from the next-up:-dragon-riding-competitions dept.
Humanoid robots could soon allow us to stream our consciousness anywhere in the world, acting as surrogate bodies that enable people to ‘instantly be in multiple places at once.’
This is the goal of the Avatar XPrize, an ANA-sponsored concept for a $22 million contest just selected at the XPrize Visioneers 2016 Summit as ‘ready to launch.’
Backed by Japan’s largest airline, ANA, the Avatar XPrize will be a globally televised competition for the development of real avatars.
Teams will be given three years to create a system that can control an avatar in one basic task.
Then in 2022, finalists will move on to the Annual Avatar Games to compete across five categories: caretaker, public speaker, disaster relief, tennis, and musician.
These tasks will include pushing a wheelchair through a course, cooking an omelette, and even providing basic healthcare to a wounded person.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:10PM
> Backed by Japan’s largest airline, ANA, the Avatar XPrize ...
Why would an airline sponsor something that reduces the need for people to fly?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:20PM
Maybe they have some reason to believe they need to diversify. Or that flight doesn't have a bright future. Like railroads didn't react to what become trucking using the interstate highway system. Who would think powerful railroads would be vulnerable.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:22PM
Because now people will take one flight while their avatar takes another. Double dip!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:49PM
Not to be taken lightly in this day and age.
Will service robots be allowed on planes like "service dogs" (95% of which are glorified pets with zero training).
How long will it take nation states or terrorists to weaponize the avatar? About a week after general availability I'd guess.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @10:08PM
(95% of which are glorified pets with zero training)
It's refreshing to see bigoted ignorance directed somewhere I don't have a dog in the fight!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @10:24PM
Will service robots be allowed on planes like "service dogs" (95% of which are glorified pets with zero training).
First, citation needed. Why do you think such a high percentage of service dogs have zero training? I'll buy that maybe 5% are emotional support dogs which have no training, but is there any basis to your statement of such an exceptionally high percentage are untrained.
Second, why would they not allow service robots on planes? Dogs are not allowed due to them being potentially unsanitary, panicking due to unfamiliar situations, and bothering other passengers. Robots have far fewer of those issues (and probably no more than any human). I can see them forcing them to be in a disabled or inert state to prevent EM interference/terrorism/etc., but I don't foresee an outright ban unless they are proven unsafe (e.g. contain giant battery packs within them, their form factor makes them block plane entry and exit, they are not disable-able, etc).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:04PM
First, citation needed. Why do you think such a high percentage of service dogs have zero training?
What? You think Frojack actually knows anything about the people he denigrates? You must be new here.
He is raw id, dedicated to pumping himself up by shitting on anyone he doesn't actually understand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @10:26PM
They just want avatar baggage handlers operated by cheap oversea labor.
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday October 13 2016, @05:29AM
Nope, perfectly reasonable if you follow the twisted logic.
The overgrown smurfs in Avatar had multi-purpose genitals which they mated with, used to control their mounts, and FSM knows what else they did with it off camera.
Japan loves its prehensile tentacle porn.
Next will come the announcement that ANA stewardess uniforms will be changed to schoolgirl uniforms.
I'm sure you can guess where this is going.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:15PM
This is gonna be great for Hillary to declare war on the world! Our Troops will be safe in bunkers while they pilot the robot army of death to all enemies of feminism!!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:24PM
Russian hackers and Trump will be safe in dark basements. They will hack the avatars to turn on our troops who have been lulled into feeling safe in their bunkers. In order to fight for the great cause of misogyny.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by tractatus_techno_philosophicus on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:27PM
Hillary doesn't care about women.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/14/hillary-clinton-haunted-by-efforts-to-destroy-bill/ [washingtontimes.com]
No moral system can rest solely on authority. ~A.J. Ayer
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:27PM
God DAMN give it a fucking rest! Can't wait for this election to be over (assuming that reduces the amount of this shit)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:13PM
It won't. The Obama shit didn't stop after he won, in fact it amped up.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:32PM
They don't even have to stop that when he's out. It will be Obama II.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:47PM
You can thank all the moronic Democratic voters for this one; they just *had* to have Hillary as their nominee. If they had voted for Bernie instead, all we'd be hearing now is a few wackos yammering about socialism. We wouldn't be hearing about scandals, being sold out to Wall Street, a corrupt pay-to-play "foundation", mishandling of classified information, Bengazi, being a compulsive liar, etc. No, instead, the Democratic voters just had to pick the most unpopular (across the general electorate), polarizing, and sold-out candidate they could, out of a field of 5 initial candidates, none of which had the huge negatives that Hillary does.
