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My Pal Mickey -- Interactive Theme Park Doll
Dan Howland writes "Big Ruxpin is Watching You: Once again, The Firesign Theatre's I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus proves itself to be the science-fiction story where the most stuff came true. If you recall, a hacker named Clem traveled through the Future Fair, followed by computer generated Holy-Grams who popped up and said things like, 'Why not try [WALL OF SCIENCE], 'cause it's my favorite!' Leave it to Disney to perfect that spooky technology with My Pal Mickey, an interactive talking plush doll that knows where it is inside Walt Disney World, and tells you trivia as you move through the park. Ah ha, but even better (at least from Disney's standpoint) is that, just like the Holy-Grams, My Pal Mickey feeds the info back into the central computer system, so Doctor Memory can track people's movements through the park in realtime. (Of course, these data will be skewed because they only track people who buy the dolls...) Here is another link, with the interesting, Asimov-like sentence: 'He has a strong sense of self-preservation, and reminds you to put him some place safe when you get near water play areas, or on wet rides.'"
Why do I get the feeling that Disney's been watching re-runs of "The Simpsons" and have decided that the best episode involves "Itchy And Scratchy Land"???
Color me scared,
Zip
"The answers are always inside the problem, not outside"- Marshall McLuhan
I think I'll pass for now, but give me a call when these come equipped with Genuine People Personalities.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
Don't worry, with slashdot spelling the way it is, I'd be surprised if there were more than 6 occurances of "Mickey Mouse" across the whole site. The copyright owners of "Mikey Mouce", however, won't be pleased.
Slipped you a Mickey?
ha ha HA! Hi boys and girls!
You are not the customer.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
A robot may not infringe Disney's intellectual property, or, through inaction, allow a human being to infringe Disney's intellectual property.
A robot must obey the orders given it by affiliated marketing partners except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
I don't see what's evil about wanting to know what people find interesting or not in your own themepark though, but I agree there's a lot of ways this technology can be abused.
Oh yeah, especially when black hat finds out how to hack one of these things.
Upset mom: I'd like to see someone in charge! This monster Mickey is telling dirty jokes, spouting profanities, and telling my son cigarettes and beer does a body good!
Help Desk Guy: I sympathize with your problem maam, but are you sure it was our Mickey that did this? We've tested them...
Mickey: Yeah, you're at the damn help desk manned by our finest PR school dropouts. While you're here, ask Pete about that dead hooker they found around the corner from his apartment building!
Help Desk Guy: Oh crap.