Tattle: Don't believe everything you read, or see on YouTube

TATTLE LOVES the Internet as much as the next guy but occasionally it can be misleading. With big news stories, Internet sources are so eager to get stories up quickly, a lot of them turn out to be completely wrong.

With the recent Newtown massacre, for instance, we quickly learned that the shooter's mother was a teacher at the school, that his father was killed in New Jersey, that he left his mother's Bushmaster rifle in the car and that his name was Ryan.

That's Oh-for-four.

Then yesterday, much to our chagrin, we learned that the YouTube video of the eagle swooping and snatching a toddler from a Montreal park was a hoax.

Damn you, Internet, why must you mock our trust?

The video's creators said it was made as a part of a class project to create a viral video hoax.

"We had no idea what was coming," a giddy Normand Archambault told the Canadian Press.

Archambault said he and fellow students Loic Mireault, Antoine Seigle and Felix Marquis-Poulin "were all speechless."

The students were promised a 100-percent score if they received 100,000 page views - and within a few hours they had smashed that target 50 times over.

Awesome. Teach students how to con people.

From Daily News movie critic Gary Thompson:

Esoteric new 3-D technology and new frame rates have directors like James Cameron, Peter Jackson and Ang Lee sharing ideas and equipment to an unprecedented degree - it's like The Avengers of cinema.

Cameron convinced Jackson (already working with Guillermo Del Toro) to go to a higher frame rate for "The Hobbit," so that computer-generated images would look better, paving the way for his "Avatar" sequels in 2014 or so.

Cameron's self-designed 3-D-Fusion cameras were used on Lee's "Life of Pi," and an upgraded version was used by Andrew Adamson ("Shrek") for his 3-D look at "Cirque du Soleil: World's Way" (see Gary's review on Page 44).

Cameron's input for "Life of Pi" extended as far as his 3-D cameras, but on "Cirque" he executive produced and helped Adamson harness new advances in his camera systems.

"I'm never going to be involved unless the filmmaker wants me to be creatively involved. Andrew wanted me to be creatively involved, and I was there to support his vision," said Cameron.

The specifics are a little arcane - ice beam splitter rigs, new camera housings - but the bottom line is that Adamson has fewer limits on where he could place the cameras, and could shoot more effectively underwater.

Not insignificant, when you're trying to follow the action of the Cirque du Soleil swimmers and acrobats with whom Cameron found a surprising degree of affinity due to the risks they take - following extensive preparation.

"If I'm preparing for a deep ocean dive, it's not some reckless thing. We will have spent a great deal of time getting things exactly right. And these performers, they spend years honing their craft, their bodies and their minds," said Cameron, who notes that many are former Olympians.

Right now Cameron is preparing two "Avatar" sequels, to be shot consecutively. He wants to use new hi-def 3-D cameras, and also the faster frame rate (48 fps) that Jackson used on "The Hobbit." Cameron said he'd actually like to go as high as 60 fps, to make computer-generated illusions even smoother. After getting a look at "The Hobbit," though, he's thinking about trying to find a way to shoot live action at 24 fps (he thinks it looks better), and save the faster rates for processed stuff.

It all points, he said, to a day when all movies and television will be presented in 3-D.

"There's a dark side to it, people have misused it, and actual exhibition in the real world sometimes falls down," he said. "People have had bad experiences, and some have become non-fans of 3-D. You've got to win them back. That will happen. We're going pretty inexorably toward 3-D ubiquity."

* Speaking of 3-D, Buckingham Palace announced that this year's Christmas broadcast by Queen Elizabeth II will be in 3-D.

Finally, the excuse we need to upgrade the Tattle television.

* Halle Berry and Chaka Khan

will be honored at the 2013 BET Honors.

The network announced Thursday that basketball star Lisa Leslie, music executive Clarence Avant and religious leader T.D. Jakes will also be celebrated at the Jan. 12 event in Washington at the Warner Theatre. The special airs Feb. 11.

Gabrielle Union will host.

* Lady Gaga announced on

Thursday that the Born Brave Bus Tour will tailgate outside her upcoming U.S. concerts (Feb. 19-20 at the Wells Fargo Center) and provide a space for 13- to 25-year-olds to learn more about local resources on anti-bullying, suicide prevention and mental-health services.

Participants will not need a ticket to the show to partake.

* Up in arms over the torture

scenes in the upcoming film "Zero Dark Thirty," three senators on the Senate Intelligence committee - Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain - told Sony President Michael Lynton that he has an obligation to say that torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden was fiction.

The senators said the CIA detainee who provided significant information about bin Laden did so before any harsh interrogation.

The senators described themselves as fans of Sony movies but they warned that Americans will see the film and believe the events are factual.

Two Tattle questions:

1) Are our senators such suck-ups that they had to clarify they were fans of Sony movies?

2) Why is there such fuss about a CIA higher-up leaking classified info if that info was wrong?

* Happy end of the world.

See you Monday.

- Daily News wire services

contributed to this report.