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Neon
Neon designs avatars to be new, digital “associates”
“Artificial humans” – digital characters – have been proven off by Samsung-backed start-up Neon on the CES tech present in Las Vegas.
Neon says it intends its digital characters to act like digital “associates”.
Nonetheless, one tech business analyst advised the BBC the demonstration failed to impress him.
Ben Wooden of CCS Perception stated: “It was not the revolution that I used to be anticipating.”
There had been nice curiosity in Neon after the California-based outfit ran a viral teaser marketing campaign throughout social media within the lead-up to the expo.
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Guests to Neon’s CES sales space can pose with the digital avatars
Reddit customers subsequently discovered hyperlinks to movies of the characters hidden on the agency’s web site.
These have since been eliminated, however Neon has been showcasing a few of its life-size “artificial humans” to CES attendees.
Its present exhibit includes a row of huge screens, on which the animated characters are displayed.
‘Excessive expectations’
Neon’s chief govt Pranav Mistry claimed the digital avatars symbolize a brand new life-form.
“There are tens of millions of species on our planet and we hope to add another,” Mr Mistry advised the press.
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One of many animations performs music to passersby whereas one other does magic
He added that they’ve the power to present feelings and intelligence, and might converse a variety of languages.
However Mr Wooden stated the digital beings had the looks of being little greater than brief video clips of actual folks.
“They might get folks to shake their head or do a selfie pose or no matter however that is the kind of factor you would pre-program in a video of an actor,” stated Mr Wooden.
“Expectations have been exceedingly excessive. On visiting, it was laborious to get excited at this stage.”
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Neon had run a sequence of teaser pictures prematurely of CES
Larry Dignan at information website ZDNet additionally had reservations.
He wrote that Neon’s creations may be helpful if deployed in public to greet buyers or vacationers.
However he added that giving them a “mind” could be an even bigger problem than making them “picture-perfect”.
Neon has not but revealed the place the digital characters will first seem in public.
Catch up with all of the BBC’s CES 2020 protection