Wall-E meets his Canadian DJ maker, turns into a real robot toy (video)

By Joseph Volpe

From: http://www.engadget.com/

What do you get when you cross a dj with a "Canadian roboticist?" An almost true-to-fiction Wall-E, that's what. In this rendition of garbage-bot gone cute, amateur robotics enthusiast DJ Sures (yes, he makes music) hollowed out a U-Command Wall-E toy and fixed him up with some servo guts. The voice-activated, semi-autonomous modjob has a built-in eye camera that recognizes motion, colors and faces, coming the closest we've seen to replicating the CG-romantic. The whole AA-battery powered affair runs on the EZ-B Robot Controller software shown off by Sures in the video below. And unlike other past re-creations, this little guy knows how to get down without the need for sped up video tricks. Clearly, the Pixar-bred bot's become the unofficial icon of the homebrew robotics community, so where's his official counterpart? You listening Disney? Get cracking.

Hack a Day DJ Sures

How to Build Wall-E (In 110 Easy Steps)

This project took 18 days from this Russian guy to accomplish. It all has began after he has watched that cartoon. An idea sparked thru his head “I want to build such thing to hold my computer stuff in it”.

read more | digg story

WALL-E Wins Coolest DVD Packaging of the Year So Far

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 8, 2008

Pixar’s latest gem WALL-E doesn’t hit DVD shelves until November 18th, but it showed up at my house yesterday. And like any movie geek, I tore that UPS envelope open like a kid on Christmas morning, anxiously awaiting the prize inside. But while my greatest excitement was due to the fact that I would be able to watch WALL-E again, I was taken back by the awesomeness of the 3-Disc Special Edition’s packaging. And since it isn’t every day when such a standard release has cool packaging, I thought I would share it with you.

With the help of Iron Man — whose DVD release was also solid — I took a few snap shots. You start opening the cast by pulling out on tabs at the right and left, as seen below:

Then the two sides fold out, revealing the two discs plus the third disc which contains the digital copy of the film. Notice the cool screenshots from the film on the right flap and the scene listing on the left:

And finally, when you turn it all around you see more screenshots from the film:

The other thing that struck me was the embossed cover, which features WALL-E, EVE and M-O. Even though this entire package is very simple, there are some clever touches that make it stand out. That, and it contains one of the best movies of the year.

In addition to the cool packaging seen above, I also found the set to be loaded with special features. But I will have more on that in my upcoming Blu-ray Patrol column where I compare the 3-Disc DVD to the Blu-ray release. For now, here is a pair of behind the scenes clips.

First, sound master Ben Burtt shows us how he made the sound of EVE’s laser arm:

Next, director Andrew Stanton explains the reason why the film explodes with so many other bots: