5) The original Dune will be released
In the late 60’s, Chilean-born director Alejandro Jodorowsky filmed several scenes based on Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic Dune. He pitched the idea to the Hollywood publishers, but was turned down. Only a few years later, director David Lynch started filming his rendition of the movie. That version went into the history books as a must-see classic.
Jadorowsky, along with fellow filmmakers Nicolas Winding Refn and Richard Stanley have completed scenes from his original version. They will release a documentary style version of the movie in late March this year.
4) Random romance
Poet Nanni Balestrini has created a new kind of romance novel, slightly different for each reader. Through cutting edge digital printing techniques, the publisher has randomized some of the events in each printing of the novel. This creates a coherent, yet different, experience for each reader.
The novel, titled Trsitano, was originally published in the mid 1960’s in Italian. Due to the restrictions in technology at the time, Balestrini had to manually randomize each print. This is no longer any problem and the English translation, that went out into the stores on Valentine’s Day, is now machine printed.
3) Facebook allows more genders
On a trial run, Facebook added more than 50 gender options for their US users. The plans are to take this worldwide in the future.
Up until now you only had two choices, Male or Female. Facebook says “No more” and allows you to select from this massive list, with a promise to add more in the future, should they learn of more gender options. At the same time, they added more sharing options, so you can tailor who gets to see your gender, in case you only want to share it with some people.
The targeted ads will not change with this new system. They will instead try to match Male or Female as closely as possible.
2) Biggest game of Pokemon yet
With a specially coded version of the classic Game Boy title Pokemon Red/Blue, more than 12 000 users on the live-streaming site Twitch collectively played the same game. By translating the stream chat into commands in the game, the masses managed to steer the protagonist through some of the most difficult parts of the game.
Viewers of the stream described the game as “chaotic yet surprisingly effective.”
1) Shirley Temple has passed away
Child star and diplomat Shirley Temple Black died at the age of 85. She passed peacefully on the morning of Monday, February 10th, surrounded by her family and friends in her Woodside home.
Temple was most known for her different roles on the silver screen during the Depression in the 1930’s. Later in life, she devoted her time to becoming a diplomat in the then troubled areas of Czechoslovakia and Ghana. In 1974, she was officially appointed ambassador by the US government in Ghana for her contributions.
She is survived by 3 children and grand children.