The Joy of Tech New Years Resolutions

What are Steve, Fake Steve, Kevin, Larry and Sergey, Mark, and Jeff's New Year's resolutions? Joy of Tech tells us in todays webcomic.

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Buyers Sitting Out the HD Format 'War'

Today the New York Times asks: What if nobody wins the high-definition DVD format wars? With no clear advantage for either format, except for the movie titles available on each, only 11 percent of current HDTV owners strongly intend to buy a Blu-ray or HD DVD player. Almost 75% of those (HDTV owners, mind you) surveyed say standard DVD is 'good enough.'
What the article doesn't bring out is that it is increasingly evident that both HD formats are competing against standard DVD, not each other. HDTV owners can walk into a Wal-Mart and buy a $29 HD-upconverting DVD player that will play ALL DVD movies from ALL studios and ALL the movies they currently own.
I predict neither format will reach mass acceptance while there are two of them, unless or until they reach the sub-$50 price point, as happened with DVD. By that time people will have moved on to downloading digital content, or continue to be satisfied with standard DVD.

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Survey: Half Of Americans Create Online Content

Well. I guess I'm not alone. According to a new-media survey from Deloitte & Touche, 54% of those surveyed said they are making their own entertainment content through editing photos, videos or music, 45% are producing that content for others to see, and 32% said they consider themselves to be "broadcasters" of their own media. 45% also say they maintain a profile on a social networking site.
We live in interesting times, where anyone with a $15 webcam can post their own videos on YouTube and have their own TV channel on Ustream. As the amount of quality programming on the old media diminishes (i.e., WGA strike) people are doing just that.

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Half Of U.S. Households Have Digital TVs

Well digital televisions have hit a milestone and are now officially mainstream as one out of every two U.S. households has a digital television, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. We have come a long way in 2007, in March it was reported that only 28% of US households had one. 32 million more digital TVs will ship to stores in 2008; HDTVs are expected to account for 79% those sold. By federal mandate, broadcasters will have to distribute all content digitally as of February 17, 2009.

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Nasa Website Shows You All 900 Satellites Orbiting Earth

From Nasa.gov, simply go to the site, and if your browser has JAVA enabled, the app will appear in it's own window. It's called J-Track 3D and it shows the position of 900 satellites currently orbiting the Earth. You can rotate and zoom in and out of the real-time display, as well as click and identify specific satellites. It's fun to click on one, see the name of the satellite, then google it to find out what it does. Amazing.

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Devices Affected by Analog Shutdown

We are fast approaching the end of the analog broadcast spectrum in the US. This coming February 19, the 24 year old US analog cellular network will be shutdown. This is not a government mandated shutdown, like the upcoming Feb. 2009 digital TV switchover, but the date that cellular companies are allowed to decommission the analog signal and they are all going to.
So what does this mean?

• Cell phones. If your phone is more than 5 years old and your service is with AT&T, Verizon, or Alltel you might want to check to see if it's an analog-only phone. If you can text with it, or it has a camera, you're ok. Less than 1% of phones are said to be affected by the shutdown, but many older people that do not often upgrade their electronics may still have these types of phones, as well as people living in rural areas. That old phone grandma keeps in the car trunk as an emergency 911 phone needs to be checked.
• Car communication services. Generally, cars from 2003 and older with OnStar, TeleAid or Lexus Link are affected, and most won't be upgradable. Upgrade kits are available for most OnStar systems from model years 2004 and 2005.
• Home alarm systems. Burglar and fire alarms that use the analog network as a backup link to your alarm company will need an upgrade. Also, homes with no wired phone service have used analog wireless service. Homes that have those will lose wireless backup alarms, which kick in if someone cuts the phone line. Alarm systems using newer digital wireless links became available in 2006.

