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Digital 'Ghosts' To Guide Students On Campus

Posted by timothy on from the my-school-had-undead-staffers-ahead-of-time dept.

Hambone.dk writes "The students at Copenhagen's new IT University will soon be guided by invisible, but talkative digital agents, known as ghosts or Disembodied Location-specific Conversational Agents. The ghosts are to compete amongst themselves for privileges such as better vocabulary or the ability to clone themselves. Ignored ghosts can die out completely. This project is a lot more serious than it sounds at face value - several papers have been published already."

5 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Wasn't this done sort of already by nberardi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wasn't this sort of already done with the GotDotNet Terrarium Project, it's not as intelligent but it sounds like the same idea.

  2. Re:Delca by Carthag · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can click the round bubbly icons to get text read to you. It sounds like it's prerecorded, though, as the text read and the text displayed is subtly different (there's a split infinitive in the sound that's fixed in the text, for example).

  3. Re:PR nightmare by stratjakt · · Score: 3, Informative

    Remember what happened with the American car "nova" or "no go" in Spanish?

    A myth, an urban legend.

    To summarize the snopes entry..

    First of all, you wouldn't say "no va" in spanish, you'd say "no machina", "no functiona" or "no trabaja" (doesnt work). "Don't go" is slang from ignorant english folks, it doesn't translate. Apologies for my bad spanish.

    Secondly, it's like saying an english speaker wouldn't buy a dinette set under the brand name "Notable" because it says "no table". The legend insinuates that the spanish are somehow stupider than we are. (Like the myth of africans being shocked to see baby food on store shelves because they cant read and just look at the pictures and assume thats what's in the jar)

    Thirdly, the punchline of the story is that Chevy changed the name to "Caribe" and sales took off. But, Volkswagon already sold a "Caribe" in Mexico - it was the Golf here. The name "Nova" was never changed in mexico.

    Lastly, there's a brand of gasoline in Mexico called "Nova". It sells fine.

    Basically it's just a subtly racist urban legend. "Dem wetbacks is so stupid they tink Nova means No Go!"

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  4. Re:Cool prank idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Smelling "burnt toast" is a symptom of some psychiatric diseases.

  5. Re:Cool prank idea. by MadHobbit · · Score: 3, Informative
    The only source for this that I know of is that smelling burnt toast is one of the best known 'auras' preceding seizures. Many people with a seizure disorder / epilepsy experience some sort of warning sign beforehand - this is one of them.

    It's mentioned here.