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32 Comments
- allaboutdatiki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
- Falldog, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Only serves to bolster my opinion on how great Minority Report was.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12"THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!"
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@Grimdotdotdot
Seriously? The point of the method in the film is interaction. Your hands are in effect 'moving' the objects on the screen, whereas with mice your hands are further away from the screen.
Besides, how difficult is it to move your arms all day? Do you have any idea how many jobs out there involve that same type of repetitive movement? Trust me, it is not difficult to do. - spudnic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Yeah I really enjoyed it too, too bad it so often gets overlooked as Hollywood blockbuster rubbish
- cdgore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7If I haven't seen it, it's new to me.
- HunterTV, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Dugg for "Dark Star" reference.
"What is your one purpose in life?"
"To explode, of course." - CaseyB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4My first thought was of that scene with Scotty in ST IV. I still say "Hallo Computerr!" all the time when my machine isn't responding.
- spyk3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4MR interface in demo form:
http://www.webjam.com/faridl/telecomblog/blog/20070325/ted_2007_the_future_of_the_user_interface/
Disclaimer: not my blog! - atavus68, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The author of this article misses the point on some of his examples. Metropolis, for example, he touts the machine interface as being "conceptually faulty" due to it's highly mechanical nature because 1920's culture had no conception of digital computing. His conclusion is WAY off the mark. Director Fritz Lang was saying that in a highly mechanized world were workers have no rights, freedom, or protection from exploitation by the ruling class they will be treated as machines with no concern for their well being. The work is supposed to be mechanically grueling and inhuman, as is the underworld environment the working class is forced to live. There is no conceptual fault here. It is, in fact, a perfect depiction of an industrial dystopia. Perhaps what the author meant to point-out is the lack of electronics as we know it, which can be ethereal in nature, as in the idea of cyberspace, but also efficiently interfaced. All equipment used by the workers in Metropolis is heavily mechanical in nature, which is reasonable since the allegory of the film focuses on contemporary (1920's) factory worker rights.
The author should have discussed the scene where Rotwang creates the robot duplicate of Maria, the first android (gynoid in this case) in cinema. Rotwang's lab is filled with all the classic mad scientist gadgetry, mostly flashy electrical devises like Tesla coils. He flips big switches and turns dials as electrictiy arcs through the air to transform the mechanical, and very C3-P0-ish, android into a perfect human replica. Electricity is often seen as almost magical and certainly ethereal in nature - traits sometimes shared with modern computers. But unlike modern digital devices that expertly control and manipulate electricity and light to perform complex tasks in well defined ways, the electronics in Metropolis are vague in how they operate. Without a lexicon of computing principles to play upon the only option an early sci-fi film had to express new and complex ideas was with ambiguity. As technology progresses viewing audiences become more sophisticated and familiar with both real and fictional computing principals. Sci-fi gadgetry can in turn become more specific and defined in how they function.
But I find it funny that the author considers rotating a dial to be lacking of HCI when I use a very similar gesture, albeit smaller, to operate my iPod. - nottidredd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7too much reading, i just looked at the pictures. heh Professor Hubert Farnsworth made the cut
- znicket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not one mention of Star Wars? Holographs? Faulty machinery? Power generators placed in conveniently explosive locations?
- howski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Still reading, but good lord! The author should try some grammar.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2FTFA: "“Metropolis” being the oldest science-fiction movie is a silent film from 1927"
Inaccurate, "A Trip to the Moon" predates it by 25 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Voyage_dans_la_Lune
Apparently I'm a bit too slow on the draw . . .
Nice SciFi name BTW Barsoom - PhunkyMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Any list of computer interaction in SciFi is woefully incomplete without reference to at least one of the incarnations of Ghost in the Shell. The original book actually took breaks on a regular basis so that the author could explain how the technology used in the story worked. In the first movie (based on part of the first book), a bunch of computer interaction methods are covered (augmented limbs, direct brain plug, etc). Throughout the first and second seasons of the TV series, many more visualization (probably the coolest concepts I've ever seen) types were shown. Throw in an underlying theme of hacking and ethics of such technology, and you have a load of material that should have made the list.
