When you think of SeaWorld Orlando you don’t usually think of hi-tech shows; instead, you probably picture an orca hurling itself through the air or sea lions performing synchronized swimming shows. Attractions like these will always be the core of SeaWorld’s entertainment offerings, but with their latest show, TurtleTrek, they’ve incorporated one of the most cutting-edge movie formats into their line-up. The 360 degree 3-D film, which debuted late in April, immerses the viewer in the life story of sea turtles.

According to SeaWorld’s creative director, Brain Morrow, the marine mammal park decided to create an attraction based on the sea turtle because the large marine reptiles “have a great story to tell.” Guests will join the turtles on their journey from the egg to the ocean and their eventual return to their hatching grounds. The show is embedded with a message of conservation as the turtles must navigate through numerous man-made dangers along the way. It’s not all troubled times for the turtles though; once they’re out in the open waters, you’ll travel with them through stunning environments few humans ever get to see.

Image: Newsplusnotes.com

TurtleTrek totally immerses viewers in the story by projecting the film on a 360 degree screen around them. Throughout the seven-minute story, guests stand on a platform located in the center of the viewing dome. 34 projections are stitched together to create a seamless underwater environment that envelopes the viewers wearing 3D glasses. As you may’ve guessed, coordinating this many projectors was not an easy task. SeaWorld brought in the Orlando-based design company Falcon’s Treehouse to help them pull off such a feat. David Schaefer, technical director with Falcon’s Treehouse, explained to the Orlando Sentinel that when you are working with a 360 degree projection, there’s nowhere to hide mistakes: “Since we can see everywhere at all times, we’ve got to make sure that a fish doesn’t disappear after we pass it.”

SeaWorld very deliberately chose to invest in a virtual attraction. They don’t see themselves as giving up on their traditional shows with live animals, but feel that a show like this could help keep the overall park experience fresh. Terry Prather, the president of SeaWorld Orlando, has asserted that TurtleTrek does not signal a turn away from live shows: “We do ‘real’ better than anyone else, and when it’s appropriate, we’ll use technology.”

Image: Newsplusnotes.com

Another factor in choosing to create a virtual show for the park was cost. The technology used to create this show costs much less than other large scale attractions, such as roller coasters and other rides. SeaWorld hasn’t said anything about how much the show cost to produce, but we do know that it was included in the $228 million SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment spent on upgrading its 10 parks last year. The technology used in TurtleTrek has proved to be very useful in telling the type of story SeaWorld is interested in and we won’t be surprised to see them expanding on this format in the near future.

Taking a cue from Disney, Paramount Pictures has decided to go into the hotel business. The recently formed Paramount Hotels and Resorts has announced plans to develop up to 50 hotels and resorts in popular destinations such as Brazil, the Caribbean, Russia, South Africa, and Indonesia. Don’t expect anything wild like a “Mission Impossible” or “Titanic”-themed hotel. While the studio’s extensive library of films will certainly play some role in these hotels, the focus will be on the California lifestyle.

Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of media conglomerate Viacom, is the third oldest film studio in the world and the only one still operating out of Hollywood proper. In addition to the films already mentioned, Paramount has produced hundreds of hit films in just about every genre over the last century. Many of these, such as “Grease,” “The Godfather,” “Shrek,” and “Star Trek” would make for awesome themed-rooms, but we’ll  have to wait and see how exactly Paramount plans to approach the design of these resorts.

Disney's Aulani Resort and Spa

One question on our minds is whether or not Paramount will be able to compete with Disney? Disney’s Parks and Resorts division was founded in 1971 when it first began to provide hotels to Disney theme parks, giving them a lot of experience in the industry. They’ve also broken out of building hotels for theme parks and started developing autonomous resorts, such as the Aulani Resort & Spa, which opened in Hawaii last year. For now, Paramount is banking on brand recognition to bring in guests to their hotels. According to Paramount Hotels & Resorts CEO Thomas Van Vliet, “Paramount’s logo, the mountain and 22 stars, has been seen by about 5 billion people and that provides a powerful attraction.” Vliet, by the way, was an executive with Accor SA, Europe’s largest hotel company, for over twenty-years, so Paramount Hotels & Resorts would appear to be in capable hands.

