Easily my favorite character from the Marvel Universe of comics, is a relatively unknown character, Deadpool (compared to Spider-Man, X-Men). If you’ve read any of his comics, you’d know why there’s such a cult following for him.

He’s kind of a spoof of comic books. Not that he himself is a spoof, but his stories and his character tend to make fun of the morally saturated plots found in most books. Deadpool himself is an enigma, with an interesting multi-dimensional characterization. He’s a very torn person, as Wade Wilson, who really puts on a whole new personality as Deadpool. As Deadpool, he’s a wise cracking, very dark comedic assassin. One of the great things found in the Deadpool comic is he continually broke the fourth wall and does so in a way that made the series very unique.

Ryan Reynolds is playing Deadpool, in the new Wolverine: Origins movie. When I first saw the trailer, I like many others were shocked at his inclusion. What was even more shocking is that it looked like the character of Deadpool would be portrayed without his costume. Which I don’t understand, considering his costume is such an important facet of his character. Unlike Wolverine who is often showed without his yellow/blue tights, Deadpool is only really ‘Deadpool’ with his costume on.

A lot of my fears about the character were put to bed, by this recent Ryan Reynolds interview. I came away impressed by Reynold’s dissection of the character, and the fact this movie would be about Deadpool’s origins as well makes sense. Since Deadpool comes from the Weapon X program, showing him opposite of Wolverine is a must. If they do a Deadpool movie however, his costume has to be included. I think Reynolds agrees.

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This is a very interesting video of James Kakalios, a physics professor at Minnesota University. In it, he explains some of the science behind the origins, and powers of Dr. Manhattan. The character Dr. Manhattan is a character in the graphic novel The Watchmen, which is getting the big screen treatment this weekend.

Kakalios was also a consultant for the movie, and helped some of the designers with the science aspect behind Jon Osterman turning into Dr. Manhattan. Kakalios is nerd, but hey this is TechDune where everything is nerd. And nerd is cool.

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If you’ve ever been to an amusement park, or theme park I’m sure you’ve ridden a movie based ride before. The ones where you walk in, and it’s shaped like a movie theater, but the seats will move along with the motions of what’s happening on screen. Imagine something close to that, but having it the luxury of your home theater setup. Plus, it works with movies you already own.

D-Box is the company developing the hardware for this experience. They’ve created an entire line of Home Theater products, catering to different consumers. They have a gaming line as well, that focuses mainly on driving games.

The GPH-120 is the top of the line gaming chair that D-Box manufactures. It cost $2,999, but with a steep price tag it provides a visceral experience like no other. It acts as a hybrid chair, so you can use this for movie viewing as well. It has two motion actuators that pitch, roll, and heave along with what’s happening in-game. The chair comes with a built-in steering wheel, and foot pedals as well.

D-Box has a licensing agreement with Disney, Universal Studios, Sony Pictures, Fox Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, and Blue Underground. So, most of the high profile Hollywood movies will be immediately compatible with D-Box’s products.

If you want to check out more on how it works, you can view a ‘How-To’ video, here.

Here’s a video provided by WebProNews. It’s D-Box’s demonstration at CES 2009, and shows off some more of their products.

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If you’re an owner of emulators, and continuously are trying to find a decent ROM site then you’ll love today’s story. If you’re a copyright lawyer, then you might find the research being conducted by Portsmouth University a nightmare. Or a godsend if you really like suing people.

The researchers at Portsmouth University are developing emulation software, that could potentially read any software file dating back to the 1970’s. Emulation software isn’t anything new. If you scour across the internet, you can find software for nearly any kind of video game hardware. Everything from MAME (arcade), to the Playstation has emulation software available. But developing an emulator that can play any software file in existence? As Shortround from Temple of Doom would say, they’re not insane….they’re crazy.

The researchers have devised a lofty goal, and appear to be doing it for the right reasons. One of the historians working on the project, said this about the reasons behind the research, “(It’s a) rescue plan to recover and safeguard the rapidly vanishing technology and cultural information about the generation born and brought up in the digital age.”

That is quite a foresight indeed. If you think about it, how many devices are readily available on the market that can even read a 3.5″ floppy disk? Not that there’s software out there that still uses it, but what about information we’ve stored on those media devices that could prove useful in the future? It’s very important we maintain these documents for historical purposes, and research Portsmouth is conducting is vital indeed.

If all else fails, emulator users will no longer have to download different EMUs for different consoles.

[via: TechRadar]

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