A week from today the Mythbusters say they're going to tackle "one of the biggest myths of all": that the moon landing was a hoax. Um, isn't it the other way around? Waaay more people seem to think we took a tin can, loaded it up with rocket fuel and successfully shot ourselves to the moon and back. I'm not sure how showing how crappy your own fake moon landing looks proves anything, nor does going to NASA centres (the hoaxers themselves!) for "evidence." Verdict: They're totally in on it. I mean, just look at Buzz Aldrin. [Wired via Dirty Laundry - Thanks Richard!]

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The site I-Doser makes the seemingly remarkable claim that playing binaural beats—pulses of two different frequencies that are slightly different into both ears at the same time—can give you a high that's on par with taking drugs. The Jerusalem Post claims that the concept has been around since the 1830s, but has only been perfected with the introduction of noise cancelling headphones and better audio reproduction.

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Sony's just announced a video service for their PS3 called VidZone, which somehow offers up free music and videos, albeit only in PAL regions for the time being. It'll allow you to streaming unlimited music on demand for free, but it's unclear whether it'll be ad-supported, or whether the catalog will be full of only Sony BMG tracks, or whether these are horrible tracks that nobody wants to hear anyway. We'll update with more info when we get it, but this is separate from the current PSN service which already lets you buy and rent movies (which is shown in the screenshot above). [Maxconsole]

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The woman above is not real. I mean, she was real once, when real actress Emily O'Brien provided Image Metrics (you know their work from GTAIV) with 35 facial poses in front of a pair of digital cameras. From there, O'Brien was dismissed so the animators could go to work. Apparently "ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real." And the results--while not always perfect--are pretty extraordinary. Here's Emily's "interview":

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Firefly might have been the best thing Joss Whedon has ever done in our opinion, but it's also one of the shortest things he's ever done. In just 14 episodes, the space western was able to surpass both Buffy and Angel (and all of his smaller creations) in our minds as his work, which is why we cannot wait to get this thing on Blu-ray. If you're rating this box set on an purely dollar-to-hour ratio, the US$90 price tag (US$62 on Amazon) would be absurd. But you know you're going to watch and re-watch this thing many times over, if only for the scenes with Inara and the other companion. We'll be in our bunk. [Amazon]

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PlayOn, a program that allows Vudu, ESPN, YouTube and CBS streaming from a Windows PC to a PS3, Xbox 360 or HP MediaSmart TV, has just been released as a free beta to the public (well, the first 60 days are free, after that it'll cost US$30). And to make things even better, the software should expand to support Netflix streaming and the Nintendo Wii within the year. Finally, that whole console becoming as complicated as a PC trend is paying off. [PlayOn via PS3Fanboy]

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If you're looking for a sign that we live in a digital world that cares not for the physical manifestations of our analogue past, you need only look at Paul Mawhinney's record collection. At over 3 million records, it's the largest in the world. He's trying to sell it due to his advancing age and health problems. Unfortunately, as he puts it, "no one gives a damn."

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Pandora, the internet radio station built around your tastes, will probably be going out of business soon. After getting slapped by the CRB with exorbitantly high royalty rates to continue playing music, founder Tim Westergren says the company is facing a "pull-the-plug" situation. There's one congressman trying to help Pandora and it's million plus users, but the service is bleeding money in the meantime and its future looks grim. I'll be very sad to see it go, since being reintroduced to it recently through their excellent iPhone app. What great idea do you have for us next, RIAA? [ReadWriteWeb]

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What's the #1 threat facing America? According to pundit Stephen Colbert, it's the hateable iPhone. After discovering it has a kill switch to remotely remove malicious apps, the phone went straight to the top of Colbert's Threat Down list—even edging out bears. He says the switch is designed to "kill you", and though that may be wrong for now, you never know what Steve Jobs is cooking up in Cupertino. But Stephen isn't afraid of death; he stares the iPhone down Clint Eastwood-style—until his mum calls. Oh, he also trashes Zunes and shows us his feminine side with that SATC ringtone. Clip above. [Colbert Report]

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When Ghostface Killah aka Pretty Toney aka Tony Starks popped up on IMDB with a cameo in Iron Man as an arms dealer in Dubai, we rejoiced. When we saw the movie and realised there was no Ghost, we were saddened. But now here he is, all 10 seconds of him (skip to the halfway point). He's around just long enough to maybe fake some kind of accent and hand off some flygirls, but now we can finally rest having seen Ghost in Iron Man. Stick around til the end for, well, just stick around for the end. [Access Hollywood via NYMag]

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a lot of firsts. It's the first new Star Wars film since Emperor George Lucas wrapped up the canonical series three years ago. It's the opening salvo of a wave of Expanded Universe TV series—the film launches The Clone Wars animated series, and meanwhile a live-action one set between the prequels and the original trilogy is deep in development. It's the first animated Star Wars feature film. And most importantly, it's the first Star Wars movie you will truly loathe.