Scientists: Time Itself May Be Slowing Down

Wired: For a decade, scientists have puzzled over a surprising phenomenon: Supernovae stars viewed at extreme distances seem to be moving away from us faster than those nearby.
Most researchers have assumed that the stars have somehow accelerated – or that, more precisely, the rate of the expansion of the post-Big Bang universe itself has accelerated over time.
Now, a group of scientists from the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, and Spain's University of Salamanca have offered a different idea. Maybe it's the passage of time itself that's slowing down, they say. The distant galaxies only look like they're accelerating because our deep-space telescopes are essentially looking back in time to see them, to when time was going faster.

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First Look: Incredible Hulk Photos

The reimagined Incredible Hulk movie written by and starring Edward Norton is coming to theaters June 13, 2008. Here are two pics just released showing Norton as David Banner.

Christmas and New Years Greetings From the Storm Worm

I've mentioned the Storm Worm before, a malicious trojan horse program, and it's creative subject lines to get you to click on the link in that email. Now Stormy is taking a Christmas (and now New Year's) greetings approach to infect more unwary PCs. Recipients of emails will get a link to the MerryChristmasDude website which is evidently registered to Russian hackers.
Subject lines from these emails have said

• I love this Carol!
• Warm Up this Christmas
• The Twelve Girls Of Christmas
• Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells
• The Perfect Christmas
• Santa Said, HO HO HO
• Find Some Christmas Tail

and so on. As of today the emails and website they link to have been updated with New Year's messages and want you to download a supposed greeting card called 'happycards2008' but you won't be too happy after you download this malware.
Please, people, show some common sense and stop clicking on links from random emails and using these idiotic greeting card sites which do nothing more than harvest email addresses to send us more spam.

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Heathkit Brings Back HERO

I so wanted one of these when I was 14. Usually advertised in the back of Popular Science, Heathkit produced and sold all kinds of electronic project kits back in the 80s including this robot called the HERO, the Heathkit Educational RObot. Looking like one of the robots from Silent Running, it couldn't really do much except move around and respond to light, sound, and motion. Later models could actually 'talk' and were upgradeable; they essentially taught you about electronics and robotics.
Now Heathkit is about to reenter the educational robot business.

Heathkit’s new “HE-RObot” incorporates an onboard computer running Windows XP Professional on a Core 2 Duo Processor. Controlled by remote or set to move autonomously, it is capable of sensing its environment, reacting and moving around obstacles. HE-RObot™ can talk, see, hear, transmit receive and process data, or if you like, just play a CD.

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Man Sues To Worship Thor In Prison

This guy may have spent too much time reading Marvel comics.
He is suing for the items he needs to worship the ancient Norse gods...including, apparently, Mjolnir, Thor's hammer and other items. Interestingly, inmates at Washington State Penitentiary in 2001 successfully sued for their right to wear a Thor’s Hammer pendant while the prison had refused to allow them to wear it.

An inmate is suing the Utah Department of Corrections for denying him his right to practice an ancient Nordic religion while behind bars. Michael Polk is serving time for aggravated assault and robbery. He filed a lawsuit against corrections officials in federal court, accusing them of denying him religious items that he says are necessary to practice the Asatru religion. The religion worships ancient Nordic gods like Odin, Thor, Tyr and Heimdal...in order to properly practice it he needs items including: a Thor's Hammer, a prayer cloth, a Mead Horn used for drinking Wassail, a drum made of wood and boar skin, a rune staff and a sword.

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Wii 'Scalping?' - Retailer Responds To Claims

Thursday ArsTechnica published a story about a small Missouri/Illinois video game chain selling their inventory of Wiis on eBay instead of selling to it's in-store customers. Apparently an employee of the chain, Slackers, contacted them claiming the stores sell their entire inventory of Wiis on eBay at a $150 markup over retail price.

"In the past year, none of the 12 [Slackers locations] have sold any Wiis except for a one-time promotional deal, where we did force customers to buy a game with it," the employee told Ars Technica. "The real crime is that we get Wii shipments regularly. In fact, right now we have about 20, but none of them make it to the store front. They all get put on the store's eBay site at a minimum $499.99 buying price."
Our source then told us that the price has since been lowered to $399.99, (they weren't moving at $499) and sure enough, there are three Wiis available through Slackers' eBay storefront at $399.99.

