Rick's b.log - 2010/03/11
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Chuckie Lives

Having written about alternate visions of the venerable all-seeing computer on the fifth, the Japanese go and throw an incredibly large spanner in the works.

With Yotaro (I think they should have called it Akuma), a... um... well, let's put it like this. It is probably supposed to be a "baby simulator" to introduce a child, or maybe some clueless parents, into the idea of an addition in the house. However with its backlit (rear projection) face, real fake tears, and touch sensing abilities, this possessed Demon Seed Bride Of Chucky wannabe is really not going to hit the mark.
I mean, for a start, where's the poop? Where's the upchuck?
Okay, you've got fake snot, but that's pretty tame compared to what a baby can chuck at you.

You'll know you have a decent baby simulator when you can give it to your eight year old daughter and she instantly gets a shower of vomit in her hair, and instead of tidying herself up, has to change nappies while trying to avoid being peed on. Feeding the thing will involve about a third eaten, a third on the floor, and a third spat in her face. Or yours, if you don't have a daughter to hand or she suddenly invented a really convincing imaginary friend. Oh, and sleep? Forget it.
Hit those markers, you have a baby simulator.

This thing? Well, the poop will probably be from said-daughter who will be terrified into therapy for at least the next two afterlifes... It... Um...

Tell you what - watch this (the still that YouTube provides oughta be enough to give you nightmares!):

It's a sweet video. Starts off well. Loads of babies (the second one is almost cute, and you know what I think of babies). Tasteful music. You get the feeling something interesting is coming, right?
Wrong. The music stops, the camera pans down and... and... control yourself, this is supposed to be serious.

I bet all the females (children and grownups alike) have just run out of the room screaming. If not, flip to full-screen so they can see it clearly. Glowing. Like a sleeping spirit of the other world. Waiting. Biding its time. Trying to surreptitiously steal your children's souls.

The video continues to explain a little bit about how it works. Touch sensors, animatronics. It's a clever bit of kit. But... miGod, those haunted ultraviolet eyes. I think it was perhaps not the best idea to make the damned (as in eternally) thing glow. Really.
What would rock-loads is a capacitive-style touchpad over an LCD (think like the display of the iPhone and all the pretenders). If you could map that onto a flexible plastic mould, you'd have it made. It would be responsive, it would have 'flex', it would be able to be pixel-mapped to be a face, and it wouldn't look like the unholy merger of Chucky, Casper, and HAL.

If anybody from the University of Tsukuba is reading (which, let's face it, is really unlikely!), the two main scare-factor parts are:

• It glows. Not like a manga baby but like the forest spirits in Princess Mononoke. It glows way too bright.
• Those eyes. Oh...My...God. Those eyes.
  I am reminded of a line from a Toyah song:
     I scare the monster in the Creepy Room. He does not like my eyes, he says they look like wounds.

The official Yotaro website is here.

Riiiiipped!

• http://en.pudn.com/downloads35/ebook/detail111079_en.html
• http://www.5177517.com/35865.html (via Google Translate)

There is zero way it can be argued - especially as the first site displays pictures and it shows an Acorn ARM 610 processor card, and further down the RISC OS 3.7 start-up banner. I mean, this alone should somewhat narrow down the options. Then, given you can find these pictures, um... here and here...

I have sent a message to both sites saying that it is okay for them to keep it on (it was written to educate people, it would be churlish to say "take it down", I'm not the RIAA!), however I would like them to say somewhere in the on-line description who wrote it and where it came from (i.e. me and this site).

Am I being too cynical to think this might be met with resounding silence? ☺

Hehe... the second site is based in the US (according to FlagFox). I could issue a DCMA takedown! [and then slap myself until I die of brain hæmorrhage for being such an ass]

You might wonder what my complaint is, exactly.
It is simple. I put loads of time and effort into producing that content. The least you can do if you want to mirror what is freely available online (and I suspect PUDN might be a pay-for service?) is to put my damn name on the screen. It's the only fame I'll get except for the select few that read my witterings (and my new best friend spider.yandex.ru - Привет!).

Your comments:

Rob, 11th March 2010, 21:16

Wow.. scary baby!! I agree with you.