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!

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? With Christian Bale, you wouldn’t think that this would be as big of a deal as it has been, so one must wonder what the payoff will bring, or even worse, if it will heed negative blow-back.

UPDATE: Time made a woopsie and have corrected their article. It now states that the movie is “…in excess of $200 Million.” This means the budget is likely still in the $250 Million range it was looking at originally, and it makes this who news bit not so exciting. The future of 3-D still looks fun, though, so there’s that.

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.

I set out happily on my morning mission to the local Apple store with the intention of coming home with a shiny new-brushed aluminum (one of my VERY favorite aesthetics, BTW), Apple Bluetooth keyboards. Sadly, my happy thoughts of bringing home my new little friend (minus the number pad AND the forward delete button… a personal peeve of mine!) were dashed. They weren’t in stock. I went from the Apple store in the local mall to a CompUSA only to be told the same thing, though the words were slightly different. At the Apple store I inquired about the new Apple Bluetooth keyboard and I was handed a card and instructed to call in a week and “check up to see if they were delivered yet.” At CompUSA, however, the resident Mac-geek informed me that they “hadn’t shipped out to anyone,” and “I don’t know what’s wrong with Apple, people have been asking quite often about that item.”

Well, I was a bit bummed. But after reading the absolutely glowing reviews on the Apple site about the new wired and non-wired alike, and since the keys on one of my keyboards were starting to stick quite a bit, I decided to go for the Apple wired, extended keypad (109 keys, I believe… I’d sit and count them, but…).

Now I know why this keyboard had nothing but positive reviews!

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 of hardware before making your purchase.

The Plextor ConvertX PVR, and the Miglia TECH Evolution TV, and the more pricey Elgato devices, do all of the encoding/compressing/formatting externally before it reaches your Mac thanks to the hardware’s built-in video compression. The less expensive “stick” types let your Mac do all of this “heavy lifting”, thus your computer takes a rather large hit when it comes to performance. This is really no big deal if you have a faster, newer Mac, but if you are like many folks you may not, and the performance hit will be very noticeable.

So, keeping that in mind, onto the review!