Real Life Halo Full Exoskeleton Body Armor Suit

I dare you to knock this battery off my shoulder! This Canadian fanboy took a bear suit and modified it for futuristic combat situations ala Halo. I have no idea if this invention would work, but man would he clean up with the cosplay awards at any convention!

Found via Yeah, It’s Pretty Cool

The Ultimate Captain Kirk

Yes I know that there were quite a few talented folks who made Star Trek great, and I’ll grant you that he has a huge ego — but I feel like William Shatner is being treated like crap by not including him in this upcoming Star Trek film. Don’t tell me that they can bring back Nimoy for a leading role but they can’t work a 5 minute future flashback into the damn script?

Adding insult to injury is the Star Trek Ultimate Captain Kirk 1:4 Scale Figure which looks like a bad cartoon sculpture of Shatner. Of course I’ll grant you that Paramount has never had the same approach to quality merchandise that say Lucasfilm has had with Star Wars, but I think that they could do a little bit better on the small and big things that count to us fanboys.

Indiana Jones IV: New Photos

These photos look great! Harrison Ford looks like he’s in top form:

Read more…

Kung Fu Panda: The Latest Trailer

I’ll always root for Pixar over Dreamworks, but this film may not be half bad…

The Ultimate Wall-E

I have to admit that I had my doubts about Disney-Pixar’s upcoming movie WALL-E, although slowly my mind is being changed on the subject. For starters a friend who saw a few clips at the recent New York Comic Con told me that he was blown away with the quality of the work that he viewed. And today I could sense the buzz building up as I spotted a poster for the film on a bus shelter here in NYC.

Shown above is the Ultimate WALL-E which will sell for $190 this summer. This interactive robot comes with a remote controller and sensors that’ll allow him to respond to his environment in numerous ways, including obstacle, sound, and touch detection. This fanboy thinks that this looks like a fun toy and makes me look forward to finding out more about the film.

Found via gearlog.

Hello Kitty goes Punk

Meow! Japanese horror punk rock band Balzac has adopted Hello Kitty into their act. Shown above is the result of this collaboration which includes a line of t-shirts to show off your claws of cuteness.

Found via Hello Kitty Hell.

Making Suspended Animation a Reality

Countless science fiction films from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Alien (my favorite was Planet of the Apes) have used the idea of suspended animation as a technique to allow for prolonged missions in outer space. Well now it looks like that concept may become reality:

Rotten egg gas may save Mars mission

“Dr Warren Zapol and colleagues report in the latest issue of the journal Anesthesiology how hydrogen sulfide slows mouse metabolism without cutting blood flow to the brain. There are many questions and years of research before healthy people like astronauts would be put into hibernated states. But the procedure could find an earlier application in cases of traumatic injury when life itself is at risk. Zapol plans additional experiments on larger mammals, probably sheep. “Before you use it on astronauts, you want to make sure it’s very, very safe,” he says.”

Lunchtime at Fanboy.com: Japanese Toys

The photos shown above are of various Japanese toys:
• Lunch Time photo by katsuboy
• Baby and Box photo by gwennan
• Shokupankun Arrives! photo by rilakkumaworld

Indiana Jones: Icon Collection

Check out these cool official Indiana Jones desktop icons designed by Anthony Piraino.

The Mexican Matrix: Sleep Dealer

I’ve starting to hear quite a bit about Sleep Dealer which is a low budget science fiction film from Mexico which sounds interesting:

Cool Indie Sci-Fi Film Sleep Dealer Gets A Distributor!

“I personally saw the film at last month’s screening here in NYC at NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS and loved the film! I think the movie is hot and consider the hybrid movie to be a “Mexican Matrix.” Hybrid in the sense that it is both in English and in Spanish, something the trades forgot to mention. The futuristic film creates an environment where Mexican immigrant labor is outsourced from Tijuana via cyber network, with remote-controlled robots working in the United States.”

…here are some video clips from the film:

Multiple Moons?

I wonder if somewhere out there we have an orphan moon wandering the cosmos?

Did Earth once have multiple moons?

“The ancient catastrophe that gave birth to the Moon may have produced additional satellites that lingered in Earth’s skies for tens of millions of years. A new model suggests moonlets may have once occupied the two Earth-Moon Lagrangian points, regions in space where the gravitational tug of the Earth and the Moon exactly cancel each other out. Objects trapped in these points are called Trojans and can remain stationary forever if left undisturbed.

Scientists think the Moon was created when Earth was struck by a Mars-sized object some 4.5 billion years ago. “The giant impact that likely led to the formation of the Moon launched a lot of material into Earth orbit, and some could well have been caught in the Lagrangian points,” says study team member Jack Lissauer of NASA Ames Research Center in California, US.”

The Animation Show: Trailer for Year Four

The Animation Show is a showcase for independent animated short films which is put together by Mike Judge (of Beavis and Butt-Head fame) and Academy Award nominated animator Don Hertzfeldt. If the film isn’t coming to your local town don’t worry too much as they play to release a DVD as well.

