Electronic Arts has posted a net loss of USD 33 million for the third quarter, compared with net income of USD 160 million during the same period of the prior year.
Even so, revenue rose 17 per cent to USD 1.5 billion compared with USD 1.28 billion last year. The company's net income of USD 290 million, or USD 0.90 per share, was in line with analyst expectations.
"This was a record revenue quarter for EA and the single biggest revenue quarter for any third party publisher in our industry," said CEO John Riccitiello.
Sales were driven by Need for Speed: Pro Street, FIFA 08, The Simpsons Game, Madden NFL 08, The Sims 2 Castaway, and NBA LIVE 08. The company reported that it had sold 1.5 million units of RockBand through the end of December.
EA also reported delays for Battlefield: Bad Company and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Their release dates have slipped from March, but the company expects to ship both titles in fiscal 2009.
EA has revised its Q4 guidance, expecting revenue in the range of USD 925 million - 1.05 billion, and earnings per share in the range of a loss of USD 0.03 to a gain of USD 0.02.
For the fiscal year, EA raised its guidance regarding revenue in the range of USD 3.462 - 3.587 billion, compared to earlier guidance of USD 3.35 billion - 3.65 billion.
Update: In a conference call to investors, CEO John Riccitiello indicated that RockBand would not be shipping in Europe until Q1 2009, which begins in April. He also refused to give a firm release date for Spore, saying only that it would be released "before the holidays" this year.
Microsoft just announced what has been rumored forever: a formal offer for Yahoo. Microsoft's proposal to Yahoo's board of directors represents $31 per share (a 62% premium over yesterday's closing price) or about $44.6 Billion. Steve Ballmer, CEO and big fan of developers, says, "We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market." Apparently, the deal was laid out in a letter sent by Ballmer to Yahoo's board just yesterday. Seriously. The letter confirms that the two giants have been discussing the topic since late 2006. It also appears to be a direct response to the Google threat as outlined in the following paragraph:
"Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers."
The deal, of course, rests with the two coming to a "merger agreement" and Microsoft (and Yahoo to a limited degree) having the time to conduct the required due diligence. Microsoft is ready to begin immediate discussions and have a draft merger agreement ready for consideration. So Yahoo, ball's in your court. The world is wondering... what will you do?
Can a Lightsaber Cut Through Superman?
Can a gadget defeat a superhero? Here's a question our sister site io9 posed: can a lightsaber cut through Superman? We put both our nerdy gadget knowledge and our nerdy superhero knowledge to the test and came up with reasons why it could and reasons why it couldn't.
Yes
• If the lightsaber crystal was green, like green kryptonite, or if they actually used kryptonite as the crystal, then Superman would melt like a hot knife through even hotter dog droppings.
• Superman's been injured by lasers before (see most aliens he's fought), so an extremely focused laser like a lightsaber could possibly hurt him if applied directly to the skin for a long enough time.
• If he were under the effects of kryptonite, when even bullets can hurt him, then a lightsaber could definitely chop off parts of his body.
No
• What type of radiation does the lightsaber emit? It's light, and Superman gets power from the sun, so the lightsaber could be a refreshing lamp.
• It would just burn off his clothes, like in Superman 2, but it wouldn't hurt him.
• He uses lasers (his own heat vision) to shave himself, so the best the lightsaber could do would to singe his chest hair, or give him a nice shave down there.
• Jedis can't actually cut through "everything" with the sword. Example: the big huge door in Episode I. They had to jam in their lightsabers and "melt" a doorway inside the door. The sword was fast to go into the door because they applied all the force to the tip, but was slow cutting because the Jedis are only so strong. Picture you cutting through a watermelon. In the same principle, a lightsaber technically might be able to cut through Superman, but there's nobody strong enough to force it through. Unless you somehow get the Hulk to use a lightsaber. But the Hulk doesn't exist.
Verdict: Superman wins! [Thanks to Achal for his Superman knowledge.]
A few days ago i posted about the Wii Scene and the exciting developments that are happening but also about the staggering amount of sites blatently posting how to rip Isos of the latest Nintendo Games, now your quality homebrew and hacking sites such as DCEmu, Xbox Scene and many others would never go down that road.
One your risking the wrath of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft and lets be realistic these guys are very strong and have a shiteload of money to put you in court for years and even worse you could end up in prison. If you think you are untouchable look at the likes of LIk Sang who only sold PSPs to europe and how pissy Sony got. The purge a few months ago on Modchip and Flash cart sellers would have been warning enough for most but still i see sites posting about ISO rippers etc.
Some sites have done this in the past and although i wouldnt thats up to them but now you are getting supposedly homebrew sites posting it too, the webmaster if this site is quick to point out others failures but posts such tools, all madness.
Now i do understand that everyone and the Wragg means everyone downloads stuff that is considered illegal but no one should post on sites information like what is being posted, the harm to themselves and the homebrew and hacking community as a whole will be felt sometime along the line.
Maybe its just me but theres somethings you dont do and id rather not post such news and keep under Nintendos radar than post it.
Anyone who thinks that Sony etc arent watching the homebrew and hacking scenes is surely deluded, there are also many members of the public worldwide who consider all homebrewers and hackers to be warez merchants.
thats my little rant over,back to newsposting and beer
For the fourth time in a week, an undersea communications cable in the Mediterranean Sea has apparently been cut, and while no official reports of subversion have surfaced just yet, things are beginning to get suspicious.
Flag Telecom, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Reliance ADA Group, has had two cables damaged in the span of a week -- a quandary it has never dealt with until now. As it stands, traffic from the Middle East and surrounding areas is being routed through various other cables in an attempt to remain online, but any more snips and we could be dealing with ping times eerily similar to those seen in 1993 (or much, much larger issues).
French engineering firm Alstom unveiled its successor the the TGV today, the AGV. Standing for Automotrice Grande Vitesse, the train, which boasts an individual engine beneath each carriage, can travel at speeds of up to 223mph, or 360kph. Up to 700 passengers can be transported at a time, and less fuel is used, as the AGV is lighter than its elder sister and consumes up to 30 per cent less energy.
The AGV—translated, it means "high-speed, self-propelled carriage" was unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy (who, given his recent marriage to former supermodel Carla Bruni, is probably no stranger to le petit train pulling into the station at regular intervals) at a ceremony in La Rochelle today. Italy has already bought a stack of AGVs and plans to run them on its own rail network from 2011.