The next day ArsTechnica followed up with a post stating 'numerous' employees of the chain have contacted them to confirm the store's practice.
A visit to the Slackers website reveals a different story. An official statement by the chain called ArsTechnica's claims 'sweeping and factually incorrect statements' and stated they make no profit on Wii sales. When addressing the chain's eBay sales, it said:

Does Slackers’ sell Wii systems on eBay? Yes. This holiday season, Slackers has sold a total of 5 Wii systems on eBay at a price of $399.99, while a couple units remain in stock. Why do we sell the Wii systems on eBay? Like all small retailers we are trying to improve our profile on the web. We have a website and an eBay store site. By offering even a small quantity of a hot system like the Wii on-line drives many hits to our sites. As for the price, Mr. Kuchera claims we are “scalping.” At the price Slackers offers on-line, when you factor our cost for the unit and shipping, and after eBay and PayPal take their cut, Slackers makes less than $75 per unit we sell on-line. For this holiday season, we made a whopping $375 from the eBay sales – that’s it. We gave away 2 systems at a cost of $500, and on every other system, we either broke even or lost money. Slackers does not make money on the sale of Wii systems.

A look into Slackers eBay feedback history reveals they indeed only sold 5 Wii systems during November and December for $379-399. Five out of 44 units they were able to get during the holiday season they sold on eBay. The majority of their eBay inventory consists of game accessories, DVDs and older games for sale. This hardly seems like the chain is 'scalping' their entire Wii inventory on eBay, in fact it seems to disprove the employee's claims. Unless Slackers has other eBay usernames they sell under, they are not selling as many Wiis on eBay as the employee claims.
One things for sure-with only 11 stores, I'll bet this is not a good time for Slackers' employees as the higher ups are undoubtedly going to try to find out what employees are spreading this information.

Why Nintendo Can't Ship Enough Wiis

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Scientists Find Source of Cosmic Dust

AP: Scientists in California have uncovered the best evidence yet that cosmic dust in the early universe mostly came from the explosions of giant stars.
The Spitzer Space Telescope recently detected large amounts of space dust, 10,000 Earth masses worth, in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A located 11,000 light-years away.
The discovery comes two months after Spitzer found freshly made dust in the wind bursting out of super-massive black holes.
Astronomers believe both supernovae and quasars are responsible for the dust that helped seed early stars. Dust is essential in the cooling process to make stars, which are predominantly gas.
Researchers at NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology used a telescope instrument to analyze infrared light from the supernova and construct maps of the dust to determine the quantity and composition.
Results will be published in the Jan. 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Asteroid May Hit Mars

Mars could be in for an asteroid hit. A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday."These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track ... threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to the Tunguska object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb that wiped out 60 million trees.

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Cloverfield Exclusive Preview

Grab this widget for your own blog and get entered to win on the Cloverfield contest.

'Active Glacier Found' On Mars

A probable active glacier has been identified for the first time on Mars. The icy feature has been spotted in images from the European Space Agency's (Esa) Mars Express spacecraft.
Ancient glaciers, many millions of years old, have been seen before on the Red Planet, but this one may only be several thousand years old. The young glacier appears in the Deuteronilus Mensae region between Mars' rugged southern highlands and the flat northern lowlands.
"If it was an image of Earth, I would say 'glacier' right away," Dr Gerhard Neukum, chief scientist on the spacecraft's High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) told BBC News. "We have not yet been able to see the spectral signature of water. But we will fly over it in the coming months and take measurements. On the glacial ridges we can see white tips, which can only be freshly exposed ice."

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Wall-E Teaser Trailer #2 Now Online

What if mankind evacuated Earth and forgot to turn off the last remaining robot?
After 700 years of doing what he was built for - he'll discover what he's meant for.
From the guys who brought you Toy Story. Coming June 27th 2008.

