The emergence of popular CCG’s like Magic: The Gathering and a plethora of MMOs have all but killed the player base for old school tabletop games, but that could change in the future.

A digital version of tabletop RPG Dungeons and Dragons that uses Microsoft Surface technology was recently developed by a group of students from the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, who uploaded a demo video of the project. [Scroll down to watch it.]

The students created the demo as part of the SurfaceScape project that is “taking traditional tabletop role-playing games to the next level, adding a new layer of immersive and intuitive gaming to the Microsoft Surface Table and assisting both GMs and players in enjoying exciting and engaging adventures,” according to their Web site [...]

Tomorrow, August 21, is Avatar Day, and on it, the much-anticipated trailer was to finally be release to all of us who were dying to see what everyone was raving about. In a lovely gesture, the studio has decided to unleash the trailer one day early, and you can check it out right this very moment!

With the release of this trailer comes good news and bad news. The good news, is that you can go and watch the trailer at Apple in the biggest and best HD player your computer can handle. The bad news, is that Apple is still one of the few who refuse to embrace the joys of the embed code, so you’ll have to go there to see it. Considering that even the above-mentioned biggest and best HD trailer will not do any justice to the footage people have seen in IMAX 3-D, it is suggested that you watch in the highest quality you can. [...]

It has been multiple years now that we’ve been aware of James Cameron and his revolutionary juggernaut of a movie, Avatar. As these years have passed, we’ve seen concept and behind-the-scenes images, but still not too much beyond that. Recently though, a small crowd of special peoples had the Willy Wonka-like opportunity to see 24-minutes of footage from the movie at CinemaExpo in Amsterdam.

Among this disgustingly lucky group of people, a handful of them offered up a description of what they saw, and it’s one of those situations where the words are really difficult to put together, and even harder for someone like myself to even attempt to recycle and be useful to you. In this matter, /Film gathered up a collection of clips of these descriptions and put them in one spot — you can go there to read them all, and you can follow the links provided to go to each site and read the full descriptions. Of the many that offered up a description of what they saw, I’ve picked a couple of bits to include below.

We all knew that Avatar was setting up to be a really special event and something that we’ve never seen, but after reading these recaps, you can’t help but put this movie at the very top of your must-see list. [...]

It was only a matter of time before we finally got a second trailer of the fantastic looking animated movie from Shane Acker, 9, and what do you know…here it is. The trailer is pretty similar to the original trailer that we saw (presentation wise) but there’s plenty of new images to take in, and that’s all that really matters.

9 stars Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, and Crispin Glover. It is based on the short film by Acker and produced by both Tim Burton and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov. Pamela Pettler (Corpse Bride, Monster House) wrote the script.

Click over to check out the official synopsis in case you’ve yet to read it, as well as the brand new trailer!

When 9 (The Lord of the Ring’s Elijah Wood) first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. [...]

One topic that some might argue was always bigger than anything else related to McG’s Terminator Salvation is: would we or would we not see Arnold Schwarzenegger, and if so, how? Rumors have flown in every direction, from strictly voice over work paired with Arnie-clone Roland Kickinger handling the physical look; to Schwarzenegger actually appearing; to even his likeness possibly being digitally introduced in one fashion or another.

Well, it seems that if you chose C, you’d be absolutely correct. Let’s see what they’ve won!

It’s being reported that a bust made of Schwarzenegger 25 years ago for the first movie is being used as the base for digital reproduction. That’s right, Arnold Schwarzenegger will apparently be appearing in the movie, but he didn’t do one thing for the appearance, just OK’d it, looked at it, and gave the gubernatorial thumbs-up. The thumbs-up may have been digital as well, we’re still checking in to that one.

So is this a good idea? Or has all of this Arnold business been way too distracting? [...]

Time Magazine ran a story looking at the future of 3-D film making with insight from DreamWorks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, as well as the man working to make 3-D the primary method of movie making, James Cameron. They covered Cameron’s re-working of his own blockbuster, Titanic, in 3-D (with word about how unbelievable it looks); they talk about getting the style past the novelty that it has always been to the adventure into another world that 3-D always promised to be; and they even talk about the belief that one day, everyone will own their own pair of 3-D glasses that they will take with them to the movies.

What really stands out in this look at the future of 3-D, is the stuff about Cameron’s Avatar. The movie is expected to revolutionize film making and the movie-going experience alike — a promise that 3-D has touted on many occasions. Steven Spielberg himself predicts the movie will be the biggest live-action 3-D film EVER. With expectations like this, you wouldn’t be shocked at the likely massive budget, but alas, another surprise! Mentioned in the article is the apparent $300 Million budget of the film. [...]

Hands-down the best keyboard that this reviewer has EVER typed with!

In setting out to review this software, it first needs to be said that while it will run with a variety of hardware devices: Miglia, Plextor — both of which I own — and, of course, all Elgato devices, I feel that it’s important to research the devices and find the merits of each piece [...]

I recently had the opportunity to put together a budget web and mail server running Linux using the Shuttle SS21T. While there are a few driver-related problems that make the SS21T less than perfect for use with Linux, it has excellent look and finish. Overall, I have to give the SS21T a neutral rating.

Students make ‘Donkey Kong’ window out of Post-It notes.

Apple, Inc. has released an 8-Core model of its high-end Mac Pro computer workstation.

From the pages of The Book of Geek: The Great Pyramid, Einstein, Pastafarian, iTunes, and much more.

Superman, The Green Hornet, Hellboy, Angelina Jolie, and much more!

The Stargate Universe gets the MMO treatment, Vista gets live gaming, Dell goes green (really), and more.

Captain America, Star Trek XI, Rush, Dr. Who, Futurama, and much more!

Check out a trailer for Simon Pegg’s (Shawn of the Dead) upcoming film Run, Fatboy, Run over at firstshowings.net [Link]

Gizmodo sez there’s a good chance that next month Apple Inc. will be releasing Black 24-inch iMacs, Mac Pros with 8-Core processors, updated 15-inch MacBooks, and a new line of Cinema displays. [Link]

Jet Li is joining [...]