Instead of building a huge Millennium Falcon out of thousands of LEGO pieces, Tim Goddard decided to use a thousands of LEGO blocks to create 200 Star Wars mini-sets, from Star Destroyers to TIE Interceptors and Snow Speeders. He then uses these mini-scale make famous movie scenes, including the Battle of Hoth, the Millennium Falcon inside the Death Star and the race through the tunnels of Death Star II. The level of abstraction while keeping "apparent" detail is amazing at this scale. Interview and huge (I mean, HUGE) galleries after the jump.
Mini LEGO Star Wars
Jesús Díaz: How many of these constructions do you have? It looks like a gigantic fleet.
Tim Goddard: I've got about 200 mini vehicles of varing size. Most of the stuff I'm building right now is in a scale of 1cm : 2m so it's mainly starfighters and Imperial walker type stuff. I've built 6 dioramas in plastic domes to this scale to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars last year, one for each film.
I've also got a fleet of capital ships at a scale of 1cm : 6m. These battle ships have been inspired by (and to fight against!) the official 'Ultimate Collectors' set made by Lego of the Imperial Star Destroyer.
JD: LEGO has some old Star Wars micro-sets like yours... do you think they should release more of this micro-scale sets for creating vast squadrons of spaceships, to create "tin-soldier"-like dioramas, like you do? I'm thinking in a massive Death Star trench here...
TG: That would be great! Unfortunatley LEGO isn't making any of these sets right now, but there are rumours that we will see the return of this line in the summer. I think there would be a big market for mini Star Wars LEGO... who wouldn't want Darth Vader's TIE dogfighting with an X-wing on your desk? And there are loads of fans who would love to have some dioramas, there are so many classic moments from the films just waiting to be made.
JD: How do you reach to these super-simplified constructions? Do you do some planning first or you go straight for it?
TG: Just go for it! Well, mostly. Loads of reference pictures are essential and I often use an architect's ruler in the scale I'm working in; making the dimensions as accurate as possible is key to getting the look (but you can't help a bit of chunkiness, this is LEGO after all!) It can take ages to get the smallest model to look just right, endlessly taking it apart and putting it back together again.
JD: Yeah, I can imagine... how long have you been doing LEGO?
TG: Pretty much all my life. Space Lego was my favorite as a kid, and when they released Star Wars LEGO it was a match made in heaven! I've been making my own custom Star Wars stuff for maybe 5 years but I've always enjoyed building.
If you're reading Engadget today because your favorite Iranian gadget blog is offline, here's why: a fifth undersea cable has now been reported as cut, responsible for knocking Iran and a few other million people mostly off the interwebs.
Things were already looking awfully suspicious when a fourth undersea cable in the Mediterranean was cut yesterday, and while nothing about a fifth cable being cut necessarily means some sort of sabotage is to blame, it's not exactly reassuring. Emergency measures are already underway to repair the cables, but we're not sure our inter-continental Quake III Arena deathmatch can handle any more snips.
The German state of North-Rhine Westphalia wants its €41.3 million (about $60.5 million [£30.85m]) back. The reason? Germany wants the corporate subsidies given to Nokia back in 1998 and 1999 for its plant in Bochum.
The very plant Nokia is about to shut down at the cost of some 2,300 German jobs. Nokia responded to Germany's demand saying that it is "astonished" and "Based on the facts available to the company and Deutsche Bank, its advisor throughout the entire period, both parties feel strongly that such an attempt is without merit."
Of course, Nokia won't hurt too badly if forced to pay out. Nokia's new Romanian plant is expected to cost just a tenth of the Bochum plant to operate. Nokia also posted a staggering $2.6 billion [£1.33bn] in profit from the last quarter alone. The German authorities know a cash cow when they see it.
Sega Sammy Holdings warned on Friday that it expects to lose 26 billion yen ($242 million) this business year amid slow sales of pachinko machines and said it would cut 400 jobs at its game software unit.
Sega Sammy, the holding company for video game software maker Sega Corp and "pachinko" and "pachislot" gambling machine maker Sammy Corp, also slashed its dividend forecast for the year to March by a quarter to 45 yen.
The forecast for a group net loss of 26 billion yen in the year to March marks a sharp reversal from its prior estimate for a profit of 1 billion yen. It cut its sales forecast by 12 percent to 475 billion yen.
Pachinko is a vertical form of pinball while pachislot is a high-tech variation of a slot machine. The two, a form of legal gambling, are part of one of Japan's largest industries with annual revenues of some 30 trillion yen.
The pachinko market has been hit by tighter regulations on the industry, while the outlook for the game arcade market has been dented by the soaring popularity of Nintendo Co Ltd's (7974.OS: Quote, Profile, Research) Wii game console that users play at home.
Sega Sammy predicted its pachinko machine segment would see operating profit fall 85 percent to 11 billion yen, and forecast its arcade division to post a loss of 11.4 billion yen, against a 132 million yen profit in the prior business year.
The net loss forecast reflects the pushing back of planned sales of real estate to the next business year and retirement benefits to the 400 employees being cut at Sega, equivalent to about 5 percent of its group workforce.
Sega Sammy said it plans to close Sega Amusements Singapore Pte Ltd and restructure globally in order to deal with its poor performance of game machines for arcades overseas.
In November, it announced a plan to close or sell 80 of its 430 arcades by March.
Prior to the announcement, shares of Sega Sammy ended at 1,100 yen, down 5.9 percent, reaching its lowest closing price since the company was formed in October 2004 after the merger of Sega and Sammy. The shares underperformed against benchmark Topix 's 1.4 percent fall. (Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Anshuman Daga)
Activision Inc has posted its financial results for the three months ending December 31, 2007 with a record net revenue figure of USD 1.48 billion, up 80 per cent on the equivalent period the previous year.
The company, ranked as the number one publisher in the US in 2007 for both consoles and handhelds, also recorded a profit of USD 284.9 million, up 93 per cent year-on-year.
Nine month net revenues totalled USD 2.3 billion, with profit over the same period hitting USD 300.7 million - numbers which have prompted Activision to revise its full year forecasts up.
The company now expects total net revenue by the end of March to hit USD 2.65 billion - up from USD 2.45 billion - while earnings per diluted share are estimated at USD 1.07.
