'Rio' tops 'Madea's Big Happy Family'

By John Young, EW

Easter went to the birds. Fox's animated adventure "Rio" led the box office for the second weekend in a row, earning $26.8 million according to studio estimates. That's a slim 32 percent drop for the G-rated film, which was produced for $90 million by Blue Sky Studios, of "Ice Age" fame. The tropical toon held up so well in part because most kids were out of school on Friday, giving the film a larger-than-normal start to the weekend. In just two weeks, "Rio," which features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway as the world's last two blue macaws, has collected an impressive $81.3 million.

Trailing "Rio" by $1 million was "Madea's Big Happy Family" with $25.8 million. The PG-13 comedy marked Tyler Perry's tenth directing effort in six years, and was the multihyphenate's fourth-best debut, behind "Madea Goes to Jail" ($41 million), "Madea's Family Reunion" ($30 million), and "Why Did I Get Married Too?" ($29.3 million).

Once again, the majority of Perry's audience was older African-American women - "Big Happy Family" drew a crowd that was 81 percent African-American, 72 percent female, and 69 percent over the age of 25. And those fans turned out in big happy numbers, as the film posted the weekend's largest per-theater average ($11,254) for a wide release, and received a superb "A" rating from CinemaScore graders. The Lionsgate release was produced by Perry for only $25 million.

In third place was the PG-13 romantic drama "Water for Elephants," which opened to a solid $17.5 million. Fox's $40 million movie stars Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson, and is based on Sara Gruen's bestselling novel. It attracted an audience that was 70 percent female, and earned an overall "A-" grade from CinemaScore moviegoers.

According to CinemaScore's exit polling, Witherspoon and Pattinson carried equal amounts of star power - 42 percent of the audience said the Oscar-winning actress was one of the reasons they attended the movie, while 43 percent said the same thing for the Twilight hunk.

Fourth and fifth place went to two holdovers, with one holding up much better than the other. The Easter Bunny comedy "Hop" took advantage of the holiday by jumping up 16 percent from last weekend for $12.5 million, and should cross the $100 million mark today. "Scream 4," however, couldn't avoid the horror-movie rule about second-weekend drops, as the R-rated film fell 62 percent for $7.2 million.

The weekend's third new wide release, Disneynature's "African Cats," opened somewhere between a meow and a roar with $6.4 million at 1,220 theaters. That's a better debut than last year's "Oceans" ($6.1 million), but worse than 2009's "Earth" ($8.8 million). CinemaScore participants gave the feline documentary an "A-" mark, with the minus likely coming from dog owners.

Also premiering in limited release was Morgan Spurlock's product-placement documentary "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold," which secured a decent $135,000 from 18 theaters. And the foreign-language Oscar nominee Incendies took in $54,600 at three locations.

Check back next week as the car-fetish action flick "Fast Five" pops the lid off of the box office. Also opening: the high-school drama "Prom," the animated "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil," and the horror comedy "Dylan Dog: Dead of Night".

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Lindsay Lohan's next stop: Skid Row

By Alan Duke, CNN

Lohan serves time in jail

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Lindsay Lohan got a temporary reprieve from a 120-day jail term for violating probation Friday, but the actress must immediately start court-ordered community service that should keep her busy for months.

Lohan released from jail

While Lohan recently traveled to New York to discuss acting roles, including in the upcoming "Gotti" film, her next year could be spent in Los Angeles working on Skid Row, in court and behind bars.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner sentenced Lohan to jail and community service after deciding Friday that Lohan violated her probation when she was charged with stealing a necklace from a jewelry store in January.

It's the latest punishment for Lohan in a four-year-long legal saga that started with two drunk driving convictions in 2007, followed by three judges ordering her to jail for probation violations in the past year.

Unlike last September, when Lohan's entry into drug rehab convinced another judge not to enforce a jail sentence for a failed drug test, a rehab stint does not appear to be an alternative this time.

Lindsay Lohan arrives for court

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Michael Lohan: Lindsay's not a criminal

Lohan has spent a total of eight months in rehab programs since the start of 2007 for treatment of a self-admitted substance abuse problem.

Sautner made it clear she thought Lohan did not respect the previous judges who sent her to jail twice last year.

"She thumbs her nose at the court," Sautner said, referring to an incident last July that was caught by a courtroom camera. "She walks into court with 'F U' on her fingernails. I don't know what that means unless it has 'I am' before it."

It would take Lohan three months of working five days a week, eight hours a day to complete the 480 hours community service Sautner ordered Friday, along with the four-month jail sentence.

Her first job will be for 360 hours at the Downtown Women's Center on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Sautner suggested Lohan might behave better after seeing "how truly needy women and women who have fallen on real hard times have to live."

Lohan must then work 120 hours at the Los Angeles County morgue, an assignment other drunk driving probationers have served.

She still has a June 3 trial date for the necklace theft charge. The judge said she would "give her an opportunity" by reducing the felony to a misdemeanor.

The opportunity may be for Lohan to accept a plea deal, something she rejected last month when she demanded a trial by jury.

At the time, defense attorney Shawn Holley said she "has a strong defense and we are confident that a jury will listen to the evidence fairly and acquit her."

