The future was yesterday

So you have seen I, Robot and thought it is a nice little movie. Frankly, it scared the living hell out of me. Having read Asimoov's I, Robot novels 18 years ago they were cool science fiction.
But that was decades after the book was published. Now, today you have to ask yourself how far away are we from that future? Come to think of it the 3 laws of robotics make perfect sense. Also the possible outcome that lead VICKY to take over the world.

The latest is that robots (ASIMO II) dances and runs. There are robot soccer world championships and the latest fad is to produce military robots to fight on the front (of whatever war). Now ask yourself how far away are we from that "future". The Terminator no longer seems to be a thing for weirdos that like Austrians on steroids.

Comes the next one! Think of the great narration of the movie "The 13th floor". Not only is Adorf an excellent actor, but this is likely an equally good movie as Matrix when it comes to making you think. While we may think that Second Life is fun, as we create Avatars, some actually believe that we already live in a computer simulation (http://www.simulation-argument.com/matrix.html)
By the way, second life is an old idea... Guys, you remember the C-64 and LCP...(Little Computer People)?? A new group of researches is the spin off from these kinds of applications. They research the behaviour of people in VR and they actually claim you can judge if there is a male or female behind an avatar by monitoring it's behavior.

And here is for all the business travelers: Next time you approcah the runway, ask your stewardess (Airhostess or Flugbegleiter) if there is an actual pilot in the cabin or if that thing uses Autoland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland). Coming back to I, Robot... Cars that drive automatically. Funny? Boring! Why would i want to have a car that drives without me..?
Even though Mercedes no longer Dymler Chrysler is close to it.

And here comes the last dying breed: Printed stuff. Watch Minorty Report (originally written in the 50s). There you see the people holding a newspaper which is a translucent sheet, updated via mmmm Bluetooth or Wireless Internet. Research points at decreasing production of print media. Not that people don't read, but not printed stuff as we know it. People nowadays read on a screen of some sort. Over the last few years we have seen TVs becoming increasingly slimmer. How much more does it take before there is such thing as the roll up screen? Well, done already (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/10/11/DI2005101101387.html).

At this point I would like you all to go and get the following videos: War Games, Terminator (ignore the time travel), I, Robot, 13th Floor, Fail Safe, Silent Running, THX 1138, Blade Runner and Titan AE. For those who still know how to read: Neuromancer and Gekauftes Leben. Once you'r done tell me that you are not scared!

Alright, while you do that, i will log onto my Third Life and see if I can get some Nano fodder for my HTML-Dog and the Binary Code Cat. 100010010011 1011 10001!