I came in late to the DC Team Books panel but here are a few things I did learn.

• Damian Wayne will be showing up in the Teen Titans and there will be some interesting dynamics/scenes between him and Ravager.
• Issue 88 of Teen Titans hits the ground running and will be a good starting point for new readers.
• The Teen Titans will not only be getting a new villain but also a new member, who is also completely new to the DC universe.
• The big seven of the Justice League will be out of the picture for a while.

Here are a few items learned from the DC Nation Panel. There is one semi-major spoiler at the end just to warn you.

• The Blue Beetle live action test footage looks cool.
• Wonder Woman is getting some new villains based on Greek mythology.
• Wonder Woman’s adventures in the alternate timeline bubble won’t deal with other Wonder Girls/Women.
• Kathy Kane and Bruce Wayne will be teaming up in an issue of Batman, Inc.
• They couldn’t go into detail but more Flash stuff is coming next year, including a new title. Flash: Speed Force will be a Wally West and Bart Allen centric book.
• There are also plans for most if not all of the existing speedsters, as well as possibly some new ones, in the DC universe.
• Young Justice material being reprinted in October.
• Grant Morrison & Geoff Johns are working together on a big project coming out next year.
• Cassandra Cain will be showing up in something Geoff Johns is working on outside of comics.
• More Batman Beyond stuff being planned due to the success of the current mini-series. Both in and out of comics.
• Some upcoming Brave and the Bold team-ups will be:
• Lois Lane and Adam Strange
• Jor-El and Pa Kent
• Phantom Stranger and Supergirl
• TheChallengers of the Unknown and the Metal Men
• DC is looking to keep the majority of their books at the $2.99 price point.

Click to see the semi-major spoiler. (more…)

Here are some informational tidbits I got from the Superman: Man of Tomorrow Panel.

• They’ve done lots of big intergalactic stories in Superman lately so they felt it was time to bring Superman more down to Earth. Literally. They wanted to do more personal character driven stories. Superman will come across a myriad of real life problems including (but not limited to) suicide, poverty, casual cruelty, self-destruction, child abuse and immigration.
• Superman 702 is shift from 701. Even though they share the same main story of Superman walking he won’t be encountering the same things every issue.
• Superman 702 also contains a conversation between Lois and Clark.
• Superman 703 guest stars Batman who shows up to talk with Superman. Batman thinks Superman might be having an emotional breakdown.
• Story line after Grounded is the one J. Michael Straczynski always wanted to do.
• When asked what the difference between writing for Thor vs writing for Superman is J. Michael Straczynski said that Thor is writing from the outside in. Starting with the Norse mythology and going from there. Superman is writing from the inside out. Starting with the character.
• Action comics will be Lex Luthor vs. DC Universe. 10 – 12 villains (one a month).
  Some of which will be Mr. Mind, Deathstroke, Gorilla Grodd, (Neil Gaiman’s) Death and the Secret Six.
• David Finch’s cover art for the issue featuring Death was instrumental in getting Neil Gaiman’s permission to use her.
• Lex will be staying out of jail for the time being.
• Lex will be changed by his journey and won’t be the same man when it is over.
• Paul Cornell will be writing Superman in Action Comics after Lex Luthor story arc is over.
• Smallville and its community are the center of the Superboy book.
• Superboy will be fighting Parasite in issue one and Poison Ivy in issue two.
• Superboy will also be getting some new villains.
• Phantom Stranger will be an important guest and will reveal secrets about Smallville.
• Phantom Stranger’s appearance in Superboy will tie back to 1960′s Phantom Stranger stories.
• Big clue in issue two of Superboy of another supernatural character appearing.
• Issue three is a Superboy/Kid Flash race which will be covered by Lois Lane.
• Supergirl will be having a bizarre time. Bizarro Supergirl. Bizarro Metropolis. Bizarro World.
• Supergirl will also be getting some new villains. As well as an old one that will be dusted off for the annual.
• There wil be a Supergirl/Legion of Super-Heroes story referencing pre-crisis Kara Zor-El
• Superman related titles will reflect each other but there are no plans for crossing over in the near future.
• A prestige hard cover novel will be coming out. It doesn’t take place in the main DC universe.
• It focuses on Clark before he is Superman and will show him revealing his powers to the world for the first time.

