Transformers 2 Will Be Shot in IMAX, Get Ready for Five-Story Transformers [Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen]

Holy crap. Parts of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen are being shot in IMAX, meaning you’ll get to see literally five-story Transformers getting smashed, exploded and all of the usual Michael Bay craziness in the only screen size truly worthy of Michael Bay. Like The Dark Knight, non-IMAX scenes will be letterboxed, and it’ll blow back up to full screen size for IMAX sequences. Man, if there was ever a movie that needed to be in IMAX, this is it.

LOS ANGELES, CA, September 30, 2008 – IMAX Corporation (NASDAQ: IMAX; TSX: IMX), DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures today announced that director Michael Bay will shoot key sequences of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with IMAX® cameras. Bay will integrate the IMAX footage with state of the art CGI to create an unprecedented look and feel for the highly anticipated sequel to last year’s box office hit, Transformers. As previously announced, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be released to IMAX® theatres simultaneously with the movie’s wide release on June 26, 2009.

The movie sequences shot in traditional 35mm will be digitally re-mastered into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) technology. The IMAX DMR scenes will appear in the traditional “letterbox” shape, while scenes shot with IMAX’s cameras will expand vertically to fill the entire IMAX screen.

“The extraordinary level of detail and intensity captured by the IMAX camera creates many exciting possibilities for us with this film,” said Michael Bay, the film’s director. “IMAX’s all-encompassing format will take this story to a new level, and I am once again very excited to share The IMAX Experience with Transformers fans around the world.”

“The addition of another amazing title from DreamWorks and Paramount, combined with more groundbreaking use of IMAX technology by Hollywood’s top filmmakers, are examples of how far we have come as a company and a distribution platform over the past several years,” said IMAX Co-Chairmen and Co-CEOs Richard L. Gelfond and Bradley J. Wechsler. “The growth of the IMAX theatre network, fueled by the economical benefits of the new IMAX digital system, is driving interest from virtually all of the top studios, which is resulting in more IMAX movies for audiences to enjoy.”

“Michael Bay’s innovative use of IMAX cameras will create a spectacular cinematic adventure for moviegoers next summer,” added Greg Foster, Chairman and President of IMAX Filmed Entertainment. “We’re very excited to be integrated as a core part of the Transformers production, and with the skilled marketing and distribution teams at DreamWorks and Paramount, the timing is ideal given our expanding global audience and network footprint.”

[Aintitcool]

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Why Android Will Soon Kick Ass [Android]

When the T-Mobile G1 was shown off in NYC last week, it didn’t have the gusto of a Stevenote. There was no “boom!”—no “one more thing!” And as a result, many (including us) felt a bit underwhelmed, and were quick to interpret the device’s inconsistent GUI as an indicator that the lack of attention to detail would doom it.

But allow me to remind all of those getting their naysay on this early in the game that we’ve seen only a fraction of what the G1 can and will be able to do with the open-source Android OS. And when Google’s mobile machine is finally humming at full power—with an army of coders cranking out add-ons for the Market, today’s skeptics—including some of us—are going to have to eat crow. It’s not about pretty icons, Apple fanboys, and its not about business use, Windows Mobile Nerds: its about giving people the true tools to build whatever they want without lame App Store limitations and OS handcuffs. It’s about giving phone makers shackled to Symbian and Microsoft’s phone OS the chance to build with something different and better and free. And who’s going to complain about that?

Back to Apple for a minute: The iPhone has brainwashed us into thinking everything that’s revolutionary and exciting in the gadget world needs to be a sex object. Now, I enjoy an Apple hardware brainfuck as much as the next, but a phone is never a better phone because of hardware alone, and Google knows this too. And it will be entering the market at a time when iPhone’s software strategy is starting to show wobbly legs. If you’ve been reading our weekly app roundups, you’ve probably noticed the story shifting away from clever developers doing cool things no one previously thought possible to more about what Apple won’t let iPhone developers and users do with their phones. As a result, we’ve seen tons of variety, but not a lot of depth. There are a ton of clever calculator apps of various kinds. There are a ton of games, a ton of flashlights. But in the groundbreaking and unexpected functionality department, all anyone can hear lately is crickets. And Apple’s lawyers trying to get the crickets to sign an NDA.

No one else makes a legitimate phone OS with all this support that can be tweaked down to the very roots. For one thing, I’m excited to be able to download an entirely different version of all of Android’s core applications if I don’t like the default 1.0 versions—and that’s every app, everything from the dialer to the contacts manager—something that’s technically possible in WinMo but often comes off more as an awkward re-skinning and not a top-down integration. I’m excited to add system-level features to my phone for free, and not just apps that are only allowed to bounce around on the surface. These are the benefits that an open platform will allow developers to provide to Android users, and the benefits that Google hopes all mobile phone customers will come to expect from their phones as a result.

