Does this disturb you?

jcuknz · November 20, 2012

The camera never lies? Yeah Right!

<blockquote ><a href="http://www.wimp.com/softwareexpressions/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.wimp.com/softwareexpressions/</a></blockquote>

nsfbr · November 20, 2012

No. That's pretty amazing actually.

jcuknz · November 20, 2012

Of course it is amazing but also disturbing as to believeing what we see ... no longer can we believe what we see.

MichaelChang · November 20, 2012

Do I find it disturbing? Heck no. I think it's a leap forward for the gaming and animation industry so believability is only relevant to the extent of a user's immersion experience.

More disturbing to me is when technology is put to commercial use without knowledge of its intended targets.

I recently came across a facial recognition software developed by NEC which is able to detect age and sort by gender. It's intended to be used as a retail establishment market analysis tool to determine customer demographics and repeat visits.

The idea is that cameras will be mounted in a retail space and the software will instantly analyze customers one-by-one to produce charts and graphs displaying demographic profiles. In practical application, if a store announces a promotion targeting 30-40 year old males, the tool can determine by the in-store traffic whether a promotion was effective.

The system is leased to retailers on a monthly rate. NEC says its facial recognition data is immediately translated into graphical data and none of the captured faces are accessible to end users, but I can still see opportunities for misuse.

MichaelChang · November 20, 2012

Found the video. This is more disturbing to me:

<a href="

William Kahn · November 20, 2012

And, where there are opportunities for misuse, someone will take them. But never fear, in a few years, you'll probably be able to send your avatar shopping for you...

cyanatic · November 20, 2012

Or we could all go shopping in "V" masks.

JDMvW · November 20, 2012

Guy Fawkes - I go shopping in it now, cash only.

Anon.

Tim_Lookingbill · November 20, 2012

What disturbs me more about your linked video JC is the surprising level of sophistication in the technology achieved which makes me worried what else it's going to lead to. I mean if we can do this, what's next?

I'll throw in Michael's as disturbing as well even if I did see something that I thought would stay as fictional seen in the movie "Minority Report".

It makes me feel we're no longer going to have as much control over our lives as we thought seeing we're able to control this kind of stuff.

It's down right scary.

Matt Laur · November 20, 2012

Slick motion-capture tools, working in near real time? Very cool. As I have family in that line of work, I follow it closely. The better the tools, the easier the job is, and the better the results. Grousing about mocap is like grousing about autofocus.

lex_jenkins · November 20, 2012

The 1980s called. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KUEQ4nWv7Y&feature=related">Max Headroom</a> wants his shtick back.

mbkissel · November 20, 2012

+1 Lex...I was thinking the exact same thing.

steve_mareno1 · November 21, 2012

I like it. Have your avatar get in touch w/ my avatar.

You can't take this sort of stuff too seriously though. Away from a 2 dimensional screen, it doesn't even exist. It may be in real time, but it isn't in real life. Serious distinction. We're not at the Tron level yet. And yes, you CAN'T believe everything you see, or hear.

colin carron · November 21, 2012

My son is currently studying Computer Games Technology so this looks fairly normal to me. The speed of development of software is fast and new things come along so quickly that advances seem routine. But then I remember when mobile phones were so big and heavy they were called carphones. You could make a telephone call with them - from your car. Amazing.

wayne_crider4 · November 21, 2012

It's pretty neat. I see opportunities for actors to make more money since their not going to have to draw everything. But it will probably be beyond most budgets and even if I had the money I'd have to create the avatar which will probably require another software program.

doug_williams4 · November 21, 2012

This is really scary. I can see all kinds of possibilities for abuse by the police and governments not to mention my privacy. I really don't want to be tracked when I go shopping. At some point we are going to have to ask the question when are we in a public area and what rights to privacy do we have?

bebu_lamar · November 21, 2012

The ability, the knowledge, the technology to do something is never a disturbing thing. It's the application. Or nowaday it's the apps. Finding out how to generate vast amount of energy isn't disturbing. Using that knowledge to make the atomic bomb and kill people is.

Tim_Lookingbill · November 21, 2012

Using that knowledge to make the atomic bomb and kill people is.

</blockquote>

At the time the knowledge was made known way before the bomb, no one even thought it would lead to that.

In hindsight the bomb made us knowledgeable about the potential of new technology and what NOT IS KNOWN about its use for the future.

That's what's disturbing.

When electricity was discovered and made functional for society we never even contemplated Thomas Edison would use it to electrocute people on death row as a marketing tool to support his DC initiative.

What part of disturbing do you take from that? The marketing? Or electrocuting people?

I can tell you such disturbing stuff NEVER entered anyone's mind at that time not even Edison's misjudging public opinion on DC. Try to control that kind of crap. YOU CAN'T!

That again is what's disturbing.

dan_south · November 21, 2012

Way cool! I'd like to create some avatars for conference calls.

robert_chadwick · November 22, 2012

Horrendous, Big Brother is watching you I bet Police and Governments are already working out how to use it to keep tabs on all the Plebs..

yangchen_lin · November 22, 2012

Tim's comments remind me of statements by Stuart Kauffman in his book Investigations that the number of ways in which things could recombine in novel ways in the future is 'not finitely prestatable', and that there is a putative 'fourth law' of thermodynamics that allows for diversity and complexity to increase over time. It does look as if the complexity and nonlinearity of the universe can be endlessly beautiful for the camera lens, yet scarily stochastic and unpredictable at the same time.

Tim_Lookingbill · November 22, 2012

Stochastic?! Yangchen?

More like Scatological! You know, "Sh*t Happens" especially in the universe.

I thank the History channel (mainly Edison's ties to the electric chair-news to me) more than I do Stuart Kauffman (not familiar with him) for allowing me fear fodder to write the above.

BTW I foresee those cyber puppets as our future CSR's. Creepy!

steve m smith · November 22, 2012

Disturbing? - No.

Clever? - Yes?

Useful? - I doubt it.

jcuknz · November 22, 2012

Perhaps I should have amplified my comments ...I think it is a wonderful step forward of value to the animation industry etc but what scares me is the potential for mis-use ... I guess I should have more confidence in my fellow man.

yangchen_lin · November 23, 2012

Tim, thanks for teaching me a new word :) Sh*t does happen, and humans even create the preconditions for it to happen sometimes.

Perhaps the atoms of my body would have gone on their separate ways by the time this technology gets out of hand, although the magnesium alloy of my other body might remain intact long enough to see armageddon.

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