Monthly Archives: May 2015
GTA 5 Has Sold-in Nearly 52m Copies to Retail
Grand Theft Auto V has now sold-in “nearly” 52 million copies across all five formats it’s available on, Take-Two Interactive has revealed via its latest financial report for the quarter ending March 31, 2015.
This is an increase of almost 7 million copies since the last reported figure; in early February Take-Two revealed via an investor call that over 45 million copies of GTA V had been sold-in to retailers.
GTA V is currently available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC. Yesterday it was revealed that 5 million physical copies of Grand Theft Auto V have been sold in the UK alone.
L’Oreal Wants to Start 3D Printing Living, Breathing Skin
French cosmetics giant L’Oreal is partnering partnering with bioprinting startup Organovo to develop a way to 3D print living, breathing skin to test products on.
L’Oreal currently grows skin samples from tissues donated by plastic surgery patients that are then broken down into cells that are given a diet and “exposed to biological signals that mimic those of actual skin.” Guive Balooch, vice president of L'Oreal's Technology Incubator, told Bloomberg that they "create an environment that's as close as possible to being inside someone's body."
Here’s How Many Miles Frodo & Sam Walked to Get to Mt. Doom
How many miles did Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee walk to get from Bag End to Mount Doom? Quite a lot, actually.
Clever Imgur user mattsawizard (via io9.com) calculated that the pair walked 1350 miles, which equals 440 hours worth of walking.
For Americans, he worked out that's the same as walking from LA to Austin. For the British, it's like walking from London to Niš in Serbia. For Australians...I'm sorry, that info wasn't provided and I'm not smart enough. Check out the full breakdown here.
Pixar Boss Wants More Diversity Moving Forward
Pixar/Disney Animation Studios head John Lasseter is devoted to featuring a more diverse range of characters in the studios' films moving forward.
“It’s very important to us … to have female and ethnic characters,” said Lasseter, speaking at the press conference for Pixar's Inside Out. “It’s grown in importance over time. As you’ll see in future films, we’re really paying attention to that.”
Lasseter cited Disney's upcoming animated feature Moana, centered on a Polynesian princess, as an example.
“I guess most people think of fairy tales as European fairy tales. We’re trying to reach out and find origins of legends all over the world.”
Lasseter mentioned that much of this shift is already happening thanks to more diverse voices behind the camera in animation.
Fans Reason Why Friday the 13th Killed Found Footage
While it was previously reported that the next Friday the 13th installment might take the popular found footage route, producer Brad Fuller has laid those rumors to rest, and revealed that the fans played a large role in the decision.
"Listen, there was an outpouring of negative sentiment when it was revealed that Friday the 13th might have been a found footage movie," Fuller told Shock Til You Drop.
"That was very clear to us that there was not a groundswell of support for that. That had tremendous amount of impact on us and only substantiated our concern about doing it as a found footage movie. Ultimately, the fact that the movie’s been delayed for a long time might be a good thing, because now the movie’s not going to be found footage.”
Marvel Delays Uncanny X-Men Finale
Comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis has confirmed that Uncanny X-Men #600 has been delayed until October.
Originally scheduled for release this month, Bendis took to Tumblr to explain that that the issue has been "bumped until after Secret Wars for editorial and commercial reasons. Not my call. This was Marvel. But they have their reasons."
He went on to write, "It will not effect the story or the impact of the story. In fact it may have more impact on how things shake out after my run. But I promise you, it could easily ship this month as it was supposed to. It has been written. Pages are already in as many of the collaborators have said so on Twitter."
Oculus VR Won’t Block Virtual Reality Porn on the Rift
Oculus VR does not intend to stop the adult entertainment industry from using its Rift virtual reality headset as a platform for virtual erotica, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said during a panel at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference on Monday.
“The Rift is an open platform. We don’t control what software can run on it,” Luckey said in response to question about intentions to block X-rated content or apps, according to Variety. “And that’s a big deal.”
The Facebook-owned company plans to begin shipping the consumer version of the Oculus Rift in Q1 2016, with pre-orders opening later this year. The consumer model is based on the Crescent Bay prototype and builds upon its "presence, immersion, and comfort," hopefully alleviating the effects of nausea-inducing Simulator Sickness.
George Miller Reveals Title for Potential Mad Max Sequel
We’ve known for several years that Mad Max creator and director George Miller intends for Mad Max: Fury Road to be the first instalment of a new trilogy, but Miller has now revealed the title he has in mind for the first follow-up to Fury Road: Mad Max: The Wasteland.
Discussing the potential future of the Mad Max series on The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, Miller echoed his 2011 comments regarding future Mad Max screenplays and confirmed that a script for a second film exists and work is underway on the third.
New Batman v Superman Concept Art Surfaces
A fresh batch of purported Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice concept art has popped up online, showcasing the film's two main heroes duking it out.
In the first image, courtesy of Heroic Hollywood, we see Batman deliver a solid blow to the face of the Man of Steel.
The other piece of art provides a glimpse at what happens when the tide has turned, and Superman has the upper hand of the Caped Crusader.
The Emotions We Don’t Want From A.I.
Download Tech Fetish (right-click to save)
This week, the Tech Fetish crew discusses the tech they're most looking forward to in the near future, the latest announcements about Windows 10, and how they'd prefer A.I. be programmed when it comes to emotions.
Hop to the 07:15 mark to get right to the tech talk!
