Archive for the ‘Movies’ Category

Marvel’s Comic Book Creator Is $&@#ing Brilliant [Software]

Marvel’s Create Your Own Comic service is designed for kids, but that shouldn’t stop you.

The free online app allows you to select between a slew of page layouts, then drag and drop your favorite (mini) Marvel heroes into each panel. Of course can also add text, sound effects objects—whatever you need to flesh out that 4-part series you’ve always wanted to see in which a prepubescent Wolverine struggles to uncover the roots of his inexplicably persistent five o’clock shadow.

But the best part is that the whole system is vector based, meaning that you can enlarge any element (like characters) as much as you’d like before exporting your comic to a fairly high rez PDF (that’s free from watermarks or any other stuff that could sour the experience).

Though, I must admit, I fear to see what your minds come up with in the comments. Please keep in mind that none of these superheroes are of age. [Marvel via GeekDad]

Roku XR adds 802.11n, USB port and a longing for something more

Hard though it may be to believe, the Roku has been rockin’ the lives of Netflix fanatics for nearly 1.5 years, and if you were thinking an updated version was in order, you’d be on the right train of thought. Images delivered to us today prove that a refreshed iteration is on the horizon, with the Roku XR (model number N1101) retaining the same overall look and feel as the original but adding in niceties like 802.11n wireless support, a USB socket (presumably for loading up media locally) and a 2.5A power input (as opposed to 1.5A). You can also see that the dedicated reset button has been yanked and the bundled remote is exactly the same; in fact, we’re told that the old remote controls the Roku XR sans issue. There’s no word yet on a price or release date, but we’re guessing we’ll know significantly more prior to Christmas. Oh, and yeah — you’re not the only one thinking this is quite the underwhelming update, but hey, maybe it’ll street for $9.99.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Roku XR adds 802.11n, USB port and a longing for something more originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How to use RSS to automatically download anything from Usenet

It’s the tree of life, and for no particular reason, either.

As a corollary to Biggs’ “cable companies are doomed” article from earlier today, I thought I’d demonstrate how easy it is to accomplish what he was threatening. That is, live a happy and successful life without having to pay $100+ a month to Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, or whomever. (Note: I’m neither happy nor successful, so this advice is spurious at best.) Here, I’ll teach you a pretty basic method of automatically downloading things like TV shows, and movies, and whatnot from Usenet. Yes, this breaks the first rule of Usenet; sorry.

What? Today we’ll be setting up our Usenet software to look at an RSS feed. (You can also accomplish pretty much the same thing using BitTorrent, but BitTorrent is so plebeian.) This RSS feed will carry NZB files that, magically, point your Usenet software to the actual files you’ll be viewing in VLC or MPlayer or whatever. In English, that means when you come home from work or class you’ll have the latest episode of The Ultimate Fighter all ready to be watched.

You’ll need:

• A Usenet provider. The big ones, off the top of my head, are Giganews, Newsdemon, Astraweb, and Supernews. You’ll be spending around $10-$20 a month for access, but that gives you access to all the riches that Usenet provides. In my experience all these services are more or less the same, so feel free to shop around. I have no favorites.

• Usenet software. The easiest to use for our purposes here today, once you’ve set it up, is SABnzbd+. It’s free as in freedom and free as in beer.

• An NZB site that provides an RSS feed. I’ll be using Newzleech.com as my example, but pretty much every NZB site out there should do this. Maybe, I don’t know.

• No qualms with any of this. Yeah, Americans can go to Hulu to watch some shows, but my overseas friends aren’t so lucky. Maybe if Hollywood got its act together we wouldn’t have to resort to this. (Incidentally, I’m right now removing the copy protection of a bunch of DVDs I bought in the UK this past week. All I want to do is see Top Gear! Is that a crime?)

OK!

1. With your Usenet account in hand, go ahead and download and set up SABnzbd+. It’s not hard, but I’m not about to hold your hand here. It basically involves launching the application, putting in your Usenet account info, then pointing the application to a few folders. If you can’t figure this out then the rest is probably too much for you to handle anyway.

2. Set up the RSS feed! I’ll be using the TV show The Ultimate Fighter as an example. For newzleech.com, the RSS feed you make looks like this:

http://www.newzleech.com/rss/php?n=50&g=alt.binaries.multimedia&s=the+ultimate+fighter+s10

That’s your RSS feed. What that does is comb the Usenet group alt.binaries.multimedia (that’s the “g” in the URL) for the last 50 posts (that’s the “n”) containing the phrase “the ultimate fighter s10” (for season 10 episodes; that’s the “s”). The RSS feed is updated every 20 minutes.

3. Go to SABnzbd+’s settings (Config:RSS) and input that URL. Then set the RSS checking interval (Config:RSS checking interval) to something reasonable, like once every 60 minutes. Under no circumstances should you set it for anything more frequent than every 20 minutes, since that’s considered uncouth, and your IP address is likely to be banned by Newzleech. You don’t want that.

