Alert Everyone !! Because RED ALERT is here !!!

Red Alert 3 Q&A: The Allied Faction

With the approach of Red Alert 3 nearing, we sat down with producer Greg Kasavin to discuss the differences between rocket launchers and sonic disruptors, Jenny McCarthy's acting prowess, and assassins from the future.

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Real-time strategy games began as an attempt to turn the deliberate pace of the classic turn-based strategy game into a quicker, more urgent experience that let you harvest resources, build a base of operations from scratch, and churn out an army as quickly as possible to crush your foes. They've become even faster and more action-packed over the years, thanks to contributions from the long-lived Command & Conquer series, which has always been about fast-paced matches between players sparring with the largest and most powerful armies they can muster. The next game in the Command & Conquer line, Red Alert 3, will continue the tradition of action-packed gameplay, but will have a slightly more methodical pace, since it will include both ground-based and naval action that will require players to scout intelligently or risk getting shut out by an opponent who decided to take to the water instead. It'll also continue the Red Alert series' tradition of unorthodox units, over-the-top weapons, and tongue-in-cheek humor. This time around, we sat down with producer Greg Kasavin to discuss the game's Allied faction.

GameSpot: We've seen the Soviets, we've seen the Japanese. Now tell us what the Allied faction brings to Red Alert 3, besides unrivaled courage, patriotism, and dashing good looks.

Greg Kasavin: The Allies lend the world of Red Alert 3 a bit of sanity and balance, since they represent the forces of the world trying to avoid getting consumed by the Soviet war machine and now, the Empire of the Rising Sun as well. On top of that, they give the game a bit of international flair. The Allies aren't just a bunch of dudes from North America--they're a truly global faction, united by the need to fight for their freedom against the Soviet onslaught. This comes across in the personalities of some of the units, who add up to make the Allies feel really different from the Soviets or the Rising Sun, while at the same time avoiding a lot of typical cliches of being the "good guy" faction.

The Allied Nations faction of Red Alert 3 will use planes, tanks, and scout dogs to conquer its foes.

Since they're an international coalition, the Allies have some pretty sophisticated, well-crafted technology to help keep them alive. They have some of the trickiest, most open-ended combat tactics of all three factions, and some of the most powerful and unique support powers and special abilities. Players who prefer a defensive approach or to win by outsmarting their opponents will probably like controlling the Allies quite a bit. Then again, so will anyone who likes the idea of massive amphibious warships, orbital satellite defense networks, or smooth-talking spies who can bribe their enemies into turning coats.

GS: When the Soviets sent time-traveling assassins to the past to take out Einstein, what effect does this have on the Allies, besides nullifying the victory over the Soviets as detailed in the first two Red Alert games?

GK: We don't want to spoil too much, but in effect, this change put the Allies on the defensive against the Soviets rather than the other way around. This manifests itself in some new and different Allied technologies as compared with previous games, although strangely enough, the Soviets' time-traveling shenanigans didn't completely eliminate all of the Allies' best weapons... Returning Red Alert fans should find that the Allies have a rather convenient mix of old and new weapons to work with, ranging from classics like Attack Dogs and Aircraft Carriers to powerful new units like Athena Cannons and Century Bombers.

GS: Command & Conquer titles have a long history of enlisting Hollywood talent to star in the many between-mission cutscenes. Tell us about former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy and her role as Tanya the commando. Will she have a propaganda attack in which she drops centerfolds on enemy headquarters, diverting attention from production? Please say yes.

GK: Yes.

OK, no. But seriously, Jenny McCarthy made a great choice for Tanya because of her looks and her personality, as well as her acting experience. She was a natural fit for the particular tone and style of Red Alert 3, and I think you'll find that she nails the performance for this character. She also makes for a great counterpart to Gemma Atkinson's much more straightlaced Lieutenant Eva McKenna. Notwithstanding her defiantly blonde hair, I think fans of Red Alert will find that Ms. McCarthy's Tanya is a more than worthy successor to the character's legacy. I mean, she's unbelievable looking and has plenty of clever things to say. What's not to like?

The game is being designed with balanced armies in mind. A simple tank rush won't work against a smart opponent.

GS: Since Einstein isn't around to lend his inventions to the Allied cause, what are some of the new units and vehicles the Allies have at their disposal?