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Hackaday has a piece about an upcoming Discovery Channel show called "Prototype this!" It's due in October, and since it's about making and modding robots and other gizmos, it sounds like a Mythbusters-meets-Makerfaire geeky heaven. [Hackaday]

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Here's a fantastic way to waste enjoy half an hour of your Friday: To coincide with Stephen King's upcoming short story collection, Just After Sunset, his publishers have teamed with the folks at Marvel to create a online webcomic series of one of stories in the book called 'N'.

The series, which consists of 25 separate episodes between 90 seconds and 2 minutes long, will have a new episode released every US weekday until August 29. So far, they're up to Episode 14, and it's a catchy little story.

The voice acting is pretty good, although the implementation is a bit annoying - the episodes automatically play in reverse order, and there are video ads that interrupt the clip on occasion. Still - It's fantastic in typical King fashion, I'll be watching keenly to see how the story ends.

[N is here]

CNBC reports that Netflix' shipping systems have been at least partially broken since Tuesday. They managed to ship nothing on Tuesday, half of what they were supposed to on Wednesday, and nothing today. What's the deal?

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The 40GB model, which used to retail for $449, now costs $329, while the 160GB model drops from $579 to $449.

That's still a fairly big markup on the US$229 and US$329 prices in the States, but still, it makes the Apple TV a much more attractive option. It also makes it the only attractive option in Australia for VOD direct to your TV (outside of Foxtel's On Demand).

Now that it has some practical uses here thanks to the ability to buy/rent movies or buy TV shows online from the comfort of your loungeroom, are any of you guys going to go and make the purchase? Or are you holding out for a Netflix-like Roku box?

[Apple - Thanks Alex!]

We counted 364 films on offer, ranging from classics like Terminator and Robocop to relatively new releases, like Jumper and Cloverfield, although the press release claims over 700. Prices to purchase the films look to vary between $9.99 and $24.99, which seems a little bit steep - there's no physical disc, so it should be much cheaper than buying a DVD.

Movie rentals are also available, with library items costing $3.99 and new releases $5.99, which is a much more appealing cost. At this stage, it doesn't look like there's anything in HD, but that could be a choice on Apple's part - at least until our broadband pipes expand enough to be able to handle the extra bandwidth.

If you are going to be jumping into this service, make sure you know your download limits - unless you're with iiNet, you'll be paying for the download twice, and as movies are all about 1GB in size, you can chew through your monthly allowance pretty quick.

[Apple - Thanks Ryan!]

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Casino Royale, a film from Sony Pictures, is going to be the title to hold the dubious honour of being first to double-dip on "Sony's" Blu-ray format. We're honestly surprised that it took this long. The US$39 October 21 release will have seven hours of extras that weren't in the original Blu-ray or DVD release, which may or may not be enough to get you to buy the same movie twice. Those of you hoping the already more expensive Blu-ray format would have gotten studios on the "release once" method should really tone down your optimism a little bit. [Hollywood Newsroom - Thanks Christopher!]

Update: adaorardor points out that Full Metal Jacket was actually the first to double-dip. Thanks!

When we heard that PS3 PlayTV DVR recordings would be transferable to PSPs and PCs, we we're absolutely thrilled, proclaiming, "For the first time in a long time, we want to grab Sony and kiss them square on the lips." Well, put away the Binaca, because Sony has taken back their promise for undisclosed reasons.

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The folks at the Criterion Collection know a thing or two about movies. They restore classic films for release on DVD and, starting later this year, Blu-ray. So when they set up their screening rooms, you'd expect them to have some crazy US$1,000 Blu-ray player, right? Nope. The Criterion Collection people rock a PlayStation 3 for use as their reference Blu-ray player. If you needed further proof that the PS3 is the best Blu-ray player out there, now you have it. [CNET]

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It's called Possumus Woman, and he's almost done with it. I think this picture of Mr. Heckendorn fighting said marsupial in the back of a flatbed ("the most complex scene") kind of says it all--let us know when there's an Xbox 360 inside that robo-possum, Ben! [Ben Heck]

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Thank goodness the brightest television inventors of our generation aren't the prudish sorts who will pull words like "cunt" from our morning weather report. Because then even the sunniest days would be filled with the subfusc clouds of rain.

* If the repetition of the word "cunt" didn't give it away, this video has an NSFW audio track. [via bbGadgets]

Digital dowloads taxes might be breathing hot and steamy down our necks, but we apparently dodged at least one taxation bullet today: A Ron Jeremy-sized 25 percent tax on adult entertainment in California that would've extended to streamed and downloaded internet porn (you know, if you actually paid for it).

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The Blu-ray edition of the biggest letdown in movie history, also known as Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Whatever Crystal Something will be released on October 14, just in time not to buy it for this holiday season. The two-disc Blu-ray comes in the obligatory 1080p and comes loaded with extras that don't make the movie any less crappy:

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A cruel, very talented man named Dean T. Fraser has decided that our Simpsons, Batman, Iron Man, Spiderman, Halo, and miscellaneous superheroes, supervillain, and sci-fi fetishes weren't enough on their own, so he Simpsonised them all. Now, if anyone makes any of the characters in this amazing gallery out of Lego, I will spontaneously self-combust in a fiery ball of nerdgasmic lust.

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