Big Bang Theory
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NBC is making a sitcom based on esports
The world of esports has exploded in recent times -- there are eye-watering sums of money involved, not to mention no end of gossip and drama -- so it was only a matter of time before it got its own TV show. According to Variety, NBC has picked up a show called The Squad – a multi-camera comedy about esports developed by Big Bang Theory star Johnny Galecki and executive producer Anthony Del Broccolo.
AT&T's streaming bundle with HBO could start at $16
AT&T's streaming video service, which will bundle HBO, Cinemax, and a wide selection of Warner Bro. films and television, is shaping up to be a surprisingly good deal. AT&T will be pricing the bundle at between $16 and $17 a month, reports the Wall Street Journal. Considering that HBO Now costs $14.99 a month, customers may opt to shell out the extra dollar or two a month to access Cinemax, as well as favorite shows and movies from Warner Bro.'s expansive archives, such as Friends and The Big Bang Theory.
Screen Grabs: Big Bang Theory's Raj falls head over heels... for Siri (video)
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. Finally! A TV show that we've actually seen (sorry, Gossip Girl). The Big Bang Theory's most recent episode featured Raj finding love with Siri. The uptight astrophysicist is incapable of speaking to women unless he's been on the sauce, but finds no such social inhibition with his iPhone's virtual assistant. Of course, like any geek receiving attention from the opposite gender, Dr Koothrappali soon becomes unhealthily infatuated with the handset, leading him on a trip to Cupertino to meet the person behind the microphone symbol. We won't spoil what happens, but you can probably work it out -- there's video past the break.
Alma observatory captures stars being born, reports back on universe's awkward teenage years
A baby book for our cosmos? That'd be a happy by-product of the massive insight star-gazing scientists are set to glean from Alma -- the telescope responsible for ushering in a "new golden age of astronomy." The Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter array (as it's known in long form), located 3,000 meters above sea level on a Chilean plateau, goes beyond the voyeuristic powers of current optical telescopes, delivering detailed imagery of the dense gas clouds that birth baby stars. Why is this significant? Well, using the complex 20-antenna strong array (a total of 66 are planned), astronomers from North America, Europe and Japan will get a first-hand glimpse of the gaseous mix that was our universe a few hundred million years post-Big Bang. Consider the research a time-traveling peek back into the formative years of existence. Heady stuff, yes, but the array won't have its multiple, celestial-focused eyes trained solely on star nurseries; scientists from around the globe already plan on getting an up close look at the Sagittarius A black hole. When these "Pyramids of the 21st Century" finish construction in 2013, we'll be just one step closer to viewing the limits of our cosmic fishbowl.
Galaxy cluster research supports Einstein's Theory of Relativity on a cosmic level
In one small win for Einstein, one giant win for mankind, scientists at the Niels Bohr Institute have proved his General Theory of Relativity on a cosmic scale through their research of large galaxy clusters. Accordingly, the clusters -- which are the largest known gravity-bound objects -- have such a strong pull that they should cause light to "redshift," or proportionally increase in wavelength, shifting towards the red end of the visible spectrum. To test it, researchers measured beams from 8,000 clusters, revealing that they do indeed cause a change in light's wavelength, supporting Einstein's theory to a T. One good turn deserves another, right Albert? Armchair cosmologists can hop on over to the source link to learn more.
Word cloud hack connects to your TV, closed captioning provided by Arduino (video)
Ever get the feeling that those TV talking heads are caught in an endless loop of mind-assaulting rhetoric? Now you can prove it with the aid of a trusty Arduino and an instantly updating word cloud. Nootropic Design rigged up a homebrew hack that connects your TV tuner's composite feed to a Video Experimenter shield that decodes the closed captioned NTSC broadcast. A Processing sketch then takes over and builds an alphabetized, dynamic metadata cloud you can view on your computer's screen. The program enlarges words according to frequency and omits those shorter than three letters. As you can see in the pic above, commerical time during NBC's Nightly News skews slightly... older. Check out the video after the break for a Big Bang Theory version of this word-building project.
The Game Archaeologist plays with MUDs: Your journeys, part 2
This is the end, my only friend, the end. Of our elaborate plans, the end. Of everything that MOOs, the end. No safety or aggro radius, the end. Man, listening to The Doors early in the morning does not put you in a happy state of writing, let me tell you! In any case, we've extended our MUD/MU* month here on the Game Archaeologist Channel to include a few more first-hand testimonies of Massively readers' favorite text-based MMOs. As much as anything else we've talked about in this column, it's vital that we not forget the roots from which our current MMOs were born nor neglect to take the opportunity to expose a whole new generation to a graphically simpler but textually richer experience. So let's kick the tires and light the fires of nostalgia as we talk with five of the baddest MUDders you'll ever know!
ASUS rips off Big Bang Theory for Transformer promo, makes it just as unfunny as the real thing
ASUS' Eee Pad Transformer can alternate between being a tablet and a pseudo-laptop thanks to a keyboard / extended battery dock. It also has a Tegra 2 heart and a Honeycomb mind, but the company's opted to focus on its physical uniqueness in a video it's just released marking the new Pad's Taiwanese debut today. Only problem is, Jonney Shih went and listened to his son's idea (no joke!) to theme it around US comedy show Big Bang Theory, replete with Megatron jokes, bad haircuts, and gadget lust aplenty. We'll let you judge how well that worked out after the break.