GK: The Allies have a lot of great new units at their disposal, no thanks to Einstein. Their Assault Destroyers are massive warships that can drive up on land and lay waste to most enemies on the ground with their main guns, or they can switch on their black-hole armor to automatically absorb enemy fire in vicinity. This lets them protect more lightly armored forces like the Hydrofoils, fast-moving ships with devastating antiaircraft weapons and a special weapon-jammer device that prevents foes from firing. The Allies also have some of the best aircraft in the game, ranging from their Vindicator precision bombers to their experimental Cryocopters. Cryocopters can freeze enemies to the point where they can be shattered by even the lightest hit, and their special ability shrinks foes down to a ridiculous, easily crushable size.

Naturally, shrunken foes all speak in high-pitched voices. Wait'll you hear a shrunken Apocalypse Tank.

Selling Mobiles made easier for Celebrities

How Celebrities Sell Mobile Phones

Enlarge Photo How Celebrities Sell Mobile Phones

Elizabeth Woyke, Forbes.com

The video for Usher's latest single, "Love in This Club," begins like any other: The singer sits alone in an ambiguous place with moody lighting.

Suddenly, Usher reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Sony Ericsson W350. A beautiful woman's photo appears on the screen. A few seconds later, she materializes in person. The rest, well, proceeds like a typical music video.

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How did Sony Ericsson nab a starring role in a high-profile video? In a word, money.

Cellphones are beginning to rival cosmetics and fashion in their pursuit of celebrity star power. Sony Ericsson has Usher and tennis star Maria Sharapova. Motorola has David Beckham, Danica Patrick, Wyclef Jean and Fergie. Samsung has soccer studs Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba. And that's not counting the corps of Bollywood, Cantopop and K-pop stars the companies employ in Asia.

Motorola has used brand ambassadors for about two years. The celebrities "help elevate and build credibility for the Motorola brand and products," says Jeremy Dale, vice president of marketing for Motorola Mobile Devices.

The trend is growing as more people around the world acquire cellphones--3.5 billion and counting--and phone makers realize they need to work harder to sell their wares. Brand marketers say the match-ups make sense. "As the market gets more saturated, success is increasingly tied to retaining users and stealing other companies' consumers," says M:Metrics analyst Jen Wu. "The challenge for handset manufacturers is that the meaningful differences between one handset and another are small," says Allen Adamson, a managing director at San Francisco-based brand consultancy Landor Associates and author of BrandSimple. "If you can't differentiate on a product level, you need to do it on an image level."

That, unsurprisingly, is where celebrities come in. Sony Ericsson tapped Usher to represent its Walkman line of music phones based on his musical ability, mass appeal and youthful fan base, says Karen Morris, the company's vice president of marketing. Besides flashing Sony Ericsson in his videos, Usher will pose for in-store ads and provide exclusive photos and videos to AT&T, Sony Ericsson's U.S. carrier. In turn, Sony Ericsson will sponsor the singer's North American tour later this year.

Musicians, in turn, see phone endorsements as a respectable way to earn money amid sinking album sales. "At the rate the industry is turning, cellphones will matter more than any other mobile device [in terms of music sales]," said Usher at the press conference announcing his Sony Ericsson deal.

Sony Ericsson isn't the only phone maker that recognizes the power of pairing musicians with music phones. Motorola employs Wyclef Jean and Fergie to talk up its ROKR phone. Samsung drafted singer Rain--often called Asia's Justin Timberlake--to be its "Olympic brand ambassador" and enlisted Lebanese singer Elissa to publicize its F400 music phone in the Mid-East. In Hong Kong, singer-actor Andy Lau plugs LG Electronics' Shine phone. In China, Taiwanese R&B singer Jay Chou hawks Motorola.

Über-entertainer Beyoncé even launched her own limited-edition Samsung phone, the B'Phone, in 2007. Analyst Wu calls such phones risky ventures. "Even if the celebrity has a huge fan base, there probably aren't many hardcore fans," she notes. "And within those, only a limited number will be in the market for a new phone." Samsung says it has no plans to launch another celebrity-branded phone in the U.S.