Man Sues Over Printer Ink Price Fixing

Ranjit Bedi from Boston is suing HP and Staples claiming they are colluding to inflate the price of printer ink cartridges in violation of federal antitrust law. He is claiming HP paid Staples $100 million to stop selling generic replacement ink cartridges. Printer ink cartridges are not cheap, especially inkjet and HP is one of the most expensive brands, costing about $8000 per gallon for their supposedly better quality ink.
I don't know how this guy is going to legally prove antitrust, you could simply go to the next store and buy generic cartridges. I do know that inkjet printing is an outright waste of money.
You buy a printer for about $30 and the first ink cartridge you buy costs more than the printer, many requiring 2 or 3 cartridges to operate. A laser printer is far more cost effective, you can find them for under $100 and you will be able to print thousands of pages before replacing the toner cartridge. Color printing? Let's look at the cheapest color laser printer I can find, the Samsung CLP300 which you can buy at Staples for $250. The color toner cartridges for this printer have a 1000 page yield. I get maybe 35 good pages on an HP color inkjet cartridge before having to replace it for about $35. You would spend $1000 on color inkjet cartridges (not counting the black ones) by the time you used up the three $55 color toner cartridges on the Samsung color laser printer.
Inkjet cartridges will clog and dry up if enough time passes between print jobs, while laser toner generally does not. Laser printers are also faster and higher quality than inkjet.
Inkjet printing-what a rip-off.

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'Death Star' Black Hole Fires at Neighboring Galaxy

A powerful jet from a super massive black hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new findings from NASA observatories. This never-before witnessed galactic violence may have a profound effect on planets in the jet's path and trigger a burst of star formation in its destructive wake.
Known as 3C321, the system contains two galaxies in orbit around each other. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory show both galaxies contain super massive black holes at their centers, but the larger galaxy has a jet emanating from the vicinity of its black hole. The smaller galaxy apparently has swung into the path of this jet. This "death star" galaxy was discovered through the combined efforts of both space and ground-based telescopes. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope were part of the effort.
"We've seen many jets produced by black holes, but this is the first time we've seen one punch into another galaxy like we're seeing here," said Dan Evans, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and leader of the study. "This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling."

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First Look: Hancock Movie Trailer

This is new, haven't seen anything on this until now. Next July we will not only have a new Batman and X-Files movie, but Will Smith, hot off his megahit I Am Legend will try to work his July 4th weekend magic with a new film, Hancock. Enjoy.

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Students Without Computers Find Life Hard

Practically all college students use a computer for their courses. People that haven't gone to school for a while may be surprised how much computer use is integrated into college life and it's not just Facebook and music downloads we're talking about. Students register for classes online; critical communications are sent to students via email and IM; professors conduct online class discussions and issue homework assignments via email. This is even creeping down to the high school level and lower at some school districts.
Students say trying to get along without using a computer amounts to seeking special treatment from instructors. Seeing as how computer use is so integral to student life, could a college student go without a PC and internet for a month? These students did for a documentary project. USA TODAY published an interesting article about it today.

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New Species Found: Giant Rat and Tiny Possum

Researchers in a remote jungle in Indonesia have discovered a giant rat - five times the size of a typical city rat - and a tiny possum that are apparently new to science. Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is very rare. The discoveries by a team of American and Indonesian scientists are being studied further to confirm their status. The animals were found in the Foja mountains rain forest in eastern Papua province in a June expedition, said US-based Conservation International, which organized the trip along with the Indonesian Institute of Science. "With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip." The possum was described as "one of the world's smallest marsupials". A 2006 expedition to the same stretch of jungle - dubbed by Conservation International as a "Lost World" because until then humans had rarely visited it - unearthed scores of exotic new species of palms, butterflies and palms. Papua has some of the world's largest tracts of rainforest, but like elsewhere in Indonesia they are being ravaged by illegal logging. Scientists said last year that the Foja area was not under immediate threat, largely because it was so remote.

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The Dark Knight Full Trailer Now Online

Follow the link to watch it in high def on the official Dark Knight viral website.
Looks like another hit for Nolan.

