20th Century Fox and MTV are teaming up for a live 30-minute webcast to promote the upcoming, much-hyped movie this Thursday, which'll include Cameron, Worthington and Saldana (as well as producer Jon Landau) answering fan questions alongside showing unseen footage from the movie. The webcast will be streamed by MTV and also on the official Avatar Facebook page - yes, we know - which is where questions are to be submitted. This webcast promotes MTV's Behind The Screen documentary on Avatar, screening December 16th, which in turn promotes the movie itself, opening December 18th.

MTV sets 'Avatar' webcast [Variety]

Whedon told Complex magazine's Tim Leong:

We're not [producing web-only content this year]. Just because they're not really looking to spend extra money on the show. The network has dropped their licensing dramatically, it's the studio who has really picked up the slack to make this happen. Ironically, we actually have what would be fabulous web content, which is the whole 2019 storyline from "Epitaph One." Whereas last year, it was like "I don't think we have anything for the Web." When they added 10 minutes to every episode, they gave it up. This year I'm like, "We have some great ideas for the Internet!" and they're like, "Yeah…no"... but what we are doing is pursuing the 2019 storyline in the show sporadically. Not so much that it takes over, but enough that it informs where we're going. I have some delightful surprises in store, and I got to shoot some of it myself for the first episode, which was delightful, because why should [producer/director David] Solomon have all the fun?

In the same interview, Whedon also confirmed a "Season Nine" Buffy comic to follow the current "Season Eight" series, promising something shorter and "very different" from the current run.

Exclusive: Joss Whedon Talks Exclusive: Joss Whedon Talks "Dollhouse" & Eliza Dushku [Complex]

Here's the plot, in a nutshell:

It's the age of the home-made virus, and humanity is dying. It just doesn't know it yet.

In Prague, a young woman named Eva returns home to escape the plagues, only to find her mother missing and the police blaming her for the worst outbreaks in recent memory. Events are complicated by the appearance of a Healer - a merciless Chinese agent - sent to neutralize a new strain that may bring Prague to its knees.

With only days until the launch of a super-virus, Eva must navigate a hostile city and escape to safety before she becomes another faceless victim in this global, slow apocalypse.

What this blurb doesn't capture is the creepy, dark feel to the prose in this well-crafted novel.

Author MCM is also the creator of cool Canadian kids' show RollBots, coming out this fall. And if you are an anti-authoritarian geek, you may remember his story "The Pig and the Box," which free software crusader Richard Stallman praised as a great way to teach kids about why DRM is bad.

You can access Vector here, for computer or phone.

Part-self-help, part-superhero-deconstruction, this new series of webisodes - written by Megan J. Wilson and directed by Michael Mann - explains itself a little like this:

In the safety of The Sanctum, where they depend on each other for anonymity, superheroes unveil the personal circumstances that have led them to a life of addiction and loneliness. Bonded by the anguish of their individual experiences and the often destructive nature of their supernatural abilities, they begin to learn to heal themselves. All the while, evil lurks in their midst.

Here's the first episode for you:

[Sanctumsodes]

The claim comes courtesy of New Scientist, as part of their "Unknown Internet" series of articles. Worryingly enough, they quote chairman of the Artificial General Intelligence Research InstituteBen Goertzel as suggesting that a self-aware internet may already be here:

The internet behaves a fair bit like a mind [already, i]t might already have a degree of consciousness... The outlook for humanity is probably better in the case that an emergent, coherent and purposeful internet mind develops.

Others, such as Francis Heylighen, research professor at the Free University of Brussels, don't share such optimism, but do think that we're not that far off from a conscious web, no matter how disappointing that may be:

Adding consciousness is more a matter of fine-tuning and increasing control... than a jump to a wholly different level [but w]e probably would not notice a whole lot of a difference, initially.

Personally, I'm already scared of the idea of an internet that complains that I spend too much time online looking and should get out and get some fresh air and sunlight.

Flickr image by whatterz.

Unknown internet 2: Could the net become self-aware? [New Scientist]

I love the "fast elves." Oh my. But you shouldn't let covers get in the way of checking out the books - there's a bunch of good stuff in there, including an Elizabeth Moon novel and a bunch of Mercedes Lackey and David Drake.

via Baen Free Library

Thanks, Seth Mutchler!

Some of the images on the site are original, and some are recontextualizations of images taken from elsewhere (like the fantastic image from Dino-Riders, above). When you start to think about it, dinosaurs fucking robots is like a metaphor for everything: Succeeding against all odds, office politics, and just being yourself. Check out the microblog for more interspecies, cross-temporal sexytime.

via Dinosaurs Fucking Robots

Or, at least, not unofficial fan-fiction. Trek licensors CBS Consumer Products have allowed website Go!Animate.com to offer users the chance to create their own Star Trek animations, using pre-existing overly-cute versions of the familiar characters:

GoAnimate Demo: Star Trek Launch from GoAnimate on Vimeo.
Worryingly enough, even though we know that we should be appalled by this, we can't help but want to have a go at it ourselves. I mean, if nothing else, it couldn't be any worse than Enterprise, could it?

[Go!Animate]

Starring old school scifi actor Ernie Hudson, and new school Web celeb Ze Frank, the 10-minute pilot introduces us to a group of geeky, media-obsessed survivors in a world ravaged by some sort of alien-nano-disease thing that nobody understands. All they know is that "there are more Wiis than people" left on the planet, and the only way to eat is to raid dead people's houses for Lunchables and Pringles.

