Movies

Anyone who’s tried their hand at stop animation will know it’s an incredibly time consuming and delicate job. But spare a thought for scientists at IBM Almaden in California who have produced the world’s smallest stop animation movie by using a scanning tunneling microscope to move individual atoms. Rather than competing with Aardman or Pixar for a slice of the international box office, the film is intended to make the public aware of new technology that could increase computer memories far beyond what is possible today.  Read More

Though digital technology offers home movie-makers the advantages of increased quality and convenience compared to analog film, some of the “magic” has arguably been lost in the switch – few would liken double-clicking an icon to dusting off a reel of film, after all. Bioscope, by designers Jon Stam and Simon de Bakker, is a digital movie player that invokes the nostalgia of film, while simultaneously compelling the user to take an active role in their own viewing experience.  Read More

Notable exceptions aside, it’s generally agreed upon that it’s improper to check one’s smartphone while watching a movie in a theater. The new Dutch thriller APP, however, encourages viewers to do so. The film’s soundtrack contains a digital audio “watermark” – inaudible to human hearing – that causes exclusive supplemental content to appear on smartphones running the APP app.  Read More

Netflix has long been the frontrunner for subscription-based streaming movies. Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video are hot on its heels, and now kiosk-based Redbox is entering the fray with the public launch of its own instant streaming service, aptly named Redbox Instant. The service has existed in beta for quite a while now, and it's finally available to the public in the United States.  Read More

Given that most real-life superheroes don’t have the budget of Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne, you would assume that their gadgetry wouldn’t be quite on par with what we’re used to seeing in the movies. German cyber weapons hobbyist Patrick Priebe recently dropped us a line, however, to tell us about his latest homebuilt creation – a working laser gauntlet, just like the one made famous by a certain Iron Man.  Read More

With Hollywood movie studios increasingly gambling astronomical sums of money on the next big thing, they might want to pay attention to the work being done by Akira Ishii at Tottori University. His research group claims to have developed a mathematical equation that combines advertising, word-of-mouth, and social networks to predict if a movie will be successful.  Read More

With video rental stores going the way of the dodo, it’s fast becoming the norm to download movies and TV shows from online services such as Netflix and Hulu. But what if you want to take a downloaded movie with you somewhere? You could pack up your big ol’ DVR, or you could use HP’s portable new Pocket Playlist drive that can stream media over Wi-Fi to up to five devices.  Read More

In the past few years, not only has the Corvette-like Batmobile from Batman Returns been put up for auction, but a jet-powered replica of that same style of Batmobile has also been created. A drivable copy of the Dark Knight-era Tumbler has likewise been built, along with a working replica of the associated Bat Pod motorcycle. For many people, however, the only “true” Batmobile is the original version driven by Adam West in the 1960s TV series – and it’s about to be put on the auction block, for the first time ever.  Read More

The 58-key mini piano with which Dooley Wilson performed As Time Goes By in the classic movie Casablanca is going on the auction block on December 14, 2012, at Sotheby's in New York. Last sold at auction to a Japanese collector in 1988 for US$154,000, the auction estimate now ranges from $800,000 to $1.2 million.  Read More