CANADA - CREEPY TECHNOLOGY: THE IMAGINARY FRIEND MACHINE

E3 used to be a shameless nerd spectacle in the 90s when there were 60,000 people hanging out in LA playing new video games and ogling over the C-list porn stars dressed as Lara Croft. Plus, since the internet hadn't strangled print media yet, video game magazines had the money to print 300-page tomes of coverage every year. People were happy. Then in 2007, the convention went invitation-only and cut attendance down to about 5,000 privileged guests. That's when things got boring and that's why the convention has been re-opened to the public. This year, Microsoft has been demonstrating their "Project Natal," which is a really frightening brand of artificial intelligence that, as shown in the video above, allows you to hang out with a virtual child that can read your facial expressions and remind you when your mom's birthday is. It doesn't help that the designer, Peter Molyneux, is basically a mad scientist. Even Steven Spielberg is hyped on this venture. Anyway, if this is the end of traditional gaming and the dawn of robot personalities finally taking over our lives, so be it. To reminisce, here are a few of the older attempts at technological revolution that paved the way for our new found virtual loneliness.

This makes us happy we don't live in Australia. Besides that, the whole virtual friend craze was definitely popularized by the Tamagotchi. We'll admit, it was fun to starve these small digital animals during recess, but now there's probably a million of these things clogging up every landfill from Osaka to Timmins, Ontario.

Virtual Boy was absolutely retarded. People were really sold on the whole virtual reality headset thing but all it did was give people migraines. Also, to achieve their painful 3-D effect, all of the graphics were awash in red. No other colors allowed. Why did they think this would sell longer than one Christmas season?

Another weird Australian commercial that promotes anti-social behavior. This paranoid kid has some schizophrenic tendencies that need to get worked out before he cleavers his family. Thankfully he has a Nintendo camera to fulfill his delusions.

The PlayStation Eye Toy was pretty terrible as well. It was really only playable if your living room had a studio-grade lighting kit inside it and even then the games were boring. Once they figure out how to turn this kind of technology into a sex simulator--which is probably about a year or two away, just as soon as some porn director can afford the development kit--the whole face-to-face socialization thing will be pretty much done for. Enjoy reality while you still can.

Comments

[tasty licks]

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ferrari guy

[Wenz]

I agree with every single thing that this article said.

Virtual Boy- retarded.
Game Boy Camera- lame.
Eye Toy- Lame.
Project Natal- Scary as hell.

They better not figure out time travel any time soon. Anyone have a friend named Sarah Connor? Get away from her immediately, someone will be looking for her shortly.

[shit hot dog]

STUPID

[poozer]

is it wrong that i'm just happy that it wasn't the japanese that came up with milo?

[pjgg]

Six batteries in the Virtual Boy controller!

[andy]

Hmmmm, the imaginary friend thing. I can see the benefit of this. But only if they punch it up a bit.

Guy: Hi Milo

Virtual boy: Hi, how are you?

Guy: A bit depressed actually

Virtual boy: HARDEN THE FUCK UP YOU WHINEY LITTLE BITCH!

Guy: Uh...

Virtual boy: DON'T MAKE ME CRAWL OUT OF THIS TELEVISION SET RING STYLE AND THROTTLE THE LIFE OUT OF YOU! CRACK A FUCKING SMILE!

Guy: Ok *smiles*

Virtual boy: THAT'S BETTER! NOW GET A SENSE OF PRIDE! LOOK AT YOU, YOU'RE PATHETIC!

Much more realistic.

[andy]

At a second glance I just realised the virtual boy thing and the imaginary friend thing were seperate. Should have watched the second video before commenting.

[hai]

yeah you should've done.

[amy]

SOmebody should talk about how awful both Konami and Namco were at the E3 expo. The low-level marketing staff at the booths of both Konami and Namco were arrogant and obnoxious. It was really awful at the Konami press conference. Especially being made to wait for 1 hour even if the press people had RSVP's. The low level marketing and programmers of Konami were abusive and would yell at all the press. Somebody should speak up about all the abuse these nasty interns throw at press. Namco had rude staff too.