Rock Lobster by the Bit-52’s, the New Zealand band The Trons practicing before hitting the stage for their Berlin gig, Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion project; From technology new and old, Robot Rock has been alive and about in the world for quite a few decades now.
If you are going to be at DragonCon this weekend, make sure to pick up your Dragon Con App for your iDevice, or for your Android. This is not the first App I have heard of built specifically for a Sci-Fi Con, but I don’t think SkepTrack counts, since it just a specialized App for a specific DragonCon track. And yes, the main App has full browse by track support, as well as the ability to break events out by day, time, people, and more. This may just be the new face of Sci-Fi Cons, and for a full list of all things digital at DragonCon just follow the link. Earlier Con Apps include the famous Tron App from this years SDCC. Also at DragonCon this year, BAR2D2, the droid that gets you drunk. It caries 15 kinds of beer and a variety of fixings, and is programmed to build 5,000 different mixed drinks when you put in your order via laptop; and yes, they are building an app for that so you don’t need the clunky laptop.
It looks like the movie to hold the record so far for the most expensive Bollywood film is Enthiran: The Robot, due out at the end of September. It is even more interesting that this is a total Science Fiction story line, since India does so little Sci-Fi; their strong suit is definitely closer to the Fantasy field. The soundtrack CD for this movie has also done something unusual: two days after release, the album hit 1st place on the Top 10 World Albums chart on iTunes in the US, UK, and Australia, which no other Bollywood album has done. This one may just pull in enough money to make Bollywood reevaluate its stance on science fiction! And even if it doesn’t, I will be in the theater opening weekend.
One of the most interesting and surprising Anime’s I have seen in a while is Time of Eve (Eve no Jikan) from Studio Rikka. The visual quality is amazing, and uses 3D environments with traditional 2D character animation to very good effect. But it is the stories themselves which make this series special; each episode focuses on a character (human, robot, or android) and explores their relationship with a member of the opposite phylum. This wonderful little series started life as webisodes in 2008, and was migrated to TV in 2009. They have made a theatrical version which hit the big screen in Tokyo and Osaka this spring, and you can watch the TV version streaming online at Crunchyroll. I really hope they do a second season of this one, and release the movie to the US soon.
This one looks very interesting; from October 10th to the 24th this year the USA Science & Engineering Festival will take place in the Washington, D.C. area. Billing itself as the the country’s first national science festival, it already has over 500 organizations signed up to participate, and will end with a two day Expo in the nation’s capital according to their official blog. This event will give science & engineering groups the opportunity to present themselves to the public with hands-on science activities to inspire the next generation of researchers and developers. The teams involved are wide ranging, and include such diverse outfits and events as the 4H National Youth Science Day, the You Can Do The Cube competition, a presentation from Hollywood Movie Physics, and the Versatile Mr. Freeze from FermiLabs, to name but a few. And yes, you can follow them on a boatload of social media tools, including Twitter.
This video came from NASA itself, and shows the ATHLETE rover (All-Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer) deploying in boogie mode; what a hoot.