A few years back, I did a long newspaper story about the FBI snooping on the private records of ordinary citizens. As my old editor Michael Kinsley likes to say, the scandal is what’s legal. The Patriot Act unleashed the FBI to search your email, travel and credit records without even a suspicion of wrongdoing. The FBI was doing it, in …
Rdio Breaks Out of Beta, Available for BlackBerry, iOS and Android
After a short beta period, the latest cloud-based music subscription service Rdio is now available across all platforms (desktop, BlackBerry, Android, iOS) with over 7 million songs. As is standard with other music services like MOG or Thumbplay, Rdio lets subscribers stream playlists and add new songs to existing collections that …
New episode of Warehouse 13 airs on Syfy at 9 p.m.
The Daily Dose
Monday, August 2, 2010 – Happy Shark Week!
Here’s what else is going on in nerd news around the web:
Shark Fact Of The Day:
Great whites can swim up to 25 miles per hour with bursts potentially reaching 35 miles per hour. Michael Phelps’ fastest swim speed is less than 5 miles per hour.
Up Front:
Disney Is Close To Winning …
Spot the Gadgets in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
49:31 – Digital Binoculars
Here’s indisputable proof that Darth Maul frequents the SkyMall catalog. He’ll tell you he uses them to hunt Jedi. He won’t tell you he likes to unwind with a little bird watching during his downtime.
49:40 – Wrist-worn Remote Control
Man, not ten seconds later and he’s deploying remote …
Interview & Trailer: Mafia II Trailer Kicks You in the Head
So, Jack, just a few questions for you because you worked on a ton of 2K games, obviously. And I think by and large, the stuff that you’ve worked on has had really exceptional voice work. I mean, BioShock is a standout in everybody’s mind.
Jack: Thank you.
But, at the same time, lots of video games suffer from terrible …
Why The Clone Wars is The Work Of The Sith
But that’s not all! Revenge Of The Sith also makes explicit that the war wasn’t really about anything more than a veiled grab for power on behalf of Senator Palpatine, AKA The Emperor, so it’s not even as if the good guys lose – The good guys from The Clone Wars will, one day, find themselves realizing that their very cause was …
Poll: Star Wars In 3D? Yay Or Nay?
We know, we know. You hate people (cough*George Lucas*cough) messing with the original Star Wars trilogy. So do we. (Han shot first!) But sometimes the idea of watching it all in 3D is intriguing, at least. What say ye, Star Wars purists? Would you wear the funny glasses to have that prologue scroll out at you?
[polldaddy …
Kick-Ass 2: Matthew Vaughn Talks Sequels
Evil may get a second ass-kicking sooner than we’d hoped.
While chatting with Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn, we learned that the much speculated “on again, off again” sequel plans are almost certainly a go. “We have lots of amazing ideas for a sequel,” Vaughn told us, “but nothing confirmed yet. We don’t have a shoot date or a …
User Submissions Wanted! What’s Your Favorite Star Wars “Fan Film”?
Time.com is looking to get in on the Star Wars celebration this month, as all you nerds out there commemorate the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back (and here on Techland we devote the entire month of August to Star Wars coverage).
Check out the video above where Time.com Arts Editor Tim Morrison asks users to submit their …
Dick To FBI: Neo-Nazis Are Trying To Undermine Sci-Fi
The magnificent “Letters of Note” blog came up with this small piece of science fiction history recently: Letters from Philip K. Dick to the FBI in 1972, detailing what he believed was a secret plot by neo-Nazis to insert secret messages into science fiction novels. Some choice excerpts:
[S]everal months ago I was approached by an
…
Photos: Cosplay at Otakon 2010
Otakon is one of the largest anime/cosplay conventions held annually on the East Coast. Time.com’s Joseph Chi Lin photographs some of the best cosplays from Otakon 2010’s Hall Costume Contest and Masquerade.
More on Time.com: Photos: The Secret World of Cosplay
Click on the photo below to start the gallery.
More on …