What better way for a bunch of geeks to donate to Make a Wish Foundation than to involve the Force. Lucasfilm Ltd., Nerdist Industries, Octagon and Machinima have teamed up to create a lightsaber relay leading up to San Diego Comic Con.

The relay will start from Santa Monica on July 7 and end in San Diego on July 11. At every quarter-mile there will be a new participate to hand off the official Course of the Force lightsaber to. This coincides with San Diego Comic Con which starts July 12-15.

The relay will benefit Make a Wish foundation and there will be many ways for fans to get involved and donate. Any participants in the relay are encouraged to come decked out in their Star Wars gear, but they also want to encourage any cosplay or pop-culture themed gear.

“The Course of the Force lightsaber run is a great cause that combines fitness with helping others, principles that aspiring Jedi Knights can embrace. We have long supported the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and this is a great opportunity to raise funds and awareness while letting Star Wars fans celebrate their favorite saga,” said Kayleen Walters, Sr. Director of Marketing for Lucasfilm.

Nerdist’ Chris Hardwick will be broadcasting live from the course. There will be Star Wars themed parties, contents and more for fans.

“We aim to build on the excitement leading up to San Diego Comic-Con International, to raise awareness for the wonderful Make-A-Wish Foundation and to ensure that Course of the Force becomes an evergreen part of the pop culture lexicon,” said Nerdist Industries’ principal and Course of the Force creator and executive director Peter Levin. “Partnering with Lucasfilm, Octagon and Machinima creates a trilogy of cachet, profile and execution expertise. As a wise green man might say, ‘succeed we will, for a good cause’.”

I love this and definitely encourage everyone to stay on top of the information at Courseoftheforce.com. Great to see such a positive event kick off San Diego Comic Con this year!

It's so pretty!

Our review on GamingAngels will be coming soon (we bought it today) but I thought it would be interesting to see what people are saying about Kingdoms of Amular online. What do you think about this format? Are you curious about Kingdoms of Amular? Have you played the demo?

Last year we sent Sarah, 16, to National Computer Camp. She had a great time learning at the camp and it’s our honor to be able to offer the experience of attending National Computer Camp again!

GamingAngels is teaming up with National Computer Camp (NCC) to offer the Second Annual Scholarship for NCC’s June/July 2012 enrollment valued at $985 to a female student (ages 8-18) for one week.
 At NCC (http://www.NCCamp.com), campers can design a 2D or 3D video game, learn to program, create a graphic video, take apart a computer, create a home page, play tennis, play Civilization and make new friends. Now in its 35th year, NCC is America’s original computer camp with locations in Connecticut, Georgia, New York and Ohio. On National Computer Camp’s facebook page, you can see pictures of what the camps are like.

“We’re excited to offer this scholarship again on GamingAngels.com,” said Trina Finton, CEO and Founder of GamingAngels.com. “We had great entries last year and look forward to innovative entries this year. We’re going to step it up by having game designers read over the essays and pick the winner this year. I could not be more proud to offer this scholarship to help encourage young women to explore technology and have fun with it!”

National Computer Camp provides an opportunity for young people from all parts of the United States and around the world to interact creatively. This harmonic integration of young minds is the primary focus of NCC. Computer camp is the brainchild of Dr. Michael Zabinski who was awarded several federal grants to train teachers to integrate computers into their classrooms. In an effort to reach young people personally, he established the first of these educational summer camps, coining the phrase “computer camps” to describe them, and then founded NCC.

Scholarship applicants need to submit an essay in response to the following question:

“What is your favorite video game, and how would you change the design to improve it?”

The 500 – 600 word essay must be submitted to scholarship@gamingangels.com no later than May 31, 2012. Along with the essay, include your name, address, telephone, email address, and age. The winning essay will be posted on GamingAngels.com for readers to enjoy. A GamingAngels.com panel consisting of game designers will judge the essays and the scholarship recipients will be announced the first week of June. For a scholarship to be awarded, at least five entries need to be received. Former scholarship winners are not eligible. Essays submitted previously will not be accepted.