Screen Grabs: Tango supplants FaceTime for Big Bang Theory videocall
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. It may not share the same level of name recognition as FaceTime (or heck, even Fring), but Tango's multi-platform videocalling app is still a very real alternative. So real, in fact, that it was just used in an episode of The Big Bang Theory as a highly fictional (and severely busted) character makes an outlandish videocall to a mythical group of friends. Or was it all just a dream? Hop on down to the source link (and fast-forward to the 13th minute) to find out. [Thanks, Sowmitra] %Gallery-115778%
Large Hadron Collider wants to make mini Big Bangs, Sheldon and Leonard disapprove
The Large Hadron Collider has been busily colliding protons since it opened last year, but a new set of experiments starting later this month could tell us more about the beginnings of the universe than we've ever known before. At CERN, where the LHC is housed in Geneva, scientists will attempt to create mini Big Bangs (the full-sized one is generally accepted as having created the actual universe about 13.7 billion years ago). The process will involve shooting lead ions through the 17-mile long collider, and accelerating them to relativistic speeds before colliding them head-on with protons. According to popular wisdom this should cause an explosion resulting in the creation of brand spanking new particles. Although similar experiments have been conducted on a much smaller scale at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, this will be the first time scientists have attempted to accurately recreate conditions exactly like the Big Bang. Hit the source link for the full story.
Screen Grabs: Willow Garage's telepresence bot guest stars on The Big Bang Theory
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. CBS's The Big Bang Theory is the super popular sitcom about brilliant nerds. If you've been watching, you've undoubtedly seen Steve Wozniak's recent guest spot -- but there have been other notable presences, too. Willow Garage's Texai telepresence robot recently made an appearance as "Shel-bot" -- a stand in for the character Sheldon. While we didn't get to see the hilarious high jinks ourselves, we can tell from the screen shots that it was a pretty good time. Hit up the coverage link to learn more about Willow Garage's Texai.
Found Footage: Woz on Big Bang Theory
Nerds squealed with delight last night as the geekiest comedy on American television, The Big Bang Theory, featured a cameo by Steve Wozniak. The Apple co-founder played himself in a brief scene with the gang from the show (Is that his daughter next to him at the table?). He was pretty funny and seemed comfortable on camera. In fact, Steve is an old hand at TV by now, having appeared on Dancing With The Stars and My Life on the D-List. In case you missed it, you can watch it above (sorry about the audio quality -- we'll keep an eye out for the official version). Good job, Woz!
Reminder: Woz on Big Bang Theory tonight
Finally! Tonight's the night! We first heard months ago that our own Steve Wozniak was coming to the nerdy sitcom Big Bang Theory, and tonight is the night that he makes his appearance. We're still not sure how or why he'll show up, but tonight's episode is about scientist Sheldon trying to put his brain into the body of a robot, so maybe he'll consult the Woz for a little computing insight. The show airs at 8pm Eastern and Pacific time, and 7pm Central, so either tune in or set your DVR to CBS to check it out. And if you do watch the show live, Woz has tweeted that he'll be chatting along with viewers on the iPad's yap.tv app, which is a free download from the App Store (and I guess creates a chat room for shows while they're airing). Should be a lot of fun -- we're looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.
In Brief: Woz' Big Bang Theory episode airs September 30th
I'm looking forward to the Big Bang Theory episode with Steve Wozniak, both because I'm a fan of the show, and because who doesn't love the Woz? A post on the CBS forums says that the episode with the Apple co-founder is coming up on September 30th, just the second episode of the show's new season. There's no information yet on why Woz will appear with the nerds on the show, but the plot of the episode apparently has wacky physicist Sheldon Cooper trying to put his brain into the body of a robot in an effort to stay immortal. As you can see in the picture to the right, he either succeeds or (more likely) has a sitcom fantasy about succeeding, so maybe Woz will appear in a dream sequence. At any rate, it should be fun -- The Big Bang Theory pretty successfully walks the line of friendly sitcom mixed in with some well-done geek cultural references. I'll be setting my Tivo for September 30th. Thanks to Steaps for the tip!
Woz coming to the Big Bang Theory
Our own Steve Wozniak is scheduled to appear on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory sometime later this year, the cast and crew told an audience at their Comic-Con panel this weekend. Woz is already no stranger to television, of course, but I think this is the first time he's appeared on a non-reality show, so we'll get to take a look at the guy's acting chops. There weren't any details on who he'd be playing (presumably himself), or how he came into contact with the show's four nerdy scientists and/or their pretty neighbor. I like the Big Bang Theory -- while it does succumb to the sitcom genre's usually corny conventions, it's a pretty smart show, and the nerd references are sincere and constant (geekstar Wil Wheaton has also appeared on the show a few times, and I remember seeing Firefly's Summer Glau and BSG's Katee Sackhoff on there as well). Plus, it's always great to see Woz out and about -- we'll keep an eye out for his appearance on the show's season four this year.
Age of Conan conquers The Big Bang Theory
This week's episode of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory prominently featured Age of Conan, and its A-story dealt in a light-hearted way with online gaming addiction. If you're unfamiliar with the show, the premise is as follows: two extremely geeky twenty-something males -- both scientists at Caltech -- move in across the hall from a pretty but not-too-terribly sophisticated blonde woman. Commence unlikely friendship and all the humor that comes with it!In this week's episode, one of the two geeks is playing Age of Conan when the girl comes over. She starts playing the game and becomes addicted, rejecting responsibilities and basic hygiene for the remainder of the episode. The premise sounds typical, but the episode has a certain wink-like-quality to it. It's all in good humor, and there are a lot of inside jokes that only players of the game could get. Funcom's active participation becomes evident when cut-scenes rendered exclusively for the show make an appearance. It's likely that Funcom paid for this product placement, actually. We've embedded a brief clip after the break, but you should check out other (unembeddable) scenes at the show's website (watch any clip from season two, episode three), but be aware that CBS insists on living in some long-dead century by not making the complete episode available online.[Thanks, C.A.] Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!
