purtiest pictures of 'bots you'

The Big Picture releases the purtiest pictures of 'bots you're likely to ever see

We were already fans of The Big Picture, a series of pictorial articles hosted by The Boston Globe. Now that they've tossed in a bunch of high resolution shots of robots, however, we're absolutely in love.

Readers of DVICE will recognize many of the 'bots featured in TBP's retrospective. Take Wakamaru, for instance, which went from greeting guests at UNIQLO to acting on stage. There's also the da Vinci robotic surgical system, the HAL exoskeleton and even that crazy fire rescue robot that scoops you up. and devours you to save you.

Check out the gallery below for some of our favorites from the retrospective, and head on over to The Big Picture for much, much more.

Poland based advertising

Pawel Fabjanski is Poland based advertising and editorial photographer, it's fantastic the way he takes an urban style into most of his work and merge it into awesome fashion photos.

Bite on internet TV

Given just how few Europeans are actually biting on pay-HDTV, we suppose we're not too surprised to see the results from Parks Associates Research's latest study. In looking at a number of European nations, the firm found that some 80 percent of broadband households "prefer a more traditional option for viewing video, including going to the cinema or watching a DVD." John Barrett, director of research at the company, noted that it "will be difficult for companies to sell video streams and downloads to consumers in Europe when there is this undercurrent of reluctance." Of course, we're not sure we believe all this doom and gloom -- surely it's just a matter of time before Euro cable companies are pulling the same trick as Comcast and TWC are looking to do. Or, so we hope.

Shawn Marion thinks Blu-ray Discs are too expensive

You think it's tough pulling the trigger on a few new Blu-ray Discs each Tuesday on a "middle-class" budget? Try being a millionaire. In a recent interview with The National Post, when asked about transitioning his massive DVD collection to Blu-ray, the recently traded Shawn Marion of the NBA had this to say: "Hell, no! Blu-ray [Discs] cost too much. They cost like 35, 40 bucks apiece. I'm going to stick with the $19.99s. $14.99, $19.99, widescreen, I'm good." He then followed that up with a quip that "high-definition" was "all that he needed," further suggesting that an HD DVR and an upscaling DVD player was good enough for even the most wealthy among us. We know this guy isn't representative of the masses, but seriously, you studios should take a listen.

Sensio secures key US patent for 3D

Sensio sure is racking up the support of late, first being deemed an official (albeit optional) 3D standard by the DVD Forum, and now nabbing a crucial US patent on its way to three-dee domination. The patent reportedly covers the distribution and formatting technology of stereoscopic contents on different 2D or 3D screens, which is a method that the company has developed and marketed for years. Nicholas Routhier, the company's president and CEO, proudly noted that "with this patent in hand and the recently announced developments, we believe that we have significantly increased our chances to become the 3D distribution standard for the consumer market." Of course, Panasonic would likely love to argue that very point, so we'd go ahead and get prepared for yet another format war just in case these two really do drop the gloves.

Slumdog Millionaire goes to Blu-ray disc

Fresh off an Academy Awards Best Picture win (beating out Blu-ray sales king & BD screened The Dark Knight), Fox is dropping Slumdog Millionaire into homes quickly, with a DVD / Blu-ray release planned March 31. Beyond being an incredible award-winning film, it's reportedly one of the first winners filmed mostly in digital, which should let the 1080p transfer with English or Hindi 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtracks come through exactly as the director intended. Also included are three Blu-ray disc exclusive features (From Script To Screen: Toilet Scene, Indian Short Film - Manjha, Bombay Liquid Dance Music Video) and a digital copy.

Hulu blocks boxee browser entirely

As a wise man once said: "Damn, that's just cold, son." Merely hours after boxee announced its latest alpha build along with RSS feed support for Hulu, said video portal has now blocked off boxee's browser entirely from accessing its content. If you'll recall, boxee saw a huge increase in interest when it first added easy access to Hulu, and once Hulu demanded that it be removed, boxee sadly complied. The latest move just seems "cold blooded," as now boxee users who attempt to surf over via a Hulu RSS feed link will be greeted with an infinite amount of nothing. boxee is quick to point out that its browser doesn't access Hulu content "any differently" than IE, Firefox, Opera or any other browser, which does a good job of explaining just how deliberate this move is. Needless to say, we get the feeling this bout is just getting started.