The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader

This time around – Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their pesky cousin Eustace Scrubb – find themselves swallowed into a painting and on to a fantastic Narnian ship headed for the very edges of the world. Joining forces once again with their royal friend Prince Caspian and the warrior mouse Reepicheep, they are whisked away on a mysterious mission to the Lone Islands, and beyond. On this bewitching voyage that will test their hearts and spirits, the trio will face magical Dufflepuds, sinister slave traders, roaring dragons and enchanted merfolk. Only an entirely uncharted journey to Aslan’s Country – a voyage of destiny and transformation for each of those aboard the Dawn Treader – can save Narnia, and all the astonishing creatures in it, from an unfathomable fate.

Apple's Mac App Store to launch January 6

The Mac App Store was unveiled at an Apple event in October.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Apple will be launching its anticipated Mac App Store on January 6.

The store will be available in 90 countries at launch, and like its mobile counterpart, it will feature access to both paid and free apps across several categories, including education, productivity, and games, among others, Apple announced today. Users will be able to download the Mac App Store through Software Update.

The Mac App Store experience will be familiar to those who currently have iOS-based devices such as the iPhone. The marketplace's users will be able to get information about apps prior to downloading them, as well as see customer ratings and reviews. Updates to apps users have installed will be available through the Mac App Store, Apple said.

"The App Store revolutionized mobile apps," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a statement. "We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun."

Developers who choose to offer paid apps will be able to keep 70 percent of the revenue generated from their programs, while Apple will take the remaining 30 percent. In addition, those who offer free apps will not be charged by Apple to offer their programs in the Mac App Store.

Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment on how many apps would be available in its marketplace at launch.

The Mac App Store's January 6 launch date is perhaps a bit ahead of schedule. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the Mac App Store in October, he indicated that it would be available to Mac OS X users within 90 days, prompting some to believe the store would launch at the end of January.

The Mac App Store will only be available to Mac OS X Snow Leopard users at launch. It will also come with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which is expected to be released next summer.

The movie of the week

Tron: Legacy

“TRON: Legacy” is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that’s unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), a rebellious 27-year-old, is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his father Kevin Flynn (Oscar®- and Golden Globe®-winner Jeff Bridges), a man once known as the world’s leading video-game developer. When Sam investigates a strange signal sent from the old Flynn’s Arcade—a signal that could only come from his father—he finds himself pulled into a digital world where Kevin has been trapped for 20 years. With the help of the fearless warrior Quorra (Olivia Wilde), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe—a universe created by Kevin himself that has become far more advanced with never-before-imagined vehicles, weapons, landscapes and a ruthless villain who will stop at nothing to prevent their escape. Presented in Disney Digital 3D™ and scored by Grammy® Award-winning electronic music duo Daft Punk, “TRON: Legacy” hits U.S. theaters on Dec. 17, 2010, in Disney Digital 3D™ and IMAX® 3D.

The best game of 2011

2011 is shaping up to be one of gaming's biggest years ever. Practically every month next year will see at least one or two blockbuster releases. To make sense of the madness, we've put together a handy list of all the game announcements that have a specific release date or seasonal window.

Games coming in 2011 with no other specific release information were left off for now until we hear more. Wondering where The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, X-Com and your favorite 3DS games are? Once their publishers commit to tighter release dates, we'll update our timeline to include them. Yeah, we're playing hardball.

We'll be updating this list throughout the year, so make sure to bookmark it and keep checking back.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Rob Marshall, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” captures the fun, adventure and humor that ignited the hit franchise—this time in Disney Digital 3D™. Johnny Depp returns to his iconic role of Captain Jack Sparrow in an action-packed tale of truth, betrayal, youth and demise. When Jack crosses paths with a woman from his past (Penelope Cruz), he’s not sure if it’s love—or if she’s a ruthless con artist who’s using him to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. When she forces him aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship of the formidable pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane), Jack finds himself on an unexpected adventure in which he doesn’t know who to fear more: Blackbeard or the woman from his past.

The international cast includes franchise vets Geoffrey Rush as the vengeful Captain Hector Barbossa, and Kevin R. McNally as Captain Jack’s longtime comrade Joshamee Gibbs, plus Sam Claflin as a stalwart missionary and Astrid Berges-Frisbey as a mysterious mermaid. In theaters Memorial Day weekend, 2011.