As far as what these hotels will actually be like, we’re hearing just as much about what they won’t be as they will be. Over at Bloomberg.com, Vliet is quoted as saying, “It’s not like we are trying to develop something that looks like Planet Hollywood or Hard Rock Hotel. It will be a more subtle and creative adaptation of the Hollywood element into the concept.” Well, Hollywood is not the most subtle place in the world, so it’ll be interesting to see what exactly he means. There will also be a focus on technology at the resorts. The hotels will be equipped with mini-theaters which guests can use to privately screen films from the Paramount library.

It’s possible that we might see one of these hotels open by 2015. This would most likely be in Dubai where Paramount Hotels & Resorts is based. In addition to the hotel, there has also been talk of a Paramount Pictures theme park to be included in the resort. Now this is something to get excited about considering all the great films Paramount has at its disposal to turn into rides. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as more information comes our way.

While this underwater hotel in Dubai is still a long ways off from taking reservations, the concept art alone has been enough to create quite a buzz throughout the blogosphere. This is not too surprising as underwater projects never fail to fascinate the public; there’s something about the idea of living under the sea that is endlessly enchanting. We’ve already put together a list of amazing underwater restaurants, but we’ve yet to see an underwater hotel.  Although we’ve heard about many extravagant projects planned for Dubai that never come through, we’d love to see something like this come to fruition some day.

The Water Discus Hotel, named after the shape of both its underwater and above-water structures, was designed by Poland’s Deep Ocean Technology, who also specialize in underwater vehicles and deep-sea exploration equipment. Construction of the hotel will be completed by Dubai-based Drydocks World, while financing will come from Switzerland’s BIG InvestConsult. The Water Discus Hotel isn’t the only underwater hotel in the works, but it might be the first to actually be built. Another underwater hotel called Hydropolis was planned for Dubai back in 2006, yet the $300 million project never broke ground. Over in Fiji, the Poseidon Underwater Resort is under construction, but it keeps running into delays and the completion date is unknown. Hopefully everyone behind the Water Discus Hotel has learned from the problems encountered by these previous projects and apply those lessons to this latest attempt at an underwater hotel.

As you can see in the concept drawings, the hotel looks like something out of the Jetsons. Above the water, a disc shaped structure will be home to a swimming pool, spa, and garden. However, all 21 rooms will be in another disc 10 meters below the surface. As you would imagine, the rooms will feature incredible views of the ocean through an entire wall of windows. While architect Pawel Podwojewski tried as hard as possible to keep construction costs down, potential guests will be glad to know that he didn’t skimp on the acrylic windows, which are the most expensive element in the project. He was able to keep costs relatively low by adhering to a simple design and not affixing the disc to the ocean floor.

The underwater disc will actually be able to move up and down a central pillar, which will come in handy for a couple of reasons. The first is safety. In the case of an emergency, the disc can be brought up to the surface in 15 minutes where it will be much easier to evacuate guests. The speed at which the disc moves up-and-down is adjustable, so if it needs to be brought up for repairs, it will move at a much more leisurely rate, taking as long as 12 hours to breach the surface.

Well, those are the few details we have so far. Whether or not this is just another Dubai pipe dream, we can’t say for sure. However, we get the feeling that it won’t be too long before we start to see the hotel industry head beneath sea.

All Images: Deep Ocean Technology

While Walt Disney World may claim to be the happiest place on earth, it is currently under attack by a team of the most notorious villains in animation history. Jafar, Ursula, Cruella de Vil, Scar, and many others are on the loose and it’s up to you to stop them. If this sounds like the premise of a video game, you’re absolutely right in thinking so. However, it is not a video game that you play in front of your home television set or computer. This game, Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom, has to be played on location at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom is an interactive role-playing game which visitors play at kiosks, or “magic portals,” throughout the park. The backstory to the game goes like this: Hades has decided to make the Magic Kingdom his summer home, but first he needs to steal the Crystal of the Magic Kingdom from Merlin. Hades sends his henchmen, Pain and Panic, to steal the crystal, but during a scuffle with Merlin, the crystal is shattered and the pieces are scattered throughout the park. Hades then sends an army of Disney villains to recover the missing shards and it is this mischievous team that you must stop.

