Fox has pulled the plug on So You Think You Can Dance's results show after eight seasons, according to executive producer and judge Nigel Lythgoe.
"Fox have cancelled the results show so I will have to change the format of [So You Think You Can Dance]," Lythgoe, 62, tweeted Sunday. "At least we have another season at the end of May."
Fox renews So You Think You Can Dance and MasterChef
The move would seemingly condense Dance from two new episodes a week to only one. It's unclear what prompted the change this far into the show's run. A series rep could not be immediately reached for comment.
"Don't worry [So You Think You Can Dance] fans. I'm thrilled we have a new series," Lythgoe added. "We'll do our best to find some great talent starting next week in Atlanta."
So You Think You Can Dance, which earned its first Emmy nomination for best reality competition last year, was renewed for a ninth season in October. Last summer, 6.2 million viewers tuned in to see Melanie Moore be named the winner of Season 8.
How do you think the show should adjust its format?
China Petrochemical Corp. (NYSE:SHI) struck a multi-billion-dollar deal with Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE:DVN) for a 33% stake in 5 US shale Oil and Gas fields, in another move by a Chinese state-owned firm wanting to play a bigger role in the Global rush to tap unconventional fossil fuels.
Under the terms of the deal, expected to close in the current Quarter, Devon will be the operator. Sinopec, as the Chinese Oil giant is known, will pay Devon US$900-M at closing.
That payment includes US$300-M in reimbursements for money Devon already spent on acreage and drilling acquisition, according to a Devon spokesman.
In addition, it will pay US$1.6-B to Devon in the form of a drilling carry expected to be realized by the end of Y 2014.
Sinopec is making its first foray into the US Oil Patch through the deal with Devon, one of the 1st companies to successfully tap shale fields.
It follows the path taken by CNOOC Ltd. (NYSE:CEO), (HK:0883), which in Y?s 2010 and 2011 bought stakes in Chesapeake Energy Corp.?s (NYSE:CHK) operations in south Texas?s Oil-rich Eagle Ford shale and in shale assets in Colorado and Wyoming.
Sinopec?s involvement underlines the ambitions of its Chairman, Fu Chengyu, who has directed a wave of mergers and acquisitions since he took the job in May.
Formerly chairman of CNOOC, Fu is best known outside of China for that company?s bold attempt to buy US Oil firm Unocal Corp. 6 yrs ago, an effort that failed in the face of political opposition in the US.
In Y 2011 Sinopec and its listed unit together bid for US$19.7-B in acquisitions, according to Dealogic, building on spending of U $18.9-B in Y 2010 in assets as far-flung as Canada, Australia and Brazil.
The shale deals give Chinese state Oil giants access to one of the most dynamic Oil and Gas regions in the World, where production is rising dramatically thanks to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, technology applied in the past decade. Learning and adapting fracking methods to shale plays in China could unlock massive new domestic Oil and Gas reserves for the emerging Superpower, just as it is changing the energy landscape of the US.
Countries need access to energy commodities around the Globe so they are not killed when price spikes.
Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr.
Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr
Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. writes and publishes The Red Roadmaster?s Technical Report on the US Major Market Indices, a weekly, highly-regarded financial market letter, read by opinion makers, business leaders and organizations around the world.
Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr has studied the global financial and stock markets since 1984, following a successful business career that included investment banking, and market and business analysis. He is a specialist in equities/commodities, and an accomplished chart reader who advises technicians with regard to Major Indices Resistance/Support Levels.
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The National Bank of Hungary and the country?s government Monday fell out publicly over the country?s public debt statistics, just days after the government opened the way toward taking control over the central bank.
The dispute began when the central bank said on Monday Hungary?s official public debt figure, measured in line with European Union rules for current and aspiring members of the euro zone, came to 82.6% of economic output at the end of the third quarter. The level is above the 60% ceiling for EU member states.
The government called the debt tally ?unprofessional.?
Gabriella Selmeczi, a spokeswoman for the governing Fidesz party, said the central bank was comparing ?apples with pears? because gross domestic product is measured in the country?s currency, the forint, while a significant part of public debt is foreign-currency denominated.
?The National Bank of Hungary?s comments on the matter are not professionally based, and don?t serve the country?s interests to the least extent,? Ms. Selmeczi said.
?The central bank has for years been calculating public debt based on the European Union methodology,? the press office of the central bank told WSJ Emerging Europe.
Ms. Selmeczi said foreign-currency trading has been very hectic recently due to the euro crisis, which is why public debt should be calculated ?independently,? because ?this is the only way the economy?s true fundamentals will show.?
The central bank is obliged to carry out calculations in line with the criteria laid out in the Maastricht Treaty, the 1992 agreement that sets convergence criteria for EU members. Currency exchange rate fluctuations can?t be ignored in debt tallies.
It was the first time that any Hungarian government criticized the central bank?s methodology so openly. It is also the government?s first fallout with the central bank in 2012.
Since election victory in 2010, the ruling camp has often been at odds with the central bank Governor, Andras Simor. On Dec. 30, Hungary?s parliament, where the governing party has a sweeping majority, passed a much-disputed Central Bank Act, increasing in the number of people on the bank?s interest-rate setting board and opening the possibility for merging the central bank with the country?s financial regulator and demoting the central bank governor. The forint plunged sharply against the euro after the bill was passed.
CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egyptians vote Tuesday in the third round of a parliamentary election that has so far handed Islamists the biggest share of seats in an assembly that will be central in the transition from army rule.
Islamist groups came late to the uprising that unseated president Hosni Mubarak in February, but were well placed to seize the moment when Egyptians were handed the first chance in six decades to choose their representatives freely.