This is all banking on the platform being successful, of course, which is obviously up in the air this early on. But would Google mount such a huge undertaking as Android if they were only expecting to be a different flavor of Windows Mobile? That seems hard to believe.

Everyone who gave the G1 a quick run-through last week was in reality testing a product still in beta. Because as we’ve said repeatedly, Android is now in the hands of its developers (from within Google itself as well as third-parties), who will have unprecedented access to all parts of a mobile phone and a centralized distribution network (Android Market) in order to do things that have only been teased until now. It’s all banking on the Market, and its ability to attract grade-A content that will provide even novice cellphone users with many opportunities to greatly customize their phones.

To do this Android will need one thing: critical mass, on both the developer and consumer side, in that order—with each reinforcing the other. Its pre-release may be sold-out, but on October 22 there probably won’t be campers and local news crews stretched for miles outside of the T-Mobile store. That’s because Google knows who they need to go after first—the developers. The geek community. It wasn’t a coincidence that at launch, Sergey Brin came on stage on Rollerblades bragging about his accelerometer phone-toss app that he wrote himself. This first release is all about getting developers into Android, and giving them a similar open dev environment that Larry and Sergey will be the first to tell you they couldn’t have built Google without. The iPhone didn’t get that until version 2.0, many firmware releases later—and it’s still not nearly as open as Android will be. (The iPhone also couldn’t reliably hold a call without dropping for many until version 2.1, but that’s besides the point.)

Open source has failed many times before, critics will say. Here’s why Android will not fail in this regard: governance. Google told us that priority number one right now with Android is setting the standards by which the project will operate—what makes a device Android 1.0 compatible, how often full system upgrades will be offered, and the like. One thing that’s fairly evident, though, is that an upgrade path will have to be fairly regimented (closer to Ubuntu’s strict twice-yearly schedule, rather than the “release whenever we feel like it” model found in other smaller projects) in order to keep all of the members of the huge Open Handset Alliance all on the same page. There will be no folks still waiting for their carrier to release Windows Mobile 6.1, years after it was made available. Android will not and cannot operate like this—to keep the Market thriving, all of the developers and users will need to be on the same (regular) release schedule. So, while they’re taking care of the problems of being open source, they’re also taking care of the same problems that a paid platform like Windows Mobile has.

Google has their eyes on the long haul with Android. Which is why reactions to a somewhat scattered UI in the very first implementation is not something they’re worried about too much. This is a platform about further reducing the mobile carriers to raw pipes of data, and giving full control to the consumer. It’s about creating a critical-mass open-source ecosystem. And even if they fail to sell a ton of handsets, they’ve already put pressure on all the carriers and phone makers by the fact that they’ve created a free alternative that does not have to win to impact the players in this industry.

Of course, all of these arguments can be debated, but there’s one thing that no no one can argue with: You don’t take Google lightly.

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Sony’s BDP-S350 Blu-ray Player Officially $300 and BD-Live Capable [Blu-Ray]

Not only did Sony’s mainstream BDP-S350 Blu-ray player finally get its firmware update to be fully compatible with the net-interactive BD-Live (BD 2.0) content already hitting stores, but it also got that $100 price reduction we told you about. Even on the MSRP-only Sony Style site, it’s $299.99, which means it could be found even cheaper at competitive retailers. When you bring it home, you still have to upgrade the firmware to make it fully BD 2.0 compatible, and you still have to stick a flash drive of your own into the back of it, but those are small obstacles for a Sony-branded Blu-ray player that’s (FINALLY) cheaper than a damn PS3. [Sony]

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C-SPAN ‘Debate Hub’ Is the Political Social Media Web 2.0 Uber Geek’s Wet Dream [C-span]

Even if politics and Presidential debates bore you to the point where you need to nap like a 72-year-old, credit is still due to C-SPAN for making the whole process slightly more interesting with its ambitious Debate Hub. The social media-packed, live-blogging saturated, video clip bonanza, pulls content from a variety of sources—including YouTube, ADD microblogging tool Twitter, and C-SPAN’s spin-free video coverage—and crams it all into a clean little web page. At the conclusion of each debate, C-SPAN guarantees to have all video clips linked to the official transcript, as well as a tag cloud detailing each debate’s central themes. Dare I say it, this could be the future of covering live events. It’s liveblogging, on steroids!

It’s too late to see the site doing its thing live (the first debate was last Friday), but there are three more debates planned, so you’ll still get to see C-SPAN pull and archive video on the fly.

In an interview with ars technica, social media magnate Clay Shirky was enthused by C-SPAN’s effort.

“This transforms liveblogging from a marginal thing that a few committed high-speed typists do to something anyone can do,” said Shirky. “The platform allows me to do what I do when I blog asynchronously, basing a post directly on a link to a permanent reference point.” This, he says, overcomes the “perennial liveblogger dilemma.”

“Do I comment or watch and try to form a considered reaction?” he asked.

