The increase of Internet users in Indonesia triggers growth of technology companies as the users need Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), 3G, computers and wireless equipments to access Internet, an official told Xinhua in exclusive interview on Wednesday.

Estella Tan, sales director of D-Link International Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based technology company, said that in the past three years, Internet users in Indonesia have been increasing very fast, with the support of government’s technology friendly policies, widespread social networking media and emergence of affordable smart phones.

“Growth is very big. Internet brought Indonesians to another level (of life). Now they don’t just read newspaper or magazines. They access data and information from everywhere with their cellular phones. That makes technology companies grow faster than before,” said Tan.

She said that the Indonesian government has made Internet usage more popular by implementing Internet friendly policies such as lowering cost of Internet.

“Three years ago, Internet was very expensive. Now, Internet is very affordable, encouraging people to use Internet in their daily life,” she said.

Tan also said that widespread social networking media help a lot in popularizing Internet among people.

Becoming another Bruce Lee has been a childhood dream for many generations in China. Yet with the increasing popularity of video games, many children only focused on mastering the joystick.

Now, with the success of two recent movies featuring Lee’s former teacher, Yip Man, and his Wing Chun style of kungfu, a passion for learning the art is becoming fashionable again.

“I see this as a great opportunity to promote the Chinese traditional martial art of Wing Chun,” said Wang Desheng, a 34-year-old martial artist, who has been looking forward to this moment since childhood.

Wang is the only recognized successor of Yip’s Wing Chun kungfu in Beijing and has established three gyms where the traditional martial art is taught in the city.

Wing Chun is the type of Shaolin kungfu featuring fast moving fists on which Lee developed his own style of kungfu: Jeet Kune Do, the Way of the Intercepting Fist.

“I have to say, the series of Ip Man films have brought many opportunities for my Wing Chun schools. Before that, I had only a few dozen students,” Wang said.

Wang now has at least 400 disciples and is keen to build more kungfu schools.

In Wang’s schools, participants range from 7 to 47 years of age, from office workers to school children.

“There are more people paying attention to our traditional kungfu, but it’s not enough,” Wang said.

Wang believes far more Westerners than Chinese now study Wing Chun.

“It is a precious heritage left by our ancestors, which needs our contribution and development,” Wang said.

Born and raised in Northeast China’s Jilin Province, Wang has been interested in Chinese kungfu films, especially those featuring Bruce Lee, for as long as he can remember.

“I had always wished one day I would become a kungfu master and run a school teaching others,” Wang said.

In pursuit of his dream, Wang left home for Beijing at the age of 13. After working as a security guard for a few years, he finally got the chance to learn and practice martial arts professionally.

Wang remembered one day he saw a poster with Bruce Lee advertising a martial arts class at Beijing Jiaotong University.

He signed up immediately.

“I learned quickly, which gave me a chance to perform at universities,” he said proudly.

A few years later, Wang was even able to establish his own kungfu school in Beijing.

But very few people came to learn Wing Chun in the first few years.

“It seemed people nowadays are not as enthusiastic about Chinese kungfu as we were in our time,” he said. “But I’ve always loved Chinese kungfu, especially Wing Chun. To some extent, practicing Wing Chun has changed my personality and life.”

China recovered from two consecutive defeats by wining on Friday 4-1 over South Africa on the 3rd date of the Group B, of the Women’s Field Hockey World Cup being hosted in Rosario city, 300km to Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital.

The goals were scored by Ren Ye at the minute 26, Fun Baorong at the minute 44 and Gao Lihua scored two, one at the minute 58 and the other at the 60.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s goal was scored by Jennifer Wilson at the minute 4. With this triumph, China got its first three points at the World Cup.

The match was played at 9:00 a.m. local time (1200 GMT) in the stadium of Rosario, which was supposed to be played on Thursday, but was suspended due to the pouring rain.

The next matches of the Group B are England (6 points) vs South Korea (3) and Argentina (6) vs Spain (0).

The matches for the Group A will be Germany (6) vs India (0), the Netherlands (6) vs Australia (6) and Japan (0) vs New Zealand (0).

Top two teams of each group will qualify for the semifinals, to be played on September 11.

Going to an open-air cinemas is one of the most popular ways to enjoy a night out with friends and family members during summer in Greece.

