Since the existence of Twitter the online media landscape has changed a lot. We now get breaking news faster through Twitter then traditional media. Celebrities are made, traditional celebrities complain about the paparazzi, information is exchanged and we get a good dose of funny tweets on all subjects.

Brooklyn based artist Kiersten Essenpreis and journalist/writer David K. Israel decided to select the most fun tweets and create illustrations of them. David is in charge of selecting the tweets while Kiersten illustrates them, together they present the most hilarious illustrations that make the original tweet even more funnier.

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Recently I’ve been watching an older anime called “Stellvia of The Universe”, produced by XEBEC and released in 2003. In the anime, human civilization was nearly wiped out in the year 2167 AD when the shockwave from a nearby star going supernova reaches the Earth. Nearly two centuries later, in the year 2356 AD, humanity has recovered from the first shockwave and has banded together to carry out “The Great Mission”, a plot to shield the Sol system from a second shockwave. The story follows a young girl by the name of Shima Katase (nicknamed Shipon) as she struggles though an intense program designed to train pilots for The Great Mission. The training takes place onboard the Stellvia (a large space colony), which is where the anime gets its name from.

While Stellvia of The Universe is categorized as a sci-fi anime, it’s really more of a drama (think BSG). Most of the show is focused on the ups and downs of relationships between friends, family, and lovers. That’s not to say that there isn’t much action, as bitter rivalries between the pilots leads to a few violent space battles.

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As the whole world knows, Pixar is the holy grail of animated film. They can do no wrong. Every film they’ve made has been a #1 hit, and an instant classic.

But because they have such a reputation for excellence, we never hear about their failures. But as every genius will tell you, brilliance is achieved only on the backs of countless failures. One of Pixar’s failures is a movie called Newt.

Newt was announced a few years back as being one of Pixar’s many movies in the pipeline, but since then it’s been canceled for unknown reasons. (My theory: Pixar simply couldn’t make the story live up to its standards, and rather than release something subpar, they scrapped it.) The story was to involve the last two animals of their kind — a male and a female newt — who scientists needed to get to mate to save their species, but who can’t stand each other. Cue adorable romantic hijinks.

Anyhoo, Newt’s been canceled for whatever reason, but Pixar today posted 30 concept images from the film. And as with all things Pixar, the concept art alone is gorgeous, sweet, and utterly amazing. Check out the full gallery on Pixar’s Facebook page.

The rumors were true! Gearbox Software has taken over development of Duke Nukem Forever on behalf of Take 2 Interactive, and hope to have the game out sometime in 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The news was officially announced at PAX, the open-to-the-public gaming expo which is taking place as I write this.

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I took to thinking not so very long ago that the epic (but exactly highest quality) DC vs Marvel could do with another sequel. Both companies have moved on in their continuities quite dramatically, even if Marvel has returned to something approximating the original status quo.

We have seen the spirit of it in the very-definitely epic JLA vs Avengers, and it would be nice to see a sequel to that. (Lawyers take note here.) One could of course say that Kurt Busieks Trinity was indeed that sequel, but that only looked at one side of the dimensional/commercial divide. Personally, I think Access (or more to the point Dark Access) has a lot of potential in the hands of the correct writers, especially if the space is given for a good story to develop.

Take for instance the aforementioned sequel Trinity, a timeline in and of itself (briefly), and one as deserving of longevity as that of The Kingdom. Mirroring that is the House Of M, how indeed was the battle between to two great Brothers fought in those timelines? Darkseid is returning (it appears) in the current issues of the Legion Of Super-Heroes, despite his very final, never coming back, he is definitely dead this time death in Final Crisis. Who better to resurrect him than his corrupted future self of Axel Asher?

Infinite Crisis resurrected the multiverse, where did that leave Kismet of the Superman/Dominus stories? M-Day that wiped the vast majority of mutants from the mainstream timeline and according to Forge and the Beast, all neighbouring realities as well (even if it did not seem to affect the Exiles all that much), was an event that could have been felt by the Red Brother himself. Plus we saw that interdimensional tsunami (what a concept) in the Uncanny X-Men House Of M crossover, a plot thread that could be used to kick off events. A total excuse for a series of relaunches, the Ultraverse, the New Universe, another Squadron Supreme, the list goes on. (You just knew I had to get the relaunch concept in somewhere, eh?)

The two companies could really make a meal out of this. I mean, if they can overcome the licensing issues for the various four-issue mini-series, then they could do a year long series. And I don’t just mean a twelve issue run, because this would definitely be a biweekly series I would invest in.  Hell, make it another weekly, with lasting ramifications for both continuities. Surely they could write something into the agreement where they can be allowed to refer to these events later? Possibly in a less clumsy form than DC have in the case of JLA/Avengers. (Still, you have to give DC credit, they at least didn’t ignore it unlike Marvel).

Researching this gave me hope, as I found the following quote online:

While at Comic-Con, recently promoted C.B. Cebulski was asked at the Marvel Mondo Panel on Thursday if we can expect a Marvel vs. DC Crossover in the future. Cebulski’s answered for the panel by stating that Marvel would be more than willing to do it again, and that the ball is in DC’s court. He then tasked the room to extend that challenge back out to DC in Marvel’s name. DC has yet to respond.

I would ask the two companies to seriously consider this, and really go to town on the idea. In fact, we should all start badgering them at every possible opportunity. (Your mission, should you choose to accept it……………)

So check it out, I’m a bit confused as to what the new Mega Man Universe is suppose to be all about, I would expect that in our day of advanced gaming we would see some cool 3D graphics, more in depth worlds to explore and a new look and feel to the franchise, instead, hell I’d even be happy with some more advanced loading and level screens, instead the game looks eerily like the Mega Man of old.