Highlights from the year-to-date include Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which shipped over 7 million copies to the end of 2007, and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, which took the largest amount of money for any title worldwide across the year.
Additionally the Guitar Hero franchise surpassed USD 1 billion in revenues in its lifetime during last year, and the Spiderman 3 and Transformers franchises also performed well.
Activision's planned merger with Vivendi Games is still moving forwards, according to the company's chairman and CEO, Robert Kotick.
"We are on schedule toward obtaining the stockholder and regulatory approvals needed to complete our business combination with Vivendi Games, which will create the world's largest and most profitable independent video game company and should allow us to continue delivering exceptional returns to our shareholders," he said in a statement.
"The combined company expects to have the broadest, most diverse portfolio of entertainment assets in the industry, positioning it to capitalize on the continued worldwide growth in interactive entertainment."
That deal is still subject to various regulatory, stockholder and antitrust approvals, although no major problems are anticipated, in which case completion should take place in the summer of this year.
Rumours that Viacom is making a USD 1.5 billion bid to acquire Take-Two have been rubbished by leading industry analysts.
Original speculation by a UK trade publication that Viacom is offering USD 23 per share for the Oblivion and GTA publisher have proven ill-judged, with global media giant Reuters reporting no such offer is on the cards.
"This is very unlikely," said Evan Wilson of Pacific Crest Securities. "Videogames are a hot space and media companies are interested in participating in the growth, but for Viacom, they are pursuing a completely separate strategy."
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter also believes Viacom doesn't intend to jump into a new medium by making such a large acquisition. "I don't think any of those media companies has the appetite to get into a new business," he said.
Viacom does have interests in the videogame sector – chairman Sumner Redstone holds a majority stake in Midway Games, and the company recently announced a digital partnership with Microsoft.
Update:The original rumour stated Viacom was offering "GBP 23" per share, this has since been updated to USD 23.
Holland may soon be dotted with floating buildings as Dutch architects plan against global warming. The country is already 20 percent below sea level, and rising water levels are a concern. A flooded river is no threat to a floatable building with airtight foundations, and with slack built into electricity and water cables feeding it, the whole kaboodle can simply bob upwards. The gallery shows some building concepts, dreamed up by a company called Waterstudio, among others. Melting ice caps? Bring'em on.
Yahoo said the offer "substantially undervalues" the company and is not in shareholders' interests.
Microsoft's offer was worth $31 a share, 62% above the level at which Yahoo stocks were trading when the offer was made on 1 February.
A merged Microsoft and Yahoo would be one of the biggest technology firms, and would rival industry leader Google.
As it rejected the Microsoft offer, Yahoo said that the deal undervalued its brand, audience, investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential.
The company said that its board of directors was continually evaluating all of its strategic options.
"Right now they are haggling," said technology analyst Rob Enderle.
"Yahoo is not saying no at any price. They are saying the Microsoft offer is not strong enough." he added.
A source quoted by the Wall Street Journal said that Yahoo's board would be unlikely to consider anything below $40 per share.
A $40 a share offer would be a 109% premium to the $19.18 closing price of Yahoo's shares the day before the original offer was announced.
Yahoo's shares have not traded above $40 for two years.
Online advertising
Analysts say Microsoft is likely to come up with an improved offer.
"This is so important from Microsoft's perspective there's a very good chance there will be more money on the table," said Ian Maude, from Enders Analysis.
"The strategic logic is in the online ads market. It would make them a must stop destination for any company when considering its advertising plans."
Although Yahoo's shares have fallen sharply in past months, its websites remain among the world's most popular.
Microsoft's original offer was worth as much as $44.6bn, but since the deal was announced Microsoft shares have fallen.
As half of Microsoft's offer is in cash and half in stock, that has reduced the value of the bid to about $41.8b.
NEWS direct from the set of the next Harry Potter film, The Half-Blood Prince: franchise producers David Heyman and David Barron are refusing to rule out the possibility of splitting JK Rowling's seventh and final Potter book, The Deathly Hallows, into two films.
"We are still discussing it. The announcement will be made hopefully in the not-too-distant future, with regards to the way seven shapes up," Barron tells The Back Room.
The only negative of splitting the book into two films, says Barron, "is that people could possibly perceive it as being one last chance at cashing in. But the real positive, if we were to do that, would be that we wouldn't have quite the battle we always have of 'How do you compress all that book into just over two hours of screen time?'
"It would be brilliant not to have to cut anything.
"But at the same time, we have to think it through properly. We'd have to be very certain that there were two proper, stand-alone films that could be generated from the source material."
The rumour mill is also already working overtime on who will direct the final instalment(s).
"There are an awful lot of directors, luckily for us, who are very keen on finishing the franchise off," says Barron.
Heyman is a tad more circumspect.
"A couple of people have expressed interest, people have gotten a few calls and a few emails, but it's still a year away," Heyman says.
"We won't start filming 'til February next year. So it hasn't really gone bananas yet. We've got thoughts, and I'm sure something will be announced in the not-too-distant future."
The sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, will shoot for another three months, and is due for release in November.
The recent movement in hacking of the Wii and PS3 mean we are close on 2 fronts to have 2 new exciting consoles for homebrew.
The Nintendo Wii with its Wiimote controller should provide some of the most varied and interesting games ever to be created by homebrew developers.
The PS3 with all that power should be host to some amazing emulators, although im not sure what is possible it makes you wonder if full speed Dreamcast emulation is a goer in time.
My personal hopes for the PS3 is in time some type of Custom Firmware which supports region free PS1 and PS2. Region Free gaming on the Wii would be awesome too.
Whatever happens its going to be mega exciting for the WHole Homebrew scene. As always DCEmu will continue to be at the heart of all homebrew.
What are you looking forward to with the PS3 and Wii Scenes once the first true homebrew appears ?
In a new interview with MTV, Clemence Poesy revealed that her character has been cut from Half-Blood Prince. She also told MTV that she hasn't read the final three books:
“Somebody already told me the end of ‘Order of the Phoenix,’ and I was like, ‘You’re ruining everything!’” Poésy laughed, since she plans to read the remaining books on her next vacation “back to back.” Still, she can’t resist asking for one one spoiler: “Has Harry done some bad things?”
No word yet on what's going to happen with her role in Deathly Hallows. Thanks to Lauren and Jessica for the tip!
You may remember last week we reported Spielberg is one of the candidates being considered for Deathly Hallows.
