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      Vernor Vinge, father of the tech singularity, has died at age 79

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 21 March - 15:33

    A photo of Vernor Vinge in 2006. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge#/media/File:Vernor_Vinge.jpg

    Enlarge / A photo of Vernor Vinge in 2006. (credit: Raul654 )

    On Wednesday, author David Brin announced that Vernor Vinge, sci-fi author, former professor, and father of the technological singularity concept, died from Parkinson's disease at age 79 on March 20, 2024, in La Jolla, California. The announcement came in a Facebook tribute where Brin wrote about Vinge's deep love for science and writing.

    "A titan in the literary genre that explores a limitless range of potential destinies, Vernor enthralled millions with tales of plausible tomorrows, made all the more vivid by his polymath masteries of language, drama, characters, and the implications of science," wrote Brin in his post.

    As a sci-fi author, Vinge won Hugo Awards for his novels A Fire Upon the Deep (1993), A Deepness in the Sky (2000), and Rainbows End (2007). He also won Hugos for novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004). As Mike Glyer's File 770 blog notes, Vinge's novella True Names (1981) is frequency cited as the first presentation of an in-depth look at the concept of "cyberspace."

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      Apple orders 10 episodes of a Neuromancer TV series

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 29 February - 17:38

    An illustration of a face made of wires with goggles that say

    Enlarge / A cover image for Neuromancer included in Apple's press release. (credit: Apple)

    It's been a long time coming: A TV series adapted from the famed William Gibson novel Neuromancer will air on Apple TV+. The streamer ordered 10 episodes.

    The order comes after decades of failed attempts to greenlight a screen adaptation of the 1984 science fiction novel. The most recent widely known failed attempt was by Deadpool director Tim Miller in 2017.

    The series will be helmed by showrunner, writer, and producer Graham Roland, who until now was best known as the creator of the AMC TV series Dark Winds and for helming the series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime Video. Roland will share a co-creator credit on Neuromancer with J.D. Dillard, a TV writer known for his work on the recent Twilight Zone reboot series.

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      After decades lost, Star Trek’s original Enterprise model may have been found

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 7 November - 12:25

    The first model of the USS Enterprise ever used in shooting the original Star Trek series may have surfaced after going missing decades ago.

    An eBay listing of a 3-foot model of the Enterprise appeared early last week and named a starting bid of $1,000. The listing was removed hours after it went up after enthusiasts on social media and forums discovered it and pieced together what it likely was. Some of those enthusiasts said in the private Facebook group "Star Trek Prop Makers & Collectors" that they had contacted the seller suggesting it be returned to its rightful owners, which many believe to be the estate of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

    On Thursday evening, Rod Roddenberry, son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and steward of the Roddenberry estate, shared a message on Facebook expressing a desire to get in touch with the seller to see about the model's return. That post has since become inaccessible, but a nearly identical one appeared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday afternoon. He wrote :

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      Enhance your calm: Demolition Man turns 30

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Sunday, 8 October - 18:35 · 1 minute

    Stallone ion riot gear pointing a pistol

    Enlarge / Sylvester Stallone starred as LAPD Sergeant John Spartan in the 1993 action comedy Demolition Man . (credit: Warner Bros.)

    Thirty years ago today, Demolition Man first hit theaters, pitting Sylvester Stallone against Wesley Snipes in a crime-free but killjoy future where even minor vices have been declared illegal. The passage of time hasn't quite elevated this sci-fi action comedy to the legendary status of Die Hard or Lethal Weapon , but it's still an under-appreciated gem of '90s action movies, precisely because it unapologetically leans into the massive explosions and campy humor with wild abandon.

    (Spoilers below, because it's been 30 years.)

    Demolition Man started out as a spec script by Peter Lenkov, then a recent college grad eager to break into Hollywood. (Lenkov went on to create his own shared fictional TV universe with the interconnected reboot series Hawaii 5-0, MacGuyver , and Magnum P.I. ) Lenkov was a Lethal Weapon fan and envisioned an action movie about a cryogenically frozen "super cop" who wakes up decades in the future in a world largely free of crime, where he must battle his criminal arch-nemesis. As for the title, Lenkov had been listening to Sting's " Demolition Man " constantly because the cassette player in his car was broken. Inspiration strikes in nonlinear ways.

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      Visually stunning The Creator is a rare piece of original sci-fi filmmaking

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 6 October - 18:55 · 1 minute

    black man lying in road on back pointing a gun

    Enlarge / John David Washington stars as a US sergeant on an undercover mission who befriends an AI "child" in The Creator . (credit: 20th Century Studios)

    It's rare to get an original piece of science fiction filmmaking not based on existing IP in this era of adaptations and superhero mega-franchises. So The Creator is a welcome offering in the genre, combining elements of District 9 , Ex Machina , Blade Runner , and Apocalypse Now , among others, to produce a visually stunning and timely tale of a war between humans and AI. It's directed by Gareth Edwards, best known for 2014's Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016.

    (Some mild spoilers below but no major reveals.)

