Slashdot Mirror
Telepresence Via Matter Imaging
Qa32 writes "Computer scientists in the U.S. are developing a system which would allow people to convey a solid 3D recreation of themselves over the Internet. From the article: 'When you watch something created by claymation, it is a real object and it looks like it's moving itself. That's something like the idea we're doing... in our case, the idea is that you have computation in the 'clay', as though the clay can move itself.'"
Cameras would capture the movement of an object or person and then this data would be fed to the atoms, which would then assemble themselves to make up an exact likeness of the object
From the article:
If someone could make this work, I could see it being a useful improvement over traditional video-conferencing technology, albeit, maybe a bit eerie and weird to get used to.
I worked for a large corporation, and they continued to pump large sizes of dollars into each successive generation of new televideo conferencing equipment to the promise of it "like being in the room with your Denver peers" (putting aside for the moment I have no peers). And, while each generation was an improvement, the experience never even approached like being in the same room for so many reasons, but like the article points points out, maybe one of the biggest reasons was the permanent glass barrier.
I found no matter how "good" the quality got, it was always an annoying way to communicate and I finally opted for any of those meetings to participate from my desk via phone, no video.
However, for those who have seen Revenge, I found the "pseudo" conferencing whereby remote participants (at this point that line becomes blurred) existed as holograms, sitting in a chair in the room with everyone else. That may be eerie, but I think the biological nature of man would quickly overcome that weirdness and it could soon seem as if the person were really there.
Or, this could just be a bunch of hoooie.
I wonder if it would be possible to edit my 3D representation to make me look better.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Really change the future of net sex!
They only way to tell is to smell.
to being the real thing sans the nagging.
Monstar L
Great! Just what we need. A bunch of fat, bald, "claymation" old men running around in their underwear on the Internet looking for dates. It's bad enough they are already stuck behind the bright light of their computer screen doing this. Now they can practically "enter" the Internet for all to see!
Kind of reminds me of that Futurama episode where they all used VR gear to enter the Internet -- with an overall TRON-like feel. You had to love the chat rooms, with all of the guys cowering in one corner.
Don't doooo it Daaaaveeeey!!!
H.
I wonder what would happen if I were to touch the replicated object and attempt to mess around with the inner parts of it.
Or what kind of disaster would I end up with if there was some serious lag in the information? How about corrupted info?
I'd say that high-fallutin' use of Internet2 and HD-res cams/displays with quality stereo audio is going to make a more satisfying interaction for a long time before some jostling tennis-ball-sized blobs will do anything beside distract from the conversation.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Could this be used from crime sprees? Dress up in all black and then project yourself in a bank and steal the money. Or use your projected self and start beating people up on the streets, it's the perfect crime. If the comes up you just turn the thing back to dust.
Wouldn't creating a copy of another person be a form of piracy? Yet another technology that the movie/record industry will try to eliminate. After all, why should anyone be allowed to have a personal duplicate of Michael Jackson at home.
TBH, I'd steer away from the 'Claymation' moniker because I'm absolutely convinced it was a trademark of a CGI company operating roughly ten years ago.
I seem to remember that this company produced some impressive stuff (for the time) - if anyone has info about them now, I'd be much obliged....
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Watching p0rn too. Cant wait to feel those boobs...
hilarious
...imagine the spams you'll get. H0tt chixx clamationz! I don't want to think of what would happen if they started producing these in life size.
Sounds like some strange combination of the T1000 from Terminator 2 and Gumby.
Copulation in the 'clay"? Figures the porn industry would rush to get involved in this.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Professor Goldstein has envisioned that, eventually, the objects will be built with "nano-dust" - tiny objects that can be programmed to bind to each other and move - but currently they are trying to build at a much larger scale, working with objects the size of table-tennis balls.
If he's going to try and invent "nano dust" (whatever that is) I think we're in for a long wait.
A fellow slashdotter told me about the boob mouse a few weeks ago. Since getting two, I haven't left the house. With this new innovation, I may never move from the computer chair.
And pr0n technology moves 1 step closer to being the real thing sans the nagging
I think this kind of invention could help couples who are far away from eachother to stay intimate, so on a serious note this might be a really good thing to have for soldiers and their spouses (because many soldiers are women today).
Yes the sex industry would certainly cash in on this in an attempt to cheapen it -- but think of the STD prevention...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
1) Take old idea
2) Pull some nano-clay out of your ass.
3) Profit!!
Isn't this just a lot of peer reviewed thesis backed "The SIMS"?
Y'know, you might have meant that as a joke, but on a more serious note, why wouldn't we transmit a sort of fictitious avatar rather than a true representation of ourselves?
Why do a "live" 3d conference, when you can simply fix everything you've never liked about yourself? Perhaps you consider your nose a bit large, or don't like your current hair-color, or want bigger eyes (they inspire trust via that whole creepy-baby psychological thing, very useful in business dealings).
Personally, I don't look good in a suit (the sort of person you just know hates every second of it, and would rather have on flip-flops, cutoffs and a T)... Why should my telepresence suffer from that same problem?
Even if they 'automagically' re assemble every molecule, state, position and kinetic energy; there is no opportunity for the consciousness to be transferred.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
well here is a brief summary (from amazon):
Just about everyone's had a day when they've wished it were possible to send an alternate self to take care of unpleasant or tedious errands while the real self takes it easy. In Kiln People, David Brin's sci-fi-meets-noir novel, this wish has come true. In Brin's imagined future, folks are able to make inexpensive, disposable clay copies of themselves.
