Finally, "Baby Suri Cruise" Photos. In a more lighthearted entertainment news story: the first photos of Suri Cruise have been published in the newest issue of Vanity Fair. Aside from the typically snide remarks from the typically snide internet message boards, all who have seen the photos say that the baby is adorable and very obviously the child of Katie and Tom, much to the chagrin of all the naysayers who insisted otherwise for the past few months. Some conspiracy theorists even speculated that the reason the baby had yet to be shown in public is due to the child "clearly" not resembling Tom, while even crueler reports insisted that she was never pregnant at all, and the whole thing was a sham. Both crackpot theories were dispelled this week...and not a moment too soon, I would say.

Katie Couric Begins Reign As CBS Anchor. True, Katie Couric fans may wonder why this wasn't "higher" news this week than the Suri Cruise story, but look at the bright side. Her first big news story was about Suri Cruise! But we digress: at the heart and soul of the matter, is that CBS has a lead anchor again, and as many a TV critic will tell you, all eyes were on Katie Couric Tuesday night. That was the night Couric began her reign as head anchor of the CBS evening news; a position most prominently held by Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. Her first performance has received either high praise, so-so acceptance or downright brutal schoolyard banter ("She looked like a little girl who had to go potty," said the always-blunt New York Post). Yet what matters critical opinion? Nielsen's for the telecast are estimated at a 9.1 rating and 17 share; the highest for the news program since 1998.

Arrr...Disney Pirates Sequel Soon Reaches 1 Billion. By the time you read this, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has already broken the one billion dollar mark, in worldwide ticket sales. The film has already reached over $414 million dollars in the US and nearly $580 million overseas, as of last weekend. The total worldwide amount was around $993.7 million at the time. Given that its box office overseas last weekend totaled $11.6 million dollars, there was little doubt the film would have past the one billion mark, most probably, by the end of this weekend. Yet the film had already done so by the middle of the week. If you ask us, the number one box office giant this year has already been chosen, unless another "Titanic" phenomenon (aka fad) reaches theaters in time for the winter holidays. 

Is "The O.C." On The Outs? In any number of message boards, it's clear fans of The O.C. are still dealing with (or trying to deal with) the surprise death of series lead Marissa, played by Mischa Barton, in the season finale last spring. How easy will they take the news, if this upcoming season is the last of the series itself? Such is the question that was risen when Rachel Bilson had this to say, in the most recent issue of Teen Vogue: "I just feel like the show is over. I'm so happy for everything it brought me...but I think we're all ready to move on." Does this mean an end to not only the Marissa/Ryan romance, though the Summer/Seth romance as well? Furthermore, are fans at this point ready to move on too, or will they try to replace lead characters like some bad final season of Happy Days? That's the question asked on the fan sites this week, and if just because of uncertainty, the answers are not too pretty.

But Could Liv Tyler Have Saved Showgirls? Earlier in the entertainment news, Liv Tyler made a small blurb where she claims to have been the inspiration for screenwriter Joe Eszterhas taking on the cinematic flop, Showgirls; an allegation Eszterhas denies. Tyler claimed that the screenwriter was so intrigued by her role as a stripper in her father's band Aerosmith's music video for "Crazy," that he "begged" her to appear in Showgirls, in the role that made Elizabeth Berkley a household name (even if not in a terribly good way). But the writer of Basic Instinct responds to the allegations in his new book, The Devil's Guide To Hollywood: The Screenwriter As God, where he insists he never spoke to Tyler at all. Says Eszterhas in the book: "[Liv Tyler] said I had become obsessed with her after seeing her play a stripper in an Aerosmith video. She said, 'He tried to get me to take the lead in the movie, but I didn't want to get into that kind of thing.' It was news to me. I'd never seen the Aerosmith video, I'd never met or spoken with Liv."

DeGeneres Will Host Oscars For 2007. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced yesterday (Thursday) that Ellen DeGeneres would be host of the Academy Awards, which will be aired live on ABC February 25th, 2007. The announcement was made by Laura Ziskin, who is producing the show. Said comedienne DeGeneres in a statement, "There's two things I've always wanted to do in my life. One is to host the Oscars. The second is to get a call from Laura Ziskin. You can imagine that day's diary entry." This will be the first time Ellen has hosted the Oscars, although she has hosted the Emmys twice. She is also the first female host since Whoopi Goldberg, who hosted the event in 2002.

Rosie's Blog Banned By Barbara. Barbara Walters is allegedly asking new co-host Rosie O'Donnell to cease and desist from "Blogging" about her experiences on their show. Rosie, who is the new co-host of The View as of Tuesday, is one of many people with her won web site, who "Blogs" about her daily goings-on in life. One such recent "blog" entry referred to a promotional skit for The View's new season, where Rosie laments, "I saw the new view promos. "Found myself/in the position/i loathe the most/powerless." In a recent Newsweek, Walters said she is "counting on Rosie's intelligence and sensitivity and humor" to say the right thing: "This is, after all, an entertainment show."

Doctor Will Gets Called Out Of Big Brother. In one of the bigger surprises of Big Brother: All Stars, "Doctor Will" was the newest elimination, startling alliance member Mike "Boogie" as well as many of the TV viewers. The decision was made by Janelle, who was the only remaining vote in the house. Due to Big Brother rules, the nominees for the week (Will and Erica) could not vote, nor could the Head of Household, who happened to be Will's own alliance member, Mike. Although Mike had nominated Erica and Janelle, Janelle won the "Power of Veto," and could remove herself on the block...with Will in her place. Yet although it seemed she and Will had a deal coming in, it would be Will who would be going out. Not surprisingly, the house guest who never appeared to take the show seriously, left very graciously...unlike Mike, who was clearly quite stunned. In an amusing move, he even "quit" part one of a three-part Head of Household challenge, insisting that both Erica and Janelle "had" to take him to the finals, because he could not win. I guess we'll all see about that, when the finale airs this Tuesday. 

