Items tagged with Disney
Today is May 4th, better known as Star Wars Day. With this in mind, Disney dropped a bombshell on us this morning in the form of the first official look at the “real life” lightsaber that it’s been developing in [relative] secret. Although we doubt this realistic prop will sever limbs of cocky Jedi Knights that don’t have the high ground, it’s no doubt cool. The lightsaber is seen in a short video clip posted on the Disney Parks YouTube page and shows the “energy beam” extending, backed by the classic sound effect. The lightsabers will be available to use at the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel at the Walt Disney Resort. This interactive hotel will...
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Epic Games has been in the news for a whole host of reasons, from its lawsuit and struggles with Apple, to Fortnite’s latest season of gameplay. The company is once again making headlines as it is offering something up to fans of the Marvel-themed Fortnite season. Anyone who makes a purchase in Fortnite can get 2 months of Disney+ to enjoy the whole library of Marvel movies. The deal officially starts on November 10th, but Epic Games has you covered from yesterday onward. Back in August, Fortnite initially teased the Marvel-themed season of gameplay which has since launched with new skins and events. There is more to come until the season ends on November 30th, such as the cool Ghost Rider...
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App download metrics from Sensor Tower are in for Q4 2019, and they show a big win for Disney's entry into the crowded streaming arena. The data shows that Disney+ was the top downloaded app in the United States. Disney can thank the popularity of "The Mandalorian" along with all the Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and back catalog of Disney content for much of its success. As Disney geared up for the launch of its app, it pulled all of its content off other streaming services such as Netflix. Disney+ was far and away the top downloaded app in the United States, followed by TicTok, Messenger, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, Amazon, Snapchat, and Spotify to round out the top 10. On the chart...
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Verizon Wireless is teaming up with The Walt Disney Company to offer subscribers of its unlimited wireless plan a free year of Disney+, the upcoming streaming service that goes live on November 12, 2019. The freebie perk also extends to new Fios Home Internet and 5G home Internet customers, Verizon announced today. No small perk, an annual subscription to Disney+ runs $69.99. Alternatively, users can sign up for a monthly plan priced at $6.99 per month (which comes out to $83.88 per year). "Giving Verizon customers an unprecedented offer and access to Disney+ on the platform of their choice is yet another example of our commitment to provide the best premium content available through key partnerships...
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A company that was voted the worst in America in a poll (twice, actually) is ceding control of Hulu, the streaming giant that is on a mission to let the world know it has live sports (I can't watch an NBA playoff game without that message being repeatedly hammered home), so that it can join the happiest place on earth. Or put another way, Disney is assuming full operational control of Hulu in a streaming deal reached with Comcast. The move is effective immediately, the company's involved announced today. As part of the deal Comcast is entering in a "put/call" agreement regarding NBCUniversal's 33 percent ownership interest in Hulu, paving the way for Disney to purchase the shares five years from...
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Imagine if at the end of a Cirque du Soleil performance the participants took their bows, then ripped off their faces to reveal a robotic skeleton. That would be incredible, right? As farfetched as that scenario sounds, don't be surprised if someday in the future, acrobatic stunts are performed by robots. We've seen some remarkable things in the field of robotics, the latest of which is an acrobatic robot being developed at Disney Research. Image Source: Disney Research Called Stickman, the slender robot is able to pull off some impressive acrobatic feats through a series of sensors and on-the-fly calculations. There's a two-minute long demonstration on YouTube that shows off Stickman's ability...
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If you weren't among those that preordered Samsung's new Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ earlier this month, you can now walk into a brick and mortar retail store or wireless carrier to purchase the smartphones. Today is the official launch day and as we showed you in our review, the Galaxy S9+ is a fantastic flagship Android smartphone. While the Galaxy S9 is impressive in its own right, it's the Galaxy S9+ that will garner much of the attention (and will be Android smartphone to beat) for the next year. It features a 6.2-inch Super AMOLED Infinity Display along with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 processor and a generous 6GB of RAM (the Galaxy S9 only has 4GB). Like the Galaxy Note8 that came before...