To begin playing the game, visitors check in at one of two locations where Merlin will brief them on the situation. Disney staff will then equip guests with a set of Spell Cards that they will use to battle the villains throughout the park. Much like in the card game Magic: the Gathering, these cards represent magic spells that can be used on your opponent. Whenever a visitor, or sorcerer as they should rightly be called, comes across a Magic Portal, they first need to unlock it with their key card. Once unlocked, a villain will appear on the screen and challenge the sorcerer to a spell-casting showdown. It’s up to the guest to choose which spell will outdo the one just thrown at them by a villain.

Spell Cards

With 20 Magic Portals spread throughout the Magic Kingdom, guests can easily integrate the game into their day at the park. At each kiosk they’ll meet a recognizable Disney villain, as well as helpful guides such as Genie from “Aladdin” and Sebastian from the “Little Mermaid.” There is no particular order in which sorcerers must approach the Magic Portals, but they must visit them all before participating in the final showdown with Hades. In order to keep the Magic Portals from getting congested, Disney Imagineering has developed an algorithm which collects data from every portal and points guests towards the ones with the least traffic.

Now there is no excuse for gamers not to visit Walt Disney World. In fact, a game like Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom seems to be pointing out a new direction for video game development. With technology becoming increasingly embedded in every surface, we no longer have to think about video games as something that can only be played on a TV or computer (or phone). While we certainly don’t need every surface to be transformed into a playable screen, we are definitely enthusiastic about the potential of games like these to encourage more active forms of play.

All Images via The Official Disney Fan Club

We’ve been seeing a lot of really cool playgrounds popping up all over the world recently and thought that it was about time we put together a list of some of our favorites. Below we’ve ranked our Top 10 playgrounds in ascending order of awesomeness. We hope you enjoy it and are as excited as we are about this renewed interested in playgrounds.

1. Imagination Playground

We’ll start with a playground that comes in a box. Imagination Playground has created a system of blue foam blocks with which children can build their own unique playground. There are no fixed play structures like the ones usually found at playgrounds and this is exactly the point. Children are instead encouraged to experiment and create through unstructured and free-form play.

2. The Fruit and Scent Playground

Image: Lisa Christina Love

This playground in Stockholm, Sweden is fairly small, but definitely worth mentioning for its design. The handful of play structures are modeled after fruit and include a banana slide and cherry swings. Besides being a fun place to play, the playground was also designed to encourage children to eat healthy.

3. Angry Birds Playgrounds

Image: bbc.co.uk

We’ve already covered a couple of Angry Birds-themed projects on this site, but we couldn’t put together a list of playgrounds without a brief look at the Angry Birds Activity Parks designed by Lappset. The familiar images of frowning birds and green pigs are sure to draw kids out of the house. Even though some of the products look like they just slapped a bird’s face on standard park equipment, it is the embedded “Digiplay” technology that combines physical activity with videogames that makes these activity parks a cut above the rest.

4. Slither Hill Slide

We couldn’t resist throwing this one in the mix. This Japanese playground is nothing out of the ordinary except for its amazing slide. It’s by far the longest playground slide we’ve ever seen and the colors are a blast. Our only concern is that such a long ride on rollers might leave bottoms a little sore.

5. Henry Vilas Zoo Playground

Image: Waymarking.com

This enormous tree fort at the Henry Vilas Zoo Playground is a great example of a themed environment that blends form and function. Some of the playgrounds earlier in this list may’ve had some real artistic merit, but the actual play structures were fairly typical. In this case, we see the wildlife themed integrated into the activities in a way that offers the children a real adventure.

6. Wiesbaden Playground

With only one structure at this German playground, you’d think it would get old quick. However, the one continuous structure weaves its way around the perimeter of the park and offers a variety of climbing challenges. We wanted to include this park on our list as an example of design that interacts with the terrain and uses that dynamic to create a totally original playscape.

7. Monstrum Playgrounds

Image: Monstrum

Monstrum’s playgrounds are so cool-looking that we couldn’t just pick one. We’ve already covered their Tower Playground, so we’ll post a picture of the truly unique playground in Hoganas. Although there is nothing high-tech about these playgrounds, Monstrum creates whimsical landscapes that we get lost in just by looking at the pictures. In fact, the activities are so well integrated into the design that they hardly even look like playgrounds.

