The biggest surprise during Apple’s 4S announcement wasn’t what was onstage, but what wasn’t. For weeks before hand, a steady stream of leaks and near-constant press coverage all foretold the release of totally redesigned iPhone 5. When one didn’t materialize, some were left puzzled, others disappointed. But now, Business Insider claims that not only was there an iPhone 5, but that it was scrapped in favor of the 4S just months before the scheduled announcement.

According to their source, which Business Insider says has provided reliable information in the past, the phone was dramatically different than the one that launched.

This news is dubious at best, but like the best kind of rumor, it seems hauntingly plausible.

Update: But it isn’t true! “The “I cast dead people” scenario that’s making the rounds on the web is not true, according to Lucasfilm spokesman Josh Kushins. “This rumor is completely false,” he told Wired.com in an e-mail Monday.”

Mel Smith, a British comedian who worked with George Lucas on the little known 1994 film Radioland Murders, which Lucas wrote and executive produced for, had this to say about his experience:

George doesn’t understand comedy, so the movie flopped. At least it taught me how to use CGI. George is obsessed with it and used too much in the last two Star Wars films — which I thought were ghastly.

He’s been buying up the film rights to dead movie stars in the hope of using computer trickery to put them all together in a movie, so you’d have Orson Welles and Barbara Stanwyck appear alongside today’s stars.

The Internet is fair bursting at the seams today with unsubstantiated rumors regarding plot details of the next Christopher Nolan Batman movie. Specifically, that the Riddler is the villain.

Yes, that was the opening paragraph of an article I wrote in February.  Go ahead and look.  I’ll wait.

Today, the Internet is fair exploding with news that a Warner Bros. studio casting grid, a document kept updated with all the jobs and prospective jobs available and taken in the industry for scheduling purposes, shows the Riddler as a character who needs casting for Batman 3, and shows Joseph Gordon-Levitt as “interested” in the role.

Let’s talk about what this means, and what it doesn’t mean, because one thing that it does not mean is that the Riddler will be the main villain in Batman 3.

UPDATE 2:34PM EST: WikiLeaks representative Daniel Schmitt told Geekosystem that he “couldnt [sic] even imagine a reason” why founder Julian Assange would be exiting from the website. In his e-mail response, he warned against having “fed the troll calling himself an insider,” writing:

The .is domain registration was supposed to happen much earlier, and I am more or less astonished it has only now happened. We control around 500+ domain names, and try to get wikileaks in as many TLDs as possible. This is a normal action to occur, has nothing to do with us moving to Iceland or anywhere else. WikiLeaks is as it is, and will stay the same, apart from a few changes and new features we have already publicly announced.

Re the legal team I am not aware of this issue. As much as I can tell, though based in Europe and not a lawyer, our legal team is working on this and has so far not been able to get in touch with Manning.

According to Schmitt, a press release will be pending, a point reiterated on the WikiLeaks Twitter account: “WikiLeaks will NOT be abandoned. Don’t listen to disinfo being spread! We’ll issue clarifications soon. Should’ve done earlier.” Read the original story after the break, in which an “insider” alleged that Wikileaks.org would be abandoned.

Apparently, remastering Star Wars went so well the first two times, they decided to do it again! Well, the sound at least. Sound engineers Matt Wood and David Acord spoke in a podcast about how they’ve re-remixed the Star Wars soundtrack, focusing for the most part on the detail of Obi-Wan’s epic bellow. But in addition to providing some great banter, the engineers revealed some pretty enticing snippets near the end of that episode of ForceCast:

And, to be honest, that sound effect has been changed again. So at some point the audiences will be hearing that scene again with the new sound effect.

WHAAAAT? What new presentation of the Star Wars films could this be for? Well, there are two main possibilities.

File this under things that we really really really hope are true. A couple of different (Warning: The second link is NSFW and NWYT [not worth your time]) places around the internet are saying that gamemaker Team Ico, the makers of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and the upcoming The Last Guardian, are planning to re-release their much beloved first two games.

Ico is nearly ten years old, and Colossus half that age. Both were released with the best graphics that the Playstation 2 could offer, and a visual update, even if it’s just an increase in resolution, would be a welcome addition to the already legendary game mechanics and stories.

Read on...

GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 is one of those titles that has lived far beyond its time: the time of its release, the time of its original console, and the time when its graphics would be considered at all revolutionary. Even today, if you’re not interested in playing a well tooled first person shooter with three friends who are actually in the room with you, you can always put in the bigheads code and set the game to one-hit-kill and slappers only in order to enjoy a pantswettingly hilarious hour or so.

As it turns out, this thirteen year old game may very well be getting some kind of an update.

Hot on the heals of a near complete accidental reveal of the iPhone 4G, 9 To 5 Mac noticed that for a little while this morning there were two strange iPod Touches with strange built-in cameras and a strange operating system on eBay.

Strangely, the auction was swiftly pulled.

Read on...

After a significant amount of pre-release backlash and a opening weekend that netted slightly less money than a kids movie that’s been out for a month, it’s still not too late (early?) for the people behind Kick-Ass to start talking about a sequel.

Stars Aaron Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, in an interview with MTV News, said that there was one in the works. Mintz-Plasse’s character Red Mist would be the villain.

Of course, their info seems to be based on a conversation Mintz-Plasse had with Mark Millar “a few months ago,” and we all know that Mark Millar never makes unfounded claims about movie deals that never actually happened. Ever.

Engadget has some “photos which made their way into [their] hands” that look a whole lot like an iPhone that no one’s ever seen before. It could, quite possibly, be a prototype or production model for the patiently anticipated iPhone 4G or iPhone HD.

They say the phone was found on the floor of a San Jose bar inside an iPhone 3G case. So, uh, that’s not sketchy at all. If it turns out to be an unannounced next generation iPhone, I hope the story of how it got there is suitably epic.

Anyway, specs on this mysterious device after the jump.