‘One Day On Earth’: The Most International Movie Premiere Ever

Eighteen months after thousands of volunteer filmmakers in every country on the planet shot 3,000 hours of footage in one day, One Day on Earth will have the most widespread one-day premiere in history.

The film will be screened for free at the U.N. General Assembly in New York at 4 p.m. Sunday. The film is an entirely crowdsourced project, inviting anyone to join the shooting process. Its website has become a social hub for filmmaker members, who can post updates and photos, and connect with other members.

Mobile technology is at the heart of much of the footage from the developing world. Because of inexpensive video recorders — some of which were donated to One Day on Earth, others of which are part of mobile phones — the film captures images of parts of the world rarely seen on camera.

The next step for this annual project: a One Day on Earth mobile app for content creation that will let you geo-tag and upload footage shot during the window for shooting. All of the footage in the first edition of the film was shot on 10/10/10. The community mobilized for shooting again on 11/11/11 and the third date is planned for 12/12/12.

[AFP/Video via: Vimeo]

"Hunger Games" Loses Top Spot At Weekend Box Office

It was only a matter of time before "The Hunger Games" was finally knocked out of the top spot of the box office charts and that's exactly what happened this weekend, as the Kevin Hart rom-com "Think Like A Man" ended Katniss Everdeen's four week reign.

According to Entertainment Weekly, "Think Like A Man" took in a surprising $33 million dollars, a feat even more impressive when you consider that the film cost only $12 to make — an amount the movie earned in just its first day of release.

Fellow newcomer "The Lucky One" also scored big, ending up in second place with $22.8 million. So how did "The Hunger Games" do?

1. Stink Like A Man (Sony/Screen Gems) - $33 million
2. Zac Efron Is… Hot Soldier (Warner Bros.) - $22.8 million
3. The Hunger Pains (Lionsgate) - $14.5 million ($357 mil.)
4. Chimpanzee (Disney) - $10.2 million
5. The Three Stooges (Fox) - $9.2 million ($29 mil.)

[Entertainment Weekly]

Robin Gibb Wakes From Coma

A spokesman for Bee Gee Robin Gibb said Sunday that the star has woken from a coma and is in improving health.

Sixty-two-year-old Gibb fell into the coma last week. He has been in and out of the hospital over the past two years for treatment of unspecified stomach and colon ailments and told the BBC that he had a growth removed from his colon 18 months ago.

Family members kept careful watch over Gibb as he remained in the coma for nearly two weeks. The singer opened his eyes Sunday and said hello to his 28-year-old son.

[Daily Mail]

Chip Lets Smartphones See Through Walls, Clothes

If you can’t have X-ray specs, then a phone that can see through walls might just be the next best thing.

Researchers at a Texas university have designed a chip that could give smartphones the long-envied ability of comic book her Superman to see through walls, clothes or other objects. They’ve taken the tech that powers the privacy-invading airport security terahertz wave scanners and made it tiny to create a phone-sized chip that’ll give your next smartphone the ability to see through walls.

The chip shrinks down the power requirements too, although you can bet your first born-child that this thing will still suck down juice like nobody’s business. They’ve built it using CMOS chips too, which camera aficionados should already be well acquainted with.

Right now the terahertz camera chip is designed to work within 4-inches due to “privacy concerns” – the Texas researchers no all too well that the first thing you’d do if you got your mitts on this thing would be to point it at the first pretty girl who walked past. Still, there are a plethora of possible applications for this kind of thing, no less so in medicine. You could use a portable terahertz scanner to peer inside your body to look for cancer for instance.

Some how I doubt we’ll see this kind of thing in the iPhone 6 let alone the iPhone 5, but we might see it by the time the a new Galaxy rolls around. How about bolting this thing into some Google Goggles – then we really would get some awesome X-ray specs from the future with augmented reality over the top for good measure too.

[University of Texas via Science Daily]

Man Reunites With Mother Thanks To Google Earth

Saroo Brierley tracked down his mother thanks to Google Earth

An Indian man who lost his mother as a 5-year-old has found her after 25 years from his home in Australia - using Google Earth.

Saroo Brierley was separated from his family while sweeping trains in India during 1986. Brierley, who was fast asleep after a day’s of hard work woke up 14 hours later, to find himself miles away from home in Calcutta. After wandering helplessly on the streets, he was then taken to an orphanage and was put up for adoption, which led to him leaving India to live with a family from Tasmania.

The 31-year-old then began using Google Earth, a geographical information program, to search for where he might have been born. He then drew a circle around Calcutta and found that Khandwa was the town he was looking for. He went to Khandwa to locate his house. With the help of neighbours Brierley was taken to the house where his mother lived. The university graduate has now been reunited with sister Shakila and brother Kallu.

Unsurprisingly, producers are interested in bringing Saroo's incredible story to the big screen.

[BBC]

Canadians Mark 42nd Annual Earth Day

Jenny Brine plants a tree during pre-Earth Day celebrations at the Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto on Saturday April 21, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Vincent Elkaim

People from more than 190 countries including Canada will take part in events marking the 42nd Annual Earth Day. The theme this year is mobilize the Earth. Today brings awareness and appreciation for our planet by having people supporting the Earth in various events and activities globally.
  
Trees will be planted in Windsor, a cleanup is planned in the Beaches area of Toronto, and there will be an Earth Day fair in St. John's, as well as a special parade in Vancouver.Organizers of Earth Day events say more than 6 million Canadians take part every year in events and projects to improve their local environments. They say Canadians have transformed Earth Day into Earth Week and Earth Month to accommodate all the events for this one day.

Many communities held events last week while others are planning events this week. Click on the following link for local events.

Earth Day website

Earth Day was launched in the United States on April 22nd, 1970 to draw attention to the need to protect the environment.

[CTV/Photo via CTV]

Bieber Taunts Mariah Yeater Through Twitter

The perfectly coiffed Canadian crooner is finally old enough to see Borat –or so it seems from a tweet the Biebs sent Saturday.

Jumping on the media bandwagon of five months ago, when Justin Bieber was briefly accused of fathering a child with fan Mariah Yeater, Bieber tweeted out a message that linked to a clip of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character saying, “You will never get this, you will never get this, la la la la la.”

Bieber, who is dating actress Selena Gomez, submitted to a paternity test in November to prove that he was not the father. Bieber directed the message to Yeater, and said “from the heart I just wanted to say” before linking to the clip.

Dear mariah yeeter...we have never met...so from the heart i just wanted to say... youtu.be/RaPpjTZa9bA
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) April 21, 2012

[New York Post]

Video: Drake Falls On Stage

Drake surely has to be the clumsiest rapper alive. A few years ago, he fell on stage and tore his ACL and last night, while in the UK, Wheelchair Jimmy took a step back and fell on his tookus (as the Brits say), much to the horror of 13 year old British teens. Forward to 1:30 to see what happens when swag takes precedence over familiarizing yourself with your surroundings.



[Oh No They Didn't]

Video: Cat Fights Off Bear In Backyard

The Bear family was strolling through the woods when they stumbled upon an interesting backyard that smelled like food. During their search, one bear found the house cat. Unexpectedly, the fearless cat does the animal version of, “What? What?! Your in my backyard! Get outta here!”



[YouTube]

Video: Kids Narrate Planet Earth

The Planet Earth series on BBC has been in the making for five years now, and brings the wonders of our world into people’s living rooms across the globe. As a playful gag, BBC America enlisted the help of some adorable kids to narrate some scenes instead of the usual classically trained speaker. The results are just too precious to bear.



[YouTube]