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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.'"
They can already track you at WDW. There's this fancy contraption called fast-pass. You insert your resort key (which can also be used to charge at most anyplace on WDW property to your resort room), or your park ticket. I'd be more worried about them trying to read the data off your cell phone that can provide your location, or off of your FRS radios you are using to chat with your family/friends at the park.
Pal Mickey is a great idea, and works quite well. I live in Orlando and visit the parks quite regularly with one. As you walk in the parks, he'll chime up with useful info and timely information regarding your visit - like "I hear the wait's pretty short over at the Tower of Terror". He also mentions height limits and factoids about the rides as you pass. When you walk past a beacon that you've already passed within a certain period of time, he'll tell a corny joke that's pertinent to the area your in. (Jokes about pirates in Adventureland, astronauts in Tomorrowland, etc) One of my favorite quotes I heard him say was walking into Fantasyland - "Welcome to Fantasyland, where all your dreams come true. That is, unless, your dream is to be in Frontierland." Outside the parks, Mickey has a few games that you can play, but doesn't say anything about where you've been, which seems like earlier rumored memory features were left out.
Mickey seems to have been originally intended for kids, but a larger percentage seem to have been purchased for adults. He's powered by AA's and a PIC microporcessor, and has a Vishay TSOP1138 IR receiver in his nose. Disney has deployed hundreds of IR transmitters all over the parks at Walt Disney World which activate the toy, many of which serve double service to trigger "Magical Moments Pins" as well as iPaqs that serve as park guides for foreign and disabled guests.
As far as I have been able to tell, all the doll's sayings are already onboard, plus a number of sentence fragments like numbers and showtimes that allow him to assemble sayings. ("You may want to be back here at 8:00 to get a spot for the fireworks") The only way to get the toy to say something not intended is to somehow capture and retransmit the IR data, or to create your own circuit that reponds to the transmitters. A group has been created to figure out the system at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/re_palmickey
Rumor has it that a Spanish language version is set to come out soon, as well as one that may serve as an electronic FastPass or as a digital camera.
Here's a another informative page on My Pal Mickey, discussing a little bit on the tech, and possible future upgrades for the doll (i.e., a built-in digicam, acting as an electronic "FastPass").
A friend of mine who works over in DW told me about this a couple months ago. Seems like it's a steal for $50, if not just for the amount of tech in it. And with the right amount of hackability, I would have a ball with this at home:
Pal Mickey: Hey, Tony! You've just entered the kitchen. How about a beer?
Me: Well, I was kind of thirsty... Thanks, Pal Mickey!
"Each time you smile, it'll only last awhile. Life may be scary, but it's only temporary."
>It's a hell of a lot more steps than just one, and slippery slope is a logical fallacy.
Only when the "fact" attempting to be presented isn't backed up with a reason:
"The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question."
So, for example, they are correct:
'"We have to stop the tuition increase! The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester!"'
Is a logical fallacy.
However, "We have to stop the tuition increase! Remember how medical school only cost $20,000 a term last year and after allowing an increase it was $40,000? The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester for law!"
So, to validate the parent-parent poster's statement, one would say:
"We have to vote with our wallets against this customer tracking! Remember when the police in the UK were allowed to have a few cameras to track criminals? Now they track everyone, everywhere they can! Who's not to say that a corporation will act any different than the police when given the ability to track customers with a low cost device?"
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
The toy won't repeat pertinent location info once he's said it for about an hour or two, but rather will tell a corny joke from a database of geolocational relative jokes. (Aka, jokes about the turn of the century on Main Street, or ones about the country you're in at Epcot) After repeating those, he's got a bank of jokes about various Disney characters.
He'll repeat a statement up to 3 or so times within 15 seconds of being triggered, in case it's noisy and your can't hear him. The toy also has a huge inventory of statements matched to a large number of transmitters (in the hundreds), so there are usually at least three or so for every attraction or pavilion, but some have many more. I've taken the toy to the parks a number of times, and still hear new things every time.
At the park, yes, and in the more expensive hotels. But in the "low rent" district, like Allstar Sports on a business trip, I asked to have my sheets changed, and was lied to about it having been done (penciled them before I called). For $150/night for an EconoLodge-like motel, I don't think fresh sheets each day is too much to ask
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
actually, the second article addresses this. basically there's two things that prevent it:
1) it shakes and giggles when it has something to say, you then squeeze it to hear what it has to say (of course the continual shaking and giggling *could* get annoying)
2) it doesn't react to the same transmitter twice. So i assume it won't keep repeating the same info.
It actually sounds like great idea, excpet for the tracking part, espescially if it's done without any warning to the folk buying them. I'm also sort of curious as to how the tracking works - could it extend outside of the park?