Bruce Boxleitner, who played Alan Bradley and the title character in Walt Disney Pictures’ 1982 film Tron, is currently filming a role for the studio’s upcoming Tron 2.0. He joins fellow original cast member Jeff Bridges and newcomers Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett in the anticipated action-adventure
The internet was supposed to bring vast choice for customers, access to obscure and forgotten products and a fortune for sellers who focused on niche markets. But a study of digital music sales has posed the first big challenge to this long tail
theory: more than 10 million of the 13 million tracks available on the internet failed to find a single buyer last year. The idea that niche markets were the key to the future for internet sellers was described as one of the most important economic models of the 21st century when it was spelt out by Chris Anderson in his book The Long Tail in 2006. But a study by Will Page, chief economist of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, a not-for-profit royalty collection society, suggests that the niche market is not an untapped goldmine and that online sales success still relies on big hits
A new working model of the mysterious 2,000-year-old astronomical calculator, dubbed the Antikythera Device, has been unveiled, incorporating the most recent discoveries announced two years ago by an international team of researchers
Australia’s biggest online entertainment retailer, EzyDVD, has been put into receivership. Receiver Ferrier Hodgson says the Adelaide-based company has 70 full-time staff in South Australia and about 150 casual employees nationally
Back in the 60’s, archive space at the BBC was hard to come by, forcing the broadcaster to delete some of its own material. Now, a TV show that fell victim to this regime has been resurrected, with the BBC using a pirate recording of the show’s audio to bring it back to life
Consumers will no longer have to wait weeks or even months after a film is released on DVD to watch it on pay-TV or download it over the internet, with major studios planning simultaneous roll-outs. Australia’s biggest video rental group predicts a major film studio will begin simultaneously releasing movies to DVD and video-on-demand by March
Online retail website Amazon has launched a UK music download service. Amazon MP3 will sell tracks from 59p and albums from £3. The new music store will offer more than 3 million songs that will work on any digital music player, including Apple’s iPod. Unlike many files from Apple’s iTunes store, which can only be played through its iTunes interface or on an iPod, the music available from Amazon will be free from the constraints of digital rights management (DRM)
The Sci Fi Channel has its second birthday on 1 December and will celebrate by switching from 4:3 to 16:9 ratio across the channel. Around half the shows on the channel will be broadcast in true 16:9 detail. Those programmes that are only available in 4:3 will be pillar-boxed with black stripes down the side
Foxtel subscribers will soon be able to download programs on demand using the internet, and also transfer these programs to other devices. The changes, due to be introduced in the first half of 2009, were revealed yesterday by chief executive Kim Williams at a briefing for the company’s dominant shareholder, Telstra
The video website YouTube is preparing to link up with Hollywood to show full-length films for free over the internet, it has emerged. The site — already used by millions of people every day to watch short video clips — confirmed that it was in negotiations with major studios as it gets ready to launch an online movie service. Free films, running with advertising, would mark a radical advance for the video-sharing website as it looks to profit from its massive popularity
Any mad scientists planning to genetically engineer Dracula this Halloween should look to the vampire bat for inspiration. New research pinpoints some of the genetic changes that allowed them to evolve to subsist on a diet of pure blood. Key among those is a knack for keeping their meals from coagulating. They do so with the help of a gene found in other animals — plasminogen activator. In humans the gene protects against heart attack by producing proteins that bust up blood clots and clear vessels. Previous research had shown that vampire bats activate the gene in their saliva, too
Games firms are accusing innocent people of file-sharing as they crack down on pirates, a Which? Computing investigation has claimed. The magazine was contacted by Gill and Ken Murdoch, from Scotland, who had been accused of sharing the game Race07 by makers Atari. The couple told Which they had never played a computer game in their lives. The case was dropped, but Which estimates that hundreds of others are in a similar situation
Google’s reach into the world’s libraries looks more assured following a deal struck recently. The agreement with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers will resolve a number of lawsuits from the last three years. Google will establish a non-profit Book Rights Registry to ensure copyrighted works receive compensation via subscription services or ad revenue. The registry and settlements will cost Google $125m) However, the deal still needs approval from a US district court to resolve the pending lawsuits. If approved, the agreement will provide much wider access to out-of-print books and a great many in-print, in-copyright works
First Gordon Brown and Mervyn King, the Bank of England’s governor, admitted that Britain was on the verge of recession. Then food sales were reported to have seen their biggest fall for 20 years. Last night came final and irrevocable proof that the country is entering tough economic times, unseen since the 80s: AC/DC have returned to the top of the album charts for the first time in 28 years
AC/DC will release its new album Black Ice
worldwide on 20 October, in physical format only since the band doesn’t sell its music online. However, the upcoming album has already been digitised by pirates, as it leaked to BitTorrent five days ago. In that time it has taken the trackers by storm, racking up a staggering 400,000 downloads
Radiohead have joined FAC, which seeks to give artists greater control over their music. More than 60 artists, including Radiohead, Robbie Williams and the Kaiser Chiefs, have announced they have banded together to seek more rights over their music and break free of record labels
Weird Al has announced that with the Internet he can now release his songs for sale as he records each one rather than waiting for a whole album to be produced — via Slashdot
Oscar-winning film legend Paul Newman has died of cancer at the age of 83. The star of movies like Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid died in his Connecticut home on Friday, surrounded by family and close friends. A statement from Newman’s family said: His death was as private and discreet as the way he had lived his life
And we finally get to the point, he’s written a screenplay:
Having been an X Files watcher for many
revolutionsof Series 1(ONE)-9(NINE) and whereasthirteen productionshasLEFT THE SCENEI would like to serve as a catalyst oroffer my own screenplay following the Birth of Baby William! How could I?
I don’t know how far unsolicited fan screenplays get in a television production office, but I’m betting it’s a short trip from the mail room to the shredder.
In the past, I have attempted to explain to Bill the error of spamming people with unsolicited crap, but it appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
From this take, I can only assume that Bill’s decided that Chris Carter has abandoned his characters to the public domain and he is now free to run off and make his own version of the X-Files. Bill may need to have a little chat with a copyright lawyer over that one.
Vodafone today launched Australia’s first unlimited music download service, allowing customers to access as many songs as they like for $2.75 a week. The subscription can be switched off at any time with one button on the handset but all tracks are then disabled until the user resumes paying the fees
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