Category: Playroom

It can be argued that the true measure of celebrity is whether or not a person has made a cameo on 'The Simpsons.' After all, just look at a few of the names who've appeared on the show during its 21-year-run on Fox. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has more than 500 million "friends," a movie based on his life coming out this fall and, according to New York Magazine, a featured role in an ...

One 'Games on the Go' column was hardly enough to express our love for the pixel. Luckily for us, there's a bonanza of blockiness currently happening in gaming. United by a nostalgic affection for the simple (yet, oh so expressive) graphics of a bygone era, game developers have been producing a heap of gems that recall the video games of old. For those who painfully remember the clumsy controls ...

As far as agriculture goes, FarmVille's pretty environmentally friendly. After all, everything "grown" on a computer screen is about as local as it gets. And the only thing a user could possibly waste, besides money, is an entire social life. Soon, however, the game's agrarian community will have a whole new way to raise pretend plants... and hemorrhage even more cash. As the New York Times ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/07/15/netsploitation-the-internet-in-film/'; You can always count on Hollywood to warp real-life technology into something wholly unrecognizable. Whether it's virtual reality or social networking, we can be sure that, once translated to the big screen, representations will become exploitative or far-fetched. As for such movies that deal with the ...

Yawn. We need some more coffee. We just watched the first trailer spewed forth by the viral marketing machine behind David Fincher's 'The Social Network' that actually includes footage from the movie. And, you know, we're obligated to post it here, because it's a thing on the Internet about the Internet and there's just no way in hell a site like ours could ignore it. We've harped on the ...

Microsoft and NASA have teamed up to bring you and your humble desktop PC some of the highest-resolution images of Mars currently available. Using a combination of satellite imagery and elevation models, Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope project has created an impressively detailed 3-D map of the surface of the Red Planet. The interactive tour, which simulates flying through Martian canyons and ...

Some folks might be unaware, but several decades ago, the "M" in MTV actually stood for "Music," and not "Mindless-reality-crap." During the channel's infancy, the lucky videos that received airplay remained on a constant, unforgettable loop. Among a host of fleeting and anomalous hit-makers, Gary Numan rode that early MTV wave of popularity with his infuriatingly catchy, 'Cars.' With some ...

Last month, Sony released the first 3-D games for its Playstation 3 console. Now, according to Joystiq, a firmware update to be released in September will allow the PS3 to play 3-D Blu-ray movies. It should be stated, though, that for now the only 3-D Blu-ray title on the market is the kids' film 'Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,' and gamers probably won't be snatching those up. But, as more ...

Share digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/07/12/youtube-partner-grants-to-offer-money-to-video-creators/'; With hopes of producing more high-quality content, YouTube is ready to provide financial support for some of its amateur auteurs. According to The New York Times, YouTube announced last Friday the creation of a $5 million Partner Grants program, which will provide some lucky YouTube ...

Marching bands don't exactly enjoy a "cool guy" rep as it is, so you'd think that throwing on guido tracksuits and dropping synth-heavy beats would doom band members to an eternity of after-school beatdowns. Somehow, though, against all cliquish odds, Nomadic Sound Systems from the U.K.'s Royal College of Art makes it work. Directed by Benjamin Newland, the group attempts to "open up new ...

Nerds everywhere are wetting their pants in anticipation of 'The Social Network' -- David Fincher's upcoming flick about Mark Zuckerberg and the birth of Facebook -- so we had to post the brand new teaser trailer. The super-cut of disembodied sound-bytes from the first trailer have been given faces -- er, more like avatars -- as the whole thing is done in instant message format. Trent Reznor's ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/07/06/back-to-the-future-inspired-shoes-really-tie-themselves/'; 'Back to the Future,' like America, just had a birthday (although it only turned 25), and our feeds are blowing up with McFly-related memorabilia. Back in 2008, Nike released a pair of special edition 'Back to the Future II' inspired high-tops, but, as badass as the Marty McFly 2015 Nike ...

Back in November, a moviegoer in Illinois was arrested and sent to jail for two days, after being caught trying to videotape segments of the latest 'Twilight' film on her digital camera. According to her team of lawyers, though, the movie theater is to blame for the entire thing. The 22-year-old woman has now filed suit against the movie theater, claiming that the manager at the Muvico ...

[Disclaimer: The author of this article has the same name as the one-eyed, purple-haired alien in 'Futurama,' and, therefore, everything the show does is sacred to her.] The best thing about pre-cancellation 'Futurama' was that it was delightfully dated, with jokes about pop-up ads, AOL and pre-iPod Apple -- all of which were especially funny because the show takes place in the future. ...

There is a new national crisis, far more important than securing our borders or battling terrorism. Two of the biggest dangers to art and intellect on Earth, James Cameron and the Black Eyed Peas, are teaming up to bring us what can only be described as the anti-'Last Waltz.' It appears that Cameron, of 'Titanic' and 'Avatar' infamy, has signed on to direct a 3-D tour documentary about the ...