AT&T Labs is commercializing their recent advances in text-to-speech processing (a.k.a. talking computers) with Natural Voices. While the live demo still reveals its robotic ancestry, a few of the pre-recorded demos could really pass for human. Listen to one of the better samples (70Kb Windows Media).
It’s a big step from the standard text-to-speech quality available only a few years ago (hear a sample).
And so the anthropomorphization of robots inches forward.
I’ll always remember that day years ago in high school math class. The class was quiet; everyone was working on their assignments. Then, suddenly, a horrible crash and clang of metal on metal came hurtling down the hall towards us. My friend ffoeg, always able to bend a moment to his liking to the amusement of his audience, gave out a yell: “ROBOTS!“.
It turned out to be a malfunctioning ventilation system, that time. But robots are going to get us sooner or later. I’m only kind of joking. Scientists (you know – scientists) are at the World Economic Forum this week warning the all the rich people about a future that includes a “possible takeover of humans by robots.” (see the related discussion at slashdot)
The end is neigh. I can’t say much more, because robots are already browsing this very website and others like it (see the shot of my web stats to the right). In the meantime, let us at least enjoy some amusing comic strip foreshadowing of our dark future.
My first AOV post ever was concerning how I wished I was an engineer so I could take my monstrous robot onto television and beat on other robots. Nothing has changed, except for now people out there are living the dream.
There are now about three shows that deal with his, and I want to tell you why they suck and how they can be improved.
First I’ll deal with Robotica. I have many issues with this. But I’ll start with the positive. I like the short history of each competitor showing the construction process. Even though they all say “My robot will win because it’s powerful enough to pull my minivan in neutral”.
The problem is that people are treating this new type of competition as a novelty and have whacky commentators, flashy high-tech lights, and stat-screens that are useless. That Zappa guy bugs me, he’s too “Whacky and off the wall”. I’ve watched Robotica a few times and I’ve learned that there are a few reoccuring factors. There is maybe 10-15 minutes of moving robots. Maybe less. What there is no shortage of is awkward robots beached, stuck, or otherwise motionless. Wabbling or bumping awkwardly and jerkily about. Then the announcer always says “Whack! That robots seems to have a tran-tran- transmission problem! That’s noooooo good!” in a whacky and off the wall voice. It’s frustrating to watch toasters jiggle all that time in their little post-apocalyptic-esque gauntlets.
Just when I was about to give up on fighting robots for a few more months, I caught two or three episodes of Battlebots. That was more entertaining, but still has some rough edges. For example, there are no little cutesy competitions because they never work. It’s all robots beating eachother. I saw an amazing robot that did suck as far as what a BattleBot should do, but made up for all that by not looking remotely like any other robot. I can’t find a picture of it, but it was a 2 meter robotic snake. It was cool. The other robots actually worked. I saw strategy instead of wounded manatees. The commenting people were less whacky, they have BILL NYE as a scientific consultant. And Jay Leno competes with his robot too. I’m not saying you need celebrities to have a good show, but, in this case it works.
I’ve caught an episode of Robot Wars once. It was like 3am on PBS. It seemed like a less-exciting BattleBots. It had the Red Dwarf guy as host. I don’t know much more about it other than it was better than that Robotica crap with the sleeping robots.
Thank you for your attention.
Fun with Babelfish. Robots translating aov to Spanish. Rob Fletcher becomes Robo Fletcher, I apparently work for “el silverorange”, and thegeniuses@actsofvolition.com are losgenios@actsofvolition.com.
Keep up the good work, robots.
News.com tends to consist of little more than a collection of press releases and product announcements. However, their new feature, The Death of the Free Web is a fine collection of articles measuring the effects of the crash of dot-com-tomfoolery.
The bottom line of the articles is that we will all start to pay to web services. I agree and disagree. I agree because this is not a new idea. Jakob Nielsen has been saying for years that until there is a good scheme for micropayments (an easy way to pay for small transactions) the net will not mature. 
Also, companies like GoTo.com have been charging and gladly proclaiming it. They go so far as to list the cost to advertiser next to every search result. This is a brilliant exercise in simplicity and a straightforward business plan (although I sure as hell didn’t spend $0.53 based on my search results).
On the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum we have sites like Go.com, Snap.com, and Netscape.com which couldn’t possibly suck more. These properties deserve to crumble as they were built on false premises summed up nicely by the former CEO of Terra Lycos, “Audience was meant to drive stickiness, stickiness was meant to drive the network at large, and the network at large was meant to drive earnings.” If A then B. Duh.