Celebrity athletes are equally in demand as public faces for cellphones. Tennis player Maria Sharapova, formerly the inspiration for Motorola's hot-pink RAZR, now serves as Sony Ericsson's global brand ambassador. David Beckham frequently promotes Motorola's RAZR2 while competing abroad. In February, he made a pit stop in Seoul, where Motorola has struggled to unseat Korean rivals Samsung and LG. One local newspaper that covered the event noted, "Beckham Comes to Rescue Motorola."

Though the practice permeates the U.S., Europe and East Asia, India is the global capital of celebrity cellphone promotions. The country is blessed with two unique characteristics: the world's fastest-growing cellphone market and a plethora of homegrown superstars. That has phone makers competing to snap up the most bankable Bollywood stars, hoping their legions of fans will follow. Motorola recently signed Abhishek Bachchan, whose celebrity stems from his own acting career; the legacy of his actor father, Amitabh Bachchan; and the fame of his actress wife, Aishwarya Rai. As recently as March, Bachchan had been the face of LG in India.

Samsung has actor/director Aamir Khan, whose work, the company says, mirrors its brand's "qualities of innovation, change, discovery, self-expression and excellence in performance." Even Nokia, which abstains from celebrity marketing elsewhere in the world, has a partnership with Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan that includes TV commercials and sponsorship of Khan's cricket team.

Not every celebrity wants to be associated with a phone, even the latest, coolest models. Some endorse phones on the sly, limiting endorsements to companies based abroad. Actor Chris Noth--of Sex and the City and Law & Order fame--represents LG's Secret phone in Australia, halfway around the world from his New York home.

Adamson approves the use of celebrities to promote products that mesh with their own images--musicians for music phones, for instance. But he warns, "Using celebrities for any brand-building is tricky--the risk is that the consumer remembers the celebrity, but not the brand." The other challenge: Celebrities handily sell fashion-focused products but usually fumble when promoting more functional goods.

That has led BlackBerry maker Research In Motion to feature glamorous entrepreneurs, such as fashion director Nina Garcia and hotelier Jason Pomeranc, in its ads, rather than traditional celebrities.

And it's one reason mobile operators don't use celebrities in their ads, focusing instead on the quality of their networks and the breadth of their services. Notes Adamson, "A hip, young star telling me about my carrier wouldn't be as persuasive as an engineer telling me that my phone will never drop a call."

APPLE

Apple's Greatest Innovations

Enlarge Photo Apple's Greatest Innovations

Brian Caulfield, Forbes.com

Everywhere you turn this year, Apple's machines are on the march. Apple's iPhone is continuing to gobble up the smart phone market. Apple's PCs and notebook computers--long relegated to a niche status--are tearing off big gobs of the PC market. Even Apple's least successful effort--AppleTV--has rivals such as Blockbuster scrambling to blunt Apple's attack.

The common denominator? Software. While great industrial design--whether it's for great cars or great buildings--always attracts gawkers, it's software that makes Apple's proliferating array of machines so comfortable to use on a long-term basis. Apple's best products mix the curb appeal of a Lamborghini with easy-to-drive friendliness of a Honda Accord.

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Software might also explain, in part, why Apple has developed such a cult following. It certainly explains Apple's ability to crank out consumer-friendly gizmos where rivals, ranging from consumer electronics giant Sony to PC powerhouse Dell, have stumbled.

The most surprising part, is it's a trick that normally secretive Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has shared again and again with the press--and his competitors. "We make the whole widget," Jobs is fond of saying.

In part, Apple's strategy is a throwback to an earlier era, when companies such as Digital Equipment Corporation paired their own software with cutting-edge computers built from the ground up. And, two decades ago, that was certainly the case when Apple paired up a quirky all-in-one computer with a breakthrough graphical user interface for the original Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984.

Now, however, describing Apple as just a throwback would be an oversimplification. While Apple's designs are unique, its hardware is powered by the same Intel microprocessors you'll find in any computer sold by Dell or Hewlett-Packard. Similarly, while Apple's OS X's user interface is not just easy to use but engaging, it's just a candy shell built around the kind of tried-and-true Unix software that's powered everything from phone networks to computer science labs for a generation.

Best of all, Apple doesn't actually have to manufacture the hardware. Long ago, when Apple managed its own factories, precisely matching the waxing and waning demand of the market sometimes caught the company flatfooted. But, taking a page from other manufacturers, Apple now relies on others to do most of the nuts and bolts manufacturing work.

