Virtual Reality

I just had the most amazing revelation when I saw on TV today a trailer for a movie that was to be released in June (name unimportant) whose characters were all animated. These animations were so well done that it took me a minute to realize that they were not live actors. Now my epiphany was this -- in a very few years, most movies will be made with such pseudo-thespians ... quite a bit cheaper than flesh and blood ones ... maybe even in 3-D. They will not throw fits or be days late for work. And movie directors will have total control over them and their personas.

And guess what this also means? All those insufferable preening actors and actresses who prance around the world telling the rest of us how to live and who to like will disappear ... to be replaced by computer-generated cyborgs who live not. Even stunt and body doubles will vanish. These virtual-reality beings will take no drugs. They will have no lurid sexual affairs. They will endorse no automobiles, no perfumes, no political candidates. The most they will be are hollow voices like on The Simpson. Their visages and bodies will change with each new film and they need never to sag or to wrinkle. They can stay young and vital just as long as their voices do.

And finally the cost of going to the cinema might even go down. Now won't that be a refreshing change!

Afterward: And voice-overs may soon be replaced by synthesized sound which would totally eliminate the human element in screen entertainment.

20-20

I found this very interesting posting on “reddit” by a Yokocrono, “What can we reasonably expect to see by the year 2020?” and with the following predictions (mostly scientific):

- Personalised DNA sequencing for under $100

- 3D printing is a mainstream consumer product

- 10 nanometre chips enter mass production

- Scientists resurrect the woolly mammoth

- New drug delivery methods for brain-related conditions

- Total solar eclipse in the USA

- The world's first HIV vaccine is commercially available

- Teleportation of simple molecules

- The James Webb telescope is launched

- Polio has been eradicated

- Consumer devices with 100 Gbit/s transfer speeds

- Scientists drill into Earth's mantle

- Computers break the exaflop barrier

- Bionic eyes with high resolution are commercially available

- The Aral Sea disappears from the map

He/she has supplied the appropriate links in case you want to investigate further.  My suspicions is that this sage is a "he" (HIV prediction), a Brit (spelling of "personalised"), of Japanese ethnicity or a Beatles fan (his moniker), a computer geek (all the predictions about cyber-stats), an environmentalist (Aral Sea prediction), and an admirer of Bill Gates (polio eradication prediction).

Now if I may, I would like to add the following predictions to this list (sans links):

- Replacement human organs will be manufactured on a massive scale
- Global -warming mania will have disappeared
- The world will have experienced an extended period of double-digit inflation
- China will have annexed Mongolia
- A barrel of oil will be below $50; gold below $1000 per oz.
- Because of changing oil geo-economics, Islamist terrorism will abate
- Google Inc. will be broken up
- Obamacare will not bend down the rising cost of heathcare in the U.S.
- Putin will still run the Russian Federation
- Hillary Clinton will not be President of the United States

I hope I am around in 2020 to see if I'm right.