Time watched: 48 minutes
Time walked: 48 minutes
Calories burned: 138
Distance: ?? (The display read 78.11, which can't be miles or m or km, so I dunno. My best estimate is about 1.3 or 1.4 miles, based on the limited sample from before at the same speed.)
2057 is a TV miniseries from three years ago, set 50 years into the future. It weaves reality and science into a fictional story. I watched the second of three episodes, which appears on a Discovery Channel DVD set of shows about robots. Before we start, I should just mention how much I love robots. I love robots so much that when I was writing a music blog, singing robots were a recurring theme.
I was expecting a little more robot content in this show, and a lot less of the story, which was the weakest part of the show. I understand that I may not be the target demographic for this show, but the fictional parts were as hackneyed as they were, well, boring. (You'll see on that Wikipedia link that the first episode, which I haven't watched, shows a guy in a hospital because his Roomba defenestrates him!) As far as robots go, we get to watch Asimo put through its paces and start to learn decision-making skills.
(A quick side detour, if I may: I care about robots at least partially because of my extensive love for animatronic entertainment. When I visited Disneyland the summer after this show first aired, I had the opportunity to see Asimo in action, but my friends and I wanted to spend more time shooting laser guns at evil robots instead. It should also be pointed out that the Asimo display area was shortly thereafter converted into a sequel to Disney's 60's masterpiece The Monsanto House of the Future -- which leads nicely into the next paragraph...)
The show also spent a lot of time telling us how in 50 years computers will operate every single facet of our home, remembering what temperature we like to wash our hands at, and ordering groceries for us. And it discussed the role government video surveillance cameras will play in 2057, while not quite mentioning just how prominent all the cameras already are in the UK.
The special also deals with driverless cars, which I have virtually no opinion of, except that Walt Disney promised me that as far back as 1964 in the aftershow of The Carousel of Progress (building later converted into, you guessed it, the Disneyland Innoventions pavilion, home of the Asimo display and the new Innoventions Dream Home). I'm starting to think cars will fly before they drive themselves.
(And just to prove I think of everything in terms of theme park attractions, the show tells us that computers can't quite display holographs perfectly yet, and so they use a technology called Fogscreen, which I first encountered in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.)
The show is hosted by Michio Kaku, who seems enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the topic. Finally, let's talk about the story. A young boy in 2057, whose mother is a police officer and grandfather a convicted hacker, borrows his grampa's old computer to broadcast his own personal holographic friend (an orange shark) into the city's ads. Since the computer is storing a long-dormant virus from decades ago, which the city's mainframe isn't protected against, the whole city starts to shut down and a massive manhunt is launched for grampa. As the mom tries to stall the other police (for which she is utterly forgiven -- as are Gramps and Sharkboy at the end of the show), the kid and old man must race through the city's archives to find an old antivirus program, or something. The money for this segment clearly went to the impressive special effects, not to rewriting the script.
So, my verdict is this: if you have only 45 minutes and want to learn about things scientists were predicting three years ago, this is the show to see. Don't watch it expecting a lot of robots. I hope the other three shows on this disc will feature more robots, as the title promises.
There are two buylinks below. The first is to the robot collection I've got, the second to the entire three-episode run of this show.
(And just to prove I think of everything in terms of theme park attractions, the show tells us that computers can't quite display holographs perfectly yet, and so they use a technology called Fogscreen, which I first encountered in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.)
The show is hosted by Michio Kaku, who seems enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the topic. Finally, let's talk about the story. A young boy in 2057, whose mother is a police officer and grandfather a convicted hacker, borrows his grampa's old computer to broadcast his own personal holographic friend (an orange shark) into the city's ads. Since the computer is storing a long-dormant virus from decades ago, which the city's mainframe isn't protected against, the whole city starts to shut down and a massive manhunt is launched for grampa. As the mom tries to stall the other police (for which she is utterly forgiven -- as are Gramps and Sharkboy at the end of the show), the kid and old man must race through the city's archives to find an old antivirus program, or something. The money for this segment clearly went to the impressive special effects, not to rewriting the script.
So, my verdict is this: if you have only 45 minutes and want to learn about things scientists were predicting three years ago, this is the show to see. Don't watch it expecting a lot of robots. I hope the other three shows on this disc will feature more robots, as the title promises.
There are two buylinks below. The first is to the robot collection I've got, the second to the entire three-episode run of this show.
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