Movie Review: Surrogates

Last Thursday night, my wife and I decided to head to the cinema; with only a few movies currently interesting us, we selected the new Bruce Willis movie, Surrogates (PS: don't read any further if you want to avoid spoilers, or go to the Wiki link if you haven't seen the movie). We had seen the preview a few weeks ago and had decided that it might be worth watching.

The story revolves around worldwide use of a virtual "avatar" technology called Surrogates. In essence, technology was developed to help people who were paralysed or disabled by allowing them to experience walking and other physical skills virtually, through the use of a wireless neural interface and robotic surrogates. The technology caught on with the public, and due to the increasing use of surrogates in everyday life, reductions in crime rates have made their use practically "normal". The nature of the crime reduction is attributed to the freedom that surrogates have provided to the population; with the possibility to experience all that life has to offer without physical danger, there is no reason for crime.

The surrogates themselves are anatomically correct, idealized versions of their owners, although we quickly discover that this is not always the case. It actually becomes a major element in the story, as the use of surrogates can be likened to the puppeteer and the puppet; it is not always possible to know who is behind the puppet.

But there is a worldwide movement of humans who refuse to use this technology, and even refuse to interact with other humans who make use of this technology. In the movie, this is quickly touched on in news broadcasts indicating that "Dreads" have established outposts in all major US cities, and have banned the use of surrogates within their territories. This becomes a major plot point of the story.

As the story begins, we meet Agent Tom Greer (the character played by Bruce Willis), who is an FBI agent investigating the first murder in years. Like everyone else, Greer goes through everyday life through his surrogate, much like his coworkers and other people he meets. This murder seems especially suspect, as the victim, Jarod, is the college student son of the man who invented the surrogates and related technology, and who uses multiple surrogates himself (which we learn is illegal but not unheard of). The case grows more complicated, however, when several humans are murdered when their surrogates are "murdered", something which is not supposed to happen due to specific technological safeguards built into each surrogate. The technology is so reliable that it has been adopted by the military for combat use.

In effect, a discover that some humans simply refuse the surrogate technology, and even go so far as to refuse to deal with anyone if they are using surrogates. The plot quickly develops and we discover that a weapon has been created and used, which can effectively kill a user through their surrogate, a development which the authorities want to be kept quiet, as it would undermine the entire reason for the use of surrogates if users could be killed.

There are some fantastic visual effects in this movie, but unfortunately, the plot seemed a little lacking. By the middle of the movie, it is pretty easy to determine that some event will happen which will force the end to the use of surrogates. I just thought that it seemed a little silly to have such a sophisticated system, in use worldwide, to be so easy to disrupt. Even today's simple telecommunication technology is capable of this type of protection.

Nonetheless, the movie was visually entertaining, although we were both left with the feeling that perhaps we should have waited for this one to come out on video...

Online Tools review: Zamzar

If you've been working with computers for any amount of time, you have most likely run into the situation when you needed to convert a file from one format to another, but just did not have the utility or conversion application that would do the task. In comes Zamzar to the rescue. This online conversion utility has numerous options available to users, in several types of file categories, including: Document formats, Image formats, Music formats, Video formats, Compressed formats and CAD formats. There is something for everyone in here.

It's a handy resource to keep bookmarked, as you never know when you might need to perform a file conversion, but are away from your own computer, or simply don't have the tool to do the job. Go take a look at the full list of conversion types here, I'm sure you will be quite impressed.

Update on Blurb

I just wanted to update you on some personal experience with the Blurb book publishing service. After careful consideration, my wife decided to create a book of black and white architecture images she has taken in the Ottawa and National Capital region. She easily downloaded and installed the Blurb book creation software, BookSmart. After a few evenings of tinkering with the various settings offered in the application, she published her book, and ordered a copy for herself.

Five business days after her order, a very well packaged book arrived from Blurb. Having the physical specimen in hand allowed me to determine that the overall quality was excellent. Although my wife had selected a lower quality paper to reduce the final product cost, the quality of the paper that was used was excellent. The print reproductions were excellent, but my wife also determined that the picture quality might be better if she had used better source material during the creation process. This was to be an experiment in the process of creating and ordering a book from Blurb, and not a final product.

From what I have been able to observe about the process, I can safely say that I highly recommend the use of Blurb for the creation of any book idea you might have. You will get a fantastic product that you will be proud of!

New iPod Nano

Well, Apple has released a new generation of the iPod Nano, and once again, they've added features that make the device even more useful than it used to be. Taking a cue from the newly released third generation iPod Shuffle as well as the iPod Touch (and iPhone, of course), the new iPod Nano has incorporated many new features that set it above the average player. First is the Voice Over feature, which tells you the song name and who’s performing it without interrupting the music; it's available in over twenty languages, including: Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (Mandarin), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Second, the new Nano features a video camera with 640 by 480 pixels in H.264, up to 30 frames per second with AAC audio to boot! There are even some live effects which can be used with the video, including Sepia, Black and White, X-Ray, Film Grain, Thermal, Security Cam, Cyborg, Bulge, Kaleido, Motion Blur, Mirror, Light Tunnel, Dent, Stretch, and Twirl.

But that's just the first part; one of the interesting sub-functionality of this setup is the addition of the microphone. Apple has thoughtfully added a voice recording functionality into the menu.

Apart from this new multimedia functionality, Apple has also added another often requested feature: an FM tuner, with a few additions thrown in of course. The feed feature identifies stations and songs (if the information is broadcast) which is always a nice way to find out about new music, and the Live Pause feature, which allows you to pause live radio broadcasts, and rewind up to 15 minutes! It's like a PVR, but for radio! A nice feature in my opinion. In the past, there have been accessories that provided the same function, but it's nice to have it built-in.

One of the nice things about the iPod series is the support for several high quality audio formats, including Apple's own AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV.

The Nano now sports a polished anodized finish in 9 different colours, including silver, black, red (from Apple only), yellow (from Apple only), blue, purple, pink, green, and orange:

If you are in the market for a new MP3 player, head to your nearest Apple store, or any electronic retailer, and take a look at the new Nano. It might just be the one for you.

A new job, and a new schedule

If you have been wondering why I have not updated the blog as often as I have in the past, it's all due to a new job I started last week. It's not the most exciting place in the world, and it's surely not a job that allows me to use the skills I have, but it's a paying job, and in this economy, you can't say no to that. My only real issue is that it takes me away from my family for far too many hours a day, and I find that very hard. I know that some men make jokes about wanting to be away from their wives, but I am not one of those men. If I could, I would spend every waking moment with mine, but that is just not possible in today's reality.

Another sad realisation of being an adult....

Pick of the week: Scribd

If you've never heard of Scribd, prepare yourself for a little bit of information overload. Scribd is currently the largest social publishing company in the world. More than 60 million people visit each month and can discover and share original writings and documents with each other. In existence since 2007, Scribd has quickly garnered attention for their great interface, excellent search and upload tools, and of course, the quality and sheer quantity of the content hosted.

It's also worth mentioning that I've found Scribd invaluable for finding several out of date, out of print books, perfectly scanned and available for free. In my opinion, if a tool or site can help you find something that no one else has been able to, there must be some value to it! Head on over and take a look, I'm sure that like me, you will be completely amazed and will quickly bookmark this fantastic site.

Pick of the week: FFFFOUND!

Last week, I select a great site for finding interesting stuff online. Well, this time, I have selected a site that allows you to do the same with images online: FFFFOUND!. Take a quick look, and I'm certain that you'll end up staying for hours, looking at all of the images they've collected since they've been online.

Well worth a look and a bookmark!