News You Can't Use: Robot 'Sent Back to Humanoid School'

We're rapidly approaching a technological singularity where robots will be able to type letters that are blurry and have lines through them or participate in the internet without immediately becoming racist against every single people group. The frustration comes in being so close but falling just short, as even promising bots must be returned to "humanoid school" [common core joke goes here] after failing spectacularly in basic interactions with the meat bags they will one day destroy. Hopefully this will prove corrective, because I have a feeling I'll make a great pet.

A robot has been sent back to 'language school' after she forgot where the Great Wall of China is.

The hero types "Who is buried in Grant's tomb?" into the supercomputer, causing it to melt down, throwing off sparks and billowing clouds of smoke.

China's talking robot Jia Jia stumbled over her words during her first live TV interview in English.

We expected it to effectively mock Mercerism, but instead it was a total mess.

The mechanical marvel 'forgot' basic words and phrases in conversation with American journalist Kevin Kelly. 

He's interviewed Obama, he's used to it.

Jia Jia, wearing a wig and long flowing robes, was unable to respond to questions about the number of letters in the English alphabet.

It's going to be a great interview, I'll ask the metal woman about the alphabet and the Great Wall, maybe slip in something about a turtle in a desert if there's time.

And when quizzed about where in China the country's Great Wall was located she paused before stating: "China!"

*checks Google* She's right!

Kelly, an authority on robotics and artificial intelligence, asked Jia Jia if she could talk about him. The robotic reply was unintelligible. 

It sure sounded like "Kill all humans" but my ears were probably wrong, what with just being rapidly dying biological material and all.

Chen Xiaoping, leader of the team, claimed Jia Jia was asked some "challenging" questions and failed to answer some.

Just because the average American would get it wrong doesn't make it "challenging."

Yet observers watching the conversation on a live stream expressed disappointment. "It does not work!" one commented, while another said: "It needs some major revamping." 

The real story should have been "Most Polite and Literate Commentators in History of Internet."

Full Story. 

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.  

  

News You Can't Use: VR Really Disappoints at CES this Year

Like many people I yearn for the world depicted in The Lawnmower Man. By that, of course, I mean the day when landscaping companies will contain elements drawn from Greek mythology because I read books and don't watch movies and did I mention I don't even own a teevee? If you saw the movie, you were probably amazed by the possibility of a so-called virtual world. In addition to the one you get from the bottle or those special stickers, naturally. Computer technology should be allowing us to soon experience the safe alternative to taking The Ticket and having bum trips, cool cats. Or perhaps not, because this final frontier of useless lotus-eating onanism is not progressing for some reason.

Call it a virtual disappointment. Or virtually unsurprising. I'll just say I was virtually underwhelmed.

I'm a professional author! I'm writing!!!!

Whatever pun you choose, the virtual reality industry has some explaining to do after this year's Consumer Electronics Show, during which the biggest product announcements can largely be categorized as "more of the same."

First point: that was the same pun over and over so there really isn't any choice. Second point: that was a horrible segue into the main article, and I would know, using Stephen King short stories as jumping off points and all. Finally: more of the same is what you get from every technology sector, usually with minor improvements that gradually add up over the years. Big leaps forward and "man, this fast moving tech" is one of the most enduring and lamest myths about geek boxes.

Consider computer maker Lenovo, which showed off a VR headset whose primary selling point is that it's cheaper than competitors like the $599 Oculus Rift from Facebook or the $799 HTC Vive -- though Lenovo isn't discussing prices yet and the prototype on display doesn't actually work.
 
It doesn't work yet, but it will be cheaper. I'm not sure how much cheaper yet. The Future!

There's also Osterhout Design Group, which showed a new pair of smart glasses, powered by Google's Android phone software and using the newest chips from Qualcomm.

Yes, the newest chips, not those stale ones from a bag that was opened a week ago.

The glasses were supposed to be the latest entrant in the world of AR, or augmented reality, layering computer images on the real world you're looking at. (Think Pokemon Go.)

Can't wait to try driving with those on!

Even Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, which is developing its own VR headset, gave a presentation using nearly year-old devices from Facebook's Oculus.

We want lots of new navel-gazing miracle devices and we want them NOW.

If you relied on CES to show you the latest in technology, VR was pretty much a no-show.

If you were just there to see adult film "actresses" and play the new Madden roster update or shooter on a giant screen you probably had a decent time.

Ian Paul, chief information officer for adult entertainment company Naughty America, said he's concerned that there doesn't seem to be a serious effort from content creators, aside from his competitors and the video game industry.

The "teacher seduces bad student" genre is stagnating and it doesn't auger well for the future of computerized self-pollution.