However, at last night's BAFTA awards, Digital Spy reports Dan Radcliffe told the press these rumors are not true at all:
"I have no idea how that rumour started or where it came from. It's not true. How's that for a definitive answer? It's absolute rubbish that Spielberg is directing the final film. It's not true. There's absolutely no foundation in that at all."
Currently there isn't any word on other directors being considered, but we expect an announcement in the coming months. Thanks to CJ for the tip!
Over the past few months we've been giving you several Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park updates. Today, Jim Hill Media (a popular theme park insider blog) has some new interesting tidbits concerning JK Rowling's decision to grant the rights, construction, Hagrid's hut, and more:
According to Universal insiders, this bare framework is just the start. In the weeks and months ahead, literally thousands of pieces of metal will be hoisted up & then bolted into place. As a full-sized recreation of Harry Potter's alma mater is built at the southwestern border of IOA's "Jurassic Park" section.
Electronic Arts has extended its licensing deal with the National Football League and NFL Players to create and distribute American football games until 2013.
As well as covering all forms of console videogames – handheld, home consoles and console-based online features – the agreement also allows EA access to NFL Films and the NFL Network "to enrich its game experiences".
"This is all about bringing authenticity and realism to NFL videogames," commented Eric Grubman, president of NFL Ventures.
"EA Sports continually works to maintain the cutting edge for NFL products across a variety of gaming platforms. We like the fact that they never rest."
EA's Madden franchise has genereated over USD 2 billion in retail sales, and 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of the series.
"For nearly two decades, EA Sports has been bringing sports fans closer to the great game of football through the breakthrough interactive experiences of our videogames," said Peter Moore, president of EA Sports.
"Game quality is our top priority, and we're committed to pushing our gameplay innovation, connecting football fans via rich online experiences and delivering the most visually stunning sports games on the market," he added.
We've already seen plenty of evidence of the potential damage that sat navs can cause, but the UK's Network Rail has now put a figure on at least some of it, saying that the devices are responsible for damaging some 2,000 bridges per year and causing 5,000 hours of delays. That, thankfully, is not from the satellites falling from the sky, but rather from over drivers relying a little too heavily on GPS units (in particular those driving trucks too large for the bridges), a problem apparently so bad that some places in the UK have taken to putting up signs warning of the dangers. That's apparently not quite enough to solve the problem, however, and now , in addition to warning people to use a little common sense, Network Rail is also reportedly attempting to map all of the UK's low bridges and level crossings so that the information can be added to GPS software.
When you hear a company is going to court over piracy issues, you immediatlry think of DS and the R4 issue, or how nearly every game is available in Korea before the developers have even finished it. But fake swords? That's a new one in our book.
Square Enix says other pirates could be named and dragged into court and that the lawsuit is part of its anti-piracy measures against people who make unauthorised use (and bags of cash) of its brands.
General counsel Yasuhiko Hasegawa said, "We are actively pursuing those who commit intellectual property infringement against our company. Any illegal activities, including the sale and distribution of unauthorized replica merchandise and counterfeit jewelry, and the unauthorized copying of Square Enix games, music, movies, images, and other intellectual property, will be prosecuted."
Quick, hide those fake Tifa earrings you bought the misses ten years ago...
This stunning 1:36 scale B-1B bomber is made of about 8,000 LEGO blocks, beating the Millennium Falcon's 5,195. Created with no special pieces, it has movable wings and retractable landing gear, just like the rest of its companions: one Russian plane, the SU-27 Flanker, and two classic US aircraft, the E-2C Hawkeye and the now infamous F-15. We talked with Ralph Savelsberg, the LEGO master behind them (you asked for these interviews), about how he builds them..
Jesús Díaz: How many pieces do your models use?
Ralph Savelsberg: I don't really keep track of how many parts I use for any particular model. I can really only guess. The smaller ones (the F-15, Su-27 and E-2C) probably use between 1,500 and 2,500 parts each. I wouldn't be able to narrow it down any more precisely without taking them apart and counting. The B-1B is a lot bigger and heavier and probably uses between 6,000 and 10,000 parts.
JD: How's your typical building process?
RS: There are quite a few builders who sit down and start building. I can't quite do things like that, or perhaps it doesn't actually lend itself very well to the subject. I use pictures and plans of the aircraft. 1/72 is a fairly common scale for model aircraft and it's comparatively easy to find proper drawings on that scale. My planes are 1/36 mainly because I can simply scale them up by a factor of two 2 relative to the scale drawings.
JD: So you use drawings first?
RS: I usually make a number of drawings (the old-fashioned way with a pencil and paper) trying to figure out how to represent the aircrafts' general outlines, such as the shape of the wings, for instance, in LEGO parts. There is only a limited range of angles available in LEGO plates, so getting the angle of the leading or trailing edge of the wings right can be tricky. I used a pythagorean triple (3,4,5) to do the tailplane on the B-1B and used a combination of different angle plates to get the wing on the E-2C right. That's the sort of thing I really have to work out on paper.
I sometimes also make drawings of specific parts of a plane, such as the nose on the E-2C or it's radar dish.. I find that simply putting parts together doesn't work as well for me as visualising the shape, thinking about how to build it in LEGO and then making a few drawings before I start to build. The Su-27 was almost completely designed on paper. The F-15 was a lot simpler somehow and came together without too much preparation.
Here's another set of stunning, but rejected, Star Wars merchandise. These amazing examples of human genius go from a mini-fridge with Han Solo frozen in carbonite as its door to a Death Star BBQ, actual Leia's hair headphones and even an AT-AT chair caddy to hold your magazines, snacks and Pepsi—the marketing masterminds proposed all these gadgets—next to your favorite sofa. The best ones are frightening, yet irresistible.
We don't know about you, but to us, there's nothing cuter than a warm, cuddly bunny -- save for Hello Kitty, of course. Thankfully, the National Institute of Health and the EPA have teamed up to jumpstart a five-year research program that "will use high-speed automated screening robots" instead of live animals to run chemical tests on cells grown in a laboratory.
Reportedly, the long term goal here is to "reduce the cost, time and number of animals used in screening everything from pesticides to household chemicals," but according to those involved with the initiative, it'll be quite some time before non animal-based testing becomes the norm. Hang tight, dear bunnies -- there's hope for you all yet.
