NEW THEATRICAL TRAILER FOR AVATAR

Go to the link and you can Quicktime the HD version - yeah, we're not Americans...

My eyes... they're not bleeding. Parts of it t DO look like a game FMV cut scene. That's ok though, I love 3D cartoons.

Zero Punctuation: Brutal Legend

Tech News: Ultimate jukebox is next step in net music

11:23 29 October 2009 by Jim Giles

Something exciting has just happened to online music, and it has nothing to do with Google's new music service garnering all the headlines.

If you Google search for music related terms, like an artist's name, some results now come with links to audio previews for relevant tracks. It is easy to use, but the service taps into just a few of the online music streaming sites. Lala and iLike are included but others with large libraries like Spotify and Last.fm are ignored. It also only works in the US. But more importantly, Google's service only helps people find music, and what they really want is to listen to it.

If a friend tweets about a song, for example, I don't want to have to search for it: I want a play button to appear in the tweet. I don't care which server the song is stored on, I just want to click it and hear the music. The same goes for tracks mentioned in emails, blogs or anywhere online.

A new service called Playdar tries to do just that. Its creator is Richard Jones, a programmer who developed some of the technology behind Last.fm. Playdar's stated goal is to do one thing: "Given the name of a track, find me a way to listen to it right now." more...

Modest Mouse: "The Whale Song" Video

Cool Animation... take a peek.

Tech News: The US lets go of the internet – will anyone notice?

A sour note for the future of the internets...

13 October 2009 by Gareth Morgan

POLITICAL power is rarely ceded without good reason. So eyebrows were raised last week when the US Department of Commerce decided to relax its grip on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body responsible for the naming system that ensures that when you type a web address, your browser knows where to go.

In future, governments and other international organisations will be able to nominate staff to sit on one of ICANN's three newly created steering committees, something the DoC had resisted for years. "What it really means," says ICANN's chief executive Rod Beckstrom, "is that we're going global."

Countries that don't use Latin characters, which ICANN says web addresses must be written in, will welcome the changes. Millions of web users are currently blocked from using domain names in their own language. Beckstrom says the changes to ICANN could soon fix that and predicts that addresses in Chinese and Arabic alphabets may emerge in little more than a year. read more...

Further links.

John McCain’s Internet Freedom Act Seeks To Block Net Neutrality

 ICANN Site 

Google's Public Policy Blog 

www.openinternet.gov

Tech News: Super slow-motion camera can follow firing neurons

09:00 28 October 2009 by Colin Barras

Slow motion just got a whole lot slower, with a camera sensor able to film action at 1 million frames per second.

The black and white device is quick enough to capture impulses hurtling through firing nerve cells, and its resolution is good enough to film the microsecond-long pulse-like nerve signals that speed through networks of neurons at up to 180 kilometres per hour.

Capturing frames that last one-millionth of a second requires great sensitivity to light, as well as precise timing. The device uses an array of single-photon detectors, or SPADs, each hooked up to a tiny stopwatch. The stopwatch records when the SPAD is hit by an incoming photon, with an accuracy of around 100 picoseconds. more...

Zero Punctuation: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Tech News: lifelogging, Truman show begins around your neck

11:59 20 October 2009 by Colin Barras

Innovation is our regular column that highlights emerging technological ideas and where they may lead

Last week news broke that a commercial version of a camera worn around the neck to capture photos of your every moment is to be launched. It was originally invented to help people with memory problems.

It has been said before that an era of lifelogging, in which people will record and broadcast their daily lives, is on the way. But this time it might happen – people are already capturing many things about their lives and sharing them via social networking sites. The launch of the new camera and new research from Microsoft suggest people are ready to take the final steps. more...?

Film Review - UP

Pixar/Disneys latest eye fiesta "Up" has been out in cinemas for a while but this Monkey finally felt that it was time to spend the big bucks and enjoy a 3D/Real D ride again. The big spenders in Hollywood have put a lot of cash into all things 3D, trying to ward off the pirates and UP is no exception. One of the prettiest of Pixar's films UP is a story of love, loss and friendship. Carl Fredricksen, the old man from all the promotional material, lives alone in a nameless big city. His wife, and love of his life Ellie recently passed away leaving Carl alone to reminisce about the how everyday life got in the way of their dreams of adventure they shared as children. Alone, Carl is about to be thrown out of his house when he grasps at his last chance for adventure and floats his home out of the city and into the depths of South America. Tagging along is young Wilderness Explorer Russel who gets caught up in Carl's escape and helps him along the way.

