Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

The tips have been flowing in hot and heavy on this one, so we felt it only fair to pass along the latest rumblings in the world of GP2X to you. We first got word that a new emulation monster could be coming from the GP2X community back in September, and if late breaking mockups and specification lists are to be believed, that system is indeed Pandora. Notably, the product seen above is purported to feature a keyboard (obviously), 4.3-inch 800 x 480 resolution touchscreen and built-in WiFi (802.11b/g) — all inclusions that were previously mentioned — along with an ARM Cortex A8 CPU, OpenGL ES 2.0-compliant 3D hardware, dual SDHC expansion slots, TV output and USB connectivity. Unfortunately, we know nothing more than that at the moment, as dates / pricing still remain a mystery, but if Pandora does prove to be more than a figment of someone’s imagination, we’re betting it’ll be worth the wait.

Update: Looks like the price is set at around $320, while the release should happen in March or April.

[Thanks, Stern and Craig]
Read - Open Pandora
Read - Pandora Wiki

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Time’s running out, folks, and if you’ve got an Xbox 360 gamer in your life that you’ve vowed to spend a C-note on (and nothing more, tax notwithstanding), here’s a bright idea. Microsoft has just cut the price of its Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel by $30 to a manageable $99, and it also comes bundled with a driver disc and a demo of Forza Motorsport 2. So, what are you waitin’ on? No, really, what’s the holdup?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming

Apparently, Nokia just hasn’t swallowed the fact that the world doesn’t seem ready (or interested, whatever the case may be) in a handheld gaming system / cellphone hybrid. ‘Course, with all that PSP phone chatter going on, we guess the times could be a-changin’, and Nokia definitely doesn’t want to miss its shot at redemption. A fresh patent application from the outfit details a handheld device that acts as a phone, multimedia player and gaming machine, but rather than forcing users to feel as if they’re handling an NES controller, this concoction provides two wings that slip down for added comfort. Whether or not this thing would double as an acceptable boomerang remains to be seen.

[Via UnwiredView]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Music & Musicals, Box Office, Box Office Predictions

Well, I knew I Am Legend was going to do well, but HOLY TOLEDO! Will Smith’s apocalyptic science fiction/horror flick set a record for a film opening in December, an honor previously held by 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Alvin and the Chipmunks also found its niche, pulling in some righteous bucks of its own. As you can see, the gap between these two and the holdovers from previous weeks is quite dramatic. Here are the final numbers:

1. I Am Legend $76.5 million.
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks $45 million.
3. The Golden Compass $9 million.
4. Enchanted $6 million.
5. No Country for Old Men $3 million.

We’ve got a whopping five big releases this week, with three of them using colons in the titles. That must be a record right?

Charlie Wilson’s War
What’s It All About: Tom Hanks plays Charlie Wilson, a real life congressman who sought to aid Afghani rebels fighting off Soviet soldiers during the 1979 invasion.
Why It Might Do Well: As the TV spots are touting, this one has five Golden Globe nominations and some strong critical buzz working in its favor (83% Fresh over at Rottentomatoes.com). With bankable stars in front of the camera like Hanks, Julia Roberts and Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Mike Nichols at the helm, what’s not to like?
Why It Might Not Do Well: There’s some serious competition out there this week from both newcomers and last week’s two big releases. Also, a film dealing with politics may not be what people are looking for in a holiday movie.
Number of Theaters: 2,500
Prediction: $15 million

National Treasure: Book of Secrets
What’s It All About: Nicolas Cage returns as Ben Franklin Gates, the globe trotting artifact hunter who must now track down pages of John Wilkes Booth’s diary to clear his family’s name.
Why It Might Do Well: The first National Treasure movie opened to a respectable $35 million weekend in 2004 before going on to make $173 million domestic and $347 million worldwide, so I bet a lot of folks who liked the first will be back for more. This one opens in way more theaters than anything else coming out this week and I suspect this will be next week’s number one movie.
Why It Might Not Do Well: It depends on how many people are willing to forget Ghost Rider.
Number of Theaters: 3,500
Prediction: $55 million

Continue reading Box Office: War, Love and Secrets

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Filed under: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Universal, Comic/Superhero/Geek

OK, bad news first: The trailer doesn’t actually arrive at IGN until tomorrow. (”Tomorrow” being December 20th, so if you’re reading this post AFTER December 20, then there is no bad news. Moving on.) The good news is that those fine movie nerds of IGN.com already have a few new pics from Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (did they really change the title to “HB2“??), and (as a big fan of the first) I must say they look pretty darn cool.

The sequel reunites most of the principal players from the first time around: Guillermo del Toro, Mike Mignola, Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, John Hurt and Jeffrey Tambor will return for the $70m+ Universal sequel, which opens on July 11 of last year. You may wonder why the studio opted to greenlight a sequel to a movie that didn’t even make its budget back in domestic box office, but the first Hellboy didn’t fare too poorly. Off a reported budget of about $60 million, it grossed just under $100m worldwide, and sold like the proverbial flapjacks on DVD. (And the three-disc director’s cut is really awesome!)

Having not yet seen the trailer for myself yet (darn you, IGN!), I obviously cannot comment on its content. But c’mon. It’s Willy del Toro, people! (Cronos! The Devil’s Backbone! Pan’s Labyrinth!) Even his Hollywood movies are good! (Blade 2! Hellboy! (ahem) Mimic!) Apparently this man can do no wrong! (Oops, I take it back. Hope I didn’t just jinx the guy.) So don’t forget to visit IGN’s movie department some time after 3pm (Eastern) tomorrow afternoon. Tell ‘em Cine sent you.

