Tony Stark has a bad day in debut Iron Man 3 trailer

After saving the world in The Avengers it seems that Iron Man has hit a rough patch. Being attacked by a new supervillain probably won't help much.

After months of waiting the first trailer for the upcoming Iron Man 3 has hit the ‘net. You can find the entire clip embedded below, but first a few thoughts on what we see here and what it may mean for the film as a whole.

It seems that Tony Stark has been having issues since we last saw him in The Avengers, saving the world from alien invasion. It appears that he’s haunted by the events of that film. This seems a clever move by the filmmakers as not only does it build upon earlier Marvel Studios films (thus expanding the growing Marvel Cinematic Universe), it also offers viewers a believable reason why this normally smug, infinitely capable superhero is overcome with feelings of self-doubt and vulnerability. Which, thanks to comic book logic, makes a supervillain attack inevitable.

Actually, that might be two supervillain attacks. Obviously Ben Kingsley’s depiction of classic Iron Man foe The Mandarin serves as one of the key antagonists, but we’re still wondering what purpose the Iron Patriot suit serves in Iron Man 3. We don’t ever see Iron Man battle his star-spangled doppelganger, just footage of it being unveiled to the public. If we’re sticking with comic book logic, the Iron Patriot (and whoever is wearing that suit) should attack Iron Man at some point — not just because Norman Osborn did it in the comics, but also because two characters this similar are rarely allowed to exist together for long. Iron Man is our hero, so by default Iron Patriot gets to be the “evil” Iron Man.

Unless, of course, the Iron Patriot armor isn’t that important, and is just a new paint scheme for one of Tony Stark’s new suits designed for public relations work at things like parades and park dedications. We have no evidence for this idea, but then again, we also don’t have any evidence against it.

Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to be in the dark on this question for the immediate future. We expect more information on this movie’s plot to emerge as we inch toward the May 3, 2013 release date Disney has assigned Iron Man 3. In the meantime, leave your reaction to the trailer in the comments.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Why quadrotors will be storming the skies soon

Tiny, agile flying robots are taking over the skies and making viral waves online. But what implications do these bountiful ‘bots really have for our future?

Next to the Avengers, the most bankable flying objects may be quadrotors (or quadrocopters, take your pick.) These tiny flying objects have become YouTube darlings with video after video of previously unthinkable feats.

Three of them can throw and catch a ball using a net strung between them – with absolute precious. Others have performed the James Bond theme song with their own instruments. Or swarmed the skies over Austria.

What makes these devices so fascinating, and so worthy of all this attention?

Researchers Vijay Kumar and Nathan Michael have one answer. Their paper, Opportunities and Challenges with Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles (pdf), gets to the heart of why experimental quadrocoptors are much more than mere YouTube novelties.

Micro-UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) can operate in three-dimensional environments, explore and map multi-story buildings, manipulate and transport objects, and even perform such tasks as assembly. While fixed-base industrial robots were the main focus in the first two decades of robotics, and mobile robots enabled most of the significant advances during the next two decades, it is likely that UAVs, and particularly micro-UAVs will provide a major impetus for the third phase of development.

In other words, the future may belong to these tiny flying robots. Just as the first industrial robots revolutionized the factory floor with their precision, stamina and strength, quadrotors could quite literally apply the same abilities anywhere.

I’m having a hard time remembering another time when advanced science, the hottest toys, and the latest military weapons all revolved (no pun intended) around the same idea.

For $299, you can buy at Brookstone an AR Drone that can fly 165 feet from your controller and take HD video of what it sees. But the real advances are still taking place behind the walls of academia.

Like where Sergei Lupashin spends his waking hours. Sergei is a PhD student who helped develop the so-called Flying Machine Arena (FMA) in ETH Zurich. The padded, net-enclosed aerodrome has been home to many popular quadrotor test runs. Inside, students push the limits of what quadrotors can do.

“We do basic research in control systems,” says Sergei. “This is a somewhat math-heavy, dry type of engineering and science, yet the world literally depends on it to run everything from power plants to your car. All of these are running thanks to numerous control systems of various complexities. Controls are also at the core of the push for efficiency and sustainable living.

“We pick challenging, but simple-to-explain problems like quadrocopter ping-pong to motivate the basic research we do. These examples allow people, even with minimal knowledge of control systems, to readily relate to our research.”

