The Future of Advertising

"At bottom, robotics is about us. It is the discipline of emulating our lives, of wondering how we work."

-ROD GRUPEN, Discover Magazine, June 2008

I like to keep on eye on technology and how it changes our life. Recently Toyota annouced a new spokeswoman, Hatsune Miku, a young Japanese singer who has been extremely popular in her homeland. Nothing unusual about that. Until you learn that Hatsune is computer-generated based upon a poplar anime character.

There have been computer generated actors in the past. Long ago there was Max Headroom. And more recently Jar Jar Binks. Usually these are rendered over a human actor who supplies the motions. I suspect Hatsune is totally drawn from comptures but she does use samplings of real human voices.

Bottom Line

Personally I'm not suprised by this. I'm actually more suprised that we have not seen more of this. Most animated films are now computer drawn with robotic models, not hand drawn. As the cost comes down I expect computer actors will replace live one with greater frequency.