PREVIOUS ARTICLENEXT ARTICLE
NEWS
By 12 June 2014 | Categories: news

0

This week's Geek News has something for everybody with details on the new Dumb and Dumber To film, Noir-filled trailer for Sin City: A Dame To Kill For and Nike Football's animated video for the 2014 Fifa World Cup.

New Dumber and Dumber To reunites Carrey and Daniels 

The first trailer for the new Dumber and Dumber sequel debuted earlier in the week, two decades after the original paired together Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. This new edition sees the pair reunite, with the same level of idiocy as before, including the same ridiculous haircuts. 

The storyline (if we can truly call it that) has Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) on the search for a daughter that he never knew he had, with his best and only friend Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) tagging along for the ride. The first film did relatively well at the box office, considering the fact that its humour was pretty crude. Whether or not the follow-up will do equally as well, remains to be seen, but we're guessing that producers are hoping that the nostalgia factor alone will draw in the crowds. The trailer below should prove that the terrible two are up to their usual behaviour.   

This time-lapse video of a star's light echo took four year's to film

Although lasting all of 50 seconds, the video below took close to four years to complete, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope. This time-lapse video shows the peculiar phenomenon of a star's 'light echo', as it expands in space. The star in question is named V838 Monocerotis, which experienced a major outburst in 2002, resulting in 600 000 times greater light output than before. 

The reason for this unique occurrence was believed to be the result of supernova-esque event, but was later discovered to be something completely different. The exact reason for the outburst is yet to be confirmed, with experts pointing to some sort of merger with a neighbouring star or planet. All we know is, watching this video, we realise just how small and insignificant we are, compared to the rest of the universe.   

Nike's football stars come to life in animated World Cup video

In case you've been living under a rock, or your only reference for football is large men colliding into one another at great speed, the 2014 Fifa World Cup kicks off in Brazil today. In order to celebrate its love of the beautiful game, as well as add some nifty product placement, Nike has released an animated video, titled The Last Game, featuring a host of its top football players, as part of its Risk Everything campaign. 

The video shows a dystopian-sports future where footballers have been replaced by scientifically designed robots, who have taken all the joy and unpredictability out of the game. In steps Ronaldo (the Brazilian one), who bands together a group of players to take on these robots, all while wearing Nike's latest swag. 

The animation itself is quite solid, and certainly adds a new dimension to the usual spate of sports adverts we're use to seeing. Although all the footballers featured in the video have picked up a slight tinge of American to their accents. Check out the video below, to see what we're talking about.     

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For finally gets first full length trailer

Any fan of graphic novels, will undoubtedly be aware of Frank Miller, the man behind some of the most iconic graphic novels in recent memory. Chief among them is his range of Sin City works, which were brought to life on the big screen in 2005, with the help of Robert Rodriguez. A follow-up to the noir-esque original, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, is set for release later in the year, with the first official full length trailer being released earlier in the week. 

The movie stars cast members from the first Sin City film including Jessica Alba (as a stripper), Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke. There are also a host of new additions, with Eva Green, Josh Brolin and Joseph Gordon-Levitt joining the show. This new addition to Basin City's lore is directed by Miller himself, and looks filled to the brim with visceral action and sharp dialogue. Personally, we cannot wait to see how good it looks. 

     

Warp drives, here we come

Any good science fiction geek will tell you that the best stories are grounded in possibility, a truism that has been proven by more than a bit of the tech shown on Star Trek for some time now (cellphones, tablets were all a tech featured on the show long before we had them). Now it looks like another science fiction trope may be well on its way to becoming fact – warp drives and the ability to cross vast distances of the galaxy without enduring centuries of waiting.

Indeed, NASA made more than a few geeks’ hearts sing with the announcement that it was working on a warp drive, which would effectively bend space around a spacecraft. This would shorten the distance between two points, and thus, rather than needing to traverse vast distances at near incomprehensible speeds, the craft could use conventional speeds to instead traverse a warp bubble.

Two things are noteworthy about this news – first, NASA is already experimenting with creating tiny warp bubbles, and secondly, the proposed design for a warp design spacecraft looks quite a bit like the Starship Enterprise. As for being able to explore our solar system and beyond in a matter of weeks rather than centuries, all we can say is, in the immortal words of Captain Picard, Make it so, NASA!

New poster, TV spot for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes emerges

Humanity is doomed, and instead, dominion of the earth has all but fallen to our primate cousins, the apes. At least, this is the premise behind Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which will see the straggling human survivors of the Simian flu battling Caesar and his ape army for their last chance at survival on the planet.

The poster for the movie alludes to the first film (which saw the climactic battle take place on the Golden Gate Bridge), and also suggests that Caesar will not be shying away from automatic machine guns either – weapons that were used with devastating effect against the apes in the first movie.

Admittedly, the latest trailer to emerge looks fantastic, and only increases our expectations of a great sequel to the heart-rending first film.

Contributions by Ryan Noik and Robin-Leigh Chetty

USER COMMENTS

Read
Magazine Online
TechSmart.co.za is South Africa's leading magazine for tech product reviews, tech news, videos, tech specs and gadgets.
Start reading now >
Download latest issue

Have Your Say


What new tech or developments are you most anticipating this year?
New smartphone announcements (43 votes)
Technological breakthroughs (27 votes)
Launch of new consoles, or notebooks (14 votes)
Innovative Artificial Intelligence solutions (27 votes)
Biotechnology or medical advancements (21 votes)
Better business applications (132 votes)