As with most Disney films, the side kicks are the most entertaining and "Up" follows the same line. Keven, a giant gay pride coloured bird and Dug, a rehashed mold for a talking dog, are by far the most entertaining part of the film. Kevin's hyperactivity and erratic ADD movements along with Dug's innocence and stupidity are highlights in this kid's movie. Carl's childhood hero and inspiration for the entire balloon jaunt, Charles F. Muntz, is sadly a 2 dimensional villain in this 3D feature. For a man who has lived in the jungle for years with talking dogs, a great scientific mind and a big mother of an air balloon, he hasn't really done much more then a Papier-mâché wall; maybe Mr Muntz found some special toads in the jungle and only got chasing after Kevin when it was the dry season. With a mixture of confusing ages (how old is this guy? 200?), flat voice acting and uninspired dialogue it's a shame Adventurer Muntz wasn't more of a character. It really makes him the film's weakest link but there are other reasons that this movie doesn't hit the mark.

Even though I enjoyed the lighter side of this sad story, walking out of the cinema I didn't feel fulfilled. My thoughts were that the ending was apt considering the set-up in the film, but the overall moral of "life is what you make it" felt flat and a little old hat. I'm used to more complex story arcs that really make me think about how I relate a character such as this and how his story in the film changes him for the better. I always knew that Carl would find happiness again. From the moment we were shown the "dream" of Ellie and Carl living atop a mountain I thought to myself "there's the final shot of the film" and I was right. The whole thing felt uninspired, much like most of Disney's animated films these days. Nothing really surprised me, and nothing really touched me other then the sadness of Carl's loss. Even though the visuals are some of the best in any Pixar film the envelope was never pushed. The 3D was cool but again there was nothing that really took advantage of the format like a so-so film like" Monsters V Aliens" did. Maybe this is what the Studios want with 3D but I was expecting some of the best 3D I've ever seen considering who made it. Sure, production of this beast is impressive and the characters are quite lovable but there seemed to be a spark missing overall from the picture.

On reflection, reading the film another way leaves thoughts of Pixar's own change under Disney, the promise of excitement may appear to be gone but even after death they will be back. I don't know; it sounds like a grand life after Disney's re-accusation for the famed animation house with the likes of 'the princesses and the frog' and that dammed Tinkerbell movie, but they show that they're premium animators even with the spark missing.

7/10

We Were Once A Fairytale

A short film starring Kanye West, directed by Spike Jonze

Zero Punctuation: Wet

For District 9 fans

click here

Yep, it's some odd, disconcerting stuff right there - there is to be a 'pictorial' of Marge Simpson in the upcoming November issue of U.S. Playboy.

You could, if you were barking mad insane, go to the Google box right now and type 'Simpsons' and 'Nude', or 'Marge+Simspon' and 'Porn', or , you know 'cartoons fucking', something like that. But you shouldn't. You must not. You will think for a moment 'this might be a good laugh', but it isn't; it's just really, really depressing.

Don't get me wrong, dear reader, I find no fault in fleeting fantasies regards cartoon characters. Cute hand-drawn and lovingly rendered creations can indeed spark all manner of imaginative thought, and there's a whole subculture of Hentai anime that, while having only meagre interest in, I don't object to, that seems to be something different to what's going on here. Those characters are created to play a role in a sexual fantasy, titillation and hand-drawn porn, whereas I can't help but feel that the creators of the Simpsons are whoring Marge's ass out.



For me, I've once or twice lingered upon the shapely drawings and attractive personalities of Turanga Leela and Amy Wong from Futurama during a very lonely period in my life, but it's a passing fancy that one has for finely wrought character, a piece of fiction that entertains the libido for just a few seconds. It's much different when you take a picture of Bender and add a robotic extendo-cock that's penetrating Dr. Zoidberg while he uses his claws to clamp Amy's nipples and Professor Farnsworth beats off into a dixie cup... or you know, whatever these sickos draw.

It's only been funny once or twice, this pic -



is darkly satirical, clever and subversive, but there's a whole story behind it about the artist responsible, a former Disney illustrator who was done wrong by Uncle Walt,and took his revenge upon the canvas.

