Now that's interesting ... Disney, having already bought Pixar and Marvel Comics, completes the "TRIO" ... now we can really enjoy all our childhood fantasies on the big screen (in 3D of course!)
"Disney will make Episodes 7, 8 and 9 as well. "Star Wars" will be making its way back to the big screen now that The Walt Disney Company has acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion USD.
Disney said it is buying Lucasfilm Ltd. with cash and stock, and the deal includes Lucasfilm's high-tech production companies (Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound) and the rights to the "Indiana Jones" franchise.
Even though George Lucas, the creator of "Star Wars" and founder of Lucasfilm Ltd., said he was done making new versions of his mega popular epic space opera, he's going to allow Disney to bring "Star Wars" back to life.
Disney is currently working on a new "Star Wars" trilogy, beginning with "Episode 7." The new episode is due out in 2015, and Episodes 8 and 9 will shortly follow. According to Disney, the new trilogy will follow Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo beyond "Return of the Jedi," which was the third film in the original trilogy (but is chronologically the sixth film in the franchise)."
"Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner smashed a number of records with his "edge of space" stunt - including for live streaming. More than eight million people flocked to their devices to watch the 43-year-old break the speed of sound live on Google's YouTube site.
It is the largest number of concurrent live streams in the website's history, Google UK confirmed to the BBC. Mr Baumgartner broke the record for the highest freefall.
He jumped from a capsule taken to 128,100ft (24 miles; 39km) above New Mexico in the US by a giant helium balloon. It took nine minutes for him to reach the ground. The adventurer plummeted at an estimated 833.9mph (1,343km/h), hitting Mach 1.24. "On the step, I felt that the whole world is watching," Mr Baumgartner said after the jump."
It's not iTunes ... but Xbox Music looks to be a real success among gamers :P
"Xbox Music will become available on Xbox 360 games consoles from Tuesday. It will become available on Windows-based devices after the launch of Windows 8 towards the end of the month. The service replaces Microsoft's Zune media service, which was discontinued in June.
With a database of about 30 million songs, the Xbox Music catalogue is larger than that of Apple's iTunes, which has more than 26 million individual tracks. The free version of the service will enable users to stream music, with adverts appearing every 15 minutes.
"As an entertainment company, music is an important ingredient on its own and as a part of different user experiences," said Xbox Music general manager Jerry Johnson. Mr Johnson added that research carried out by Microsoft 18 months ago suggested that Xbox owners spent 60% of their time on the console using entertainment services rather than playing video games."
Check this out ... isn't that the robot from Lost in Space, robot B-9. Looks very much like it ... in terms of what it can do :P
"A US team aims to build a robot that can work out how to use nearby objects to solve problems or escape threats. The machine has been dubbed a MacGyver Bot, after the TV character who cobbled together devices to escape life-threatening situations.
The challenge is to develop software that "understands" what objects are in order to deduce how they can be used. The US Navy is funding the project and says the machines might ultimately be deployed alongside humans. It is providing $900,000 (£562,000) to robotics researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology to carry out the work."
Why do you "like" it ... you really "want" it! ... Now people can say I want this and I want that :)
"Facebook heads into e-commerce. One of Facebook's most popular features is the “Like” button that has been around for a few years. The Like button allows users to publically display that they like posts or specific brands. Facebook is rolling out a new feature that is in testing right now that allows users to create wish lists of all sorts of products ranging from clothing to home furnishings and more.
Reuters reports that Facebook is working with seven retailers, including Pottery Barn and Victoria's Secret to test the feature. The “Want” button will allow users to flag images of products that they want to purchase.
"People will be able to engage with these collections and share things they are interested in with their friends. People can click through and buy these items off of Facebook," Facebook said in a statement."
"The album's weighty title song 'Gangnam Style' is composed solely by PSY himself from lyrics to choreography. The song is characterized by its strongly addictive beats and lyrics, and is thus certain to penetrate the foundations of modern philosophy."
Connecting the whole of South East Asia, over 7,800km in length ... from Singapore to Tokyo and including Hong Kong!
"A new high-speed undersea data cable has opened to traffic in Asia. The 7,800km Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) connects Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.
It transfers data via an optical fibre system at 40 gigabits per second, and is three milliseconds faster than any other cable between Singapore and Tokyo.
The gain in speed may sound small, but could prove critical to financial trades made out of the region. So-called "high frequency trades", controlled by computers, involve making what may be hundreds of thousands of transactions in less than a second - all determined by a program that tracks market conditions.
With banks and hedge funds competing against each other, the size of the profit or loss can come down to a matter of beating the competition by a fraction of a second, explained Ralph Silva, a strategist at Silva Research Network."
Yes, it's serious business this texting. The winner gets $50,000 !!
"A 17-year-old has out-tapped the competition to hold onto the title of being the US's fastest texter. Austin Weirschke from Wisconsin beat 10 other competitors at the sixth National Texting Championship held in New York.
Contestants had to do one task with their vision blocked and another with their hands behind their back. Mr Weirschke said he planned to put the $50,000 (£32,012) prize money towards paying for his college education.
The competition - which is sponsored by LG Electronics and featured one device with a physical keyboard - put three skills to the test: accuracy, speed and dexterity.
Two of the tests were straight-forward - memorising and then typing phrases as quickly as possible, and translating text abbreviations into "regular speak" such as TTYL (talk to you later)."
Are you a "Fakebook" user? ... Get it? FAKE-Book ...lol!
"Facebook has revealed that it believes there are now more than 83 million fake users on the social network. In company filings published this week, it said 8.7% of its 955 million active users might not be real.
Duplicate profiles made up 4.8% of the users, user-misclassified accounts amounted to 2.4%, and 1.5% of users were described as "undesirable".
The estimate came at a time of growing concern about the value of marketing on the platform. In total, the company said it estimated there were 83.09 million fake users, which it classified in three groups.
The largest group of "fakes" were duplicates, which the company defined as "an account that a user maintains in addition to his or her principal account."
Others were described as "user-misclassified" where, Facebook explained "users have created personal profiles for a business, organisation, or non-human entity such as a pet".
Finally, "undesirable" accounts were profiles deemed to be in breach of Facebook's terms of service. Typically, this means profiles which have been used for sending out spam messages or other content."