On the one hand, this is a lot better than the Mega Man Universe teaser that was released earlier and features 8-bit Mega Man, NES Mega Man and Ryu from Street Fighter among other characters that appeared to have nothing to do with the teaser, on the other hand, it’s still confusing enough to watch that the games creator Keiji Inafune had to come out and intro it.

Take a look at the demo:

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I’ve always maintained that Facebook can help boost productivity, contrary to many companies’ policies.  Then again, not everyone works in a set up like the one we have here at FG.  Today, I ran across the site called Unclutterer, courtesy of a friend on Facebook.  The post that got me distracted all day is about lists of things that you won’t do again.

You know how some people have bucket lists? Well, I’d like to call this the Geek Frak List – things that I will not do again in relation to gadgets, toys, and other geeky stuff.  I have been sitting here for hours thinking about items to put on the list (not continuously, of course), and here is what I have come up with. It’s not as long as I would like it to be, but this should do for now. Read the rest of this entry »

That Nathan Sawaya is one creative guy. I just love following the stuff he does, because he never repeats himself and always looks for new ways of showing the world his LEGO Art.

His latest experiment has been “tagging,” aka graffiti. But how does one make graffiti out of LEGO? Sawaya’s answer is Hugman, a small LEGO man that he builds and leaves “hugging” various structures in populated areas. He says Hugman rarely stays in place for more than a day, but it’s a cool idea. Check out this video that gives a quick overview of all things Hugman:

It’s been an auspicious week for lovers of comics and lovers of good TV – and, ideally, the perfect marriage of the two. First, The Walking Dead was reportedly offered a second season almost 2 months before it even premiers (although the second season appears to be officially unconfirmed, most news outlets are, based on their sources, considering it a given). Now, rumor has it The Sandman is making its way to the small screen.

The Sandman, for the uninitiated, was an epic comic penned by Neil Gaiman and published by DC/Vertigo between 1989-1996. It is one of the most highly acclaimed comics of all time, and the only comic to ever win the World Fantasy Award. Even Entertainment Weekly rated it as one of the best reads in recent decades. In print, The Sandman has major staying power.

On screen, things aren’t so sure. There’s undoubtedly potential for the story of the Lord of Dreams, who must repair his kingdom after years of neglect, to translate extremely well to the television medium. Since most of The Sandman takes place independent of the DC comics universe in which it resides, there’s not a whole lot of back story one must be in-the-know to understand. It also has tremendous appeal for its dark horror and fantasy spin, which should make it a shoe-in for more grown up cable programming. Read the rest of this entry »

The age of innocence has come to an end at Nintendo, ladies and gentlemen I present to you the Mojowiijo, a device that not only has the worse name in the history of Wii motion based controllers, but which also provides the most nefarious use, sex toys.

That’s right, with these true “beauties”, I use that word loosely, you can have two vibrating toys that can even attach to your PC, removing the Wii from the equation all together, but then the creators wouldn’t have bragging rights for having created the toy people have talked about, but didn’t have the balls to create.

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Alright! Somebody’s finally making a Back to the Future videogame! This is so overdue. That first movie is still one of my favorite movies of all time.

Marty McFly and Doc Brown are coming to a platform near you thanks to a new partnership between Telltale Games and Universal Studios. Telltale is best known for its episodic, story-driven adventure games, such as the Sam & Max series. They’re bringing this same formula to a five-episode “season” for Back to the Future, this winter. The first concept art from the game is seen above.

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Our colleagues over at Apple Gazette had a look at the product and stock value history of the popular Cupertino based company. The result is an awesome infographic and lots of interesting statistics.

Below a teaser image of the infographic, view the complete file at AppleGazette.

Only in Japan do these things happen. Now that statement might be false, but one thing I am sure of – going on a date with a virtual partner is quite extraordinary! You may have heard of the game Love Plus⁺ – a dating video game where you can find the partner of dreams (albeit a virtual one).

Created by Konami for the Nintendo DS, Love Plus⁺ quickly gained popularity in Japan and hit an all time high when a college guy actually married his virtual partner. Sad, I know, but it did push the game into the limelight. So, a year later, we haven’t been hearing much of the game (maybe outside of Japan) – until now. Read the rest of this entry »

At today’s Apple keynote event, Epic Games showed up to tease a new game they’re working on called Project Sword. Showing off some of the 3D gameplay the game will make possible, using Epic’s Unreal Engine (the same game engine used for Gears of War, Mass Effect, and more), they’ve made a free app available to download from iTunes. It’s called “Epic Citadel,” and it’s basically a FPS-style 3D castle/village environment for you to wander around in and take a look at what the Unreal engine can do on iPod, iPhone, or iPad.

I just downloaded the iPad version and have to say, I’m impressed. The controls are simple and intuitive, and the eye candy is definitely something to behold. Check out the handful of screenshots I just took (below), and then go to iTunes to download the app for yourself. Epic is making its Apple development tools available to other game makers, which opens the door to a whole new era of gaming on Apple’s portable devices.

There were some jaws that had to be picked up off the floor this morning when Apple held its latest media event. Emceed as ever by Steve Jobs, the event was primarily about Apple updating its entire line of iPods, but it was a handful of other announcements that stole the show.

Here’s a quick rundown of everything you need to know.

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Sure Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers may have the dark side to aid them in their battles, but there’s nothing like staying nice and limber as well, that’s where a daily routine of Tai Chi comes into play.

Notice the lazy Stormtroopers in the background who are doing little more than standing around.

Watch as Darth Vader does his Lift Knee Thrust Upward pose and his Turn Body, Thrust Downward Pose among 40 other moves in the style of Star Wars.

Here’s the video:

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