‘Angry Birds Star Wars’ Is More Addictive Fun Fans Want [REVIEW]

Last month, Rovio announced a major partnership with Lucasfilm to create Angry Birds Star Wars. The game, out this week, represents a hybrid of the two powerful brands, and provides enjoyable gameplay for fans of both franchises.

[More from Mashable: Viral Video Recap: Memes of the Week]

For those unsure about the union, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” Rovio has shown in Angry Birds Star Wars that it can create a fun, challenging game that doesn’t besmirch our favorite characters. Instead, laugh at images of Stormtroopers as pigs and Chewbacca as a giant, furry bird.

Angry Birds Star Wars doesn’t deviate from the main concept behind the series. The slingshot is back, and you’ve got to propel birds towards their swine foe to knock them over and destroy their fortresses. This is Rovio’s bread and butter, but it seems like each iteration of the game has been more creative, and asks more from players; Angry Birds Space added depth to the gameplay by including physics challenges, such as zero-gravity and planetary orbit.

[More from Mashable: iPad 4: A Turbocharged Tablet With Nothing to Do [REVIEW]]

Likewise, Angry Birds Star Wars creates new challenges by adding Star Wars-inspired powers to all of the birds, based on which character they portray. Red Bird, a.ka. Luke Skywalker, can swing a lightsaber to destroy objects he’s about smash into, or to take out an enemy. The bird version of Obi-Wan Kenobi can use The Force to push over obstacles while flying. Unsurprisingly, both of these powers are extremely fun to use (a lightsaber will always add entertainment value to whatever you’re doing).

The entire main cast of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is represented in bird form; each has their own power to master. Similarly, many of the films’ settings are portrayed in the game by beautifully drawn backgrounds. The levels that take place on Tantooine feature the planet’s two suns setting on the horizon.

Angry Birds also reenact classic Star Wars movie moments in cutscenes that appear between every few levels. While they may be corny, the scenes will bring a smile to any player’s face, especially when encountering the Jawas or bounty hunter Greedo rendered as birds or pigs.

There are many other touches to Angry Birds Star Wars that clearly demonstrate the game’s developers are passionate Star Wars superfans. For example, there are classic sounds that make nerd hearts flutter, such as the blaster noise that goes off whenever players hit a level’s high score. The sound editing also incorporates the film’s score with some cartoony remixes.

While Angry Birds Star Wars is playable on mobile, tablet and PC, it’s a better fit for larger screens. Players won’t be able to enjoy the tiny details of the world, not to mention the art and cinematics, as much when screen size is smaller. Targeting Angry Birds’ powers to small, specific spots also proves more difficult.

This is a must-download for fans of either franchise, and Rovio has made it available on virtually every platform at launch. Angry Birds Star Wars is out now for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Windows Phone, Mac, PC and Windows 8, for either $ 0.99 or $ 2.99.

Title Screen

The Angry Birds Star Wars title screen. The HD version is available for tablets, Mac, PC and Windows 8.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Springsteen, McCartney, Kanye set for Sandy show

NEW YORK (AP) — Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band and Kanye West will hit the stage at a Superstorm Sandy benefit concert next month at Madison Square Garden.

MSG announced Thursday that Billy Joel, The Who, Alicia Keys and Jon Bon Jovi will also perform at the Dec. 12 show, dubbed “12-12-12.” More performers will be announced at a later date.

Proceeds from the concert will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund to benefit those affected by Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Sandy’s assault more than two weeks ago created widespread damage and power outages throughout the area.

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Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s diabetes problem is getting worse, and health officials say the biggest changes have been in Oklahoma and a number of Southern states.

The diabetes rate in Oklahoma more than tripled over 15 years, and also boomed in Southern states like Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.

Most cases are the kind of diabetes linked to obesity. Health officials believe extra weight explains the increases in the South and Southwest. They also say the rates overall are up because people with diabetes are living longer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the state report Thursday.

The diabetes rate more than doubled in several Northern states, too, including Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Maine.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Death, Facebook and the Blurred Line Between Real and Virtual

As the dividing line between our online and offline lives continues to fade, more and more of what happens in the “real” world is also seeping into the online world—and that includes death. So how should we deal with it when our friends or loved ones die? I started thinking about this recently when I decided to live-tweet a friend’s funeral (something that many people felt was inappropriate), and it was reinforced for me when I saw the same friend’s face pop up in my Facebook (FB) chat list and even saw updates in my stream from his page. What is the appropriate response when this happens? Is it a sign of how creepy social networks can be in such situations, or is it just part of what living our lives online means now?