8. Wallhalla Playground

Image: zigersnead.com

This enclosed playground by Carve adds a twist to playtime that we’ve never seen before. As a way to save space, the playground has been stacked vertically between walls of wire mesh. The undulating walkways and climbing bars within the walls form distinctive play spaces that couldn’t be arrived at any other way. All the other playgrounds we’ve looked at so far rely on a lot of horizontal space, so it’s quite interesting to see one that could easily fit in a dense urban area.

9. Zabeel Technology Park Dubai

In contrast to the above playground, the Zabeel Technology Park sprawls over 47.5 hectares. Although not all of the space is dedicated to play, technology-themed activities are to be found scattered across the park. Grouped into three zones (Alternative Energy, Communications, and Techno), the activities include many interactive displays, as well as a maze modeled after the solar system.

10. Takino Hillside Park

Another park we’ve featured here before, the Takino Hillside Park earns our top spot for its imaginative use of material. Almost everything we’ve looked at so far relies on steel and wood, but this playground proves that there are many more options available. In this case, the play structure is a hand-woven net of yarn. This is definitely the softest playground on the list and it looks just as good for taking a nap as it does for climbing.

Even though airplane food has a reputation as some of the most unpalatable fare out there, this doesn’t stop people from getting excited about airplane-themed restaurants. We’ve already seen restaurants and bars built inside of actual airplanes (the DC-6 Diner and El Avion Bar), but the latest aviation-themed restaurant to pop up is a little different than these. In Chingqong, China, hungry guests are now lining up to grab a seat in Special Class, a fine-dining restaurant modeled after the Airbus A380.

Since 2007, the A380 has been the largest passenger airliner available and has become popular among the jet-setting crowd for its spaciousness and swanky styling. Aboard an Emirates A380, guests will find luxurious amenities such as a full-size bar at which they can totally forget the fact that they are on an airplane. Aboard an aircraft such as the A380 it hardly feels like you’re flying, so it took very little stretching of the imagination to conceive of a restaurant based on the airbus.

Special Class is in fact the second restaurant based on the airliner. A few years ago, the A380 In-Flight Kitchen opened in Taipei, Taiwan, but this earlier version lacks the pizzazz that Special Class possesses. The Taipei restaurant serves up your average Western food on plastic airplane trays and has a cafeteria feel to it. Special Class on the other hand captures the sumptuous atmosphere you’re more likely to find in the business cabin of an Emirates Airbus.

To ensure that the dining experience resembles flying as much as possible, the wait staff act just like flight attendants.; they’ve even been required to take courses on how to act like real flight attendants. You’ll be treated as though you were eating a meal at cruising altitude, but thankfully they won’t be bugging you about keeping your seatbelt fastened.

The 600-square-meter restaurant offers a variety of seating arrangements depending on how much you want to spend. At the economy tables you’ll find some very comfortable seats set up around a table, but these are nothing compared to the special dining pods for couples. These pods look like giant fiberglass eggs that have been split in half with a table thrown in the middle. Each dinner sits deep inside one half of the pod where they can eat in comfort and privacy: something you definitely deserve when you’re paying 10,000 yuan (about $1500) for a table. At this price, it might make sense to just buy an actual ticket aboard an airbus.

All Images: Reuters.com

We all know that social media is changing the way we read the news and learn about world events; but have you been to a museum exhibit on the subject yet? Not unless you’ve been to the recently opened HP New Media Gallery at Washington D.C.’s Newseum. This latest addition to a museum that covers five centuries of news history puts the technology that is revolutionzing journalism right at the visitor’s fingertips.

The HP New Media Gallery is the first permanent exhibit to be added to the Newseum since it opened in 2008. At 2,500-square-feet, the gallery houses five “groundbreaking” interactive exhibits and two video presentations that tell the story of global media through the technology which gave rise to it. Unlike other exhibits at the museum, much of the material presented is constantly in flux as LED screens display live twitter feeds and trending stories. With such a rapidly changing phenomenon such as global media, there is no better way to illustrate it than presenting the real thing.

As soon as guests enter the museum they’ll hit the “Check-In” (a term any Facebook user will be familiar with) where they can post pictures and comments that will then be sent to screens throughout the gallery. In a more intimate setting than the internet, this illustrates exactly what happens when one person uploads a picture or a video of their cat and it instantly goes viral. In this case, everyone in the museum will have been exposed to your photo or comment in a matter of milliseconds.

