Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
Are you kidding? Fox will jump on this like an ugly centipede.
Sean Hannity: Some people are saying that Mr. Obama makes obeisance to Mecca every night and kisses a picture of bin Laden. We are not saying that we agree with that, but here is a vivid recreation of what that would look like if it were true.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine