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For fifth birthday, Cirque reveals more 'Love' secrets

LAS VEGAS--"Love," Cirque du Soleil's successful celebration of The Beatles, is five years old this month.

Now that the show has reached this milestone, Cirque du Soleil is willing to unveil more of its secrets. Last week, Tom Wegis, technical director for "Love," served up an all-access, stat-soaked, guided tour of the show's backstage world now it's had five years to settle and grow into its surroundings. "Love" is the only Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show performed in the round, and the three-level theater seats 2,013 visitors, all within 98 feet of the stage. The space has four control booths positioned in four separate corners (controlling lighting, projection, stage management, and automation, respectively). A total of 276 separate production cues flow back and forth between the booths as the show comes together.

Four automated tracks built into the stage carry artists and smaller stage pieces out into the show. The theater has 10 12,000-lumen projectors for each of two 2,000-square-foot panoramic screens wrapping around the space. Four 832-square-foot semi-transparent screens move in and out of the space, thanks to eight motors. They're illuminated by four 16,000-lumen projectors offering images of The Beatles and their music.

The most impressive machinery powering "Love" from behind the scenes resides under the stage. Nine stage lifts raise and lower artists and set elements in and out of the performance space. The largest motor-driven rack-and-pinion lift raises a center stage segment weighing about 22,000 pounds. Engineers dug 32 feet down into the desert ground to install it; it provides a force of 150 pounds per square foot and can raise the huge stage at a speed of a foot per second.

All Cirque productions stress that the safety of the artists and crew is the primary concern. To that end, the larger set elements are monitored by a specially designed encoder system that confirms that the moving piece is precisely where it needs to be when it needs to be there. If anything onstage strays by so much as millimeters, the movement cuts out and the show stops. … Read more

First Take: Microsoft Office 2010 beta

The Microsoft Office 2010 beta was released Wednesday, and though there aren't many major changes from the Technical Preview from July, there are some new features and enhancements worthy of note. This post will focus on the changes to the beta, but if you want a larger overview of new features across all the applications, check out our rundown of the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview.

Outlook is the cornerstone of many companies' communications and daily schedules, and as such received a lot of enhancements in Office 2010. In the beta version, Microsoft has added even more ways to connect with coworkers and contacts. The new Outlook Social Connector is an added information pane that gives you more info about everyday contacts. Once set up, you'll be able to view pictures of contacts (even in large cc lists), previous conversations, attachments shared, meetings attended, and much more. Though not complete in the beta, Microsoft says the Outlook Social Connector will soon be able to connect with social Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, so you can follow status updates and more all in one location.

The Office 2010 Technical Preview introduced the Back Stage view, an enhanced File menu (accessed from the Office Icon tab) that lets you manage your documents, set permissions, and share your projects with colleagues. In the beta version Microsoft has decided to return to calling it the File menu, but with all the functionality and flexibility of Back Stage. They also have made it possible to access all the other tabs in the Ribbon, which were previously inaccessible in the Technical Preview, so you can get to the information you want quickly without the added step of exiting Back Stage.… Read more