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The Thin Line Between Reality and Video Games
Boomzilla writes "San Jose Mercury news is carrying an article about a 2-year-old Silicon Valley start-up called Keyhole and their product Earthviewer. The Mountain View company makes interactive 3-D maps that fuse high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery, elevation data, GPS coordinates, and overlay information about cities and businesses to deliver a streaming, 3D map of the entire globe. Since the start of the war, many news networks have been using the maps to zoom in on, over and around the Iraqi landscape to help viewers see where the war is being fought. Keyhole is financed by Sony Broadband Entertainment, graphics-chip maker Nvidia and others. Keyhole uses satellite images, aerial photos and other data to create 3-D maps that perform much like high-quality video games. Way cool!"
...with comparing reality and video games? It has nothing to do with video games.
That makes the who story pointless.
Jason
ProfQuotes
so it makes fighting seem realistic...except for the dying part. no wonder people are signing up for the army like there's no tomorrow.
"Homer, if you wouldn't mind shooting some people as you leave."
"Ah, the Denver Broncos..."
They meant the interface. It's far more fluid then static images on a database.
But that having been said, how hard would it be to add orbital defense satellites. Anyone up for a game of missile command 2k3?
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Yes the line between reality and virtuality is always shrinking (See Serial Experiment Lain for proof). For now we are only able to see some geographic views of location in Iraq. Maybe someone'll develop a tiny java application to control a tank or something right in the middle of the war? It is so tempting when looking at the war on TV, it's so close to us ! ^_^ ..
Kidding aside, I hope this war will finish soon and there won't much deaths!)
PLUR !
Funny? Do you realize people actually die in this war? Like, for real, not coming back, dead.
Damn, that sounds tough. Not even any continues, what about quick saves?
Can't fight a war if the morale sinks, right?
Morale? For whom? If it's soldiers just give morphine and propaganda. If it's the public just give them propaganda, I mean let's face it half of America is on a mix of Valium and Prozac, whilst the rest are fucked on Crack, you don't need extra drugs for them.
Despite best efforts, slabs of raw data will be out of date. Details such as the exact form of foliage would have to be filled in by an 'educated guess'. Are sensitive military facilities accurately mapped?
What indication is there to the user that the information they are viewing may not be completely accurate? How can a user judge the accuracy of each part of the scene they are viewing?
I see a danger that ultra-realistic, inaccurate, renderings may widely replace real world observations, leading to a reduction in available information, even though the volume of misinformation has increased.
I was watching the skirmish at Abu Dhar unfold on MSNBC early Sunday morning. I now feel educated in a very minute way about what the horrors or war are like.
Seeing those marines pinned down really freaked me out. They're regular guys out there with guns trying not to get killed.
So then the tanks come in and start exchanging machine gun fire with the Iraqi soldiers. There was a tremendous amount of sparking and some explosions as they exchanged fire. Then one tank fired it's main gun into a sand berm, and I knew that I was watching a couple of guys die. Same thing a few moments later when another tank put a big hole in a building.
My point?
I think that if even 1 video game developer uses any footage like this as a basis for realism in a game, it'll be a sad day. This stuff is not entertainment. History yes. Fun stuff? Nope. Not by a mile.
Huh?
what about all of those WWII games out their showing planes getting shot up, dropping bombs, bombs exploding planes strafing targets that at one point were shooting back before they exploded into a ball of flames. Are you equally Appalled about all this footage. When the Gulf War v2.0 games come out and they are showing the said footage the generation of people playing them will not remember this whole shitty situation that some of the world have gotten involved in.