10-9-07

DVRs for tonight:
8pm Bones
9pm House
Reaper

Pixar has started researching their 2012 movie, an animated version of Burrough's John Carter of Mars.

MSNBC has listed 10 businesses they think will be gone in 10 years. Sadly, one on the list is used book stores. I can see their point, but I hope they're wrong.

Space has an interesting article on next generation telescopes and what scientists hope to use them to find.

Bittorrent is offering its technology to other companies to make their video streaming and downloading more affordable.

Denvention (the Denver Worldcon next year) is planning to have a Critter Crunch event, the original robot battle competition created by the Denver Area Mad Scientists. They are starting to pull together details for the convention. It should be fun. Anyone who wants to join should do so before Progress Report 2 in January, because that will have the Hugo nomination ballot and hotel reservation information.

George Harrison's solo work is now available from iTunes. This was the last holdout, so now all their songs are available. The Beatles' songs are still being remastered and should appear by early next year.

Just because it's weird: Play-Doh bunnies in New York (it's an ad for Sony, but a cute one).

Transparent solar panels as windows. They are working on it now. I hope they get it functional.

Scientists have designed a mostly self-sufficient space habitat. This could (far too many years from now) allow for a station on the moon or Mars that doesn't require so many costly re-supply missions. The technology will also help with sustainable farming and recycling applications here on Earth. Cool.

Check out the Nissan electric concept car. It has 3 wheels and a rotating cabin, so you can turn around and start driving at a 90 degree angle from where you were looking. It is funny looking, yet cute in a strange (my designers probably spent too much time looking at Hello Kitty) sort of way.

CNet has a slideshow today of Home Appliances of the Future (from a Japanese technology center that demos everything from the really weird to the somewhat cool).

Roundup for 9-26-07

DVRs for tonight:
9pm Bionic Woman (NBC) and Private Practice (ABC) - worth pilots
10pm CSI:NY (CBS)

Mercedes McNab (Harmony on Buffy) is going to guest star as another vampire on Supernatural in November. Charisma Carpenter is joining the cast of Big Shots. (Why does a cast and crew I like so much have to be for a show that sounds dreadful? I'll probably end up giving it a pilot.)

Why is it that people still think colorizing classic films is a good idea? Now Ray Harryhausen gets colored over.

Cool science for the day: First zero-gravity surgery robot demonstrates vascular surgery in underwater lab.

Planned projects would increase California's solar power production to 65x current levels.

Slideshow for converting analog TVs to digital.

Slideshow of low cost tech for 3rd world needs. Interesting.

New comet detected that reappears every 4 years.

Like TorrentSpy last month, IsoHunt is going to stop allowing US computers to download torrent trackers from their site. This is caused by pressure from the Motion Picture industry, but I don't see them stopping downloads of movies only. :(

Dawn will rise in the west this week as the spacecraft Dawn is launched to study the asteroid belt.

New studies show stem cell therapies will slow down liver damage to give the liver a chance to repair itself or give the patient time for a new liver to be found.

Massive underwater kelp forests have been found beneath the coral reefs in the tropical areas of the Pacific (where they never thought to look for them before).

Roundup for 9-13-07 part 2

CNet article about using Torrents to watch TV now that networks (esp NBC) are making it harder to watch them legitimately.
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9775271-46.html

NBC has put all their new pilots on Amazon for free download, and SF Signal is having a poll as to which genre show will be the first to die.
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/005632.html

Microsoft is trying to get BBC shows as downloads for the Xbox platform.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2412752.ece

Another argument-generating best list - this one is the top 100 women of genre film and television. What I've seen so far seems to at least consider a pretty wide spectrum.
http://www.pinkraygun.com/2007/09/11/top-100-women-of-genre-film-and-tv/

If looking at these photos of beautiful old libraries makes you drool, you too could be a book addict.

Red Dwarf videos have been put online here.

Interesting look at the 8 most common visions of the future in film and why they won't happen.

New free speculative fiction online here. Some new stuff as well as things that qualify for Project Gutenberg.