It goes awry for me when a character has made it's place in pop-culture as a 'Mum with moxie', a strong female character who is funny on her own terms, can go toe to toe with an oaf like Homer (and even occasionally 'out-crazy' him), who has the respect and love of a brat like Bart while serving as a role model for proto nerd-feminist drip Lisa, gets relegated to Hefner's stable of Bimbos. It was tricky enough for me to handle when they gave her big fake boobs for an ep a few seasons back, but now this?

In the Fifties it would have been amusing and novel, now it just seems a little regressive. But maybe I'm being to precious? She's just a bunch of lines, after all, and I guess, as sex symbols go, you could do a lot worse. Most of the articles I've read are quick to point out that she doesn't go full frontal anyway (the phrase 'implied nudity' has been used), but most seem to be implying that we are going to see her boobies. I'm just not sure I need to.

Plus, let's face it, we all shrieked like 8-year old girls when we saw Bart's weiner for about half a second in the movie. I suppose if it's tastefully done I might be ok with it.



More here
and here

Funny Pic - Time Travel

While looking for an image for the below LHC article I came accross this pic and just couldn't help myself posting it. hehehe... 

Science News - The LHC, the Higgs Boson, and Fate

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 13, @02:52PM

Reader Maximum Prophet sends a piece from the NY Times by the usually reliable Dennis Overbye reporting on a "crazy" theory being worked up by a pair of "otherwise distinguished physicists": that the Large Hadron Collider's difficulties may be due to the universe's reluctance to produce a Higgs boson. Maximum Prophet adds, "This happened to the Superconducting Super Collider in the science fiction story Einstein's Bridge. Now Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, are theorizing that it's happening in real life."

 

"I'm talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."

more info here, CERN's Press releases here and the origional NY Times artice here

Cloud over Moscow city

EDIT: LINK UPDATED! FIGHT THE POWER!

We've seen video of this odd luminous, ring-shaped cloud over the city of Moscow appearing on the internet for the last few days. At this point it is getting posted on several pretty legitimate news websites, so presumably it's not a home video hoax. Two things spring to mind though; One, I'd like to be the first to welcome our new alien overlords and Two, How come there's only one dude on the whole of Moscow with a camera phone?

Childish Anger? Waiting for the Wild Rumpus to start...

'Where the Wild Things Are', the adaptation of Maurice Sendak's simple children's book by wordsmith David Eggers and cinematic wunder-kid Spike Jonze hits American cinemas on Friday. In Australia, we get to go see it in December. How are we to travel the intertoobs and not get spoiled? There's not a film, pop culture or music (it's been been composed by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs with a hand-picked band of indie luminaries and every style-fronting music site from Pitchfork to NME to Pop Apocalypse to Stereogum and gorrilavsbear has been in a posting frenzy about it already) website that isn't all a-twitter with tid bits and rapturous excitement regarding this film, and it's not even out for the general public yet, (which will no doubt result in some kind of hipster blog explosion... blogsplosion?)

Feeling left out? yes. *grabs fork from table, looks for dog to chase*

It doesn't really seem to make sense for distributors to stagger their release dates from country to country any more, not in the era of Youtube and Apple Trailers, or in light of the fact that a country like Australia is, per capita, the biggest downloading community in the world. It's sad to think that some of this film's potential audience won't have the patience no to download cams or screeners or the eventual good-quality rip-offs of this movie as they appear in the internet in the coming months, because the studios don't make a cent from this kind of piracy. So why do they wait? Or, more significantly, why do I have to wait almost 'til Christmas to happily pay my money to sit in a cinema and watch this movie. Time is cruel, and not just because we all have to grow up and act like adults eventually...

Tech News - Wireless POWER!

Here's an article from the start of the year, but with the release of a functional application for wireless power I thought I'd C&P some older info on this cool new tech...

"One of the clear trends coming out of this year’s CES is smart design. rather than introduce a slew of new flashy gadgets, companies are focusing on solving design issues that have been created by years of poor design. powermat is a revolutionary new design which aims to help frustrated users charge their army of battery powered devices. however instead of fumbling with power cords and adaptors, powermat charges your phone, mp3 player and other gadgets wirelessly. the system works with a non-conductive powermat which syncs with receivers attached to your devices. powermat eventually hopes that manufacturers will integrate wireless charging receivers into devices making syncing even easier. the mat will retail for around 100 USD and the receivers will be around 35 USD when the system is launched later this year. it will still be awhile until we truly know if this products helps ease the gadget charging dilemma." Powermat.com

Videos -
Powered but wireless Kitchen
Powermat Guided Tour (US Version)

News - Drug Detecting Lip Gloss Sniffs Out Roofies

Spiked drinks are a serious concern for many women (and men too, if you’ve seen The Hangover). That’s why 2 Love My Lips is so clever: the gloss includes inconspicuous test strips that detect drugs like GHB and Ketamine. more...