Of course many visitors will be quite familiar with the touch screen technology used in the HP New Media Gallery; but it is the scale at which it is presented that makes this exhibit worth visiting. Although touch screens are quickly becoming more and more common in our lives, most of us don’t have touch screen walls yet. In the New Media Gallery, visitors can interact with two 11-foot-wide touch screen walls loaded with news events and viral videos. As visitors play with the walls, they will discover recent events that reached the world through social media, such as the 2008 China earthquake and the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Further along, at “Choose the News,” visitors can put together their own pages of late-breaking stories and publish them to large screens for other visitors to read. This activity more than any other drives home the notion that news is no longer in the hands of a few journalists, but anyone who has internet access. And what would a good exhibit be without some games? The “Game Zone” allows visitors to test their knowledge of social media by answering questions with hand motions registered by a motion-tracking system.

So if you’re a news-junkie, you better get over to this exhibit before it’s old news.

Most of us think that we have a pretty good idea of what the world of espionage is like. There is certainly no shortage of literature and film on the subject, but how much do these books and movies really show us? Not as much as we’d like to think according to a new exhibit at Discovery Times Square in New York. SPY: The Secret World of Espionage, which opens on May 19^th, will reveal to visitors never before seen artifacts from some of the must secretive intelligence agencies in the world. Be prepared to see things that not even Hollywood could think up.

The intent of this new exhibit is to strip away the glossy façade painted over the world of espionage by Hollywood and unearth the cold hard facts as they’ve never been seen before. To do this, Discovery Times Square has assembled a collection of exhibits and interactive experiences that will immerse guests in the lives of real double-agents. At the core of the exhibit will be the personal collection of author H. Keith Melton. This author of many spy books currently owns the largest collection of privately-held espionage artifacts in the world at 10,000-plus pieces. In addition to contributing much of his collection to the exhibit, Melton has published a new book to coincide with the opening of SPY entitled “Spy’s Guide to New York.” Melton’s latest offering of spy literature gives readers an in-depth look at the history of espionage in New York.

Classified Folder on Display at SPY: The Secret World of Espionage

It is this rich history of intelligence gathering in the Big Apple that prompted the exhibit. One of the most notorious spy busts in recent New York history will be well documented at the exhibit, and will be of particular interest to New Yorkers. For the first time, many of the documents and surveillance tapes that lead to the arrest of Russian spy, Anna Chapman, will be on display for guests to peruse. These artifacts were only recently declassified and will certainly attract many of the New Yorkers who were shocked to find out that their city could still be infiltrated.

Charlie the Catfish

Among the other artifacts displayed in the exhibit will be many of those contraptions that are at the heart of the public’s love affair with spy culture. Incredibly rare items, such as Charlie the Catfish and a KGB Pinhole Drill Kit, will be front and center at SPY. Charlie the Catfish is one of only two robotic catfish built by the CIA, while the KGB Pinhole Drill Kit was once used by secret agents to spy on the US Embassy in Russia.

False Tooth on Display at SPY: The Secret World of Espionage

Aside from these many unique artifacts, there will also be opportunities to inhabit the life of spy. In one section of the exhibition, guests will be able to go incognito by designing their own disguises and altering their voices with special audio equipment. There will also be the opportunity to try your hand at everyone’s favorite spy move: navigating through a room of security laser beams. We’ve seen this done over and over in films, but it never loses it appeal; there’s no doubt that this one will be a big hit with the kids. Of course, we can’t wait to try it out ourselves and we’re sure many of you out there feel the same way.

All Images: Discovery Times Square

This miniature Main Street Electrical Parade is exactly the type of project we love to discover. It’s not only the Disney theme that excites us, but the creative energy and enthusiasm of the miniature’s creator, Alex George. The American artist has channeled his love for Disneyland and parades into this one-of-a-kind display that is truly captivating. Furthermore, George’s Electrical Parade illustrates the profound impact that Walt Disney and his world of magic has had on generations of artists and designers, and proves that it will not die out anytime soon.

