ThePowerGeeks.com

We are LIVE on Ustream . This week we discuss the Mobile World Conference, Wonder Woman on NBC, Lots of gaming news, and even some SNAFU’s from the US government

Intro Jeremy
Intro Natali

Items of Interest

• Kid saves Family using moves he learned from WoW (JP)
  • One of my CoWorkers sent this to me to share on the show… so special thanks to Mike for this one…
  • Hans Jørgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, saved himself and his sister from a moose attack
  • Skills used??? Taunting to draw the Moose away from his sister and after running in the opposite direction he then he feigned death the other skill he learned from the game till the moose lost interest. Then he ran home to tell his tale.
• Left 4 Dead Valentines
• Be my Portal Valentine?
• SuperHarmony (udg)
  • Are you lonely? Looking for someone special? Are you also okay with tights-wearing crime fighters or perhaps amoral megalomaniacs bent on world domination and/or life of crime?  Well dearies, than SuperHarmony is the dating site for you. Superheroes and villains need love too. Now SuperHarmony is bringing real happiness to some really super people. Why? Cuz love is super!

• MoSerious (udg)
  • Okay, so Michael Bolton from Office Space got nothin’ on me. I’ll blast my stuff and not roll up the window like a lil punk. Well today I had friend send me a clip of Mo Serious. Mo is awesome. He calls himself The SEO Rapper layin down rhymes that actually prove he knows his stuff. From design coding to page ranking, you definitely need to check him out!

Gold Sponsors:

Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Bark Maul, or Hothballs, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

• Convention Schedule
  • Milwaukee Anime Con – Feb. 18-20
  • C2E2 – March 18-20

Big Exciting News… We are very close (depending on Apple) to being able to test and release our first iPhone app!!! (@JebsApps) it’ll be Movie History… with lots of new features (that we can’t make androids do… yet) but both will be getting a huge update to the Database!!! and right on the heels of that will be Geek History with a bigger update to the Database!!! So… More Geekiness… = More GeekyGoodness!!
Get yours today if you have an Android for only $0.99 to keep up with facts like:
Today in MovieHistory 2/16/1957
LeVar Burton, Star Trek: TNG’s Geordie LaForge, is born.

Deals of the Week / New Release

• Cowboys & Aliens Comic Giveaway (udg)
  • Geekosystem is all about sharing the love and right now that love comes in the form of 5 copies of the Cowboys & Aliens comic book that inspired the movie. Want one of these awesome hardbacks? You’re going to have to fight for it, but the fighting is fun.
  • Here’s the dealio- head on over to their Facebook Page and tell them what improbable but awesome match up you want to see made into a movie. The possibilities are infinite: Zombie Nuns vs Vampire Samurai, Mega Shark and Giant Octopus vs Sharktopus, Teen Wolf vs Team Edward- you name it!
  • Give them your unnatural (or surprisingly natural) pairing and you could take home a copy of Cowboys and Aliens.
• Marvel vs Capcom 3 (udg)
  • It’s been more than a decade since Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes debuted in arcades, yup I said arcades. Yesterday the long awaited Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds arrived for Xbox and PS3. So, what can you expect?
  • First of all, I haz a HUGE sad I don’t have a 360 so it’ll be awhile before I can actually try this game out for myself. While it’s only been out for a day, all the reviews I found agree on two things- it’s fun and the graphics are awesome. What more could ya want?

• This week on Blu-Ray
  • Dr. Who, a christmas carol
  • Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  • Dungeons and Dragons 2 Movie Pack – (2000 original w/ jeremy irons and the direct to video Wrath of the Dragon God
  • Unstoppable (Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson – train out of control, blah blah blah)

Geek Speak

• Mobile World Congress
  • Nokia, Microsoft joining forces
    • Microsoft offers Billions to a deep partnership (vs. google)
    • Plan is to make a 3rd ecosystem (behind android and Iphone)
    • Will still support Symbian developers (all 3 of them)
    • Some aren’t too hip to the movement (9 investors speak out – Next up, 9 Apple investors want Jobs to stop wearing turtlenecks)
    • Verizon not too hip about relationship (they were burned by kin – now have Iphone – why need more)
    • Is it a good move? Where do they go but to M$? (RIM, Palm OS, everything else)
  • Rumor: IPhone to get smaller version
    • This now spans 3 publishers (U.K. Daily Mail, WSJ, Bloomberg)
    • $200 (without subsidy) is the rumored price point
    • ? the size of the current IPhone
    • Obviously a software rev would be needed (yet more fragmentation)
  • Next gen Galaxy Tab and Galaxy SII hit
    • Tab = honeycomb, faster 1ghz dual core (bringing it up to spec), 1.23 lbs, dual cameras (8/2),  no USB or HDMI
    • Galaxy S II =  2.3 gingerbread, 8.5 mm thick 4.3”” SAMOLED, NFC Support, etc, etc.
  • XPeria Play Phone Specs and Hands on (exclusively on Verizon)
    • Vroom! Pretty much a standard Android phone but w/ the Playstation suite
    • You will have to re-buy your PSN content on the Android Marketplace
    • Both digital and analog inputs
  • Using Cell Phone as wallet coming 2012
    • Huge push for the “NFC” chip, w/ T-mobile adopting 2012
    • It’s a chip that sends wirelessly over very short distances, “4-inches”
    • Wave it over a terminal and it makes a payment
    • Apples name was dropped
  • Google unveils video editor for Honeycomb
    • Trying to catch up w/ some of the Apple staples
    • Will be able to edit video, sound track, etc to make your videos more “social friendly”

