Computer avatars

Posted by: Nime on 21 January 2005

Hi

Let's talk about computer avatars. Smile

The ever improving computing power and advances in computer graphics must surely lead to the classic "Red Dwarf" situation where the computer screen shows a girl's face answering back to the computer-user with undisguised contempt. Big Grin

Is voice recognition essential to avatar success?

Is this the next step in 'Windows' armoury?

Nime
Posted on: 21 January 2005 by J.N.
What is an avatar?

Ta.

John.
Posted on: 21 January 2005 by Nime
A believable computer (image) representation of a human being. It moves, it talks etc.
I saw a short piece about avatars on Clickonline a while ago and wondered what others thought about the idea. Having a "human" on-screen face answering questions and helping to browse, control the lighting, fly the spaceship, etc. Smile

Max Headroom and the Red Dwarf computer face were humerous examples.

Nime
Posted on: 21 January 2005 by Aiken Drum
JN,

quote:
What is an avatar?


Some examples for you:

In the Sci-fi series Andromeda, there is an avatar of the ship's computer called Rommie. She is a physical and sentient manifestation of the computer in "human" form. (Picture below).

In Iain M Banks books, for example "Excession", the ship's sentient computer (called a "mind" in the novels) again have physical representations of themselves designed to interact with the human passengers.

Here's an extract:

" The ship's avatar called itself Amorphia, which apparently meant something reasonably profound in a language Dajed did not know, and had not considered worth studying. Amorphia was a gaunt, pale and androgenous creature, almost skeletally thin and a full head taller ....for the last dozen years the avatar had taken to dressing all in black, and it was in black leggings, black tunic and a short black jerkin that it appeared now, its cropped blond hair covered by a similarly dark skull cap."

Finally, in some forums, e.g. headfi.org, forum members add images which appear below their names, in much the same place as our names appear on this forum. These images are also termed avatars.

Brad