July 16, 2003

In Locus Online, Claude Lalumière reviews 25 superhero movies. Dick Tracy, The Rocketeer and Batman Returns are among the best. Daredevil, The Hulk and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes are rated as "insulting beyond belief". 11:00:03 PM

SCI FI Wire reports that Joss Whedon, co-creator of The WB's Angel stated in the WB fall press preview that former Buffy the Vampire Slayer supporting player Mercedes McNab (Cordelia's Cordette and now vampire, Harmony Kendall) will join the cast as a recurring player in the upcoming fifth season. A second as yet uncast female character and James Marsters' Spike will also be on the show which changed dramatically in this year’s season finale as Angel and friends gained control of the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart. 10:42:05 PM

CNN reports that US Cable TV Company Charter Communications has ordered 100,000 Broadband Media Centers for distribution to clients. The devices, to be built by Motorola are powered by Moxi Service software from Digeo. The devices are: BMC9012: The first integrated dual-tuner PVR and HDTV media center designed for single-TV support.  Has a 40GB hard disk. BMC9022D: The first integrated dual-tuner PVR and HDTV integrated media center, with a built-in DVD player, designed to directly support two TVs simultaneously. Has an 80GB disk. While both Charter and Digeo are backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Moxi is based on Linux. 10:41:21 PM

Nancy Kress's Probability Space has won year's John W. Campbell Award for best SF novel of the year. The Theodore Sturgeon Award for best short SF of the year presented to Lucius Shepard, for Over Yonder, first published online by Sci Fiction. The second and third place novels are David Brin's Kiln People and Robert J. Sawyer's Hominids are in the running for this year’s Hugo award. 12:10:33 AM