The 787 Dreamliner has certainly moved/removed a LOT of the dials and switches compared to the 747, but there's still an awful lot of dials and switches that require you to move your focus and reach. But again, I'm sure those are completely crappy interface examples.
I too believe that there should be mandatory years of training, testing and experience before someone is allowed to operate a computer or a car. Just like with 747.
Wikipedia would need to have all the text on top, and an alphabetic list of ALL of the links that are now just a part of the text - at the bottom of the page with about an inch of spacing between two links so anyone will be able to press them with their fingers?
That there is clearly a robot with a head of a human looking doll. It is not even trying to appear human - it is trying to appear like a doll. So, we file it mentally under "D for doll" or "R for Robot" and ignore the uncannyness as we are just approaching the valley. The valley actually starts to show with examples like this, and Repliee.
And here is where TFA falls on its uncanny ass:
If machines can trigger cognitive dissonance in the human brain, roboticists must continue to carefully tweak their creations, to avoid individual revulsion and even a society-wide blowback. That would be a major concern for the designers and manufacturers of the coming generation of social robots. It would be, if the uncanny didn't evaporate on contact.
A Hypothetical Chasm David Hanson, a roboticist whose company, Hanson Robotics, specializes in ultra-realistic robotic heads, actively seeks out the uncanny. He keeps the motors in his rubber-skinned faces noisy and overtly robotic, and sometimes presents these lifelike talking heads mounted on a stick. And for better or worse, even the shock value of Hanson's buzzing, decapitated heads doesn't stick around for long. "In my experience, people get used to the robots very quickly," Hanson says. "As in, within minutes."
It is really hard to argue with an article that so blindly ignores the very topic it is talking about. Its not the robots (of any kind - humanoid or not) that fall into the valley. We KNOW robots. They are just another version of all those mechanical puppets that have been around for centuries.
It is the human simulacrum that freaks us out.
A photo of a nearly perfect humanoid head freaks us out because it registers as a human head that is "not OK" in some way. We "feel" that there is something wrong with it. But as soon as it starts to whir and buzz and click and move rhythmically like a robot - our perspective changes and it is no longer "strange and alien and wrong". It "becomes" a robot.
That is why the photos of those supposed robotic inhabitants of the valley are freaky, while people find CB2 to be "cuddly" in person. Or why this one becomes increasingly freaky once the camera zooms in to show just the face. Instantly, it is no longer a robotic mannequin we are looking at, but a dead human head - smiling. Then, as the camera zooms out, and the robot starts to move and talk - it is once again a humanoid mannequin, a moving statue, a robot.
That only counts if you live in the Southern Hemisphere. Cause obviously, we are not about 51684%* dead here up in the Northern part of the globe. Yet.
* Assuming that an average slashdotter has sat for at least** 6 hours a day in front of a screen or behind a desk for the last 20 years. **Yes, yes, I know. 6 hours is way too optimistic for the slashdot crowd. That is why I said "at least".
Battle Angel movie is old news. He has been wanting to do that for about as long as he wanted to do Avatar. Before and while Avatar was still "Project 880" it was the stuff of rumors if 880 is Battle Angel or "something else". It turned out not to be Battle Angel. Also... Remember "Dark Angel"? It doesn't take much to realize how that was influenced by GUNNM. Jessica Alba's Max was a carbon copy of Alita's fighting ability, looks and emotional problems. Logan is an Ido surrogate. Post-apocalyptic Seattle served as stand in for Scrapyard. Those shots of Max sitting on top of Seattle Needle watching the city are practically copied from "Tears of an Angel" pages 46-47 spread... Also... there is that photo of him wearing Battle Angel Alita shirt on the Avatar set. Yeah, he is a fan. He owns the movie rights. He already did a lot of pre-production... There will be a Battle Angel movie sometime in the next couple of years.
As for Terminator Salvation's Arnie... I don't know... it kinda didn't work for me at all. One of the reasons for that, I'm guessing is because they didn't really bother to make him life-like. For a machine that infiltrates into human communities, even the real Arnold was always a bit too stiff. A CG clone trying to emulate that... Also, those 15 seconds he is on screen didn't warrant better (more expensive, more time consuming...) modeling than that. If they were going to bring back Bogie or Cagney for a major role... they will probably take a year or couple of them to work on the model.
