In fact, they wish you would! The International Space Apps Challenge is looking for folks to create Apps for smartphones and tablets based on any aspect of space research and exploration. In fact it goes beyond that, they are looking for practical applications that will take data from space agencies around the planet and use it to resolve real world problems. Early warning of dangerous weather events as seen from satellites, air and noise pollution mapping, using networks of cell phone as a large aperture telescope are just a few of the recommended ideas. The challenge has not kicked off yet but you can sign up and start submitting ideas now.
Terrestrial Human
No doubt about it, this week the movie to beat is Real Steel, in which Hugh Jackman is an ex-boxer making a comeback by way of his own rock-em sock-em robot.
You might not of heard of any of the interesting movies this week, but a few of them are quite good. I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK is a 2006 romantic dramedy from Korea that mostly takes place in a mental institution. Yes, it is every bit as quirky as that description makes it sound, and it goes places you wouldn’t expect; I have owned the subtitled import version of the film for years, and it is quite worth the time to experience. This first domestic release is also subtitled rather than dubbed into English. Lunopolis has won fistfuls of awards at film festivals all over the world and tells a sci-fi drama about lunar occupation, cover ups, and conspiracies. Done documentary style, this one looks quite good. And there is Phase 7, a sci-fi/horror/comedy that has been compared with Shaun of the Dead, all about the end of the world.
In live action TV we have The Bionic Woman: Season 3, the spinoff from the 6 Million Dollar Man. I thought both of those series were campy when they were made, but unlike Knightrider they are still watchable today.
On the animation front, I don’t have a clue why the production team behind Chop Kick Panda are not all in jail for copyright violation, since it is a direct ripoff of Kung Fu Panda, but they have a new one coming out this week as well. On the other hand, The True Story of Puss ‘n Boots is a legitimate original work based on the public domain source material, but this time the cat has a French accent rather than Spanish.
In anime, La Corda D’Oro: The Complete Collection tells the entire story of a slacker girl given a magic violin by an interesting fairy. More interesting for me is Glass Maiden – Complete Collection about an offbeat detective agency and an impossible girl.
One of the best NASA Apps is simply called the NASA App, and besides the iPhone version they also made one for Android, and rolled out an HD version for the iPad. It is a monster with a ton of functions, including launch info with countdown clocks, current mission status, a huge library of images and videos, the latest news and feature stories, the Tweet feed from the various agency sources (in fact an entire Facebook and Twitter client interface to make it easy to interact with them), a live stream from NASA TV, and so much more. This was NASA’s very first official App, and while I hail its completeness, the kitchen sink approach has its drawbacks. They did end up breaking out most of the more popular functions into their own stand alone Apps, so you didn’t have to wait for everything to load or wade through a large menu when you just wanted to check the tweets or watch the live stream for example. More on those individual Apps in the next NASA Apps entry.
They have released a new trailer for Immortals, which will be in theaters on 11/11/11.
Ishida Hiroyasu is a brilliant young animator from Japan, and in March of 2010 I posted his Fumiko’s Confession; that video source is gone now, so I am re-posting it as the second video entry today. This year he turned in his graduation piece, called Rain Town, and posted it to YouTube just a week or so before the major earthquake/tsunami created such widespread destruction and loss of life across Japan. I have no idea if he survived that event, and because of it my attention was distracted from noticing this beautiful piece until now. I really hope he and his family are all right, and we will get to see more from this wonderful creator; with virtually no words he tells intense stories of the human heart.