Also, for all of the mentions of Minority Report, I saw none of Appleseed (book by the same author of Ghost in the Shell). Anyone who read Appleseed and/or Ghost in the Shell will see definite similarities with Minority Report in style and design. - Sloop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is it just me or do I see 7 monitors in the Swordfish picture?
- Barsoom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Hate to sound like a nit-picker (although I am), but the first SF movie wasn't "Metropolis" (1927). That wasn't even the second, it was more like the fourth. It was however, the first German SF film and as the author of the article has a Germanic name there might the source of the error.
For the record the first SF film was "Le Voyage dans la Lune" written and directed by Georges Méliès in 1902. He followed that with another SF film in 1904.
He is important to remember as he started the "science" of special effects by inventing many of the effects still used today in modern films. Time lapse, freeze cuts, stop-motion and dissolves were all first used by Méliès. - pauliewoll, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Dugg solely for "Dark Star" reference and not its news value. RTFA - it's apparently dated around 2003.
Memo to Digg: can you either set up a new bury reason of "Old Stuff", or a separate Digg category of "No Longer News But Worth Sharing Anyway Because It's Cool And People Might Not Have Seen It First Time Round"?
That'd cover about 90% of submissions. Thank you for observing all safety precautions. - victorycig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Funny that everyone is picking apart little errors in the article. I'll jump in:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Babel Fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an organic life form, not a computer. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, as Hollywood tries to release these 'futuristic' movies, they age very badly. Hell, I have 60 gigs in my damn pocket now. Funny stuff, indeed.
- GamerzCorner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@spyk3d
I want one!!! I can't wait for these things to get on the market!!! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yep that would be an incorrect assumption.
the old computer network rationale was a new version concept. - indiggnant, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3And did you notice the spelling: "algorhythm"? I can understand fanciful depictions, but this is downright inexcusable...
- yournamehere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1in the 1970's version the Cylons were robots (centurions) ruled by one alien with many base stars. cylons attacked the city in cylon ships; again the ships themselves were not 'alive' as in the current version. There were three cylons per ship which attacked the city. The base stars then blew up the planet. This can be seen in the movie based on the original series. The Galatica wasn't a obsolete model in that version. also, the vipers flew more like a plane in space vs the realistic way the current one's pitch/yaw. Very campy show but for it's time there was nothing like it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@allaboutdatiki
Giggity? - n25an, on 12/03/2008, -0/+0I must say this is one amazing article... well done
check out my site http://scifichrome.info/ - RailOcelot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Keanu Reeves from "Johnny Mnemonic" "I only got 600MB memory in my brain.
- roadskill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Best computer/scifi flick ever.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
"We built a super computer with a mind of its own and now we must fight it for the world!"
Oh dear. Someone warn Sarah Connor.
- davidlow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1FTA Battlestar Galactica "simply adapted common interfaces of that time" (the original series in the 1970s). But wasn't that part of the premise, that the reason Galactica was the only ship to survive is that it was very old and wasn't fully computerized?
I've seen a lot of episodes, but never the pilot, so I'm just assuming the premise is the same as the modern (2003 debut) version of the show. Is this correct? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2FTA 'In “The Matrix” Keanu Reeves again got a role where his brain is interfaced to connect to a computer. As with all other humans in the envisioned future of that movie a computer controls his consciousness by accessing his brain physically through the backside of his head.'
Keanu has an ass on his head? That explains all the ***** that comes out, I suppose...
And why is the holographic movie of Anderton's wife in Minority Report included? There is no interaction here, it's just a recording. - Grimdotdotdot, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2***** - the computer interface in MR would have been better with two mice - move your hands around like that all day long and you're going to be knackered after a day at work.
- changyang1230, on 10/12/2007, -11/+129 digg and on the front page.
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