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Disney's theme parks are wonderful places to visit, and that it true whether you are a young child who is eager to meet characters like Mickey Mouse, or an adult who just wants to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life for a bit. Taking a vacation to one of the parks is also an expensive endeavor. While it is not the same thing, you can now take a stroll through Disneyland and Disney's other theme parks through Google Maps using its Street View technology. Zooming in with Google Maps and looking at 360-degree photos is obviously a very different experience than actually visiting a theme park, like California Adventure that sits next to Disneyland or the Epcot at Disneyworld. But in lieu...
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Disney certainly isn't letting its Star Wars IP go to waste, not after purchasing Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and gaining the distribution rights to all subsequent Star Wars movies, in 2012. And to Disney's credit, it has done a phenomenal job with the Star Wars universe. To keep the good times rolling, Disney announced it will create another Stars Wars trilogy, led by The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson. "We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi," said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. "He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy."...
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Lenovo and Disney have announced that they are rolling out a new Star Wars product that sounds very cool and uses augmented reality to bring parts of the Star Wars universe to life in a way we've never seen before. The new product is called Star Wars: Jedi Challenges and the system includes a Lenovo Mirage AR Headset, a sweet Lightsaber Controller, Tracking Beacon, and hour of Star Wars gameplay. Lenovo says that the Jedi Challenges system will be available this holiday season and is up for pre-order now at Best Buy and Lenovo online for $199. The system is compatible with both Android phones and iPhone devices. The system presents players with Star Wars themed augmented reality experience with...
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Every Star Wars fan has dreamed of becoming a Jedi, and every so often we are afforded the opportunity to live out those fantasies in a video game. Advances in technology help make these experiences increasingly realistic, such as using motion controls on the Wii in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Star Wars: The Clone Wars—Lightsaber Duels. Disney and Lenovo are going to take things a step further. The two companies have teamed up to deliver an augmented reality experience that will have you wielding a lightsaber in the most realistic fashion yet. The experience is called Star Wars: Jedi Challenges and it is being built for a new consumer AR headset that Lenovo is developing in collaboration...
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What was simply known as Episode VIII is now Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Lucasfilm announced the official name for the next Star Wars movie in the ongoing Skywalker saga, though stopped way short of providing any details about the plot or who exactly is being referenced in the title. In other words, Lucasfilm answered one question and raised many others, all just by revealing the title. Here is what little we do know. The Last Jedi is written and directed by Rian Johnson, who's resume includes directing three episodes of Breaking Bad (Fly, Fifty-One, and Ozymandias), as well as The Brothers Bloom and Looper. He also won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film...
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Here we go again folks, there's another Star Wars movie on the horizon and you better buckle up because it looks to be another action packed ride. Disney dropped its second official trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first in the Star Wars Anthology series that are to fill the gaps between the releases of the sequel trilogy that kicked off with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Films in the Anthology each will focus on a side story, with Rogue One centered on a female heroine tasked with stealing plans for the Death Star so the Rebel Alliance can look for vulnerabilities. The new trailer is jam packed with eye candy, some of it obvious and others more subtle. Darth Vader makes an appearance,...
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Galaxy in Turmoil, the fan made remake of what would have been Battlefront III (had Electronic Arts not cancelled the project) might at one time seemed like a long shot to see the light of day, but now the odds may have tipped in its favor. That's because Valve has agreed to host the freebie release on its wildly popular Steam distribution platform. This is a major development that has the game's developer Frontwire Studios super excited, though the Russian outfit never stressed too much over the possibility that Disney might close the project down. It only had "mild concerns" on occasion, and now that Valve has agreed to ship the title, it's confident the title will reach the finish line and...
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Researchers at Disney and Carnegie Mellon University have been toying around with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, and we mean that in the literal sense. RFID tags are typically used for high tech inventory management in a variety of industries, but researchers concocted a way to make RFID technology feasible for interactive games using physical objects. Using a framework the researchers developed called RapID, they showed how inexpensive RFID tags can sense when a physical object is moved or touched in near real-time. The research team demonstrated a handful of use case scenarios. One included a tic-tac-toe board that mirrors the physical game on a computer monitor with added sound...