Next up on my write ups from San Diego Comic Con 2010 is info from the Batman: The Return panel.

• Grant Morrison is working on a new Batman team book called Batman, Inc.
• The book will consist mainly of 1 or 2 issue story arcs, with occasionally 3 at most.
• Catwoman will be appearing in the first issue.
• Detective Comics will be getting a Commissioner Gordon back-up feature that will tie into the main story.
• Paul Dini is working on House of Hush which is a continuation of Heart of Hush. This story arc will go back further in time than previous stories.
• The identity of the White Canary will be revealed in Birds of Prey.
• Batgirl will be getting her own original rogue’s gallery.
• Stephanie Brown’s first year as Batgirl was her telling others “I’m Batgirl, deal with it.” Her sophomore year will be her saying to herself “I’m Batgirl… now what?” and proving herself to not only the greater DC universe but to herself.
• A Knight and Squire mini-series is coming, with Wildcat appearing in the first issue.
• In response to a question on if Black Canary and Zatanna would be teaming up anytime soon Gail Simone and Paul Dini said they were in discussion on something but wouldn’t go into details.
• Cassandra Cain could possibly show up somewhere in November.
• Batman will be getting a costume redesign.

I think the best way to sum it all up is with a quote from the panel.

One of the best Bat years ever.”
-Gail Simone

Went to the Batman: The Brave and the Bold panel at San Diego Comic Con 2010. Along with the panel they also screened a premiere of an upcoming episode of the show.

Present at the panel were

• James Tucker
• Diedrich Bader
• Sam Register
• Michael Jelenic
• Andrea Romano
• John DiMaggio

The episode that was screened was “Emperor Joker!” and some of the highlights of the episode include

• Musical number sung by the Joker
• Bat-Mite returns!
• “Joker mite”!
• Harley Quinn appears!

Some of the other information given during the panel were

• Due to the popularity of the “Mayhem of the Music Meister!” episode they’ve added more songs to episodes
• There are only 13 more episodes of the episode left.
• There was a hint that “a masculine and a feminine character people have been waiting for” would be appearing.

Before the panel was over Greg Weisman came in and they gave some info on the upcoming Young Justice show that will be premiering on the Cartoon Network. I’ll admit I’d seen character design sketches and I wasn’t impressed but they also showed a trailer for the show and I have to say they look great animated.

Went to the City of Heroes: Going Rogue panel at San Diego Comic Con on Thursday. Most of this stuff is probably already on the internet but just in case you haven’t seen it yet here are some highlights.

• The Cathedral of Pain is returning in Issue 18.
• New mission features including:
• If you kill/defeat a contact in a mission you won’t get any more missions from that contact.
• Sabotage & subterfuge missions where once you’re in a mission you can call another contact to get a different objective to do while inside.
• Tip missions where choices you make inside will either take you morally closer to good or to evil.
• The tip missions are used when choosing whether or not your Praetorian will end up as a hero or a villain, or for when your hero or villain wants to either make the switch to the other side.
• Of course you can also keep on the side you are already on and those who do will get rewarded. At least one of these rewards is access to special purple Invention Origin Enhancements.
• Two new mission map sets, The Underground and Praetoria Tech sets that will eventually also be available to use in Architect.
• Seven new costume sets including:
• Overguard
• Resistance
• PPD
• Clockwork
• Alpha
• Omega
• and one other that I can’t recall at the moment
• All auras will now have the option to be combat auras.
• New zones in Praetoria including
• Nova Praetoria
• Imperial City
• Neutropolis
• and The Underground, which like the sewers in Paragon City will have corresponding areas underneath each of the top levels.
• There are also no War Walls in Praetoria so you can see from one zone to the next, I am however not sure if there are still loading screens or not.
• Protests is going to be a new zone event in Praetoria where you have the option to either help the cops stop the rioters or help the rioters.
• They didn’t say what it was but they did say they are working on more Super Boosters.
• New factions including:
• Loyalists: They are loyal to Emperor Cole and have two sub-factions:
• Powers: These loyalists crave more power.
• Responsibility: They want security and peace.
• Resistance: They see Cole as a tyrant and also have two sub-factions:
• Wardens: They want a normal uncontrolled life.
• Crusaders: They want freedom, no matter what it costs.

