This is insanely incredible…

“The new short film by Blu, an ambiguous animation painted on public walls. Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche).”blublu.org/ blublu.org/sito/video/muto.htm

from www.vimeo.com posted with vodpod

Scifi Wire:

“Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro are inviting fans to a live Internet chat about the upcoming film The Hobbit,
which Jackson is producing and del Toro is directing. During the chat,
billed as “An Unexpected Party,” Jackson and del Toro will answer
questions from participants and listen to comments about the film.

Based on the book by J. R. R. Tolkein, The Hobbit is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings and centers on the adventures of hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Del Toro has signed on to direct two separate installments.

The chat is being hosted by Weta, the special effects house currently working on The Hobbit. Fans can register for the “Unexpected Party” at the company’s official Web site.”

Engadget:

“Game Informer is at it once more: after securing the first snapshots
of Rock Band’s prototype drum set and microphone last summer, the
gaming mag has now produced the first image of Guitar Hero IV’s kit.
Apparently designers wanted this one to resemble an actual electric kit
a bit more than the one bundled with RB, most evidenced by the pair of
“cymbals” perched atop the trio of circular pads. Upon banging on a
“first-run prototype” in the Neversoft offices, Game Informer
was fairly impressed with the layout, but we’re still left to wonder if
these will be compatible with Rock Band (or vice-versa). Another faux
drum kit in the den and we’ll be struggling to maintain sanity (and a
functional relationship).”

[Via Joystiq]

If this is true - holy crap!

Macrumors: “Unique to this source, however, is the report that the iPhone would
come with GPS, Video Conferencing and Mobile TV functionality.”

Boing Boing: “Jake Adelstein was the first US citizen to work as a crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, but he quit after getting death threats from the Yakuza. He has a book coming out called Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. This is an article about his experiences reporting on the Yakuza for The Washington Post.

I have spent most of the past 15 years in the dark side of
the rising sun. Until three years ago, I was a crime reporter for the
Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, and covered a roster of
characters that included serial killers who doubled as pet breeders,
child pornographers who abducted junior high-school girls, and the John
Gotti of Japan.

I came to Japan in 1988 at age 19, spent most of college living
in a Zen Buddhist temple, and then became the first U.S. citizen hired
as a regular staff writer for a Japanese newspaper in Japanese. If you
know anything about Japan, you’ll realize how bizarre this is — a
gaijin, or foreigner, covering Japanese cops. When I started the beat
in the early 1990s, I knew nothing about the yakuza, a.k.a. the
Japanese mafia. But following their prostitution rings and extortion
rackets became my life.”

FULL STORY

Boing Boing:

“I’m skeptical about a “talking R2D2 ice bucket,” but I’m utterly sold
by the fact that it comes with a Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite ice-cube
mold! Now that’d be a classy cocktail!”
Link

(via OhGizmo)

i09:

“My favorite new mind-bending idea is an extension for Firefox
released today by brainy game designers Merci Grace and Justin Hall.
It’s called PMOG, for passively multiplayer online game, and it turns
the entire web into a fantasy world where you can go on quests. Like
all cool art, PMOG makes apparent something that you knew unconsciously
for a long time. Browsing the web is just a game. Gathering knowledge
is a game. Finding cool new pieces of information by reading is a game.
PMOG just makes those games literal, by letting you earn points for web
surfing — erm, questing. And io9 is part of that quest!

PMOG was launched by GameLayers, who said in a statement this morning:

So
many of us spend hours each day on the web. What do we have to show for
our time? PMOG gives players points for surfing with the PMOG Firefox
extension. Those points can be used to leave traps or treasure on any
web site, for other players to find. Suddenly, surfing the web is a
casual multiplayer online game.

PMOG provides a web-wide platform for people to poke, gift or share
links. “PMOG is arms dealer to the web,” quips Merci Victoria Grace,
GameLayers Chief Creative Officer and co-founder. PMOG game events are
created by other players, and layered over the web that we all share.
Players see PMOG “Mines” “Crates” or “Portals” affixed to CNN, Facebook
or Google. Players can unlock badges based on their web surfing on
sites like BoingBoing, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. The entire
internet now offers a chance to play. The coolest part for yours truly,
aside from getting rewarded for compulsively reading BoingBoing and
Hackaday, is that io9 is part of a quest called “Take Me to Your
Readers.” There’s even a badge (pictured) for io9.

You know what that means, don’t you? You are all part of a game,
right now. You can feel it when you go to work. When you pay your
taxes. When you quote that cool speech in the Matrix for the fiftieth time. So make your web surfing count by checking out PMOG and going on a quest.”

PMOG [official site]