This appears in the background of the dinner scene, but I cannot tell what it does. Anyone?
Tag Archives: agentive
Café 80s
Following Dr. Brown’s instructions, Marty heads to Café 80s where the waitstaff consists of television screens mounted on articulated arms which are suspended from the ceiling, allowing them to reach anyplace in the café. Each screen has a shelf on which small items can be delivered to a patron. Each screen features a different celebrity from the 1980s, rendered as a computer talking head and done in a jittery Max Headroom style.
Binoculars
Doc Brown uses some specialized binoculars to verify that Marty Jr. is at the scene according to plan. He flips them open and puts his eyes up to them. When we see his view, a reticle of green corners is placed around the closest individual in view. In the lower right hand corner are three measurements, DIST, gamma, and XYZ. These numbers change continuously. A small pair of graphics at the bottom illustrate whether the reticle is to left or right of center.
As discussed in Chapter 8 of Make It So, augmented reality systems like this can have several awarenesses, and this has some sensor display and people awareness. I’m not sure what use the sensor data is to Doc, and the people detector seems unable to track a single individual consistently.
So, a throwaway interface that doesn’t help much beyond looking gee-whiz(1989).
The Jacket
Dr. Brown gives Marty some 21st century clothes in order to blend in. The first is the pair of Nike MAGs. The other item of clothing Marty must don is a jacket. It has two functions. When Marty first tries it on, the sleeves are nearly twice as long as they ought to be. After complaining that it doesnt fit, Dr. Brown reaches and pinches a blinking and beeping red LED at the base of the jacket’s zipper. In response, the sleeves retract to a proper length, the pocket flaps shrink, and the epaulettes flatten out as a synthesized voice states, “Adjusting fit.”
Nike MAGs
Dr. Brown gives Marty some 21st century clothes in order to blend in. The first of these items are shoes. Marty is surprised to see no laces. To activate them, he pushes his foot into the shoe. When his heel makes contact, the main strap constricts to hold his heel in place. Then the laces constrict to hold the ball of the heel down. Finally, the tongue of the shoe and the Nike logo glow.
Yep. Perfect. The activation is natural to the act of putting on the device. The glow acts as a status indicator and symbol. No wonder everyone wanted them.
Fueling stations
Fueling stations are up on a raised platform. Cars can ride or land there and approach a central column. A rotating overhead arm maneuvers a liquid fuel dispensing robot into place near the car while a synthesized voice crudely welcomes the driver, delivers a marketing slogan, and announces its actions, i.e. checking oil, and checking landing gear. Continue reading
Back to the Future Part 2: Overview
The ongoing reviews are on pause for a very special review of a favorite and formative film, the future scenes of which occur on today’s date.
Release Date: 22 November 1989 (USA)
26 OCT 1985
Doc Brown travels in his flying DeLorean time machine from the future date of 21 SEP 2015 to fetch Marty McFly and his girlfriend Jennifer. When they return to that impossibly far date, Doc puts Jennifer to sleep and enjoins Marty to prevent his son from becoming an accomplice to a crime that ultimately destroys the whole family.
21 SEP 2015
After taking his son’s place and thwarting the bully Griff, Marty seizes an opportunity in the future to purchase an “antique” sports almanac, but Doc throws it away. Griff’s grandfather Biff overhears their conversation and fetches the almanac from the trash.
Before Marty and Doc can get the still-sleeping Jennifer to return to the past, she is apprehended by police and returned to her home where she hides from her future self in a closet. When they leave the time machine to rescue Jennifer, Biff steals the time machine, travels back to 1955 when he was a boy, and uses the almanac to make himself rich.
Back to the Past (1985)
When Doc, Marty, and Jennifer exit the house and return to their own time, the world has changed. Biff is the town’s evil crime and gambling Mogul, married to Marty’s mom, the town is a rough and lawless, and his dad murdered (by Biff).
12 NOV 1955
Together Doc and Marty travel to 1955, where Marty follows Biff to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, trying to retrieve the almanac while trying to avoid contact with people who might recognize them and keep events meant to happen then on course.
Finally they use the time machine and a hoverboard from 2015 to take the almanac from Biff(1955) and burn the almanac, but lightning strikes the Delorean, sending it away in time. Moments later a mysterious figure delivers a letter from 1885, letting Marty know that Doc was transported there and (as of the writing of the letter) is fine.
Marty rushes to talk to Doc(1955), and the plot pauses until Back to the Future 3.
The Mechanized Squire
Having completed the welding he did not need to do, Tony flies home to a ledge atop Stark tower and lands. As he begins his strut to the interior, a complex, ring-shaped mechanism raises around him and follows along as he walks. From the ring, robotic arms extend to unharness each component of the suit from Tony in turn. After each arm precisely unscrews a component, it whisks it away for storage under the platform. It performs this task so smoothly and efficiently that Tony is able to maintain his walking stride throughout the 24-second walk up the ramp and maintain a conversation with JARVIS. His last steps on the ramp land on two plates that unharness his boots and lower them into the floor as Tony steps into his living room.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
This is exactly how a mechanized squire should work. It is fast, efficient, supports Tony in his task of getting unharnessed quickly and easily, and—perhaps most importantly—how we wants his transitions from superhero to playboy to feel: cool, effortless, and seamless. If there was a party happening inside, I would not be surprised to see a last robotic arm handing him a whiskey.
