Common Paradox Tech Blog

Get ready to kiss your privacy goodbye. Those horrifying billboards from Minority Report that know everything about you are one step closer to reality. Japan’s NEC has created the Next Generation Digital Signage Solution, a system that tailors ads based on who is looking at it.
 
This new system isn’t going so far as scanning your iris to look you up in a huge advertising database like in the movie, but it is guessing what you might like based on age and gender. The billboards will be able to determine gender and age to within 10 years by snapping a photo. Some are already crying foul, claiming the signs would be an invasion of privacy. NEC claims the ads would be anonymous and the digital imaging system would delete the images of people used to build the ads.

Do you think this is an acceptable system? It could mean you’d see ads that are more relevant to you, but does anyone really care about that? If this scares you, then start putting together a disguise now. NEC says several companies are interested in the signs, and they might make it stateside in late 2010.

Dave Knott writes “The notable science fiction screenwriter and director Dan O’Bannon has died at the age of 63. O’Bannon’s career began with a writing credit for John Carpenter’s Dark Star and he went on the write many enduring science fiction and horror films such as Blue Thunder, Lifeforce, Screamers and Total Recall. He was also an occasional director, whose credits include The Return Of The Living Dead, the campy horror film that made popular the zombie chant of ‘braaiiiinnnsss.’ However, he will be best remembered as the writer of Alien, one of the all-time classics of both the science fiction and horror genres. O’Bannon died after a 30 year battle with Crohn’s disease and is survived by his wife, Diane, and son, Adam.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You can get them in Torrent and pirated VHS tapes, but Hulu is playing Mystery Science Theater 3000 online now. Only five full episodes—from seasons 4, 5, and 6—are available, however:

They got The Starfighters, Secret Agent Super Dragon, Monster A-Go-Go, The Rebel Set, and The Giant Gila Monster (which is great). None of those are my favorites, but I’d watch them again. In case you don’t know what Mystery Science Theater is, watch this:

They do the same with cheesy movies—the worst they can find, la-la-lah—mostly science fiction. If you have never seen them, go check it out. If you are a fan, you are welcome. [Hulu—Thanks Bonnie]

astroengine writes “Science fiction is stuffed full of examples of pill-popping space explorers and aliens enjoying psychedelic highs. After all, space is big; it can get boring/scary/crazy up there. It’s little wonder, then, that our current space explorers consume a cocktail of uppers, downers, tranquilizers and alcohol to get the job done. Robert Lamb on tranquilizers in the space station: ‘Sure, it hardly makes for a civilized evening aboard ISS, but it beats someone blowing the hatch because they think they saw something crawling on one of the solar panels.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes “Controlling computers with our minds may sound like science fiction, but one Australian company claims to be able to let you do just that. The Emotiv device has been garnering attention at trade shows and conferences for several years, and now the company says it is set to launch the Emotiv EPOC headset on December 21. PC Authority spoke to co-founder Nam Do about the Emotiv technology and its potential as a mainstream gaming interface.” One wonders what kind of adoption they expect with a $299 price tag.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has decided to capitalize on the popularity of Windows Live Messenger in China, launching a new service called MSN Juku, which they call a “local innovation developed by MSN China.”

The service, however, is a lot like Twitter: It lets users connect with their other Live Messenger contacts and post 140-character messages. There’re a couple of important visual differences between this service and Twitter; old messages scroll to the right, for example, just like in another Twitter clone, Plurk. But it’s still a microblogging service, and one local media report actually called it a knock-off of Plurk, which is also quite popular in Asia.

Juku, which is currently in beta, brings several other innovations to the table; it lets users play games and win prizes, something that sounds like science fiction when it comes to the traditionally feature-shy Twitter. However, at this point, Microsoft hasn’t announced any plans to internationalize the service and perhaps position it as a direct competitor to Twitter.

Reviews: Plurk, Twitter

Tags: juku, live messenger, microblogging, microsoft, MSN China, trending, twitter

Barence writes “Science fiction has long inspired real-world technology, but are the authors of sci-fi stories finally running out of steam? PC Pro has traced the history of sci-fi’s influence on real-world technology, from Jules Verne to Snow Crash, but suggests that writers have run out of ideas when it comes to inspiring tomorrow’s products. ‘Since Snow Crash, no novel has had quite the same impact on the computing world, and you might argue that sci-fi and hi-tech are drifting further apart,’ PC Pro claims. Author Charles Stross tells the magazine that he began writing a sci-fi novel in 2005 and ‘made some predictions, thinking that in ten years they’d either be laughable or they’d have come true. The weird bit? Most of them came true already, by 2009.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At last, here’s the droid we were all looking for. In this frame you can clearly see R2-D2’s cameo in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek. This time there’s absolutely no doubt about it: It’s been confirmed by ILM.

Click on the image to see the high resolution version

Can you see him floating there, on the left, right below the huge arrow that I also missed when I saw the movie? That’s obviously him, a fact that has been confirmed to me by one of the movie’s sequence supervisors at Industrial Light & Magic—the same guy who said this previous sighting was just the shuttle.

I don’t know about you but, right now, I feel like what I imagine my dog Jones feels every time I take his collar off to scratch his neck. Oh yesyeyeyeyes. YES. Harf. Woof. [Image capture from Science Fiction Stuff—Thanks ILM tipster]

An anonymous reader writes ‘The director of Flushed Away David Bowers discusses his new Japanese manga adaptation, shares his science fiction influences and relates Astro Boy’s thematic relationship to Star Wars.’ I recently was reading Astro Boy manga, and I’m very hopeful that the movie won’t disappoint. It looks really fantastic, but visuals in trailers certainly can lie.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes ‘The director of Flushed Away, David Bowers, discusses his new Japanese manga adaptation, shares his science fiction influences and relates Astro Boy’s thematic relationship to Star Wars.’ I recently was reading Astro Boy manga, and I’m very hopeful that the movie won’t disappoint. It looks really fantastic, but visuals in trailers certainly can lie.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.