Staying outdoors and watching a movie at an open-air cinemas in summer is a decades-old tradition in Greece, and enthusiasm remains strong even if summer is ending and people are still feeling the pinch of a severe economic crisis that has hit the country.

For more than a century, from May to September, Greeks go to the green backyards of blocks of flats with a projection screen, sit in director’s chairs with little tables by the side and enjoy their favourite new and older films, while having snacks and drinks and chatting with friends.

“Open-air cinema is a tradition which is an integral part of Greek people’s cultural identity. It is part of our life. It will never die,” Kostas Rothonias, owner of Cine Psychiko Classic, an open-air cinema in one of the posh districts of Athens, told Xinhua.

Rothonias’ revenues fell by 30 percent this summer compared with 2009, but he attributed the drop mainly to the rainy weather this May and June in Greece.

Despite the economic crisis which has affected Greek households, the eight-euro (10.15 U.S dollars) ticket is not too high for them, considering that open air cinemas offer high-quality projectors similar to the ones in classic closed cinemas and at the same price. Rothonias offers his customers blockbusters such as the new Hollywood animation production “Shrek,” but also classic quality films such as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Kara DioGuardi is following Ellen DeGeneres and Simon Cowell out the door at “American Idol.”

Her departure leaves Randy Jackson, who’s been with the singing contest from the start, the last judge standing, for now. Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez are the reported front-runners for the panel.

Entertainment mogul Simon Fuller, creator of the British show “Pop Idol” that was the template for the U.S. series he produces, called DioGuardi a standout songwriter whom he planned to work with in music “for many years to come.”

DioGuardi, whose exit had been rumored, is a hit machine whose songs have been recorded by Gwen Stefani, Faith Hill, Marc Anthony and others, including past “Idol” winners.

“I felt like I won the lottery when I joined `American Idol’ two years ago, but I feel like now is the best time to leave `Idol,’” DioGuardi said in a statement Friday, calling her experience as a judge on the show “amazing.”

Her statement, issued by Fox, didn’t elaborate on her reasons for leaving. Her contract reportedly had a one-year option remaining that the network could have exercised.

Although she offered informed critiques on “Idol,” observers faulted her for lacking the pizazz — and unpredictability — that ex-judge Paula Abdul had provided.

DioGuardi’s departure comes as the top-rated show continues auditions for its 10th season, which starts airing in January. Tryouts have been held in six cities, with a seventh announced this week for Los Angeles on Sept. 22.

The final decision on which would-be pop stars make it on the show rests with the judges, who are likely to begin filming their audition segments this month.

Cowell started the exodus from “American Idol” earlier this year, when he announced he was leaving to launch another talent show for Fox, “The X Factor,” based on the hit British program he created.

In July, DeGeneres, who was brought in to replace Abdul, said she was leaving after a single season. The talk show host said she felt uncomfortable criticizing young talent.

Some critics had complained DeGeneres was more of a cheerleader than an incisive critic in the fashion of Cowell, who was consistently blunt in his remarks.

The judges’ turnover gives “American Idol” a chance to recapture the Cowell-Abdul chemistry that helped make the show a hit, along with, crucially, its ability to launch such top-selling artists as Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson.

While the show has long been No. 1 in the ratings, it has to stem a slide in viewership to remain there.

A total of 24.2 million viewers watched the ninth season’s final duel between Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox, compared to the nearly 29 million viewers who saw Kris Allen win over Adam Lambert last year.

The former television producer who tried to blackmail David Letterman was freed Thursday after four months in jail for a plot that put a spotlight on the comic icon’s office affairs, city Correction Department records show.

Robert “Joe” Halderman got time off for good behavior from his six-month term at the Rikers Island jail complex, but he isn’t done with his sentence: He still has to complete 1,000 hours of community service, and he’ll be on probation for five years.

“He survived this, and he’s glad to be getting off the island,” said his lawyer, Gerald Shargel. The former CBS “48 Hours” producer — who’s up for a News and Documentary Emmy award this year — is looking for work, Shargel added.

Halderman, 52, pleaded guilty earlier this spring to attempted grand larceny. He admitted he demanded $2 million in hush money last fall to keep from revealing personal information about Letterman, presenting his threat in a somewhat colorful form: as an outline for a thinly veiled screenplay about the “Late Show” host being ruined by disclosures about his personal life.

