Computer game to help kick smoking addiction

WASHINGTON -- Smokers are about to get help kicking the tobacco habit: an interactive computer game that aims to "coach" cigarette users away from their addiction.

Based on the successful "Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking" method which reportedly has helped more than 10 million smokers to stub out their cigarettes once and for all, the game, designed for Nintendo DS, will be developed by the Quebec bureau of California-headquartered Ubisoft.

It is expected to go on sale in November.

Ubisoft is the company that has brought the world games that pit players against an invasion of demonic rabbits or allow them to learn a foreign language using the Nintendo DS, with its interactive touch screen.

In the smoking cessation game, players enter a brief personal smoking history and their tobacco habits and choose a personal coach to guide them through the process of quitting, according to a press release issued by Ubisoft.

Fifteen mini-games help to "dispel the illusions about nicotine addiction" and players can track their progress in kicking the habit using the "Path to Freedom" meter.

And even after that last cigarette butt has sullied the ashtray, "you can still play the game and measure the daily benefits you get from your new life without cigarettes," Ubisoft promises.

"The player experiences a truly interactive engagement with the game, through which he or she learns that it can actually be enjoyable to quit smoking," said Christian Salomon, vice president of worldwide licensing at Ubisoft.

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It's a news of cigarette quitting. How amazing that playing game can help you kick smoking addiction.

tobacco
bureau
pit
invasion
demonic
cessation
dispel
illusion
butt
sully
ashtray
engagement

I love playing games and I also have a Nintendo DS. So this news is really catching my attention.
Let me very concern about it.

Iron Man

He speeds into battle in a fiery flash, laying waste to all challengers. That's not just "Iron Man" but the film's likely box-office outcome too.

From a surprise sneak peek at July's Comic-Con convention through its teaser trailer launch in October and TV spots during February's Super Bowl and "Lost" premiere, "Iron Man" has been assembling a towering wave of momentum. But is it a tsunami? When the first meaningful audience tracking surveys rolled in early last week, Paramount and Marvel Studios had to say "Iron Man" sure was looking like one.

Movie studios and exhibitors are desperate for a hit, with 2008 attendance down more than 6% compared with a year ago and last weekend's total grosses down almost 20% versus the same weekend in 2007, according to the research firm Media by Numbers. Several of the year's higher-profile releases, including films from George Clooney ("Leatherheads"), Will Ferrell ("Semi-Pro") and Jodie Foster ("Nim's Island"), all faltered. Relief from some of the summer's biggest guns -- "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" and " Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" -- won't come until mid- and late May.

But when "Iron Man" hits theaters on May 2, it may single-handedly launch what is Hollywood's most important (and profitable) season and help lift the business out of its doldrums.

As is the industry habit, both Paramount and Marvel are trying to manage expectations downward. They note (accurately, as it turns out) that Iron Man is hardly as popular a comic book character as Spider-Man or Hulk, that almost all school-age kids will still be in classes when the film opens and that this weekend's "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and May 2's "Made of Honor" will grab some of "Iron Man's" harder-to-get female patrons.

That said, some rival studio executives and producers -- having looked at "Iron Man's" strong tracking numbers ¡X are now saying the film could be one of the summer's top hits, especially since Paramount and Marvel have spent only 30% of their advertising dollars so far.

Directed by "Elf's" Jon Favreau, "Iron Man" stars Robert Downey Jr. as arms manufacturer Tony Stark. Captured by Middle Eastern guerrillas who force him to build a missile, a wounded Stark instead constructs a protective iron suit that allows him to escape. Once free and back in Malibu, Stark secretly refines his design, turning himself into a more peace-minded crusader. His about-face might worry longtime assistant Pepper Potts ( Gwyneth Paltrow), but it really ticks off business partner Obadiah Stane ( Jeff Bridges). Before long, Stark's Iron Man faces a very bad boardroom revolt.

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It is a movie preview about "Iron Man" the movie what I've seen recently.

fiery
convention
teaser
assemble
momentum
exhibitor
crystal
doldrum
guerrillas
refine
crusader

"Iron Man" is the best movie I had ever seen before. It is also the kind of heroic movie I like very much. The story is so funny and exciting to tempt me seeing once again.

