Question 1

In a different dms class, we were discussing how in certain third world countries, people in small villages use technology that we would consider outdated in ways that are new and innovative to them. For example, a discard boom box will be attached to a bike as someone rides around town as it plays a recording of someone reading local news and opinion.

The point of this was that people can always make do with the best technological tools available. In our digital culture, the tools available are becoming more and more diverse and accessible. This has lead to a certain amount of annoyance that we just deal with on a regular basis in our net travels.

Email spam messages have become a commonplace nuisance that is just a fact of life. It always makes me wonder if there was a time in the beginning of the internet when someone got an email about low mortgage rates and thought they had stumbled onto a real deal.

Then of course, there’s something as innocent yet annoying as Rick Rolling. It’s no more dangerous to anyone than writing on a bathroom wall, but it still irks me every time. It’s just not funny anymore.

When I was reading this article, I kept thinking about an article I read a few months ago titled, Things Hollywood Thinks Computers Can Do. It was essentially how all it takes to hack into the NSA is really fast typing, and how all electronic money is sitting in one place, just needing to be transferred to another.

The blog and the youtube video seem to have made everyone into a town crier, and not just those who are sufficiently tech savvy. In fact, as technology becomes increasingly user friendly, more and more of the internet will open up to people without any significant training. This is both for better and for worse, as it sort of puts technology on a sliding scale. The average users will always lag behind the advanced users, who will have mastered years ago the tech that average users are now catching up on. As such, the high enders are in prime condition to know exactly how to take advantage of the system that average users feel so proud of themselves for getting the hang of.

Question 2:

I think we all, at one time or another have been propositioned by a Nigerian prince or two who wants us to send him $400 so he can, in turn, give us $300 million. Honestly, if you’re dumb enough to fall for that, you deserve to be broke. More and more, we hear about internet scams trying to get our money. And no, it’s not on the news, it’s from a banner ad announcing that you’ve already won a free ipod!

True cyber terrorism seems to be a hobby more than a malicious threat to me. Several years ago, when Amazon and Ebay were both hacked and brought down for a few hours…so what? They were back up in no time and no real damage was done. It was just hackers trying to best the software.

Then there’s the ever growing problem of identity theft, but an epidemic it is not. Most banks have instituted fraud detection for this very reason and it is becoming harder and harder to get away with it. And besides, it can be done just as easily with a discarded credit statement, which is the preferred method. People aren’t hacked into as often as one would think.

Even when I think about a digital worst case scenario, I hearken back to the year 2000. Back when the Y2K scare was in full bloom, people in scare mode were talking about the world without computers and how unthinkable it was. As if the worst thing that could happen to us is that we would live like we did in 1986.

I personally think we live in a time when computers could conceivably be done away with, but there would be a price to pay in convenience. Google maps has become an invaluable tool for someone who gets lost as often and easily as I do. If I were to lose it, I could still get there, but it would just be that much harder. I would actually have to buy a newspaper in the morning, rather than scan the reddit headlines. I would have to get cable, rather than just stream episodes of 30 Rock.

In short, I could survive if the digital realm collapsed tomorrow, it would just be inconvenient. And frankly, I’m not convinced that the internet dying would be the worst thing to happen to us as a people. The internet has turned us into a nation of whiny, panicky, pseudo experts on everything that are more than a little obnoxious. Electronic anonymity has made us feel safe enough to sling deplorable comments across message boards, and suddenly no one is as smart as the last poster who has it all figured out. I personally feel that most of us are now completely turned off by internet commentating because of a small yet vocal minority of assholes (or trolls in internet vernacular).

Of course, I’m speaking strictly from a personal standpoint. I’m sure the indirect affects would be readily noticeable and make me rethink all of the above.

Game on.

For more information on the valley in terms of video games...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKTAJBQSm10

Missing Links

There’s no better place to observe the advancement of digital characters than video games. The technology to create interactive media has always been on the forefront of visual animation.

As the technology has progressed, graphics have been getting closer and closer to what we could call realistic. This also means that many modern games have begun to fall into the valley, since we’re not quite there yet.

But just because photorealism in games is becoming a more real possibility with every new console cycle, that doesn’t mean that game developers need to pursue it in every game. In fact, there are many great examples of how developers have circumnavigated the valley by using a stylized approach to their games, rather than a realistic one.

To observe this today, first let’s take a look back on what a modern game is doing to achieve graphical advancement. In the mid 90’s, video games made the long transition from 2 dimensions into 3. This drastically changed how games are made at the fundamental level. See, 2D games are based on sprites, which is essentially a cartoon. Animators draw 2D characters and settings and animate them as they would a cartoon. Press a button to swing a sword, and every bit of the motion had to be drawn by an animator.

3D games, however, are based on polygons. Characters are drawn in 3D by putting shapes together onto a computer to resemble whatever is being created. Then textures are added to these polygons. These characters and objects are fully rendered. When the sword is swung with a polygonal figure, a 3D model performed the action by following a set of programmed motions.

Many gaming franchises have made the jump from 2D to 3D pretty well, so let’s take a character that has had a long career in gaming, and who has also both leapt the valley and fallen into it.

Pictured above is Link, the star of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series. Link’s first experience in 3D was in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. Looking at his avatar, we can observe that the technology that brought him into 3D was still new. He’s blocky and point and pretty emotionless. Nevertheless, Ocarina of Time is often heralded as one of the best games ever made.

There were two direct sequels to Ocarina: Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Both were released within the same console generation. Looking at the two models for the subsequent games, we can see a very different type of design at work.

Wind Waker’s graphics were designed using an art style called Cel Shading. In essence, it makes the graphics appear as a hand-drawn cartoon. The images and characters are fully realized in 3D, but you wouldn’t know it to look at them, as cel shading makes the game appear 2D.

As toon Link travels his brightly colored world, his wide eyes gleam with curiosity as he enters a strange place. His excited leaps as he slays a giant monster are hard to hate. He looks just right in a world designed for him. To put it simply, toon Link is charming and likeable.

In Twilight Princess, the graphics harkened for a more realistic, though still fantasy based, character design. Real Link’s face is stoic, dirty, and practically unflinching. His motions and actions seem stiff by comparison. Every so often, as he talks with various townsfolk, he’ll stare with his eyes that look just a little too big. His face is static as he glares at the people he’s trying to save. Frankly, it comes across as a little creepy.

Both of these games ran on the same platform, so one was not the result of better technology. They were simply two very different approaches to the same character.

The point here is that just because graphics are better than they’ve ever been doesn’t mean that other avenues are closed off, nor should they be. I could debate the overall merits of the two games to conclude which is better, but that’s not my agenda. I just want to point out that there’s no question in my mind which of the two Links I find more appealing.

Terminating the Valley

Director James Cameron discusses the valley in regards to his upcoming film, Avatar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwMr5w_VpDY

Human Cyborg Relations

For today’s lesson in the valley, we’ll look at two of the most famous robots of all time. I trust we all know R2-D2 and C-3PO. Just looking at them, we see two very different designs. Artoo looks vaguely like a trash can and Threepio resembles a traditional robot design.

The reason they look so distinct from one another has to do with functionality. According to the Star Wars wiki (aptly titled Wookiee Pedia), Artoo is an astromech droid, a name combining his two primary functions. Astro refers to interstellar navigation, and mech for his ability to operate and repair machinery. He’s essentially a walking tool box, with every gadget he would need built right into his chassis. He has a welding torch, fire extinguisher, grappling arm, holographic display, and a node to interface directly with computers. And since he primarily communicates only with other machines, he speaks through a series of electronic beeps. In short, he is a robot designed to do only what he is intended to do.

Threepio, on the other hand, is designed as an interpreter. His functionality is to translate languages (six million, evidently), and he has a working knowledge of protocol and etiquette. He communicates with living species, and has no need for built in devices, and he is not very mobile, as an interpreter wouldn’t need to be.

But why make him look vaguely human? To make him more comforting, or easier to relate to? He could essentially be a box on wheels and still fulfill his primary function, but he was designed to look human.

R2-D2 is an example of a robot designed to maximize its functionality based on its use. C-3PO is ill-conceived and an example of style over substance.

What I’m trying to get at is why do robots need to look human in the first place? It stands to reason that their main usage would be to perform tasks not easily done by human beings, so why hinder them with a human design?

The uncanny valley tells us that robots that look human while not being perfectly human will always be subject to rejection from our sensibilities, so why strive for this all?

For example, why put the eyes and mouth speaker in the head of the robot, when it seems that putting them in the chest chassis would keep them better protected? Why is their an inherent feeling that the eyes of a robot should be where they are on a human?

Furthermore, the human body isn’t that well designed from an efficiency standpoint. Our optic nerve sits in front of our eye which creates a blind spot. Our knees bend backwards, limiting speed and mobility. We breath and eat through the same tube.

The whole point of designing a robot to mimic a human seems to be an altruistic one. There’s no reason to design a humanoid robot than to simply prove that we can. After all, if we need a robot to perform tasks that the human body is suited for, why build a robot at all? It’s not like we have a shortage of people running around.

Robots should be designed for their primary function, like this bomb defusing robot. It’s simple, does exactly what it needs to, has no extraneous parts, and is most decidedly not human. It is the R2-D2 of our time.

And yet, our scientists are still harboring the dream of a humanoid robot. Perhaps the uncanny valley is inevitable, as man seems to want to create this humanoid robot, but has a hard time accepting it when we do.

Welcome to the Valley

Have you seen Shrek? Don’t you just love that big oaf? Sure, he’s unpleasant and gross, but there’s sort of a sweet charm about him, isn’t there? Why you feel like you could just give a big hug.
What about the Polar Express, have you seen that? Isn’t there something off about those kids? Their faces seem cold and unpleasant. They have dead eyes and don’t seem to move right. It’s a pretty unpleasant feeling to watch them.
But what’s the difference? Why do we respond so well to an artificial ogre, while grimace at somewhat realistic looking kids? The answer can be found in the depths of the uncanny valley.
The theory was first proposed in 1970 by a Japanese scientist named Masahiro Mori. Mori was a roboticist, who took note of how artificial simulations of life begin as being cute, until they start to near a level of realism, at which point, the emphatic reaction to them becomes negative. In terms of things that are attempting to look human, the point at which they are between “barely human” and “fully human” is said to be the uncanny valley.
Something about the area in between is unsettling. Movements don’t look right, faces don’t seem expressive enough, and the whole package seems to have something out of place.
In this blog, I want to explore the depths of the uncanny valley in respect to both robots and digital creations to see when we’ve fallen into it, how we’ve gotten around, and how close we are to climbing out altogether.