And Now, the Animated News

theodp writes "'You have a lot of missing images, in the TV, in the news reporting,' explains billionaire Jimmy Lai. It's a gap that Lai's Next Media intends to fill with its animated news service. Artists lift details from news photos while actors in motion sensor suits re-create action sequences of stories making headlines. Animators graft cartoon avatars to the live-motion action, and the stories hit the Web. When news agencies didn't have footage of scenes from the Tiger Woods car crash, Lai's team raced to put together animation dramatizing the incident that became a YouTube sensation. Thus far, Lai has been denied a television license, but with or without his own station, he thinks his animations are headed for televisions worldwide. His company is currently in talks with media organizations to churn out news animations on demand using Next Media's graphic artists and software tools."

Comments

Re:I like it!

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's just the problem. People have enough trouble differentiating "news" from "opinion pieces" as it is. This may be fine under the banner of 'entertainment', but 'news' it is not, nor should it ever be.

interesting, but dangerous?

[Jesus_Corpse]

Although from a technological point of view it is very interesting, a lot of details missing from the regular videos need to be 'made up' for the reconstruction. I think that's a dangerous move, as the viewer may base its opinion on video footage.

Re:interesting, but dangerous?

[Culture20]

Exactly. Someone already tagged this "idle", but I think it should really be "yro", because this opens up the possibility for mass-market real-time "Wag The Dog" scenarios.

Re:Just what modern news needs

[drinkypoo]

Eh, can't be any worse than the Colbert Report.

The Colbert report is 50% news and 50% bullshit, and is billed as entertainment. CNN is also 50% news and and 50% bullshit, but it's billed as news. You don't really see the problem with this?