Filed under: Gaming

We’ve been in contact with Hans Sandberg, the Swedish journalist who quoted Carl Freer saying unequivocally, “I’m going to resurrect Gizmondo.” This, plus yesterday’s teaser, is the source of the Gizmondo mongering lighting up the Intertubes yesterday. Fortunately, all the important bits from Hans’ interview are now translated from Swedish into English for some good ol’ fashioned global scrutiny. As unthinkable as the proposition might sound, we bring you the highlights for your morning amusement and trepidation:

• Carl believes there is a still a market for Gizmondo and is “ashamed” of his failure — he hopes the resurrection can pay back early investors
• Florida-based Tiger Telematics will formally own the new Gizmondo
• Gizmondo v2 could be up and running by May 2008 — by Christmas 2008 we’ll see “a more advanced version with widescreen“
• 35 titles will be available at launch, 6 are new, more on the way
• An “easy to use program” will allow kids to create games, save them to SD, and play them on their Gizmondo
• Price: $99, possibly free if Carl can work a deal with a cellular provider
• Unfortunately, he doesn’t offer any explanation of the “exciting psychic worlds” in this interview snippet

Our personal favorite has to be this, though. Carl says he has a deal in place with a Chinese company in Shenzhen which will manufacture the device “on credit” on condition that they will be the sole reseller in China. Oh, that sounds like a deal alright.

Update: Plextek, the original Gizmondo device developer, have confirmed to Eurogamer that they will indeed be building the resurrected Gizmondo. Stefan Eriksson is currently not involved, Freer is. You know what this means… Gizmondo lives!

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Filed under: Action, Animation, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Deals, Warner Brothers, The Weinstein Co., Comic/Superhero/Geek

I guess it’s never fun to be fired, but I bet it’s worse when there is a full-page press release about it. Variety reports that Colin Brady has been replaced by David Bowers to direct the feature film version of the classic manga, Astro Boy. The announcement was made by Imagi Entertainment’s Co-CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Francis Kao, and there was no official reason given for the switch. It doesn’t look like Imagi has really ‘traded up’ all that much with their choice of director. Brady was a newbie director with only one film under his belt, and Bowers’ last film was Flushed Away.

Created in 1951 by “God of Manga,” Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy tells the story of a young robot boy who fights crime and technology gone wild, as well as the usual manga struggles of humanity versus technology, and of course, what it means to be human. Michael Lachance’s script will focus on “a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist in the image of the son he has lost. Unable to fulfill the grieving man’s expectations, our hero embarks on a journey in search of acceptance, experiencing betrayal and a netherworld of robot gladiators, before he returns to save Metro City and reconcile with the father who had rejected him.”

It’s too bad that Brady won’t get the chance to direct the boy in the red boots, since he seemed pretty keen on the whole thing back in November. But I wouldn’t feel too bad for Brady; the visual effects master has already scored the job of directing another classic kid’s tale, The Smurfs. Astro Boy is scheduled for release in 2009.

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Filed under: Action, Casting

As if the current cast for the upcoming action/heist movie Armored wasn’t enough, they’ve just added a Hero to make things more tasty — it’s even the most powerful hero out there. Variety reports that Milo Ventimiglia has signed on for a role in the film. Now, before I go further, the reason I’m not mentioning the inclusion of Morpheus and a certain Professional, who are also listed in the Variety blurb — those guys were already attached earlier this month, when I posted about Skeet Ulrich’s involvement. So, as it stands now, the film features: Matt Dillon, Columbus Short, Fred Ward, Jean Reno, Laurence Fishburne, Ulrich, and Ventimiglia. Not a bad cast, eh?

The film, which is currently shooting in Los Angeles, focuses on “a young armored car guard who is persuaded by his veteran cohorts to empty a truck of its $10 million cargo.” Now we just have to wait and see who the young guy is — Short or Ventimiglia? I’d say the former, since Milo just signed on. It’d be sort of weird to have the main dude picked last. If screenwriter James V. Simpson delivered a decent script, and director Nimrod Antal sets this up right, this could be one sweet heist movie. If it doesn’t come together, well, it’d be a shame, because this cast is just great.

