Tag: HARRYPOTTER

Aguamenti! Firefighters, it appears, may be invoking wand-like magic in order to put out the flames. (Sadly, 'Harry Potter' incantations won't be needed.) Ludovico Cademartiri, a Harvard University physicist, will be unveiling an electrical solution to extinguishing the fires of the future. Employing large electric fields to disrupt a fire may help to eliminate blazes more quickly, and will ...

Warner Bros. has announced that five new movies are now available to rent on Facebook, as part of a service that the studio launched earlier this month. In addition to 'The Dark Knight,' users will now be able to rent 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,' 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,' 'Inception,' 'Life as We Know It' and 'Yogi Bear.' Each film can be rented for 48 hours using ...

If you give a kid a Kindle, she's going to ask for more fun books. A study commissioned by Scholastic -- the publisher of the 'Goosebumps' and 'Harry Potter' series -- found that 57-percent of kids aged 9 to 17 were interested in reading on electronic devices. Their parents, however, believe that using electronic devices of any kind limits the amount of time they would actually read, do ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... Amazon has been steadily unrolling an impressive arsenal of new Kindle apps, and a sneak preview of an iPad version just appeared today. Details concerning a Barnes & Noble iPad app have also emerged, including news that it will feature customizable color fonts and quick "finger swipe" page turns. [From: Engadget] Another ...

Researchers at London's Imperial College recently received a generous grant of $8.1 million to fund the development of an invisibility suit. While various international scientists have been developing invisibility tech and filing patents on camouflaging material since World War II, the Imperial College coalition believes that these decades of work may actually soon come to fruition. The ...

Hold onto those wands, all you would-be wizards. One of Harry Potter's most valuable possessions might soon make the jump from the page to the real world. According to The Daily Mail, researchers at Imperial College in London received an $8.1-million grant to develop an invisibility suit. That's right, you could throw on a garment and sneak around, just like Harry did while stalking the halls of ...

When they're not busy playing croquet, stroking their egos, or hemorrhaging their endowment, Harvard students apparently find the time to squeeze in some quality stalking, as well. Their latest target? Hermione. Actress Emma Watson, who plays the teenage heroine in the 'Harry Potter' film series, is a freshman at Brown University. When visiting Cambridge, Massachusetts for a recent football ...

It's time to brush up on those spells, you would-be wizards. Monday, Universal Studios revealed more details about its 'Harry Potter' theme park than you can shake a wand at. According to an Associated Press report, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which will open in the spring of 2010 at Universal Orlando Resort's Islands of Adventure, will offer a journey deep into into the heart of ...

Role-playing geeks and Renaissance-faire nerds are often equipped with a variety of fantastical weapons and costumes. Rarely, though, do their dork devices have any modern application. To make a formerly mythical armament a modern reality, the wanna-be wizards at the Wand Company have engineered the universal Kymera Magic Wand remote control. The vibrating television wand incorporates ...

We've give the e-book trend plenty of coverage, and, as we've stated before, there are still major hurdles in front of the emerging format. One of the highest is the absence of many notable books and authors from the e-book market, according to USA Today. There are many reasons why some books haven't yet made their ways to the Sony Reader or Kindle e-book devices -- contract negotiations, low ...

Just when we thought there wasn't another comic book movie this holiday season until 'The Dark Knight,' along comes 'Hellboy,' which we somehow forgot about. It's available both in regular and extra geeky, the latter will set you back another $20, but while both include a digital copy, only the Collector's Edition includes a scary looking figurine and we're not sure what else. Also this week, ...

Copyrights are frequently mysterious and sometimes crippling things. Creative minds obviously need to protect their rights to their creations, but as the RIAA and MPAA have shown again and again, it's quite possible to push the boundaries of copyright into the ridiculous. Sometimes, though, the boundaries are a little less clear-cut, as was the case regarding an unofficial encyclopedia about the ...

Looks like the movie studios are finally joining the 21st century while looking to preempt illegal ripping and sharing of movies via peer to peer networks. The proliferation of video-capable personal media players has made carrying your movie collection with you not only reasonable but popular. Until now the only way to bring your movies with you legally was to rip your movies yourself, which ...

Sure, you can embed YouTube Videos in your Web site or blog, but now you'll be able to embed images of scanned books, thanks to Google. Since 2004, Google Book Search has allowed users to search through thousands of books, many of which can be downloaded in the commonly-used PDF format. Now you can draw a box around a region of text and stick it right into a blog post or Web site, just like we ...

Who knew Harry Potter could exert control over the stock market? Amazon posted an increase in revenue of 35 percent this quarter, based heavily on traffic driven to the site by the impending release of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.' Visitors who pre-ordered the book also purchased other products, helping to increase the online retailer's net income. What's more, the 2.2 million copies ...