(sp)infocalypse

The announcements from Apple at its last Macworld may leave many yawning (or complaining about non-removable batteries, you know, FOR THE CHILDR—er, ENVIRONMENT), but one simple feature made me happy.

Facial recognition in iPhoto. Facial recognition in Google’s Picassa.

That’s not something entirely new, many companies have taken a stab at it– and we’ve been able to tag photos, improve upon search results for a while. It’s only curious because of Apple and Google are doing it. And it’s a huge start into putting those fancy-schmancy tools directly in our hands and pockets.

Here’s a scenario that may excite you, scare you, or perhaps, both.

You go to a party. Not even sure that you want to stay. Who’s here? You have your iPhone. So, you pull it out, hit the camera icon, and tap the not-yet-invented IDENTIFY button. Anything your camera sees will be shown on screen, with an overlay of information about what comes through the lens. The person, their job, how popular they are, etc. Hovering above someone’s head is their social profile– their myspace, facebook, twitter, friendfeed– whatever the trendy.app du jour is.

All this takes advantage of the facial recognition utility, which will certainly improve over time.

Apple is the retina. The camera app is the brain. Google is the memory. The experiences were created (and posted) by you. Social networking and media became the biggest user-generated database of humanity–for better and worse. Facial recognition at a social level means that now, we can google by sight. The interface-less interface.

Augmented Reality is simply combining the virtual with the real at the SAME time. My little party scenario is kinda silly, but the same concept can easily be applied to anything that requires additional information. Traveling to foreign countries, shopping for products (hello Amazon!) and playing video games (know anyone with an Xbox 360 or PS3? Ask to see Viva Pinata Vision or Eye of Judgement). Dozens of uses from the practical and educational, to the entertaining and frivolous.

Google has indexed everything from Earth and Mars, restaurants, 3D buildings, parts of the universe, and the rooftop of your mom’s house. If Apple can see something, pass it on to Google (or if Google can see it), then the slipstream of your data is made visible.

We are becoming software cyborgs (using tools). Perhaps next is augmented cyborgs (wearables), and after that we become hardware cyborgs (implants).

I leave you with a quote from some kinda famous guy:

“The solution isn’t to limit the information you receive. Ultimately you want to have the entire world’s knowledge connected directly to your mind.” -Sergey Brin

First, a soundtrack for this article:

This is the first in many articles about Sony’s Playstation Home. Today’s topic is about the embarrassing gender craziness.

Whatever it is that makes men take a game controller and move it instantly in the direction of female polygons, is beyond me. And, through the miracle of modern Schadenfreude, we’ve seen this backfire, in the notorious “Quincy-ing” where an otherwise convincing set of high-definition female anatomy quickly changes into high-definition male anatomy, much to the chagrin of the dance-humpers.

These are words I generally never think I’ll put together in a sentence. So let me break it down further.

Some guys find it funny to make their avatar in Playstation Home female. This will immediately attract male avatars (presumably *actually* male in real life (RL)), who gleefully engage in whatever dance animation that even *remotely* resembles humping, grinding, or whatever your term is. Double dance-hump score if the aforementioned female is sitting on the ground, where the crotch is right at the level of the seated avatar’s head. They switch it up and everyone gets grossed out, and attempts to call each other ‘fags’, which of course, gets caught by Sony’s overzealous language filter (and hey, not saying it’s overzealous to filter ‘fag’, but you know, when someone says the name of the game “Need for Speed” and it’s edited because it has the word ‘pee’ in it, you gotta wonder).

So, armchair conclusion #1: All chicks in Sony Home are dudes. Some of these fake women are not as clever, because honestly, ‘come_fuck_me69′ is not a convincing female screen name.

Now in the off chance you get to witness a female avatar telling a group of male avatars, ‘Leave me alone’, followed by moving away from the dance-humpers, it would be safe to assume that she is, in fact, female.

One thing I noticed in other games is how women are treated on voice. Depending on quality of connection, it sometimes might be difficult for some to differentiate between the sound of a 12-year old boy who shouldn’t be online anyway (according to the rule book), and a female voice. So, those conversations generally start with ‘Hey, are you 12′ (to which the female is naturally offended), and then end up (upon group consensus) with ‘Hey what’s up, add me, show me your tits’.

I’m not making this up.

The other night in Playstation Home, I witnessed an actual female change into a male avatar because of the depraved operators of the ultra-masculine manvatars (I think I just coined a phrase. Manvatar almost has a demeaning ring to it, like ‘mangina’, no?).

One thing that seems to help *only slightly*, is the existence in a lesser-public space, like the bowling alley, or a themed area like Far Cry. At least with the bowling alley, people can be *busy*, so the sexualizing has to come second. In Far Cry, one would hope people would be talking about the game or bitching about how they don’t know how to play Mancala (I’m getting good at Mancala btw). No guarantees though.

With only top-down content in Playstation Home, shopping, and dance animations, this is what we have to work with. And by ‘we’, I really mean, ‘this is what people connected to the virtual world space have to sell against’. You are only as good as your clientele and your competitors. Build more content, deploy it immediately and distract as much as possible. I can’t think of a common area in any virtual world where the lame factor pegs the needle. Pick a virtual world, it doesn’t matter. It’s always the same.

Naturally, this is nothing new.

So, here’s where I look for your take. What’s your idea on managing this in disposable public social spaces? (Trick question, I know: disposable + public + social)

This video compares the PS2 Eyetoy with the PS3 Eye. My excitement really starts with the Minority Report-ish stuff around :30 in.

With all the iPhones and iTouches floating about (and the hordes of copycats coming), as well as new touch-screen computers like the HP Touchsmart, we’re beginning to learn to use our hands to interact with technology.

Beyond the physical touching of a screen, we’re also being trained to move in physical space to affect a virtual thing: for example, if you attached a Wiimote and PS3 SIXAXIS controller to my arm, and fastened it with duct tape, I’m able to point at an electronic eye and change the rotation (on six degrees) of what’s happening on the display. Granted, the display isn’t quite yet a hologram, but hey, give it time.

Then there is the issue of interactive art and game titles that use the Playstation Eye camera– simply moving in front of the camera can move fish, ambient art, birds, and monster through their native environments.

We’re a ways off from having wearable technology in a way that’s socially acceptable– one of the biggest hurdles in the adoption of new technology (and trust me, I own a Segway, I fully get the trainwreck that is the collision of awesome technology and ridiculous form factor).

Finally, there’s voice recognition, something the owners of GM cars equipped with OnStar are familiar with. Speaking “Call” or “Dial” aloud forces the system to engage in two separate behaviors: getting ready for an address book request, or getting ready for a series of numbers.

The event horizon is here, more or less.