The existence of the FMA, says Sergei, and the popularity of videos like the ones we’ve seen recently, also helps create often-surprising collaborations, like the Flight Machine Enabled Construction project his team did in Orleans.

That project demonstrated how a team of quadrocopters could be used to build a simple structure. You probably remember swarms of copters stacking blocks while a cocktail party ensued nearby.

“We are regularly pushing our flying vehicles to their limits, because this is where a lot of interesting problems lie for us where adaptation and learning can be effective,” says Sergei.

But building isn’t the only use for these tiny eyes in the sky. News reports warn that military drone technology is spreading to other countries and may alter the way wars are fought. Just this week, the Islamic militant group Hezbollah claimed credit for flying an unmanned UAV over Israel. Others warn that drones are about to spread to peacetime uses, and that may be dangerous.

This worries Sergei.

“There’s a lot of focus on military applications of multicopters and UAVs. This is very unfortunate. There are so many amazing things they can enable in civilian life. Small UAVs have the potential to make accessible completely new perspectives for us. I really hope that we find a common sense to integrate them into daily life without a blanket ban on their use for civilian purposes.”

For example, Matternet wants to develop a network of tiny unmanned vehicles in the poorest areas of the planet, so that they can deliver antibiotics to a sick child or other vital needs to the over one billion people who lack access to transportation.

Dedicam offers flying HD cameras that have been used to film sporting events. Sensefly bills its civilian drone as an easy-to-use flying camera.

Here’s the basic sense I’m getting. If you think these flying drones are getting a lot of attention now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Bruce Kasanoff is a speaker, author and innovation strategist who tracks sensor-driven innovation at Sense of the Future. Kasanoff and co-author Michael Hinshaw teamed up to explore more of the opportunities unearthed by disruptive forces in Smart Customers, Stupid Companies.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Luggage lawsuit blocks Avengers box set release

A luxury luggage company is suing Marvel Studios over its upcoming Avengers Blu-ray collection that comes packaged inside a knock-off briefcase.

We’ve known for quite a while that Marvel Studios, had planned to release The Avengers on Blu-ray later this month. Specifically, September 25, for those of you saving every penny in anticipation of finally being able to fire up the blockbuster film on whatever conglomeration of technologies you refer to as your “home theater.”

Alongside the relatively standard two- and four-disc Blu-ray releases, the company had also planned to release a special, limited edition 10-disc collection (see above) that includes The Avengers, all of the extra content found in the aforementioned two- and four-disc releases, as well as all of the Marvel superhero movies released prior to The Avengers that help set up that film’s background story. This means that prospective buyers would own Captain America, both Iron Man films, Thor and 2008′s The Incredible Hulk (which is not to be confused with Ang Lee’s 2003 cinematic exploration of Marvel’s giant green rage monster). That’s quite an impressive set, even at its proposed $220 price point, but thanks to a new lawsuit it seems that Marvel Studios may have to go back to the drawing board on this collection.

Rimowa GmbH, a German luggage firm, claims that Marvel’s use of a faux briefcase in the 10-disc collection directly damages one of the firm’s key trademarks. The Marvel briefcase, Rimowa believes, is based wholly on the design of its “Topas Attache” briefcase, a sharp-looking aluminum number that suggests both excellent, subtle taste and the idea that its holder is someone of great importance. It also features a $750 price tag, so as long as you’re among the set that prizes conspicuous consumption above all things the case also suggests that you’ve got tons of cash — a crucial feature when one is shopping for the adult world’s answer to the Trapper Keeper.

Those of you who clicked through that last link may recognize the Topas as the briefcase used by Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury character throughout the past decade of Marvel Studios films. Rimowa has no problem with the Topas being used in the films, and even provided each movie with a set of cases to use. The problem, according to the German firm, is that Marvel Studios never received permission to recreate the suitcase for its big 10-disc collection. The idea was that the whole bundle would come packed inside a case that looks identical to the one Fury uses in the collection’s films, though obviously Marvel didn’t see the wisdom in massively jacking up the price of its collection purely so it could include a genuine Topas therein. Rimowa, in turn, believes that by creating an aesthetic replica of the Topas, Marvel Studios has directly violated the company’s trademark on the design.

Rimowa’s lawsuit alleges “trademark infringement, trademark dilution and unfair competition,” and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, seeks “all profits from allegedly unlawful conduct and an award of three times plaintiff’s actual damages to be proved.” Given how massively successful Marvel’s superhero films have been, particularly The Avengers, the actual figure Rimowa is hoping to be granted could be quite large.

As much as we usually despise the overly litigious nature of modern America, one can’t help but notice that the Topas Attache does look very, very similar to the knock-off case in Marvel’s collection. Anyone with eyes can see that. However, the design is exceedingly simple, and we could certainly see a judge going along with the idea that Rimowa can’t really have a trademark on what is effectively a matte aluminum hexahedron. On the other hand, we could just as easily imagine a judge slapping down Marvel’s design and forcing the company to pay whatever figure Rimowa eventually comes up with. We’ll keep you updated as new information is available.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

This summer’s box office was the lowest in 19 years

Despite blockbusters like The Avengers and The Dark Knight Returns, summer 2012 saw the lowest box office returns since 1993.

Now that we’ve officially moved into September, it seems a perfect time to look back at the summer we’ve all just survived. While the oppressive heat and worryingly numerous armed rampages will go down in history as the most notable events of the season, Hollywood suits will likely remember the summer for its horrendously low box office take.

Appropriately, The Hollywood Reporter reports:

According to preliminary estimates, 533.5 million tickets were sold this summer, down 4 percent from last year and the worst turnout since 1993. The lowest attendance before now came in summer 2010, when there were 534.4 tickets sold.

Total summer revenues also slipped. Initial estimates show the domestic box office generating $4.278 in billion in sales, down roughly 3 percent from last summer’s record $4.4 billion.

While final numbers have yet to be released (THR claims they’ll appear later this week), the above is more than enough to worry the studios, or at least make the executives at each firm reconsider how they market and promote films in our globally connected, modern world. Ice Age: Continental Drift is offered up as an example by THR, which claims that the film, which has only pulled in a relatively modest $156.1 million here in America, has been able to generate $672 million in foreign markets. While these other countries have been important to Hollywood’s bottom line for years, it seems increasingly likely that as other nations catch up to America’s ravenous pop culture appetite, that they will become the key focus for the PR teams of Hollywood’s studios. Given the amount of cash generated globally by the most recent Ice Age movie, would it be all that surprising to see Fox’s marketing machine shift its focus from American audiences to, say, those in China? Or Russia? Or any of the other nations that are more populous and equally in love with CGI cartoons as the USA?

“But wait, what about those massive blockbusters comic book movies that hit theaters this summer?” you wonder. “Didn’t The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises each pull in over a billion dollars?” Yes, they did. The Avengers managed to earn a little less than $1.5 billion globally, and The Dark Knight Rises has drawn a bit over a billion. That’s great news for Disney and Warner Bros. respectively, but only serves to illustrate how depressingly unprofitable this summer has been for Tinsel Town. If we were to remove the roughly $2.5 billion these two films collectively generated, the summer’s box office returns would be a mere $1.778 billion, a massive 60 percent decline from 2011′s summer box office revenues. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say that these two comic book movies propped up the industry this summer, so if we had to bet we’d likely assume that we’re going to be knee deep in superhero movies for the foreseeable future.

The other major effect this will likely have on Hollywood studios concerns the Motion Picture Association of America’s ongoing quest to eradicate movie piracy. Expect the studios to point to these figures as evidence that Internet piracy is killing Hollywood. Sure, the studios will continue to offer multi-million dollar bonuses to their executives, but it’s your fault, common Internet user, that Harvey Weinstein won’t be able to afford that island in Barbados he’s had his eye on. Are you happy now? Harvey’s going to have to settle for a stupid Hawaiian island, like some kind of destitute Oracle executive. We hope you can somehow live with the guilt.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Hulk meets janitor in deleted Avengers scene

Thanks to the upcoming Blu-ray release of The Avengers, you can watch the Hulk discuss existential problems with a famous character actor.

Those of you who have seen The Avengers will likely recall a scene in which Loki attempts to kill off The Hulk by dropping him off of the SHIELD helicarrier. Obviously this doesn’t work, and in the film he simply crashes into an abandoned building, creates a huge pile of rubble, then turns back into mild-mannered doctor Bruce Banner. As he struggles to regain consciousness he is confronted by a janitor, played by legendary character actor Harry Dean Stanton, who asks Bruce if he knows what he really is.

Now, in the version of the film you all originally saw the interaction was only a few seconds long, but in earlier cuts this scene was longer and featured more candid banter between the janitor and the naked guy who just crushed his building by falling through it. It’s a cute scene and would have fit into the tone and spirit of The Avengers nicely, but it does seem a bit superfluous and was thus deleted. Fortunately, since The Avengers was a massive success, Marvel Studios is packing everything it can into the film’s September 25 Blu-ray release, including half a dozen separate scenes that were filmed for the movie but cut before it hit theaters. 

But you’re not here to listen to tales of all the neat things that are going to be on The Avengers’ Blu-ray release, right? No, you’re here because you want to watch nearly a minute of Mark Ruffalo and Harry Dean Stanton discussing the inner turmoil of Bruce Banner in an empty, decrepit warehouse. Honestly that’s a bit odd, but we’ve embedded the full version of this deleted scene at the bottom of this text, so have at it. 

One point we’d like to make though: Why save these kinds of scenes for the Blu-ray release? The Avengers was a huge smash hit, and we’d be willing to bet that if Marvel Studios was to re-release the film with all of its deleted scenes put back in as some kind of special “extended edition” that people would line up to see the thing one more time. Granted, that’s arguably an underhanded marketing tactic, but Hollywood does underhanded quite well.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Joss Whedon will return for The Avengers 2

It's official: Joss Whedon has agreed to write and direct a sequel to his blockbuster The Avengers.

In news that we all expected to hear eventually, beloved geek auteur Joss Whedon has agreed to return for the inevitable sequel to this summer’s biggest movie, The Avengers. The announcement was made by Disney CEO Bob Iger during the company’s earnings conference call this morning, and though Iger offered no further details on the second Avengers movie he did mention that Whedon would have a hand in the upcoming Marvel Comics-based TV show planned to appear on ABC.

If your immediate reaction to this news is to cheer politely, then roll your eyes at anyone who didn’t see this coming, you’re not alone. The Avengers raked in a frankly obscene amount of cash at the box office (Box Office Mojo currently pegs the total at just under $1.5 billion worldwide) and since Hollywood is no longer run by secret Communists it only makes sense that Disney and Marvel Studios would want to reassemble the crucial pieces of that film for a second movie. While obviously this includes The Avengers’ massive cast of superheroes, a good deal of the first film’s success should be attributed to the man who both wrote and directed the flick: Joss Whedon.

Though we don’t know the specifics of Whedon’s deal with Marvel, it is known that he will both script and direct The Avengers 2. Likewise, though we know nothing about the movie’s plot, we feel safe to assume it will feature Thanos as key protagonist (as prophesized by this post-credits stinger).

With so little new information to go on, it’s tempting to speculate wildly on the direction Joss Whedon will take with this movie, so let’s do that. Given the success of Whedon’s first Avengers flick we’re going to assume that Marvel will give the auteur far more freedom to tell whatever story he’d like with the sequel. That, plus the inclusion of Thanos, and the obvious involvement of The Avengers themselves has us cautiously hoping that The Avengers 2 will be an adaptation of Marvel’s classic Infinity Gauntlet saga. 

Though the 1990s were something of a low point for comics as a whole, this 1991 crossover event was a massively epic tale featuring a literally god-like enemy battling the most powerful heroes in the Marvel universe en masse. It effectively cemented the modern notion of who and what Thanos is — previously he had still been at least partially seen as a satire of DC Comics’ Darkseid since, well, that’s what he was created to be — and showed that there are foes capable of giving the most powerful of superteams a run for their money, while also spinning an interesting, compelling saga.

As we’ve pointed out though, an adaptation of the Infinity Gauntlet storyline would almost necessarily require numerous other Marvel characters to be introduced to audiences. We have faith that the studio could pull this off (especially with Whedon’s writing chops at its disposal), but it would take years of additional film production to bring the general public up to speed on the extensive fiction that goes into telling this tale. Alternately the film could play fast and lose with certain plot details, but with Marvel Studios attempting to build a functional film universe that mirrors its comic book canon we doubt the powers that be would want to excise too much necessary information.

Then again, we know nothing about this movie, so take all the above speculation with an elk-sized salt lick. We’re just spitballing ideas at this point, and welcome your theories in the comments below. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com