COUGH COUGH
I really don't see this taking off for the same reason video phones don't take off (unless they figure out a way to use it for porn of course). Simply talking to the person over the phone is enough. You don't have to care about your visual appearance. I can sit around in my underwear if I feel like it. In a business meeting scenario seeing the other party is nice but for every day one on one I think the phone works fine.
My favorite part of the episode:
Hey lets do a search! *moves heads around searching*
Finally HatfulOfHollow from this Bash.org conversation will get his wish.
Thinking this technology would only be used for video conferencing of all things is pretty naive. I'm sure we would see this applied to movies, video games, pr0n, and user interfaces. Who else can think of more ideas?
So this is it. The end of humanity is at hand. We'll finally have the Holodeck, and no more innovation, invention, or creativity will occur, ever. Why would it need to?
Okay, before anyone jumps on me for this, no, I don't seriously think this will destroy humanity. It might seriously damage some marriages, and probably send a huge pile of money towards the porn industry, but humanity will be safe... until we have a computer capable of simulating any scenario we care to imagine, as well as provide us with unlimited sustinance in any form we choose. Then we're doomed.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
I'm assuming this device could create objects other than human beings. What are the dangerous of being able to project custom objects onto someone's desk? Could I for example stab someone when they came near the device? It will be interesting how they create safeguards.
If your clay self was giving a speech to a thousand people, would you yourself (in the other room) be nervous?
...to buy your husband Micheal a Father's Day Card. It might make him feel better after last's year fiasco when you thought you were taking on the masculine role in your homosexual relationship. Micheal got real pissed off then, he beat you up and shoved his unlubed cock up your ass. So, even though you guys are unable to have a child, it might make him forgive you.
Snow Crash !!
i can finally slap the person on the other end of my aim convos?
I hope these claythings are self cleaning. There's going to be lot's of Windows (exhibitionists), BSD (necropheliacs) and Linux (afraid of girls) fans wanting to get their hands on this technology. (I'm an equal opportunity offender) ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
"Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."
Jiggity
"I for one welcome our Claymation Overlords..."
Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
...projecting Braille dots so blind people can read machine text instead of having it read to them by some text-to-speech program?
...Access Grid.
....the money wouldn't be laid down if it didnt' work.
Peep in on it; needs work, but works.
Get down on it for real 'edge work"
Money talks and AG has plenty from uni's all about.
That doesn't involve pornography or online gambling, or online dating so I doubt anyone would do it.
That's all they really need to say.
as though the clay can move itself.'."
So we get some kind of digital golem?
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
There was an interesting article, in New Scientist I think. Intel were the ones funding it. They basically said they could actually be building these things within a few years. These self-organizing particles could do things like pick up a battery and carry it around as a power source. They also said most of the work revolved around the algorithms to get basic autonomous units to self-organize.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
My project is digitize a person's brain so it can be sent across the internet to control these clay bodies. When you're done, the digitized brain is then sent back and overwrites any changed neural pathways.
I'm...um...working on it just like these guys, so how come I'm not in the news. I'm...um...just waiting for these guys to finish their part so I can finalize testing.
Next project: warp engines
I assume it has one button only. Does this mean it is Mac only?
Bert
And we shall call it... EverQuest.
/me does the Doctor Evil Thing.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
This is more like that episode where Fry gets a robot copy of Lucy Liu. we just have to insert a blank robot in the drive and copy the information over and BAM!...a robo-mation copy of Gillian Anderson.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
But I want my character to be cool and strong and beautiful and smart and can cast magic spells and have big sword!
I dont want my character in the game to look like me or be me!
now thats how we can send obi wan distres messages.
So, Will the Clayminator get a portable projection device,
like the Doctor in Voyager, so he can walk around unhindered by technology hookups?
- Perhaps an AMD 64x2 has enough cpu power and low power features to keep the claymation running...
OK, so this whole story depends upon the ability to create the "magic^Wcomputational clay" that can magically^Wscientifically reform itself to mirror whatever the cameras look at.
Sure, give me enough of this magic^Wcompuational clay and I can build a Holodeck.
And while you are at it, why don't you give me some negative mass matter so I can build a stable wormhole.
And I'd like about a hundred thousand kilometers of superconducting buckycables for a combination beanstalk/generator.
And I'd like the Philosopher's Stone, so I can transmute all the gold I'll need to pay to build this.
Demonstrate just one gram of this magic^Wcomputational clay, and I'll start getting excited about this. Until then, this whole story is just bullshit - low-grade sci-fi, not even worth the title of "speculative fiction", more on a par with a fourth-grader's "What if George Washington could turn himself invisible and had a robot friend".
I am all for forward looking science - including looking forward to things we don't even begin to know how to do now. But to get all breathless about something that we cannot even begin to think about doing....
And the funny thing is I just finished a "Slashdot Survey" that asked me my opinions about Slashdot....
www.eFax.com are spammers
It's bad enough already when one cleans a router, without also having a clay-like substance to deal with.
photoshop has done "minor" touch-ups on the following canadiates:
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
Cyberdildonics... look it up
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
...projecting Braille dots so blind people can read machine text instead of having it read to them by some text-to-speech program?
Braille terminals have been available since, like, forever. It's only modern GUI systems that have excluded blind users with inherently visual interfaces.
Princess Leia??!
"Anonymous could not immediately be reached for further comment." - International Business Times
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.