The Future of Animation

Have you watched an animated movie lately? Maybe Frozen, or Train your Dragon? The graphics are amazing and yes they look like cartoons but still amazing. Then there are the video games, some of these are so realistic now that you almost forget you are playing a video game.

So what is the future of all of this computer animated entertainment? The future is that it will continue to get more and more realistic to the point where we will not be able to tell apart humans filmed on camera and CG characters. I believe that the cartoons will still be cartoons otherwise the kids will not enjoy it as much. When I say kids I mean of all ages.

So what does this mean for actors and actress? In the next 10 or so years we simply may not need them. They can all be generated by computers in real-time and our entire "Matrix" world will be complete.

Ahhhh! but there is still one piece of the puzzle and that is the voices. Right now the voices for animated characters are performed by real humans. I do believe it is not that far off from this being computerized as well. Think of the cost savings from having to hire professional voice overs.

Synthesizing the voice is actually a difficult thing to do, just ask Siri (Apple) or Cortana (Microsoft) and you tell me how real those voices sound. They don't... As much as they love to say that they sound good, a small child can tell you that is a computer voice and is not real.

We are a bit of a ways off from making human voices originate completely from the bits and bytes of the computer world. There are other hurdles to overcome as well such as these voices having a personality, depth, and realistic tone and pitch. The next question is should they sound like a famous person that we can relate to or just a random pitch and tone.

So the final question is when we have computer generated humans and computer generated voices will we be licensing famous people's looks and voices or just make up new "famous virtual people".

Censoring the Search Index

Recently the high court of the European Union in Luxembourg decided that Google is required to "amend" search results to reflect "individuals right to be forgotten". Google has rightfully fought this all the way to the high court in the EU as they are not creating or controlling the content but simply indexing it. Google is claiming they are an "information aggregator" and not a "controller" of the information.

This amounts to censorship that hurts the Internet more than anything. Google would not even allow bad things said about it's own CEO to be removed from it's the indexes. As this would destroy the core idea that the Internet should be uncensored and uncontrolled.

I propose that Google and all other search engines simply remove their servers from any country that demands this type of censorship. If users want to utilize these search engines then they can still access them but will have to cross over political borders into "censor free" countries to do so.

Think of China. Long story short, Google went there and left. Do I need to say anymore on that?


So what is the solution. Censoring anything is bad. Text books, history, anything. If you did something bad in the past then you are going to have to live with it. Go to the content source and deal with them. Think of going to every library and forcing them to remove a newspaper article about something you did. You will fail miserably and rightfully so. There is no difference here other than its electronic.

The problem compounds that if someone can say (for example). "Hey, I don't want that inappropriate picture of me in the index, take it down!" and the index complies adding an exception. "Ok Google", now multiply that by millions of request and exceptions... Let me know how that works out for you and the hundreds of staff that you have to hire just to deal with these request. Plus how do you know if the request are legit? Why not rewrite history while we are at it.

Bottom line: Google, Bing, Yahoo, and any other reputable search engine. Don't give in to censorship EVER! If a country or government forces you to censor, pull your servers out of there. Again remember China.

Finally, as I personally have issues with authority (ask anyone that knows me). I say just ignore the court ruling. What are they going to do? Ban Google and any other non-conforming search index throughout the entire European Union?


Referenced article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2014/05/13/europeans-can-now-force-google-to-strike-irrelevant-search-results/

Tracking without losing your privacy

This thought stated as a way to collect tolls and track road usage while not giving up privacy. I use Fastrack here in California and it knows when I was on a toll road and even how fast I was going.

Now I personally don't care about that data much since I'm not doing anything that anyone else would care about.

What if you did care. What if our non-trustworthy government decided that instead of a gas tax, all cars will just be tracked for usage and charged accordingly.

This may happen sooner than later with alternative fuels and electric cars. They may not pay much of or any gas tax therefore not contributing to road maintenance and construction of new roads.

So how can the government or contacted agency get this data without invading your privacy.

We need a solution that allows an individual to provide enough data to the organization that needs that data without compromising privacy. I believe this can be done by doing the following:
- Track only how many miles were traveled in an area.
- Do not track times
- Only report the month or quarters totals.
- Data collection request occurs constant but device only reports when required.

Let me explain this all...
The agency or organization only needs enough information to generate a usage billing. The device knows where you are but that device does not report that detailed data, only totals for the different areas.

Let's say you are driving through the city of San Diego on surface streets. In one month you drive 342 miles on these surface streets. That's all the city needs to know to provide you with a tax bill. The idea is instead of gas tax paying for road repair, drivers pay for where they actually drive!