The case spurred Letterman, who had married his longtime girlfriend about six months before, to reveal on-air that he’d had sex with women on his show’s staff.

Halderman’s scheme was fueled by both financial problems and romantic jealousy, his lawyer has said. Halderman had peeked in his former girlfriend’s diary and read her account of a relationship with Letterman, her boss — information he used to bolster his threat to make the comic icon’s world “collapse around him,” authorities said.

Halderman, who was divorced at the time, remarried before going to jail in May, Shargel said. And while he no longer has his job at CBS’ “48 Hours,” he has been nominated for an Emmy for an April 2009 story about an American exchange student charged with murder in Italy. He was one of four producers cited for the story. The news Emmys will be presented Sept. 27 in New York.

CBS, also home to Letterman’s show, has declined to discuss whether Halderman resigned or was fired.

While behind bars, Halderman worked in a jail library program, among other assignments. His community service will entail providing job training to people who had been homeless and convicts getting out of prison.

While Letterman’s popularity emerged unscathed from the scandal, the host has said it was an emotional blow. He and his wife, Regina Lasko, began dating in 1986 and have a 6-year-old son.

“You take a look at the explosion, and it knocks you down, and you wake up every morning, and you’re scared and you’re depressed and sad,” he said on “Live! With Regis and Kelly” in April.

“And you kind of got to let that knock you down and knock you down, and then pretty soon you’ve got to start knocking IT down. And then, when that happens, you start looking at the pieces left of your life.”

A spokesman for Letterman declined to comment on Halderman’s release.

Ashton Kutcher lashed out at Star magazine which recently reported the 32-year-old U.S. actor cheated on his wife, Demi Moore, according to media reports Friday.

“I think Star magazine calling me a ‘cheater’ qualifies as defamation of character. I hope my lawyer agrees,” Ashton tweeted.

“STAR magazine — you don’t get to stand behind ‘freedom of the press’ when you are writing fiction,” he added.

Despite the 14-year age gap, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have been regarded as the perfect couple for complete devoting to each other all the time.

Besides Kutcher, his representative’s defenses and Demi Moore, the actor’s five-year wife, also spoke up for him.

“Excellent point my love!” and “No question!” she wrote in response to Kutcher’s comments.

On Wednesday, Star magazine published a story that claims Kutcher was seen getting cozy with “a hot young blonde” at a Los Angeles restaurant.

A Star magazine spokesperson told Access Hollywood that they “stand by its story.”

Japanese actress Kiko Mizuhara, actress Rinko Kikuchi, actor Kenichi Matsuyama and French film director Tran Anh Hung pose during the photocall of the film “Norumei no mori” (”Norwegian Wood”) at the 67th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, Sept. 2, 2010.

Darren Aronofsky sees his newest film “Black Swan” as the companion piece to “The Wrestler.”

“Black Swan” made its world premiere as the opening film at the Venice Film Festival’s 67th edition on Wednesday, bringing the American director back to the Lido, where “The Wrestler” won the top Golden Lion prize two years ago.

“The more I looked into the world of ballet, I actually started to see all these similarities to the world of wrestling,” the 41-year-old Aronofsky said at a news conference. “They both have these performers that use their bodies in sort of extremely, intense physical ways. Their entire performance is based on intense physicality.”

The psychological melodrama is set in the world of New York City ballet and stars Natalie Portman as a perfection-seeking ballerina keen to win the role of prima-ballerina now that the long-reigning star is retiring. She is smothered by her overprotective mother, played by Barbara Hershey, a former dancer who, in one of many dichotomies in the film, may be acting out of concern for her daughter’s well-being or jealousy over her success.

Old jealousies and new rivalries are central to the drama, and it’s no surprise that much of the tension and duality is expressed in the figures of the White Swan, the perfectionist, and the Black Swan, the unrepressed inner-self.

Portman, who danced as a child, started to train a year before filming for the part.

“Six months ahead of the film, I went into sort of hyper-training, where five hours a day I was doing both ballet and cross-training, with swimming,” Portman said. “A few months before was when we started getting into the choreography. It was very extreme.”

Benjamin Millepied, a dancer who appeared in the film and who provided entree into the ballet world, said the training included a Russian dancer’s focus on upper-body and head coordination — and many of Portman’s dancing scenes focus tightly, sometimes dizzily, on her upper half.