Sautner was unimpressed with the defense presented at Friday's preliminary hearing.

It centered on Holley arguing that Lohan was "doing a million different things," including texting, when she walked out of the jewelry store with the gold and diamond necklace she had tried on 20 minutes earlier.

Lohan was "more scattered than crafty," Holley told the judge.

The RidicuList: Lindsay Lohan

"It's undisputed that Ms. Lohan walked out of the store with the necklace on," Holley said. The prosecution must show she had "specific intent to permanently deprive the store of that necklace."

Holley conceded that Lohan "did not rush to return the necklace," but she said it just "makes her not a very considerate or courteous person," but not a thief.

Sautner did not buy the defense argument. "If in fact it was an accident, she could have called the store back," Sautner said.

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Danette Meyers called it a "classic garden variety theft."

There was no mention Friday of the defense theory floated before the hearing that Lohan believed the store owner was loaning the necklace to her because she was a celebrity.

Lohan's Friday ended with her posing for her fifth mugshot at Los Angeles County's Lynwood Correctional Facility, where she's been several times before. She was out after five hours when she posted the $75,000 bond set by Sautner.

She can stay out of jail while Holley appeals the probation violation decision, but Sautner ordered her to immediately begin the community service work at the women's center.

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The Army's first smartphone? Android, of course

By Amy Gahran, Special to CNN

An Army phone, beefier than this Android model, could help soldiers fine-tune targeting for missiles and other munitions.

Editor's note: Amy Gahran writes about mobile tech for CNN.com. She is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and media consultant whose blog, Contentious.com, explores how people communicate in the online age.

(CNN) -- I was recently in Fort Knox, Kentucky, to visit my nephew in Army Basic Training, where my sister gave him a basic Tracphone so he could call home more easily.

But he might soon be getting a substantial upgrade: The U.S. Army announced that it has chosen the Android operating system to power its first smartphone.

This news comes just about when (according to the timeline set forth by Sarah Connor in "The Terminator" franchise) the world-dominating, human-exterminating computer network Skynet becomes self aware.

I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Wired's Danger Room blog reports, "A prototype device running Android called the Joint Battle Command-Platform (JBC-P Handheld), developed by tech nonprofit MITRE, is undergoing tests."

This platform will allow soldiers to quickly and (hopefully) securely share geotagged notes about obstacles they encounter on the ground. It will also support mapping, critical messaging and other support functions.

The Army announcement explained that the JBC-P Handheld is an "Android-based smartphone framework and suite of applications for tactical operations. ... Applications will be secure and interoperable with existing mission command systems so information flows seamlessly across all echelons of the force."

Third-party developers will be building apps and services for this Army smartphone. In July, the Army will release a development kit for the platform.

The Army wants applications that share data and resources across the platform, to avoid the "stovepiping" problems that have plagued so many military and government information technology projects.

Systems integration is key: It could allow soldiers on the ground to fine-tune targeting for missiles and other munitions, as well as request specific aerial drone or satellite reconnaissance. It might also borrow from supply-chain software to manage requests for equipment and supplies. And it could support or enhance field medical treatment, as well as all kinds of in-field training.

Rather than sign up for thousands of pricey two-year wireless carrier contracts, the JBC-P Handhelds will communicate over several existing military radio networks.

When connected to the radio, the prototype device weighs about 2 pounds. That's considerably heavier than the current heftiest smartphone, the HTC ThunderBolt (6.23 ounces). Still, Wired notes that it's "way lighter than the Nett Warrior suite of sensors, computers, radios and mapping functions -- the Army's program of record for doing much of what a smartphone already does."

Battery technology and power management have been big problems for commercial smartphones. Bright displays (often necessary in full daylight) and GPS are notorious energy vampires that leave many smartphone owners hunting for outlets on a daily basis.

In the field, military smartphones would require far more power than commercial models, and they'd have to operate for much longer periods. It'll be interesting to see what battery and charging options (including possibly solar and hand-crank) are supplied with these new Army phones.

Also, military smartphones must be far more rugged than commercial models, able to withstand sand, dust, water, temperature extremes, impact, concussion and more. Microphones that don't get destroyed by loud blasts will be crucial, as will noise filtering for incoming and outgoing audio (something most commercial smartphones generally do poorly).

The Army did not specify whether the phones will come with unlimited text messaging. I hope a remote wipe service comes standard.

The opinions expressed in this post are solely those of Amy Gahran.

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Tech Check: Your iPhone is watching you

By John D. Sutter, CNN

Editor's note: In our Tech Check podcast, CNN.com's tech team makes sense of -- and sometimes makes light off -- the week's technology news.

(CNN) -- iPhones are tracking you.

Digital library books are coming to the Kindle.

And Facebook was "accidentally" junking up your e-mail inbox.

In this episode of our Tech Check podcast, the CNN.com tech team -- including Doug Gross, John D. Sutter and Stephanie Goldberg -- breaks down these topics and more of the week's technology news.

You can listen to the show on this page, or hit us up on the RSS feed -- or subscribe to the podcast though iTunes.

As always, let us know what you think by commenting on this page or by sending us a note on Twitter (We're @cnntech).

You never know -- your thoughts could end up as our "reader comment of the week" in the next episode.

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