Rating: I give it 8 out of 10. Worth seeing in theaters.

Some points to know:
•It’s almost 2.5 hours long; 90 minutes of which are Shia LaBeouf acting like a distraught spaz and Megan Fox showing-off her midriff (Megan Fox’s midriff may win an award for its appearance in this film).

•This movie has more products than a grocery store: keep your eyes peeled for the transforming Mountain Dew vending machine and the numerous Apple appearances.

•Coincidentally, Shia LaBeouf is also the name of a savory French beef stew.

•”Transformers” perpetuates the old trope: (even among robots) the black guy (Jazz) always dies. Also, no (identifiably) female robots in the film.

•The movie was too Spielberggy - too many madcap shenanigans, not enough robot ass-kicking.

•Michael Bay’s website has a few wallpaper-worthy production images of the robots.

•”Transformers” made $27.4 million on its debut, last Tuesday - setting a new record.

•The visuals and effects were stellar, the robot ass-kicking was great.

[update, by Timbotron]:
Take a look at the photo gallery of Alex Kubalsky - designer of Transformer toys (and the only foreign toy designer in Japan).

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Okay . . . because “Transformers: The Movie” is coming out in less than a week and geeks everywhere are getting worked-up about it (myself included), I thought I’d post something of a confession: here are some sketches from my (delinquent + geek) graffiti/spraypainting days in the late 80’s. I did a Tranformers “Unicron” piece beneath a bridge, and here’s a sketch I did of the Transformers logo in Japanese. Remember: it was the late 80’s and I was young and both graffiti and geekdom were still oldskool.

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Vecna Technologies has developed a robot teddy bear to rescue troops from the front lines. Okay, I added the “teddy” part - they call it a BEAR (Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot). Beyond walking, it can kneel down and roll using the tread running from its knees, similar to a tank. I’m not sure why they don’t just strap some guns on it and make it fight instead…

(via BBC)

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For a bit more StreetView fun, check out MapMole.com.  People post what they’ve discovered via Streetview, and then the results are rated in Digg-format.

Here are a few of the pictures that have been discovered and collected– many of them are hilarious, or otherwise remarkable/intriguing.  For instance:

(Thanks for the tip, Harley!)

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Kinda old news but Lego has taken the crap golden ticket and laser blasted it with cool to come out with 10,000 Golden C-3PO’s hidden in their Star Wars boxes. Time to go all spider monkey at toys r us, let go my Lego!

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A 45 year old Danish municipal worked was killed by a robotic lawnmower after it tumbled down a hill and landed on him. This is the first reported incident by the RC-controlled Dvorak Spider 01… hopefully this isn’t the start of a robotic invasion.

(via Engadget)

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If that video didn’t convince you, then maybe this article will.

(via Digg)

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May 19th-20th (last weekend) was the 2007 Make: Magazine “Maker Faire”. It was a spectacular event: steam-powered robots, battery-powered motorcycles, tinfoil hats, human-powered carnival rides, a life-sized version of the game “mouse trap,” and lots of explosions.
Below is a video I put together for Blogadilla, and below below are some nice shots of the event by our own Blogadilla photographer, Garry. [click on photos to enlarge]

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