I confess that when I first saw my friend Michael’s face appear in my chat list, I was taken aback—and more than a little disturbed by it. It was a couple of weeks after his funeral, and so the memory of his death had faded to some extent, and his smiling picture felt like a rude reminder. It reminded me of Web articles I had seen about how (or whether) to delete deceased friends or family members from Facebook’s social graph, and at first I thought about doing that.

But then I thought about how difficult it had been deleting another friend’s contact information from my cell phone after he died (this was before Facebook became popular) and how it felt as if I were deliberately forgetting about that person, which didn’t feel right.

It occurred to me that we often keep photos of loved ones in our wallets or in picture frames on our mantelpieces, as a way of remembering them after they are gone. I have pictures of my father, who died more than a decade ago now, as part of a random photo slideshow that comes up on a spare computer and on the television for the same reason. So why does it feel so different when we see that person’s avatar pop up in our Facebook feed or a chat window? Perhaps because social media is inherently about communication—and in most cases real-time communication—and that person can no longer be communicated with.

Facebook has a process whereby a person’s page can be “memorialized,” or turned into a kind of static page as a tribute to them, where friends and loved ones can post and see messages posted by others, but access is restricted, and it doesn’t show up in recommended lists (you can ask the social network to do this by filling out a form). In many cases, particularly when young users die in some violent or tragic way, their friends turn the page into a memorial quite quickly—and of course journalists then often show up asking for comments or photos, which brings up a host of other questions about what’s appropriate.

But if the page belongs to someone who hasn’t really been a public figure and didn’t die in any kind of newsworthy way, it falls into a kind of grey area. Do you maintain the page? Mothball it? Eventually delete it? In the case of my friend Michael, who was a fairly prominent user of social media in his job as a marketing professional in Toronto (one of the reasons I believed he wouldn’t mind my live-tweeting his funeral), his family chose to keep the page alive—and has even posted messages to him as though he were still around, which I find heartwarming in an odd way.

And Facebook is just one part of the equation when it comes to handling a person’s social media after they die. What about their Twitter account, or their Tumblr account, or even their e-mail? When my father-in-law died, the family was confronted with a dilemma. because he and his wife had shared an account that used both of their names—so when an e-mail came in from my mother-in-law, his name showed up in the address field as well, which was somewhat uncomfortable. But changing e-mail addresses is not easy.

There are also issues around who owns a user’s social content after he or she dies: Does Facebook own that person’s page and status updates and photos, and if so, what duty do they have to provide it to family members? What about iTunes? Twitter is less of an issue because no users can get access to their tweets anyway, even if they are alive (unless they make a special request, as Andy Carvin of NPR did for his tweets during the Arab Spring). But what about Flickr photos or Pinterest pages? It’s still a somewhat unexplored region of our online lives at this point.

But for me, the more interesting aspect is how we look at all those pages and tweets and photos and avatars. Are they a welcome reminder of that person and how we used to fit into their lives, or are they a cruel joke played on the living because they seem to promise a level of interaction we will never be able to have again? Perhaps they are both—and perhaps it is too much to ask that our virtual worlds be any more comfortable around death than our offline ones are.

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When Facebook insiders, employees can sell stock

On Wednesday, additional Facebook stock became eligible for sale for the first time. It follows the expiration of similar lock-up periods in August and October. Other shares will become eligible for sale in the coming months.

Up to 1.56 billion more shares could flood the stock market — nearly four times the 421 million shares that had been trading since Facebook’s initial public offering in May. The 1.56 billion figure includes shares released from lock-up already.

On Aug. 16, a lock-up period expired for 271 million shares held by early investors and directors who had participated in the IPO, though CEO Mark Zuckerberg was excluded for unspecified reasons.

On Oct. 29, the lock-up ended for 234 million shares and stock options held by employees as of Oct. 15, excluding Zuckerberg. Oct. 31 was the first trading day since then because of stock market closures resulting from Superstorm Sandy.

On Wednesday, another 852 million shares and stock options became eligible. Zuckerberg had been eligible to sell his shares at this date, but Facebook has changed that given that the CEO had no plans to do so until at least next September.

Here’s the schedule for remaining lock-up expirations, as reported by Facebook Inc. in regulatory filings:

— Dec. 14: 156 million shares held by early investors and others who participated in IPO, except Zuckerberg.

— May 18, 2013: 47 million shares held by the Russian Internet company Mail.ru Group and DST Global, both of which made early investments in Facebook.

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Wakeman reworks rock epic Journey to Centre of Earth

LONDON (Reuters) – The story behind the upcoming re-issue of Rick Wakeman‘s 1974 concept album “Journey to the Center of the Earth” sounds almost as unlikely as the Jules Verne tale that inspired it.

Progressive rock veteran Wakeman had presumed the original orchestration to his chart-topping disc was lost for good when his record company MAM, where the manuscripts had been stored in boxes, was brought to its knees in the early 1980s.

Although he could have re-orchestrated the work from the original album, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1974, Wakeman knew it would be far from perfect.

And the original score was 55 minutes long whereas the 1974 version had to be cut to closer to 40 due to the constraints of vinyl recordings at the time.

“In about 1983 or 1984 I had an enquiry to do Journey again in America,” Wakeman recalled in a telephone interview.

“I thought ‘great’. But MAM had gone, and nobody there had any idea what had happened to all the stuff of mine,” the former Yes keyboardist told Reuters.

“Up until recently I would get phone calls to do it and I said ‘no, I can’t', there is no music any more. You just resign yourself to disappointment.”

Everything changed about four years ago when a box of papers arrived at his doorstep – a fairly regular occurrence, he explained, for a man who had been married several times and had “stuff in storage all over the place”.

Sifting through the contents, Wakeman found a pile of music that was not his own, but “something told me to empty the entire box.” At the very bottom was the long-lost conductor’s score of Journey, albeit so damp the pages were stuck together.

To this day Wakeman does not know where the box came from, and is amazed it reappeared nearly 30 years after going missing.

ORIGINAL SONGS

Once the music had been downloaded on to a computer, Wakeman set about reintroducing the songs and other sections he removed for the 1974 recording with the help of notes he had kept.

He decided to make a studio recording of the rock opera, and sought to replicate the sound of the original instruments.

For the narrator’s voice, he could not go back to David Hemmings, who died in 2003, and so invited actor Peter Egan.

The result is a re-mastered version of Journey, complete with 20 minutes of unheard music, which hits shelves on November 20. It comes in the form of a “fanback” comprising the music, a 132-page magazine and a replica of the program to the 1974 show.

For Wakeman it was a labor of love, but one he hopes will prove profitable.

“We did have record companies come forward,” the 63-year-old said. “But I don’t want an A&R (artists and repertoire) man coming in and saying it could do with this and that.

“The only way I can get this done as I believe it should be is to finance it and do it myself which we did. It broke the bank, there’s no doubt about it.”

While the concept of a rock opera based on French author Verne’s 1864 sci-fi classic may not instantly appeal to young listeners today, Wakeman believes there is a market for his latest release.

“Music audiences today don’t put a date on anything, they either like it or they don’t,” he said, adding that the “prog-rock” genre for which he is best known has made something of a comeback in recent years.

PROKOFIEV FAN

The prolific musician who has made around 100 albums and sold millions of records started piano lessons when he was seven, and at about that time the seeds of his career were sown.

“Story telling to music is something I have loved since my father took me to see ‘Peter and the Wolf’ aged eight, and (Sergei) Prokofiev became my hero,” he recalled.

By his late teens he was an established session musician and joined the band Yes in 1971 with whom he recorded the hit album “Fragile” and, the following year, “Close to the Edge”.

In 1973 he released “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” a solo concept album, and in 1974, which his official online biography calls “probably the most significant year in Rick’s career”, he made Journey and toured the world with it.

Another concept album, “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” followed in 1975, and Wakeman returned to Yes for spells throughout the 1990s.

Next week he plays six dates in South America, including the first concert performance of the new, full Journey and a rendition of The Six Wives.

The new “holy grail” following the rediscovery of Journey is to track down the original music to King Arthur, which was also lost. Wakeman is orchestrating the existing recording for a show next June, but would love to find the full score.

“All of us involved hope very much that it (Journey) makes its money back, because it would then allow me to look for the King Arthur music. We are doing a version next June and it would be lovely to say we’ve done it from the original music.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Inyecciones epidurales de esteroides no alivian dolor del nervio ciático

NUEVA YORK (Reuters Health) – Las inyecciones de esteroides

no alivian la ciática, un trastorno común causante de dolor de

piernas y espalda baja, según muestra una revisión de la

literatura médica.

Tras analizar casi dos decenas de estudios sobre miles de

pacientes, un equipo de Australia determinó que las inyecciones

epidurales (en la médula) de corticoesteroides no tenían un

efecto inmediato o prolongado en la neuralgia del nervio ciático

y el alivio pasajero del dolor en las piernas sería

insignificante para los pacientes.

“Queda muy claro que el tratamiento no es una buena opción”,

dijo el coautor del estudio, Chris Maher, del Instituto George

para la Salud Mundial, Sídney, Australia.

Aun así, el uso de las inyecciones epidurales de esteroides

para tratar los dolores de espalda en los pacientes de Medicare

crecieron de 741.000 en el 2000 a casi 1.438.000 en el 2004.

En Estados Unidos, una inyección cuesta varios cientos de

dólares. Y una partida fallada de uno de los esteroides

utilizados en los estudios revisados, la metilprednisolona,

acaba de causar en el país un brote de meningitis fúngica que

infectó al menos a 400 personas y provocó 31 muertes.

Estudios previos ya habían cuestionado la efectividad de las

inyecciones epidurales de esteroides para tratar la ciática, que

comúnmente se atribuye al daño de un nervio.

Ahora, el equipo de Maher reunió los resultados de los

ensayos clínicos de mejor calidad, aleatorizados, para incluir

finalmente 23 estudios sobre un total de 2300 pacientes. El

nivel de dolor se había evaluado con una escala de cero a 100 (a

mayor puntaje, peor dolor).

El equipo observó que las inyecciones no aliviaban el dolor

de espalda de la ciática en el corto o el largo plazo. En cuanto

al dolor de piernas, sólo en el corto plazo (entre dos semanas y

tres meses) surgió una reducción estadísticamente significativa

de seis puntos.

“En una escala de 100 puntos, seis parecen una diferencia

mínima y, para nosotros, quizás ni tenga importancia clínica”,

dijo Maher. “Pensamos que la pregunta está respondida (…) De

modo que en cuanto a la investigación, hay que avanzar sobre

otros tratamientos de la ciática”.

Maher sostuvo que, en lugar de utilizar las inyecciones de

esteroides, los pacientes con ciática deberían consultar al

médico. Otras opciones terapéuticas son los analgésicos comunes,

como el acetaminofeno, que son fármacos que actúan en el sistema

nervioso. La última opción es la cirugía.

FUENTE: Annals of Internal Medicine, online 12 de noviembre

del 2012

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Wall Street gains, led by retail sector after Home Depot

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks rose on Tuesday in a sharp turnaround from earlier losses, led by gains in retail stocks after strong results from Home Depot , the world’s largest home improvement company.

Traders said rumors that Spain may be close to asking for a sovereign bailout may have boosted buying.

Dow component Home Depot Inc was the top gainer on the S&P 500, climbing 4.5 percent to $ 63.90 after reporting earnings that beat expectations and raising its outlook. Rival retailer Lowes Companies also gained, up 1.1 percent to $ 32.32.

Energy stocks, which were trading lower earlier, also turned around sharply. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.GSPE> rose 0.7 percent.

Technology shares were little changed and earlier were under pressure from weakness in Microsoft after the executive most widely tipped to be the next chief executive left the company.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was up 74.71 points, or 0.58 percent, at 12,889.79. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.SPX> was up 7.49 points, or 0.54 percent, at 1,387.52. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 1.24 points, or 0.04 percent, at 2,905.50.

The euro zone debt crisis continued to roil global markets.

“The intraday moves are pretty big today as we continue to be in a rumor-filled market, mainly news out of Europe,” said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Despite the gains, the S&P 500 was still down nearly 2 percent for the month on lingering concerns about the “fiscal cliff” in the U.S., and debt crisis in the euro zone.

The fiscal cliff is a series of budget cuts and tax hikes that begin to take effect in the new year. Market participants worry that if no deal is reached to avoid going over the cliff, the economy could fall back into recession.

Concerns over this possibility contributed to the S&P’s worst week since June last week, with no sign of a bottom despite a drop of almost 3 percent over the past two weeks.

“The attention in the equity markets has shifted more noticeably to the possibility that the U.S. fails to properly handle the so-called fiscal cliff,” said Ari Wald, analyst at PrinceRidge Group. He said equities in developed countries have been outperforming U.S. stocks despite worries about the euro zone’s financial health.

In other earnings news, AK Steel Holding Corp shares fell 10 percent to $ 4.91 after forecasting a fourth-quarter loss, while Michael Kors Holdings gained 3.9 percent to $ 52.58 after raising its outlook.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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General investigated for emails to Petraeus friend

PERTH, Australia (AP) — In a new twist to the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.

Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on Monday.

A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said Allen’s communications were with Jill Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee.

Kelley is said to have received threatening emails from Broadwell, who is Petraeus’ biographer and who had an extramarital affair with Petraeus that reportedly began after he became CIA director in September 2011.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.

Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.

The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not explain the nature of Allen’s problematic communications.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

“Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter,” the official said. He said Allen currently is in Washington.

Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by the Defense Department Inspector General, Allen will remain in his post as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. He praised Allen as having been instrumental in making progress in the war.

The FBI’s decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Panetta’s decision to allow Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.

Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.

In the meantime, Panetta said, Allen’s nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold “until the relevant facts are determined.” He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013, if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.

Panetta said President Barack Obama was consulted and agreed that Allen’s nomination should be put on hold. Allen was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.

NATO officials had no comment about the delay in Allen’s appointment.

“We have seen Secretary Panetta‘s statement,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. “It is a U.S. investigation.”

Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Obama’s nomination of Gen. Joseph Dunford to succeed Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Dunford’s hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.

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Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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At Mao-style conclave, China embraces Twitter age

BEIJING (AP) — During China’s last party congress, the cadres in charge of the world’s most populous nation didn’t know a hashtag from a hyperlink. But five years on, there’s a new message from Beijing: The political transition will be microblogged.

Party officials have this fall embraced social media with unprecedented enthusiasm, hoping it can help guide public opinion and stir up excitement about the staid and scripted party meeting taking place this week in Beijing that kicks off a transition to a new, younger set of top leaders.

Dozens of the more than 2,000 party delegates, among them Chairman Mao‘s grandson, are using social media to wax rhapsodic about China’s rise and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao’s live 90-minute reading of highlights from this year’s party work report. Typical posts include pictures of grinning delegates on Tiananmen Square and mobile snapshots of poinsettia arrangements and chandeliers from inside the Great Hall of the People, where the congress is meeting.

Guo Mingyi, a miner from the frigid northeast who was making his debut as a party delegate, tweeted: “On this land with great affections, how can I not sing, how can I not tear up, I love this piece of land, the people and the great Chinese Communist Party!”

State media also are posting microblog interviews with officials and shooting out updates about the congress schedule via Twitter-like accounts.

But apart from being a tool to deliver Beijing’s approved policy messages to the mobile phones of ordinary Chinese, the Internet is a two-way street that’s also being used by the public to poke fun at and critique the propaganda. Online commentators have compared the gushy crying and clapping of some delegates over Hu’s speech to North Korean style mass hysteria.

Responding to state media report about how a female delegate, Li Jian, cried five times at Hu’s work report, a Sina microblog user writing under the name ‘Buying Soysauce’ wrote: “I sobbed uncontrollably too, at the thought that these people were my compatriots.”

Wang Keqin, the assistant to the editor in chief of Beijing’s Economic Observer magazine, wrote about the tears of another delegate, He Guiqin: “It’s back to North Korea overnight!”

Other critics have dredged up old headlines from 1987 about the scourge of bribe-seeking and posted them online to highlight how little party rhetoric, and party problems, have changed despite major social change over the last three decades.

The clash of ideas underscores just how important the Internet has become in China’s campaign to guide public opinion — a major shift from just a few years ago.

At the last party conclave in October 2007, Twitter was a little over a year old and hashtags had only just been introduced. China’s leading homegrown Twitter-like microblog service, Sina Weibo, was still two years from launch.

But as elsewhere, China’s Internet population has exploded over the last five years, jumping from 170 million to more than 500 million today. Social media has boomed with it and now plays a huge part in everyday Chinese life, particularly for urban residents who use it to find restaurants, jobs and mates.

Beijing’s initial reaction to social media was to block and censor, to limit conversations by banning access to Twitter and Facebook and to limit mention of anything considered sensitive or destabilizing with keyword filters. Though authorities still use those tactics, the government is increasingly proactive and working to wrest control of the online conversation by flooding the zone with its own content.

David Bandurski, a researcher with the China Media Project at Hong Kong University, says Chinese officials have learned that simply banning or blocking reports is no longer effective in the porous Internet sphere and that stifling information can backfire by fanning more interest in scandals and crises and sparking online rumors.

“You can’t just stuff the genie back into the bottle,” said Bandurski. “You have also to channel public opinion … officially, they are seeing social media as the best way to send out their authoritative information and kind of drive the agenda.”

But the government remains yoked to its party-ese, which can seem hopelessly out of date in the Twitter age.

A dispatch on the trend by the official Xinhua News Agency gives a hint to the flavor of Beijing’s rhetoric.

“The Internet has been unprecedentedly embedded into the ongoing National Congress of the Communist Party of China,” the news agency trumpeted over the weekend. “Not only can contents on the Internet be found in the congress report, but online media practitioners are attending the congress in person.”

On Saturday, Chairman Mao’s grandson Mao Xinyu tweeted this to his 105,943 followers on Renmin Weibo, the microblog of the official party paper, the People’s Daily: “Mao Zedong thought will always be the guiding ideology of the party.”

It got 155 retweets, a mediocre showing in China‘s lively web sphere.

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Follow Alexa Olesen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/alobeijing

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