And besides... Cameron is talking about future implementation, couple of cycles down the road. Arnie was done with technology that was "yesterday's" even before Avatar's motion and emotion capture. And Cameron himself said that Avatar tech alone is not ready for Battle Angel. VERY close... but not quite there yet. Instant Eastwoods are probably a year to half-a-decade down the road from a believable Alita.
So... We won't be seeing any actors brought back to life in a way to fool us into believing they are real this summer or the next. But a couple of summers down the road... Hey, the next decade is 2020s. Bringing back Bogie for another run would be perfectly timed.
Thing is... any real acting school has pantomime classes. They don't just go hunting for them on the streets of Paris.
You COULD get pretty-boy(girl) models and attach a better body-actors and voice-actors to them but... why bother? Completely imaginary models are cheaper and you can register them as property. So you could not just own the franchise and the characters but also the actors. Make more sequels of the next Star Wars 20 years from now, instead of prequels.
On the other side of the scale, you get your mimes from the same place you get your "regular" actors. As they ARE regular actors. And unknowns will still be cheaper than the famous ones, and good actors will be better than bad actors.
It won't be the death of an actor that "climbed up from the ranks" doing commercials and sit-com walk-ons, instead of going to school to study to be Laurence Olivier. But just like fencing and riding horses used to be a sought-after skill for an actor, so will pantomime become a more important and sought-after skill for an actor.
There ARE strange creatures in the GUNNM universe (particularly in the Last Order storyline) but for the most part it is mostly just humans, human-faced cyborgs and your regular run-of-the-mill giant robots.
Most of them won't even get close to the uncanny valley, considering that you could do most of those with the same tech that has been around since Terminator 2. Now... getting those giant robots NOT to look like a bunch of non-coherent trash thrown together into a humanoid for and then animated (Like Transformers in their non-car form) and to have that interact with regular and "upgraded" humans... THAT might get tricky. Cause those are not the Avatar's mecha-vehicles that interact with CG aliens or Transformers' giant robots that mostly just stand around or do their thing unrelated to regular non-CG humans.
Battle Angel's giant robots are actually cyborgs, built from living humans that used to walk and talk like living humans. Not like a robot controlled by a human or human wearing their robot-suit. Those appendages are a part of their body. And they do a hell of a lot of interacting with humans or human-sized and human-shaped cyborgs. Giant cyborgs will have to feel more like Ironman and less like Terminator (Well... T-800 at least) AND interact with humans of regular size - both cyborgs and regular fleshie-ones.
Now, getting miss Octopus-lips to be both cute, human-like and beyond the valley... They get that right without making her into a robot, doll or a human pretending (s)he is a robot (like Summer Glau in T:TSCC)... they can start churning out Dirty Harry: The Early Years sequels. Or better yet - the next Batman sequel with Heath Ledger.
I guess it could open the door for a new class of actor. Like right now they have voice actors, but maybe they'll have body actors or something.
We already have those. They are called "theatre actors". You know... those who actually went to a serious university-level acting school as opposed to have been a model or some other type of celebrity (athlete, reality-show contestant, stand-up comedian, child star, musician...) who just decided that they can also be actors. After all - it's just standing there, looking good while saying your lines. How hard can it be?
A good example is Hugo Weaving in "V for Vendetta". Nearly all of his acting there is done with gesticulations and voice only. Which is very similar to acting for both first and the last row at the theatre. No dynamic zoom there.
Input part - the facial-capture tech is obviously ready. At most it may need some tweaking.
The output part... Like you said. Uncanny valley effect may still be present with humans. BUT.. Considering that Battle Angel*, which Cameron plans to do as (one of) his next project(s) is based around exactly that kind of implementation of the technology - I'd say that he is more than "just talking".
*The main character is a 200+ year old cyborg girl that changes several bodies throughout the story while keeping the same face and similar body size)
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina actually. Which was a part of Austria-Hungary at the time. He was shot by Gavrilo Princip, an ethnic Serb, born in Bosnia, who considered himself a Yugoslav(ian).
Japan is an island with very limited sources of food. On the other hand, they have a very deeply installed sense of obligation and "properness".
So, if you are a poor peasant or fisherman that can no longer "pull your own weight" and all you do is just spend food and wait to die - it is a very proper thing to ease your family's troubles by just "going away". Or be carried away, which was often a more likely case. Being that if you are too old and too sick to work, you are also too old and too sick to climb up a mountain by yourself.
...we are talking about a specific kind of worshiping. Namely, that of the devil. And everyone knows that the devil is in hell, which is down, while god is in heaven, which is up.