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• 150million PS2’s sold (SM)
  • and 1.5 BILLION units of software sold over its liftetime
  • Whopping 10k+ library of games
  • First launched in 2000 to Japan (that short ago?)
  • Perspective: 2 per minute = 285 years to complete sales

• Batman: Arkham City No Can Haz Multiplayer (udg)
  • If you’re like me and heart Arkham Asylum, you’ve probably been looking forward to its upcoming sequel to it, Arkham City.  If you were hoping to play Robin the Boy Wonder alongside your friend’s Batman, you’re gonna haz a sad though cuz Rockstar has confirmed that it will NOT have multiplayer or coop play, contrary to the rumors that have been flying around.
  • Why? According to an interview with IGN their “Thought process behind this was fairly simple: when we investigated adding multiplayer we asked, ‘If we use all of the energy that is required to create multiplayer and instead focus this on the single player, would that deliver a better overall game?
  • “With the game now coming to the final stages, I can honestly say it would not have been possible to deliver Arkham City the way we wanted to if we’d have added multiplayer
  • “So it might not be the fashionable choice, it might not get us an extra tick on the box, but we are convinced, and we hope that gamers will agree when they get to play the finished game, that we have made the right decision.”
  • Which, I gotta say, sounds fair enough. I’m still gonna hope to see multiplayer brought in the mix with Arkham Asylum 3.

• Activision Bails Out of Guitar Hero, Cancels Games (JP)
  • Following in the footsteps of MTV Games, Activision Blizzard has closed its music-game division
  • Hundreds of employees are being laid off, all 2011 games are cancelled
  • Latest Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock only sold 86,000 units
  • Decline of Genre, soaring cost of licensing and producing games, cited for closure
  • True Crime: Hong Kong also hit
  • 500 employees (7% of the total are slated to be axed)
  • Plans to ramp back up around a secret MMO from Blizzard will put them back above 7000 employees near the end of the year

• Zynga worth $7-9 billion (SM)
  • This up from the 5.5 billion in October
  • Perspective: EA is worth around 6 billion dollars
  • The debil is trying to rais some chump change (250 million dollars)
  • Despite not needing it, ppl are jumping at chance, public trade is rumor
  • Beotch slap: Facebook is valued at around $50 billion

• Pokemon Goes Online (udg)
  • Since the creation of Pokemon, you’ve been able to play it via handheld Nintendo devices, the trading card games with friends, you’ve been able to watch the TV series or films as a kid. But, you’ve never been able to play it online… until now.
  • Enter Pokemon Trainer Challenge. It basically takes the Pokemon trading cards and makes them digital so you can play against friends from your computer. It’s set for a live launch in April and will initially offer 3 preconstructed trading card decks and 14 virtual players to challenge. Nintendo is smart though so there will be a set of physical trading cards coming out the support the game. The Pokemon Black and Pokemon White decks can be used to unlock the virtual deck versions in Trainer Challenge and will be out April 6.
  • The game will be available to play at PokemonCG.com.

• Apple offers deal to wary publishers (JP)
  • The promise of “magazines” and subscription content has been there since release
  • Nothing has really materialized as the publishers and Apple has squabbled over rights and percentages
  • Finally, Apple has made a decision. Any subs you bring to the table, you keep everything, any subs that Apple brings to the table through its services, they keep 30%
  • Here’s what some content producers aren’t digging,
    • No details about Apple customers get automatically sent to them (apple manages and keeps all that data)
    • Price has to stay the same between ITunes and their website
    • Google is giving more generous terms on their platform
  • Rhapsody already threatening legal and drop-out over 30% tax
  • Netflix, Hulu Plus, Time magazine, etc still havent’ brought what they think of the new deal to the table, only time will tell