Tech News - Would You Wear Panasonic’s 3D Glasses?

So what do you think? I’m leaning toward pretty horrible. And in fact, with all of the most promising 3D displays of the next year utilising active shutter, you’d think that some startup would have learned to make a sleek pair by now, only to be bought by one of the big television companies.

But really, it’s not that these glasses are too ridiculous to wear while chuckling to your comrades about it; the look just screams “novelty”, not “new standard”. [aving]

more here and here

News - Email Is Dead? Oh Really?

The WSJ is making the call — email on its way out. Dying. Dead. It’s an interesting conclusion, derived from the fact that both growth and absolute numbers are on the side of social networking this year. But we disagree.

We’re not going to pull out the old argument of “X isn’t dead, because I’m still using X!” That’s not so much an argument as a statement of entrenchment. However, this is the same kind of argument that was brought up 10 years ago when instant messaging was new and everyone was hopping on that as the new communications medium. Did IM kill email? No. It’s important as hell, don’t get us wrong, but it works alongside email. And so will social networking. more...

Zero Punctuation: Scribblenauts - From the Escapist

Game - Borderlands, Making of Part1

With the game coming out on October 20, 2009 (PC release Oct 26) it's always great to get caught up in the hype of a new franchise. Borderlands is no exception, with cool looking graphics, butt loads of weapons and a dark sense of humor this is one that MonkeyM666 will be looking into...

Below is a Pt1 of "The Making of Borderlands" ... gotta love psychotic robot game directors.

Game - Making of Borderlands Episode 2

Science News - Candy Linked To Violence In Study

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 08, @05:29AM
from the gummy-worms-and-steal dept. 

T Murphy writes "A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links daily consumption of candy at the age of 10 to an increased chance of being convicted of a violent crime by age 34. The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence. An alternative explanation offered by the American Dietetic Association is that the candy indicates poor diet, which hinders brain development. The scientists stress they don't imply candy should be removed from a child's diet, although they do recommend moderation. The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style. The study can be found here, but the full text is behind a paywall."

Game News - Hackers Targeting Xbox Live

Windows isn't the only piece of Microsoft technology that hackers are attacking anymore. During a presentation at the SecTor security conference in Toronto, a Facetime security researcher revealed numerous methods by which Xbox users are being hacked today. 'Though the Xbox doesn't have the number one market share, it is the top target for hackers,' Boyd said. 'Xbox Live has 17 million plus subscribers, and that service requires payment.' more...

Games - Coop Tokyo Game Show Special

Final Fantasy XIII, Crackdown 2, Dead Rising 2, and More

News - Chinese rehab for Internet addicts

Coming out of the not so far east there are stories about new internet boot camps that seem to be popping up all over China. From brutal punishments, kidnapping and even deaths there is growing panic over this growing virtual "plague" known as internet addiction. Chinese people seem to be getting more concerned about internet access and how their younger populous are being influenced by a world of new ideas.  Even tough a lot of these camps are not endorsed by the Chinese government little is being done to stop them. A new study give parents more to worry about as they found depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), social phobia or feelings of hostility to be the most prevalent predictors of which children would go on to develop an internet addiction as adolescents. This kind of news is concerning as in many cases the poorly educated parents in rural China have no idea what constitues one of these conditions and are mis-diognising their own children out of consern for what internet addiction could bring.

News - New Game review Show from Yahtzee....

Newly recut, re shot and re...... um, almost completely remade short for our favourite rage-a-holic, Yahtzee along with some other guys are pitching for a new tv game review show.


Check out the promo...

Tech News - Format war looms over 3D TV

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last month was overrun with companies demonstrating 3D television systems for the home. But despite the impressive viewing experiences on offer, the spectre of a lengthy battle between competing formats hangs over the latest shiny offerings.

TV studios and hardware companies alike are now building on the public's rediscovered love of 3D movies. Satellite broadcaster Sky recently treated press to examples of soccer games and boxing matches filmed in 3D by strapping two regular cameras side by side, and Panasonic last week started to make 3D Blu-ray video discs at its Hollywood factory.However, anyone interested in a 3D system for the home must pick between three or more very different and incompatible technologies. At present, material designed for one system usually cannot be played on another. more...