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Cool Simpson Clip From Last Night

From episode 19 which aired last night. It's an homage to the original 'Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years' video. Hopefully the YouTube reference at the end amounts to defacto permission to leave it on YouTube.

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Knight Rider Officially Announced

Yes, we've seen the spy pics before, but now it's official- NBC has announced the return of the 1980s television classic with an updated sequel that will air as a two-hour movie event on Sunday, February 17 at 8pm Central.
Much like the Transformers movie turned out to pretty much be a 2 hour commercial for GM, Ford products and features will be heavily integrated into the plot. Whether this means the new Michael will be telling KITT "play artist Michael Bolton" remains to be seen.
The new KITT (Knight Industries Three Thousand this time) will be a 540 hp 2008 Ford Shelby GT500KR which you will conveniently be able to buy this coming spring.

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Helicopter view- Geminid Meteor Shower

December 14th, 2007 This amazing video was shot from a news helicopter flying above the desert near Phoenix of the Geminid Meteor Shower.

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Full Cloverfield Trailer Now Online

This looks like the must see of next month.

The Dark Knight International Teaser Poster #2

Lots of cool new movie posters this week. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, earlier this week and now a second Dark Knight international one sheet. Why are the international ones cooler than the domestic ones?

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The Dark Knight International Poster

New international one sheet release for The Dark Knight. Full trailer will show in front of I Am Legend starting today in theaters.
Click the pic for full image

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Journeyman Fans Start Rice-A-Roni Campaign

Similar to the 'Nuts To CBS' campaign that may actually have had something to do with saving the show Jericho, Journeyman fans have started their own effort. Journeyman, which has effectively been defacto canceled by NBC since they didn't order any more episodes, is a fantasy drama airing on Monday nights that centers on an unlikely time traveler that ends up helping people throughout their lives. There are only two episodes left which will oddly both air next week on Monday and Wednesday at 9pm Central due to the holidays the following week.
Since the show is set in San Francisco, fans have started sending boxes of Rice-a-Roni (you know, the San Francisco treat) to NBC in hopes of reviving the show. Although it doesn't look too promising right now, if the WGA strike is resolved soon and NBC were to order more episodes, it could come back next season if the principal people on the show have not moved on to other things.
If you want to participate, send your box of Rice-a-Roni to
Jeff Zucker
RE: SAVE JOURNEYMAN
NBC Universal Television Group
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112

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Top 10 Astronomy Pictures of 2007

The Bad Astronomer has selected his picks for the best astronomical images of the year 2007.
Seen here is the Vela Supernova Remnant. About 11,000 years ago a star in the constellation of Vela exploded. This bright supernova may have been visible to the first human farmers. Today the Vela supernova remnant marks the position of a relatively close and recent explosion in our Milky Way Galaxy. A roughly spherical, expanding shock wave is visible in X-rays. In the optical photograph shown here, the 100+ light-years span spherical blast wave is shown in detail. As gas flies away from the detonated star, it reacts with the interstellar medium, knocking away closely held electrons from even heavy elements. When the electrons recombine with these atoms, light in many different colors and energy bands is produced.
Image courtesy of Skyfactory.org. Follow the link to see the other nine pictures and Phil's commentary on them.

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Nana Visitor To Star On Battlestar Galactica

This just in: Nana Visitor, star on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for seven seasons, will take on a recurring role on Battlestar Galactica.
Ronald D. Moore told Starburst magazine in a recent interview

“Nana Visitor [Major Kira Nerys on DSN] is playing Emily. She’s another cancer patient in sickbay and who Laura Roslin meets when receiving her chemotherapy treatments, which we call diloxin on our show. Not surprisingly, the president is making regular visits to sickbay this season, and in this story we introduce Emily, who is terminal and much further along in her illness then Laura. Faith is about the relationship between the two women. Nana is going to be terrific for this role, and it’s great to see her again.”
Nana Visitor official site. Thanks to Sam at Slice of SciFi for this.