At least with Obama, most of the charges against him afterwards were silly ones from far-right wackos who could be easily ignored: the birther stuff, that he was a "Muslim Communist", etc. But with Hillary, it definitely isn't going to stop because many of the complaints about her are both serious and valid, rather than insane conspiracy-theory drivel. So I agree, it's going to be worse this time around, *much* worse.
And if Trump wins, I don't think it's going to be any better there either.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nerdfest on Wednesday October 12 2016, @10:37PM
True, but in many areas, voters actually *voting* for Bernie didn't even help. Man, what a corrupt country the US has become.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday October 13 2016, @05:24PM
What are you talking about? Everything I've seen shows that Hillary actually got more votes. There were some places where Bernie won, but many of those were states that used caucuses rather than primaries. And of course there were some places where he did win the primaries statewide, or at least in certain localities, but it just wasn't enough to beat her. The only irregularities I heard of were in one article I read about some allegations in Chicago of vote counters handling votes improperly or something. So unless there was some serious election fraud that's been buried somehow, it really does look like Hillary won legitimately, which means that we can blame the Democratic voters themselves for being idiots (especially the ones in the South). I really hate to say it, but the black vote was a huge part of the problem: somehow those voters shunned the guy who marched with MLK and instead voted for the woman who called black youth "super-predators". Utterly amazing.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday October 13 2016, @10:36PM
You're right about the south, that just blows me away.
There were places with polls drastically reduced in "Bernie-friendly" areas, and a lot areas where the exit poll variation from actual vote counts what is anywhere close to statistically probable. I'm not saying she still wouldn't have a few more votes, especially given the major media bias she was given (effectively blocking any Bernie news), but there was definitely unethical stuff going on, and very probably illegal as well.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday October 14 2016, @02:57PM
You've got a good point there. It's hard to say whether 1) some of these things were truly fraud, and 2) if so, if it really would have made a difference in the end.
Either way, it's too bad the GOP is either too incompetent or too in-bed with the DNC to expose this stuff and use it to hurt the DNC and maybe even get Hillary disqualified. From what I can tell, it's not incompetence, it's actually malice: they're in league with Hillary.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:01PM
> You can thank all the moronic Democratic voters for this one; they just *had* to have Hillary as their nominee.
Yeah, it is the democrats fault that total fucktards can't stop losing their ever living shit over someone who is nothing more than an ambitiously competent bureaucrat.
All those "scandals" your listed? They are the result of hundreds of millions of republican directed tax dollars spent trying to find something, anything on her. And the reason she's not in jail? Because its nothing more than Cardinal Richelieu's "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him," in action.
I never had any intention of voting for her, and I won't be come election day either. But holy fucking shit you conspiracy theorists are the biggest suckers, you think your cynicism saves you from being sheeple but you are the most easily herded of them all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:13PM
Democratic voters just had to pick the most unpopular
American voters in general keep voting for unpopular candidates.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by J053 on Wednesday October 12 2016, @10:54PM
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:55PM
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/ [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:18PM
Do not want! That's one step away from Roko's Basilisk. OH FUCK IT'S HAPPENING ALREADY!
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheLink on Thursday October 13 2016, @03:42AM
Can't actually be instant given the speed of light.
So you'd need workarounds like getting a wider field of view, so that people can turn their heads and have the viewed image match the movement with a much lower detail. Otherwise many would get motion sickness.
Something like the Google Jump would help: https://vr.google.com/jump/ [google.com]