ghost in the shell 2.0
Mamoru Oshii's cyberpunk cult hit Koukaku Kidoutai receives a major visual (and sound) update. The 2.0 edition of the movie, ready to be screened in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Sapporo on the 12th of July, will feature new CG/SFX for a number of scenes and also a 6.1 surround sound recording. While the original soundtrack of Kenji Kawai remains, it's been overseen by Academy Award-winning sound enginner Randy Thom (who's also been working on GITS2: Innocence). (As a reminder: Oshii's latest film, The Sky Crawlers will open on August 2 in Japanese cinemas.)
The Ticket Pia agency has three before/after image comparisons (scattered throughout the article) and apparently the visuals have been brought on par with the 2004 visual standards of Innocence, they're just more sombre and orange. (That fits oh so well with dystopia.)
ocular zen: brussels, part three
The Epson e-paper, again, now righteously held by one of the developers. I don't really have more info on the conference to spare, if you're a Hungarian reader, check the lead article on HVG Online on the green IT conference. The rest of you, shiny pictures of the Atomium below.
Had to add this one, though.
The best pics off the Atomium trip. And honestly, the place looks so much better from the outside than the inside. The experience is fuller if you've queued, traveled in the elevator, checked out the cafe and had a look from the topmost orb but the inner pics are just not good enough to publish. And we haven't checked the restaurant located in the topmost orb - don't remember the menu too much but you're good to go with some 30-50 euros/head, I think? Okay, so much for Brussels.
under a steel tenkai
from pixdaus
UPDATE 1: PinkTsunamii sez that this very much looks like the Oriental Pearl Tower of Shanghai, so it's not Japanese and it's "merely" a TV tower. Comment appreciated.
urgently!: info-sculpture
Urgently! is an info-sculpture that explores such phenomena as information overload, Web 2.0 and information aesthetics. News coming from the Internet in real time, is thrown right away into a giant recycle bin in order to be updated at the next moment. A snake-like LED display coming in and out the bin shows the RSS feeds from various news channels. Urgently! metaphorically represents digital data - an endless flow of information that is updated every second and gets obsolete and trashed immediately after that. The piece is wirelessly connected to a computer network in order to retrieve the data. A user can select news channels and control update period. (at make:blog, via grinding)
daisy chain of the sepia roboto and the japanese scientist
Ne. Picture found on LJ (original post here), no source available.
ocular zen: brussels, part two
Do not make me describe the impact of the LOLplane. Four hours of sleep with having lots of party members and diplomats behind you and then this plane navigates its way to the adjacent gate reading LOL. Life is not without a certain sense of irony.
And the better-looking from the Mini-Europe theme park. Not much to add apart from the fact that my cam died, I did all these with an iPhone (which is fun as long as you point and click. When you want to zoom or change any settings, it becomes a hassle, because you can't change any settings, you've gotta download a separate photo app for all that) and it wasn't raining. Last update on Brussels contains the Atomium pics.
ocular zen: brussels, part one
A couple of pictures here from my Brussels trip earlier this week, because I'm too lazy to write a complete rundown of the things seen there. If you've been following my Twitter feed, you might already know about a few details. More groups of pictures coming up in the following days.
Saeko Sato of Epson, showing off the e-paper prototype. (For Hungarian readers: I've covered this earlier on.) It's ultra-light, ultra-thin, good to read and an amazing thing to hold. (Similar to the iPhone. You ditch it until the moment you can hold it in your hands, then, snap, zeitgeist.) The thing I haven't taken a photo of is a wireless phone charger that does the whole charging thing in two hours, obviously you need a special kind of phone for that (and you also have a safety mechanism that kills the induction). The e-paper won't be seen on the shelves in four days, whereas the charger will be on the market in Japan in 2009. I managed to ask the developers whether they are contracted with two certain Japanese phone companies, their laughter and reactions said I hit bullseye with at least one telco. No names, but you can figure it out for yourselves.
That's a very bad piece of ego trip. That's also for Salander, who says he can't imagine me wearing anything elegant. He probably doesn't know it was all black, which covers up the whole act of not being in urban camo.
That's a pic taken inside the European Parliament. I don't know what this statue is (what I believe is symbolizing the member countries), because I was too busy asking around about the photo policy. Too bad I didn't do a few shots at the hemicycle, anyways, seeing the rows of translator cabins was amazing.
The European Parliament, again, from a very, very bad angle. And it was raining. With no extra set of clothes, no umbrella and a Leopold Park that was littered surprisingly well, even by the Budapest standards.
That's the Atomium, a fucking huge monument built for the '58 Brussels World's Fair. Lots of interior pics as well, but that's coming up later.
A level 5 Dungeon Runners viking. It's still raining, but now I have an amazingly unstylish and silver Atomium umbrella and I'm getting soaked under it because I'm trying to make good photos with one hand with a compact camera that's doing the evil grip fu to slip away from my hands. We're in the Mini Europe theme park just beside the Atomium, by the way. (And it's raining.)