On the other hand, the free web is doing nicely. Despite some hiccups in publishing schedules and hosting, as Jefferey Zeldman says, the independent content producer refuses to die. There are fantastic independent sites out there.
In a professional context, I’ve seen the web do some pretty cool stuff for real businesses. Not eyeballs or stickiness, but cash (increasing sales, reducing costs, increasing efficiency).
Regardless, the web continues to be about what it has always been about: funny pictures (like pictures of me, and of robots).
ActiveBuddy, as far as I can tell, is a new service that will retrieve info from participating companies via queries from AOL’s Instant Messenger. It’s got a little buzz going, and lots of IT media hype.
Is it just me, or is this a stupid idea? The example on the activebuddy website goes like this:
JoeUser: Hi TravelBuddy. What are today’s travel bargains?
TravelBuddy: Hi JoeUser. I’ve got some terrific travel specials for you today… [phony bargains snipped]
In a bizarre corporate/anticorporate move, radiohead‘s record company will be making ‘radiohead info’ available through activebuddy.
The announcement said a “Radiohead agent” will be able to reside on a user’s contact list, and will respond to requests for information about the band, the album, tour dates, song lists, artist bios, album credits, purchasing information, and other related material. (read the rest at canoe.ca)
I don’t have a strong argument to make (or any kind of argument at all), just that this seems like a dumb idea. I have posted it here so that in 3 months we can all come back and bask in my crapulence or clairvoyance.
Final Fantasy, the classic video game series (one I never had the patience for myself) is coming to the big screen. Completely computer animated, it makes Toy Story look like a flip-book animation, and Dinosaur like, uh, never mind.
These “photos” of the characters are some of the most amazing computer generated images I have ever seen. If you have QuickTime and some time to waste, watch the trailer to see them in action.
I will be at the theatre, vaguely embarrassed, on opening night.
We aren’t far from losing a clear distinction between real actors and virtual actors. While I can’t see anything inherently wrong with that, this ‘photo’ of the lead character from Final Fantasy gives me the willies.
Quoted from A Whole Lotta Nothing:
Did you realize it’s the year 2001 now? We live in the goddammed future! Robotic dogs, computerized cars, intelligent global information networks, and yet… we’re still stuck with toast. With all the recent improvements in the fields of microprocessors, wireless technologies, and robotics, why haven’t there been advances in speeding up the browning of bread?
For the love of god, we can slow down the speed of light. Why in the hell can’t we speed up toast?!
Amen.
Full story here.
The following email was sent from Network Solutions in regards to a domain name update request. I was aware that robots were sending emails, but I had thought we were still a few years away from the robots actually writing the emails themselves.
At least the robot was polite enough to wish us “Best regards”. Thank you, robot, but I don’t appear to be the first to have trouble with you and your “solutions”.
Thank you for responding to our Notify Template. Because you
omitted information from line 1a, we cannot act on your instructions.At the bottom of this e-mail, we’ve added the Notify Template with
our original information intact. In order for us to execute your
instructions, please follow these steps in this sequence.
- Hit the Reply button in your email program. Attention AOL users:
see below* before proceeding.- In line 0a, enter the Guardian method you chose
when you set up your contact record.- Based on what you entered in line 0a, make the
appropriate choice for line 0b:
- If you entered Mail-From, leave line 0b blank.
- If you entered Crypt-PW, put your plain text password in
line 0b.- If you entered PGP, leave line 0b blank, but be sure to
sign the template with your PGP private key.- If you agree with the modification request in its entirety,
reply to this email by inserting Y or YES on line 1a.
OR
If you disagree with the modification request, enter
N or NO on line 1a.- Do not remove the version number or alter the template in any
other way.- Hit the Send button in your e-mail program.
Best regards,
Network Solutions Registrar
help@networksolutions.com*AOL software prevents you from simply replying to this message.
Instead, follow these steps:
a) Highlight the entire message
b) Click on the Reply button
c) Return to step 2, above.====================
xxxx00
=======================
I’ve seen personalized spam before, but this was the most impressive I’ve ever received.
Today, an email promoting a search engine registration service arrived in my inbox, complete with little animated people being ‘magnetically attracted’ to an actual screenshot of actsofvolition.com.
Very impressive. Please do not send me unsolicited messages.