film

Pirates nab Michael Moore's yet-to-be released doc

From all that we've heard about Michael Moore's soon-to-be released documentary indictment of the U.S. health care system, he clearly supports universal health care.

But does he support universal Web access to his film two weeks before its official release? Probably not, or at least his studio doesn't.

Advertising Age reported Friday that Moore's new film, Sicko, has been pirated and is widely available for free download on the Web at BitTorrent and peer-to-peer sites. Advertising Age reporter Claude Brodesser-Akner wrote that he easily downloaded a copy and watched it late Thursday night.

The breach … Read more

Promise of more efficient solar panels

There are two major problems with the current silicon panel technology used to generate electricity. For one, silicon is inefficient in converting solar energy. The thinner the silicon panel, the less efficient it becomes. Secondly, silicon panels make up about 45 percent of the total cost of current solar power installations. So thinner panels requiring less silicon would cut down on installation costs.

Now researchers in Australia say they've found a way to make silicon films, 1 to 2 microns thick, into more efficient energy converters. The trick is to impregnate the silicon film surface with small amounts of … Read more

Tribeca Film Festival slowly warms up to new media

Can you make a server sexy?

Short answer: No.

But you can still throw it a glitzy launch party.

Over the past week or so, I've been poking my head into various events at the Tribeca Film Festival in lower Manhattan, which runs through tomorrow. I've always thought of film festivals as sort of low-tech affairs, and in a lot of ways, it's true--at a screening of Edward Burns' new flick, Purple Violets, the producers apologized for the first reel being "too light," and at the premiere of Spider-Man 3 co-star James Franco's latest … Read more

AOL to offer free downloads of new film

Don't want to pay $10 to see the new John Travolta, Salma Hayek film Lonely Hearts? Just go to AOL's video portal beginning Friday and download a copy for free. The movie opened in theaters two weeks ago in New York and Los Angeles, and is distributed by Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films. A "limited supply" of downloads of the full-length feature will be available at AOL Video and a high-definition version will be for sale on ClickStar, a broadband entertainment venture founded by Revelations Entertainment, the production company co-headed by Morgan Freeman.

ClickStar and … Read more

Glasses that display their own subtitles

We've seen a fair number of gadgets designed to assist the hard of hearing, but they usually involve emergencies of one kind or another. (First things first, we suppose.) Few have been dedicated to everyday life, much less any form of entertainment.

That's why an invention by scientists at the University Carlos III of Mardrid caught our attention. It's a technology that projects subtitles onto eyeglass lenses in real time for deaf moviegoers. And as Pocket-lint points out, it could also find a broader market because they could be used by hearing people who want to view … Read more

Time Trumpet weirds me out

Time Trumpet was the winner for film and TV in this year's South By Southwest Interactive Web Awards this past Sunday (see our coverage here). The site contains a number of faux-futurecentric video clips with historical satire about politics, current events, and celebrities. What's neat is the somewhat experimental interface that blends various media in partial 3D, similar to Universe which we took a look at yesterday. You can sort through it all by episode or subject, and each clip will organize itself into a neat, swirling vortex. It's total eye candy.

Most of the clips about … Read more

DxO revamps photo editing tools for Vista

LAS VEGAS--DxO has updated two photography programs, releasing DxO Optics Pro 4.2 with Windows Vista support and adding new options to its FilmPack 1.1.

DxO Optics Pro is a stand-alone application or Adobe Photoshop plug-in that lets users adjust color, correct lens geometry problems, reduce noise. The new version 4.2 is compatible with Windows Vista and adds a feature called SmartVibrancy that increases color vividness without throwing skin tones out of whack. The company announced the moves at the Photo Marketing Association trade show here on Thursday.

The company also is working on a DxO plug-in to … Read more

Spycam of yesteryear disappoints

Ubergizmo has spied that the International Spy Museum is selling the Cola Cam for about $18.

Cool, you may think. Who wouldn't want a camera shaped like a can of soda?

There are several reasons.

First, you have to hold it as if you are shot-gunning a beer, so you can't just sit it on a shelf and let it click. It's so obviously a camera that you would not need the spy for spycams surveillance kit.

Second, the flash that pops up makes it extremely obvious that this is not a can of Cindy Crawford's … Read more

Welcome to The Burgg

If Internet movie quizzes were towns, most of them would be Dullsville. There's a new Burgg, though, that's looking to change that landscape.

Combining Pictionary with social networking and a clean design, TheBurgg.com is a new Web site where you draw pictures of your favorite movie scenes and other people have to guess which films they're from. By limiting it to movies and incorporating some basic features of your standard Web 2.0 socializing site, The Burgg has given all its participants an open-ended topic to discuss.

At its heart lies a robust, free Java-based drawing … Read more