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) finds himself on an unexpected journey to the fabled Fountain of Youth when a woman from his past (Penelope Cruz) forces him aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship of the formidable pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane).

WikiLeaks.info rebuts malware warnings

WikiLeaks.info, a site assisting WikiLeaks' effort to share U.S. war information and diplomatic cables, is rebutting online security organizations' warnings that its Web could be dangerous to visit.

WikiLeaks.info provides a list of sites that mirror the original WikiLeaks content, and in recent days the main WikiLeaks.org Web site has redirected visitors to the WikiLeaks.info mirror page. WikiLeaks.info has grown in importance because of others' moves two weeks ago that made it difficult to reach WikiLeaks.org and led its operators to resurface at WikiLeaks.ch, a Swiss domain.

Spamhaus, a nonprofit volunteer organization that seeks to curtail spam, phishing, botnets for network attacks, and malware, issued a "malware warning" yesterday for WikiLeaks.info.

WikiLeaks.info "is hosted in a very dangerous 'neighborhood,' Webalta's 92.241.160.0/19 IP address space, a 'blackhat' network which Spamhaus believes caters primarily to, or is under the control of, Russian cybercriminals," Spamhaus said. "Our concern is that any Wikileaks archive posted on a site that is hosted in Webalta space might be infected with malware. Since the main wikileaks.org website now transparently redirects visitors to mirror.wikileaks.info and thus directly into Webalta's controlled IP address space, there is substantial risk that any malware infection would spread widely."

WikiLeaks.info strenuously objected to the warning today.

"We find it very disturbing that Spamhaus labels a site as dangerous without even checking if there is any malware on it. We monitor the wikileaks.info site and we can guarantee that there is no malware on it," the WikiLeaks.info site said.

WikiLeaks.info is only "very loosely" affiliated with the official WikiLeaks effort, a WikiLeaks.info representative told CNET. "In, fact we were caught [by] surprise on last Saturday as we all of a sudden had 1 million hits per day on our Web site. The switch"--when WikiLeaks began redirecting visitors to the official WikiLeaks.org site to WikiLeaks.info--"was not discussed with us."

Spamhaus' services for tracking dangerous domains are widely used globally, so the warning carries significant weight. And although Spamhaus said it "takes no political stand on the WikiLeaks affair," its actions pose a further difficulty for those allied with WikiLeaks' cause.

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was arrested last week in the U.K. for possible extradition to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sex crimes. Assange denies the alleged crimes. A British judge ruled he could go free on bail yesterday, but prosecutors are appealing that decision. The prosecutors' challenge is expected to be heard tomorrow, according to Reuters.

More directly related to WikiLeaks' mission is the possibility of prosecution in the the United States for violation of the Espionage Act.

Spamhaus also warned that WikiLeaks.info is relying on Heihachi.net, "a provider run 'by criminals for criminals,'" for Domain Name Service (DNS) needs. DNS is a technology that converts the Web addresses people type into the numeric Internet addresses computers actually use to communicate.

Here again, WikiLeaks.info objected.

"We do not know who else is hosted with Heihachi Ltd and it is none of our business. They provide reliable hosting to us. That's it," WikiLeaks.info said on its Web site.

WikiLeaks is concerned about its reputation. "That's why we contacted Spamhaus to find out if they could remove us from the list," the WikiLeaks.info representative told CNET. Spamhaus hasn't responsded, according to the WikiLeaks.info Web site.

WikiLeaks.info selected its services to avoid further problems with interrupted Net service, the site said. "WikiLeaks has been pulled from big hosters like Amazon. That's why we are using a 'bulletproof' hoster that does not just kick a site when it gets a letter from government or a big company," the site said.

Spamhaus is not alone in its concern. On Sunday, security company Trend Micro also warned of the Heihachi.net connection.

"Heihachi Ltd. is known as a bulletproof, blackhat-hosting provider in Russia that is a safe haven for criminals and fraudsters. It hosts a long list of criminally related domains. Among these domains are banking fraud domains, carders' (criminals who trade stolen credit card information) websites, malware sites, and phishing sites. No matter what your political view is, this is rather disturbing," Trend Micro senior threat researcher Feike Hacquebord said. "We assess the wikileaks.info domain as highly risky and we do not recommend visiting this site as long as it is hosted by Heihachi."

Updated 7:17 a.m. PT with comments from WikiLeaks.info.