The device in your car that can replace a fastrak as well only stores totals. Even if it was compromised there would be no detailed tracking data.

As you drive around there are readers like what toll roads have now that collect the data from these devices. The devices will be polled but only answer when their reporting period is due. By not answering this prevents tracking to the collection locations. When it does answer and uploads it's report it is packaged anonymously and only the collection agency will see the contents. There should be no record of what collector received the report. Again ensuring privacy of the drivers.

When you drive under these collection points your tracker can also get updates. I would foresee updates happening all the time with information on new areas, changed areas, plus as you move to an area you have never been, a new map. The trackers would only store a map large enough to cover say a few hundred square miles. If you were to go on a trip to Las Vegas then as your tracker passed through collection points it would give you more areas. All of this data transaction would be anonymous so you would not be tracked.

Each area that it's basically just a border of GPS coordinates would have a number and that number would have a corresponding mileage increment with it as you move around in that area. Once your collection time comes up all that data is uploaded and once confirmed it is received your tracker gets a clear code. For prevention of a trackers data being cleared there would need to be safeguards. In the event a tracker is lost there would be a fine, this would be enough to cover the cost of the tracker itself plus an average amount of fees that would normally be collected in a period.

Why so paranoid?
Because too much data can be used for malicious purposes. Here are several examples of what detailed tracking data could be used for:
-Let's say your seeing a sociologist and you don't want anyone to know. If you were tracked then a pattern of always going to a particular area at a particular time would give away your secret.
-You could be having an affair. Not a nice thing to do but nonetheless it's none of the government business.
-What if you frequented a gun range and you were running for political office. Maybe that is not something you want people to know.
-Just in general it's no one's business where you are or where you go. This is a free country, we don't have to be treated like communist Russia where we have to have papers to move around the country. It's plain and simple too much information that no one should have.

So as we move forward with the inevitable of having to pay for use of roads and other shared resources. Having a solution that respects our privacy while still providing enough data to pay for these resources is a win win for everyone. The added benefit is a more fair way of collecting taxes. So grandma with an older car that gets poor gas mileage but only drives to the grocery store and back vs the hybrid owner that drives 30,000 miles a year all over the country will both be treated more fairly.

I would suggest that the mileage rates be based on the weight of the vehicle as they cause more wear on the roads thus more costs to maintain.

Idea for a better Smart Phone Screen

Maybe the next big thing?

While I think smartphones are incredible and they get better all the time, one thing that is missing is real buttons you can feel. I don't mean the small power, volume, and the middle home button on the bottom. I mean real buttons that you can dial phone numbers with.

How do you do that?

How about this for an idea: Make the screen out of a material like silicone (similar to what some cookware is made out of) but stronger. Now put in vibration mechanisms that vibrate the material at a particular frequency. This will make what feels like a rubber surface feel smooth. OK so this idea already exists.

Now for the fun part. Have a layer under this screen/substrate that is really an OLED screen printed on a silicone or rubber like surface. Now this layer underneath would be like a carpet of very tiny solenoids or something maybe more solid state. These would push up on the top layer and form a pattern. These patterns could be.
- Buttons for a dial pad/dialer
- Buttons for a game
- Buttons for any application
- A simulator for map reliefs
- Easy to feel bubbles for a message interface
And so on

The buttons could depress just like a real button by the touch screen sensing your press and having the solenoids retract. I believe this could be done with the proper timing to make it feel so real that it acts like a real button being pushed. Possible to even make it feel like different materials based on the feedback pressure and the vibration frequency on that area of the screen.

With a dialer app or texting app this adds a level of safety since you can feel the screen with your fingers without even looking at it. Now when your driving (yes your not suppose to but we all do anyways) instead of looking at the screen you can just feel the 12 buttons of the number pad like on our old dumb phones to dial the call. Then press another button to dial.

With texting you can feel the balloons of the conversation and press on them to have your phone read them, etc.

Thought I would share this "thought" with everyone. Now lets see if this actually happens. I hope so! If someone or a team of someones can figure this out best of luck to you and please give credit to this post.

Why Are We Not Seeing More Hydrogen/Electric Powerd Stuff?

I believe that the powers that be, government, corporations, etc. do NOT like hydrogen because anyone can make it. Just think if anyone can make a fuel that can power just about anything being made at home where it can't be taxed, rationed, or controlled in anyway how much power these "powers that be" would lose.