I love the gleeful nihilism of August's writing here, and Ze Frank does a great feral hipster act. August created and filmed this episode during last year's writers strike, and says he might do something more with it but for now he's busy with other projects. Somebody really needs to make this web series. It could be another Dr. Horrible - funny, weird, dark. Perfect for watching on your smartphone on the train to work. I would definitely buy episodes of this show for a couple bucks a pop.

The Remnants, via John August, via Edward Champion

The controversial video for most people looking at MTV's seven-video series seems to be this one, showing a bunch of young guys goofing around while playing card game Yu-Gi-Oh. Or this one, showing a cosplayer describing his Legend of Zelda costume, then playing his character's flute-like instrument.

I get why people think these clips could be construed as embarrassing, partly because their subjects are so unabashedly enjoying themselves. But to me these films seem pretty respectful. Unlike many vids I've seen on MTV, there are no sarcastic hipsters commenting on how ridiculous or repulsive geeks are - and there are no little popups zooming onto the screen that say "NERD!" We're seeing these gamers and anime lovers the way they are among each other, goofing around and geeking out over costumes.

In fact, if you watch the video I embedded above, from the same series, I think you get a flavor of what the videomakers were trying to convey. They show us an appealingly frenetic scene of people from all backgrounds getting together, dressing up, and having fun.

Sure the videos could have brought in an even more diverse group of otaku - sophisticated collectors, people who write about anime and manga professionally, academics, creators - but instead they capture only the regular fans. These are the people who make up the bulk of most conventions, and I like seeing them here, looking into the cameras, unashamed.

Wired's Noah Shachtman has a great post on this over at Danger Room, explaining how it fits into the Air Force's broader strategy to engage with people online and "counter negative opinions" about the armed services. I applaud the military for encouraging its officers and enlisted people to communicate more online - nothing wrong with using blogs for public debate. But there is just something FUBAR about how the Air Force can turn anything into a rigid and overly-complicated flow chart - even the act of chatting informally online.

via Danger Room

Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show is a sendup of Japanese talk shows, or maybe American stereotypes of Japanese talk shows. Or maybe it's just giant ball of complete insanity. On a recent episode, Tudyk played a lobster fisherman being interviewed by show host Kiko. Who is cruelly subjected to inhuman torture! And then rescued. But only after songs.

Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show [official home]

First, though, let's take a look at how online annotation works. For example: Footnoting the most recent issue of Final Crisis, "Submit," Wolk writes:

Before he was Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce was an Olympic decathlete, and over the course of this story we see him doing a few decathlon-type things. Jefferson's two daughters are Anissa (Thunder of the Outsiders) and Jennifer (Lightning of the JSA). Jefferson was also a high school teacher for a while, and later the U.S. Secretary of Education under the Lex Luthor administration.

OK, so now you know who Black Lightning was. I certainly didn't know in this granular level of detail before — and nor do many casual comics readers who haven't got what amounts to an advanced degree in comics like Wolk. And yet knowing it enriches the experience of the issue, since DC Comics characters are often decades old and rather complex.

Neal Stephenson reflects the annotation urge in his recent novel Anathem. He's put part of the novel's extensive glossary online, giving readers a place to go to look up some of the words he coined to describe life among the science monks on another planet.

And these kinds of annotations transcend the world of comics and scifi nerdery. Music journalist Alex Ross released a book last year about twentieth century music called The Rest is Noise, which he supplemented by creating an elaborate, stand-alone annotation website. A massive compendium of twentieth-century musical terms, with definitions and illustrative sound files, his site can be read alongside the book to enrich the experience immeasurably. Or it can be absorbed on its own, as a musical dictionary.

There are many other examples: Some created by the authors of books, and others like Wolk's created by knowledgeable readers. These electronic footnote sites do not replace books, but they make reading feel like an erudite discussion rather than a lecture. They also make it possible for authors to write far more complicated and nuanced books. Confused readers have an easy place to go if they want to understand a crucial reference or idea, while in-the-know readers can have fun adding their own annotations to the web.

A culture of rampant annotators isn't exactly what you'd expect from the web, which is still in many people's minds antithetical to book culture. And yet it seems that our newest media have reinvigorated what often seems a lost art. The art of footnoting.

What's the plot of Steel of Fire Warriors 2010? It should be completely obvious. There was an apocalypse. Civilization fell. Now evil Mutantzoids rule the "old world" (i.e. cities). Two "steel of fire" ninjas must fight the Mutantzoids after their brethren are destroyed by them. Fighting!!! Plus other stuff. The dialogue is hilarious, the effects are deliberately and awesomely laughable, and the dorky 1980s-style synth score is perfect.

Created by Seattle sketch comedians Kevin Clarke and Travis Vogt, Steel of Fire Warriors is definitely one of the year's best B-movies — right up there with Zombie Strippers. That's how excellent this is, kids. Check out the whole series.

But first, the good stuff. I'm especially excited about an essay by Richard Branson about space travel, and one from brainiac Peter Schwartz on maintaining optimism about the future.

Still, it was strange to see Howe beginning this conversation about the future by talking about Indonesia when there are almost no international contributors to this blog who come the developing world. In fact, there are almost no people of color contributing at all, regardless of country of origin. And apparently there is little room for women to help save the world — only 2 out of 19 contributors represent over half the human population on this blog about the future.

Normally I wouldn't harp on something like this, but it's terrifically hard to imagine us getting from here to the future without some ideas from women, people of color, and citizens of developing nations. It's not that I don't want to hear from every single contributor listed on this blog's awe-inspiring masthead — they're all fascinating. I'd just like to hear from a bunch of non-men and non-whiteys too. Because the future is going to belong to all of us.

Nevertheless, I'll be tuning in to see what's posted. As long as the blog can bring in many more diverse voices, I think it's going to be an exciting place.

How You Can Save the World [blog]