Exploring a waterfall in southernmost Taiwan

To many locals and foreign visitors alike, Taiwan's southernmost county of Pingtung, which covers nearly 2,800 square kilometers of the island's southern extremity, is best known for the beautiful beaches of Kending; there's plenty to discover in this voluminous area of high mountains, extremely long coastline and flat coastal plains.

For hikers, a major attraction is the magnificent peak of Mount Beidawu (北大武山, 3,092 meters), where the Central Mountain Range enjoys its last moments of glory before sinking into the Pacific, while there is no shortage of beautiful waterfalls to explore, such as the remote but spectacular Yuanyang Waterfall (鴛鴦瀑布), a tall and dramatic twin fall thundering into a deep, very narrow canyon on Beidawu's western flank.

Several of Pingtung's best and tallest falls -- like Yuanyang Waterfall -- do, unfortunately, take a fair bit of determination and a fit pair of legs to reach, but lovely Dajin Waterfall (大津瀑布), which falls into a ravine in the mountain foothills in the extreme north of the county, is a family-friendly outing. The waterfall is a great short trip for its own sake, or a brief detour while heading to a more prominent destination such as the popular Rukai indigenous village of Santimen, not far to the south.

Dajin itself is a nondescript township on provincial route 27 -- which leads north from Pingtung City to Liuguei, across the border in Kaohsiung County -- so waste no time there and turn right off the main road there onto local route 185. Cruising along this pleasant wooded stretch of byway, it's impossible to miss several recently built temples, each one large and ostentatious. These recent contributions to the landscape have become as popular for the weekend crowd as the beautiful Dajin Waterfall, which lies hidden in a fold of the mountains above.

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This is a travel article introducing the beauty of southern in Taiwan.

voluminous
magnificent
spectacular
flank
ravine
foothill
detour
prominent
destination
indigenous
nondescript
byway
ostentatious

Southern part of Taiwan has beautiful mountains and beach attracting many people to visit it. I plan to go there taking a vacation for several days in summer.

Death Toll at Least 10,000 From China Quake

Collapsed building from earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province 12 Apr 2008

Thousands of Chinese troops and medical teams have been dispatched to areas of Sichuan province, where the country's worst earthquake in decades struck Monday.

Authorities say the quake killed at least 10,000 people in western China and that thousands are still buried under collapsed buildings.

The state-run Xinhua news agency says an official near the quake's epicenter in Wenchuan county managed to appeal for help using a satellite telephone, nearly 11 hours after the quake cut communications.

Xinhua reports that the official sobbed as he described the devastation and requested that relief supplies be airlifted to the area as soon as possible.

Xinhua also reports that relief teams are headed to the area on foot, but are still nearly 70 kilometers from their destination as of early Tuesday. There is still little information on the scale of the destruction in Wenchuan county, home to more than 100-thousand people. Xinhua says storms have prevented military rescue helicopters from reaching the site.

Nearly 100 kilometers away in the city of Dujiangyan, Xinhua says rescue workers pulled 60 bodies from a collapsed school where 900 students are believed to have been trapped.

Speaking from a disaster headquarters in Dujiangyan, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told state media it is essential that the road to Wenchuan be cleared because delays will cause more lives to be lost.

Xinhua says nearly 10,000 people are feared dead in Sichuan province alone, and more than 200 in three other provinces and the city of Chongqing.

Authorities estimate that at least five thousand people died in Sichuan's Beichuan county. Local officials say at least 80 percent of the buildings there have collapsed, and 10-thousand more people are feared injured. Beichuan is about 160 kilometers north of Sichuan's capital, Chengdu.

Thousands of people in Chengdu slept outside overnight in fear of aftershocks and collapsing buildings.

Two chemical plants in Sichuan also have been damaged, burying hundreds of people and forcing the evacuation of several thousand others.

The United States and the United Nations have offered condolences to victims of the tragedy, and both say they are willing to help in any way possible.

The 7.8 magnitude quake hit in the afternoon local time or 0628 UTC Monday and was felt as far away as Taiwan and Bangkok.

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1.This is a damageable disaster in Asia recently.

dispatch
authority
epicenter
sob
devastation
helicopter
evacuation
condolence
magnitude

The disaster is the national issue that everyone should concerning. And we have to pay our compassion considering if one of us under that situation.