Digital Journal — Software that creates timely video news bulletins could add a new wrinkle to the media industry, while also replacing human newscasters with robot-voiced avatars.
Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois created a system called News at Seven that produces tailored news report depending on a person’s interests or inputted keywords. Computer-animated characters — taken from the video game Half Life — present the news in mechanical voices.
Scripts are created when the system selects news site RSS feeds based on the keywords, and then finds supplementary video and images through sites like YouTube and Google Video. Blog search-engine Technorati is also combed to find opinionated blogs posts relating to the broadcast. Finally, the system generates a script from the combined material and uses text-to-speech software to put words in the mouths of the computerized anchors. The selected video and images run in the background.
The system’s creators plan to use News at Seven to produce a daily news feed of three or so stories. They also hope to offer personalized news bulletins by the end of the year.
As intriguing as this story is, consider a few more relevant details: News at Seven plans to use avatar-anchors, who will deliver current affairs with all the emotional gravitas of Tickle Me Elmo. Also, if breaking news is another area where humans lose out to computer animation, what will stop researchers from totally computerizing journalism? That’s not to say reporting isn’t already harnessing technology, but when news bulletins arrive automatically with minimal or no human control, there’s bound to be errors simply based on context.
For instance, I might input into the search field “heat” to find news about any oncoming heat wave in my area. But the automatic system might return a news feed about the Miami Heat and their upcoming road trip. This isn’t an unlikely scenario.
What will be interesting to watch is where News at Seven takes off and where it doesn’t. Will CNN bow to the Web generation and get on board computerized news bulletins? Or will more progressive start-ups see profit in cutting staff salaries and implementing pixellated newscasts?
Until then, enjoy the nightly news without fear of a mechanized anchor.
