Note: Techtite.com is returning to its original, end-of-week update schedule, so Techtite News will now be updated on Fridays.

Will "Katie Holmes" Become "Kate Cruise"? Granted, the American magazine In Touch is not the final word on such matters, but according to their latest issue (which begins release on newsstands this weekend), Katie Holmes is seriously considering changing her name to "Kate Cruise," both legally and professionally, when she walks down the aisle with fiancée Tom Cruise. An anymous source told the magazine that Tom already refers to her as "Kate," not Katie, and suggested she change her name professionally to the more mature sounding first name. The thought of her changing her last name, however, is not exactly confirmed, though it has been said that Katie is very traditional and may change her last name as well.

Atom Egoyan's Truth Now Lies At "NC-17." The MPAA has refused to reduce their NC-17 rating of Atom Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies, even after the film was allegedly edited to get a more favorable rating of "R." Apparently, the core reason for the rating is a three person sex scene including Kevin Bacon and Rachel Blanchard, which was filmed in one take and remains totally uncut. Egoyan told the Hollywood Reporter this week that the scene could not be cut "without destroying the heart of the movie." Say what you will about the importance of a film editor, but Egoyan seems to be winning out in the end; since the film was rated NC-17 even after the attempted edit, its distributor ThinkFilm is said to be releasing the film in its uncut form.

Burton's Corpse Livens Up Film Festival. The Venice Film Festival got an advance screening of Tim Burton's animated film, Corpse Bride, on Wednesday this week...where Reuters says it got a "thunderous reception." The film, done in the same stop motion method used for Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, took 10 years to make from concept to film, due to how long the stop motion process takes to complete. 

Rename a Town "Dish," Get Free Satellite TV! This is one of those sorts of amusing news stories we just had to "bump" from last week...and, again: it's totally legit, or so says the head company of the Dish Network, EchoStar Communications Corp. The offer claims that any town that renames itself "Dish" will get a free satellite receiver for every home. It is unclear if the offer includes the monthly fees for such a service, but it sounds like a nice gesture anyway. Interested towns have until November to accept the offer.

From Dancing With The Stars...To Skating? FOX has a penchant for making admittedly bizarre "clones" of popular shows from ABC, NBC, and CBS. Here's another one for the books: after the widely popular Dancing With the Stars on ABC, FOX is planning a skating competition among non-professional skating celebrities. According to the Daily Variety article last Tuesday, the competition will last six weeks and  will include celebrities like Todd Bridges (Diff'rent Strokes), Deborah "Debbie" Gibson, Dave Coulier (Full House), and athlete Bruce Jenner. As in the dancing with the stars series, the celebrities will be joined by professionals in the field, which is said to include skaters Nancy Kerrigan, Tai Babilonia, Jenni Meno, Lloyd Eisler and Kurt Browning. Hosting the event is well known skating champion Scott Hamilton.

So, How Bad Is The Thundercats' DVD? Pretty bad, if you were asking us. In what has resulted in many fans of the cult hit 1980's cartoon growling (and not in a good way), "volume one" of the first season of the series has led to a resounding hiss. It's bad enough that the season has the occasional audio glitch (episode 2 has no music, for some reason), but what about video glitches...on DVD video! Even the series premiere (which, at just over 20 minutes, you'd think someone would've screen tested) has various moments where the picture becomes warped, almost as if the viewer wasn't viewing a DVD as much as an old VHS tape set in "extended long play" mode. Rumor has it that WB, which distributed the series' DVD set, is offering the replace the DVDs with poor audio, at the very least. However, we have yet to get a viable link to this press release, so for now it's only a rumor.

PSP Page For Entertainment News. The new upgrade for PSP's internal firmware gives it wireless connectivity to the internet, wherever a wireless network is available. For the interest of seeing how far this idea goes. Techtite.com is now providing a sort of PSP-sized "mini site" here, which not only includes PSP reviews on a size readable on your PSP, but also at least one of the latest TV, movie, and other reviews found on this site's main pages. Feedback on this format of the PSP pages can be sent to Techtite's Letters page.

Big Brother 6: What Went Wrong? As early as the time you read this, Techtite.com's most popular column, "What Went Wrong?" will have a special edition about the many successes and mistakes of Big Brother 6. This marks a slight change from the regular column, which reviews what went wrong with the best of entertainment concepts that just didn't work out. Big Brother has yet to be cancelled, but many online feel it might be, if changes aren't made. Click here to read what changes we feel these are.

Is UMD the New DVD? Well, maybe not. The format for PSP mini discs is too small to offer such cool features as deleted scenes or the like, unless the movie is short enough to allow for them. However, there is no denying how many movies are offering PSP owners to buy them on the UMD format, in addition to the now "standard" DVD. As such; many of the reviews here follow suit, and offer PSP order links along with the DVD links.