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RIAA: Copying CDs To Your Hard Drive Is Stealing

And the RIAA insanity continues...apparently they won't be satisfied until they figure out a way to charge each person for every time they play a song.
Just about everybody these days with a computer uses it to copy their CDs (that they own) for the convenience of playing music on their computer, in their car, or on a portable music player. Now, according to the RIAA, we're all thieves.
In a brief filed late last week, the RIAA said that the MP3 files on a PC owned by file-sharing defendants Jeffrey and Pamela Howell were "unauthorized copies" whether or not they were ever shared on a P2P network. Huh? The Howells state they copied their music so they could use one of those nifty mp3 players, which should be covered under fair use, and they never knowingly shared music over the internet. They have gone to trial without a lawyer to defend themselves against the RIAA.
In the Kazza Mom case, Sony BMG's head of litigation testified that she believed that ripping your own CDs is stealing.

"When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song. Making 'a copy' of a song you own is just a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'."

Well, what do you expect from Sony. I'm trying to wrap my head around the logic of this. I'm stealing my own CD I bought legally by copying it to my computer even if it is done for my own use and not to sell/distribute pirated copies. I guess we're all criminals now in the eyes of the RIAA.

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The Rosette Nebula

Click on the picture for a spectacular image of the Rosette Nebula.
It is found near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter. The cluster and nebula lie at a distance of some 5,200 light years from Earth (although estimates of the distance vary considerably) and measure roughly 130 light years in diameter. The radiation from the young stars excite the atoms in the nebula, causing them to emit radiation themselves producing the emission nebula we see. The mass of the nebula is estimated to be around 10,000 solar masses.

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Star Trek Actors/Writers Picket Paramount

Evidently yesterday was Star Trek Picketing Day at the Paramount lot in Hollywood! From the looks of things, Scott Bakula, Brent Spiner, Walter Koenig, and George Takei were all there to support the WGA strike. Oh, myyyyyy. More pics after the link

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Say Goodbye To Moviebeam

Remember Moviebeam? Didn't think so. The service didn't seem to catch on too well, and was only available in certain cities. The Moviebeam service was started by Disney, was sold to Movie Gallery and will shut down on December 15.
Moviebeam launched early last year-movies would magically appear (beam) onto your Moviebeam box and you could watch them for prices ranging from $1.99 for an older title in standard def-$4.99 for a new release in high def- no internet required.
If you were unfortunate enough to have bought one for $250 more than 30 days ago, you will have an expensive doorstop after December 15.

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DVD Sales Down; Games Up This Season

With Halo 3 selling more units than Shrek The Third; home video game sales are starting to affect sales of DVDs. Sales on games like the popular Halo 3, with a minimum price point of $60, are fueling the increase of game sales. DVD sales, however, have been trending down for some time. With a limited amount of disposable income, two incompatible HD formats to choose from, and general confusion created by the impending digital switchover, consumers are spending more money now on games and game systems with no slowdown forecasted.
Ted Engen, president of Video Buyers Group, stated 'year-to-date, Halo 3 is the best-selling title, period, among game and DVD releases.' If this trend continues, Engen expects many video stores will start swapping out catalog DVD shelf space to make way for more games.

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Mysterious Mammal Caught On Camera

The long-eared jerboa, a tiny nocturnal mammal that is dwarfed by its enormous ears, can be found in deserts in Mongolia and China. Zoological Society of London (ZSL) scientist Jonathan Baillie said the footage was helping researchers to learn more about the mysterious animal. The species is classified as endangered on the IUCN Red list. Until now, the creatures had proven extremely difficult to study, thanks to their minuscule size, nocturnal nature and the harsh desert environment that they inhabit.


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Indiana Jones 4 Poster Revealed!