• Civ IV Theme Wins a Grammy in Music (SM)
  • Won a grammy for “Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist”
  • First Video Game music to win such an award
  • Basically, its the opening theme song for Civ IV
  • Included in an album “Calling all Dawns” by Christopher Tin
  • Beautiful sweeping music accompanied by a Swahili vocal… gorgeous

• Don’t Mess With The Bieber (udg)
  • In case you missed the Grammys this weekend, Esperanza Spalding took home the win for best new artist. Which seems to have left some Bieber fans just a little bit pissed. One of them so much so that they decided to hack her Wikipedia page by adding “Quesadilla” to her name and then busting out the all caps for “JUSTIN BIEBER DESERVED IT GO DIE IN A HOLE. WHO THE HECK ARE YOU ANYWAY?” Okay, first of all Sunshine, punctuation is your friend and b. I know scrolling down is tough, but you are on Wikipedia so you could have actually read the answer to the question you seemed so interested in finding out.
  • Many of you listening probably have not heard of Esperanza. She’s now the first jazz musician to take home this award, is highly talented and rightfully earned the win.  So, pull your panties out of a wad Bieberites and expand your musical horizons just a bit, it’ll do ya good and for the love of all that is holy and sacred, stay away from Wikipedia unless you’re going to actually read and learn from it.

• Oops! US Gov Accidentally Shuts Down 84,000 Web Sites (JP)
  • In a HUGE effort to corral child pornography  ICE’s cybercrime center seized various domain that were purportedly involved in child pornography
  • They did manage to find a district judge to sign off on the warrant
  • However, they made a slight clerical error, mooo.com (from Freedns.com) was seized and it contained 84,000 sub domains of personal websites and small businesses
  • These were admittedly, not a planned part of the seizure
  • For 6 days these sites were redirected to a very scary page stating in legalese that these ppl were being investigated for child pornography
  • Eventually fixed
  • Recent homeland security press release mentions nothing of the error and there is no formal apology out there for the “inconvenience” of smirching their good names
    • Who smells a law suit or two thousand coming??

• Cool Tech: Hydrogen Powered Phone Recharger (SM)
  • Uses a disposable water fuel cell to produce Hydrogen energy
  • Being marketed as a hikers dream
  • Basically takes water and splits the hydrogen then runs it through fuel cell to make an electric current to charge a USB device or its own battery
  • Also see Hydrofill (shown at CES)

• Casting Sheet for WW Revealed (udg)
  • The casting sheet for the new Wonder Woman TV series is out and here are some key points:

• Wonder Woman is being cast older as Kelley has her in the script “late 20s to 30s.” No race is specified but there is a reference to black hair and blue eyes. She’s “a real woman who yearns to live a normal life.”
• Open ethnicity casting for Etta, Myndi and Steve Trevor
• Ed Indelicato, the cop from Boston (and he is still from Boston in the pilot) could possible have some romantic tension with Diana/Wonder Woman.
• Filming starts March 15 in LA

• [WONDER WOMAN / DIANA THEMYSCIRA / DIANA PRINCE] Female, late 20s to 30s. A kick-ass Superhero / Powerful C.E.O. / A vulnerable woman. Long flowing black hair, blue eyes. Amazon-like, muscular, an Olympian. The charismatic stage presence of a rock star. A crime fighter. Also, a real woman who yearns to live a normal life. She is accessible and appealing to all people, men and women alike…SERIES LEAD. ASP.
• [MYNDI MAYER] Female, open ethnicity, 30s. Publicist, Press Secretary and Wonder Woman’s confidant and nurturing best friend. Worldy and edgy. Sexy and persuasive, her appearance is part of her strength. She is beautiful and put together – dressed expensively in the latest fashions, plus she’s got a bit of bite, clever wit and sass. She’s the prodder of Diana’s social life…SERIES REGULAR. ASP.
• I like the fact that kick-ass is in there. The “rock star” part worries me just a  bit. The yearning to live a normal life part also sits a little off with me.
• WW = Princess Diana = Adrianne Palicki
  • Friday Night Lights star Adrianne Palicki has been chosen to embody Princess Diana in David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman pilot on NBC.

• • Twenty-seven year old Palicki, who also starred in Supernatural and the filmLegion, stands a lofty 5?11? tall. The news came just late this evening courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter.