I had a great time meeting and talking with Matt “Positron” Miller, Melissa “War Witch” Bianco and David “Noble Savage” Nakayama who are all extremely nice people.

I also got a chance to try out Going Rogue on one of their demo computers and I have to say the graphics look awesome! I reallllly need to upgrade my gaming setup…

Well, I made it home safely, although I kind of still wish I was back in Lake Tahoe, would have liked to get a chance to do some exploring and photo taking. Got to do some more talking with a friend I made at conference while we waited for the flight from Reno to Chicago, very nice guy, you can find his blog here if you’re interested in reading his thoughts on Gnomedex 4.0.

The first leg of the trip was OK, although I had a difficult time getting comfortable enough to sleep, when I finally did get in a somewhat decent position the plane was descending.

The second leg was a bit more stressful, when we landed in Chicago we were told to go to concourse H, which we did, however our flight was moved to concourse K (which is where we got off) but the people working at where we told to do were in such a bad mood due to some other people they apparently decided they weren’t going to annonce the change and by time we found out we had to pretty much run all the way to the other end of the airport to catch our flight, not fun.

But anyway, I’m home now and the adventure is over, can’t wait for next years conference.

Wil Wheaton was a great speaker, he read excerpts from his two books “Just A Geek” and “Dancing Barefoot” which were great. The books actually started as entries on his blog and from what I understand were just edited slightly and some further narration/explanation added which in my opinion is very cool.

He also said that his reading today, as well as at least one of his books, was done under the Creative Commons License which means anyone who was recording his reading in one format or another today are able to distribute it via things like BitTorrent as long as they don’t take credit for it and don;t change the content.

Afterwards he had copies of his books to sell and sign, unfortunately he sold out a few people before I got there but I did get a CD demo of “Just A Geek” read by Wil and two Star Trek: Customizable Card Game cards I’d brought signed plus a photo. He was definitely very kind and like everyone else I’ve met at this conference very down to earth.

This panel is going very well so far and some good points have been brought up so far. Some that grabbed my interest were that even with the RIAA and more than likely the MPAA soon or later suing everyone left and right there is more freedom with content today than there was a century ago since back then the only way to hear music or see a play was to go to the orchestra or theater and seeing it live, whereas today we can go to a store and buy a CD or DVD and listen or watch the content whenever we want.

Another point made was the pros and cons between whether content should be walled via registration or if content should have ads on the page or if everything should be free. Now while free would be nice I think we all know that won’t be the end result. Something Jason Calacanis I really liked was give people the option to pay a subscription fee for ad-free content or if you don’t want to pay then you’d see ads along with the content.

Something else mentioned was the fact that the established media such as printed papers are sometimes slow to embrace changes in the way things are done, and the companies that drag their feet too much will be left behind and I think will possibly either have to change their business model or risk alienating the potential readers and going out of business.

Another point made that may be slightly off the topic was should manufacturers be held responsible if a consumer uses their products in an illegal way, such as when 321 Studios was forced to pull their DVD backup software of store shelves in the U.S. because their software MIGHT be used to pirate movies. My thoughts however are that the companies shouldn’t be held responsible if their product has a legitimate use. To my knowledge automobile companies aren’t held responsible if a driver crashes and kills another person. And if the person was drunk at the time of the crash the alcohol companies don;t get sued, it is the responsibility of the drunk driver to pay the costs and do the time.

