graphical bookmarking tool that lets you gather, organize and reuse info from the WWW. The company's specific plans for this tool will be announced later. MTV CHOOSES ALTERNATIVE MTV begins a new series to showcase offbeat and alternative films and filmmakers at alt.film@mtv, to be hosted by Chris Connelly. This series examines the resurgence in popularity of alternative films, their impact on traditional Hollywood fare, and their influence on pop culture and music. The series will also explore how alternative cinema serves as fertile ground for new talent both on-camera and behind the lens. The first episode will include previews of two widely anticipated independent releases: Basquiat and Trainspotting that looks at contemporary, generally-low-budget, renegade films, and some of the stars and films who have emerged from this genre, as well as festivals such as Sundance and South By South West that support independent films. NISSAN TO SPONSOR OLYMPIC WEB SITE Nissan Motor Corporation U.S.A. has agreed to become a sponsor of three key areas in the NBC Centennial Olympic Web site (http://www.olypmpic.nbc.com). Nissan will sponsor the following areas: NBC Centennial Olympic TV event programming, Day-by-Day, Hour-by-Hour reporting of the Olympic Games and the NBC Centennial Olympic Interactive Poll. The Nissan banner ads, when clicked, will link visitors to Nissan's comprehensive home page (http://www.nissanmotors.com). The sponsorship was arranged by Softbank Interactive Media for NBC Interactive Media and joins other Olympic partners including AT&T, IBM and Visa. Paramount Pictures: THE BEAUTICIAN AND THE BEAST Filming has begun in Los Angeles and Prague for Paramount Pictures' romantic comedy, The Beautician and the Beast, starring Fran Drescher and Timothy Dalton. Fran Drescher is known for her role on TV's The Nanny, and Timothy Dalton starred in The Living Daylights and License to Kill, two James Bond flicks. The Beautician and the Beast is about Joy Miller (Fran Drescher), a warm and funny street-smart New York hairstylist, and Boris Pochenko (Timothy Dalton), the foul-tempered leader who reigns over the Eastern European country of Slovetzia. Joy is pronounced a heroine after rescuing some would-be beauticians from a fire in the makeshift classroom where she teaches a night school beauty culture class. The notoriety brings her a job offer--to tutor the children of Slovetzia. The folks in Slovetzia think they've hired an academic to help westernize the president's children and smooth the transition to a post- Communist world, while she thinks they've hired a beautician. Lots of room for comedy as well as a romantic interest between Joy and Boris. Philips Media: NOTHING LIKE A LITTLE MURDER AND A LOT OF SEX The combination of sex and untimely, assisted deaths, has maintained colonies of fiction writers, TV and movie producers, for decades. Philips Media intends to cash in on this genre of entertainment and they have debuted Voyeur II. This title, which stars Jennifer O'Neill as Elizabeth Duran, is for Macintosh and PC CD-ROM machines. You become the Voyeur, peering through a video camera. However, this night your obsession finds you trying to prevent a murder. You must piece together the story of the Cussler family and save Elizabeth's life. Seems as though her colleague and lover, Dr. Everett Cussler, has been murdered, and his will leaves his biomedical research institute to her. She involves you as the Voyeur as she risks her own life attempting to expose her lover's killer. You'll even find actor Dennis Weaver appearing as Sheriff John Parker. You must manage the resources in your isolated cabin, because one wrong move will find you arrested as a Peeping Tom, or even as a conspirator to murder.There are more than 80 minutes of video, multiple plot scenarios and an easily navigable 3D environment. The game was developed by InterWeave Entertainment. Reuters: TOP 10 FLICKS AT THE CINEMA The top 10 movies at the U.S. box office from The Reuters Business Report from Friday, July 12 through Sunday, July 14. 1. Independence Day $36.0 million 2. Phenomenon $13.1 million 3. Courage Under Fire $12.8 million 4. The Nutty Professor $11.8 million 5. Harriet The Spy $7.3 million 6. The Hunchback of Notre Dame $6.5 million 7. Eraser $6.0 million 8. The Rock $4.4 million 9. Striptease $3.2 million 10. Twister $1.9 million NOTE: Some studios say Paramount's estimate for ``Harriet the Spy'' is too optimistic, and it was more likely sixth. Sega of America: PULLING IT TOGETHER Once the leader within the console games industry, Sega has lately suffered both financial and market share losses. Hoping for a turn-around, Sega of America has now appointed Shoichiro Irimajiri has the company's new chairman and ceo. Before joining the company, he was with Honda Motor Company for nearly 30 years! Tom Kalinske, who held this position previously, is leaving after six years to join Education Technology LLC, and he will remain on Sega of America's board of directors. Bernard Stolar was also named as the company's new executive vice president and he's going to be the person responsible for product development and third-party biz. SegaSoft: ON CLOUD 9 SegaSoft Inc. has taken another step to further their expansion in the edutainment arena by investing in Cloud 9 Interactive. SegaSoft Chief Operating Officer Gary Griffiths will join the board of the directors of privately held Cloud 9 Interactive, a children's entertainment company that is also involved in television, video and merchandising for children from pre-school to 12 years old. Cloud 9 Interactive is currently producing Wanna-Be A Fossil Finder, an interactive learning adventure that allows children to explore what they want to be when they grow up. A second title under development is How To Draw The Marvel Way, in which a Marvel artist teaches in more than 90 interactive drawing lessons. Universal Pictures: CARREY IS LIAR Filming has begun for Liar, Liar, a contemporary comedy starring Jim Carrey, for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment. The film co-stars Maura Tierney (News Radio) and a new face, Justin Cooper. Director Tom Shadyac, who was responsible for Carrey's film debut in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, will work with him again. Carrey stars as Fletcher Reid, a fast talking attorney who has a compulsion for lying. When his son Max (Justin Cooper) blows out the candles on his fifth birthday cake, he has only one wish--that his dad would stop lying for 24 hours. When Max's wish miraculously comes true, Fletcher discovers that his biggest asset--his mouth--has suddenly become his biggest liability. Both legal and emotional chaos take place as Fletcher tries to keep his practice afloat and his ex-wife Audrey (Maura Tierney) from taking their son and moving to Boston. Universal Pictures: FRIGHTNERS ARE UNIVERSAL Universal Pictures has launched an innovative World Wide Web site at http://www.mca.com/universal_picturessite for the forthcoming Robert Zemeckis-Peter Jackson film, The Frighteners. Universal has a newly redesigned interface with a multi-level site that offers a 2-way communication venue with a voice-enabled 3D virtual environment. Here folks sample the latest movies on the Internet, such as The Frighteners, which takes psychic con man, Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox), into the spirit world to stop a supernatural crime spree. This site transports computer users to the other side of the Net where folks will see ghosts appear and disappear and experience haunted Web pages that have a mind of their own, where graphics suddenly morph and melt away. There'll be three main components: a preview section, a 2D interactive Web adventure that goes into the world of the film, and a 3D voice-enabled virtual reality environment from OnLive! Technologies that depicts sets from the film. VideoLabs: A PLEASING STING More and more of us are becoming involved, on a daily basis, in the process of full-motion video capture. We are using the resulting videos in a variety of ways, from family motion albums, to multimedia presentations. However, the price for such boards for the PC has been somewhat on the high side. VideoLabs has now introduced their Stinger(TM) board. Designed for the PCI bus and Windows users, this full 30 fps (frames-per-second) video overlay board can capture a 640x480 screen in 16 million colors. The board is compatible with MS 3.11, WIndows 95, VFW and supports AVI and DCI drivers. You can also use Enhanced CU-SeeMe(TM) and other videoconferencing software with Stinger. The unit also has composite and S-video inputs. And the price for this puppy? The SRP is $199.00. There is more info available at http://flexcam.com. Warner Brothers TV: MONEY THICKER THAN FRIENDS The cast of Friends has mandated that unless each of them receives $100,000 per episode, they're not going to be very friendly. Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow and Matt LeBlanc signed five-year contracts for about $22,500 per episode when Friends began two seasons ago. As a result of the raging success of this program, Warner Bros. has reportedly sold Friends into syndication for $4 million per episode, an unusually high sum, but the deal depends on the cast returning for at least two more years to generate enough shows for reruns. The ultimatum given by the six is that if the six figure salary isn't given all the way around there'll be a strike...film at 11:00.