Oscilloscope hacks are generally reserved for the most extreme gaming geeks, but this version of "Scopetris" is something that any Tetris fan can appreciate. Running on an oscilloscope decked out with custom hardware, the creator actually drew each piece, giving the board an interesting juxtaposition of the physical and the digital. And it beats the hell out of Pong. Here's a vid of the gorgeous creation in action:
Our coverage of American electoral politics rarely extends far beyond cheesy flash games, the occasional virtual world appearance, and the ever-looming threat of federal video game legislation. Thanks to Fundrace 2008 and 1UP, however, we have an opportunity to take a peak at the political leanings of the industry's biggest companies.
1UP has combed Fundrace's database of political campaign contributions to create an impressive list of contributions made by members of companies like Activision, EA, and Blizzard. These contributions are entirely separate from the ESA's proposed Political Action Committee, which is not planned to go into action until March.
Obviously political leanings have little to do with the creative output of these companies (and the leanings of some company members certainly have no weight on the leanings of others). Still, it's interesting to see how the big names of these companies spend their money (and, amazingly, how many contributed to failed campaigns).
We just spotted these great, life-sized Lego models of Indiana Jones, C3PO and a Clone Wars Trooper at the annual Toy Fair. We asked how many Lego bricks it took to construct each one, but were told that it was "a big secret." We couldn't care less, they look amazing, and we desperately need some new office furnishings to brighten up the place. Unfortunately, these are just show pieces, and those hoping for a gigantic Indiana Jones Lego pack will have to make do with these (movie spoiler) kits instead. Clone Wars fans get some smaller Lego-loving, too, but we want them so bad, we're going to try and smuggle the life-size models out. Stay tuned for news on the covert operation. Checkout the gallery for a ton of awesome images.
Japan's world's fastest maglev train may still be quite a few years away from becoming a reality, but it looks like the country can now brag about another slightly smaller but similarly contactless vehicle, with a new suitably futuristic bus now making its debut at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. As if that bit of technology wasn't enough, the bus is also a hybrid vehicle, and promises a sixty percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to those old 20th century-style buses. Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of other details at the moment (and what is available is subject to the wonders of machine translation), but it looks like the first bus is already in service, and covering a 4.2 kilometer area around the airport.
What do you do with a 25-meter-high acrylic glass cylinder, 238,000 gallons of sea water, 2,600 fish from 56 different species, and two divers? The Aquadom, the largest cylindrical aquarium in the world, that's what. In its core there's an elevator that travels through a cylinder of glass. As you will see in the videos after the jump, it's simply stunning.
Located in the atrium of the 5-star Radisson SAS Hotel in Berlin Mitte, the $18.8 million aquarium is 36 feet in diameter and sits on a 29.5-foot-tall concrete foundation. Without a doubt, the most impressive thing about the aquarium from an engineering point of view is the glass surface. Built by Reynolds Polymer Technology, it required 41 R-Cast pannels, 26 for the outside cylinder and 15 panels for the inside, plus 16 on-site bonds. The precision of the work, required to hold that water volume and pressure, it's amazing. Reynolds is specialized in creating this kind of aquarium, among other things, which other jewels like the AB Baltic Mega Mall Aquarium, which holds 43,000 gallons of water but has reef sharks, or the aquariums of the famous the Burj-Al-Arab tower, in Dubai.
It was built in 2003, but we just came across it as we prepare our trips to CeBIT 2008, which is going to happen in Hannover on March but will serve as a perfect excuse to jump to Berlin in order to see friends for the weekend.
Needless to say, the Radisson SAS Hotel Berlin is going to be one of our destinations, hopefully staying in one of the rooms that overlook this awesome piece of engineering. And I will get my diving computer, just in case we can convince the pair of full-time divers that clean and feed the fish every day to let us dive for 30 minutes.
While we've been told that those undersea cables that were cut a couple weeks ago were slashed by errant anchors, the International Telecommunication Union now claims that it was deliberate sabotage.
The reasoning? While one of the cables may have been cut by an anchor, the others were too deep for that to be a possibility. Also, five cables being cut in one week is highly improbable. I don't know how a saboteur gets that deep to cut cables in the first place, let alone five of them, so I'm highly skeptical. I mean, come on, aren't we giving the terrorists a bit too much credit here? This isn't a James Bond movie. The most likely culprit is still Godzilla as far as I'm concerned.
What do you guys think: terrorism, giant undersea lizards or some other explanation?
Reports have emerged online today that two new actors have been cast for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. David Legeno will play the role of the werewolf, Fenrir Greyback and Ralph Ineson has been cast for the part of Death Eater Amycus Carrow.
Lois Lowry, a children's book writer, has updated her online blog with information about The Giver movie. She had hoped Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince director David Yates would be able to direct The Giver. However:
...he has just decided he wants to do the final Harry Potter first, thereby postponing The Giver by several years.
While this is not confirmed by Warner Brothers yet, it appears to be a pretty reliable source.
A new camera chip design from scientists at Stanford University has opened up the possibility of 3D photos. The chip has stacked 16 x 16 pixel arrays and a host of micro-lenses, much like a fly's eye, enabling the whole chip to "see" in three dimensions, unlike a normal 2D pixel array digital camera sensor. Here's how it works:
Data from the "multi-aperture array" then goes through image processing to extract a standard RGB image, along with a "depth map" for each pixel—very useful for applications like face- or object-recognition.
Essentially, each tiny sub-array of pixels in the Stanford sensor sees objects in front of the camera from a slightly different viewpoint. Software then looks for relative shifts between the same object's image in different lenses, and processes this parallax data to work out the object's distance.
As well as giving depth information, the design may reduce the color-crosstalk problems current sensors suffer from. It can also take macro close-ups in restricted spaces, making it potentially useful in medical situations.
Adobe has demonstrated a similar device in the past, but this new design is compacted onto one chip, and much simpler to integrate into current camera technology. For now, the pixel count is limited, and the image processing requirements would put a hefty strain on camera batteries. But, given a little time, your DSLR might one day be able to snap 3D family groupings, ready to show on your holo-display.
A new MTV Movies blog entry comments on yesterday's Deathly Hallows rumors. MTV says that a source at Warner Brothers told them an announcement was coming within the "next week or two," but we've learned that MTV may have not been told this at all.
If true, this falls in line with recent quotes from Potter producers David Heyman and David Barron, who both said an announcement about the DH movie split would come in the "not-too-distant future." We'll let you know more as soon as we know more!