From USA Today:
When last we saw Indy, he was riding off into the sunset in 1989's The Last Crusade, set in 1938 near the start of World War II. The new movie, due this spring, is set at the height of the Cold War in 1957, so the character has aged in real time — 19 years.
Indiana Jones co-producer Frank Marshall is authorized to confirm some rumors and detail some of the story, about a quest for South American relics...
The artifact of the title is inspired by real quartz sculptures of disputed origins that are carved in a way that defies the natural structure of the crystal.
"The theory is they are shaped by higher powers or alien powers or came from another world, or an ancient Mayan civilization had the powers," Marshall says.

Walmart Pulls Superbad DVD From Shelves In Hawaii

From the 'you just can't make this stuff up' department...The mayor of Honolulu has complained about a promotional item inserted into special edition DVD releases of the recent film Superbad made exclusively for Wal-Mart; so much so that he requested that Wal-Mart stores in Hawaii remove it from their shelves. And they have complied.

Mayor Hannemann said, “We’re very pleased that Wal-Mart has taken prompt, corrective measures to comply with the City’s request to protect the integrity of our driver’s license. It was foolish of the movie studio to include this prop in the DVD, particularly because it could be used by unscrupulous people to deceive others who are unfamiliar with our driver’s license. For example, those who saw ‘Superbad’ know the underage teenager used his fake Hawaii license to buy liquor.”

Now an internet meme, one of the characters of the movie creates an obviously fake drivers license using the oddly chosen sole name 'McLovin' which becomes an ongoing joke in the movie. The promotional card included with the DVD is clearly not designed to make anyone looking at it believe it is a real Hawaii drivers license. The lenticular card has one name and picture when initially viewed, then displays the 'McLovin' name and alternate picture when shifted. The back is plain white with those glue spots on it that manufacturers use to affix items in retail packaging, and the date of birth printed on it indicates an age of 17. Not to mention you would have to look like actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse to use it.
Although Wal-Mart performed this action in Hawaii, it does not currently plan to expand this removal to other states. Sony Pictures even commented on the issue, stating the 'license' "has a shifting, dual photograph and other features to make clear it's not a real I.D."

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Order Your Own Flux Capacitor

Things From Another World is currently taking pre-orders for Diamond Select's replica of the Flux Capacitor. They have a lot of cool stuff over there, you have to check it out.

Get your own time machine up and running with this high-tech replica from the 1985 classic Back to the Future! Reproduced with full light effects and adjustable power settings, the Flux Capacitor replica recreates the 1.21 jigowatt-controlling heart of the De Lorean time machine. Measuring over sixteen inches tall and twelve inches wide, each replica features hand-numbering with a matching box, Certificate of Authenticity and Care Instructions!"

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MPAA Wants Government To Create New Federal Agency

Congress is busy considering a new 69-page bill that would increase civil penalties for copyright infringement, boosts criminal enforcement, and would even create a new federal agency charged with bringing about a national and international copyright crackdown. The legislation, called the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, or PRO IP Act is openly supported by the MPAA.
Among other things, the PRO IP Act would:

• Increase fines in copyright cases dealing with compilations
• Make it easier to get maximum penalties for repeat copyright offenders
  
• Let the Justice Department seize any computer/network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime and sell it, whether or not you are found guilty
• Create the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, or WHIPER.

You simply cannot make this up. The head of WHIPER would be the president's principal advisor and spokesman for intellectual property issues. One of WHIPER's main tasks would be to create a "Joint Strategic Plan" that involves "identifying individuals" involved in the "trafficking" of "pirated goods."
Whether or not the agency would also be tracking down people singing 'Happy Birthday' in public and forcing them to pay royalties to TimeWarner was not clear.


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The Worlds Largest Telescopes Discover Magnetic Star

Using four of the world’s most powerful telescopes, astronomers have found a bizarrely magnetic star with some very strange features. The M-type dwarf has a massive “hot spot”, which covers half of its surface area, and an unusually active magnetic field. The star lies about 35 light-years away in the constellation Boötes. If these strange anomalies turn out to be common for M-type stars, astronomers will have a radically altered view of the ultracool dwarfs.

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First Look: Speed Racer Trailer

Hmm. The Wachowski Brothers bring us Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer coming to theaters May 9, 2008. Could be fun!
Go Speed Racer goooo!