That’s pretty much it.

Now what you’d do, I guess, is launch SABnzbd+ Wednesday morning before you leave your house. If it’s set up like we set it up here, SABnzbd+ will check alt.binaries.multimedia for news posts containing the phrase “the ultimate fighter s10” via the Newzleech RSS feed. When SABnzbd+ finds the new posts, it’ll download the appropriate NZB file, then start doing its magic.

In other words, as soon as the latest episode hits Usenet, it’ll automatically be downloaded to your computer, Internet connection speed notwithstanding.

Of course, you can add as many RSS feeds as you want, with whatever parameters you want. Maybe you like 30 Rock, or want to see Louis CK on Parks and Recreation? Or maybe you like Curb Your Enthusiasm? To quote that Nas song, the world is yours.

The purpose of this here article was strictly educational blah blah.

Now I’m off to rip the copy protection off a DVD I BOUGHT FROM HMV WITH MY OWN MONEY! What a pain.

Movie Gadget Friday: Code 46

Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.

On our last visit, we examined the computer hacking fantasies of 1980’s adolescents in Weird Science. Skipping on from software-engineered babes to a bio-engineered society, this week we investigate the gadgets in the human-clone-saturated cities of Code 46. Though most of the futuristic technology in this 2003 film is in the form of mind-altering viruses, the everyday devices used by Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton slightly stretch today’s technical specs in true sci-fi form.

Memory Videobook

Preventing scrapbooks from being left behind as primitive forms of experience archiving, this gadget combines the cheap plastic form of photo-books with a relatively thin interactive screen. The device captures first-person memories from a user in the form of lossy video (alas, the specs behind memory capturing have yet to be released, much to our irritation). Playback and fast-forward/rewind are enabled through basic scrolling gestures on either the corner of the video or the opposing soft-acrylic, touch-sensitive finger pad. Similar to Americhip’s video-in-print technology, the memory videobook appears to use a TFT LCD, but with a far more outstanding resolution. While this memory scrapbook device is far from chic, we kind of respect that it stays true to its historical laminated, cutesy form despite the high tech modifications. More after the break.

Continue reading Movie Gadget Friday: Code 46

Filed under: Cellphones, Displays, Portable Video

Movie Gadget Friday: Code 46 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Life: Think of It As Planet Earth Part II [Photography]

Life, the BBC’s latest totally unbelievable nature documentary, is airing in 10 episodes between now and Christmas. Not only is the footage as incredible as you’d expect; the studio sent some production notes our way explaining how scenes were shot.

“Filming the bouncing toad was very challenging; the remote mountain plateau is one mile high and 26 square miles in area, whilst the toad is one inch long and very elusive. The tarantulas which prey on them are also very hard to find. To give the crew the best chance of finding and filming them, the expert on these creatures came on the shoot. He searched for a week before the crew’s arrival to find both species and a location where they could come together and where the toad would demonstrate its bouncing-ball method of escape. This allowed the cameraman to set up his slow-motion camera in the right place. The scientist was able to ensure that the toad was never in danger of being harmed by the tarantula as a result of us filming them. The technique was a total success – the toad tucked its legs in, rolled and bounced, allowing the crew to film its method of escape in slow-motion detail.”

“A Jesus Christ lizard running on water is so fast that a human would have to run at 65 miles per hour to achieve the same trick. The speed makes it an enormous challenge to film. After consulting with a scientist at Harvard University who has made a ground-breaking study of the lizard’s water sprint, the crew decided that as well as filming the behaviour at normal frame rates they would attempt to capture the close up details of the lizard’s run with a slow-motion camera filming at 2000 frames per second (i.e. slowed down by 80 times).

It’s very hard to predict exactly where and when a lizard will run, what’s more it’s all so quick that once the lizard is spotted it’s gone in a blur! Learning from the scientist’s observation methods was essential and as a result it was decided to film the details of the sprint would need some degree of control to ensure that the crew had some idea of where and when the lizard would run. They travelled to Belize, home of the lizard, to work with local animal experts who had some lizards in natural forest enclosures. If, and when, these lizards decided to run, they always ran along the same stretch of water, where the cameraman could station his camera.

The key to success was using the latest digital slow-motion camera that continuously records into a memory buffer, so that when the cameraman hits the trigger button he downloads the action that took place a second or so before that moment. Whenever a lizard sprinted past the cameraman over the water the cameraman hit the trigger, desperately trying to keep the lizard in the frame and in focus. The final end result of this was stunning, slow motion shots of the lizards, with every drop of water visible as they sprinted through the surface.”

OK, we don’t actually have any notes on how this was shot. But the macro shot of water beading up on the gecko’s hydrophobic skin is gorgeous.

The above clips are from Episode 2: Reptiles and Amphibians. The series is playing now on BBC One.

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