As in “The Wrestler,” Aronofsky does not spare viewers from the physical realities of the protagonist’s world. Portman’s “Nina” unwraps her feet after pushing herself through a series of pirouettes to find her big toe nail painfully split and bloodied. That is only part of her physical suffering, and the cause of which is mysterious.

The film is shot with a muted palate and in a grainy style that Aronofsky said was meant to merge the highly stylistic mood of his earlier work and the documentary style used in “The Wrestler.”

Unlike other worlds that Aronofsky has been welcomed into when he proposed a film, the insular ballet universe had no interest in opening its doors, the director said.

“They just all shrugged and didn’t return calls,” Aronofsky said. “Slowly, through meeting Benjamin and a couple of other people, we got the stamp of approval that we were trying to do something cool. … We tried to capture as much of that reality in a real documentary sense.”

And if he failed? “We are terrified of the ballet backlash,” Aronofsky jested. “These dancers are very dangerous.”

While in the program notes Aronofsky said he hoped that theaters would double-bill “Black Swan” and “The Wrestler,” the director told reporters that the reality in the era of new media and ever-changing delivery platforms is evolving to be otherwise.

“Who knows if any of us will be showing films in movie theaters when you’ve got your iPod and iPad all the time,” Aronofsky said. “We made jokes the whole time about doing an iPad mix when we were mixing the film because probably most people on this planet will see it on some sort of device. They won’t see it in a big theater.”

At Venice, “Black Swan” premiered on the big screen at the Lido’s glitzy Casino, the first billing in a rare opening night triple-header along with Andrew Lau’s “Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen,” and Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete” — both playing out of competition.

“Machete,” the story of a border vigilante starring Danny Trejo, along with Jessica Alba as an FBI agent tackling illegal immigration, started out as a faux trailer, and then was expanded into a feature-length film after audiences responded with enthusiasm.

Rodriguez said the appeal was in seeing a Hispanic character portrayed as a super hero, played by Trejo, a character actor who has appeared in 179 films.

“Danny should have been the lead all along. He just was never given the opportunity,” Rodriguez said.

“Black Swan” is one of 23 films, one still unannounced, vying for the Golden Lion, which will be awarded Sept. 11.

Paris Hilton was banned Wednesday from two Wynn resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, and her boyfriend was dismissed as a nightclub partner following their arrests in a vehicle that police said reeked of marijuana.

Wynn Resorts Ltd. spokeswoman Jennifer Dunne told The Associated Press that Hilton is barred from Wynn Las Vegas and Encore.

Meanwhile, boyfriend Cy Waits was “separated” from his job after less than a week as top managing partner of the Tryst Nightclub at Wynn and XS The Nightclub at Encore, Dunne said in a statement.

Waits and a lawyer and publicist for the 29-year-old Hilton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The moves come after Hilton was arrested Friday for investigation of felony cocaine possession. Waits was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Charges have not yet been filed.

Hilton was arrested inside the Wynn resort, where a police lieutenant reported a small plastic bag containing 0.8 grams of cocaine fell into his hand when Hilton reached for a tube of lip balm in a purse.

The celebrity socialite is scheduled for arraignment Oct. 27 and would face probation if convicted.

A police report made public Wednesday said the suspected butt of a marijuana cigarette was found in the Cadillac Escalade in which the couple was stopped in front of the Wynn Las Vegas hotel-casino.

Waits, 34, was driving. He had bloodshot eyes, smelled of alcohol and wobbled as he failed balance and walk-and-turn field sobriety tests, the arresting officer said.

Attorney Richard Schonfeld, who represents Waits, said his client passed an eye test checking the dilation of his pupils. Schonfeld said he was troubled that Waits wasn’t stopped because of a traffic infraction “or any other indication that he was impaired while driving.”

Waits allowed blood to be drawn when he was booked into the Clark County jail in downtown Las Vegas, Officer Bill Cassell said. Results won’t be released until the case reaches court.

Waits spent a night in jail on suspicion of misdemeanor driving under the influence before being freed on $2,000 bail with a Nov. 29 court date.

Dunne said Waits’ twin brother, Jesse Waits, is continuing as general partner of the Wynn resorts’ Tryst and XS clubs.

The brothers were hired by Steve Wynn five years ago and became the casino owner’s top club managers last week when Wynn bought out Victor Drai.