On this week’s Drill Down podcast, was the U.S. election hacked?, Facebook compromises censorship to get into China, auto regulators want you off your apps, Google AI makes its own language, and much more.

A new Star Wars app was released by Disney today, and is available for FREE in the iTunes store right now! Available in IOS only (you need 7.1 or later), it is compatible with iPhone 5 and up, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Have I mentioned it’s free?

Check out the release and the trailer for the new app below.

Star Wars creator George Lucas wanted a short film to play before the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, back in 1980.

Roger Christian, who won a Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Academy Award for his work on the original Star Wars (also credited as the creator of the lightsaber and R2-D2) and was also nominated for the same Oscar for his work on Ridley Scott’s Alien, had written a short titled Black Angel. When Lucas read it, he decided it was exactly what he was looking for.

After the theatrical run, Black Angel was lost and remained so for around 30 years until just a few years ago when it turned back up. Now, fully restored, the short film has been made available for all to see, and you can do so below.

Trust me when I tell you I was stupid crazy over Star Wars as a kid. I spent every available cent I could on the toys back in the seventies. I collected, I traded, I begged for more. But as with all things in our childhood, the things that were so very important to us back then, can become less so as we grow up. Wait a second, who am I lying to here? I am still just as big of a fan and I would still play with the action figures on the playground if it wasn’t completely creepy for a middle-aged man to be doing so. I wrote an article last year about how profoundly Star Wars affected me as a child, you can read it here. However, what I’d like to talk to you about today is the new Star Wars movie as it affects my youngest.

Marvel has sneaky way of dropping some Easter Eggs in their films. Sometimes it may be a visual thing or an auditory thing, but there is one non-Marvel nod that you may have missed. The lost of upper limbs has been somewhat of a recurring theme throughout Phase 2 of the MCU, and that’s because its making a reference to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

While on the Avengers: Age of Ultron press tour, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed that such Easter eggs exist, and you can expect to see them in the Avengers sequel and Ant-Man. Minor spoilers will follow.

A few winters ago saw the creation of Jabba The Snowman; now, in honor of the current snowpocalypse, here’s a Tauntaun Snowman!

A Redditor posted a photo of a Tauntaun, the animal patrol mount from the Star Wars universe, made of snow, complete with this friend sitting atop it as though he’s riding the creature.

Check out the photo here below.

Now that Disney owns LucasFilm, it looks like we might finally get the original unaltered Star Wars trilogy on Blu-ray!!!

ComicBook.com has the scoop that Disney is planning to bring the first three Stars Wars films — Star Wars (A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, and Return Of The Jedi — to Blu-ray in their original state – meaning, NOT the Special Editions from 1997 where creator George Lucas added lots of crap (yes, crap) and altered scenes making them worse. And NOT the Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy released in 2011 that took the Special Editions and further tampered with them.

As fans of the Star Wars franchise the world over prepare to celebrate this year’s May the 4th, I found myself giving serious consideration to writing something for Geeks of Doom in order to commemorate the occasion. After racking my brain for several constantly interrupted hours, I drew nothing but blanks.

It’s difficult for me to get excited about anything Star Wars-related this days; I’ve written news stories about the continuing developments behind the upcoming Episode VII even though I have little interest in them, but that’s part of the reason why I’m on the writing staff of this website. The stories have to be reported even though I may not care much about them because one or more of our readers certainly will. But the staggering drop in allure regarding the dauntless heroes and dastardly villains who inhabit the expansive universe that sprang forth from George Lucas‘ euphoric imagination more than four decades ago in my view wasn’t something that happened overnight. It took many unpleasant, heartbreaking years.

However, I came not to talk about how much Star Wars has disappointed me over time. May 4th is meant to be a day of remembrance and celebration. With that in mind I will instead document in brief to the best of my abilities the role Lucas’ creation has played in inspiring me to embrace my own evolving sense of wonder and take control of my intellectual maturation.

George Lucas’s first Star Wars opened in theaters in 1977. Since then five more episodes in the film franchise have debuted, a couple animated series have aired – more are on their way – and more merchandise than anyone can count have been sold. Now with the massive franchise belonging to Walt Disney Studios, who knows where Star Wars could go. We’ll be getting a new episode of the franchise in 2015, which will be followed by two more episodes and spinoff titles.

But if you have ever wondered what the marketing for the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, was like before the age of social media and the internet was like, then a video released by the official Star Wars YouTube channel can offer you a look. The original Empire Strikes Back teaser doesn’t even have any clips from the film, but it does have a bunch of images of concept art drawn by Ralph McQuarrie, and early stills of Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and other cast members preparing for the highly anticipated sequel. Best part of this teaser, there are no spoilers – you’ll see what I mean when you watch this trailer.

The Wampa Kenner-inspired Jumbo Figure, based on the ice creature from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, is up for pre-order from Gentle Giant right now. And, if you put in your order for this limited-edition figure before the end of the day on October 14, 2013, you’ll also get the Luke Skywalker Hoth Kenner Figure for FREE.

Right now, Gentle Giant is offering free domestic shipping and half off on international shipping if you pre-order by October 14, 2013 11:59pm.

Jumbo Wampa figure: H 22” W 11.5” D 6”
Jumbo Luke figure: H 12” W 4.85” D 2.25”

Head over to Gentle Giant now to get in on this limited-time-offer deal.