The New York Times has an interactive Web app that lets you see the popularity of various Netflix titles by neighborhood in a several different cities. It’s a pretty interesting voyeuristic look at who is watching what. But it leaves you with more questions than answers.

For instance Why is The Curious Case Of Benjamin Butler so popular in Chicago? Or for that matter why are any of these people watching Doubt? Don’t they have paint to watch dry?

Looks like we might be able to enjoy 3D Blu-ray movies by next summer. According to NVIDIA’s PR manager for the UK and Northern Europe, Ben Berraondo, the Blu-ray Association has finally agreed on the details of 3D Blu-ray.

NVIDIA’s 3D Vision Technology will be able to display this new standard, but most of us would need to upgrade our existing hardware as many HDTVs run at a 60Hz refresh rate, while 3D films require a refresh rate of 120Hz. I’m still not sure this 3D thing isn’t just a fad, but I guess no one wants to miss out, so every company is jumping on the bandwagon.

You need movie facts and you need them now. Otherwise you won’t win the argument. There’s an app for that. The Internet Movie Database now has it’s own iPhone app. It’s the same stuff that’s on the site, but in a neatly-designed and easy to use reference for just about every film or show. You’ll also get local showtimes, trailers, and TV listings.

However you can’t rate or review movies, and do the other stuff that you can with an account. But it’s all good because it’s free.

Blockbuster has a new program that will load DRM’d movie rentals onto an SD card from a kiosk. Let’s say that you’re at the airport, or some mall. You want to rent a movie. Apparently you just format a spare SD card (because it doesn’t look like they give you a card), put it in the machine, select a movie, pay about $4. Then you have the movie on your card with DRM.

Are they serious? An SD card won’t play on iPhones and Blackberrys. Now Mini SD and Micro SD, sure. Most mobile devices will take them. I guess it works for netbook and laptop users, but that’s about it. How about more options?

While we wait and see whether the Xbox 360 is getting a Blu-ray drive or not, there’s something else to look forward to. Thanks to a new marketing strategy, you will soon be able to buy the console with the Star Trek or Transformers 2 movie.

Right now it has been confirmed exclusively for the UK. The bundle includes an Xbox Elite, an extra controller and the movie on USB.

It’s not rocket science. First it was Microsoft’s Xbox 360, then the PlayStation 3. Now Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” is coming to Nintendo’s Wii. At least that’s what the word is, according to StreamingMedia, who has an undisclosed source that has confirmed that Nintendo is currently testing Netflix streaming on the Wii. And that it will be available “very soon.”

Hopefully that means before the holidays, but it could mean anything. If you have a Wii, you are used to waiting anyway. Waiting for better games, waiting for a better storage option, waiting for something better than 480p…

Marvel’s Create Your Own Comic service is obviously for kids, but since when has that stopped you. You’re the guy who plays with Legos and collects Star Wars figures right?

It’s a free online app that allows you to choose your page layouts and drag and drop your favorite Marvel heroes into each panel. Then you can add text, sound effects objects and other stuff for your 4-part series epic.

mSpot isn’t new. It has been streaming full-length movies to cellphones for a few years. Now however, the company has a potential customer base of 40 million. Mobile phone users on Sprint, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile (including the G1, Pre, iPhone and other smartphones) can go to m.mspot.com to stream movies.

The service is on-demand, so you can also pause and restart them whenever you want. How about that? They have deals with Paramount Studios, Universal and the Weinstein Company, and it looks like more agreements will happen shortly.

Blockbuster is preparing a mobile movie download service specifically for Motorola handsets. Blockbuster didn’t provide many details, and we have no pricing info or a launch date. We don’t even know which Motorola phones the movies would play on, or how the movies will be distributed.

All we know for sure is that “thousands” of movie will be available. This could be a much needed source of revenue for Blockbuster, but it’s risky. It could blow up in their faces. It remains to be seen just how much money they can make renting movies that are watched on such small screens.

Forget the fact that this thing looks like some hopped up PSP wearing bright orange sunglasses. The extremely eye-catching WiFi Tv is basically a handheld internet television that is designed to access on-demand TV services that are available on the internet.

The idea is that TV shows and films can be streamed straight from the internet to the 6-inch touchscreen display. It boasts two slide-out speakers that supposedly provide a comfortable hand position, though we don’t see it. There’s even storage for Bluetooth headphones and a charging point.

Forget DVDs, forget Blu-Ray. Disney and Panasonic see the future and that future is movies on flash cards. That’s right, those same tiny memory cards that you buy for your digital camera/MP3 player will soon be available with films pre-loaded on.

Disney and Panasonic are starting things off by packaging pre-recorded microSD cards together with DVDs holding the same movie content. That way users can easily watch their favorite DVDs on portable players.

I remember summers back when I was in school. It was great for a few weeks and then I was bored out of my mind. I ended up watching lots of movies and playing video games until my parents cut me off for spending too much.

Blockbuster has announced a new summer escape pass that is good for a full week and allows customers to rent all the video games and movies they want for only $10. The catch is that you can only have one movie or video game out at once.

If you recently jumped on the Blu-ray bandwagon, chances are you’ve got a bunch of DVDs that are pretty much useless now. Warner Bros. wants to help. The company is now offering a trade-in program called Red2Blu that allows people to trade in 25 Warner Bros. HD DVDs and have them replaced with Blu-ray versions.

The new program isn’t free though. It will cost you $4.95 per disc plus $6.95 for shipping on each DVD. Interestingly, you don’t have to send in the discs to the WB, you just need to send in the cover art for the HD DVD discs you want replaced.

That’s what seems to be happening with a small group of subscribers who are claiming their discs are arriving with small cracks on the outside edges. They say it’s happening repeatedly. No one is sure what is causing it since the Discs have an extra coating to prevent scratches on Blu-ray.

It could be the automated mail processing machines, manufacturing defects or maybe postal carriers are playing Frisbee. The Mars Box blog experienced this issue back in ’07, but over the last few months reports are picking up again. It’s too bad the extra costs that customers are paying can’t go toward tougher packaging, but Netflix told Wired the problem is “infinitesimally small” and changing shipping wouldn’t be cost effective.

This sort of thing would have seemed like magic to us many years ago. Imagine pointing your handset at an object, taking a photo of it and sending it to a database to get further information. It’s like a real life Google. It’s called Point & Find by Nokia. The beta version is now available in the UK and the US, and it will be expanded to other services and countries in the future.

According to Nokia Point & Find general manager, Philipp Schloter, “With Nokia Point & Find, businesses are able to target engaging experiences and calls-to-action to consumers. We believe that this first Nokia Point & Find-based service for movies will add something special to the cinema experience. Simply by pointing their camera phone at a poster for a new movie, people can watch the trailer, read reviews, and find the closest cinema where it is playing.”