Fool your friends on the cheap... HDTV confusion.

Want to experience the benefits of super-sharp high-definition TV without buying a new set? Simply tell yourself that you are watching HD and put up a few posters. That's the implication of a Dutch study into how expectations affect viewers' perceptions. Two groups of 30 people watched the same video clip, individually, on the same television. Half were told to expect a better experience thanks to HD technology, an impression backed up by posters, flyers and an extra-thick cable connected to the screen. The other half were told to expect a normal DVD signal. In questionnaires afterwards, the group told to expect HD reported that they had witnessed significantly sharper, more detailed images. read the study...

News - Cosmic lagoons and planetary plains: the week in space

This composite image of interstellar dust in the plane of the Milky Way is among the first taken with both cameras on Europe's new Herschel infrared telescope, which launched in May.

The image, which shows a region of the sky equivalent to the area of 16 full moons, shows filaments of cold dust in various stages of star formation. Blue and green denote warmer dust imaged with Herschel's PACS camera, while red denotes cooler dust snapped with its SPIRE camera. more...

Tod Machover - The Original Guitar Hero

So after a couple of TapeMonkey blogs relating to Rock Band and Guitar Hero of late, it got me curious as to where the technology had come from and what it was actually intended for. It seemed to me a lot of trouble to go to, to develop such a sophisticated computer peripheral, since in the games its only used to attempt to parallel a the series of music co-ordinated 'fret-board sequences' that are displayed on-screen. I figured that the same device could actually be used to create simple tunes and melodies, or to use the midi functionality available on most computer sound cards, to actually compose. Turns out my suppositions are correct, these 'key-tars' (or 'hyperinstruments' as they were originally known) were designed using licenced technology that has a lot more on it's mind... and the inventor of this tech, Tod Machover (along with his MIT research group), is some kind of a genius... Stay tuned 'til the end of the second video where Tod joins the likes of Jack White and Jimmy Page in dissing GH and Rock Band.


So if These games aren't about music so much, what explains their appeal? maybe it's about power:

Science Explains Why We Love Guitar Hero

Andy Chalk posted on 18 Sep 2009 9:42 am

Filed under: andy chalk, guitar hero, rock band, science

Ever wonder why games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are so wildly popular? New York University professor of psychology Gary Marcus says it's because they give us a feeling of power.

In some ways, Marcus wrote on his blog at Psychology Today, Rock Band and Guitar Hero "seem like the stupidest games on Earth," and with the way he describes them it's not hard to see why. "Colored discs scroll down a TV screen, and eager participants mash colored buttons in time with what they see," he wrote. "You press a red button when you see a red disc, a blue button when you see a blue disc, and hold your fire when you see nothing. Rinse, lather, and repeat; that's about all there is to it."

He acknowledges the runaway popularity of the two franchises, which have grossed over $3 billion between them. But why? "What," he asked, "is the appeal of a game that demands so little of the human mind?" It's not the music, which can be had cheaper and with less work by simply buying a few CDs or hitting iTunes. Nor are we learning anything about making real music or music theory; we're just pushing buttons like a hamster who wants a treat. So what's the appeal?

"It's a lust for power," Marcus said. "Not of the sort that allows one to rule the world, but the sort that allows one to control one's own world."

Simply put, people are happier when they're in control of a situation, but according to Marcus the human mind has a tricky time determining when we actually have that control. Guitar Hero succeeds because it's able to create a "potent illusion of temporal contingency" - we know we're not actually playing the music but when we do well in the game by pressing the right button at the right time to make the right sound come out, a certain murky part of our brain is tricked into thinking we are and we get a small, artificially-induced but very real taste of what it's like to be standing on stage, strutting our stuff.

"When I push the button, I hear Keith Richards," Marcus explained. "When I fail to push the button (or press the wrong button, or press it late), I don't hear Keith Richards. Therefore, I am Keith Richards!"

link

'inferring causality from a potent illusion of temporal contingency' - the same logical rationale could be applied to a lot of gaming enjoyment, but the XBOX nerds aren't going to like hearing that...

Who says gamers are childish? me, but that's kind of why I like them... Some of the stuff they enjoy is just so silly

Zero Punctuation: Darkest of Days - Gaming