Saturday, July 26, 2008
Entertainment
Tron 2 Trailer Video Makes Pants Wet Worldwide
10:24PM Jesus Diaz | It’s a tiny bootleg video, but I don’t care. You can see that the 3D looks amazing, the new lightcycles are stunning (and move like real bikes), the world and the whole mood is Batman-like dark. And Jeff Bridges… well, he is Jeff Bridges. What can I say, he looks like a badass version of the Dude. “It’s just a game!” he shouts. No, it’s not. It’s Tr2n. At last. Note: excuse the excitement, but I saw the original in the movie theatre, and 200 times after that. With War Games, it’s what got me into technology when I was a kid, and ultimately here in Giz. The only thing that has me worried is that the characters are in the computer world are fully 3D. The good news: George Lucas is not involved in this one, but rumour is that Pixar may be. [Filmstalker] More »
Press
Cops Catch Crooks With Confiscated Mobile Phone
1:00PM Matt Hickey | Very clever cops in Terrell, North Carolina, used a suspects mobile phone to catch his accomplices. Officers arrested the 16-year-old boy on suspicion of string of break-ins and confiscated his cell phone. When a text message from a friend showed up asking if he’d been caught. They replied, “No”, and went on to make plans for the accomplice to pick up the suspect. The police then met him and arrested him. They face a series of charges. [Breitbart] More »
Science
Korean Scientists Closer To Fusion?
12:00PM Matt Hickey | Korean scientists are one step further in reaching sustainable fusion reactors. In an experiment for the National Fusion Research Institute, scientists were able to achieve a form of supercharged plasma for 249 milliseconds, almost two and a half times longer than they had anticipated. It’s a new form of plasma that can be used to generate electricity in a manner similar to conventional nuclear plants but with far less radioactive waste. We think that’s cool. So do bears. [Korea Times] More »
Software
Pandora For iPhone Updated With Stereo
11:00AM Matt Hickey | The Pandora app for iPhone got an upgrade today and now streams music to your earbuds in stereo over Wi-Fi. A few other things are updated as well, including auto-complete and station resume if you pause. If you’re a user, you can download the 1.1 update now. [Pandora Blog, via iPhoneBuzz] More »
Online
Sirius-XM Merger is FINALLY Approved
10:52AM Adrian Covert | The Sirius-XM Merger was finally approved by the FCC today following a 3-2 vote by the commission. The final and deciding vote only came after both parties agreed to pay a US$19.7 million fine for violating FCC regulations. After 16 months of MTV-esque “drama” and gnashing of teeth, the US$3.6 billion merger means that subscribers of both services will now get the best of both worlds. [SF Gate] More »
Phones
AT&T BlackBerry Bold Pushed Back to September(ish)
10:21AM Adrian Covert | First it was July, then mid-August, but now BlackBerryNews is pegging the AT&T BB Bold with a launch date around September 1, contingent on how quick they can train personnel on the phone. The Bold was also supposed to release first on Rogers today, but that has been pushed back to July 29. [BlackBerryNews] More »
Press
Tip: Shooting a Malfunctioning Device with a Shotgun Voids the Warranty
8:40AM Adam Frucci | Man, companies are always trying to screw ya. Take warranties, for example. They’ll void them for practically anything these days! Just ask Keith Walendowski of Milwaukee, WI (pictured). All he did was shoot his lawnmower with a sawed-off shotgun, and now the company who makes it says the warranty is voided. What a load of bullpap! More »
Design
Rube Goldberg Machine Is Made of 100,000 Toothpicks, Shaped Like San Francisco
8:20AM Adrian Covert | Artist Scott Weaver spent 35 years working on this toothpick structure of San Francisco, which required 100,000 toothpicks and has a ball that rolls through the entire thing in Rube Goldberg fashion. But perhaps the best part of this is Weaver’s sentiment towards the project, when he mentions that he loves to “know that I’m building something that people will see later on that took a long time to build for no reason.” The nine-foot-tall creation is called “Rolling Through the Bay” and is currently on display at the Sonoma County Fair in Northern California. [Press Democrat via Laughing Squid]
Design
Flowlight: Like a Blackboard With Lasers
8:00AM Sean Fallon | Precisely how the Flowlight would work is a little unclear, but the design page notes that a base station would focus a laser beam 100 times a second into a point in the space, creating small plasma points that glow in mid air. Users could then use the pen to draw and write, making doodles look like some sort of fantastic light show. It’s kind of like a cross between and blackboard and a laser pointer—which would be extremely cool if the product actually existed. More »
Software
