Category Archives: News

Lost: Cast interviews, Emmy eligibility, & DVD extras

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Here’s some good news for Lost fans.  First let’s talk Emmy eligibility.  This week The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors made an exception to a long-standing rule involving the length of an episode and Emmy consideration.  So we all know that the Lost finale episode will run for two-and-a-half hours.  Normally for an extended episode to be considered for Emmy eligibility it cannot run for longer than two hours.  Thanks to the Board’s decision “The End” can be a potential contender for a number of Emmy awards such as Best Actor/Actress and Best Drama.  John Leverence, senior VP of awards: “We have a soft spot in our hearts for the final episodes of long-running series.”  The same exception made for Lost was also granted to The Wire and The Sopranos.

Next up there’s news about what will be included with the Lost Season 6 DVD package.  Exec producers Darlton plan on including about twenty minutes of “new content that addresses some of the unanswered questions in an entertaining way.”  According to an inside source “Damon and Carlton wanted to offer fans answers to additional questions they couldn’t get to in the body of the final show.”  These bonus features will be included in the stand-alone DVD package and in the DVD/Blu-Ray Seasons 1-6 mega box sets.

Now go watch some cast interviews in the video above, provided by IGN.  The Lost series finale airs this Sunday at 9PM on ABC.

[Via EW; TVGuide; IGN]

Megan Fox will not star in ‘Transformers 3’

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According to sources close to the production of Transformers 3, Megan Fox will not return as Mikaela Banes in the next installment of the franchise.  Way back in October director Michael Bay shared his thought about the future of the character, and they weren’t pretty; he was planning to kill her off somehow, someway.  And now it’s pretty much confirmed that Fox will not be back.  Interestingly, however,  “it was her decision not to return” according to Fox’s reps.  Still, if that is indeed the case, Bay must be thrilled to change the direction of the story by introducing a new love interest for Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky.  The rest of us…not so much.  I’d say that there’s no reason to sit through another iteration of Transformers without Fox on-screen, but with the recent addition of actor Alan Tudyk (Firefly, V, Dollhouse) I see a glimmer of hope.

[Via EW-HollywoodInsider; People]

LOST Live: The Final Celebration — all the details

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I just got back from the LOST Live: The Final Celebration event.  It took place at UCLA’s Royce Hall and featured live performances by composer Michael Guichinno, surprise guest appearances, and a private screening of the penultimate episode,”What They Died For.”  Note that cell phones and cameras were not allowed inside the Hall, so letters and words are all I got to offer.  So let’s dive right into the details, shall we?

Introductions: Things started off with an ABC executive reading a letter to a packed audience.  The letter was addressed to Lostexecutive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof (together known as “Darlton”) and spoke very highly of the groundbreaking series and how it related to the Star Wars franchise and how the creatives behind those films also did not know exactly where they were going during the making of the first film (big laughs!).  The letter was penned by George Lucas.  Then Darlton came out to share kind words about thankful they are for the rabid fanbase, for without them Lost simply wouldn’t be, well, Lost.  They described all those in attendance at Royce Hall special members of the Lostfamily.  They were excited to have the opportunity to end the series by sharing an event with the show’s most loyal fans.

The cast: Next, Darlton announced, one by one, many cast members to join them on stage.  According to the press statement, we knew Lost characters Richard, Ben, and Hurley would make an appearance, but everyone was surprised to see a ton more jump on stage.  Darlton welcome the following Lostcast members on stage: Young Ben (Sterling Beaumon), Cassidy (Kim Dickens), Arzt (Daniel Roebuck), Ethan (William Mapother), Abaddon (Lance Reddick), Boone (Ian Somerhalder), Rose (L. Scott Caldwell), Dr. Pierre Chang (François Chau), Walt (Malcom David Kelley), Michael (Harold Perrineau), Charlotte (Rebecca Mader), Faraday (Jeremy Davies), The Man in Black (Titus Welliver), Penny (Sonya Walger), Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), Richard (Nestor Carbonell), Ben (Michael Emerson), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway).  The takeaways?  Abaddon, Chang, Faraday, Desmond, Richard, Hurley, and Ben got the loudest applause, no surprise there.  And Walt got taller.  Seeing all these amazing actors standing together on stage (with Darlton nearby) was quite a sight.  A whole lot of talent was right there in front of all of us, and you couldn’t help but smile and cheer for your favorite characters you’ve come to know and love over the past six years.  (I gave a loud shout-out to Faraday, which I’m sure he heard.)  Yeah, it was a bummer main cast members Jack, Kate, Sayid, Locke, Claire, and Charlie were no-shows, but it was still a great moment to see all of these guys come together in one space for the final hurrah.  Before each cast member walked onto the stage, Darlton would describe key attributes of their characters so as to keep the audience guessing who’ll come out next.  Lotta cheering and name calling resulted.  And after the cast took a long bow, they left the stage to take seats in the crowd.  (In fact, a bunch of Lostpeople were in attendence, including producers and writers, but I’ll get to that later.)