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HD-DVD Roundup

There's been a lot of information this week about the HD format 'war;' HD-DVD in particular.
Engadget has a post about the Michael Bay conspiracy theory. He and others have alluded to Microsoft taking actions to delay consumer acceptance of either HD format. I have helped to spread this idea on this site in previous posts. However, ArsTechnica has posted an article debunking this idea, saying Microsoft has no incentive to kill physical media and that Microsoft did not finance those payouts to the studios that switched over to HD-DVD back in August.
Black Friday results have both HD format camps claiming victory; while Gizmodo today posted an exhaustive look at the current state of HD-DVD, complete with an examination of the same movie on both formats.

Overview of the Universe

Have trouble keeping things in perspective? Watch this short video and take a look at our relative place in the universe.

Star Trek Inspirational Posters

Here are three of them. Follow the link to look at them all. Warning: Some of these are definitely PG rated and many you absolutely won't get unless you're a fan.

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New Type of Plesiosaur Found In Arctic

Halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole lies the Svalbard Islands. And it must be the place to find plesiosaur remains. The remains of a new type of prehistoric reptile were found there, similar to the ones found about a year ago. Initial excavation of the site in August yielded the remains, teeth, skull fragments and vertebrae of a reptile estimated to measure nearly 40 feet long. The plesiosaur was a short-necked was a voracious reptile often called to the Tyrannosaurus-rex of the oceans. Mark Evans, a plesiosaur expert at the Leicester City Museums in Britain, said "We are regularly seeing new species of plesiosaurs popping up - in a way because, in the past 10 or 15 years, there has been what we call a renaissance in plesiosaur research."

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DOJ Files FOC Brief: Kazza Mom Verdict Is Cool

For whatever reason, the Department of Justice decided to chime in on the $222,000 Kazza mom verdict. You can read all my previous posts regarding this, just click on the RIAA tag at the end of this post. "This Court may find that defendant has waived her challenge to Congress's statutory damages provision by submitting 'jury instructions and approv[ing] the verdict form that allowed the jury to consider the full range of statutory damages under the Copyright Act," the DOJ argued in it's friend of the court brief.
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The Dark Knight Poster Revealed!

Wow, the Joker has his own website and he has revealed the official Dark Knight poster!

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More Films Deteriorating Than Can Be Restored

I often think about this when someone comes into the store asking for an older film, out of print, that's never been released to DVD. Yes, even with 80,000 movies released to DVD, films like The African Queen, the original 1927 Jazz Singer, 1941's Sergeant York, or even 1951's The Incredible Shrinking Man still are not. Many people are oblivious to the fact that many movies are out of print on all formats, and may in fact never be released again. Did you know that half of all the movies made before 1950 are lost forever? Even films from as recent as the 1980s are in need of restoration. You may think the movie studios are doing a good job preserving their own films. But evidently this is not the case.The many film-preservation organizations channel their efforts into independent, foreign, or obscure films. It's assumed major Hollywood studios will take care of their own films. Click the link to read the entire article from Variety.

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Out Of Work Cylon

Most Intact Dinosaur Fossil Ever Found

Scientists today announced the discovery of what appears to be the world's most intact dinosaur find: a 67-million-year-old plant-eater that contains fossilized bones and skin tissue. Although the article keeps referring to it as a mummy, it is actually a fossil, where minerals have replaced the original tissue. However, this happened faster than the organic matter could decompose, giving us unprecedented details about this species and new insights into dinosaurs in general. For example, since the orientation of the skeleton is intact, it was found that the hadrosaur and other dinosaurs were evidently larger than previously thought.
The National Geographic Channel, which helped fund the research, will have a special on the discovery in a documentary called Dino Autopsy on Sunday, Dec. 9, at 8pm Central. I'm setting my DVR.

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New Dark Knight Promo Pics

New production photos from next year's The Dark Knight. Bats and Joker pictured. Four more pics if you click read more | digg story