The panelists were as follows:

Chris just announced during his welcome speech today that there will definitely be a Gnomedex 5.0 next year, I’m definitely planning on going and can’t wait.

Well, i sort of lost my seat, but got a betetr one, now I’m at a table by an outlet so I have more room and can use my mouse.

Well, I’m about an hour early for the actual conference, but I managed to get a good seat near the fornt and by an open outlet, so I’ll be able to blog during the actual conference, at least until lunch anyway.

The party tonight was pretty fun, although “dinner” was more like appetizers, but anywho. They had a live band playing, the Silicon Valley Houserockers, and although I think they were a bit on the loud side they did play some good covers of oldies songs. Their performance was actually recorded and they’ll be handing out cds of them tomorrow.

Throughout the evening they also did drawings for prizes, some of which were very nice including a $600 AMD 64 bit processor, alas, I didn’t win anything.The party tonight was pretty fun, although “dinner” was more like appetizers, but anywho. They had a live band playing, the Silicon Valley Houserockers, and although I think they were a bit on the loud side they did play some good covers of oldies songs. Their performance was actually recorded and they’ll be handing out cds of them tomorrow.

Throughout the evening they also did drawings for prizes, some of which were very nice including a $600 AMD 64 bit processor, alas, I didn’t win anything.

And on a happier note, I’m not sure on all the details but apparently two of the attendees got married today and the band’s first song was their first dance together as newlyweds. I apologize to the happy couple, but I don’t recall their names, but I wish them all the best.

And on a happier note, I’m not sure on all the details but appearently two of the attendees got married today and the band’s first song was their first dance together as newlyweds. I apoligize to the happy couple, but I don’t recall their names, but I wish them all the best.

Edit: I just found out the name of the newlyweds, congratulations to Jackie and Jason Leib, may you both have many happy years together.

Yes folks, I got to meet former Screen Savers co-host Patrick Norton, and I just have to say he’s just as cool in person, if not cooler as he is on tv. He was very down to earth and friendly and easy to talk with. I even got a picture with him which I’ll put up on my gallery sometime reletively soon.

I also saw and talked with Jim Louderback a bit, he used to be on TechTV as well as a co-host on Fresh Gear. The really cool thing was that he remembered me from last years Gnomedex.

Well this is quite a few hours later than when the panel actually was but the first oppurtunity i’ve had to blog so my memories of the highlights from this panel are a bit fuzzy, but I’ll do my best to recall.

The main topic I recall was the convergence of technology, with one device doing multiple things. Unfortunatly at the present time most, if not all of the devices that have multiple functionality don’t do any of their functions that well.

The other point I recall was the fact that the embracing of technology doesn’t make a person draw away from the world in general. If a person is already an introvert than yes they’ll probably withdraw more by using the computer excessively and not interacting too much with people, but on the flip side of things if a person is an extrovert it’s very likly they’d use computers and technology to talk to even more people and be more outgoing.

The panelists were as follows:

Woz’s keynote ended a little bit ago, I can’t go into too much detail right now as to what all he said since my battery is fading again, but he is definitely an inspiration. He told of how he first got started in electronics as a fifth grader putting together kits, to designing thing sin his head and building them and all things in between, including being a ham radio.

He also told some great prank stories, the best in my oppinion involved a tv jammer at a college.

Todays keynote speaker for Gnomedex 4.0 is about to come up and speak, I’m really excited about this because the speaker is none other than Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

I would have blogged about this panel while it was going on but my battery died. Some of the things discussed were

The panelists were as follows:

The first panel of Gnomedex 4.0 is winding down, some interesting ideas and comments were made regarding who is responsible for making sure the average user’s computer is secure from hackers, viruses, etc. Should it be the actual user who may or may not know 100% what they are doing, the corporations who make the hardware and/or software, the government, the ISPs or something else entirely?

The panelists were as follows:

Chris Pirillo just finished welcoming everyone to Gnomedex 4.0: Geeks Gone Wild not to long ago and now the future of computer security panel has started.