Alex George began his career in the arts as a freelance art director and animator. Never one to be pigeonholed into one discipline, he has also taken on projects in filmmaking and themed environment visualization. Besides the miniature parade, George is also in the process of writing and illustrating a graphic novel.

George’s miniature Electrical Parade would not have been possible without the models of Robert Olszewski. Since 1995, Olszewski has been steadily releasing scale replicas of Disneyland landmarks commissioned by the Walt Disney Company. As George acquired pieces of the Disneyland Main Street Collection over the years, he found himself wishing that the parade floats actually moved. While the Olszewski floats do light up, they certainly do not capture the excitement of the Main Street Electrical Parade; and most importantly, the scene lacked the energetic “Baroque Hoedown” soundtrack that accompanies the light show. As George pondered how he could bring the parade to life, the ideas started to flow at tremendous speeds. Before he knew it, he had embarked on a journey that would turn his house upside down for months.

Inside George's Custom Platform

In order to set the parade in motion, George needed to create a custom platform on which the scene would sit. Inside this platform he would install a system of chains and sprockets that would drive the parade under the power of a small motor. The track on which the parade travels begins underground so that he can keep the parade in hiding before starting a new show.

The next step was updating the lights in the floats. George replaced the LEDs that came preinstalled in the float models with BlinkMs: miniature computer programmable LEDs. With these advanced LEDs, George could not only control the color of the LEDs, but he could also program them to blink to the “Baroque Hoedown.” The BlinkMs are attached directly to the chain drive and put on an awesome show even before the models are installed – so awesome that George says in his behind-the-scenes video, “ I loved the look of this so much that I almost hated to cover it up.”

With the landscaping in place and the floats attached to the drive system, George could now put on the show of his dreams. Perhaps the best part about this project is the simple joy George got out of entertaining his friends with the show. All the hard work George put into this project was for no other reason than to share his love of parades with those dear to him. In a humble and playful manner, George signs off on his video by saying, “Yes it was a lot of work, but what can I say – I love a parade!”

All Images via the Disney Imagineering Blog

Our favorite thing about record-breaking roller coasters is that those records never last for long. We know it won’t be long before another ride comes along and blows the previous record out of the water – which, in the case of Italy’s newest water ride, is more literal than figurative. Within the next month, Mirabilandia theme park will be debuting DiVertical, a new roller coaster that is set to become the world’s tallest water ride.

The previous holder of this title is the Pilgrim’s Plunge at Holiday World, Indiana, which tops out at 165-feet. Mirabilandia’s Divertical will surpass this record-holding ride by over 30 feet, reaching a total height of 197 feet. In addition to taking over the record for tallest water ride, DiVertical will also earn the distinction of being the tallest roller coaster in Italy. This will be easy to see, as Italy’s now second tallest roller coaster stands right next to DiVertical. The new roller coaster’s neighbor, iSpeed, has held Italy’s record for tallest roller coaster at 180 feet since it first opened in 2009.

The DiVertical ride will be unique in that it is a combination of two different aquatic rides manufactured by Switzerland’s Intamin. The new water ride will be one part Hyper Splash and one part Aquatrax, which makes for a one-of-a-kind ride. The Hyper Splash is a mega shoot-the-chutes ride featuring a refreshing 131-drop and unique vertical lift system that hoists the boat up to the slide’s platform (the Pilgrim’s Plunge is a Hyper Splash). In contrast to Hyper Splash, the Aquatrax is a roller coaster that is innovative in its seating arrangement; rather than sitting on typical boat benches, riders sit astride the seats like on a motorcycle, allowing them to feel more connected to the ride’s every motion. At this time, the only other ride based on the AquaTrax is Atlantis Adventure in Lotte World, South Korea.

When you put these two rides together you get DiVertical. The new ride will begin with the big Hyper Splash drop before taking off on the AquaTrax roller coaster section. After navigating a series of tight turns and air-time hills, riders will be sent into a second splashdown pool for another good soaking.

Diveritcal’s theme is offshore powerboat racing and the cars will be modeled after the sleek boats used in the sport. Each boat will be distinctive, but one in particular will really standout. This boat will feature fan artwork selected from an online competition held by Mirabilandia earlier this year.

As of now, DiVertical is still in the test phase, but if everything goes smoothly the ride should be open by mid-to late June.

All Images via the LA Times