Mail Online has an in-depth look at “Jules,” the human-looking robot head, which can mimic real human facial expressions. And in real time no less.

Mail Online reports:

Jules mimics the expressions by converting the video image into digital commands that make the robot’s servos and motors produce mirrored movements.

And it all happens in real time as the robot can interpret the commands at 25 frames per second.

You can see plenty of images of Jules at that site, but you can also see Jules in action in the video embedded below.

Creepy, exciting stuff. For a look at fictional Terminator news, read my thoughts on the upcoming sequel.

Unfortunately I am of the latter ilk. For one, I am the kind of guy who likes my Terminators to carry strong tones of Austrian/governor accent. Terminators who speak in monotone voices who have very clear missions that can only begin once their first objective is achieved: obtain clothes, boots, and a motorcycle. I come from the school of “The Electronic Murderer” (even though I’m not Polish). Picture courtesy of Answers.com.

I am not so much interested in this. “Oh, but it’s got Christian Bale,” you might respond. Watch Harsh Times and then give me that argument. Was Eddie furlong not available? I can’t imagine that the Night of the Demons remake was a higher priority for him. What happened to Nick Stahl? I wasn’t thrilled to have a new John Connor forced upon me then either, but he did an adequate job.

I’m not saying that Bale can’t cut the mustard. Bale’s not the issue. The issue is that they have gotten away from what made The Terminator a classic, and that was…well, Arnold (not to mention Michael Biehn), James Cameron, and the decade of the 80s. I’m not one to totally live in the past. I realize times have changed, but films like Planet Terror prove that the dark, gritty look of the original are still possible to achieve.

Terminator: Salvation is looking more like a Transformers or Matrix knock off (if not a stylized Robot Jox remake) to me based on some of the robot designs. But I guess that’s what you get when you give the co-creator of Fastlane the reigns of one of the most beloved science fiction/action franchises of all time. I’m a little skeptical to say the least.

But to be fair, I can’t judge it too harshly without having seen it. My expectations are set pretty low, so perhaps I’ll be overwhelmingly surprised. Some of my best movie-viewing experiences have come from low expectations.

See some recently leaked video footage at io9.com. I rest my case.

The art of hacking in a technological world is generally a negative thing. To hack into something, usually means a breach in security and some form of data altered. However, hacking, and being particularly skilled at it, can pay off – if the skills are used appropriately.

Shane Kelly, age 16, became the world’s youngest person to pass the Certified Ethical Hacker course. Because of his dedication and precision, there are some big people very interested in utilizing his mad skills.

Hacks can be used for good! Programming something to “hack” into a problem you’re encountering, like with say your website development or network. Hacking can be viewed as a positive thing, and quite frankly, the biggest networks and programs are developed by hackers. You have to know how to get into it to be able to prevent access to it, right?

Now, by no means am I saying that it is okay to hack into someone else’s property, or copyrighted works like programs and applications, but hacking should not always be viewed as illegal. Take those skills and go work for someone who can really benefit from them. Internet companies, software companies, police departments. Fight crime! Slip into your bat-suit and get involved in the criminal investigation sector of a police department. After all, they are likely to more fully utilize your hacking super-powers (and you’d get paid for it).

They are kind of pretty and shiny in a hard bitten, vaporware sort of way.  But wait, could this be the proof that we’re all waiting for?  Will DNF be an actual product in our lifetime?  I’ll let you decide that while you gaze lovingly at the once familiar mug of our long lost protagonist.  Let’s hope that if it is real, it makes a better impression than Spore.

Technorati Tags: dfn, duke nukem forever, pics, screenshot, kick ass and chew bubblegum, video games, vaporware

Gabriel tells of a relationship that starts early in his childhood with an Atari 2600 and plays out much like the story of every adult gamer’s life. During his teenage years, he discovers two overriding passions: freestyle club dancing and Blizzard’s classic RTS Starcraft. I can’t personally sympathize with the former; the club scene has never been anything for me except a mindless churning of intoxicated bodies, a dead-end excersise who’s only real virtue is the physical discipline it requires. Too many people I knew in high school went down that bottomless spiral of meaningless social mingling, destructive relationships, and drug and alcohol addiction and found themselves in their late 20s with no skills, no family, a dead-end job and few true, reliable friends.