Note also that Moses had much better reception from god, and with no interruptions nor interference from the devil while he was up on a mountain. While Jesus had much better reception of the devil's signal - cause he didn't go up on a mountain but to the desert instead. Damn bastard kept coming on and on...
and every 100 years or so the voodoo leaders go up on one of the mountains to renew their agreement.
Why would you go up on the mountain to communicate with Satan? Wouldn't the "reception" be better at the sea level or at the bottom of the ocean?
Unless you are saying that it is actually Satan that is running the show up in heaven, or perhaps that he and God are one and the same? That WOULD explain a lot though... From crucifixion of Jesus, through Spanish Inquisition to fire-bombing of abortion clinics. Including the earthquake, as the devil is a well known kidder.
Funny you should mention Steve Martin, as he is a Doctor Who fan. He even wrote Jon Pertwee into L.A. Story as an "alien" that fiddles with the signs along the road, making them communicate with people. Sadly, Pertwee was too ill to film that scene, so it was left out.
You are not considering the possibility that this device is not intended for your average user. Maybe it was envisioned with a more... active crowd in mind.
You know... the kind of people who would find the prospect of running up to one of these a valid possibility.
Also, it would make a GREAT plausible denial device for the active denial system (PDDfADS). Hang one of those around your neck and you can claim that you were just trying to charge your phone (and not the ADS), when you are arrested for whatever activity it may be that required the use of the ADS on you in the first place.
That is where all the continuity is. Along with the most of the Trek universe. And where all the fan-base's nostalgia is.
The "New Trek" will probably fare like Spiderman just did. Couple of movies, then a change of management, then another reboot.
And that cycle will go on until it finally dawns on the "runners of the franchise" that Star Trek is a TV series franchise, not a movie franchise. Until we get another 7-season series, all this in between is just a break. A commercial one.
Slashdot Mirror
The 787 Dreamliner has certainly moved/removed a LOT of the dials and switches compared to the 747, but there's still an awful lot of dials and switches that require you to move your focus and reach. But again, I'm sure those are completely crappy interface examples.
I too believe that there should be mandatory years of training, testing and experience before someone is allowed to operate a computer or a car.
Just like with 747.
Wikipedia would need to have all the text on top, and an alphabetic list of ALL of the links that are now just a part of the text - at the bottom of the page with about an inch of spacing between two links so anyone will be able to press them with their fingers?
You know... like "controls" below the "data".
it would basically be like a Wacom cintiq with multitouch support and the primary display separate from the Cintiq
Here's a dollar. Give me two of those and a small and shiny one for the kids.
Oh... Did you mean that the price would also be like a Cintiq with multitouch and an additional Cintiq on top of that Cintiq?
That there is clearly a robot with a head of a human looking doll.
It is not even trying to appear human - it is trying to appear like a doll.
So, we file it mentally under "D for doll" or "R for Robot" and ignore the uncannyness as we are just approaching the valley.
The valley actually starts to show with examples like this, and Repliee.
And here is where TFA falls on its uncanny ass:
If machines can trigger cognitive dissonance in the human brain, roboticists must continue to carefully tweak their creations, to avoid individual revulsion and even a society-wide blowback.
That would be a major concern for the designers and manufacturers of the coming generation of social robots.
It would be, if the uncanny didn't evaporate on contact.
A Hypothetical Chasm
David Hanson, a roboticist whose company, Hanson Robotics, specializes in ultra-realistic robotic heads, actively seeks out the uncanny.
He keeps the motors in his rubber-skinned faces noisy and overtly robotic, and sometimes presents these lifelike talking heads mounted on a stick.
And for better or worse, even the shock value of Hanson's buzzing, decapitated heads doesn't stick around for long.
"In my experience, people get used to the robots very quickly," Hanson says. "As in, within minutes."
It is really hard to argue with an article that so blindly ignores the very topic it is talking about.
Its not the robots (of any kind - humanoid or not) that fall into the valley. We KNOW robots.
They are just another version of all those mechanical puppets that have been around for centuries.
It is the human simulacrum that freaks us out.
A photo of a nearly perfect humanoid head freaks us out because it registers as a human head that is "not OK" in some way.
We "feel" that there is something wrong with it.
But as soon as it starts to whir and buzz and click and move rhythmically like a robot - our perspective changes and it is no longer "strange and alien and wrong".
It "becomes" a robot.
That is why the photos of those supposed robotic inhabitants of the valley are freaky, while people find CB2 to be "cuddly" in person.