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Filed under: Action, Casting, Deals, Sony, Fandom, James Bond, Daniel Craig

According to Commanderbond.net, the Mexican newspaper El Diario is running a “big story” on the casting of a villain role in Bond 22. Mexican actor Joaquin Cosio tells the paper he has been cast in the film as General Medrano, who is to face off with Bond in Latin America. Cosio says “I’m General Medrano, Bond’s enemy in Latin America, but there are other enemies waiting in Europe for Bond.” Medrano is very talkative for someone who is operating under a strict confidentiality agreement. He goes on to say “I’m really pleased to be chosen to participate in such a huge film, it’s a great achievement that the film will feature a Mexican actor. I still don’t know much of the script, I don’t really know what my scenes will be like, but I know that I’m going to film in Panama, Bolivia and London.”

The paper was smart about getting as much dirt from Cosio as possible, and although he’s apparently not in the know on the major casting scoops still up in the air, he did confirm for the paper that Giancarlo Giannini will return as Rene Mathis. “I’m very delighted to be in one film with Giannini and Judi Dench,” he said. “So far I’m not thinking about leaving for Hollywood after Bond 22. I’m very pleased with how my latest projects are going here in Mexico.” I should think you would be pleased! I’m counting on this guy to blab some more details over the next few weeks — someone set up another interview with him.

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Filed under: Action, Casting, Paramount, RumorMonger, Comic/Superhero/Geek

Here’s how badly I remember the G.I. Joe cartoons I watched daily as a kid: in seeing this new casting headline, I immediately thought the G.I. Joe movie was primarily filling women roles first. See, my bad memory had me thinking Storm Shadow is a female. I guess because the name sounds like Eye Shadow, or is reminiscent of Shadowcat (though somehow not reminiscent of The Shadow) and Storm, both being female X-Men. But now I know. And knowing … well, in this case it’s the whole battle. It is half the casting news, though, and thanks to another great Latino Review exclusive, we hear that Storm Shadow (brother of Snake Eyes) will be played by Korean “Mega Star” Byeong-Heon Lee (aka Byung-Hun Lee). Asian cinema fans might be familiar with Lee from Ji-woon Kim’s A Bittersweet Life, Chan-wook Park’s J.S.A.: Joint Security Area and/or from Park’s segment “Cut” from Three … Extremes, in which he starred as the film director. He’ll also be seen in the upcoming Josh Hartnett-starrer I Come with the Rain. In G.I. Joe he will be playing Japanese; Storm Shadow is Cobra Commander’s ninja bodyguard and assassin, though the character has been known to have loyalties to the good guys, too.

As for the other half of the casting news, this one is really a woman. A very beautiful woman, in fact. Playing the hot, red-headed Scarlett (what? you never thought cartoons were hot?), is former model Rachel Nichols, who two or three of you may have seen this year in either P2 or Resurrecting the Champ (she also appears in the upcoming, likely more popular Charlie Wilson’s War). Nichols is perfect for the role of G.I. Joe’s super-smart martial arts expert, and sometime team leader, as she’s not just good-looking. Did you know she graduated from Columbia with a double major in math and economics? Of course, she’ll have to adequately pull off a Georgian accent, but really all we care about is that she looks good holding a crossbow — not that Scarlett would like us to think of her only as a sex symbol; she’d remind us that, “beauty may only be skin deep, but lethal is to the bone.”

UPDATE: IESB has received official studio confirmation that the above casting rumor is indeed true. Head over there to read Paramount’s statements.

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Filed under: Cellphones

A month after Google launched the Android SDK, it looks like unresolved bugs, poor documentation, and the lack of a public issue-tracking system are causing some developers to say that the platform “isn’t ready for prime time.” The lack of solid documentation and unorganized feedback mechanism aside, however, Ars Technica’s Ryan Paul took the SDK for a spin and found that it has a lot of potential, saying “Despite some of the bugs and limitations in the API, it is definitely a viable and effective platform for application development,” but that “it doesn’t make it easy to create applications that have a really polished look and feel.” Given how much bake time Android had before the announcement, it’s a little strange that Google let it out the door without at least proper documentation, but there’s still plenty of time — we’re not going to see any Android devices for another year, after all.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals

Finally, you no longer have to mess with annoying bone conducting headsets to get your message heard in noisy environments. A Japanese company called NS-ELEX has created a new type of earpiece / microphone called the “e-Mimi-kun” (good ear boy), which utilizes air vibrations in the ear to deliver your voice to the other end of the line. Apparently, the design reduces outside noise by a factor of six, and a Sanyo chip used in the device further reduces sound levels, making things up to ten times quieter. The earpiece can be tethered to a phone, or work wirelessly via Bluetooth. No release date or pricing info available right now, but we’re pretty sure stock brokers will snap these up like hot-cakes.

[Via PhysOrg]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

With falling subscriber numbers and some difficult Xohm decisions to be made in the coming months, Sprint wanted a new man at the helm, and has picked Dan Hesse for the job. Dan’s replacing Gary Forsee, who held the job since 2003 and was pegged for replacement since August. Hesse hails from Sprint spin-off Embarq, and served as CEO of AT&T Wireless from 1997 to 2000, back in the glory years of that service. Here’s hoping that he doesn’t axe the WiMAX, but it’s clear something has got to change in Sprint land to turn things around.

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