Continue reading LOST Live: The Final Celebration — all the details →

ABC axes FlashForward, renews V

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For some time now there’s been much discussion surrounding the fate of ABC’s two freshman sci-fi series, FlashForward & V.  Overall both have been performing rather poorly in the ratings.  But when it came to decision time, ABC decided to cancel one and keep the other.  As much as I have enjoyed following FlashForward, there were many hints to its eventual demise.  Two of them are the following: The ratings (FFpremiered to 12.47 million viewers and plummeted to 4.77 million viewers for last week’s ep) and a change in leadership (co-creator/showrunner David S. Goyer left the show in early February).  And here’s another one: ABC heavily promoted the new series the wrong way; in a number of ad spots the network was hailing it as “the next Lost.”  Although the show contains a myriad of characters, a complex mythos, and flashbacks to boot, it is most definitely not another Lost.  The direction and plot of the show are quite different from Lost.  ABC obviously felt some pressure to promote the show in this way since Lost is nearly finished, but I have a feeling FF might have fared differently if it was marketed in a more appropriate way.  In my opinion, I thought FlashForward started out great, then it started to lose its focus (right around when Goyer made his announcement), and now it finds itself back on track with a bunch of potential.  But now none of that matters anymore since it won’t be coming back after the May 27 finale.  I wonder if the producers will try to wrap things up for us..

And then there’s V, the mini-series reboot that could.  ABC aired this series in a very strange manner due to a number of early production issues.  They aired an initial “pod” of four episodes starting in November which garnered a huge following, then the show did not come back until the end of March.  Thanks to this long hiatus, viewership dropped during the latter half of the season.  As of late, however, the show has seen a surge in the ratings, especially in the coveted 18-49 demo, and in my opinion, it’s become more creative and engaging with the addition of some new characters and exciting and fast-moving plot twists.  According to the latest sources, V has been issued a 13-epsiode second season set to start this fall.

So what do I think about all this?  As a fan of both shows, I have to say I’m not so surprised that ABC decided to cancel FlashForward and keep V.  Although the potential for FlashForward is just starting to come to fruition, the delivery feels a bit “too little too late”.  V, on the other hand, always packed an explosive punch, from the initial pod of episodes to where to series sits now.  All I have to say is this: At least ABC decided to keep one of these shows; a sudden cancellation of both would have been devastating.

FlashForward airs Thursday nights at 8PM on ABC; the two-hour finale airs May 27.  V ends its first season run next Tuesday at 8PM on ABC.

[Via EW-AusielloFiles, here & here]

Hulu intros new video player: updated design, new features

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Today Hulu gave their video player a much needed refresh that brings with it a slightly updated look and a bunch of new features.  You can watch a brief guided tour about all the updates in the video embedded above, but I’ll run through some of them here.  The base video player is now 720×404 pixels large, that’s 25% more surface area than the old player.  When you’re watching a video and the mouse is at rest, the player is control-free, meaning on all-screen controls and menus are hidden from view.  There are new player controls that are now streamlined across all videos: normal player, fullscreen player, pop-out player, and embedded player.  New features include adaptive bitrate streaming (as your bandwith fluctuates, you can make it so the player chooses the resolution of the streaming video based on your current speed); ad volume normalization (the player analyzes the volume of your streaming video and normalizes the volume of the ad breaks to match what you’re watching); and seek hover preview (when you hover your mouse over any spot in the video, you will see a small thumbnail preview of what’s going on at that specific point in time).  Scrub through the video above to learn about some other neat features.  Overall, all the new features and the updated design combine to make a welcome, streamlined refresh of the Hulu video player.  Now about bringing Hulu to mobile devices…

[Via Hulu; Engadget]

Adobe makes love, not war, with Apple in new ad campaign

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Adobe, makers of Flash video, have decided to take the high road in their retaliation against Apple’s harsh words against their platform.  As you know, Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently released an open letter regarding his position on Adobe’s Flash standard for video.  He believes it is not an open platform, it’s proprietary, and it’s a dated standard that does not belong in the mobile space.  In direct response to Jobs’ open letter, Adobe has rolled out a new ad campaign with the slogan “We [Love] Apple”, with a heart in the place of “love”.  In addition to web ads, Adobe coughed up some cash to place a large ad in yesterday’s Washington Post.  Things just got more serious, and Team Adobe wants you to know they are in this for the long haul.  Besides the new ad campaign, Adobe co-founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock penned their own open letter titled “Our thoughts on open markets.”  These choice words are obviously directed at Apple:

We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.

In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company.

Flash to Apple: Oh, it’s on.  Look after the break for the open letter in its entirety, as well as one of the new advertisements.

