Some Stuff: Tuesday, September 1, 2009

1972: American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Iceland, defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.

The Walt Disney Company is buying Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4-billion (U.S.) in cash and stock, bringing characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and WALL-E. Marvel shares jumped 26 per cent, shortly after the market opened. Disney shares fell 1.8 per cent. In all, Disney now owns some 5,000 Marvel characters Marvel will still remain in creative control over their own company. But now have some great resources like PIXAR and the incredible pool of Disney artists available to them. On the down side this could mean less graphicness.

Fox has announced that they're moving forward on rebooting the Fantastic Four franchise . The producer behind Poseidon, I Am Legend and Hancock has been hired to oversee the reboot as producer. The studio has also hired Michael Green a co-executive producer on "Heroes" who also co-wrote the Green Lantern movie, to write the new screenplay.

Sly Stallone has signed on for another Rambo movie that will chronicle John Rambo's battle against human traffickers and drug lords near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Yesterday, officials in Uganda announced that they're launching a new social networking website later this month. It's called FriendAGorilla.org, and it'll allow users to track to the movements of MOUNTAIN GORILLAS.

According to Ugandan officials, once users pay the $1 fee to sign up, they'll be able to watch live video feeds of mountain gorillas in the wild, and they'll even be able to track the gorillas' movements by GPS.

Plus, they'll receive weekly updates alerting them of new births, and other gorilla-related info. --"Once you befriend a gorilla, you will be interacting with your gorilla friend on a weekly basis, and you will get updates on the movement of your gorilla friend."

I told you about this back in April, but given it’s back to school time I thought I’d bring it up again. AT&T's Family Map plan, allows users to see their child's location on a detailed map with the street address via computer or cell phone. Parents also can receive text messages or e-mail updates at certain times of the day to ensure their child has made it home from school,