Hasta La Gadget!

Have you ever heard of Highlight? I hope the answer is no, because incoherent “social” app has a logo that’s so horrible it will actually give you a headache. A physical headache, in your head. It’s dangerously bad. More »

As beer becomes increasingly popular around Asia, the demand for better quality, premium beer is likely to rise. Our friends over at COEDO have done an incredible job pairing great beer with modern Japanese design and getting global accolades, so it’s great to see more of it coming out of Japan.

Image via draftbeer.jp

Recognising this trend Nippon Craft Beer began offering Kagua, a luxury craft beer; is actually brewed in Belgium by the Japanese creators, but infused with Japanese herbs and special yeasts, designed for high-end dinning.

Launched in March last year (2012) at Toyoda and Gora Kadan in Tokyo’s expensive Ginza quarter, Kagua is now sold in over 170 haute-cuisine restaurants and bars across Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

After restaurant dinners requested to buy the beer to drink at home or to give to friends as gifts Nippon Craft foods began selling the beer at Matsuya department stores in Ginza and then offered limited quantities of Kagua online in cases of six, which all became sold out after just a couple of weeks. From March 2013, Kagua will also be sold in cases of twelve to celebrate the first anniversary of the beer. One 330 ml bottle of Kagua costs 630 Yen (US$6.8).

In an interview with Nikkei’s Trendy magazine, Mr Shiro Yamada of Nippon Craft Beer commented that the growth in demand for craft beer is extremely fast paced and overtaking the boom in popularity for traditional Japanese shochu and sake. The Video bellow features a presentation by Mr Yamada in English.

Kagua’s unique taste is supposed to derive from the mixture of  Japanese herbs such as yuzu citrus and sansho pepper, which are seldom used in beer production and the use of high quality yeasts specially selected from some of the world’s best beers. In order to ensure smooth production, Nippon Craft Beer teamed up with an experienced Belgian brewer as (according to Nippon Craft Beer) there are no facilities in Japan which can accomodate Kagua’s original recipe.

There are two varieties of Kagua beer; Blanc and Rouge (pictured bellow).

In Kagua Blanc (above left) , flavour is dominated by the yuzu citrus and yeast. Kagua Rouge (above right) is a mix of spicy sansho papper and roasted malt.

Image via draftbeer.jp

To fully appreciate Kagua’s original taste, it is recommended to drink it from a wine glass.

In Japan’s highly competitive beer market, Kagua has differentiated itself  as exclusively a luxury, high-end beer suited for restaurant dinning. As the beer was only launched a year ago it will be interesting to see how the popularity for the beer develops in Japan and across Asia among the wealthy who’s tastes and demand for beer becomes more sophisticated.

This afternoon the folks responsible for promoting the Ender’s Game movie at Summit Entertainment have worked out a controlled leak of a collection of graphics that will be used in the film. This leak puts the first real official graphic face to the in-story “army” groups the characters are a part of, with Rat Army, Salamander Army, Dragon Army, and Asp Army coming up fresh and clean! Have a peek at the whole lot!

The Ender’s Game movie will be released on November 1st, 2013, and all the way up until then we’re expecting tips and leaks like these to be spread across the internet like a fine fan-friendly butter. This is a great way to go about promoting the film especially since it’s the first time fans of the science fiction text will have ever seen an “official” set of graphics for their beloved story – not counting the comics, in this case. Each of these logos is officially licensed by the film studios and production companies involved.

The logos you’re seeing here play important bits of storyline in the book and what we expect the final storyline in the movie to show as well. With Ender starting with an extremely short stint in Rat Army, we’re seeing that and the army he eventually takes control of as well as another he was a part of – Dragon and Salamander! Asp – on the other hand – is included in “the Authorized Ender Companion” by Jake Black – a text you may own.

Have a peek at each of the logos above and below, clicking each of the images in the gallery below to see them full-size. Let us know if you’re pumped up about Ender’s Game and if you’re going to see the film when it’s out later this year – you know good and well that we’ll be covering this movie right through opening weekend!

Note also that the logos were distributed to Ender’s Game fansites as follows: Ender’s Ansible with Rat, Ender’s Game Fan Site with Asp, Ender News with Dragon, and EnderWiggin.net with Salamander. Gotta catch em all! You’ll be able to follow SlashGear’s coverage of Ender’s Game through the future inside our Summit Entertainment tag portal as well as our Entertainment tag portal – be there!

Thanks for the tip, Darian!

Ender’s Game movie controlled leak brings army logos to life is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Jigsaw puzzles are fun, though they’re a tedious undertaking. You can never figure out where that one corner piece goes. Plastica’s MagContainers are an assortment of magnetic, puzzle-like wooden boxes, and there’s no wrong way to put them together. More »

The iron throne is made up of many many sharp swords, but what would a throne look like in a nerd kingdom? Well, it would probably look something like this Throne of Nerds, covered with keyboards everywhere.

Image: Cheryl DeWolfe

This throne will not cut those who sit upon it. If anything the keys will provide some minimal cushioning for your backside. It was made by Mike DeWolfe, a computer programmer from Canada.

Image: Cheryl DeWolfe

He warped the keyboards and even scorched almost all of the ESC keys to symbolize how impossible it can be escape suffering and blackness. Mike sounds like a cheery guy. I’m not living in his nerd kingdom. The only key that is left undamaged is the ESC key on the highest positioned keyboard.

Image: Cheryl DeWolfe

In back, the keyboard cables have been arranged like human hair that is roughly braided, but not really. It is a tangle. This shows how good plans and order can degenerate into chaos. Or it’s just a cool chair made out of old keyboards. You decide.

[via Ian Brooks via Neatorama]