Or why this one becomes increasingly freaky once the camera zooms in to show just the face.
Instantly, it is no longer a robotic mannequin we are looking at, but a dead human head - smiling.
Then, as the camera zooms out, and the robot starts to move and talk - it is once again a humanoid mannequin, a moving statue, a robot.
That only counts if you live in the Southern Hemisphere.
Cause obviously, we are not about 51684%* dead here up in the Northern part of the globe. Yet.
There are several versions of Confucius' teachings available out there.
Battle Angel movie is old news. He has been wanting to do that for about as long as he wanted to do Avatar.
Before and while Avatar was still "Project 880" it was the stuff of rumors if 880 is Battle Angel or "something else". It turned out not to be Battle Angel.
Also... Remember "Dark Angel"?
It doesn't take much to realize how that was influenced by GUNNM.
Jessica Alba's Max was a carbon copy of Alita's fighting ability, looks and emotional problems.
Logan is an Ido surrogate. Post-apocalyptic Seattle served as stand in for Scrapyard. Those shots of Max sitting on top of Seattle Needle watching the city are practically copied from "Tears of an Angel" pages 46-47 spread...
Also... there is that photo of him wearing Battle Angel Alita shirt on the Avatar set.
Yeah, he is a fan. He owns the movie rights. He already did a lot of pre-production... There will be a Battle Angel movie sometime in the next couple of years.
As for Terminator Salvation's Arnie...
I don't know... it kinda didn't work for me at all.
One of the reasons for that, I'm guessing is because they didn't really bother to make him life-like.
For a machine that infiltrates into human communities, even the real Arnold was always a bit too stiff. A CG clone trying to emulate that...
Also, those 15 seconds he is on screen didn't warrant better (more expensive, more time consuming...) modeling than that.
If they were going to bring back Bogie or Cagney for a major role... they will probably take a year or couple of them to work on the model.
And besides... Cameron is talking about future implementation, couple of cycles down the road.
Arnie was done with technology that was "yesterday's" even before Avatar's motion and emotion capture.
And Cameron himself said that Avatar tech alone is not ready for Battle Angel. VERY close... but not quite there yet.
Instant Eastwoods are probably a year to half-a-decade down the road from a believable Alita.
So... We won't be seeing any actors brought back to life in a way to fool us into believing they are real this summer or the next.
But a couple of summers down the road...
Hey, the next decade is 2020s. Bringing back Bogie for another run would be perfectly timed.
Thing is... any real acting school has pantomime classes. They don't just go hunting for them on the streets of Paris.
You COULD get pretty-boy(girl) models and attach a better body-actors and voice-actors to them but... why bother?
Completely imaginary models are cheaper and you can register them as property. So you could not just own the franchise and the characters but also the actors.
Make more sequels of the next Star Wars 20 years from now, instead of prequels.
On the other side of the scale, you get your mimes from the same place you get your "regular" actors. As they ARE regular actors.
And unknowns will still be cheaper than the famous ones, and good actors will be better than bad actors.
It won't be the death of an actor that "climbed up from the ranks" doing commercials and sit-com walk-ons, instead of going to school to study to be Laurence Olivier.
But just like fencing and riding horses used to be a sought-after skill for an actor, so will pantomime become a more important and sought-after skill for an actor.
Yes on both of those.
There ARE strange creatures in the GUNNM universe (particularly in the Last Order storyline) but for the most part it is mostly just humans, human-faced cyborgs and your regular run-of-the-mill giant robots.
Most of them won't even get close to the uncanny valley, considering that you could do most of those with the same tech that has been around since Terminator 2.
Now... getting those giant robots NOT to look like a bunch of non-coherent trash thrown together into a humanoid for and then animated (Like Transformers in their non-car form) and to have that interact with regular and "upgraded" humans... THAT might get tricky.
Cause those are not the Avatar's mecha-vehicles that interact with CG aliens or Transformers' giant robots that mostly just stand around or do their thing unrelated to regular non-CG humans.
Battle Angel's giant robots are actually cyborgs, built from living humans that used to walk and talk like living humans.
Not like a robot controlled by a human or human wearing their robot-suit. Those appendages are a part of their body.
And they do a hell of a lot of interacting with humans or human-sized and human-shaped cyborgs.
Giant cyborgs will have to feel more like Ironman and less like Terminator (Well... T-800 at least) AND interact with humans of regular size - both cyborgs and regular fleshie-ones.
Now, getting miss Octopus-lips to be both cute, human-like and beyond the valley...