That approach means that every bit of code that Apple cranks out can be a telling indicator of where the company is going next. Before the launch of the iPhone, even non-technical users could crack open Apple's iTunes digital music software and find numerous references to a gadget dubbed the "iPhone." Likewise, this month, hackers uncovered references to a next-generation wireless chip in Apple software--pointing the way to the imminent launch of a fresh version of Apple's handset.

More broadly, Apple's move to put a shrunk-down version of its operating system, OS X, on the iPhone and the iPod Touch tells us that Apple sees portable, Web-friendly gizmos as a big part of its future. It's why speculation about Apple's next move is so rampant: we may not know what it will look like, but Apple users know it will run the Apple software they know and love.

Economically Most Powerful cities in the world

World's Most Economically Powerful Cities

Enlarge Photo World's Most Economically Powerful Cities

Fri, Jul 18 05:30 AM

Joshua Zumbrun, Forbes.com

What's the world's most economically powerful city?

If you picked New York or Tokyo, you'd be wrong.

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But when Forbes.com set out to measure the world's most powerful cities, the lack of useful data was surprising.

For sovereign nations, it's easy to find measures of almost every variable imaginable--gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, money flows and other metrics. After all, the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund all deal with governments at the national level. But for corporations, cities and their economies matter most, since picking the right city will be the key to prosperity in the future.

Corporations, and even individuals, have to weigh the size of a city's economy compared to how it will be in the future and consider the potential growth in the intervening years. For that matter, they have to judge whether it's worth it to settle for a city that has high growth prospects but turns out to be a lousy place to live.

To create our ranking of economic power, we looked at all of these factors to see who's strong across the board.

While Tokyo and New York are far and away the largest economies of today and tomorrow, they are growing much slower than many. Thus it's fast-growing London that tops our list, according to data from MasterCard.

Growth and quality are as important as size in our rankings, so smaller but briskly growing economies like Seoul, South Korea, and Hong Kong also make the list. North America, with relatively lower growth areas, still boasts a number of cities in the current power list, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto, the latter of which squeezes past Madrid, Spain; Philadelphia and Mexico City, Mexico. To see the entire list of the top 10 economically powerful cities, click here.

Pinning down the data to compare cities isn't as easy as it sounds, but luckily, several corporations have done detailed studies of the economies of global cities.

The auditing giant PricewaterhouseCoopers has compiled estimates of the GDP (as measured by purchasing power parity) of the largest urban economies and how fast those economies are growing from 2005 to 2020.

MasterCard has created an annual "centers of commerce" index, which ranks cities on a host of factors, including legal and political framework, economic stability, the ease of doing business, the financial flow, convenience as a business center, information flow and livability.

UBS publishes an estimate of living expenses and earnings in the world's largest cities. This report also includes estimates of how much the earnings of the average worker can actually purchase in the city.

The overarching lesson: Keep looking east. The world's fastest-growing economies, such as Shanghai, China; Beijing, Jakarta, Indonesia; and Mumbai, India, are growing at twice the pace of the Western world.

Cities with enormous populations like Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Mexico City also have economies projected to grow by more than 4% annually. They won't be the size of Tokyo or New York anytime soon, but with business-friendly policies, their economic power can be expected to continue climbing.

Longest Flyover

India's longest elevated road opens to traffic

Panipat, July 17 (IANS) The longest flyover on India's national highway network has been opened to traffic in the industrial city of Panipat in Haryana, 100 km from the national capital.

The 10-km long overpass on the National Highway (NH)-1 (earlier called Grand Trunk road), one of the busiest highway stretches in the country, was inaugurated Wednesday by Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping T.R. Baalu and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

The nearly Rs.4 billion flyover, built by Larsen and Toubro, will bisect Panipat. Motorists driving to and from Delhi to north Indian states of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir will no longer have to face traffic bottlenecks in the congested city.

Though the flyover had been completed over a month back - much ahead of its schedule of January 2009 - it was not opened to the public as the authorities kept waiting to get a date from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to inaugurate it.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court in Chandigarh had to intervene to direct officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to get the flyover opened.

Motorists will have to pay a toll to use the elevated highway but it will make the journey to and from Delhi a lot smoother and faster.