"You don't have a rabbit hole experience in VR," he said.

I'm not going to make the obvious joke. Hey, I already said no. Get out of here.

Me want innovation!

Blau echoed that sentiment, adding that investment in hardware will likely happen over time. "There may not be an iPhone-like aha moment for VR," he said.

Try to carry on anyway, I guess.

"Average users, they want the perfect glasses now," she said. "That's not how technology advances."

I'm just sick of everything being blurry, you know?

Full Story.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.    

News You Can't Use: Everyone Secretly Hates Going Out, Study Says

The outside world is bad. Highly reliable statistical analysis has proven that this is where the majority of crime occurs, that there's this hot ball thing up in the sky for some reason and that guy bumped into me and didn't apologize. It's clearly far safer and healthier to live an isolated and deeply alienated existence viewing glowing screens and patiently awaiting the chilling embrace of death. If you don't believe me maybe you'll be more inclined to trust a hack writer from some b.s. clickbait site who is probably a few weeks away from being permanently replaced by image slideshows of thong disasters and celebrities at their worst and so forth.

There has never been a more unrealistic show on television than Friends.

The hallmark of quality writing is to open with a reference to something that's lost all cultural relevance via the passage of time and will need to be completely explained to your audience of generation nothing droolers and then top that off with some wildly inaccurate hyperbole. Yeah, that nighttime area show had nothing in the unrealism department on Ross and Rachel.

The fantasy it sells its audience on—that six people in their 20s can get together regularly without any sort of apparent planning—is a bald-faced lie.

Fudging "Let's all meet up after we finish our jobs!" how does it work?

Can you imagine the group texts, the email chains, the interlocking commitments, the sheer complexity of organizing a six-person gathering at a coffee shop? 

Well, that or it could just be your regular thing everyday. I know, crazy, but it is one possible explanation for why large portions of the urban comedy half-hour weren't devoted to "texting," something that didn't actually exist in any meaningful way for most of the show's run.

If it wanted to make any effort at realism, Friends should have been a show about six people calling each other, leaving messages, and making excuses so they could stay in their apartments and watch TV.

This would have been the greatest show ever. On tonight's episode everyone makes phony excuses and ends up weeping in front of the idiot box. Laughing yet, young person?

Last week, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released the American Time Use Survey, an annual look at how people spend the precious minutes of their short lives.

"Remember thou art mortal!" declares someone who works for a website dedicated to cat pictures and broad-brush sensationalism.

Mostly, people sleep (almost nine hours a day on average), work (just under eight hours on days they work), and watch TV (a bit under three hours).

Those "You got to LIVE, man" posters just flat-out aren't working.

A scant 41 minutes of each average day are spent socializing in person with other humans, a number that's fallen by 9 percent over the past decade. 

Well, that teevee ain't gonna watch itself.

Maybe something darker is at play here: Maybe Americans aren't hanging out because we're all hiding in our apartments and inventing elaborate lies about why we can't come out.

I guess almost anything is possible.

That's the conclusion of a recent study by something called Yelp Eat24, which I guess is like Seamless but run by Yelp? 

This sentence has all the formal elements of a joke but I'm sitting here stone-faced wondering what the hell I just read.

"It may be that FOMO—the Fear of Missing Out—has run its course, as a new survey identifies the power of POMO... the PLEASURE Of Missing Out."

My life is an empty spiral toward cold oblivion, but it feels so good.

According to the study, almost 30 percent of people are disappointed by nights out, more than a third are stressed out and anxious by them, and hangovers and arguments are also common side effects.

Then they made me drink booze and joke around, it was horrible.

Now, obviously spending time with your partner and children is a pretty good reason not to go out, and chores have to be done, but "listen to music" is not generally an activity that takes up an entire evening.

Honestly, you should be able to get that Ninth Symphony done in like one commercial break if you really lean on the skip button.

No matter what you think of "going out," this is kind of grim stuff.

Let's rail impotently against a massive societal trend we have absolutely no power over. Then go have jello shooters, assuming you're not gonna listen to music all night alone or what-evs.

Why can't I be alone in front of screen right now?

And apparently we're all lying to cover up that fact, spinning tall tales about needing to work out when really we're getting shithoused in front of Call of Duty.

Social awkwardness and uninspired first person shooter fandom...coincidence or something more sinister at work?

Your laziness, and your inability to be honest with others (and probably, yourself) about what your life has become, is not a personal problem, it's a symptom of a broader malaise. 

This is why it's important you vote for the evil old lady currently being charged with various high crimes.

That's why I'm not coming to your party, because society is slowly sliding into lethargy. I'll try to make the next one! 

Yeah, we're all rooting for you, dudemar.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.