A "Large Storm" Over Rock Star This Week. Storm Large, the blonde bombshell on this season of Rock Star (Supernova), was eliminated this week, amidst a live audience which "booed" the decision all the way. She was up for elimination due to receiving one of the three lowest voting scores, as tallied by viewers of the show. The other two nominees for elimination were Lukas, who had never been nominated until tonight, and Dilana, who has been on the bottom three for two weeks in a row. Yet when it came to choosing between the popular Storm and the almost as popular Dilana, they chose Dilana. The decision has received almost as much flak as last week, when the band eliminated the wildly popular Ryan from the show. That decision is more controversial than ever, when even series co-host Brooke Burke had to admit, that based on MSN internet totals, the most downloaded music of any "Rock Star" this week was actually Ryan.

Multimedia & Game News:

ITunes To Offer Feature Films...Maybe. Rumor mills began buzzing on Monday of this week, that iTunes may offer downloadable movies for $9.99 each. The rumor claims that Steve Jobs will make an official announcement about this September 12th. However; there are a few caveats for the current iPod owner. For one thing the service is planned only for the upcoming "widescreen" iPod, or via a wireless streaming service that connects to your television set. It also must be mentioned that a sample list of what films are to be offered, has yet to be released. If the list includes box office smash hits, we're off to buy a new iPod. If the list is more like the majority of titles "available" on a PSP, well, we'll stick with our DVDs, thanks. More on this if and when Jobs makes the anticipated announcement, on Tuesday of next week.

...and Not if Wal-Mart Can Stop It. As soon as rumors began about Apple's interest in allowing downloaded movies via iTunes, another rumor began. It seems that Wal-Mart, which allegedly sells over 40 percent of all DVDs bought in the U.S., is trying to persuade the larger Hollywood studios from allowing their films to be downloaded. Though the rumor has been reported by sources such as Business Week, Wal-Mart denies the report. However, rumor or not, it is also said that the only current studio to sign up is Disney, of which Apple's Steve Jobs is the biggest company shareholder.  

Technical Repeating, Please Stand By. Due to such minimal game news in September, along with the fact that Techtite News has only recently begun anew, forgive us if the following news stories are a week old, even if still very important to say. It is being considered to keep a sort of "rotating" format of the Game and multimedia news, where new stories would bump the oldest on the list when available. However, if just for now, enjoy the following news, if you missed it last week...

Time Pilot Goes "Live." The cult hit arcade game Time Pilot has just been added to X-Box Live this Wednesday. Time Pilot is a classic arcade game in the spirit of Asteroids, but with much more advanced graphics. You must time travel from 1910 to 1930 and even to the future to combat various fighter planes in history. Each level ends with a "leader" plane that must be eliminated in order to make the jump to the next era in time. The first level is playable for free, with the full game available for 400 X-Box Live "credits" (which, based on the average price of a 1600 point X-Box Live card, is around the equivalent of $5).

Steam Pops Cap On Mini Games.  Log onto Steam lately? Theres a whole lot of new games in town, all thanks to PopCap games. Fans of X-Box Live Arcade will remember some of the titles that are now available to Steam fans via their PC: Bejeweled 2, Feeding Frenzy 2, Zuma Deluxe, and Astro Pop, for example. Yet PopCap has made many additional games for the PC that have yet to be seen on X-Box systems, like Pizza Frenzy, DynoMite, Talismania, and Chuzzle, among others. Fans of the Steam game service can either buy individual games from the PopCap collection for a $19.95 each, or buy the whole collection for $89.95, which, at 17 games, is a savings of almost 250 bucks. There is a downside however: unlike X-Box Arcade ---which always offers a free demo before purchase--- we've yet to see a free demo offered on Steam, which means you'll have to fly blind when choosing each game; a strange offer indeed, when many of the games have been offered online via Arcade Town, with free demos, for many years. Still; if you like the idea of clicking the little Steam Valve to play all your games on the fly, this idea is pretty good, as offers go.

Free Galactica Recap Goes Live.  X-Box Live may be the focus of most of this week's news, but it's just been so ripe with updates lately. Anyway; among the non-game video available on X-Box Live is a short video called "The Story So Far," for people who'd like an update to the Sci-Fi channel's Battlestar Galactica series. At over 400 megabytes this is both a top quality video, and more than worth the long download time.

Lumnines On Your Mobile Phone. Okay; so this is pretty old news if you're really into the mobile phoen gaming scene. Yet this news editor has only now gotten into the whole "cel phone plays games" thing, and yes, you can play one of the coolest PSP games ever on your mobile phone...presuming your mobile phone can play mobile games. It may not have as wide of a screen, and it may be much more limited, although it has received rave reviews so far from sites like IGN. Lumines has often been considered the Tetris for a new generation, where random sets of two different colors of blocks fall from the top of the screen, with the gamer combining as many blocks of the same color as possible.

New Releases: September 1st 2006.  This week saw the release of various titles on multiple systems. PSP saw the release of Capcom's Ultimate Ghosts 'n' Goblins, based on the older arcade title. X-Box 360 saw the release of both Enchanted Arms and Saint's Row. Playstation 2 has both Digaea 2 and Xenosaga Episode III. Game Cube has to settle for One Piece Grand Adventure, but not for long, with the highly anticipated Lego Star Wars ][: The Original Trilogy slated for release on all systems September 12th.

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