Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Automatic Machinima News-Broadcasting

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the almost-listenable dept.

MattSparkes writes "Researchers claim to have produced software that automatically generates timely video news bulletins, presented by computer-animated characters, which could revolutionise current affairs broadcasting. The system, called News at Seven, takes RSS news feeds and does some formatting before passing it to an avatar from Half-Life 2 to read out. Based on keywords, the system also draws in video from YouTube and images from Flickr to supplement the speech."

4 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. I love the idea by Thansal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    However, Ihave to admit that it would just be FAR to tempting to do a google bomb style prank with this.

    1) Generate a number of silly write ups/pictures/videos
    2) Wait around for a tempting news article (dubbya saying something inflamitory)
    3) Post all of your existing junk with titles that relate to the news piece
    4) ?????
    5) Laugh as they get included! (err, I mean profit, right)

    Oh, and on a side note, I thought that HL2 characters could be fed lines and they would automaticly speak them as well as forming the proper mouth movements....

    --
    Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
  2. Skeptical by geekmansworld · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't this the basically the same thing as Ananova? And didn't that come out, like, 6 years ago? I am skeptical. News anchors, don't start looking for a new job just yet.

  3. News ain't what it used to be by Toby+The+Economist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No matter how it's presented, what's being presented isn't news.

    News is properly defined as functional information.

    However, in our day and age, where television *is* our culture, the definition of news is *news as seen on TV* - and news on TV, like everything passed through that medium, is converted into entertainment.

    And that's why we no longer have a meaningful public discourse; news, news everywhere, and not a functional fact to think about.

  4. Re:i wonder by gt_mattex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So did a great many factory workers when asked if their jobs could ever be automated by 'machines' run by 'computers'. A great many things seemed unlikely in the past and are common place today. Hell a great many things seemed unlikely 50 years ago what will the next 50 bring? Is automated news anchors that far out of the perspective?

    --
    "No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture." - Learned Hand