    The inspiration for The Creator came post- Rogue One , when Edwards took a road trip through the Midwest. He spotted a strange building with a Japanese logo in the middle of one of the endless fields, and his mind instantly jumped to robots. What would a robot built inside that factory think when it encountered the field and broader outside world for the first time? "It felt like the beginning of a movie," Edwards recalled, and locked himself away in a hotel in Thailand to write the screenplay. He also joined a fellow director on a tour across Vietnam. "I started envisioning massive futuristic structures rising out of paddy fields... and I got really excited about the idea of something Blade Runner -esque being set in Vietnam," he said. The end result was The Creator .

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      The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 25 August, 2023 - 11:00

    <em>Inside the Submarine</em> by Kim Kwang Nam, from the series "The Future is Bright."

    Enlarge / Inside the Submarine by Kim Kwang Nam, from the series "The Future is Bright." (credit: Koryo Studio )

    A plane is flying to the Philippines, gliding above "the infinite surface" of the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly, a few passengers start to scream. Soon, the captain announces there's a bomb on board, and it’s set to detonate if the aircraft drops below 10,000 feet.

    "The inside of the plane turned into a battlefield," the story reads. "The captain was visibly startled and vainly tried to calm down the screaming and utterly terrorized passengers."

    Only one person keeps his cool: a young North Korean diplomat who has faith that his country will find a solution and save everyone. And he’s right. North Korea's esteemed scientists and engineers create a mysterious anti-gravitational field and stop the plane in mid-air. The bomb is defused, and everyone gets off the aircraft and is brought back safely to Earth.

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      Exploring the ingenious science and science fiction of making things invisible

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 17 July, 2023 - 16:58 · 1 minute

    Still from 1933 film showing man with an invisible head

    Enlarge / H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man inspired a 1933 film. It's just one cultural example of the human fascination with invisibility. (credit: Universal Pictures)

    There's a well-known story in Plato's Republic in which a humble shepherd named Gyges finds a magical gold ring that renders whoever wears it invisible. Gyges proceeds to use his newfound power to murder a king and take over the throne. Plato intended it as a cautionary tale about whether a man could act justly even if the fear of consequence was removed. (The fictional Gyges clearly failed that moral test.) The parable famously inspired J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, among other works. And it's one of the earliest examples of the longstanding human fascination with invisibility in both fiction and scientific pursuits.

    "Invisibility represents the perfect merger of not being seen while being able to see others, which would be great if you were a primitive hunter-gatherer," Greg Gbur, a physicist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told Ars. "But more purely, it represents power. You see that in the story of the Ring of Gyges, where the ability to make yourself unseen gives you a tremendous advantage over others. So it's fascinating as a symbol of pure power and how people might use and abuse it."

    Gbur is the author of a new book from Yale University Press, Invisibility: The History and Science of How Not to Be Seen , covering the earliest discoveries in optical physics through to the present, along with how invisibility has been portrayed in science fiction (a longstanding passion for Gbur). He's also the author of 2019's fascinating Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics , which explored the surprisingly complicated physics of why cats always seem to land on their feet, ferreting out several obscure scientific papers spanning decades of research in the process. His interest in invisibility science dates back to his graduate school days when his advisor assigned him a project on the topic.

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      Star Trek fans will finally get a Section 31 movie—with an Oscar-winning lead

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 18 April, 2023 - 23:05

    A woman pulls off a mysterious hood to reveal her face in dramatic lighting

    Enlarge / Michelle Yeoh as Emperor Philippa Georgiou in Star Trek: Discovery . (credit: Paramount+)

    Paramount+ has announced a new movie called Star Trek: Section 31 that will star Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh, reprising her role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery .

    It was announced in 2019 that the streaming network was exploring the idea of a series starring her—in fact, it was one of the first post- Discovery announcements—but it's been radio silence since then, and Yeoh's already illustrious career has reached new heights with the enormous critical and popular success of Everything Everywhere All At Once . Star Trek viewers could be forgiven for assuming that Yeoh—now, more than ever, beloved an artist and star as you could possibly name—might have moved on.

    This announcement makes it clear that's not the case, though her expanded popularity could be the reason for reducing a series concept to just a single movie. (That bit is complete speculation on our part, though.) Yeoh released the following statement alongside the announcement:

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      The long-rumored Starfleet Academy TV series will finally get made

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 30 March, 2023 - 21:12

    The crew of the <em>Enterprise</em> in <em>Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan</em>, a film with many references to Starfleet Academy.

    Enlarge / The crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , a film with many references to Starfleet Academy. (credit: Paramount)

    There's officially another Star Trek series on the way, and this time it's one we've been hearing rumors about since 2018: Starfleet Academy .

    Announced today in a press release and reported by Deadline , the CBS Studios-produced series will follow a group of teenage Starfleet Academy students as they come of age while enduring rigorous training for future interstellar missions.

    The central characters will reportedly have to navigate friendships, rivalries, and romances as they face a new enemy that threatens the Federation.

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