David Barron has revealed to the Herald Sun that a new scene has been added in the upcoming Half-Blood Prince film in order to remind moviegoers that nowhere is safe. Having JK Rowling's approval of the scene, Barron is confident that people will like it:
But this was brought in because Jo (Rowling) was able throughout the quite lengthy book to keep dropping little snippets of what was happening in the outside world - there'd be people reading newspapers and talking about how somebody's parents had been killed, or somebody had been withdrawn from school because their parents didn't think it was safe.
And we're making aware that the Muggle world is also experiencing these disasters, but thinks they are disasters rather than the work of Voldemort.
The book is peppered with those moments, but we couldn't do that quite so easily in the film.
So (the extra scene) comes in the middle of the film and it just reminds us the world is no longer a safe place. Even in what would normally be considered the safe haven of the Burrow, nobody's safe.
Over the past few months we've been bringing you lots of news and pics focusing around Universal Studios' Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Orlando.
Thanks to MuggleNet reader Madeleine, we now have in our gallery some photos taken of construction just last week. As you can see, one structure in particular is quickly coming together with steel beams. There is also one wooden wall being built in the middle of the whole work area.
The theme park is still set to open between December 2009 and Spring 2010. We'll continue to update you as we receive more pictures and reports. Thanks again to Madeleine for the pictures!
Remember that R2-D2 projector that's been taunting you for months? Of course, how could you forget? Apparently, these critters are getting set to roll off the assembly line (seen above, if you couldn't piece it together) and into eager hands everywhere. The R2-D2 DVD Projector is up for pre-order right now for a stiff €2,799 ($4,114), and while that's most definitely more than we'd like to pay, it's probably better than waiting for all 4,000 to run out and being forced to pay "market price."
As if anyone needed to tell us this, MTV published an article earlier today about research concluding that the Harry Potter series can in fact be addicting. The story notes:
In a just-finished study that's being submitted to the Journal of General Psychology, psych professor Dr. Jeffrey Rudski and two of his undergrad students at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, report that they found characteristics of addiction in at least 10 percent of the 4,000 Potter fans they polled online.
While the doctor discusses that the end of the series did have serious withdrawal symptons for some, likening it to going off a drug "cold turkey," he also said he chose to do the study on the end of the boy wizard's saga over the conclusion of the hit series The Sopranos because of his 15-year old daughter and the things she's taken from it:
"She's picked up guitar because she wants to be in a wizard-rock band," he said. "She's studying Latin because she wants to better understand J.K. Rowling's choices of names for her characters. She started reading Stephen King and John Irving because they spoke with Rowling at Radio City two summers ago." If that's being an addict, he's down with it.
Tired of the air not doing enough for you? Well, a new project called Green Freedom -- headed up by researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory -- seeks to improve air's contribution to our planet. The new technology would provide a method of extracting CO2 from the air and then converting the gas into fuel for cars or airplanes -- thus sucking out toxins from our atmosphere while creating a renewable energy source. The process uses a form of electrochemical separation to siphon juice out of the typically poisonous gas, yet has a low environmental impact with a small waste-stream output. The plan calls for the use of existing plants, which will stem the need to build new facilities, enabling the environmental footprint to remain relatively small. Clearly, it's not being put into general practice yet, but it's a hopeful taste of things to come.
DailyTech has reported that Jack Thompson has been ordered to explain himself. 'Therefore, it is ordered that you shall show cause on or before March 5, 2008, why this Court should not find that you have abused the legal system process and impose upon you a sanction for abusing the legal system, including, but not limited to directing the Clerk of this Court to reject for filing any future pleadings, petitions, motions, letters, documents, or other filings submitted to this Court by you unless signed by a member of The Florida Bar other than yourself.
Any move by the government to introduce legislation that forces the UK's broadband providers to police the internet by clamping down on illegal sharing of copyrighted music and movies would be technologically unworkable and create a legal minefield, experts have warned.
In a wide ranging review of the UK's £60bn creative industry, culture secretary Andy Burnham this week called on internet service providers (ISPs) to come up with a workable plan to stop music and movie piracy, or the government will bring in its own laws next year.
The industry's trade body, the ISPA, has spent months in discussions with music and movie companies about ways of preventing illegal filesharing, but buoyed by recent success in France, the major record labels and Hollywood studios have lobbied the government hard for faster action.
One senior internet industry executive, who did not wish to be named, said this intensive political lobbying has "given the government a completely false idea of what is possible with current technology".
Legal experts, meanwhile, pointed out that if the government does opt for new legislation it will need not only to rip up parts of the current legislation and amend data protection laws, but its plans could fall foul of wider human rights laws that entitle people to a degree of privacy in their communications.
"The big issue, frankly, is the impossibility of the internet service providers getting in amongst it and monitoring what goes on on their networks," warned Alex Brown, internet law specialist at Simmons & Simmons.
"Technically speaking, it's near impossible to do. The sheer volume of traffic means it just cannot be done fast enough. And this is a technical problem, not a legal problem. What is going to stop people stealing content is not the law — these people already know it is illegal; what will stop people is a technical solution that adequately protects both people's rights and copyrighted material. But we do not have one."
The sheer scale of online piracy in the UK has been highlighted by new research from price comparison site Moneysupermarket.com today, which shows that nearly one in five British internet users admit to having illegally downloaded copyright material.
Rob Barnes, head of broadband and mobiles at moneysupermarket.com, said many internet users do not actually know that the content they are downloading is illegal when they access it.
"The government is trying to prevent this growing problem, but it's clear people are not always aware they have infringed on copyright law," he said. "Perhaps the government should focus on educating people on the penalties of copyright [violation], as well as what actually constitutes piracy."
Among the 26 commitments made by the government to help the creative industries is a pledge to "promote better understanding of the value and importance of intellectual property" through school education programmes. It also wants to increase the fine that magistrates can impose on "pirates" from its current limit of £5,000.
The music and film industries welcomed the government's backing in the fight against piracy, which they claim lost them £460m in 2006, but the government's Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy document provided little detail of how the ISPs are supposed to stop the online pirates.
The music labels and Hollywood studios, however, believe recent plans announced in France could provide a blueprint for the UK market. Last year French president Nicolas Sarkozy backed an industry proposal that would see the country's ISPs monitor all their traffic for illegal filesharing.