You might then imagine my confusion when Gabriel characterizes his relationship with dance clubs as a constructive force in his life and his personal obsession with video games as a youth-stealing, mind-rotting, addictive plague on modern society. You see, in my case, video games defined my life, my career, and my passions in a positive way that led me to a successful career, a happy marriage, and a great group of friends who share my interests. Like Gabriel, I started off with the Atari, worked my way up through the Nintendo, the Super Nintendo (still my all time favorite console), the Playstation, and then the plethora of online PC games that grew in popularity during my teenage years. As dedicated gamers, my friends and I became heavily involved in PC modding and tuning, always trying to squeeze out that extra frame per second. It built our technical skills and provided the foundation I needed to to eventually get a job as a PC technician, after years of dead-end work in civil service I’m still trying to forget.

That experience also led directly to my eventual career choice as a web software developer and web designer. As the geekiest and most technically inclined of my group, I assumed the responsibility of building guild websites, handling server administration, and a brief stint of game programming when we spent some time off from Command and Conquer and Quake to build a MUD - a Multi-User Dungeon, a prototypical MMO with an all-text interface, for those of you who came along after Ultima Online and Everquest. The skills and social connections I developed while pursuing my gaming hobbies are more valuable to me than any other character-building experience in my life.

Without video games, I can’t predict exactly where my life would have ended up, but they provided me the focus that helped me develop my own personal talents into a successful career much the way Gabriel developed his based on his passion for dance. The similarity and contrast between our lives leads me to wonder, once again, at the impact articles like his will have both on gaming culture and on clinical and popular psychology - by further diluting the meaning of addiction and confusing cause and effect in the case of obsessive behavior, involving video games or anything else. The plight of real addicts with debilitating chemical addictions is mocked every time someone characterises an obsession as an addiction, and likewise people with unhealthy obsessions may be suffering from a fundamental misunderstanding of the cause and consequence of their problems which prevents them from seeking and finding the help they need.

I also worry that it provides a skewed view to the already misinformed older generation, as well as the members of our generation who never quite got on the boat, who are still playing the politics of fear we gamers are oh-so-familiar with. Every generation in the past century has been the first to embrace some amazing new technological or cultural advancement and each has had to deal with ignorance and fearmongering that big changes like these bring about. It’d be nice if we could look past generational lines and find the common ground we share as the children of a rapidly progressing society. Certainly Gabriel is welcome to tell his story. I hope that he, and others like him who have allowed a single facet of their life to become an overriding destructive obsession, will someday have the maturity to admit that the problem is theirs, and accept responsibility for their actions and their lives instead of placing blame on the object of their obsession.

(thanks to QJ.net for the image, used without permission, sorry!)

Technorati Tags: video, game, obsession, addiction, addict, obsessive, personality, bohemian, gabriel fransisco

Why on Earth should my modern browsers (Firefox, Opera) still freeze up on every third embedded video I try to play?  Websites are rendered ugly as hell because Flash just doesn’t know what to do with them. You do realize that by hindering a portion of today’s web browsing consumers you’re eventually affecting your own bottom line, right?  Even a small portion who can’t do the things that web developers, web store owners and viral marketing execs expect them to do can be significant if it impacts delivery and sales.

For those who aren’t employed by Adobe.  Yeah, I think that Flash sites are not the way to go, even with Google’s revelation that Flash can now be indexed.  The truth of the matter is Flash is here and it’s probably here to stay so we need Adobe to please swallow whatever bitter pill they’re fumbling around with and just get a working version out to all of us in Linuxland so we can watch cats attack string on YouTube or whatever it is we’re wanting to do online.  Okay?  I know of lots of local, small sites like restaurants and small brick and mortar shops who have Flash front ends on their sites.  And you know what? It stinks not being able to patronize them - for them and for me.

We need a working Flash.  Let’s hope 10 does a much better job of it than 9.  Until then, I’ll be taking my own petty mental revenge by referring to this monstrosity of a rich media crap fest as ‘flunk’ using my inside voice.  No, that won’t fix anything but at least it will get that grimace on my face into a twisted smile as I kill and restart my browser yet again.

Technorati Tags: flash, linux, adobe, firefox, ubuntu, flunk

Looking at Spore, a game I’ve been excited about for a while now, it looks like there will finally be a change from the grind of rapid build up and nuke, or hide behind the pretty foliage from alien’s shooting beams at you paradigms that have been so prevalent lately.  I’m even getting sick of my new old standby - COD4.  Level 55 on a PC and. . . wow.  A gold gun, more shots down the line and more infantile chatter over which levels are ‘teh suck’.  They’ve even launched a whole ad series in a bunch of major urban public transportation stations.  How cool is it to see a video game, any video game, advertised in a place like that?

