Blaming the US and israel for cyber warfare?!
Alex Gibney’s new film “Zero Days” charts the terrifying history of cyber warfare, focusing in particular on the attack that the U.S. and Israel allegedly launched against the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran.
Continue reading “Should We Blame the U.S. and Israel for Cyber Warfare?” »
We’re really excited to be working with the Toronto International Film Festival on a three-day event called POP showcasing some of the most inventive VR creations… and it’s coming up very soon — Friday, July 15th through Sunday, July 17th at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. Tickets are on sale now, and we’d love to see you there.
Let’s talk about what you’ll see when you’re there. The theme of this POP event is empathy and real-world storytelling — how VR can really impact your view of (and connections to) the world. We have more than a dozen pieces that you can try.
Continue reading “Here’s what you’ll see at TIFF and The Verge’s VR showcase this month” »
Enjoy this VFX Sci-Fi Short Film… 2046. A new energy source, created to solve the world’s energy crisis, is believed to have deadly side effects. When The Signal’s inventor chooses to help a girl warn the public, he gains an unlikely ally to save the world from his own creation. Starring Michael Ealy and Grace Phipps, Written and Directed by Marcus Stokes!
On the web — http://www.thesignalmovie.com
Since then, I’ve been entrenched in the video game industry and fascinated with the rapid evolution of the technology surrounding it.
I’m addicted to producing professional web content which aims to simultaneously educate and entertain. My column at Forbes is the culmination of these experiences, and I’ll bring my unique voice, background and skillset to deliver memorable content.
I’ve also contributed gaming and technology features to outlets like PCWorld and HotHardware.
I just last week saw the movie Neon Demon. The movie explores pathology of prettiness, and to what degree people demand to consume prettiness. This is a particularly futurist topic, as society might change a lot with regards to commidifying as well as synthesizing completely new forms of beauty. This arouses deep seated fears. We fear those who manipulate desire (love, lust, loneliness, among others) for their own benefit. But many in the field claim “it is just another job”. Is relationship now part of the “gig economy” or should our politicians interfere? Will a basic income increase these forms of prostitution or decrease them?
So-called “zero-point energy” is a term familiar to some cinema lovers or series fans; in the fictional world of animated films such as “The Incredibles” or the TV series “Stargate Atlantis”, it denotes a powerful and virtually inexhaustible energy source.
Whether it could ever be used as such is arguable. Scientists at Jülich have now found out that it plays an important role in the stability of nanomagnets. These are of great technical interest for the magnetic storage of data, but so far have never been sufficiently stable. Researchers are now pointing the way to making it possible to produce nanomagnets with low zero-point energy and thus a higher degree of stability (Nano Letters, “Zero-Point Spin-Fluctuations of Single Adatoms”).
Human civilization has always been a virtual reality. At the onset of culture, which was propagated through the proto-media of cave painting, the talking drum, music, fetish art making, oral tradition and the like, Homo sapiens began a march into cultural virtual realities, a march that would span the entirety of the human enterprise. We don’t often think of cultures as virtual realities, but there is no more apt descriptor for our widely diverse sociological organizations and interpretations than the metaphor of the “virtual reality.” Indeed, the virtual reality metaphor encompasses the complete human project.
Virtual Reality researchers, Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson, write in their book Infinite Reality; “[Cave art] is likely the first animation technology”, where it provided an early means of what they refer to as “virtual travel”. You are in the cave, but the media in that cave, the dynamic-drawn, fire-illuminated art, represents the plains and animals outside—a completely different environment, one facing entirely the opposite direction, beyond the mouth of the cave. When surrounded by cave art, alive with movement from flickering torches, you are at once inside the cave itself whilst the media experience surrounding you encourages you to indulge in fantasy, and to mentally simulate an entirely different environment. Blascovich and Bailenson suggest that in terms of the evolution of media technology, this was the very first immersive VR. Both the room and helmet-sized VRs used in the present day are but a sophistication of this original form of media VR tech.
20th Century Fox has released the first full Morgan trailer online. The debut film from Luke Scott (commercial director and son of Ridley Scott) stars Kate Mara as a corporate troubleshooter sent to evaluate a terrifying incident at a remote, top-secret lab where she discovers the scientists have created a new form of evil inhabiting a human form.
This modern-day spin on Frankenstein looks promising, especially when you’ve got The Witch star Anya Taylor-Joy in the title role. If anything is detracting from the film, it’s the Labor Day weekend release date, which is usually a sign of dumping the film. That being said, it’s possible that Fox doesn’t know what they have or that it’s just too niche to be widely appreciated in the heart of the summer or the fall seasons. Either way, I’m definitely keeping this flick on my radar due to its intriguing premise and terrific cast. At the very least, this should be an interesting showcase for Taylor-Joy, who was just outstanding in The Witch, and I’m eager to see what she does next.
Check out the Morgan trailer below. The film also stars Rose Leslie, Boyd Holbrook, Michelle Yeoh, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Paul Giamatti.
Fascinating short film.
Check out this well done Sci-fi/Political thriller called “Lunar” set in Los Angeles City, 2057, as an outlaw is captured and sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment on the LUNAR penitentiaries! To reunite with his family, he must become the first convict to escape the corrupt system and return to Earth.
