There is a new feature length film coming out in the Elric family saga, Fullmetal Alchemist : The Sacred Star of Milos. The video is more of a tease than a trailer, and the film will have a limited theatrical run, but this is still exciting news. If you don’t already know all about this modern classic, stop by their official Funimation site to watch some episodes and bring yourself up to speed on this paratime/steampunk romp. Thanks to Crunchyroll for the heads up on this one.
The Doctor Who Experience was quite memorable, and I wanted to include a few more images from it. While it is difficult to determine what constitutes the proper chronological order for a Timelord, I have no problem posting them in episode order. The first image is from the very first Tom Baker episode, Robot. The second are two Daleks from completely different eras, while the third is the junk Tardis console they cobbled together for Matt Smith’s episode The Doctors Wife.
Starting today and running until October 2nd, the Science Museum in London is running the Player Live Gaming Festival. This event is broken into a couple of pieces, with the first part on September 28th being an adults-only presentation. It includes a smartphone driven scavenger hunt, a “silent disco” in the computing and math area and a round of speed dating in the temporary exhibit section. The Punk Science and Pub Quiz events also look pretty entertaining. The second round, on October 1st and 2nd, will effectively turn the museum (or at least the shipping gallery) into a life size game of Battleship. If more museums did this kind of thing we might find more people interested in learning. The museum is located on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London.
Now that we have virtual Idols, between Vocaloid and the 3D RL holographic projection process that displays them live on stage, it is time to get creative with our live concerts. Mikunopolis is coming on July 2nd to the stage in LA as part of Anime Expo. Besides being Virtual Idol Hatsune Miku’s first performance in the US, she will be the first ever Virtual Guest of Honor at an American Con. In case you were wondering, her back-up band on stage with her will be non-virtual, but there is always the chance some of the other Virtual Idols will be joining her on stage. SEGA is doing the 3D imaging tech work for the show with Crypton Future Media, the creators of Hatsune Miku, supervising. The videos here were taken at the Miku’s Day Thanksgiving live show in Tokyo on March 9th 2010, and the reports are the 3D tech for the on stage presentation has gotten even better since then.
If you are interested in creating your own Virtual Idol, it was announced today, or yesterday depending on which side of the date line you are on, that Vocaloid is finally being updated (the last new version was released 4 years ago). The program itself has come down in price, and version 3 will be retailing at around $125, but they have not announced what the voice packages are going to run yet. This is supposed to be the most realistic singing voice engine to date, and comes with multi-language support. That means your English language songs can be built from English phonemes now; I am sure anyone who programmed the previous versions to sing in English when it only came with Japanese phonemes is going to be quite excited about that. I think I will save the resources to create your 3D Idol for another post; enjoy the music from the old version of Vocaloid.
SFX just uploaded this teaser trailer; no info yet on if the tour will be coming to the US or just Europe. If the Torchwood trailer doesn’t work, try watching on YouTube.
Hopefully you have been attending the USA Science and Engineering Festival since it opened on the 10th, either on the national mall and surrounding area or at any of the Satellite Events taking place at 50 locations in twenty different states. It goes on through the 24th, and I wanted to remind everyone that for the final weekend they are doing a Grand Finale Expo. That runs from 10AM to 5:30PM on Saturday and Sunday, the 23rd and 24th, with more than 1,500 hands-on activities and over 75 stage shows. Hope to see you there!