- Kick-Ass didn’t exactly live up to its name in its first weekend in theaters. Despite a lot of positive ratings, the film was unable to dislodge DreamWorks Animated’s 3-D flick How to Train Your Dragon from the top spot at the box office. Dragon rallied late in the weekend for an estimated $20 million take in its fourth weekend in release, a low total for a top film but as always, a win is a win. Its cumulative tally now stands at $158.6 million. In second place was Lionsgate’s Kick-Ass with an estimated $19.75 million in 3,065 theaters, giving Kick-Ass a per-screen average of $6,445, not a bad debut for a film that cost just $28 million to make. Depending on how you want to spin it, either a) the film flopped in spite of massive fanboy hype or b) it’s almost to the point of turning a profit after just one week. Maybe an R rating hurt the film as well, although those who want to see it are going to find a way to see it regardless. Third place went to Date Night, which grossed $17.3 million despite uninspired acting, a tired script and the fact that I could see exactly where things were headed a solid two minutes into the film. In fourth place was Chris Rock’s R-rated comedy Death at a Funeral grossed an estimated $16.4 million despite being a recycling of a 2007 international release of the same name. Nothing like regurgitating someone else’s 3-year-old movie idea and making money off of it. What a wonderful country this is when…..never mind. Like Kick Ass, Death was cheap to make, costing a mere $21 million (amazing how much money you can save when you don’t have to come up with an original idea and script). Rounding out the top five was Clash of the Titans, which raked in an additional $15.7 million for a gross that now stands at $133 million. The rest of the top 10 was filled out by: The Last Song (6th place with $5.8 million and a running total of around $50 million), the suck-tacular Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too (7th place with $4.1 million and a total of $54.8 million), the regrettable Hot Tub Time Machine (8th with just over $3.5 million), Alice in Wonderland (just under $3.5 million for a nice cumulative tally of $324 million) and The Bounty Hunter (10th with $3.2 million in its fifth weekend of release). Not the most inspiring crop of movies……in fact, most of them suck abysmally……..
- Every now and then, I see a technological concept that catches my attention - something useful, original and with the potential to change the way in which we operate as a society. At first, I thought that the idea of mounting cameras on the heads of police officers could be one of those ideas. The camera is called the AXON, manufactured by Taser International, the same company that makes the widely used (and totally awesome) stun guns. Five police departments across the United States are testing the AXON and one department -- in Aberdeen, South Dakota -- has purchased a set. Cincinnati is another city testing out the technology and so far, officers have offered up mostly positive reviews. Since the Cincinnati Police began testing them in January, the cameras have recorded several confrontations, both during traffic stops and pursuits on foot. To record any event, an officer has to double-click a button on a communications hub, a small box mounted in the chest area. The video is then recorded and stored in a "tactical computer," a box strapped to the waist, and all three devices -- the camera, communications hub and tactical computer -- are connected with one wire. If an officer fails to double-click the communications hub, the incident will not be recorded. In other words, if the officer chooses not to record something that he or she may not want others to see, then the incident remains dark, so to speak. Questions have also been raised about the chain of evidence captured by AXON cameras because after an incident is captured and stored in the portable computer carried by the officer, that computer is placed into an electronic panel at headquarters and the video is uploaded into a data file in Arizona called Evidence.com, run by Taser International, where it is stored. Taser officials insist that evidence cannot be altered or erased and that police are the only people with access to it, but critics question the veracity of those statements. Being the Negative Nancy I can sometimes come off as, I also have a major point of concern to raise and it has nothing to do with any of the concerns already raised. No, my beef is that because these cameras are mounted directly on the officers, their, um, overall lack of conditioning could be a problem. What I mean is that…..well, there’s no easy way to say this…..a lot of officers are FAT. Their portly physiques, flopping bellies, jiggly arms, flabby legs and overall lack of good cardiovascular conditioning could be a big problem. In other words, there could be a lot of footage of an officer bursting from the starting gate at full speed, suspect in sight, only to see the suspect become smaller and smaller in the distance as the sounds of a breathless, fatigued officer drown out the sound in the video and we see the camera pan down to the ground as the officer bends over, hands on hips, to catch his or her breath. The cameras won't do any good if those sporting them can’t keep up with suspects, y’all. I’m just thinking out loud here, trying to be helpful and solving problems before anyone else realizes they exist…………
