‘Mr. Robot’ creator said to be adapting 1927 film ‘Metropolis’ into a miniseries

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Mr. Robot’s creator Sam Esmail is said to be bringing science-fiction masterpiece Metropolis into the modern age. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project is currently in the early stages of development and it hasn’t been stated what role Esmail will play in the final product. It’s expected to hit TV screens two or three years from now, which should give Esmail more time to finish four- to five-season roadmap for Mr. Robot. Metropolis is expected to have a budget as large as US$10 million per episode with Universal Cable Productions funding the project. The plot is said to be similar to the original script.

Metropolis has been considered a groundbreaking film back then, where German filmmaker Fritz Lang set to tell a story about two lovers living in a highly hierarchal society. The super-rich prey on the poor to power a futuristic city in the year 2026. This silent film is considered one of the first feature-length sci-fi movies and cost over five million German Reichsmarks to make (which is around US$24 million by today’s standards). While the expensive film bombed in the cinema, it’s still considered a pioneer in its genre.

Source: The Verge

Sony to launch new products at CES 2017

Call this an announcement for an announcement but Sony has said it will be holding a press conference at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Its event at CES will happen on January 4, 2017 at 5 pm at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The company’s booth is at 17300. If you’re not heading to CES, there will be a live webcast of the event you can access at this link.

Sony hasn’t what it plans to reveal but a recent leak shows the possibility of a new Xperia phone showing up. Said to be a followup to the Xperia XA, the rumoured device pictured above will have a 5-inch display and USB Type-C port. Based on the leaked image, its looks don’t stray far from Sony’s design formula. What we don’t know if it’ll be a new flagship or a mid-range device.

Source: Sony | Via: Android Community

LG rumoured to be supplying tech giants with foldable displays for smartphones

If rumours are to be believed, LG’s display division will begin mass-producing foldable displays for smartphones in 2018. The company will then supposedly supply these to Apple, Google, and Microsoft. We’ve seen concepts from LG before with designs that range from something that resembles a book and one that can be rolled up like a newspaper. Both concepts take advantage of the flexibility of OLED displays.

Apple has patents for foldable displays including one that folds outward so the screens can be accessed easily. And while Apple has been rumoured to be releasing an iPhone with an OLED display, signs point to the screen being curved instead of foldable. Samsung is expected to be the primary—and possible sole—supplier of OLED displays for the rumoured Apple iPhones. But if it’s true that LG plans to mass produce these, then Samsung might have some competition.

Source: ETNews | Via: MacRumors

Vine to become Vine Camera when app shuts down

While Twitter hasn’t said yet how long the site will be up and running, the social network is already making adjustments to how Vine’s feature will be used in the future. The app will be rebranded as Vine Camera and will let you take looping 6.5-second video clips that you can post either on Twitter or save directly into your phone. Outside of that, you won’t be able to do the other things you could with the previous Vine app.

If you don’t plan on using Vine anymore and just want to get your videos, you’ll get different results depending on whether you save from the desktop site or smartphone app. With the desktop site you’ll get index.html file that has your captions as well as number of likes, comments, and revines. If you get it from the app, you’ll just get the video files. You can also get an email with links to your Vines if getting everything seems too troublesome for you. This download bundle won’t include the longer video clips Vine experimented on before. Followers are also being transitioned to Twitter with users being alerted via pop-ups they want to keep following well-known video creators there.

Source: The Verge