1968: Crossing a Phone with a TV Set

What’s funny about this Western Electric ad from 1968 is that it reminds me a great deal of the webcams of today. I suspect as the technology for those webcams becomes cheaper we’ll see those as stand alone objects disappear over time, but that signature lens will continue to be found everywhere from cell phones to TV sets.

Found via Pink Ponk.

Italian Spiderman Fears No Diet

Methinks Italiano Spidy likes his pasta just a wee too much! Although the bad guys seem out of shape too so maybe that’s not so critical to his crime fighting skills…

At the Tea Ceremony

To me one of the best parts of being a fanboy is accidentally discovering the traditions of other societies after getting to know their pop culture (as I sit here writing this I’m enjoying a chilled bottle of Tea’s Tea Golden Oolong). Shown above is an amazing photograph I came across by Chizuru Ohmae. You should check out her blog, it’s like traveling to Japan without needing a passport.

Bunny Suit Gundam

Yeah you aint goin’ to mess with us! I got my friend here in the MS-09R Rick Dom which features a large clip-fed beam cannon (often referred to as a “Beam Bazooka”)…

Fukusuke-pon 福助ぽん is a cute rabbit from Japan whose adventures can be followed on Flickr.

Tick! Tick! Tick!

El Estratografico collects cropped Spanish comic book images and posts them to Flickr, I just love the Roy Lichtenstein quality of his picks. What I love about the above image is how poor Bugs Bunny seems to have had his head cut off!

Universal Translator: A Reality?

It’s funny but in the last few years I’ve found Google translation tools pretty handy for looking at various websites, but the the thought of being able to turn a cell phone into a Star Trek Universal Translator would change the world:

Star Trek’s Universal Translator – Within Just a Few Years?

“Progress being made by European researchers on automatic speech-to-speech translation technology could help the EU tackle one of the biggest remaining boundaries to internal trade, mobility and the free exchange of information – language. Though the system still cannot match the accuracy of a human translator or interpreter, they’re is convinced that, with further research a commercially viable automatic speech-to-speech translator will be feasible within a few years, at least for some simpler language pairs.”

Kill the Batman!

As usual Batman works best when the bad guy steals the scenes, and this latest trailer for the Dark Knight doesn’t disappoint.

Star Wars Han Solo Animated Maquette

The Star Wars Han Solo Animated Maquette will set you back $80 — and that doesn’t even include a cute Chewie sidekick! What’s up with that?

Lucha Libre es Mucho Bien

Published by Image Comics Lucha Libre #4 hits stores this week. What I hate about so many comic books is that while the cover knocks you out the interior artwork just isn’t up to snuff. However in this case the team behind Lucha Libre (Bill, Tanquerelle, Fabien M., Gobi, Witco and Jerry Frissen) have done an amazing job as seen above. Every panel in this book looks rich and luscious which makes you want to turn the page. I also like the fact that the book doesn’t take itself too seriously and has a cartoony look to it. Shown below is the cover art:

Read more…

NYC Mayor More Worried About a Grand Theft Auto IV than Terrorism

When you’re mayor of New York City there are so many real things to worry about like terrorism, the economy, a deteriorating infrastructure, unaffordable housing for the middle class, improving our impoverished public school system and the recent disturbing Sean Bell case.

Q. So what does New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg worry about the most?

A. The videogame Grand Theft Auto IV!

Rants Begin Against Grand Theft Auto IV

“As was the case with the previous games in the series, activist groups, police, politicians, and surviving victims of violence criticized Grand Theft Auto IV last week, beginning shortly after the game was launched nationwide. Regarding the game’s violence, the NYPD association president Pat Lynch told the New York Daily News on Wednesday that, “being involved in a shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to send to young people.”

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the mother of a killed NYPD officer echoed similar sentiments in the same report, saying GTA IV “doesn’t exactly teach the kind of things that you’d want to teach your kids,” or more descriptively put, “teaches children to kill”.”

Read more…

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Latest Trailer

I admit it: I had my doubts and frankly who could blame me for being a cynic after what happened with Star Wars? But I have to say that this new Indiana Jones flick is looking good and I’m getting the sense that Spielberg might be able to deliver the goods. Yes it looks like more of the same, but maybe sometimes that’s a good thing?

Suburban Glamour

I spotted the above gem in the preview for Suburban Glamour Volume 1 which will be out this upcoming week and is published by Image Comics. What I like about the above panels by Jamie McKelvie is that they tell a story with no words, giving you the cinematic feeling that you’d get from a well done silent movie. Too often comic books force a story along with endless talking heads only to be interrupted by fist fights. With a series of 14 panels McKelvie brings you inside the world of his teenage protagonist Astrid Johnson.

Sadly the rest of the book falls back into conventional storytelling with the talking heads which populate daytime television. In fact you’d think that the above panels were the cover art, but sadly the publisher has tucked them inside the book. McKelvie also has a good eye for fashion, although I’d love to see him take it a step further and bring some texture into the book. Yes I get the fact that he’s going for a Patrick Nagel look, but after a few pages this gives you a sort of stark look which takes away from the story. Besides you don’t have to be too slavish to the 80s. Although McKelvie does seem to be off to a good start with the series, and I’ll look forward to more of his work.