British internet technology experts, however, believe the lack of detail in the French proposal shows the sheer complexity — and expense — of any system that requires service providers to check out every bit of data that travels across their networks.
Data traversing the internet is split into "packets", around which is wrapped information about where that piece of information is going. Like the address on an envelope, that data can easily be read, and initially it provided information to suggest the contents of the packet might be illegally copied copyrighted material. But peer-to-peer filesharing technology has evolved and now merely reading the so-called "packet header" will give no clue as to what's inside.
Inspecting the actual contents of the packet is much more difficult. It is also currently illegal. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) the UK's ISPs are not allowed to inspect the contents of packets without proper authority and only when such action is necessary and proportionate in the context of the issue being investigated.
These powers are used by the police to intercept and copy email and other traffic in terrorism investigations. Legal experts doubt that snooping on everyone's internet traffic just to protect the commercial interests of the music and film industries would be allowed under the current legislation. In addition, the police do not translate their intercepted material in "real time", as would be necessary in any UK-wide piracy clampdown.
Experts also warn that even if the technology evolved to make real-time, so-called "deep packet" monitoring — or "sniffing" — easy and cheap to do, the serious filesharers would simply start encrypting their content. As a result, only first-time or inexperienced filesharers would end up being caught.
Already there are several programs that use the popular bittorrent filesharing technology — such as Azureus, which can encrypt files so they are harder to spot.
One suggestion mooted by the music and film industry is for the ISPs to flag up as potential filesharers any customer with high data usage. But the booming popularity of legitimate broadband TV services such as the BBC's iPlayer and ITV.com, as well as the arrival of downloadable film rental services from sites such as Amazon, means that being a heavy consumer of bandwidth will increasingly be no indication of wrongdoing.
One voluntary way of dealing with major filesharers might be for the ISPs to prevent their users accessing the "tracker" websites that help filesharers set up the peer-to-peer connections they need in order to swap content.
A similar voluntary system of website blocking already exists for sites known to contain child pornography. But such a blacklist of sites risks wiping out all trackers, some of which do not signpost copyrighted material.
Forcing the ISPs to start monitoring what their customers do also ends their legal protection as a so-called mere conduit, leaving them open to lawsuits if they cut off a user who has not been doing anything illegal.
The ISPA warned today that any forced monitoring of internet traffic could lead to the collapse of many of the country's smaller ISPs.
Getting a workable system in France is easier as the country has less than a dozen ISPs. In the UK there are more than 140, and if they have to start spending millions of pounds installing new equipment, many of the smaller players could go bust without support from the hugely profitable music and film industry.
"Internet service providers are not law enforcement officers," said a spokesman for the ISPA. "And rights holders such as film and music companies already secure their rights in other formats, so it's only right for an industry to help pay to protect its intellectual property."
A spokesman for the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said: "We would of course prefer a voluntary solution and we are certainly not pretending it will be easy."
The government intends to consult the internet industry about possible steps it can take after Easter, but if the industry cannot come up with a solution then the government will look at legislative solutions in 2009.
Brandon Erickson has an interesting post about an experiment on players' emotional reactions to killing and being killed in a first-person shooters (FPS) with a group of students who played James Bond 007: Nightfire while their facial expressions and physiological activity were tracked and recorded moment-to-moment via electrodes and various other monitoring equipment. The study found that "death of the player's own character...appear[s] to increase some aspects of positive emotion." The authors believe this may result from the temporary "relief from engagement" brought about by character death. "Part of this has to do with the intriguing aesthetic question of precisely how the first-person-shooter represents the player after the moment of death," says Clive Thompson. "This sudden switch in camera angle — from first person to third person — is, in essence, a classic out-of-body experience, of exactly the sort people describe in near-death experiences. And much like real-life near-death experiences, it tends to suffuse me with a curiously zen-like feeling." An abstract of the original article, "The psychophysiology of James Bond: Phasic emotional responses to violent video game events" is available on the web."
Obnoxiously this alleged scholarly research is not available for free, so we'll just have to speculate wildly what it says based on the abstract.
We've already seen the confusion and hilarity some so-called "portable" computers can cause when taken out into public, but those shenanigans are nothing compared to the scene stirred up when the folks from Improv Everwhere lugged some ancient desktop computers (replete with CRT monitors) into a Starbucks.
As you can see in the video after the break, they surprisingly weren't kicked out, but they did manage to attract a fair bit of attention, including from a few folks that thought the computers were set up for public use. Be sure to head up the read link below for the full report, as well as another video with the team relishing in their accomplishment.
Hi all we had 2 bouts of downtime yesterday one caused by a server outage at our hosts which took us offline for 3 hours and the other by the sheer amount of visitors from the likes of Slashdot, joystiq and others because of yesterdays explosion of releases on the Wii which saw releases of Wii Linux, Mp3 Player, Gamecube Dol to Elf Converter (Convert Gamecube Homebrew to work natively on Wii) and the first Snes Emulator made for Wii.
Quite an exciting day for any homebrew fan from any scene.
An investment group has sued Activision over its impending merger with Vivendi, alleging that the company directors failed to obtain the best deal.
Last December, Vivendi agreed to buy a controlling stake in Activision to create the world's biggest videogame company. Vivendi will own a 52 per cent stake in the combined company, which will be called Activision Blizzard.
According to a Delaware Online news journal, a complaint was filed in Delaware Chancery Court by the Wayne County Employee's Retirement System.
"The merger, stock purchase and tender offer, working in concert, convey control of Activision to Vivendi but fail to offer the Activision stockholders an opportunity to realize a true control premium for their stock," lawyers for the Michigan-based investment group said in the complaint.
Activision had not responded to a request for comment at press time.
Hi just to let you know at 12:55am on the 27th Feb2008 we just had an earthquake in sherwood, Nottingham, England lasted for around 30 seconds and shook our house, went outside to check and 4 of my neighbours reported the same. Not a nice feeling :P
Just to let you know
Damn im still shaking :P
Wasnt a big earthquake but damn scary nonetheless.
Seems its UK WIDE, Any UKers here who experianced please post about it
From the Nottingham Evening Post
BREAKING NEWS: EARTHQUAKE HITS NOTTS
Notts was hit by an earthquake that shook the East Midlands this morning.