Techtite.com To Have PSP-Compatible Web Pages. If you were wondering where all the PSP reviews have gone here at Techtite.com; they are all being reformatted, to be totally compatible with the PSP's new web browser function. The Techtite PSP Page will include the latest reviews of PSP items, all fully readable from your PSP's screen (presuming you have downloaded the latest upgrade to the system, of course). However, since the main pages of Techtite.com will still be "regular" sized, additional pages will be added to Techtite's PSP Page, with reviews of movies, television, and maybe even a PSP-related editorial or two. When fully operational, look for a link to this page here.

First Impressions: PSP Firmware 2.0. As the above news byte implied; version 2.0 of the Playstation Portable's internal firmware has been available for download since early last week. The update is available via either the system's own "system update" menu option, or you can use the link here to download the update to your PC and transfer it to your PSP that way. In either case, version 2.0 of the PSP's main menu screen adds a "WWW" menu option, which offers the ability to look at the world wide web via the system's wireless network functions. So, after almost two weeks of using this new firmware, what are our first impressions? Well, while using a laptop for the internet is always the better option (a larger screen, for one), it is actually very intriguing to be able to log into the internet with an easy-to-carry PSP. Many large hotels have begun offering wireless networks in their lobbies and convention centers, and while it may seem a bit awkward at first to be logging into the 'net from your PSP, it's more convenient to do so. On the other hand; users should be forewarned that the only sites that are 100% PSP compatible at this point are Sony's own official PSP sites, although many web sites (including Techtite.com) are working to change this limitation, and very soon. In addition; version 2.0 of the firmware seems to be slightly more fussy with video on a memory duo stick. While all the home video that I transferred to PSP format still works perfectly, some game demo videos I downloaded online were no longer compatible. Still, that's a small price to pay for internet connectivity.

EA's Begins Its "Half Life" With Valve. Due to a recent lawsuit between Valve and Half Life 2 publisher Vivendi Universal Games, the popular FPS has been looking for a new home. It got one last Monday, when EA games signed on as the new distributor of the latest Half-Life games, including the multiplayer game Counter-Strike, as well as the X-Box version of Half-Life 2, coming soon. The bad news; while this means continuing sales of the latest games in the series, there is no word on what this agreement will mean for sales of older games by Valve, including the original Half-Life, and all its many expansion packs.

Atari Flashback "V 2.0" Great, But Very Bumped! The good news still stands; after mixed opinions based on the original Atari Flashback, (review) A second "version" of the console is planned. It is to resemble a replica of the Atari 2600, right down to the controllers. The bad news? This system, originally slated for August, has been "bumped" right out of the park until mid October. Then again; it'll make a great holiday season gift for gamers.

PC's Advent Rising Falls To August.  It isn't that the game got spectacular reviews on the X-Box, when released some weeks ago. It's just that PC gamers want to finally see the game that was advertised in many a movie theater (seriously!) during the early Summer season. That week was supposed to be now...tomorrow (Tuesday), to be precise. Now the game has been bumped to an August 9th release date, and even that, if you were asking us, is very debatable. Then again; nobody likes a game that needs a patch right off the shelf, right? They're probably just removing a big or two before release...or so we all hope.

Justice League Goes RPG. Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment is said to be currently producing an RPG based on the Justice League of America comic book series, claims Gamespot.com. The JLA series of comics has been in print in various forms since the 1960's, and has led to various cartoons on television, such as Superfriends in the 1970's, and Cartoon Network's hit series Justice League Unlimited. Though the developer for this game has not yet been announced, Warner Bros. did give word that the RPG will include all of the lead members of Justice League, including Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Superman, and Wonder Woman. The RPG is slated for a fall 2006 release, on the X-Box and Playstation consoles (which, by that time, will probably mean the Playstation-3 and this holiday season's big buy, the upcoming Microsoft X-Box 360).

Dead or Alive Goes PSP...Soft Of. Tecmo announced plans to release a game for the PSP. However, the title is not from their two most popular game series, Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, but is a brand new PSP game called Tokobot. The game puts you in control of a team of robots as you try and save the world. The hero of the game uses these teams of robots to create such items as ladders and wings. Tokobot is slated for release this coming November. More news on this game when it becomes available.

American McGee's Alice Goes to the Movies. American McGee's Alice was one of the darkest spins on the classic story that I've seen. Regardless, there is a movie in the works, and it will star none other than Sarah Michelle Gellar from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, as reported by, appropriately enough, Hollywood Reporter. Before you say she's too old for the role of Alice; this is McGee's spinning of the tale, where Alice is much older and Wonderland is more mature. Alice is not the same blond tot you knew in the Disney film Alice in Wonderland, but is in fact an older teenage Alice returning to Wonderland to cope with the loss of her parents in a fire. In addition, the storyline implies that Wonderland is a creation of her subconscious and therefore is a bit "twisted" now because of her darker view of life after the fire. Still; it will be interesting to see how this latest video game movie fares. No release dates have been mentioned yet.

Note: Due to game news occurring more randomly than celebrity news, Techtite News may on occasion "bump" the biggest news of the prior week(s) to the bottom of the list, To complete the game news column on this news page.

-------------------------------

 Any news we missed...?

Be your own reporter at Techtite's Letters!