You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 7 days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Chevrolet and engineers from Disney World have been working together for 18 months to create a new ride at Epcot Center. The attraction is called the Test Track Presented by Chevrolet and it opened this week. The goal of the ride is to allow visitors to get an idea of what goes into designing a Chevrolet vehicle, and replaces the old GM Test Track ride that opened back in 1999.
The ride has three different major components with guests first having the opportunity to design their own vehicle. The vehicle can be a car, truck, or crossover. The next step is getting visitors a chance to test drive the vehicle design through a roller-coaster-like ride on track surfaces that simulate actual vehicle validation processes that Chevrolet uses.
The last step is giving the guests an opportunity to race their vehicle over changing terrain and in extreme conditions on a digital driving simulation to compare them to others. Visitors also get a chance to produce and share a TV commercial starring the custom vehicle and pose for action shots in front of their car. Check out the complete ride in the video below (spoilers).
More popular movie titles are coming to Netflix, thanks to a significant deal made with The Walt Disney Company. The deal will give Netflix subscribers movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation, Marvel, and Disneynature. However, the deal actually doesn’t start until 2016 — about three years from now.
The deal will see Disney movies hit Netflix about six months after they come out of theaters, which is about the same timeframe that movies are allowed to broadcast on television. However, “high-profile Disney direct-to-video new releases” will be available for streaming starting next year, and older Disney films like Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, and Pocahontas, are actually available right now.
Previously, Netflix had been able to stream Disney movies through its deal with cable network Starz, but that deal ended back in February. Since this new deal involves Marvel and Pixar, we should be seeing popular films like Iron Man, Toy Story, and Monsters Inc. However, we’re not sure if the recently-acquired Lucasfilm will be involved in the deal. If so, the upcoming Star Wars film will also show up on Netflix.
While this may seem like big news now, 2016 is extremely far off, which means the industry may change and Netflix’s competition could butt in to create a hellstorm for Netflix, Amazon being one of the biggest threats. However, Starz currently holds the Disney contract through 2015, which is why Netflix won’t get it until 2016, so that deal is definitely secure from other services.
Netflix signs content deal with Disney is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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If you’re a fan of Disney and subscribe to Netflix, then you’re going to love the news that the two companies have entered into a multi-year content deal in the US. That’s right, you’ll soon be able to watch first-run live-action and animated films from The Walt Disney Studio. More »
Just in case you were wondering whatever happened to that delayed-by-lawsuit 10-disc Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled Blu-ray set that captured a full series of the Disney / Marvel movies, Amazon is notifying pre-orderers (previously mollified with free The Avengers discs) of the new release date: April 2nd. While the original suitcase has been scrapped due to a licensing dispute with its designer, a recent post on Marvel’s blog revealed the set will still come in a not-exactly-S.H.I.E.L.D. briefcase complete with glowing Tesseract inside. The movies, bonus content, art cases and all are still intact, however with the delay have come a few extras. Buyers can expect an early preview of Iron Man 3 and the Phase Two series of flicks, as well as prop replicas and never-before-seen extras from the earlier films. The bad news? The price appears to have gone up, flashing a $219 MSRP and current selling for $197 on Amazon. While you’re thinking that over, check after the break for a clip from Thor that didn’t make the theatrical cut.
[Thanks, Jason]
Continue reading Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One Blu-ray set is back on, ships April 2nd
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Marvel Blog, Amazon
Apparently, Disney want your kids to spend more time with robots and less with parents. At least that would appear to be their goal judging by this humanoid robot. The robotics experts at the Disney Research lab in Pittsburgh have created a humanoid robot that can play a game of catch for possible use in theme parks.
Well, it’s more like a game of lob, but some day it will be really awesome at a game of catch. This robot can lob a ball to you and when you throw it back, can find, register, and catch it. The robot uses a Kinect to sense and track the trajectory of an object thrown directly at it, adjusting so that it can catch it with one hand.
If it misses the catch, the robot will look around for the ball or shake its head in dismay. Its sensors also track and follow the direction of the human it’s playing with, so it will turn and face its partner if they move out of the way. Looks like robot baseball is coming along just fine.
[via PopSci via Geekosystem]
If you feel that you are an absentee father, and would like to make up for all the lost time with your kid, there is only one way to go around it – to be there, present not only physically but mentally as well. After all, before you know it, your kid would have grown up to be an adult, never really knowing what it meant to have spent quality time with his father. Well, Disney has come up with a cheap substitute that is interesting – it is not going to replace a father, far from it, but at least it might help dads and their children bond better. After all, having a robot around the home is always cool, no?
This unique robot will rely on external cameras which will work in tandem with a Kinect-like sensor, where it is capable of track the motion of a toss, and the pre-loaded algorithms will get to work right away, making a prediction on where your toss will land. It does seem as though the robot is tracking the ball with its eyes, reaching out and making quite the catch. Should it miss, the animatronic will look down at where the ball eventually landed, where it will shrug or shake its head in disappointment.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Toshiba Robot Relishes In Nuclear Emergencies, Human Rights Watch hopes to ban the creation of autonomous weapons,
If you thought Disneyland’s Hall of Presidents was awesome before, imagine how great it would be if you could play catch with Abraham Lincoln or Richard Nixon? That’s seemingly the goal behind this latest engineering—err, imagineering—breakthrough that let will let the park’s non-human characters now interact with guests. More »
Not many people would have heard of Disney Movies Online, let alone take advantage of it – which means it makes perfect sense for the new owners of the Star Wars franchise to shut down Disney Movies Online, which is an online movie streaming service. This means the Disney Movies Online will reach the end of their rope by the time 2013 rolls around, and this bit of news should not come as a surprise to anyone, considering it only offers movies from just a single studio (people like choice in case you do not know by now).
As for the small group of folks who are actually subscribed to Disney Movies Online and would be willing to shed a few tears upon hearing news of it demise, it seems that they can make use of a similar redeem code that came bundled with their discs, in other platforms such as iTunes or Windows Media Player. That’s some sort of redemption at the very least, and for those who were optimistic enough in the past to drop serious coin so that they can access Disney Movies Online until the end of February 2013, you are able to put in a request for a refund.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Mickey Mouse Owns Darth Vader, Star Wars 7 Coming in 2015, Disney wants to bring augmented reality to cakes according to patent,
Ever heard of Disney Movies Online? Apparently not many have, as Disney announced it’ll be shutting down the online movie streaming service at the end of the year. It isn’t a shock that a movie streaming site that only offers flicks from one studio and no integration with something like UltraViolet (Disney remains the only major studio avoiding that kludge) wasn’t a success. People who were actually using it can use the same redeem code that came bundled with their discs, in iTunes or Windows Media Player. Those few who actually paid for access have until the end of February of next year to request a refund. There’s talk of a replacement “Disney Movies Anywhere” solution on the way — possibly based on its KeyChest system — but joining UltraViolet, in its current form, doesn’t seem much better then Disney Movies Online was.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Disney Movies Online
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