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It's said that behind every successful man is a great woman, and true to form, we're seeing some fantastic female leads in the new Star Wars movies. Just as Daisy Ridley took the spotlight in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Rey, it looks as though Disney's forthcoming Rogue One: A Stars Wars Story will also focus much attention on a capable female character. The first trailer for Rogue One surfaced today and it doesn't take long to figure out that there's no 'damsel in distress' storyline taking place. Instead, we're introduced to Jyn Erso, a rebel in need of a cause and a bit of a spark plug played by Felicity Jones. She gets her cause—to investigate a major weapons test by the Galactic Empire...
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Not only is the Force strong with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so are box office ticket sales. The newest Star Wars flick kept the momentum going and pulled in an additional $153.5 million on its second weekend in theaters, pushing the overall tally to $1.09 billion. In doing so, Force Awakens became the fastest movie ever to hit the $1 billion mark. That's just one of many records Force Awaken has broken. Its second weekend ticket sales total was also the most in the history of big screen movies, and with a domestic total of $544.6 million, it has a good chance of unseating Avatar as the highest grossing movie in the United States, a mark that sits at $749.8 million. The good news for other...
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First of all, no spoilers here -- feel free to continue reading. And secondly anxious fans new and old lined up in record number over the weekend to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first in a new trilogy set decades after the events of Return of the Jedi. It's also the first Star Wars film to be distributed by owner Disney, though that's not the only reason this weekend was a historical event.The Force Awakens raked in an estimated $238 million in the U.S. during its first three days on the big screen, including $57 million in Thursday night preview viewings. Combined with another $279 million from international ticket sales, The Force Awakens debuted to $517 million over the weekend,...
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Nearly four decades after the original Star Wars movie met the silver screen, fans new and old are lining up in record number to see the newest installment, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In North America alone, pre-sale tickets have now topped $100 million, obliterating the previous $25 million record for The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.At least half of that tally is from pre-sale tickets for the flick's opening weekend -- following a premiere earlier this week in Los Angeles, Star Wars: The Force Awakens comes out Thursday night in select theaters and then releases generally the morning of December 18 (Friday).You might be surprised to learn that opening weekend tickets are still available despite...
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Sorry all you rebel scum, but I've joined the Dark side. You can too through a new collaboration between Google and Disney that will see all of your Google accounts get a themed makeover. Or if you'd rather, you can join the Light side, otherwise known as the losing side at the moment (though not by much). Once you choose a side, Google will get busy transforming your online experience in a number of fun and creative ways. After choosing the Dark side, the background for my Gmail account changed to reflect my path, though there's quite a bit more to enjoy than just glorified wallpapers and the such. When you fire up Google Maps, the little "pegman" icon (the little figure that you drag and drop...
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The Star Wars prequels may have left a bad taste in moviegoers' mouths, but boy oh boy, Episode VII, otherwise known as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, looks like it's going to atone for all three of them. Don't believe it? Have a look for yourself in the new and full official trailer, which debuted at halftime during Monday Night Football. Force Awakens kicks off a brand new trilogy in a setting that takes place around 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi. There are new leads this time around, including Rey and Finn, played by Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, respectively. Both are again featured in the trailer, as are iconic characters like Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Princess Leia. Full...
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Living with a disability isn't easy for anyone, and it can be downright depressing for a kid who is bursting with energy and loaded with ambition. Fortunately, there do exist people out there who want to make sure those living with disabilities are able to more easily deal with them, and in the case of startup Open Bionics, its goal is to make sure kids can actually make some fun out of it. Soon, kids requiring prosthetics will be able to get some very interesting designs. Open Bionics has teamed up with The Walt Disney Company to let kids sport designs modeled after Iron Man, Elsa, and even Star Wars. Given that business is business, no one could blame you if you thought that this would result...
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