Harry Potter" magic with record $92.1 million

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The eighth and final "Harry Potter" movie sold $92.1 million worth tickets in the United States andCanada on its first day in theaters to set a single-day box-office record, according to studio estimates released on Saturday.

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2" shattered the single-day record set in 2009 when "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" earned $72.7 million in theaters, said Paul Dergarabedian, head of tracking firm Hollywood.com Box Office.

"To even be close to $100 million for a single day is unprecedented," Dergarabedian said.

Hollywood watchers are attributing the high interest in the film from Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros unit to strong critics' reviews and the fact this is both the final film in the "Harry Potter" series and the only one released in 3D.

"This will be the first 'Potter' movie to earn over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office," Dergarabedian said.

"Harry Potter," which is already the highest grossing film franchise ever with over $6.4 billion in global ticket sales, is based on the novels of author J.K. Rowling and it revolves around the adventures of a young wizard, his friends and their battle against evil.

The record-setting $92.1 million in the United States and Canada was earned at more than 4,300 theaters, including the midnight screenings that extended into the early morning hours of Friday and by themselves earned a record-setting $43.5 million.

Outside the United States and Canada, the film earned an estimated $75 million in 59 countries, Warner Bros officials said.

The movie brought in a record-setting 9.3 million pounds ($14.8 million) in the United Kingdom on Friday, the studio said.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Bill Trott)

Read more »

A Very Strange Literary Experiment Using Water Vapor (Video)

Call it a smoky art installation or a unique tribute to what’s considered a timeless novel: Don Quixote. Also known as “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha” by that Cervantes guy, ex-slave, soldier of fortune, and small time entrepreneur. Oh yeah, he wrote a novel too.

There’s supposed to be a message behind this also ingenious little project that enunciates the whole of Don Quixote (a real door stopper it is) letter by letter thru smoke. It’s a pretty incendiary broadside against the art establishment too. The most scathing part reads:

And so just as Don Quixote’s over-credulousness leads him to receive numerous violent thrashings and endanger Sancho Panza endlessly, so does our own artistic credulousness lead to an abundance of hypersyllabic essays on, quite frankly, bad ******* art.

There’s a whole lot more explanatory text that’s best viewed by opening the source link down south. In the meantime, enjoy the video:

Also, since we’re at it, we’d like to recommend an earnest reading of Don Quixote, a novel written at the behest of a Spanish nobleman several centuries ago. It’s a fun portrayal of Spain emerging from the Middle Ages. It’s rife with esoteric references as well. They don’t write books like they used to.

And—Shakespeare can suck it. Cervantes rules. Ha.

Read more »

Android Powered Mirai Sano Robot Controls Your House

But will it control you? We can’t tell. Judging by its name alone, the Sanyo-made Mirai is the latest uber-gadget that uses Android OS, which is another boost for the Google guys as they now possess the technology to control the future. It’s Japan only though.

Anyway, as illustrated above, the Mirai Sano is a robot that keeps your house in order. Think minutely adjusted temperature, air conditioning, and kitchen appliances.

Of course, while the gadget inclined may embrace the Mirai warmly, it does inspire reservations. Reservations such as: why allow an autonomous appliance to run your house?

Also, it might inspire more than a few psychological horror movies about humans oppressed by their household AI. Wasn’t there a Simpsons episode along these lines? If we remember correctly, Pierce Brosnan was voicing the evil robot.

A while back, some anonymous commenter posted something along the lines of ‘I always knew Google will be the real Skynet.’ How true, how true.

Moving on, the Mirai Sano hits Japanese retail outlets on Friday. It looks affordable too.

Read more »

Researchers Claim Internet Use Affects Memory

Short term memory, that is. A team of scientists from Columbia University conducted tests to determine how people’s memory is affected by internet use. The experiments themselves were simplistic to a fault, requiring mere recall. It’s not as if they forced the participants to stay online for 12 hours then asked them what they did. Instead, a few simple routines bore unexpected results. But the big reveal only comes after the break.

The head of the experimental series was Dr. Betsy Sparrow (sounds like a character off of  a TV series) and a total of four tests were run.

In the first, participants were made to type a sentence onto a computer.

In the second, a trivia question was thrown at the participants.

The fourth and third were unknown but the second was considered the most revelaing. Why? Because the people subjected to the trivia remembered the aprt where the question was saved in one of five desktop folders.

What this means is people’s memory relaxes if they know someone or something wills tore the data for them. If they do, they’r elikely to forget it.

Apparently these results are supposed to be of great significance. Who knew?

Read more »