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Archive for the ‘entertainment’ category: Page 132

Dec 12, 2013

Edge of Tomorrow — Official Trailer 1 [HD]

Posted by in categories: entertainment, existential risks, exoskeleton, military, time travel

The epic action of “Edge of Tomorrow” unfolds in a near future in which an alien race has hit the Earth in an unrelenting assault, unbeatable by any military unit in the world.
Lt. Col. Bill Cage (Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop—forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again…and again.
But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt). And, as Cage and Rita take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy.

Dec 10, 2013

How Artificial Intelligence Might Monetize Fan Fiction

Posted by in categories: entertainment, media & arts, robotics/AI

By

153913542“Creative” machines are already here. There are composition programs that write original music, data analysis programs that produce original news reports, and artistic robots that create original paintings. Leave the composition program running after breakfast, and you’ll have 5,000 chorales by lunch. Immediately after the last NFL game of the week, the analysis program will prepare 300 unique football reports and recaps for you per second. The painting robot can even mix its own paints and wash its own brushes.

But what about fiction? David Cope, the music professor who created Emmy, the composition program that can create 5,000 original music pieces in a morning, says in an email, “I believe that without a doubt computer programs will write novels. Even great novels. It seems to me that we would be selling human creativity short if we didn’t believe that to be true.” That represents quite an endorsement of human ingenuity: We are creative enough to make machines that can relieve us of the need to be creative. However, Joe Procopio of Automated Insights, which provided Yahoo Sports with more than 50 million fantasy football recaps and reports during the 2012 NFL season, takes a more guarded view. “I’m very skeptical of the possibility of machines being able to generate viable fiction in the near term,” he cautions in an email before adding, “But I’m sure it can be done.”

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Dec 8, 2013

‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Ender’s Game’ are making 3D printing Hollywood’s smartest new marketing tool

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, entertainment, media & arts

‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Ender’s Game’ are making 3D printing Hollywood’s smartest new marketing tool

December 4, 2013 8:16 AM

Hollywood, despite being ancient and entrenched, is embracing 3D printing in a big way.

To help market The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Warner Bros. will offer fans digital blueprints of “The Key to Erebor,” a key item from the series, which fans can 3D print on their own or send to a company like Shapeways to print for them.

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