Call me nostalgic or an old fart but I miss the days of turn based RPGs and strategy games that really made you think.  Civ, Baldur’s Gate, Total War, MOO2. . . these are games I spent days on, working out my strategies, leveling my party, conquering worlds and taking real pride in my accomplishments.  No twitching involved.  All of these games had their shortcomings and limitations based on the systems and resources available - but they also all had that golden sheen of near endless replayability, go at your own pace game play and customization.

Guess what Spore is offering?  Pretty much all of the above.  While game play isn’t strictly turn based, it does look to be paced at a rate I want it at - not at the fastest click or quickest button push.  You start with your creatures at a cellular level and bring them all the way through to interstellar conquest.  Yowza!  It’s got vast scope, incredible customization, the ability to be not just a game but a social network without the grind of MMORPG camping.  I can’t wait to get my hands on this game and tool around with it.  Single player with creature sharing - so I can choose my level of interaction with other people online and I’m not forced into reading inane comments by school kids learning they can swear on the ‘net or grouping with a bunch of strangers.

There will of course be some limitations and downsides to this game - there is no gaming nirvana, at least not yet and probably won’t be until we get a Holodeck or its equivalent.  There will be limitations to the game but worst of all, there will be DRM.  Good old SecureRom, in it’s scaled back form.  At least there’s no 10 day activation anymore, EA has backed off of that, you can even play the game offline.  You will however need to authenticate when you install, and every time you update.  Here’s the official word:

We authenticate your game online when you install and launch it the first time.

We’ll re-authenticate when a player uses online features, downloads new content or a patch for their game.

The new system means you don’t have to play with the disc in your computer. And if you are like me, always losing discs, this will be a huge benefit.

You’ll still be able to install and play on multiple computers.

You can play offline.

Better than the original 3 installs and 10 day activation period but still DRM.  Why couldn’t the folks at Stardock have developed this with Will Wright?

You can pre-order Spore right from EA and they’ll do a ‘pre-load’ which essentially downloads a huge, encrypted install file onto your machine (PC only, no Mac right now) which you can install at 12:00:01 on the 7th I’m assuming.  This saves you the hassle of having to go out and buy the game somewhere physical or wait for Amazon to deliver it to your door, but does mean you get no physical copy, at least at first.  I can’t tell whether a pre-load and pre-order also entitles you to a shipped product.  You’ll also have to download, install and trust EA’s Download Manager, yet another piece of software to manage your stuff for you.

So yes, Spore has it’s faults, and I’m sure there will be game play issues like there are in all games where not everything is perfect for everyone - an impossible goal but I’m still looking forward to it.  I can even forgive the cartoony graphics if the game gives me an absorbing experience that I’ll look forward to playing again and again.  Here’s hoping.

EDIT: I broke down and got the pre-install and the creature creator.  Check out the few things I’ve cobbled together here.

Technorati Tags: ea, spore, games, video game, creature creator, securerom, downloads, pre-load, micro to macro, lets hope its as good as the build up

The remake, Bionic Commando: Rearmed (Rearmed! Get it?!), features the same story and gameplay as the the original, but enhanced with modern graphics and sound effects. Fans of the original will recognize levels and bosses throughout the game, as well as some nostalgia-heavy cutscenes. The remake is still a 2D scroller, and you still can’t jump (forcing you to rely on your bionic arm swinging abilities).

First, the positives. This game is absolutely beautiful. Everything from the stellar 3D characters with full ragdoll effects to the campy back and forth dialogue to the modernized 8-bit soundtrack are incredibly gratifying. It’s so much fun to combine the nostalgia of playing a side-scrolling shooter with the graphics of modern gaming machines. The visuals of this remake are at times better than those of modern original titles.

BCR also features split-screen multiplayer campaign as well as up to 4-player versus modes. The campaign can be a lot of fun, since the opponent AI alters itself to require teamwork. However the versus modes are only fun for a short while and quickly become repetitive and boring.

Where BCR suffers is in gameplay. The original Bionic Commando is known for being somewhat difficult to master, and I found the remake to hold true to that assessment as well. It took me a long time to master the swinging technique needed to traverse even the earliest levels, and many of the areas you encounter feature spiked floors or lava that will kill you almost immediately. After struggling to get through the first few levels, I went back and lowered the difficulty level to the easiest setting. This blocked off the traps on the floor and made enemies easier to defeat, thus refocusing gameplay on navigating using the bionic arm, which is where this game really shines.

For a remake, Bionic Commando: Rearmed is a stunning success. Original gameplay is left mostly untouched, with stellar graphics and soundtracks added and enhanced to really make this one of the best $10 video games out there. I definitely suggest this game for any fans of the original Bionic Commando, or for fans of retro gaming in general.

