A Trip Down Memory Lane - Tron Style

At the risk of dating myself I remember fondly the 80's and a big part of those memories is time spent in arcades and movie theatres.  When the two joined forces in a movie with "stunning" graphics it was a match made in geek heaven. 

During a couple of recent trips to the movies I've been sent back down memory lane, salivating a little,over the upcoming release (12.17.2010) of Tron Legacy in 3D. My recent thoughts where of my boys who have not (yet) had the pleasure of seeing the original movie, and yes I know it was not an Academy Award winning flic by any stretch of the imagination but in the world in which I lived in 1982 this was a pretty big deal. In order to do a little comparison I entered a few queries into YouTube and for your viewing pleasure, here is the original Tron movie trailer circa 1982 and one of the trailers for the upcoming, updated, 3D sequel...

I'm glad that they've waited nearly 30 years to make this film!

Update: I'm a little disappointed by one small detail. Watch the original trailer and pause it at the 1:56 mark, then watch the new one and stop it at 1:13 mark. :(

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Robots Are Our Friends

I stuck my iRobot I <3 Robots magnet up in my workstation today and my coworker, Dustin, sent me the following:

Thanks Dustin, I think I like robots even more now :)

I believe credit goes to http://www.albinoblacksheep.com

New Halo Leaked, Kinda...

One of the most anticipated game titles of the pre-Christmas season is Microsoft's Halo: Reach. In an attempt to get the title to game reviewers the company had experimented with different methods of distribution including putting the title on XBox live for select download. The move however seems to have backfired as GameTuts, a site dedicated to modifying and cracking game consoles claims to have obtained and cracked the code. "Me and my team finally did it; we got Halo: Reach! This is not released for public, and we are not really planning on releasing either," Unfortunately for Microsoft the title has begun showing up on torrent sites, however it will only run on modified (moded) consoles and the owners of such devices are not the type to purchase titles in any case.

Read more: CBC


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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange Deflects Accusations For Now

The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been cleared for now of allegations of rape but may still face charges of molestation though the Chief Prosecutor has not had time to investigate that claim yet. In a brief statement Eva Finne said: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."

Last month Wikileaks published about 77,000 secret US military documents on the war in Afghanistan and US officials demanded the return of the materials. "If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, then we will figure out what other alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing," department spokesman Geoff Morrell said at the time. hmmm?

According to the BBC "In a series of other messages posted on the Wikileaks Twitter feed, the whistle-blowing website said: "No-one here has been contacted by Swedish police", and that it had been warned to expect "dirty tricks"."

Perhaps I've been listening to too many conspiracy theorists but something doesn't feel right here.

See: BBC and this previous post citing CNN.

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Star Wars Fan Film Winner 2010

Sorry but I'm off for the day... hope this suffices for a blog post!

Star Wars
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Facebook Places - foursquare And Gowalla On Board?

Last night Facebook announced it's entry into location based services and the giant offered foursquare and Gowalla a chance to sing the praises of "Places" and it's api. There had been a lot of speculation of late that Facebook may have been in the market to acquire one of these smaller players or that their entry would simply squash them out of existence. The move, at least on the surface, of making places an open api for the smaller companies to hang their code onto is either an olive branch or perhaps a trial balloon. In any event it will be interesting to see how this plays out and if being a feeder for Facebook (they will consume data driven from foursquare and Gowalla but not offer anything in the other direction) helps to accelerate the growth of these services. If the later is true, I hope they can keep up with the Facebook affect!

A Little Distracted

I'm up early cooking up some goodness in the lab at work, and therefore my usual blogging over morning coffee is suffering the consequences this morning. Here is a fun little blooper real from Google to get your morning going and hopefully both of our days will start on the right foot! I'll try to find some news to discuss later in the day if all goes well.

btw, if you want to check out what it is that I do why not take a test drive?

http://manage.screenscape.net/signup/testDrive

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It Was Only A Matter Of Time - Droid R2-D2

In keeping with yesterday's post regarding the cast of Star Wars invading Orlando on the weekend, Motorola, Google, and Verizon are hinting at a new android phone called.... wait for it... Droid R2-D2. The phone maker seems to have had no issue in making a white model (ahemmm!) with graphics on the back that resemble the lovable and trusty droid from the Star Wars franchise. 

According to cnet "Over the weekend, one of Verizon's official twitter accountsposted the picture you see to the left. As you can clearly see, the phone bears more than a passing resemblance to our favorite little Astromech. The entire back of the phone looks exactly like R2-D2 with a white base for the design."

Here's a link if you are interested in finding out more: 

Here's the twitter account to follow:

And here is a photo of our two favorite droids (credit  http://twitter.com/VZWOffers/):

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Star Wars Deleted Lightsaber Scene Screened For First Time

This weekend George Lucas, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher took the stage at Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando with John Stewart and a cast of storm troopers. The city was celebrating classic franchise and one of the highlights for the throngs of fans gathered was this deleted scene, screened for the first time.

Now, I'm a huge fan of the Star Wars series but I was not nearly as excited as the guy you hear predominantly shouting his approval. I'm actually apt to applaud Mr. Lucas for making a good choice and leaving this one on the cutting room floor. Wish I were in Orlando though! I'll bet it was a zoo... 

Credit: Laughing Squid

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How To Become Super - The Tutorial

I'm tired this morning and I wish I could summon up the powers of a super hero to get all the chores done that need tending to. If only I knew how to conjure up such wonders... but wait, the internet was created just for such advice, wasn't it?

Of course it was, and thanks to the great folks at Geeks are Sexy you don't even have to look that hard for the answers:

Oh, and in case you can't find your answer here, there is version two: 

Die and Return doesn't sound like a great option to me, so where is that Magic Ring?

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