E.T. in HD – In alternate universe somewhere, George Lucas has just announced the HD DVD release of E.T., a movie that's been tinkered with so much all that remains is a fuzzy CGI version of the titular alien trying to phone home by stabbing his glowing finger on to the touchscreen of a
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Thankfully in our world, it's Spielberg at the helm and he's reinstated all the bits of E.T. that were missing from the DVD version of the movie. This includes the change he made to the police holding guns, which were replaced by walkie talkies a few years back when the stupid PC brigade got involved. Great stuff.
Any old Iron – The man behind the HUD (heads up display) of Iron Man's suit, 3D video effects designer Jayse Hansen, has revealed his thinking behind the display. The result is a barrage of behind-the-scenes images and a glimpse into the mind of one of Hollywood's hottest talents.
Warning: one look and you will be laughing in the face of anyone who ever buys Google Glasses, because they are not a patch on what Iron Man uses. And also because they look really stupid. [CargoCollective and The Verge]
Doing a Runner – Remember those future-focused magazines in the background shots of some scenes in Blade Runner? No, neither do we but someone who has watched the film very closely – and not just the Sean Young scenes – has and has recreated the magazine covers for fans to peruse. Amazing stuff, even if it is so geeky you will feel a little weird clicking on them. [Kotaku]
Google sued for being a verb – Google is being sued by a man who believes that the company's name is so engrained in the public consciousness that it should no longer be a trademark. According to David Elliott, the trademarks surrounding Google should disappear and he has taken Google to court to prove this.
In what should be an interesting case, the reasons for the court order are a little more suspect as Elliot currently holds 750 domain names with the word Google in them. Will Google go the way of Hoover? Probably not but we can't wait to see what the courts make of the matter. [Cnet]
Graphic nature – an archive of computer graphics from the '90s has been set up by, er, computer graphics student Werner Randelshofer, charting what computer effects used to look like on an Amiga, Atari ST and other old-school computers. The 16-bit graphics may look dated by today's standards but it's a great little look at how animation has changed in recent years. [The Verge]
Nuclear family – Robots in Japan are nothing new but one of the latest to be created has possibly the most useful and scariest job ever. The robot, named Rosemary, has been used to check out what is happening in the damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima. Using an on-board video, Rosemary can feed back in real time just what is going on with the plant. Sorry Wall-E, but when it comes to saving planets Rosemary may well have pipped you. [SlashGear]
It's the iPhone 5!!!!??!! – It's not the iPhone 5, it's a compact air conditioner that's been mocked up to look like an iPhone but is actually a USB fan thing. We don't think that even a sweaty Jobs would have approved. [Gizmodo]
Face-off – Facebook has decided that it's got far too much cash to throw around and has started to purchase services that include bits of its name in their name. First up may well be Face.com, a facial recognition site that is rumoured to be worth around $100 million.
There's no word as to whether Facebook will buy up book.com which seems to be owned by Barnes & Noble. We are hoping it snaps up ace.com, though, as it's an eBay bookmarking site that looks like it was made in 1988. Surely this is the website Zuckerberg has always wanted to own? [Slashgear]
Olympic effort – Not happy with showing all 24 HD streams of Olympic coverage, Sky has also announced that it will be offering up three new Sky channels for the Paralympics. These will showcasing Channel 4's live coverage of the games. [PR]
Another bite of the Apple – Steve Wozniak spoke to BYTE way back in 1977 about the Apple II and the article has been lovignly republished by Information Week. Even 35 years down the line, Woz speaks a lot of sense about what a PC should be – except the line about them being inexpensive may have gotten lost in translation with Apple's newer, much pricier efforts. [Information Week]