This is the Jetsons vision of coming home to one’s robotic castle writ beautifully.
There is a strategic question about removing the suit while still outside of the protection of the building itself. If a flying villain popped up over the edge of the building at about 75% of the unharnessing, Tony would be at a significant tactical disadvantage. But JARVIS is probably watching out for any threats to avoid this possibility.
Another improvement would be if it did not need a specific landing spot. If, say…
- The suit could just open to let him step out like a human-shaped elevator (this happens in a later model of the suit seen in The Avengers 2)
- The suit was composed of fully autonomous components and each could simply fly off of him to their storage (This kind of happens with Veronica later in The Avengers 2)
- If it was composed of self-assembling nanoparticles that flowed off of him, or, perhaps, reassembled into a tuxedo (If I understand correctly, this is kind-of how the suit currently works in the comic books.)
These would allow him to enact this same transition anywhere.
Weather Monitor
Jurassic Park’s weather prediction software sits on a dedicated computer. It pulls updates from some large government weather forecast (likely NOAA). The screen is split into three sections (clockwise from top left):
- A 3D representation of the island and surrounding ocean with cloud layers shown
- A plan view of the island showing cloud cover
- A standard climate metrics along the bottom with data like wind direction (labeled Horizontal Direction), barometric pressure, etc.
We also see a section labeled “Sectors”, with “Island 1” currently selected (other options include “USA” and “Island 2”…which is suitably mysterious).
Using the software, they are able to pan the views to the area of ocean with an incoming tropical storm. The map does not show rainfall, wind direction, wind speed, or distance; but the control room seems to have another source of information for that. They discuss the projected path of the storm while looking at the map.
Missing Information
The park staff relies on the data from weather services of America and Costa Rica, but doesn’t trust their conclusions (Muldoon asks if this storm will swing out of the way at the last second despite projections, “like the last one”). But the team at Jurassic Park doesn’t have any information on what’s actually happening with the storm.
Unlike local weather stations here in the U.S., or sites like NOAA weather maps, there is in this interface a lack of basic forecasting information like, say, precipitation amount, precipitation type, individual wind speeds inside the storm, direction, etc… Given the deadly, deadly risks inherent in the park, this seems like a significant oversight.
The software has spent a great deal of time rendering a realistic-ish cloud (which, we should note looks foreshadowingly like a human skull), but neglects to give information that is taken for granted by common weather information systems.
Prediction
When the park meteorologist isn’t on duty, or isn’t awake, or has his attention on the Utahraptor trying to smash its way into the control room, the software should provide some basic information to everyone on staff:
- What does the weather forecast look like over the next few hours and days?
When the weather is likely to be severe, there’s more information, and it needs to urgently get the attention of the park staff.
- What’s the prediction?
- Which parts of the park will be hit hardest?
- Which tours and staff are in the most dangerous areas?
- How long will the storm be over the island?
If this information tied into mobile apps or Jurassic Park’s wider systems, it could provide alerts to individual staff, tourists, and tours about where they could take shelter.
Make the Information Usable
Reorienting information that is stuck on the bottom bar and shifting it into the 3d visual would lower the cognitive load required to understand everything that’s going on. Adding in visuals for other weather data (taken for granted in weather systems now) would bring it at least up to standard.
Finally, putting it up on the big monitor either on demand or when it is urgent would make it available to everyone in the control room, instead of just whoever happened to be at the weather monitor. Modern systems would push the information information out to staff and visitors on their mobile devices as well.
With those changes, everyone could see weather in real time to adjust their behavior appropriately (like, say, delaying the tour when there’s a tropical storm an hour south), the programmer could check the systems and paddocks that are going to get hit, and the inactive consoles could do whatever they needed to do.
Iron Welding
Cut to the bottom of the Hudson River where some electrical “transmission lines” rest. Tony in his Iron Man supersuit has his palm-mounted repulsor rays configured such that they create a focused beam, capable of cutting through an iron pipe to reveal power cables within. Once the pipe casing is removed, he slides a circular device onto the cabling. The cuff automatically closes, screws itself tight, and expands to replace the section of casing. Dim white lights burn brighter as hospital-green rings glow brightly around the cable’s circumference. His task done, he underwater-flies away, flying up the southern tip of Manhattan to Stark Tower.
It’s quick scene that sets up the fact that they’re using Tony’s arc reactor technology to liberate Stark Tower from the electrical grid (incidentally implying that the Avengers will never locate a satellite headquarters anywhere in Florida. Sorry, Jeb.) So, since it’s a quick scene, we can just skip the details and interaction design issues, right?
Of course not. You know better from this blog.
