tolkien

With the world premiere of "The Hobbit" movie just a few weeks off, I've been thinking a lot about travel and Middle-earth, from here at the actual middle of the actual earth.

Turns out I'm not alone. These days, the New Zealand Tourism Board actively promotes tours of the 12-acre family farm that was spotted amid obscurity and lots of sheep in 1998 and transformed into The Shire of Tolkien lore.

In fact, the tourist board says at least 6 percent of visitors to the country cite "The Lord of the Rings" and upcoming "Hobbit" trilogies as the reason they came to New Zealand.… Read more

The estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has embarked on a new quest -- this one in the courtroom.

The Tolkien estate and LOTR book publisher HarperCollins have sued Warner Bros. and other parties, claiming they've breached their contracted agreement to sell merchandise based on the famous book series.

Filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the $80 million lawsuit asserts that a prior agreement allows Warner Bros. to sell only "tangible" merchandise and not digital items, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Also tagged in the suit were Warner's New Line subsidiary and … Read more

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

Thus begins J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic "The Hobbit," first published 75 years ago and slated to be released as three movies despite the fact that it's only 300 pages long.

Indeed, the power of a franchise can be stronger than Smaug's fiery breath. That could have been what prompted Jeremy Telford to turn his room into a persuasively good rendition of Bilbo Baggins' home -- using balloons. … Read more

Cisco Systems shuts down production of the Flip video camera

You can now rent movies in your browser through Vudu

HTC launches the Sensation with a video-streaming service called HTC Watch

Nokia releases two new phones with Anna, the newest iteration of Symbian

Sprint kicks off a streaming music service and store called Music Plus

Microsoft hopes to rival Google Maps Street View with Bing Maps Streetside, which has started image capture in London

The Firesay Firefox extension lets you use voice control in Facebook

Apple announces Final Cut Pro X

The upcoming … Read more

Ever wonder how much Darth Vader might be worth? Or maybe Voldemort? I haven't, but when it's time to compile Forbes' annual Forbes Fictional 15, a list of the net worth of the wealthiest characters in fiction, it comes up.

This year, Smaug, the dragon made famous in Tolkien's "The Hobbit" who will likely be featured in the currently-in-production movie by MGM and New Line Cinema, makes the list at No. 7 with $8.6 billion--right between superhero billionaires Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark.

It's not an easy number to come up with, but Forbes writer Michael Noer does a handy job of doing just that--and he even shows his work.

He's put together a workable equation that starts by calculating the amount of precious metals in the dragon's bed of treasure by using information Tolkien included in the book (using Bilbo's height as compared with the pile); generally held "facts" about dragon treasure from sources like Dungeons & Dragons; and the real-world values of gold and silver coins.

The mound--675.6 cubic feet, if you must know--is then combined with the best-guess size of Smaug's diamond-encrusted underbelly (again, calculated with help from D&D sourcebooks at 684.6 spare feet) and the probable worth of other treasures (like the Arkenstone of Thrain) to get the final estimate.

As an expert on Tolkien and dragons (remember my D&D-inspired tattoo last summer? Yeah, I'm a Dungeon Master) and someone who's fairly decent with math, I can't find a hole in Noer's logic. While the $8.6 billion figure might not be exact, it's damn close enough, and I can't imagine anyone coming up with a more accurate figure.

If you can, you're more than welcome to give it a shot in the comments below. Just remember that, like Noer, you'll need to show your work.… Read more

Facebook now shares the stories you "like" on third-party sites with your News Feed. It's actually kind of cool, but please: use this feature responsibly, won't you? Also, Gmail goes down and we're all rushing to back up, I call "Unicorn" on rumors of a white iPad 2, and the Tolkien estate takes the Culture of Ownership to a whole other level. --Molly

What started out as a class assignment for Maddie Chambers became a nearly yearlong obsession. Now that the 30-year-old British woman's project is mostly finished, her work has drawn admirers from Brazil to the Netherlands to Spain and has even prompted a few to propose marriage.

Chambers has painstakingly created a miniature version of Bag End, Bilbo Baggins' house from "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings"--from the round front door and porthole windows, right down to the Middle-earth maps and the barrel of pipe-weed inside.

It's clear Chambers is a J.R.R. Tolkien fan. What isn't clear is when she sleeps. Chambers, the mother of young twin boys, started the project in March 2009 when she was taking a college course on child care. The unit was on "the importance of play." The assignment? Create a toy by term's end. Chambers, who lives in Chesterfield, England, set to work on the Hobbit hole in the evenings after her boys went to bed. Other times, she would turn to it while the toddlers napped.

Chambers based the dollhouse, roughly 3-foot-square, partly on Tolkien's stories and Peter Jackson's big-screen adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings." Her imagination filled in the rest.

"The Hobbit" first hooked her when she was about 10. About a year later, she tackled "The Lord of the Rings." Tolkien created a world that she wanted to live in, populating it with elves, dwarves, and dragons, Chambers said in a recent e-mail. (She has read "Lord of the Rings" about 20 times over the years.)

"I longed to go on the adventures with the Hobbits and I literally imagined every single step they took and pictured myself there too," Chambers said. … Read more

Today, we rant about how J.R.R Tolkien's estate took home a whopping $62,000 from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. $62,000--that's like your dad's salary for a movie trilogy that grossed over $8 billion worldwide. Plus, we talk Fight Club reborn on Broadway, and Thriller's 25th anniversary netting some awful bonus tracks.

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