Category: Sci-Fi

R2D2 Projector

Bismo has pointed out a rather unique item. An R2D2 DVD video projector. It’s the sort of thing The Sharper Image would sell — if they hadn’t gone out of business. But don’t despair, because you can order one directly from Nikko Home Electronics for only $2900 plus shipping!

[flv:/Video/2008/MAY/r2d2.flv 440 330]

It’s odd that R2D2 isn’t shown projecting scenes from Star Wars. The projector has a typical computer screen resolution of 1024×768. The feature list says it uses DLP, but the spec sheet says LCoS. I’m inclined to assume the spec sheet didn’t get updated when the product was finalized, because DLP is much less expensive and simpler to implement than LCoS.

Got His Mojo Blogging

My buddy Bismo is happy to inform us that his friend Mojo, highlighted here as an Emmy-winning special effects wiz for Battlestar Galactica on The Sci-Fi channel, has started a blog. And he’s using WordPress’s blogging service. Smart man, Mojo. Go here to read all about the night he picked up his Emmy. I’ll have to be careful reading this, however, as Bismo has warned me about spoilers. We’ve been only semi-weekly lately in our Friday night Galactica DVD watching, and we’re only up to the start of season 3.

Battlestar Colbertica

There was a new Tek Jansen installment on Stephen Colbert last week. I’ll leave it to you to find it on ComedyCentral.com. There was also this funny pass-off from Jon Stewart to Colbert.
[flv:/Video/2008/APR/ColbertGalactica.flv 440 330]Thanks to my buddy Bismo, we’re very much into watching Battlestar Galatica on DVD. Very impressive with Emmy-winning special effects by Bismo’s friend Mojo Lebowitz, as seen on the Panasonic PT-AX200U projector! We’re about to start season 3, so the last thing we knew, the Cylons were occupying the new terrestrial settlement. Please, no spoilers!

What If… Saul Bass Did the Star Wars Opening Credits?

I spotted this on Heidi MacDonald’s The Beat. Apparently, it’s the work of an animation student, and I think it’s laugh-out-loud excellent.
[flv:/Video/2008/MAR/SaulBassStarWars.flv 440 300]Somehow, this makes me realize that the original opening credits to Lost In Space were influenced by Saul Bass.

See “The King of Kong”

Eric wanted to rent the DVD of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, and having seen only half of it I am giving it my absolute highest possible recommendation. I had a hard time deciding on a video clip to preview here, but I settled on this one.

[flv:/Video/2008/FEB/KingOfKong.flv 448 252]

I’m not a gamer. My interest is casual. Yet I feel strongly that it is the mentality behind gaming that helped propel us into the technological age we are now in. Hippies, Science Fiction fans, comic book kids, and Rock and Roll combined to give us what we have today. It’s all due as much to cultural change as it is advancements in technology.

This photograph is from the monumentally important article “SPACE WAR: Fanatic Life and Death Among the Computer Bums,” by Stewart Brand, published in the December 7, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone. Yes, that’s right. 1972. The caption reads, “Bruce Baumgart, winner of the Five-Man Free-For-All at the First Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics, brandishing control buttons in triumph.”

I am deeply appreciative of the reality that the things we take for granted — telephones, cars, radio, TV, Web browsing — were at some point in the past merely strange ideas. We owe a great deal to the oddballs and misfits who made them possible.

Xbox 360 Reality and Rumor

Eric and I have successfully struggled through setting up streaming media integration between the Xbox 360 and Windows Media Player 11. Very cool! With all of the various dedicated streaming media set top boxes out there, it’s nice to have it work out-of-the-(X)box at no additional cost. With this, I don’t need to bother with Verizon’s FiOS media manager.

Way back last February I featured Star Trek: New Voyages, a continuation of the original TV series, created by devoted fans. Here’s how a low-res copy of one of the shows looks, taken from my PC over the home network and scaled up to 720p by the Xbox.

Xbox Streaming Video

Fun! Now the question is, where is this technology going? Well, the exciting rumor is that the Watch Instantly service on Netflix will be available through the Xbox Live site. That would be great! Even better if the entire Netflix catalog were available, especially with HD offerings. Ideally, I would like to forget not only the red Netflix envelopes, but the format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD; which at the moment appears to be favoring Blu-Ray, because Warner Bros. is dropping HD-DVD.