I don't know if any of the readers remember the Eliza artificial intelligence program from the early 8 bit days, but this is probably a good indication that things have progressed. Meet Emily O'Brien, or rather meet Emily's digital doppleganger, Emily. And this is much more entertaining that the old Eliza program for chatting.
Engineers at Image Metrics (think GTA IV) took 35 facial poses of the real Emily with a pair of digital cameras. Then the real Emily was invited to vacate, and the digital Emily was coaxed into being. Apparently,
ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real
Now, imagine how nice it would be to get online customer service with a real face. Not to mention online dating, which I really think I will avoid going into any detail. The video below shows the "interview" with digital Emily.
The really good news from this is that maybe, just maybe, that new Bruce Lee movie that has been rumored to be made using digital technology could be a quality movie after all. That would simply be very cool.