Neon decoration somewhere at the Zaventem Airport, classic wireframe matrix style. (More to come later on.)
new babylon a.d. trailer
According to the newest (and also, French) trailer of Babylon A.D., cheesy rocket action (and Vin Diesel) will scar our face on the 27th of August.
cyberpunk linkbox: [sunset on mars, torrents in alpha realm]
sunset on mars (mars exploration rover spirit on may 19, 2005)
Newsflash: charlie jade finally debuts on the sci fi channel (and if you haven't checked it out, it's a must and download it like fuck, as there's no way whatsoever to purchase it - that's some blader runneresque/alternative reality series, a canadian/south african co-production) [xxx] anathem, the new book of neal stephenson that's due in september arrives with monks as mood-setters [xxx] shirley manson of garbage is now officially enrolled for the new sarah connor chronicles series[xxx]
cyberpunk linkbox: [because you wouldn't have it any other way]
I'm off for a few days checking out what Bruce Sterling calls the Mafiosi-like features of the European Union bureaucracy in Brussels. (Want more? Click here for the podcast.) According to The Register, Bruce Sterling sez "I've been spending a lot of time in Europe and I'm about to write a proposal for a novel set in a future Europe (...) I did a novel called Distraction ten years ago, which is about a future United States - and a sort of political situation - and I'm very interested in European politics and European social organization and I'd like to do some extrapolating along those lines."
pic by Joi Carey - gallery and iFrau's LJ here
Newsflash: cyberpunk MMORPG Neocron 2 dies for a week [xxx] hollywood's take on posthumans with four pieces of evidence [xxx] second life cyberpunk fashion at tsulea and slfaces [xxx] movie gadget friday with johnny mnemonic [xxx] armagideon on neuromancer [xxx] new cp book #1: mirrored heavens by david j. williams [xxx] new cp book #2: multireal by david louis edelman [xxx] trailer for narcosys, a new cyberpunk z-grade movie. i didn't actually dare to embed the actual video.
engrish breed @ budapest
Quickshot of a Chinese tourist on public transit. Guy looked as confused as his T-shirt would meanly suggest.
speaker dolls
Fungus Amungus of Flickr made these Munny figures.
And with the same cuteness factor, dolls of Jason Siu. (via make)
slobsofgaming's eleven hot cosplayers
Slobsofgaming collected eleven of their take on the eleven hottest female cosplayers, from mystery Mai Shiranui cosplayers to Francesca Dani, pay extra tribute to Yaya Han and the girl on the photo above, Nozomi/Rave. If you look at the pics very intently, though, you'll come up with the same thought that one of the guys in the comments did. Very different girls. (link to collection)
fhm: chinese girls anime massacre
Dawe sends us this gallery taken from FHM China, originally shot by Chen Zhun. (gallery at designyoutrust)
yamaha deus ex machina: motorcycle exoskeleton
The Yamaha-branded DEUS EX MACHINA concept is a motorcycle exoskeleton with 7 artificial vertebra and a pneumatically attached helmet. The motor is in-wheel, powered by ultra-capacitors and doped nano-phoshpate batteries similar to those already used in hybrids. It's also capable of 0–60mph in three seconds. Top speed is 75mph with a recharge time of 15 minutes and cycle time of one hour, adds Hell for Leather.
The concept was created by Art Center College of Design student Jake Loniak and according to Engadget, that's an electric, single passenger, vertically parking, wearable motorcycle, and the bike would theoretically be controlled via 36 pneumatic muscles and 2 linear actuators.
attigo tt: touchscreen turntablizm
Dundee University student Scott Hobbs is all responsible for the new zeitgeist here. DJ's can use the ATTIGO TT touch screen turntable for looping, sampling and scratching waveforms, the size is basically the same as a standard turntable and what you can see on the vid is a working prototype. (via psfk)
nippon connection 2008: day 2 (polip, pornó, gigajapán alsónadrágok)
A második reggelünk a kávéról, a pornónegyedről és a wifi üvöltő hiányáról szól. Nem tévedünk el a már teljesen feltérképezetlen területeken sem, ezért cserébe viszont folyamatosan esik, amikor nem, akkor kávét nem találunk. Ráakadunk viszont egy olyan boltra, ahol 50 euróért azonnal magunkévá tehetnénk az Appleseed Ex Machinát, kicsivel olcsóbban az első Blame! kötetet, aztán maradunk mégis a biztos Vapianonál (ami, jut eszembe, a Deákon is megtalálható már), a város pedig ragyogóan néz ki teleszórva a dél-koreai tévéműsorokkal, az égbe szökő várostornyokkal, az eurójeles szoborral, a kimérten-szikáran sietős, tehetősnek tűnő pornómozi- és bordélylátogatókkal, Marty meg nyilván nem akar basejumpolni továbbra sem az égből. Második napunk a Nippon Connectionben, Frankfurtban.
washing the walls with lip sync
Sinred sends us this wonderful piece of cosplayness. [via somewhere along the lines of myconfinedspace]
between the gas mask baby and the pripyat ferris wheel
Something close to [another étape of Hungarian cyberpunk] is coming along. Marvin, an active member of the LD50 community (which is, if you're a new visitor here or something, the definitive Hungarian community portal for people with alternative minds and tastes for music and stuff) has his book of short stories published after a loooong time: entitled Külső gyermek (or Outer Child).
If you're English, please be aware - his Hungarian takes a huge effort to translate into English, it's not just ironic and gritty, it's dense and has a few layers that are very hard to decode even for us, who're into the same kind of stuff that he is. (Except for RPGs, of which he's a massive fan. We're not that much.) Book design made by me and if there is a god (or something close to it), it'll make me redesign this into one fancy piece of art.
Here's the original Hungarian press material and the thread of comments on ld50.hu
wanted (russian trailer)
The beautiful violence of Wanted's Russian trailer just makes the movie more appealing than it actually looked like a couple of days ago: gratuituous violence, skullfucking trajectory physics as we know it, sniper scenes on par with Golgo 13 and of course, Angelina Jolie. This has glorious office violence, sniper rifle porn and unreal car sideflips. But this one's been done by Timur Bekmambetov and this means it can't be bad at all.