The run-up to the third round has been overshadowed by the deaths of 17 people last month in clashes between the army and protesters demanding the military step aside immediately. But the ruling generals have insisted the election process will not be derailed by violence.
Monitors mostly praised the first two rounds as free of the ballot stuffing, thuggery and vote rigging that once guaranteed landslide wins for Mubarak's party.
But police raids on pro-democracy and rights groups last week have disrupted the work of leading Western-backed election monitors and drew accusations that the army was deliberately trying to weaken oversight of the vote and silence critics.
The government said the raids were part of a probe into illegal foreign funding of political parties and not aimed at weakening rights groups, which have been among the fiercest critics of the army's turbulent rule.
Nevertheless, Washington called on the Egyptian government to halt "harassment" of the groups involved.
The U.S.-funded International Republican Institute said it had been invited by Egypt government to monitor the election and did not give funding to political parties or civic groups.
It urged the government to let staff return to their offices and obtain the official registration they had long requested.
"There is no reason not to allow IRI to assess the elections," the IRI said in a statement Monday.
FIERCE RIVALRY
Citizens thronged the polls in unprecedented numbers in the first two rounds and parties ranging from hardline Islamists to liberals and secularists are competing hard for every vote.
Liberals accuse groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the hardline Islamist Al-Nour party, which surprised with a strong showing in earlier rounds, of flouting a ban on religious slogans in politics and telling voters their rivals are ungodly.
"We have been trying to tell people in our campaign before the third stage that we respect religions," said Mohamed Abu Hamed, Secretary General of the liberal Free Egyptians party.
Islamists in turn accuse one of the party's top figures, Coptic Christian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, of using his media empire to mount a disinformation campaign against them.
The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) "demands from media outlets, especially those owned by businessmen who ... still have interests with the previous regime, to remain objective and stop distorting this experience, which people have been waiting for a long time," the FJP said in a statement.
Although Islamists command a majority of seats contested so far, fierce rivalry among the various Islamist groups offers scope for liberals to wield influence in the parliament, which will play a role in defining a new constitution for Egypt.
But the strong showing by religious parties has sown unease among Western powers that only disowned Mubarak once his three-decade rule was crumbling.
Mubarak painted his government as a modernizing bulwark against Islamist extremists who threatened Egypt's future prosperity and its peace treaty with neighbor Israel.
The Brotherhood, which built a broad grass-roots support base through decades of charity work among millions of poor Egyptians, insists it will do nothing to weaken Egypt's economy further or sow social chaos.
That message of stability has found resonance among ordinary Egyptians tired of almost a year of political turmoil and fearful for their livelihoods as the economy wallows in crisis.
The concluding vote to the lower house of parliament takes in regions of the rural south, which has the largest proportions of Christian voters, the industrial Nile Delta region north of the capital Cairo, and the restive Sinai desert region to the east.
Fourteen million eligible voters in nine regions will choose who occupies 150 of the seats in parliament.
The army, under pressure to hasten the handover to civilian rule, issued a decree Sunday to shorten the forthcoming upper house election to two rounds from three.
(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan; Writing by Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
I have quite a few photo apps on my iPhone, but most of the time I forget to use them and only rely on the native camera app. But new app Grid Lens, for iPhone and iPod Touch, is making me sit up and take notice ? I don?t think I?ll be forgetting I have this app.
Grid Lens will automatically create a photo grid, taking multiple photos at once, or allowing you to manually fill in each frame as you like. What I found most striking in Grid Lens is its interface. The look of the app is slick, and its functionality is extremely user-friendly. There aren?t many words in this app to tell you what buttons use, but after a few minutes of playing, the app will be clear. If automatic shooting is on, Grid Lens will cycle through the frames and take photos automatically. Slide the button to manual, and you can tap an individual frame to get exactly the angle and feature you want. You can customize the app by creating your own grid layouts, choosing the color of the borders, or determining the line thickness.
Grid Lens supports flash and both cameras on the iPhone 4. You cannot, however, use the zoom. Two lens options are available, though: a single-view lens that divides one image into multiple frames, or multi-lens, which will repeat a particular part of the image throughout each frame.
Your photo collages will be stored in the app, and you?ll need to save them to your photo library if you want to access the images from there. Grid Lens offers plenty of sharing options, including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Six effects, such as black and white or sepia, are also available.
The biggest downside to Grid Lens is that you can?t import existing photos from the library. This means you?ll have to remember to use the app live to reap its benefits, so I hope library support is coming to the app soon. Because the interface of Grid Lens is so pleasant to use, I could see myself relying on the product much more often if I didn?t always have to use its features live.
Grid Lens is currently on sale for half-price, and I think I?ll be getting much more than a dollar?s worth of use.
Handset makers in China have formed an alliance to prepare for possible patent battles with Apple, Microsoft and Nokia. Coolpad, Konka, TCL, ZTE and Lenovo were among the companies named in a report by?DigiTimes?on Friday. The number of lawsuits filed in China is expected to increase as Microsoft, Nokia and Apple try to increase market share there, the report says.?Nokia has already filed patent infringement suits against several Chinese phone makers and Microsoft has gone after Huawei to try to secure a patent licensing deal.?Huawei responded to Microsoft?s threats?in early November and explained that it has 65,000 patents worldwide. ?We have enough to protect our interests,? Huawei Devices chief marketing officer Victor Xu said. ?We are a very important stakeholder in Android.? Each of the Chinese companies reportedly has a large patent portfolio and, combined, they could create enough of a force to stave off at least some of the patent-related lawsuits that have plagued other companies.
AbPow 