Just like an electric car, having a form of transportation that does not require a fuel that can be controlled and can be produced by anyone with solar or wind power. This is a loss of control for our government and the corporations producing power.
 
Some of the first cars used electricity and because gas was cheaper and easier to store, etc thus electric cars became a thing of the past. Now a thing of the future because that cheap energy source is not so cheap anymore.
 
There are lots of options coming out in the market place such as http://www.clearedgepower.com/ that has an output of up to 5,000 watts and uses the waste heat produced by the fuel cell to heat water in the house. The unit runs on Natural gas and have extremely low CO2 emissions even though a hydrocarbon is the energy source. This product may get backing from powerful industry leaders because it uses natural gas, but we will see.

CO2

First of all let me state my position. I love this planet and I would like to see it kept a nice place for all future generations. That said I also believe that carbon credits are a scam and just making certain people very wealthy.

Carbon is the basis of (just about) all life on earth. The planet is a closed system with carbon in the air and carbon in the earth/plants/animals/etc. The trick is to have a balance of carbon in the air. Plants take it out of the air and put it back in the ground/animals/etc. If there is not enough CO2 in the air then we would be too cold, too much and we would be too hot.

I also believe that global warming is not purely caused by humans, plus people really need to stop beating themselves up on how much their car pollutes. YES I drive an SUV, actually I drive a truck and an SUV. Why, because they are more comfortable and safer. Yes they are safer, did you ever pay attention or take a physics class? Oh and yes I have already proven that the higher/larger SUV has saved my wife, unborn baby, and my life.

There are a ton of causes of excessive amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere and the answer is to do everything we can to embrace technology for our energy needs. Beyond the political issues, the economy is very important. Many will say "how can you care more about the economy than the planet!!!!". Simple, I am in touch with reality and the bottom line for almost everyone is their pocket books. Liberals, Conservatives, if you don't have money then you can't do anything, it is as simple as that.

Lets start using more natural gas, wind, solar, hydroelectric, and duh! NUCLEAR! Yes it has a nasty byproduct but nuclear is the easiest cleanest way we have of generating a lot of power...TODAY. As newer technologies get better then you slowly decommission old nuclear plants and move forward.

Oh and I am not the first (by far) and not the last, stop buying oil from overseas, use ours. It cost money and energy to ship it and money flows out of our country when it needs to stay here.

Hydrogen, fuel of the future

But many of you already thought that. So why don't we see more fuel cell powered cars, buses, trains, houses even? The creation and distribution of Hydrogen is the problem really, once that gets figured out it will truly be the fuel for everything.

We will still need petroleum for lubrication, different products that we use, etc and so on.

Think of hydrogen as a way to store energy. Much better than a battery as batteries lose power over time and are not really that efficient. Hydrogen must be created from electrolysis in water or by stripping it out of hydrocarbons such as natural gas. This is all easy to do but has inefficiencies associated with each method. As we can be more efficient to extract pure hydrogen out of water using energy sources from solar and wind (or other renewable energies) then we do have a truly green energy source that can do lots of things.

It can produce power through a fuel cell and it can be burned for heat or to run a combustion engine. Think about an airplane that runs on hydrogen, the emissions would be a small fraction of what fossil fuels are.

Why are we not seeing more hydrogen?
I believe that the powers that be, government, corporations, etc. do NOT like hydrogen because anyone can make it. Just think if anyone can make a fuel that can power just about anything being made at home where it can't be taxed, rationed, or controlled in anyway how much power these "powers that be" would lose.

Just like an electric car, having a form of transportation that does not require a fuel that can be controlled and can be produced by anyone with solar or wind power. This is a loss of control for our government and the corporations producing power.

Modular Cars

Options, options, options... There are so many, why not just go to a car dealer, pick a frame and then have them piece it tightener. We are not far off now. The structure of the car should be put together by people who know what they are doing. After that have the body panels, stereo, seats, etc put in with whatever choice of colors/options you want. This way there are not a ton of cars on the lot sitting around because no one likes the color or the seats, or... well you get the point.

Need your car fixed, just pull off the old part and snap on a new one. Done! All the parts can be recycled or fixed and reused. Parts between model years would be mostly interchangeable to minimize inventory. Customizing your ride would be taken to a new level and the car companies could make more money on customizing after the sale of the car than on the original sale itself. If you car is 8 years old and looks outdated, jut replace some of the body panels and your all new looking!

Well here goes...something

I have so many thoughts and ideas stuck in my head that I want to share...well that's the point of this blog. I will do my best to keep on topic relating to technology and how it can be used to improve our lives and the planet.