Winners will be announced on June 8th, 2012.

Get inspired and read Sarah’s entry here. National Computer Camp is a great way to encourage your daughter to explore technology and have fun with it!

I’ve always enjoyed receiving gadgets over diamonds, but now that concept is a bit more official. According to a new study from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Women in CE, electronics are the “desired purchase”.

In the study, eight in ten women wanted Consumer Electronics, an increase of 10% from the previous study. Women spend about $667 on CE products in the past 12 months. Which is slightly less than men who spend $728.

“This Valentine’s Day, the way to a women’s heart just might be through electronics,” said Jessica Boothe, manager of strategic research, CEA, who oversaw this study. “Women want technology more than ever and they view electronics as very personal devices that can be toted around and customized with private information.”

But men, be wary when shopping. Be excited that you should now buy the woman in your life an electronic, but you might want to make sure it’s not pink. Or at least know her well enough to know if she would like the gadget in pink or not.

“Forget pink. Women don’t want to be catered to with ultra-feminine looking products; they simply prefer lightweight devices that can fit smaller hands and smaller body frames,” said Boothe. “Women play many roles, like mother, spouse and career women, and CE products that can perform many functions are a necessity.”

Women want electronics that “simplify their life” (77%). So when shopping for this Valentine’s day, consider a gadget to make her heart soar.

It’s a Britney Twist! Hasbro is looking to modernize their game Twister. The white sheet of colored dots has been replaced with movable Twister spots. The “spinner” is replaced with the Twister Console. And instead of calling out the color, the console is calling out moves.

That’s right, Twister Dance is a dance game. Britney Spears is the spokesperson for the title and the console will release with “Till the World Ends”.

“Dancing has been such an important part of my life since I was a little girl,” said Britney Spears. “As soon as I saw the new TWISTER DANCE game, I knew I wanted to be involved. I think kids will love rocking the spots and dancing to the music as much as my boys and I do. It’s a lot of fun!”

Players will be able to upload other songs to the console and it will create the dance routine on its own. What is weird about the press release is that it goes between saying the product is for kids, to players and then specifically girls.

“Girls will also be able to move to the beat of songs featuring Ke$ha and Willow Smith, and an exclusive TWISTER DANCE song called “Caught Up in a Twister.”

A little confusing, since last I remember, Twister was a gender neutral game. TWISTER DANCE will be available in Fall 2012 for the approximate retail price of $34.99.

Pokemon owners will now have episodes of Pokemon available to feed that craving whenever they want. On February 6 Nintendo 3DS owners will get access to a Pokemon Section of the Nintendo Zone.

In that section, there will be demos of select Nintendo 3DS games and full-length episodes of the Pokemon TV series.

“Nintendo 3DS continues to deliver fun and engaging new experiences, especially for users who connect their systems to the Internet,” said Zach Fountain, Nintendo of America’s director of Strategic Partnerships. “Nintendo 3DS is our most connected system ever, and Nintendo Zone offers a wealth of exclusive content to users who take their systems with them when they are away from home.”

The Nintendo Zone Pokemon section will have info on the newest Pokemon games, information on the Trading Card game and Pokemon news.

Oni Press has always supported Free Comic Book day and this year they have a title for the older and younger comic book fans. Free Comic Book day is in it’s tenth year and will be on May 5, 2012.

For the older crowd, Oni Press is giving away #1 issue of Bad Medicine. Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir (New X-Men: Academy X, Batman Confidential) and artist Christopher Mitten. The comic book is about a doctor working to try and explain the unexplainable.