- Global domination is the primary objective for any corporate giant and Wal-Mart is no different. With aspirations to take over the world (or at least the world’s marketplace), the Arkansas-based conglomerate of superstores has apparently set its sights on the über-populated nation of India as the next frontier to conquer. But with Wal-Mart is banned by law from opening stores in India, the question is how to get that necessary foot in the door to start the process. For now, it’s a two-pronged approach. First, Wal-Mart is operating in a joint venture with an Indian wholesaler, Bharti Enterprises, which supplies grocers and other retailers. Secondly, the company is working on solidifying its relationships with farmers, looking forward to the day that it can open hundreds of stores as it has in China, Brazil, and Mexico. To assist farmers, Wal-Mart is supplying them with pesticides to ward off insects, tools to increase productivity and otherwise succeed in getting their crops sold for a good price. However, not all Indians are enthused with the company’s presence in their country and critics fret over the concept of big-box retailing, fearing that it will be bad for small business and shopkeepers. Legislators are also wary of Wal-Mart’s motives, which is curious because even the company’s executives are up front about their purpose: money. Wal-Mart is both the world's largest retailer and the world's largest grocer and nothing it does is designed to do anything other than turn a profit. You don’t become a corporate titan by doing good and giving things away for free, be it in India or elsewhere. With India's food economy in a woeful state, the potential of Wal-Mart’s ginormous corporate footprint stamping out smaller competition is a clear worry. Now, Wal-Mart could supply the infrastructure needed to get more and better food to more people and so far, local farmers in India report that Wal-Mart pays them 5 percent to 7 percent more than local wholesalers do. Eliminating the mistrust of outsiders and convincing India to allow it to build mammoth superstores in New Delhi and elsewhere may indeed be a long way off, but one thing you can’t say is that Wal-Mart isn’t trying…………
- This next development may freak you out a bit. Chris Harrison, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University and a former intern at Microsoft Research, is working on a project that could literally put a new computer mouse, so to speak, literally in your hand. Harrison has developed a working prototype of a system called Skinput that essentially turns a person's hand and forearm into a keyboard and screen. "People don't love the iPhone keyboard. They use them. But they don't love them," Harrison said in a interview. "If you could make the iPhone keyboard as big as an arm -- that would be huge." Skinput could allow a person to perform tasks that would normally be reserved for their smartphone or computer, i.e. answering a phone call, changing songs on a music player or like activities. Because all of these are sign-language-like movements, they are customizable and in Skinput, they would control a gadget in a person's pocket through a Bluetooth connection. Partnered with a pico-projector, the Skinput system could display an image of a digital keyboard on a person's forearm. and you could send text messages by tapping your arm in certain places -- without pulling the phone out of a pocket or purse. "You could pretty much do a lot of what you do on your iPhone," said Harrison. “Skinput is [like having] your iPhone on your palm." Harrison has been developing the system for eight months and projects that Skinput won't be commercially available for two to seven years. That could be because he’s teaming up with Microsoft and Microsoft sucks, but I’m just thinking out loud here. Before it can become a useful tool for the average person, Skinput's sensors need to get more accurate, Harrison said. In a 13-person trial in Seattle, Washington, Skinput was found to be 96 percent accurate, but that test only used five buttons. In time, the system must improve to use all button of a full keyboard. "The accuracy is good, but it's not quite consumer-level yet," Harrison said. The system itself is fascinating, transforming a person's arm and hand into a moving, pulsating instrument, full of vibrations that can be picked up and translated. The system’s key component is an armband lined up with 10 sensors that pick up inaudible sounds that range in frequency from 25 to 78 hertz. Different movements send ripples and resonations down the arm and the sensor picks up on those sensations. It’s a bit unnerving to imagine a sort of robotic arm, but by the time this device is ready for public consumption, perhaps the concept won't be quite so odd…………
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