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Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger

We are talking about the UK Sun here, but I’d say for any rumored possibility, this is the one to pay attention to. As I last told you, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was in total shutdown. The workers questioned seemed to think it was the end, but this is Hollywood, and that pic has got a lot of money behind it, so I’d be surprised if they stopped that easily. That means filling Heath Ledger’s shoes for all of the blue-screen work. According to The Sun, Terry Gilliam is thinking about asking Johnny Depp.

The two have a long history, so if I was to believe any rumors of replacement, it’d be this one. But how could they do it? Sure, under certain conditions they can look similar, but “similar” really isn’t good enough. However, a studio source reportedly says: “There is a point in the film when Heath falls through a magic mirror. He could change into another character after that and that is where Johnny would come in.” Well, that would make sense, and be pretty darn convenient. Personally, I’m hoping it’s true. With Johnny, there’s still a big name in it to appease financial backers, and he could certainly do the role justice and allow fans to see Heath’s last work. Thoughts?

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Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities

It looks like the “Bronze the Fonz” campaign worked. The archetypical Happy Days character will be getting his own bronze statue in the city where the T.V. show was set.

This isn’t the first time a television character has gotten a statue. I live near New York City and I walk past the Ralph Kramden statue every time I take the bus. The cable channel TV Land has arranged for a half-dozen statues to be placed across America. TV Land is co-sponsoring the Fonzie statue as well.

Continue reading The Fonz to get statue in Milwaukee

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Filed under: Cellphones

Mobile World Congress isn’t for a bit yet, but Sony Ericsson is getting the party started early with four new lower-end devices aimed at developing nations. Not that you’ll be too interested, but here are the eight new variants of the four new models (T270, T280, R300, R306):

• T270i - GSM / GPRS 900 / 1800
• T270a - GSM / GPRS 850 / 1900
• T280i - 1.3 megapixel camera, FM radio, GSM / GPRS 900 / 1800
• T280a - 1.3 megapixel camera, FM radio, GSM / GPRS 850 / 1900
• R300 Radio - VGA camera, Bluetooth, GSM / GPRS 900 / 1800 / 1900
• R300a Radio - VGA camera, Bluetooth, GSM / GPRS 900 / 1800 / 1900
• R306 Radio (pictured) - 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, GSM / GPRS 900 / 1800 / 1900
• R306a Radio - 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, GSM / GPRS 900 / 1800 / 1900

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Oh Palm, things just seem to be going from bad to worse. After your recent (and repeated) Palm OS II delays and employee layoffs, you really should be due for some good news — but that’s not the case today. According to a member of the TreoCentral forums who cites “sources,” Palm will be folding all but its airport-based retail locations by the end of January. Apparently, other forum members have checked in with their local stores and gotten word from reps there that the doors are indeed shutting, so it seems like this is a go. Palm, we’re not going to say you’re in your darkest hour just yet, but we’re pretty sure you can see it from where you’re standing. C’mon guys — get it together!

[Thanks, Anonymous]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia, you’ve done it again. As usual, the Finnish mobile phone kingpin has produced the kind of innovation and “wow” that we’ve come to expect with its latest patent request: a virtual keyboard. That’s right, until now we’ve had to suffer the indignation of using a physical keyboard, vainly hoping that one day a company would come along with a concept that would upend the establishment and put a stop to the tyranny of single use, out-dated plastic keys… and now that day has come. Still, something seems vaguely familiar about this patent which details the workings of a “Mobile device with virtual keyboard.” Okay, this system differs from others in that it expects you to wiggle your fingers around in front of the phone’s camera, and responds to sound as well as vibrations, yet somehow we feel like the company’s efforts could be better directed. A nice new QWERTY model wouldn’t bother us, for instance.

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Filed under: Cellphones

Zut alors, big things are underway at RIM for BlackBerry users as Waterloo’s finest prepare to roll out the big guns by way of an update during the first half of the year. We’ve got your features here friends, mail is set to see significant changes with both HTML and Rich Text support, which will enable mail formatting that supports the original fonts, format and even graphics. Mail search functionality is also being thrown in to peruse old mail, a contact availability feature for meeting requests, and presence features for IM that will add “click to call” and “convert to call” as well as advanced emoticons — *wink*. Follow the read link to see the complete list.

[Via PhoneScoop]

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