Episode 43 – Christmas Deadpool
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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.
In Geek News this week, we’ll talk about Kim Dotcom Can Be Extradited, Google And Ford Self Driving Team Up, Indian Suspends Facebook’s Free Basics, HTC Vive arcade in China, ‘Harry Potter And The Cursed Child’ West End Play Casts, Spaceballs sequel, Reverse Flash and Killer Frost come to The Flash, Trailers of the Week and More…
In our Discussion section we talk about…Our year in review
Now let’s Begin our show with Geek News
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Geek News
Judge Rules Kim Dotcom Can Be Extradited to US to Face Charges
A DISTRICT JUDGE in New Zealand ruled this week that the US has satisfied requirements for a valid case and Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and three associates can be extradited to face charges.
The ruling comes nearly four years after Dotcom was indicted in the US and officials launched extradition proceedings.
The US wants the German-born Dotcom—as well as Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk, and Finn Batato—to face trial on racketeering, money laundering, copyright infringement, and other charges.
Officials say Dotcom’s Megaupload file-sharing service facilitated copyright infringement of movies, music, television programs, electronic books, and business and entertainment software on “a massive scale.” The government estimates the harm to copyright holders was “in excess of $500-million.”
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/kim-dotcom-extradition-ruling/?mbid=social_fb
Google And Ford Will Reportedly Team Up To Build Self-Driving Cars
Tech Crunch reports that Google and Ford are planning to develop and build self-driving vehicles together in a joint venture and will announce the deal at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The partnership would represent a major collaboration between two of the biggest names in the tech and automotive industries.
According to Yahoo Autos’ sources, the deal is not exclusive, which means Google would be free to work with other automakers who are interested in its self-driving car technology.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/21/google-ford-autopilot/
Indian Regulator Temporarily Suspends Facebook’s Free Basics
The Times of India has reported that Reliance Communications, one of Facebook’s partners in India, has agreed to temporarily halt Free Basics on its network after receiving a request from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Free Basic, an initiative of Facebook’s Internet.org, offers users of its telecom partners access to internet services without charging data fees. These users get free access to select news sites, weather reports, health care information, and of course Facebook. Critics argue that Facebook violates Net Neutrality by giving free access to only select sites.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is set to hold a hearing on net neutrality next month before issuing a final decision that may force Free Basics to undergo major revisions to continue operating in India.
HTC Vive to appear in hundreds of millions internet cafes
Road to VR reports that at a developer conference in China last week HTC announced a a partnership with Hangzhou-based ShunWang Technology, Inc, to bring arcade-like Vive VR stations to China’s massive internet café market. ShunWang Tech is exclusively in over 100,000 internet cafés in China.
The pilot program, underway in Hangzhou, allows players to purchase 10 minutes in a specialized Vive room for $2 – $5.
‘Harry Potter And The Cursed Child’ West End Play Casts Adult Harry, Hermione & Ron
The three actors who will lead Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, the West End play that’s been referred to as the eighth part of the series, have been revealed in London. Stage veterans each, they will play older versions of the Boy Wizard, and his best friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. In order, the actors are Jamie Parker, Noma Dumezweni and Paul Thornley.
While some have been very critical that the stage actress Norma Dumezweni doesn’t match the Hermione from the movies J.K. has responded on Twitter
“Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione”
Amazon renews The Man in the High Castle for a second season
Amazon announced that its alternate-reality series The Man in the High Castle will be coming back for a 10-episode second season.
The Man in the High Castle focuses on a fictionalized world where Axis forces won World War II, and now occupy the United States. Based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/18/10605664/man-in-the-castle-season-2-renewed-amazon-prime
Spaceballs sequel?
Now that Star Wars has returned in full-Force, now seems like the perfect time for its parody counterpart, Spaceballs, to grace us once again. Released in 1987, the film has aged beautifully, and now it seems like Mel Brooks—who wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the original—has his sights set on a sequel.
Brooks has revealed the Spaceballs sequel is in early phases of production and that he hopes to start filming in 2016 and bring back as much of the original cast back as possible. Even better? He’s tentatively titling the film Spaceballs: The Search For More Money—a brilliant callback to the merchandising of the first movie.
There are several significant hurdles this production would need to overcome, however: mainly the passing of several cast members, including John Candy (played Barf), Dick Van Patten (played King Roland), and Joan Rivers (played Dot Matrix).
Then there’s Rick Moranis, who played Lord Dark Helmet and is in a pseudo-retirement at the moment, having only appeared in a few voice roles since 1997’s Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. http://nerdist.com/a-new-spaceballs-movie-is-in-the-works-according-to-mel-brooks/
Reverse Flash and Killer Frost come to The Flash
Comicbook.com reports that the CW has released a new teaser for The Flash. In the 20 second clip we see the return of the Reverse Flash and the introduction of Killer Frost. Will Caitlin Snow go rouge or is this another parallel world villain?
http://comicbook.com/2015/12/24/reverse-flash-and-killer-frost-change-everything-in-new-promo-fo/
That’s it for Geek News
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…
Deadpool
The Merc with the mouth has a new trailer out. This is the red band version, so if cursing offends, then please skip ahead about 3 minutes or so. Deadpool is in theaters Feb 12th 2016.
Everybody Wants Some
Directed and written by Richard Linklater, about college baseball players in the 1980’s that navigate their way through the freedoms and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood.
Release date: April 15, 2016 (USA)
Elstree 1976
An original Kickstarter project created by Jon Spira. Elstree 1976 is a Star Wars documentary about ten very different lives connected by having appeared onscreen wearing masks or helmets in Star Wars.
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…
A Year in Review- Our Year
Google’s Top trending searches
https://www.google.com/trends/story/2015_US
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/