Two minor earth tremors were felt across the city and over a wide area which also included Derbyshire and Leicestershire at 12.57am.
Notts Fire and Rescue Service said it had received a large number of calls from members of the public and had been called out to deal with an unsafe chimney at a building in Retford.
The quake rattled buildings and set fire alarms off across the city and further afield.
The US Geological Survey's website reported a quake of the magnitude of 4.7 and said the epicentre was 45 miles north east of Nottingham, 30 miles south of Kingston-upon-Hull.
The British Geological Survey said the tremors had been felt across the region.
Ken Renwick, a security guard working at the Keyworth office, said he had been fielding calls from Nottingham, Lincoln, Coalville and Leicester.
Mr Renwick, from Cotgrave, added: "I felt it here. My laptop and paper work went all over the place.
"That's the biggest one I've ever felt. The phone hasn't stopped ringing."
Mark it on your calendar, because that’s the release date for the new X-Files movie. Apparently, at the recent WonderCon, people who sat in on a Q&A session with X-Files stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny were treated to a short teaser trailer for the movie, which ended with a release date. So of course, that trailer has now made its way onto the internet in shaky, handicam form. I have no idea what the film is about, but I already know I’ll be there on opening day. Really, I’ll take any new X-Files I can get my grubby paws on.
The GAME Group has told GamesIndustry.biz that yesterday's sale of shares by senior execs was purely to do with timing due to last year's acquisition of rival retailer Gamestation, and that CEO Lisa Morgan is still dedicated to the business
Morgan and deputy CEO David Thomas sold 1.3 million and 1 million shares, respectively, causing shares in the Group to fall 14.3 per cent to GBP 192 in yesterday's trading.
"It's a simple case of timing," said a spokesperson for the retailer. "We were in a close period for the majority of last year and we're about to enter another close period this Friday because of our results due in April."
"Lisa still maintains a strong holding in the company and has always shown long term dedication to the group," added the spokesperson.
The fall in share price was branded as "harsh" by analyst Eithne O'Leary, of Oriel Securities.
"The shares finished the day down 32p or 14.3 per cent on fears that management has sold out at the top of the cycle," noted O'Leary.
"For a business that has spent 11 of the last 12 months in close period post the announcement of the Gamestation acquisition, we believe this is excessively harsh."
"We do not believe that the shares' sales signal the beginning of a cyclical downturn, on the contrary the future is very bright."
Oriel Securities expects GAME to perform well during the next two years, even if total software sales drop off.
"With 6 million loyalty card users, an active trade in previously owned games and a higher share of the software market, we expect the next two years to be strong for GAME in gross profit terms," said the company.
"Software margins are typically very much higher than hardware margins, so even if total sales do drop in 2009/10, gross profits are likely to rise.
"Recent acquisitions and store openings in overseas markets will ensure a very strong contribution to group profits, particularly in the context of the robust nature of underlying demand for Wii and PS3," added the analyst.
This field has 1,301 florescent bulbs planted in it, and they're all glowing. They aren't plugged into anything, however; they're powered solely from the magnetic fields produced by the power lines above. It's all a large art project by Richard Box, and if you're really interested in it you can order a DVD of the whole thing from him. If you're cheaper and less interested, just peruse our gallery for the cool shots.
Perhaps one of the biggest crowd pleasers of this year's WonderCon show was 20th Century Fox's presentation for the new The X-Files 2 movie. In attendance were series creator Chris Carter and writer Frank Spotnitz, as well as stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Right out of the gate, the group addressed the issues associated with the franchise's six year long absence.
"Because it'll scare the pants off of you," answered Carter when asked why this movie would be worth the wait. "Because you'll get to see Mulder and Scully together again, that's why."
That said, Carter did elaborate on the circumstances surrounding how the group came back together to make this highly anticipated film.
"I'll tell you why this movie was made," explained Carter. "It was made because of him [points to Spotnitz] and because of these two people [points to Anderson and Duchovny] who wanted to make it. Fox came to us very early on and said, 'Let's do a movie.' We started working on it and then there was a lawsuit and that stopped us working on it. And then we came back to it again when Fox picked up the phone and said, 'It's now or never.' And I have to say the people sitting around me are the reason we're doing it because they said, 'Let's do it now.'
- 20th Century Fox
Of course, getting back into character after such an extended absence is no simple chore.
"I had a really bad first couple of days," said Anderson. "I thought it was going to be really easy to step right into it. And I came to work very confident and I just sucked for a good 48 hours. It was harder than I thought."
"It was hard because a lot of time has passed for these two people as time has passed for all of us," added Duchovny. "And we want to honor the changes as well as keep them the same people. So I think we were both trying to figure out how to balance that — how to make them a little older and yet be the same people."
Luckily, the film's co-writer had an easier go of it.
"I was surprised at how quickly I reconnected with the characters of Mulder and Scully," said Spotnitz. "It was like missing people that I found. They've lived in my imagination for so long during the series and after an absence of six years it was like there they were."
"It was like no time had passed at all," added Carter. "Writing the names Mulder and Scully, which I haven't written for six years, was like the most natural keyboard stroke you'd ever imagine. It's been like a dream the whole moviemaking process."
- 20th Century Fox
Carter went on to confirm that Mark Snow would be scoring the film and that actress Amanda Peet would be playing a Special Agent in Charge named Dakota Whitney. Billy Connelly, who was glimpsed quickly in a teaser that was screened with blood dripping out of his eyes, "plays a man with really long hair," noted Carter cryptically.
Perhaps what fans are most excited about is the idea that the film would be a standalone story (these kinds of episodes were widely popular during the series' run) rather than tie into the rather convoluted alien invasion mythology created by the show.
"When we did the first movie we had an ongoing TV series," said Carter. "So we had to be true to the series and the mythology arc. And so that movie functioned as actually sort of a big version of the television series. We didn't have that problem this time. So we have a chance to do what I would consider to be a really big screen standalone movie."
But when the question of whether they would ever revisit the mythology arc in a film — particularly since it was established that the invasion would be coming in the year 2012 — was posed, Anderson quipped, "That's still four years away."
"Yeah, we've talked about it," noted Carter more seriously. "And we want to be true to the series and the mythology. But we want to make sure that we just do the best movies we can. And do what feels right like we've always done. I'd say that that 2012 date is certainly looming in our minds."
The untitled The X-Files sequel film will hit theaters on July 25, 2008.
