421 www.cinesgranmarbella.com

Cinesa La Canada

Coupled with amusement facilities, the La Canada Shopping Centre has a cinema showing some of the latest movies. It is located just few minutes from the city centre.

Cinesa La Canada has 8 screens, offering several sessions daily from morning to late-night. The theatre is equipped with all modern technologies in terms of sight and sound. You can also reserve your tickets by phone.

Centro Comercial La Cañada Ctra. de Ojén s/n, 29603 Marbella, 902 33 32 31 www.cinesa.es

Cinesur Plaza del Mar

The cinema hall is situated in the seafront business complex known as Plaza del Mar. Under the banner of El Circuito Cinematográfico, Cinesur has 16 cinema complexes throughout Spain.

The cinema at Plaza del Mar Marbella like La Canada is located within a commercial centre offeings aside from the latest blockbusters, general shops and amenities, restaurants, sports and wellness centres, and various leisure & entertainment options for a complete outing.

www.plazadelmarmarbella.com for more details

VOSE stands for “Version Original Subtitulada en Español” or “Original Verison Subtitled in Spanish”.

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