CEBIT pins hopes on Asia

World’s top tech fair theme ‘shareconomy’

NEW YORK: Gay advocacy group GLAAD says Madonna will present CNN’s Anderson Cooper with an award for openly gay media professionals.

GLAAD told The Associated Press on Saturday that the singer has been chosen to give Cooper the Vito Russo Award at the 24th annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York City on March 16.

GLAAD President Herndon Graddick says Madonna and Cooper are longtime friends who have both used their careers to support lesbian, gay and transgender people.

Cooper declined to speak publicly BERLIN, March 3, (AFP): The world’s biggest high-tech fair, the CeBIT, kicks off Tuesday, pinning its hopes on growing tech regions Asia and Africa and the hot topic of social media to beat competition from other high-profile fairs.

More than 4,000 exhibitors from some 70 countries are expected to set up shop in the northern German city of Hanover, about the same number as last year despite the weak economic environment, organisers said.

“CeBIT is becoming increasingly international as we see countries in Asia and Africa developing more and more into IT nations,” said Hartwig von Sass, a spokesman for organisers Deutsche Messe.

However, even with stable exhibitor numbers, the CeBIT is a far cry from its glory days at the height of the dotcom boom, when 8,000 firms would scrap for places in the hanger-like halls of the sprawling fair grounds.

Big

CeBIT is battling competition from the swanky Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the just-finished Mobile World Congress in Barcelona but Sass insisted that Hanover was still top of the tree.

“No matter what other fair you look at, they’re all half as big as us,” said Sass, who said 350,000 visitors Actors Guild in January for her “Silver Linings Playbook” performance. (RTRS) swarmed through the stands last year.

CeBIT is also the only fair catering to the whole IT sector rather than a specific part, he added, announcing that tech giants like IBM, Microsoft, SAP and Google would be present at this year’s event.

The IT industry enters the CeBIT in relatively bullish mood, with German industry group BITKOM forecasting in the run-up to the fair that global tech spending was poised to rise by 5.1 percent to 2.7 trillion euros ($3.5 trillion) this year.

This year’s CeBIT theme is “shareconomy”, the increasing trend of users sharing data and things, with examples being “carsharing” and of course social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Several exhibits will be devoted to shifting the way office communications are run, moving from email — which some experts see as increasingly obsolete — to internal social media platforms.

Innovative ways to process vast amounts of data as well as the perennial issues of cloud computing — storing data remotely — and Internet security will also be major topics at this year’s event.

But as ever with the CeBIT, it is not all work and no play as there will be the usual display of head-spinning about his sexuality for years. But last July he gave blogger Andrew Sullivan permission to publish an email in which Cooper said he was gay and “couldn’t be more happy.”

Russo helped found GLAAD and wrote a book about gay people in the movies called “The Celluloid Closet.” (AP) NEW YORK: Will Ferrell will be honored by MTV at its 2013 movie awards show in April for his work in television and film comedy, the cable television network has said.

The actor and comedian, who spent years on the TV show “Saturday Night Live” and appeared in the films gadgets and pointless but fun applications to entertain the punters.

For those who despair of finding the right items in massive supermarkets, a firm has developed a trolley that communicates with the shelves, points the hapless shopper in the right direction and ticks things off the list.

Communications

And for the strains of daily life, a communications firm has created an app that gives you a read-out on your stress levels just from testing your voice.

Another firm has pioneered the must-have piece of furniture for those accused of being couch potatoes.

The chair measures weight, heart rate, blood pressure and other important health data and, if it doesn’t like what it sees, transforms into a rowing machine so you can shift a few pounds while you watch your favourite programme.

While the fair officially throws open its doors on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will give the opening speech the night before along with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Poland is this year’s “partner country”, with around 150 Polish exhibitors expected to make the trip over the border. “Anchorman” and “Elf,” will receive MTV’s first Comedic Genius Award.

“Over the course of his extraordinary, 17-plus-year career, he has entertained audiences across the globe with an impressive array of laugh-out-loud performances on air, online and in films,” Stephen Friedman, MTV’s president, said in a statement. (RTRS) LOS ANGELES: Comic actress Tina Fey says there is “no way” she would host the Oscars ceremony next year, despite getting a thumbs up from “Star Trek” actor William Shatner in a sketch at Sunday’s Academy Awards show.

The creator and star of TV comedy “30 Rock” told the Huffington Post website that she did not see herself as fronting the Oscars telecast.

“I just feel that gig is so hard. Especially for, like, a woman — the amount of months that would be spent trying on dresses alone...no way,” she joked, during an interview with the Huffington Post posted on the website on Tuesday.

Asked if there was at least a one in a million chance, Fey replied, “I wish I could tell you there was.” (RTRS) RIO DE JANEIRO: Young dancers performing to Afro-Brazilian music put on an energetic show Saturday to close out an educational visit by representatives from London’s Royal Opera House and its Royal Ballet company.

The show at the Afro-Reggae cultural center in the Vigario Geral shantytown impressed Royal Opera chief executive Tony Hall as well as the London ballet troupe’s principal dancer, Roberta Marquez, herself a native of Rio.

“I’m very proud to be Brazilian right now. It’s a beautiful project and I get very emotional to see those little kids doing ballet,” Marquez said after watching a ballet turn by 20 girls in green tutus. “It’s a wonderful feeling,” she added. (AP)