“This is not a zero issue, it’s not a preview or an advanced look, this is the actual issue #1 of Bad Medicine. This follows the model that we used to launch The Sixth Gun two years ago and Spontaneous last year,” Oni marketing director Cory Casoni explained. “At Oni Press, we believe that Free Comic Book Day is about Free Comics! By launching a brand new series on FCBD, we’re creating a no-risk situation for new readers to try out a new monthly comic book, and the best part is, they only have to wait a few weeks to read the next installment! For those who miss Bad Medicine #1 on Free Comic Book Day but hear from their friends how awesome the series is, they get a second chance to start from the beginning when we issue a re-release of Bad Medicine #1 on the same day Bad Medicine #2 is released in June!”

Yo Gabba Gabba! is also going to be released for all ages. It’s a 32 page comic book that samples stories from the anthology. The anthology will be offered from Oni Press at a discount.

Various toys are coming to the big screen over the next few years. Hasbro has announced they are adding another one. Hasbro toy Stretch Armstrong, is headed to the big screen in a partnership with Relativity Media. The live action movie will be about the popular 1970′s toy. But don’t expect to see it any time soon, the current projected release date is April 11, 2014.

“We are absolutely thrilled to partner with Hasbro, a company whose global reach and ability to innovate has made them immensely successful in the arena of brand re-imagination– as evidenced by their legacy of creating such franchises as Transformers and G.I. Joe,” said Tooley, “We look forward to bringing Stretch Armstrong to audiences worldwide.”

No director or actors were attached to the press release. But I found an article from last year that puts Taylor Lautner with the project. But that was when it was attached to a different production house. Twilight hunk, Lautner is no longer attached to the project.

Google recently released a statement that they will be using your surfing history to better tailor ads to you as a consumer. The interests are stored per browser which does mean you could get different ads based on which browser you use for certain things. For example, I check email in one browser all day while another opens my links from Twitter. Most of which are video game related.

Here’s a video explaining their ad system:

The only issue so far is that when you look to see what Google thinks your preferences are, they seem to be defaulting us women as men. So far out of my friends on Twitter, only one woman on one of her browsers is a female. The rest of us show as 25-34 year old male. I get that my interests might seem male (they list comics, video games and technology), but everyone seems to default to male? I also have shopping listed and I’m sure Hello Kitty will show up there soon. But what does it take to get listed as female? I mean over the past few months I’ve visited Pinterest, TechMoms’ sites, and sites about ovulation. Does it get any more female than that?

Check out your preferences? What does it have you listed as? I wonder why Google chose to list these as defaults at all. While I can correct the information, why should I?

Alice in Wonderland

Can you believe that IMDB has been around for 10 years? IMDB is the go to site when you are arguing with a friend about “that guy” in “that movie”. I know for me it has settled many an argument.

To celebrate 10 years, IMDB has made Top 10 over 10 years lists. I have to say that I don’t agree with their Top 10 most anticipated. How is GI Joe or Expendables 2 on that list? What are your thoughts on their lists?

Top 10 Stars of the Last 10 Years*

1. Johnny Depp
2. Brad Pitt
3. Angelina Jolie
4. Tom Cruise
5. Natalie Portman
6. Christian Bale
7. Scarlett Johansson
8. Jennifer Aniston
9. Keira Knightley
10. Emma Watson
*Highest average IMDbPro STARmeter ranking over the last 10 years.

Top 10 Films of the Last 10 Years*

1. The Dark Knight
2. Donnie Darko
3. Pulp Fiction
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
6. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
8. Twilight
9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
10. The Godfather
*Highest average IMDbPro MOVIEmeter ranking over the last 10 years.

Top 10 TV Series of the Last 10 Years*

1. Lost
2. House M.D.
3. Grey’s Anatomy
4. Heroes
5. How I Met Your Mother
6. 24
7. Glee
8. True Blood
9. Dexter
10. Gossip Girl
*Highest average ranking over the last 10 years.

Top 10 Most Anticipated In-Production Movies*

1. The Dark Knight Rises
2. Men in Black III
3. The Dictator
4. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
5. The Expendables 2
6. Battleship
7. The Avengers
8. Rock of Ages
9. The Hunger Games
10. Prometheus