Truly, it could mean more power to the people, and an end to the talking heads of cable network news. I think that’s an idea, red or blue, that we can all get behind. [C-SPAN via ars technica]

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Filed under: Robots

Leaps and bounds have been made with Sylvain Calinon’s robotic portrait artist since we first caught a glimpse of this amazing AI being — and no, we’re not just referring to the stylish beret and mustache. Now dubbed “Salvador DaBot”, the portraitist has developed far more advanced conversation skills, along with a voice that sounds a lot less like Steven Hawking. We kinda miss that feather pen he was sporting before, but his movement’s a lot more natural now and his new marker seems to have helped his drawing style — similar to old-school comic art. See this awesome little guy in action after the break.

[Via Sylvain Calinon]

Continue reading Salvador DaBot: robot portraitist extraordinaire

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Via [Engadget]

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C-SPAN ‘Debate Hub’ Is the Political Social Media Web 2.0 Uber Geek’s Wet Dream [C-span]

Even if politics and Presidential debates bore you to the point where you need to nap like a 72-year-old, credit is still due to C-SPAN for making the whole process slightly more interesting with its ambitious Debate Hub. The social media-packed, live-blogging saturated, video clip bonanza, pulls content from a variety of sources—including YouTube, ADD microblogging tool Twitter, and C-SPAN’s spin-free video coverage—and crams it all into a clean little web page. At the conclusion of each debate, C-SPAN guarantees to have all video clips linked to the official transcript, as well as a tag cloud detailing each debate’s central themes. Dare I say it, this could be the future of covering live events. It’s liveblogging, on steroids!

It’s too late to see the site doing its thing live (the first debate was last Friday), but there are three more debates planned, so you’ll still get to see C-SPAN pull and archive video on the fly.

In an interview with ars technica, social media magnate Clay Shirky was enthused by C-SPAN’s effort.

“This transforms liveblogging from a marginal thing that a few committed high-speed typists do to something anyone can do,” said Shirky. “The platform allows me to do what I do when I blog asynchronously, basing a post directly on a link to a permanent reference point.” This, he says, overcomes the “perennial liveblogger dilemma.”

“Do I comment or watch and try to form a considered reaction?” he asked.

Truly, it could mean more power to the people, and an end to the talking heads of cable network news. I think that’s an idea, red or blue, that we can all get behind. [C-SPAN via ars technica]

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AT&T to Dump Dish Network, Start Selling DirecTV [At&t]

After punting their agreement with Dish Network to sell satellite as part of a triple play package, AT&T has decided to settle down with DirecTV. They’ll keep hawking Dish through Jan. 31, after which they’ll offer DirecTV anywhere they can’t give you U-Verse as a TV option. Multichannel notes that this leaves second-place Dish without a major reseller partner, so not great news for them. [Multichannel]

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ASUS doles out gold and blue Eee PCs

Filed under: Laptops

With the introduction of the well-received N10, we thought maybe — just maybe — ASUS was moving beyond its disgusting obsession with mutilating the Eee brand. Instead, we’re now faced with fresh hues of two old faces: the blue 901A and the gilded 900A. Looks as if all the internals have remained the same, though there’s no indication what kind of premium (if any) you’ll have to pay for your color of choice.

[Thanks, Sascha]

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Video: ASUS N10 netbook gets hands-on treatment, plays COD4

Filed under: Laptops

We knew the ASUS N10 was a burly fellow when we took some street corner shots of it earlier this month, but we never even thought to toss Call of Duty 4 on there and waste away a solid 12 hours in online war zones. Thankfully, the blokes over at Mobile Computer did think to try that, and the results weren’t half bad. ‘Course, that discrete NVIDIA GeForce 9300M graphics set didn’t hurt, and if you’re sick enough to really buy a netbook for gaming, this one should probably be atop your list. At any rate, a rather in-depth hands-on video awaits you in the read link — go in expecting keyboard impressions, disappointment with the glare, and a few good minutes with an FPS and you’ll leave happy.

[Thanks, Rex]

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Microsoft to Develop Voice-Recognition iPhone App Via Subsidiary Tellme [Worlds, Colliding]

Voice recognition is one if the iPhone gaping-est of holes, but it will soon be plugged by none other than Microsoft. But before you look forward to putting your multitouching fingers all over those glorious nine letters on your iPhone screen, know that MS is only indirectly involved via Tellme, a company they acquired in early 2007 which has a similar app for Blackberries already. But it’s a start. And the app looks like it would be pretty useful.

Press a button to start recording and say what you’re searching for—the name of a business, for instance, and Tellme will search and locate matches in your vicinity. Great for when you can’t stop and type in locations manually. Unfortunately the app doesn’t appear to access your contacts for good ol’ standard voice-dialing (at least in the BlackBerry version), so that’s something we’ll still have to wait for. Along with mobile MS Office for iPhone [Yahoo News/CNET]

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