animation

If you haven't yet seen the video of a girl in a red hoodie throwing live puppies into a river, you haven't missed much. Just arrant cruelty delivered with a youthful smile and the question: "Can they swim?"

However, just as with the English lady who threw a cat into a bin for 15 hours, the Web has been like a detective show in constant motion, ruthlessly seeking out the perpetrator in preparation for a conviction.

On Tuesday, members of 4Chan and, it seemed, anyone else with a large conscience and a small amount to do … Read more

As the history of the world over the last year or two has shown, it is not easy to work in a bank. It places special, even unique, pressures on individuals, so that some make the occasional "split second of misjudgment."

Such a split second occurred for the clearly stressed British bank worker Mary Bale, who tried to bring a little levity to her day by putting a cat in a trash bin, where it remained unrescued for 15 hours.

There will be some who will say: "Well, at least it wasn't a baby." Yet … Read more

Genesha, who goes by Spike, is a playful Asian elephant who lives at the Calgary Zoo in Canada. Not long ago, he broke one of his tusks above his old cap (which he'd been wearing since 2002) while playing too vigorously with a tire. To prevent further damage to the tusk, and to prevent infection, he was fitted with new, larger dental caps.

But these caps are stainless steel and weigh in at more than 46 pounds each, and break the record for largest dental caps that had been held by their predecessors. They were designed by students at … Read more

Windows can display most image, text, and multimedia files, but sooner or later, the average PC user encounters a file type that Windows doesn't know what to do with. What if there were a single solution for viewing nearly every kind of file? Enter MegaView from Xequte Software: it's a comprehensive, all-in-one viewing tool that can open and display a huge range of image, multimedia, and text files, as well as other types like Microsoft Office files. It has several viewing options, including slideshows. It can create HTML documents and thumbnail sheets and perform batch conversions, too. Its … Read more

Nikki is into crochet. She's also into anime and video games like Final Fantasy XII, Halo, and BioShock. Not one to lead a segmented life, she weaves her geeky and craftsy interests together, and makes crocheted dolls of video game, anime, and manga characters.

Totoro, Sackboy, and the knights from Castle Crashers have never been so cute.

Nikki--a nursing student who goes by the Facebook handle "Fullmetalpiglet," a takeoff on the manga series "Fullmetal Alchemist"--doesn't sell her dolls, but she does explain how to make them in detailed online video tutorials for crafting … Read more

It's not always easy to argue with an artist. Somehow, everything that's said ends up being so, well, subjective.

Still, how can one not at least listen to the words of the great Japanese anime director Hayao Miyazaki on the subject of the iPad?

Miyazaki, 69, is an artist of legendary proportions in Japan. He directed "Princess Mononoke" and "Ponyo," as well as the first anime movie to win an Academy Award, "Spirited Away."

He was voted one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2005 and some have called … Read more

Note: This is an update of a post I wrote last October, which focused on the iPhone version of this app.

Do you like indie films? Documentaries? Animation? Then I'm about to make your day: NFB Films for iPad lets you watch over a thousand movies on your tablet. For free.

"NFB" stands for National Film Board, a bona fide Canadian treasure. The app taps the NFB's mammoth library of documentaries, features, animated films, trailers (for upcoming NFB releases), and more.

All the movies are streamed to your iPad (via Wi-Fi only), but there's also … Read more

Soccer Superstars is a unique and fun soccer game for iPhone with cartoony, anime-style graphics, RPG elements that let you level-up special players, and challenging gameplay. Unlike most 3D soccer variants you find in the iTunes App Store, Soccer Superstars has a much more arcadelike feel. At the beginning of every match, you're able to choose a special character who plays as a striker with super moves for scoring goals. This arcade style is particularly apparent in the My League mode, which lets you play as your own special player you can level-up and comes complete with special moves … Read more

EMERYVILLE, Calif.--In Hollywood these days, the push to put out movies in 3D is on. In part, it's a way to get some additional marketing buzz about a film, but it's also a source of additional revenue because theaters charge a premium for showings in that format.

At Pixar Animation Studios, those rationales are not lost on executives, and when "Toy Story 3" comes out on Friday it will be offered both in 3D and the traditional 2D format. Indeed, last year Pixar worked to build up interest in the new film by promoting a … Read more