Ridley Scott was the fifth choice to direct the 1979 film Alien, remembers the Los Angeles Times, “meaning that no one was expecting the film to become as important and influential as it now is.”
This week they chronicled some more remembrances about the film from 82-year-old Ridley Scott:

The central role of Ellen Ripley — also portrayed by Sigourney Weaver in three subsequent sequels — was originally written as a man… “I think it was Alan Ladd [then president of 20th Century Fox] who said, ‘Why can’t Ripley be a woman?’ And there was a long pause, that at that moment I never thought about it. I thought, why not, it’s a fresh direction, the ways I thought about that. And away we went… I found Sigourney by word of mouth. Somebody had been told that Siourney was on an off-Broadway stage doing something, that I should meet. And I did,” Scott said. “And there it was, she was perfect. In terms of scale, size, intelligence, her acting is just fantastic. And so it was made for her, really.”

The film’s notorious chest-burster scene, in which an alien creature emerges from within actor John Hurt’s chest, is now among the classic scenes in modern horror cinema. It was shot with multiple cameras because Scott could only really perform the full effect once, “because once I blew blood all over that set, there was no cleaning it up… I kept it very much from the actors and I kept the actual little creature, whatever that would be, from the actors. I never wanted them to see it,” Scott said. “Remember there was no digital effects in those days at all. I’m going to somehow bring that creature out of his chest….”

Scott recalled the influence that Star Wars had on him at the time, noting, “It opened the gate for me feeling comfortable that science fiction was no longer silly fantasy but actually had a reality to it… So I was blown away… My hat still comes off to George,” Scott said of Lucas for the first Star Wars. “Without question his was by far the best, still.”

Scott directed the 2017 film Alien: Covenant, the Times notes, “And he may not be done yet.
“What I always thought when I was making it, the first one, why would a creature like this be made and why was it traveling in what I always thought was a kind of war-craft, which was carrying a cargo of these eggs. What was the purpose of the vehicle and what was the purpose of the eggs? That’s the thing to question — who, why, and for what purpose is the next idea, I think.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – 82-Year-Old Ridley Scott Shares Some Secrets About ‘Alien’

When Dutch restaurants open tomorrow, one will be using two shiny white-and-red robot waiters, reports the Associated Press:

“Hello and welcome,” the robots say — in a voice best described as pre-programmed. Their duties will include greeting customers, serving drinks and dishes and returning used glasses and crockery. It’s unclear whether diners will be expected to tip.

One thing the robots will certainly do is see that social distancing rules are respected. “We will use them to make sure the five feet we need during the corona crisis sticks,” Leah Hu said. “I’ve had negative reactions,” she said, “such as saying it makes it impersonal.” But it may prove just what customers crave when Dutch restaurants are allowed to reopen Monday as lockdown restrictions are further eased.
In a stab at quasi-human panache, one robot wears a chiffon scarf around its neck….
And in the southern Zeeland province, the Hus don’t want to hear any complaints about the robots robbing young people of a job. They say it’s hard enough anyway to find staff in a rural region without any major city close by… “We are often busy and cleaning tables and the robots give us an extra hand.” It also frees up the human staff for some more personal contact. “We are not disappearing. We are still here. They will always need people in this industry,” she said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Dutch Restaurant Will Re-Open With Robot Waiters

techtsp quotes The Windows Club: In a major breakthrough, Microsoft Edge now supports Native File System API, which will take progressive web apps and their usage to a whole new level. An official roadmap entry points towards the new development, which only means one thing: Bridging the native app gap using modern web technologies…

This is exactly where Microsoft Edge’s Native File System API support comes into play, and Edge is already rolling out a native PDF editing support that uses this Native File System API. In the future, Microsoft Edge users can easily save edits made to PDF documents back to the file instead of saving a copy each time…

Starting in Google Chrome 83, a new origin trial has started for the Native File System API for all desktop platforms including Windows, Linux, and macOS. We saw it in action in the text editor demo….

Over the last few years, the web has evolved into an incredibly powerful platform in itself, and with the introduction and significant adoption of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), the cross-device software delivery became much easier. But no matter how great PWAs are, they have certain limitations that we can’t possibly ignore. And these limitations prevent users from replacing native apps with progressive web apps. In short, PWAs can’t do everything that native apps can do.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Edge To Save Edits Made To PDF Files Without Saving a Copy Each Time

“Zoom plans to strengthen the encryption of its service for paying customers,” reports Newsweek, “but the upgrade will not be available to users of its free service.”
Zoom security consultant Alex Stamos later confirmed the details of the reported move in an interview with Reuters, which first reported the changes on Friday. But he also told the news outlet that Zoom’s plans could still change. “The CEO is looking at different arguments,” Stamos said.

“The current plan is paid customers plus enterprise accounts where the company knows who they are.” In the wake of privacy concerns, he added that Zoom was making significant efforts to upgrade safety and trust on its platform. In an emailed statement to Newsweek, a Zoom spokesperson said: “Zoom’s approach to end-to-end encryption is very much a work in progress — everything from our draft cryptographic design, which was just published last week, to our continued discussions around which customers it would apply to.”
The tech company’s plans to boost the encryption of video calls on its platform have been revealed a month after it was reported that half a million Zoom account credentials were being sold on the Dark Web.

Zoom’s increased usage during lockdowns brought increase scrutiny, reports CNET, which “revealed several Zoom security problems and the fact that an earlier Zoom boast of end-to-end encryption was baseless.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Zoom’s New, Stronger Encryption May Only Protect Paying Clients