'Slumdog' child star gets new home

The makers of the hit movie "Slumdog Millionaire" have bought a new home for one of the two child stars discovered in Mumbai's slums.

Both children lost their homes last month when authorities demolished parts of their slum.

The purchase of a 250-square-foot (23-square-meter) one-bedroom apartment for the family of Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, was completed Monday, said Nirja Mattoo, who helps oversee the Jai Ho trust set up by the filmmakers to help Azharuddin and his 9-year-old co-star Rubina Ali.

"They can move in," Mattoo told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I'm just waiting for their consent."

Ownership of the tiny apartment, which cost about 2.5 million rupees ($50,000), will be transferred from the trust to Azharuddin when he turns 18, provided he completes school, Mattoo said.

"He has to complete an education. We are very clear about that," she said. She declined to say what would happen to the property if he does not finish school.

Apple drops entry iPhone to $99 unviels new model

Apple Inc. slashed the entry price for an iPhone in half and lowered some laptops by $300 Monday, the company's first dramatic price cuts since the recession began a year and a half ago.

With co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs absent until his medical leave is over at the end of June, Apple's biggest unveiling at its annual conference for software developers was a new model of the iPhone, the 3G S. It looks the same but sports a faster processor, longer battery life, an internal compass, a video camera and a photo camera with better resolution and auto-focus.

A 16-gigabyte version of the 3G S will cost $199 and a 32-gigabyte version will be $299.

The 8-gigabyte iPhone 3G, which came out last year, now costs $99, instead of $199. When the iPhone debuted two years ago, eager Apple fans had to shell out $499 for a 4-gigabyte version and $599 for 8 gigs.

Japan explores using cell phones to stop pandemics

A few months from now, a highly contagious disease will spread through a Japanese elementary school. The epidemic will start with several unwitting children, who will infect others as they attend classes and wander the halls.

If nothing is done, it will quickly gain momentum and rip through thestudent body, then jump to parents and others in the community. But officials will attempt to stymie the disease and save the school — using mobile phones.

The sickness will be a virtual one, in an experiment funded by the Japanese government. A subsidiary of Softbank Corp., a major Japanese Internet and cellular provider, has proposed a system that uses phones to limit pandemics.

The exact details have yet to be fixed, but Softbank hopes to pick an elementary school with about 1,000 students and give them phones equipped with GPS. The locations of the children will be recorded every minute of the day and stored on a central server.

A few students will be chosen to be considered "infected," and their movements over the previous few days will be compared with those of everyone else. The stored GPS data can then be used to determine which children have crossed paths with the infected students and are at risk of having contracted the disease.

Electronic Arts stages fake protest of game at E3

EA has been playing games with attendees of the nation's biggest video-game trade show.

The game publisher hired a group of nearly 20 people to stand outside the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on Wednesday and appear to protest the upcoming EA game "Dante's Inferno." EA spokeswoman Holly Rockwood says the stunt was arranged by a viral marketing agency hired by EA.

The group claimed to be protesting the third-person action game — loosely based on Dante Aligheri's poem "Divine Comedy" — because they said the game glorified eternal damnation.

The fake religious protesters passed out pamphlets and held up picket signs with messages such as "Hell is not a Video Game" and "Trade in Your PlayStation for a PrayStation."

Common GPS could help better track airline flights

Get lost in the woods and a cell phone in your pocket can help camping buddies find you. Drive into a ditch and GPS in your car lets emergency crews pinpoint the crash site. But when atranscontinental flight is above the middle of the ocean, no one on the ground can see exactly where it is — in the air, or worse, in the water.

The disappearance of Air France Flight 477 and its 228 passengers over the Atlantic Ocean this week has critics of radar-based air traffic control calling on the U.S. and other countries to hasten the move to GPS-based networks that promise to precisely track all planes. Current radars are obsolete more than 200 miles from land.

"The technology's there — we've had this stuff for 15 years and little's happened," said Michael Boyd, a Colorado-based airline analyst. "My BlackBerry can be used to track me, so why can't we do it with planes?"

U.S. officials have discussed setting up such a network since the 1990s and the technology is being tested in parts of the country, including Alaska and off the Gulf Coast. A few carriers, like Southwest, already use GPS to help planes make quicker landings that burn less fuel.

E3 Gaming

Both Microsoft and Sony debuted prototypemotion controllers for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, while the only gadget that gaming leader Nintendo unveiled was a device that Wii users can use to check their pulse.

"I wasn't surprised to see Microsoft and Sony copying Nintendo," said Forrester analyst Paul Jackson. "There tends to be waves of innovation in the gaming industry, like when everyone adopted controllers with rumble functionality. Nintendo proved with the Wii that motion control is the way to get nongamers engaged in using the hardware. Now the others are following suit."

Microsoft's motion controller, codenamed "Project Natal," combines a camera, depth sensor, microphone and processor running proprietary software to end the need for any button-mashing device. Microsoft said the controller can track players' full body movements, recognize their faces and voices, scan images of real items and respond to both physical and vocal commands.

The Xbox maker demonstrated "Project Natal" with three prototype programs: "Ricochet," a soccerlike game that requires players to use their bodies to bounce balls at targets; "Paint Party," an art-making program that uses players' hands as the brush; and "Milo," essentially a virtual boy who communicates and interacts with the player.

Microsoft unveils motion control for Xbox 360

Gamers, get ready for your close-up.

Microsoft introduced a prototype camera Monday that can be used as a controller for the Xbox 360. Codenamed "Project Natal," the camera eliminates the need for a handheld input device — instead, the gizmo can track a player's full body movement, recognize their face and voice, scan images of real items and respond to both physical and vocal commands.

Microsoft also debuted 10 exclusive new games and several additions to the Xbox Live online service at their flashy Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference at University of Southern California's Galen Center.

But the biggest gee-whiz moment came when Microsoft senior vice president Don Mattrick and Steven Spielberg introduced "Project Natal."