Episode 46 – ‘Minority Report’ Tech, LitRPGs, and One of us is the Father
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Welcome to another episode of Geek Bytes Podcast.
I’m Ramon Mejia…….and I’m Edgar Acosta
Every podcast we bring you the roundup of the week’s best Geek and Tech news, then we discuss that news and anything else we’re interested in that week.
Special Note: A special Father to be reveal happens during the podcast!
In Geek News this week, we’ll talk about The US Department of Transportation and Automated Driving Rules, California Police try ‘Minority Report’ Tech, Google Maps gets Driving Mode, AT&T Brings Back Unlimited Data, HTC Vive sets date for Pre-Orders, Entertainment news for: ‘Black Panther’, The Silver Chair, The Flash, and Tales From The Crypt, a New Chinese Star Wars Theme Song, Celebrity deaths, Trailers of the Week and More…
In our Discussion section we talk about…Edgar’s new Xbox One, His impressions of Plants Vs Zombie Garden Warfare 2 Beta and My recent Love of LitRPGs, a new fiction category.
Now let’s Begin our show with Geek News
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Geek News
The US Department of Transportation works on Automated Driving Rules
The Verge reports that this week at the Detroit Auto Show US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx announced a series of federal initiatives around autonomous driving, seemingly designed to ease concerns that overly restrictive regulations would inhibit automakers and suppliers from effectively testing and producing self-driving cars. This effort is part of President Obama’s $4 billion proposal— which will be unveiled in full on February 9th — laying out a decade's worth of pilot programs to test (and create regulations around) connected and autonomous car technologies.
California Police try ‘Minority Report’ Tech
The Washington Post reports that the Fresno Police Department in central California are using new specialized software that uses huge batches of data, ranging from criminal history to Twitter feeds, to assess how likely someone is to commit a crime and whether the police ought to keep tabs on them.
Fresno's program named Beware, built by the security company Intrado, assigns one of three levels of threat to a person or location based on billions of data points which include criminal history, social media posts, property history, and deep web searches. Green is safe, Yellow is possible threat, Red is danger. Advocates of the program say it gives police officers a much better overview of potential threats quickly using more data than they would have access to individually. Those that oppose the program argue that it violates the privacy of the average law abiding citizen and potentially paints individuals or locations with a stigma based on potentially inaccurate or out of date information.
Google Maps gets Driving Mode
Google unveiled a new feature for Google Maps for Android called Driving Mode. Driving Mode will guess where you’re driving to and plot out a course. Google said it can also give ETAs, nearby gas stations, and quickest routes to recent destinations to your home screen. Driving mode will also highlight local gas stations and points of interest. Driving Mode is coming by the end of the week to users in the US, United Arab Emirates, UK, Ireland, Malaysia, NZ and Singapore.
AT&T Brings Back Unlimited Data
For the first time in ages, AT&T will offer customers an unlimited data plan. The catch? You need to pay for cable TV service as well.
The new AT&T Unlimited plan offers endless data, talk, and text for $100—assuming you also sign up for a DirecTV or AT&T U-Verse. Additional lines cost $40 per month.
http://gizmodo.com/at-t-resurrects-unlimited-data-1752209110
HTC Vive sets date for Pre-Orders
Speaking with The Telegraph, HTC CEO Cher Wang confirmed this week that pre-orders for the company’s Vive VR system will open February 29th. Wang also indicates that HTC is turning its focus primarily to virtual reality.
Amazon Prime now offers 20 percent off new game releases
Amazon is making it cheaper for Prime members to play the latest video games. As part of a new benefit of Amazon Prime, the company is offering those with a subscription a 20 percent discount on new game releases. The deal covers any physical game (i.e. no digital downloads) and is available from the time the game is available to preorder through two weeks after it launches.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/12/10755466/amazon-prime-new-game-release-discounts
Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ has an official director
Marvel confirmed this week: Creed healmer Ryan Coogler is set to direct Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther. “We are fortunate to have such an esteemed filmmaker join the Marvel family,” said producer Kevin Feige. “The talents Ryan showcased in his first two films easily made him our top choice to direct Black Panther. Many fans have waited a long time to see Black Panther in his own film, and with Ryan we know we’ve found the perfect director to bring T’Challa’s story to life.”
https://deadline.com/2016/01/ryan-coogler-black-panther-director-negotiations-1201653431/
The Silver Chair Will Reboot The Chronicles Of Narnia Films
At a press tour this week, producer Mark Gordon let it drop that they’re “hoping to be able to make [The Silver Chair] very shortly. We’re very excited about it.”
The Silver Chair was the fourth novel in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series. And while the original story is a sequel to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Gordon described the upcoming adaptation of The Silver Chair as a reboot of the film franchise with none of the original cast members returning.
“It’s all going to be a brand new franchise,” Gordon told Collider. “All original. All original characters, different directors, and an entire new team that this is coming from.” Gordon later clarified that the new “original characters” will be from Narnia.
http://nerdist.com/the-silver-chair-will-reboot-the-chronicles-of-narnia-films/
Kevin Smith To Direct An Episode of The Flash
The CW announced today at the Television Critics Association that Clerks filmmaker Kevin Smith will direct an upcoming episode of The Flash.
Smith has written a number of comics and a script for Superman Lives back in the '90s, but has always shied away from directing a comic book property.
The episode Smith is set to direct will air in May, close to the season finale of The Flash.
http://comicbook.com/2016/01/10/kevin-smith-to-direct-an-episode-of-the-flash/
Tales From The Crypt returns with help from M. Night Shyamalan
A new version of the HBO late-night anthology series will lead a new two-hour block of terror and suspense-themed programming for TNT, which will be curated by the Oscar-nominated writer-director. Plots for “Tales from the Crypt” will be based on William Gaines’s original EC Comics along with new stories. It will not be based on the long-running HBO series.
The block will also feature short and long-form storytelling executive-produced by Shyamalan
https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tales-from-the-crypt-m-night-shyamalan-tnt-horror-block-1201674257/
New Chinese Star Wars Theme Song
Having recently opened in China, Star Wars the Force Awakens iscreating quiet the stir. An all new theme song for the film was created just for China called “Inner Force.” It’s sung, too, by Chinese pop sensation Lu Han, who is dubbed as the Chinese Justin Bieber. Lu Han has nearly 12 million followers on Weibo and is a massive success, so this song, and its accompanying music video can only serve the space opera franchise well.
Celebrity deaths
David Bowie and Alan Rickman died at the age of 69 from cancer this week. Rickman has appeared in more than 60 films including such famous roles as Severus Snape, Hans Gruber, and Metatron. David Bowie released almost 30 albums over his almost 50 year career. He also starred in almost 20 films with his most famous roles as The Goblin King and Thomas Jerome Newton (The Man Who Fell to Earth). They will be missed.
http://comicbook.com/2016/01/14/alan-rickman-69-has-died-of-cancer/
That’s it for Geek New
We’ll move on to trailers of the week.
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Trailers of the Week
Every week we bring you the best trailers that came out this week. This week we begin with…
All Roads Lead To Rome
Maggie is an uptight, single mother and college writing teacher from New York City. In an effort to reconnect with her troubled teen daughter Summer, she decides to embark on a journey to a Tuscan village where she frequented in her younger days. Upon arrival, Maggie runs into Luca, a handsome former lover who is still a bachelor and lives with his eighty-year-old mother, Carmen.
In Theaters Feb 2016
Elvis & Nixon
The untold true story behind the meeting between the King of Rock 'n Roll and President Nixon, resulting in this revealing, yet humorous moment immortalized in the most requested photograph in the National Archives.
Starring: Michael Shannon, Kevin Spacey
Meet the Blacks
A comedy movie that spoofs the Purge. Starring: Mike Epps, Mike Tyson, Lavell Crawford, and many more. Release date: April 29, 2016
That’s it for Trailers of the Week
Now onto our Discussion section
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In our discussion section we talk about anything we’re interested in this week, and this week we’ll begin our discussion with…
Edgars New Xbox One and Garden Warfare 2 Beta impressions
LitRPG-Over the last eight months I have become obsessed with a new genre of fiction called LitRPG. What is LitRPG you might ask? While there is no official definition that I could find, I like the Goodreads summary.
“It's not exactly Fantasy, but a popular sub-genre amongst Korean, Japanese and Russian readers called LitRPG. It's a mixture of Science Fiction, Sword and Sorcery and MMO/Reincarnation elements within the books.” - Goodreads
http://www.geekbytespodcast.com/reviews/2016/1/8/why-i-love-litrpg-novels
That’s it for us this week. Thanks for listening.
For the Geek Bytes Podcast I’m Ramon Mejia and I’m Edgar Acosta. Now Go Geek out about something.
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Music Credits
"Happy Bee", "Movement Proposition", "Theme for Harold (var.3) ", "Take the Lead"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/