[Via Engadget; Adobe] Continue reading Adobe makes love, not war, with Apple in new ad campaign →

Steam for Mac is available for download today

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Hey Mac users!  Now you can finally play a bunch of solid games on your computer!  Steam, a games distribution service that’s been widely available on Windows PCs for years, is now available for Mac OS X.  Steam is run by Valve, the company behind popular games like Half-Life, Team Fortress, and Left 4 Dead 2.  In layman’s terms, Steam is a centralized place where computer gamers can browse, preview, and download a number of titles.  It’s also got a bunch of social features like chat, and friends lists.  And get this–for a limited time (until May 24) Steam is offereing a FREE download of one of Valve’s most popular and best rated games, Portal.  It’s a highly addicting, first-person puzzle game, so get on that before it’s too late.  Besides Valve games, Steam for Mac (which looks almost identical to its Windows counterpart) already houses a bunch of third party games like Civilization IV, Bejeweled 2, World of Goo, and City of Heroes: Architect Edition.  Click here for the DMG download of Steam for Mac.

[Via Joystiq]

Playboy goes 3D

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Image: Playboy magazine

Back in the ’50s Hef assigned a photographer to shoot two nude women in 3D; but since it was so expensive to include the 3D glasses at the time the idea was scrapped.  Come this June, however, Hef’s dream will finally become a reality.  The June edition of Playboy will hit newsstands bundled with a new surprise: 3D glasses!  Playboy founder Hugh Hefner: “What would people most like to see in 3-D?  Probably a naked lady.”  Centerfold Hope Dworaczyk will pop out to readers using the packaged anaglyph (blue-and-red) 3D shades.  Says Dworaczyk, “It’s kind of like it says on the rearview mirror.  Things may appear larger.”  From having Marge Simpson as a centerfold to making the centerfold come off the page in 3D, Playboy is trying its darndest to stay relevent and different.  Circulation of Hef’s magazine has decreased from 3.5 million in 2006 to 1.5 million today.  Though I can’t imagine the addition of 3D in Playboy help sales, it surely will be a treat for long-time subscribers.

[Via MSNBC; Gizmodo]

Google search gets a new look & feel

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So have you noticed something different about Google lately?  This past week Google rolled out a new look and some welcome features to their search platform.  Least significant but still noticable is the refreshed Google logo on the home page; it’s definitely more colorful, isn’t it?  Moving right along.. Google has added a “contextually relevant, left-hand navigation” panel to the search results page.  Now whenever you search a keyword, a navigation panel reveals itself to help refine your query.  There’s three parts to the panel.  First there’s Universal Search; “the top section suggests the most relevant genres of results for your query and lets you seamlessly switch to these different types of results.”  Everything is selected be default, but you have the option to switch the search feed depending on the type of information you’re looking for about the query.  For example, if you search “wind power”, Google automatically does a normal search for the term, but now it also helps you find that term within other relevent places such as news, blogs, images, and books.  Next there’s Search Options; this “enables you to get a different view of your results” by sorting search results by time, timelines, “wonder wheels”, image previews and more.  Lastly there’s Google Squared; this addition utilizes Google’s “Something different” feature which “helps you find and compare entities” by offering other related topics to search.  All of these new parts are built right into the left-hand navigation panel.  Welcome to the modern age of Google search.  Look after the break for a brief video rundown of the new features described here.

[Via GoogleBlog] Continue reading Google search gets a new look & feel →

Nintendo DS handhelds surpass Game Boy sales

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In their latest quarterly earnings report, Nintendo happily announced that their DS line of handhelds (DS, DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL) has officially sold more units than the their Gameboy predecessors.  The DS family has sold around 129 million units, briskly passing the 118 million Game Boy handhelds sold.  Although this makes the DS line the best selling handheld gaming device in history, the Sony PlayStation 2 still wears the crown when it comes to all video game devices with 140 million units sold.  Anyhow, way to go Ninty!  Nintendo 3Ds, come out, come out wherever you are.

[Via Nintendo; Engadget]

Android steals silver crown from iPhone OS in US smartphone market

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According to The NPD Group, a market research company, Google’s Android smartphone OS pushed past Apple to claim second place among smartphone operating systems.  Here’s the official standings for Q1 2010: #1-RIM (36%), #2- Android OS (28 %), #3- iPhone OS (21%).  Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD, shares the reasoning behind the shift in dominance: “As in the past, carrier distribution and promotion have played a crucial role in determining smartphone market share.  In order to compete with the iPhone, Verizon Wireless has expanded its buy-one-get-one offer beyond RIM devices to now include all of their smartphones.”  And how do the popular US carriers size up, you ask?  #1- AT&T (32%), #2- Verizon Wireless (30%), T-Mobile (17%), Sprint (15%).  With the recent HP-Palm aquisition and iPhone OS 4, BlackBerry 6, and Windows Phone 7 mobile OS previews, the smartphone market is asking for a healthy shakeup.  As a customer and gadget enthusiast, I say bring it on.

[Via NPD]

iPad goes international on May 28

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On Friday, May 28 the following nine countries will join the U.S. with iPad launch festivities: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.  Eager customers who can’t wait to get their oily hands all over the magical device can preorder it online on Monday, May 10.  Apple pledges to release the iPad in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore sometime in July.  Look after the break for the full PR and price listings.

[Via Apple; Engadget; Mashable] Continue reading iPad goes international on May 28 →