• • Oddly enough, Palicki had a brush with DC Comics before. She was in an episode of Smallville but was also cast as Siren in the Aquaman television pilot that was never picked up.
  • In high school, the actress played basketball and played track so it’s likely she’ll be able to keep up with the physicality of the role. Palicki can be seen next in the remake of Red Dawn with Thor star Chris Hemsworth

• Felicia Day Writing & Starring in Dragon Age Web Series (JP)
  • One of the fan-favorite geek girls out there is set to take on a new role
  • Felicia will be writing and starring in a 6 ep. web series based around a popular RPG “Dragon Age”, made by Bioware
  • Show has been dubbed Dragon Age: Redemption
  • another popular RPG out there (made by Bioware)
  • Previous credits include:
    • “The Guild” (wrote and starred – based on WoW)
    • Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (Co-star)
    • And frequent guest star for Joss Whedon

• Huge Rumor: AMD up for Sale, Dell might be interested (SM)
  • We reported back in january about CEO Dirk Meyer leaving
  • COO left last week (Robert Rivet)
  • There’s no management team really left
  • Current interim Thomas Seifert doesn’t want job
  • buzz is that company is up for sale, Dell is interested
  • This is the #2 chip maker IN THE WORLD!
  • Bigger than when AMD bought ATI (video chip maker)

Intarweb Goldmine

• Football and Porn – Kind of a No No (JP)
  • Imagine this: Biggest game of the year, you gather your family around the ol’ boob toob, chips, family, their kids, everyone watching the game
  • BLAM! Hardcore porn cuts in the middle and plays for 37 seconds
  • What do you do? A) Hoot and holler and make bets on who wins? B) run around screaming and telling your 3 year old that it was a nature clip of animals in the wild? B) Vote for it as better than 99% of the other commercials out there?
  • Well, one man Frank Gonzales, from Tuscon Arizona, made people choose, 80,000 of them to be exact, by slicing into the main feed and putting that stuff into the stream
  • Time Warner was so horrified, it gave each subscriber $10
  • Man, thats some expensive porn
• Alien Tumor Found in California Man (udg)
  • Like part of the storyline from the 1979 sci-fi classic “Alien,” a California man discovered he had a large,  alien-type tumor growing inside him complete with tenacles.
  • After Josh Abken, 36,  complained of back pains last year.  He thought he’d pulled a muscle, but the X-ray revealed something both frightening and bizarre. It was a soccer-ball-sized tumor that sprouted tentacles and had apparently been quietly growing inside him for almost a decade.
  • The tumor, dubbed “Gill,” began to apply pressure on Abken’s heart, moving his lungs out of normal position and causing his stomach to push downward. And it was partially calcified, or hard like a rock.
  • It took several hours of surgery, but thoracic surgeon Costanzo Di Perna successfully remove the cancerous tumor, giving Abken a new lease on life.
• The Fast and the Fantastically Stupid (SM)
  • Guy pegs out his car at 118 MPH, Tapes it for Youtube, Cop pulls him over
  • Claims to only have been doing 90-100 but this genius got real smart
  • He showed the cops the footage of the dashboard camera
  • Duh, it showed his speedometer needle pegged out
  • Guy gets charged with reckless driving and charged almost a $1000 for the incident
  • And they let geniuses like this drive every day
• Woman Calls 911 for Police Harassing Her At Her Door
• Grapes of Wrath (udg)
  • Sebastiano Russo, 75, seems to have just a lil bit of an anger issue. He and his ex-wife, Claire Russo, 71, live together as “a family unit” even though they divorced in 2003.
  • According to a witness Sebastiano arrived home drunk Tuesday around 11 p.m. and began an argument about bringing his new girlfriend to their mutual home, according to the Orlando Sentinel. He then threw a grape at his ex-wife’s face, then threatened to kill her and burn down the house reports the Orlando Sentinel.
  • Those “sour grape” actions landed the Orange City man a cot in the Volusia County Jail. He’s charged with aggravated battery on a person age 65 or older and a misdemeanor assault charge, according to Volusia County Sheriff’s Office records.
• In Honor of Tax Season: Silly Tax Hikes
  • own a vacation home in NY? Pay 1 million in taxes for being a year-round resident even though you don’t live there year round
  • 2.9 % sales tax on candy, soda, software, drect mail food items, and agricultural compounds like bull semen, and online sales
  • online
• Optimus Prime Gets a Parking Ticket
• Freed Chilean Miners Talk Drugs, Porn, Sex Dolls.. Wait, What? (udg)
  • The 33 men rescued from a Chilean mine were smuggled drugs and pornography during their time underground, but their request for inflatable sex dolls went unmet due to a shortage.
  • A new book disclosed that the men’s request for sex dolls was denied because their doctor was afraid jealousy could spread after only 10, rather than 33, dolls were found.
  • The bizarre details of the men’s lives down in the mine will be contained in a new book by journalist Jonathan Franklin, extracts of which were published in The (London) Sunday Times.

Extra Links

• 5 Amazing Things Invented By Donald Duck. Seriously.
• How to design MK Fatalities
• Zune Rebranding Rumored
• Google Street View Photography wins award

Contact Info

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Jeremy is @jpuent, Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com and jpuent@thepowergeeks.com and uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!)
• And Become a Fan

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