Slashdot Mirror
Your Face On the Big Screen
blamanj writes "In another case of SciFi becoming reality, you can now star in an animated film as your FutureCast (tm) face-scan is edited into the picture in real-time. John Brunner, in his Hugo-winning novel, Stand on Zanzibar predicted a similar development in television, lampooning people sitting at home while watching travologues of themselves 'on vacation.'
Brunner, in addition to being an excellent writer, had some spot-on predictions of a virus-laden Internet in Shockwave Rider. Fortunately, the predictions of his eco-dystopia The Sheep Look Up have not come to pass. Yet."
*Besides the really vain, what use is there for this type of technology, it's kind of a "wow thats cool, now what" type thing.*
semi-virtual actors. the actor doesn't need to be a real person, yet he can be in 20 movies per year easily by using cheap acting students. or imagine terminator 5000: arnolds face returns.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Several years ago the Tech Museum in San Jose had a revolving 3-D scanner that would scan people's heads. After you got scanned, it created a 3-D model of your head with a full-color texture map (which looks really strange when flattened on a monitor because you discover that your face is only a very small part of your head). You then were given an URL that would work in other exhibits and let you download your face.
I wonder if its still there.... I wonder if I still have that file.....
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I've tried reading two or three different Brunner novels, and I couldn't ever come close to finishing one. I'm not sure I even got through a single chapter. This, from someone who almost CANNOT put down a novel no matter how crappy it is - I've read some of my father's dreaded 'Mack Bolan' drivel (no, he's not the author - he just reads 'em, can't imagine why), and finished the damned things without giving up. Hell, I read Clive Cussler cover to cover. Ludlum! I made it through two or three of Robert L. Forward's heavy-on-the-S-weak-on-the-F novels - folks, I read Harry
Harrison's godawful DeathWorld trilogy (tripe-ogy?) in its entirety. But I can't do that with Brunner.
It's been years and years and years since I tried, and maybe I could do it now. I'm just not interested in trying again.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
Definitely, in fact it's briefly mentioned in the article. In case anyone hasn't read the book (no, seeing the movie doesn't count), in the society described in 451, the population is kept docile partly through television programs that are designed to distract from real life problems. The main character's wife watches a soap opera where the characters interact in an artificial manner with her, making her feel that she is a part of the show's television "family". This seems like a similar type of thing: give people the illusion that they're involved, without giving them any real choices to make or issues to think about.
I have no problem stopping a novel I don't enjoy, but I have to rank Stand On Zanzibar as one of the best sf novels ever; I think it truly deserves its reputation. I think in a lot of ways it created what would eventually become cyberpunk (not the technology aspect, but the near-future catastrophism aspect).
He did an excellent job of predicting huge bits of today's world...but don't forget, he based it all upon the work of Heidi and Alvin Toffler...The Shockwave Rider is named after the Toffler's "Future Shock"...and if Brunner is God, then they are the Mother and Father dieties of God.
ttyl
Farrell
Sorry if that offends you monotheists, I'm a Druid.
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Seems pretty much like now to me ?? !
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...