The ‘News at Seven’ virtual anchor
Cory Bergman October 3rd, 2006
You’ve seen some virtual news anchors on the web before, but a project by Northwestern University takes it to the next level. The anchor not only presents the news using a text-to-speech engine, but it collects and edits the news automatically from existing stories on the web. Plus, it displays relevant video and photos synchronized to the newscast. And adds commentary from blogs — all generated dynamically. Yikes! (Watch the video here. Long load time, but worth it). “As we continue to advance its capabilities in finding interesting stories and displaying them in interesting ways, we fully intend to offer a viable replacement to the typical televised news show, tailored to a user’s specific interests,” reads the Northwestern site. Well, it won’t replace TV news anytime soon, but it has a distinct advantage in providing personalized newscasts with up-to-the-minute information. Oh, and no anchor salary to go along with it.
The next-generation anchor. Packing heat, for some reason.
13 Comments Add your own
1. Z | October 4th, 2006 at 6:03 am
IF that’s the anchor, that’s Alix from Half-Life 2 (hence the firearm)
Isn’t this a tad old? I could have sworn I’d seen something nearly identical to this more than a year ago.
2. tish grier | October 4th, 2006 at 7:21 am
that’s way too creepy! and reminds me of *something* I may have seen in some weird b-level sci-fi movie from the cheezy ’80’s. sheesh!
3. parker | October 4th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Yep its kind of wierd. She seems to be standing stiffly. I wonder if they put her behind a desk if that would help.
One problem is that they showed a map of Israel when they were talking about the Sudan. What’s that about? This is from a university?
Second, I like that she takes care of the zombie without prompting from her producer.
I think people will watch this (if they’ll watch Russian women giving the news while taking off their clothes they’ll watch anything).
4. StuDogg | October 4th, 2006 at 7:39 am
I think this is a brilliant career move for Alyx Vance.
She’s been in Gordon Freeman’s shadow for so long, it’s about time she got her own gig.
5. Sharon M. | October 4th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Yeah, I’ve seen this before too. WHOtv.com did something called “Erinbot” a while back. It didn’t automatically gather the info to generate the newscast, but I think they’re using the same tool to execute the finished look. I think it was Oddcast.
6. Vlajbert | October 4th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
It would be cool if they could get a second life character to read the news. You could jump to the TV station’s island to watch the station stream the news into second life or watch a second life character do the broadcast.
Ok, I’m just smoking crack but it sounds cool.
7. Parker | October 5th, 2006 at 5:27 am
Vlajbert , I think you’re ahead of the curve. Streaming the news into Second Life ? Why not?
8. Steve | October 5th, 2006 at 7:26 am
Doesn’t anyone remember “Dev Null” and Soledad O’Brian (sp?) from that late 90’s internet/tech show that was on MSNBC?
9. Fleet Street 2.0 » &hellip | October 5th, 2006 at 8:01 am
[...] The project, reported by the television blog Lost Remote, combines resources available online to create a fully-automated newscast. [...]
10. Vlajbert | October 5th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Hmm, I wonder if someone at work here has any property.
From the doco:
# Video
Landowners (see below) can stream Quicktime video files from any host URL onto a designated surface on their property.
11. Frank Catalano | October 6th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
I think I wrote about this … in 1992. It’s under the subhead Democratization of Information in the essay, “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Airwaves” that appeared in both Analog and in the Seattle Times on my Byte Me online blog, linked to from my main one.
It fits under the category of buying yourself an editor. (Back then, I called it a smart filter.) Who needs tempermental talent, anyway?
Nice to see the technology caught up.
(BTW, I actually posted this comment two days ago, but apparently the fact I included a URL kept it in the endless waiting-for-Cory-moderation queue. So I’m posting without the URL. Just do a search on “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Airwaves.”)
12. why do guys play mind gam&hellip | February 23rd, 2007 at 7:23 pm
free group sex stories erotic…
hot teens enjaculating…
13. Liey | January 18th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Wow, thanks for the excellent information!
Leave a Comment
(Please keep URLs out of the comment body or the spam filter will block you.)Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed