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films

GE places solar bets on thin-film cells

General Electric, which has long made solar panels using traditional silicon, is converting to thin-film cells, using the same material as industry cost leader First Solar.

The company's research organization on Thursday detailed its activities with cadmium telluride solar cells, which the company has determined offers the most potential to lower solar power costs.

As first reported by CNET, GE's next-generation solar panels are based on technology from PrimeStar Solar, a Denver, Colo.-based company where GE is the majority owner. GE executives are bullish that by lowering costs, solar can grow rapidly, as its wind business has … Read more

Final Cut Pro the Apple of Oscar's eye

Apple may not take the stage at Sunday's Oscars, but the company will be well represented by many filmmakers, directors, producers, and editors who will pick up awards.

In fact, 9 out of 10 of this year's nominees in the "Documentary Feature" and "Documentary Short" categories used Final Cut Studio to make their films. Final Cut Studio includes Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color, Compressor, and DVD Studio Pro, essentially giving filmmakers all of the tools they need to make a movie.

CNET caught up with a few of the people responsible for … Read more

Film studio blames money woes on economy, tech

Some of the same technological forces that have consumed large portions of the music sector appear to be eating away at the film industry.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, one of the six biggest Hollywood film studios, told employees Monday that in March the company will lay off 450 workers, the equivalent of 6.5 percent of its global workforce, according to a story in The Los Angeles Times.

"Our industry is affected by two things: It's affected by the economy, of course, and it's affected by technology," Amy Pascal, the studio's co-chairman, said in a video … Read more

Bill Gates spotted table-dancing at Sundance party?

Somehow, recently, Bill Gates turned into Mr. Awesome. He's tweeting and blogging, and now, according to the New York Post, he was spotted "dancing, Paris (Hilton) style, on a banquette" at a Microsoft-sponsored party at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

"He gyrated in a VIP booth until 2 AM," a "spy" told the Post's Page Six--a gossip item, so take it with a grain of salt. "Everybody was snapping photos of him until his security rushed him out the back door after he tipped a waitress $500." … Read more

Box office sales outpace disc sales in 2009

It hasn't happened since 2002, but box office sales beat out disc sales in 2009, market research firm Adams Media Research said in a report released on Tuesday.

According to Adams, U.S. viewers weren't so keen on buying DVDs in 2009. While it found that consumers spent $250 million buying movies online in 2009, the firm found that physical disc sales dropped by 13 percent year over year, from $10.06 billion in 2008 to $8.73 billion in 2009. Those figures include Blu-ray Disc sales.

Adams said box office spending increased to $9.87 billion in … Read more

ILM steps in to help finish 'Avatar' visual effects

Update (11:49 a.m.): Weta Digital has been contacted for comment, and this story will be updated when and if the company responds.

SAN FRANCISCO--About a year ago, with James Cameron's science-fiction epic "Avatar" well under way, it became clear that Weta Digital, the visual effects studio doing much of the computer generated imagery, or CGI, on the project, was a bit in over its head.

At that point, the movie, which opened Friday, was about 40 minutes longer than it ended up being, and what was needed to finish the project was another company that … Read more

Exemode's SQ28m fits on keychain, takes glorious lo-fi movies

What's small, fits on a keychain, and takes videos reminiscent of 8mm films? Technically, the Digital Harinezumi is able to do all these things, but Exemode's new compact toy digital camera takes it further.

Available in red or blue, the SQ28m is a petite block-shaped shooter that weighs just three-quarters of an ounce. It houses a 1.9-megapixel image sensor, 64MB onboard memory (with support for microSD cards of up to 2GB) and a 39.5mm fixed focal length lens. Four color modes are available to make your shots more retro, but what really impressed us is the … Read more

DIY machine churns out homemade camera film

If you're still shooting pictures with film, you'll know how difficult it can be to find your favorite these days. But what if you can make your own film?

Flickr user dark orange has posted a set of images documenting and teaching interested readers how to make their own film-making machine ("plastic and goop go in one end, and camera film comes out the other end"). Being a film user myself, one advantage I can think of for having such a piece of hardware is the ability to create the type of negatives I like. This … Read more

'Jurassic Park' kid cast as Facebook co-founder

This isn't particularly Earth-shattering news, but it's sort of hilarious.

Dustin Moskovitz, one of Facebook's co-founders and its head of engineering until he left last year, will be played by the little boy from "Jurassic Park" in the tell-all flick "The Social Network."

According to details in the Internet Movie Database, the role of Moskovitz has been filled by Joseph Mazzello, the actor best known for playing Timmy, the skinny 8-year-old who fell out of trees, nearly got electrocuted, and narrowly escaped getting eaten by all kinds of meany dinosaurs in the 1993 … Read more