They get that right without making her into a robot, doll or a human pretending (s)he is a robot (like Summer Glau in T:TSCC)... they can start churning out Dirty Harry: The Early Years sequels.
Or better yet - the next Batman sequel with Heath Ledger.
I guess it could open the door for a new class of actor. Like right now they have voice actors, but maybe they'll have body actors or something.
We already have those.
They are called "theatre actors".
You know... those who actually went to a serious university-level acting school as opposed to have been a model or some other type of celebrity (athlete, reality-show contestant, stand-up comedian, child star, musician...) who just decided that they can also be actors.
After all - it's just standing there, looking good while saying your lines. How hard can it be?
A good example is Hugo Weaving in "V for Vendetta". Nearly all of his acting there is done with gesticulations and voice only.
Which is very similar to acting for both first and the last row at the theatre. No dynamic zoom there.
Input part - the facial-capture tech is obviously ready. At most it may need some tweaking.
The output part... Like you said. Uncanny valley effect may still be present with humans. BUT..
Considering that Battle Angel*, which Cameron plans to do as (one of) his next project(s) is based around exactly that kind of implementation of the technology - I'd say that he is more than "just talking".
... they explode in the middle of New York.
Should something similar happen in Tokyo it would be considered business as usual.
was assassinated in Serbia and then it escalated.
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina actually. Which was a part of Austria-Hungary at the time.
He was shot by Gavrilo Princip, an ethnic Serb, born in Bosnia, who considered himself a Yugoslav(ian).
Japan is an island with very limited sources of food.
On the other hand, they have a very deeply installed sense of obligation and "properness".
So, if you are a poor peasant or fisherman that can no longer "pull your own weight" and all you do is just spend food and wait to die - it is a very proper thing to ease your family's troubles by just "going away".
Or be carried away, which was often a more likely case.
Being that if you are too old and too sick to work, you are also too old and too sick to climb up a mountain by yourself.
...we are talking about a specific kind of worshiping. Namely, that of the devil.
And everyone knows that the devil is in hell, which is down, while god is in heaven, which is up.
Note also that Moses had much better reception from god, and with no interruptions nor interference from the devil while he was up on a mountain.
While Jesus had much better reception of the devil's signal - cause he didn't go up on a mountain but to the desert instead.
Damn bastard kept coming on and on...
and every 100 years or so the voodoo leaders go up on one of the mountains to renew their agreement.
Why would you go up on the mountain to communicate with Satan?
Wouldn't the "reception" be better at the sea level or at the bottom of the ocean?
Unless you are saying that it is actually Satan that is running the show up in heaven, or perhaps that he and God are one and the same?
That WOULD explain a lot though...
From crucifixion of Jesus, through Spanish Inquisition to fire-bombing of abortion clinics.
Including the earthquake, as the devil is a well known kidder.
Funny you should mention Steve Martin, as he is a Doctor Who fan.
He even wrote Jon Pertwee into L.A. Story as an "alien" that fiddles with the signs along the road, making them communicate with people.
Sadly, Pertwee was too ill to film that scene, so it was left out.
And yes, Tom Baker IS the Doctor.
You are not considering the possibility that this device is not intended for your average user.
Maybe it was envisioned with a more... active crowd in mind.
You know... the kind of people who would find the prospect of running up to one of these a valid possibility.
Also, it would make a GREAT plausible denial device for the active denial system (PDDfADS).
Hang one of those around your neck and you can claim that you were just trying to charge your phone (and not the ADS), when you are arrested for whatever activity it may be that required the use of the ADS on you in the first place.
That is where all the continuity is. Along with the most of the Trek universe. And where all the fan-base's nostalgia is.
The "New Trek" will probably fare like Spiderman just did.
Couple of movies, then a change of management, then another reboot.
And that cycle will go on until it finally dawns on the "runners of the franchise" that Star Trek is a TV series franchise, not a movie franchise.
Until we get another 7-season series, all this in between is just a break. A commercial one.
Somebody tell me what nationality the phone is!
Apparently, USA-ian.
From TFV... the screen still worked - it is just that he apparently cracked it.
Not that you could actually tell from the video.
TFA is from BBC, journalist is British and it is a form of national pride.
"Brits can do the undoable, break the unbreakable."
An accountant doing the same would probably come off as highly professional.
Even more so if he later asked to have his card back. Those things don't grow on trees you know.
So... You are saying that you were a kid sometime between 1912 and now?
Or are you trying to say that you are Scottish?