Technorati Tags: Bionic Commando, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Grin, Capcom, XBox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, PC Games, Nintendo, NES, video games, video game reviews

The new book by Nick Sagan (son of Carl Sagan), You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised, is characterized by explanations of some of the fascinating technologies envisioned in classic science fiction along with explorations of the progress modern science has made towards achieving those visions. Classic science fiction references appear side-by-side with summaries of state of the art scientific research.

The book is divided into 5 broad chapters, each covering 10 technologies that we have made progress towards realizing. The chapters are Travel and Transportation, Computers, Cyborgs, and Robots, Communications, Weapons and Security, and Life, Health, and Sex.

The Pros

This book is very well written. Each technology is described with multiple fictional appearances as well as detailed accounts of modern advances involving that technology. I was also surprised at how realistic many of the concepts once considered impossible have become. There were also detailed diagrams and high-quality images for all of the sections, which made the content much more engaging.

The Cons

Some of the technologies in the book were much less interesting than others. In a desire to have the same number of sections in each chapter, some sections were added that probably could have been left out - language translators, watch toys, and sex toys, for example.

I definitely recommend this book. It was a quick read, and each section was engaging and interesting. The price is very reasonable, as well.

The Stats

Title: You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised
Author(s): Nick Sagan, Mark Frary, and Andy Walker
ISBN10: 1556526857
ISBN13: 978-1556526855
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Cost: $11.21 (from Amazon)
Format: Paperback, 160 pages
Published: April 1, 2008

Technorati Tags: Carl Sagan, Nick Sagan, Mark Frary, Andy Walker, science fiction, technology, books, book reviews, You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised

We have no way of knowing what it is that the inhabitants of the Death Star want, or even if they are friendly. But one thing is for certain. On the fateful day when we must finally engage our enemy in combat, the greatest weapon available to us will be Jeff Goldblum and his Macintosh of Doom.

Technorati Tags: Jeff Goldblum, Star Wars, Independence Day, Macintosh, Death Star, San Francisco, video

If you wish to choose 100d6, you may.  In fact, I had to do the obligitory test of 100d100 just to see how it worked - the app did fine as my iPod Touch screen filled up with 100 sided dice.  For those curious, I rolled a 4788.

You can also set up multiple dice to roll.  Say you want to roll 2d6 and 1d4 at the same time?  No worries.

You can also roll physically impossible dice, like a 13 sided die.

The rolling is pretty nice and the app features a neat tilt/view, where if you hold your device at an angle, the dice seem to tilt appropriately.  Not bad MachWerx, not bad. You can see an example of multiple dice rolled and the tilt effect below.

The only downside, if you can consider it one, is the cost.  At $0.99 it isn’t going to break your bank (and if you think of it this way, it’s less than a cent per die) but it isn’t free.  Personally, I think it’s well worth it, if for no other reason than to support the devs who worked on this little app.  The graphics could use a bit of an update as well but all in all it’s a great app.

Technorati Tags: dice, die roller, iphone, ipod touch, mach dice, rpg, role players, reviews, software, apple, apps, app store

THE Singularity, that’s what he’s talking about.  You know, the point where machine intelligence jogs past human intelligence and brings us to a new era where combined computer cognition is the equivalent of a minor deity.  Not only that, but it’s Kurzweil, without the T.  I don’t know if that’s Intel’s fault or Cnet’s on the transcription.

What is the Singularity really?  It’s where machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence - even by just a tiny bit.  At that point, the machines, which are now more knowing than we are, can recursively improve on themselves in a never ending and rapidly accelerating cycle of getting better and better.

Kurzweil tones it down a bit and simply says it’s going to be a time where machines can manifest their own rapidly advancing technology.  The implications of a meteoric rise in technology, self replicating smarter than human intelligences and you know, superbeings. . . it’s all still there though.  Perhaps in Intel’s mind, the Singularity involves computers designing processors for their next of kin to the point where we have the 1nm Intel processors featuring 10,000 cores.

Is this something we really want to work towards?  Is it inevitable?  And will these machines become self aware?  No one really knows but it’s certainly an interesting concept to think on.

For their part, I’ve awarded the first ever ArsGeek Overreaching Statement Award to Intel.  Congratulations Intel! Stating that they are actively working on the Singularity goes a bit beyond miniaturizing processors and coming up with interesting ways to optimize code for multiple cores.  It’s a bit like casually stating that your experiments on family dog have yeilded a doberman with the intelligence of your or I and the ability to speak several languages.

Technorati Tags: singularity, intel, ray kurzweil, ai, overraching statement award, computers, technology, other geeks, our future overlords