Hasta La Gadget!

Because Disney, who owns Pixar, now owns Lucasfilms and because they got J.J. Abrams to direct Star Wars even though he’s already directed Star Trek, it’s not out of this world to imagine a Star Trek animated series by Pixar (as incestuous and sacrilegious as that may be). Canadian artist Phil Postma wondered the same and animated the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series. Is it weird that I would want to watch this? More »

For folks who think that Kre-O is a cheap imitation of Lego, well, I guess you are entitled to your point of view, but seriously, imagine if Apple were the only company in the world to come up with a smartphone, won’t other handsets in the market be considered as a knockoff? Well, with Lego maintaining the right to come up with Star Wars bricked sets, it would make perfect commercial sense for rival Kre-O to obtain the Star Trek license, and their first official Star Trek brick set would be the famous Starship Enterprise.

Of course, it will not come anywhere close to Lego’s impressive 5,000-piece Millennium Falcon set, as the Kre-O’s Starship Enterprise is based on the ship from the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness movie that will be directed by most folks’ favorite director, JJ Abrams, who incidentally, will also be doing the next Star Wars movie. 432 pieces from Kre-O make up this 18-inch long set, and it will retail for $69.99 a pop this coming May. We do expect to see brisk sales considering how the movie will be released then, too.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nerf Super Soaker Arctic Shock Water Blaster, Apple iWatch Team Stands At 100-Strong,

This morning saw the interview of all interviews. Star Trek actor William Shatner called up to the ISS to talk to Commander Chris Hadfield about the NASA space program, going to Mars, and taking risks. The roughly 14-minute interview went by quickly, but Hadfield had some great responses to Shatner’s questions.

When asked if America’s space program was beginning to fall behind due to the end of the Shuttle program, Hadfield said that wasn’t the case, and that “we’re just right now in between vehicles,” meaning that it takes time for new programs to begin, just like with the transition from Apollo to the Space Shuttle program.

The two even talked about taking risks with space travel, to which Hadfield replied that “to accomplish anything worthwhile in life, it’s going to take risk. Even if you stay at home and sit at your kitchen table, eventually the ceiling will fall. There’ll be a hurricane or tornado. You can’t live a worthwhile life without risk.” Hadfield even said that science-fiction movies like Star Trek inspired him to take risks, like traveling to space, and said that the experience of simply being in space is worth the risk.

Shatner starred in several Star Trek films and TV series as Captain James Kirk who manned the starship Enterprise. It seemed like the two of them wanted to continue their discussion, and it seems they plan meet in person at some point in the future, with Shatner saying he looks forward to sharing a cigar and whiskey with Hadfield after his return home.

[via Space.com]

Star Trek actor William Shatner calls ISS Cdr. Chris Hadfield is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at Paramount Pictures have released a very special app for the next blockbuster science fiction film in the Starfleet universe: Star Trek Into Darkness! This app is not just your everyday average movie companion app, it’s a straight up scavenger hunt that uses the camera on your smartphone as well as the sensors you’ve got under the hood of your device to sent you out into the wild to collect a series of media bits as well as real physical location markers. This technology is made real with Qualcomm Labs’ Gimbal technology and Qualcomm Vuforia augmented reality platform.

Interestingly enough, the Qualcomm technology we’re using here in this app isn’t limited to the Qualcomm processor you may or may not have in your smartphone or tablet device. Instead its built in to the app itself, allowing you to use the app on essentially any iOS or Android device you’ve got on hand. This app takes you diving directly into the Star Trek universe with a selection of media bits you unlock yourself, each available right out of the box or revealed at a later date as we drive closer to the final release of the movie itself.

The original announcement of this app took place back on January 7th at CES 2013 where Qualcomm’s CEO Paul E Jacobs made it clear that the company here demonstrates the ability to “harness the power of the smartphone to bridge the digital and physical world” with Gimbal! In addition to collecting images with your smart device’s camera, you’ll be playing sounds with your computer that your smartphone hears and recognizes and actually moving out into the real world (outside your office or home) to find the full collection of locks.

This app uses a geofencing function that has you heading to specific GPS-based lock points – and the Star Trek Into Darkness movie itself down the line. This app currently brings a series of photos and video to the viewer that they’d otherwise (for the most part) be able to grab online if they know where to look – but the finding of everything is fun, and the content can be used as wallpapers, lock screens, and more, and it’s all sized appropriate to the device you’ve got on hand – iPhone 5 for us here in this test.

The real reason you’re going to want to download this app is to stay up to date on Star Trek Into Darkness news straight from the source and to attain exclusive opportunities you wont be able to get anywhere else. You can get this app right this minute for free from the iTunes App Store or the Google Play App Store by heading to the Star Trek Movie website right this minute. You can also simply search for “Star Trek App” and poof! There it will be – believe it or not!

Star Trek Into Darkness will be released to theaters in May 17th, 2013, and you’ll be blown away by everything inside it. Without a doubt. Stay tuned to our Star Trek tag portal for more information and news updates galore up until and through that time too!

Star Trek Into Darkness app Review: dive in with Gimbal! is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

So JJ Abrams is directing Star Wars Episode VII, and everyone is quite certain that it will be very great or very bad or very dumb. But before we see a single frame of lens flared footage, this shot-for-shot recreation of the Star Trek Into Darkness trailer using original trilogy clips is a taste of what an Abrams Star Wars might look like. And it’s totally, absolutely wonderful. More »