Oscars’ home is renamed Dolby Theatre
LOS ANGELES >> The Academy Awards’ home at Hollywood’s former Kodak Theatre is being renamed the Dolby Theatre.
Facility owner CIM Group announced Tuesday a 20-year naming deal with the audio technology company Dolby Laboratories Inc.
CIM Group and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also announced a new agreement to keep the annual Oscars presentation at the theater for 20 more years. The theater in CIM Group’s Hollywood & Highland Center has been the Oscar stage since 2002. Dolby says it will enhance the theater’s sound system to showcase its technologies.
The theater dropped the Kodak name this year after Eastman Kodak Co. filed for bankruptcy protection.
Hawaiian Air gets 3 more gates on Maui
Hawaiian Airlines has added three new boarding gates to its Kahului Airport operations, and all of its trans-Pacific and neighbor island flights are now operating from Gates 11 to 21 in the center of the terminal.
The gates were added by Hawaiian in conjunction with the state Department of Transportation and Maui Airports Division.
Hawaiian sought the added gates and centralized location in creating a Maui hub to improve travel accessibility statewide, following the acquisition of three additional Boeing 717-200 aircraft for its neighbor island fleet earlier this year.
The airline has increased round-trip neighbor island flights to Maui by 25 percent, including additional nonstop service connecting Maui with Kauai and Hawaii island.
FlyersRights.org expands service to Hawaii
FlyersRights.org, a nonprofit airline passengers rights group, has expanded its toll-free hot line from the mainland to Hawaii and Alaska, as well as internationally.
The hot line also has an iPhone application.
FlyersRights.org says it helps air travelers across the world who find themselves stranded but don’t know their rights. The toll-free number is 877-359-3776.
BlackBerry maker RIM unveils prototype
TORONTO » Research In Motion’s new chief executive unveiled a newly designed BlackBerry smartphone prototype powered by a re-imagined operating system — the very software the company has pinned its future on.
Thorsten Heins, who took the CEO job in January, on Tuesday revealed features of the BlackBerry 10 operating system running on a prototype device at the company’s BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Fla. He provided no update on the software’s launch date.
Heins, who is trying to rally developers to make applications for the new operating system, promised that each developer at the conference will go home with the prototype BlackBerry. In a speech that was broadcast on the company’s BlackBerry World website, Heins stressed that the device is not the finished product.
The once iconic company has had difficulty competing with flashier, consumer-oriented phones such as Apple’s iPhone and models that run Google’s Android software.
The prototype BlackBerry has a touch screen, but no physical keyboard like most BlackBerry models. One of the new features is a modified touch-screen keypad that will allow users to select full words with a single key stroke.
Sahara owners get funds to reopen casino
LAS VEGAS » The owners of the shuttered Sahara casino on an aging stretch of the Las Vegas Strip say they’ve secured $300 million in funding to redevelop the iconic resort that once hosted the likes of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.
Developer SBE and real estate firm Stockbridge Capital Group LLC said Tuesday they plan to open the property in 2014 under the name SLS Las Vegas.
"We see the northern end of the Strip as the future of Las Vegas, and we’re pleased to be positioned at the forefront of that growth," said SBE CEO Sam Nazarian.
Owners say the resort will bring restaurants, night life and 1,600 guest rooms and suites to the Strip’s north end, which includes the famed Stratosphere but has seen far less of the glitzy development that’s re-energized the south end in the past decade.
The corridor went even darker in May 2011, when owners closed the Sahara after saying it wasn’t economically viable. The casino featured a signature roller coaster and had operated for nearly 59 years.
The SLS Las Vegas will include three existing hotel towers, but two will be "stripped down to their skeletons," Nazarian told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. A low-rise hotel structure will come down, while a 2,500-space parking garage will remain. Nazarian said construction could begin by the end of the summer.
Retailers paying less in debit fees, Fed says
WASHINGTON » Retailers are paying significantly less every time a customer swipes a debit card under a rule capping the fees that banks are allowed to charge.
The Federal Reserve said in a report Tuesday that the average fee paid by merchants for debit card transactions covered by the rule was 24 cents in the fourth quarter of 2011. That compares with an average of 43 cents before the Fed’s rule took effect Oct. 1.
The rule was mandated under the 2010 financial overhaul law. For most transactions, banks can charge merchants a maximum 21 cents for each debit card transaction plus an additional 0.05 percent of the purchase price to cover fraud protection costs.
ON THE MOVE
Longtime environmental advocate and community organizer Martha Townsend has been chosen to lead Hawaii’s oldest environmental organization, The Outdoor Circle. Townsend, a Honolulu attorney, most recently served as acting executive director at KAHEA: The Hawaiian Environmental Alliance.
Atlantis Adventures has promoted Melvin Baum to Oahu operations manager. He joined the company in 2006. Prior to Atlantis, he spent 12 years with Ocean Concepts Scuba.
University of Phoenix Hawaii Campus has appointed Maryam “Mimi” Quinn as the campus college chair for the College of Education. She will oversee the college’s academic policies, programs and faculty at the Hawaii campus.
