Talking Mirror, Pirate Skull Security System 125
junger writes "Themeaddicts, owned by a Hollywood animatronics guru famous for doing the T-rex in Jurassic Park, has created a home security system with a talking mirror (complete with floating head), talking pirate skull, and talking toucan. It informs the homeowner of things like a car coming up the driveway or the jacuzzi reaching the right temperature, and it turns into a surveillance camera."
Mirror, mirror (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mirror, mirror (Score:2)
Murray? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Murray? (Score:1)
Re:Murray? (Score:1)
Re:Murray? (Score:2, Funny)
Obligatory .... (Score:1)
Re:Obligatory .... (Score:1)
Re:Obligatory .... (Score:5, Funny)
Although you know it doesn't run on linux. Knowing slashdot, if it ran on linux it would say so in the title of the article or at least in the description.
This being slashdot you're more likely to see: To run Windows you'll need a bigger mirror.
Re:Obligatory .... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Obligatory .... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Obligatory .... (Score:1)
Mirror, Mirror... (Score:5, Funny)
Mirror, mirror am I stoned?
Your image is now goatse.cx guy,
My home security must be pwn3d
Re:Mirror, Mirror... Haiku! (Score:2)
You are goatse guy,
My home has been pwn3d.
Re:Mirror, Mirror... Haiku! (Score:2)
Re:Mirror, Mirror... Haiku! (Score:2)
Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1968. (Score:4, Funny)
"Oh, my God, you're from the Sixties! Out! Back to the Sixties! Get back! There's no place for you here in the future! Get back while you still can!"
Tell me that mirror is not drug inspired.
Re:Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1968. (Score:2)
Re:Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1968. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or else we'd have copies of Las Vegas popping up all over the place (shudder)
Re:Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1968. (Score:2)
Re:Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1968. (Score:2)
If you have good taste, you sell good things to the few with good taste, earning little money. If you have bad taste, you sell crap to crowds, earning fortune.
Re:Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1968. (Score:2)
Re:Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1968. (Score:3, Insightful)
Without a doubt the sixties had a profound impact on society, perhaps as much or more as the 1940's, and World War II in particular. Would I want to return to the sixties? Nope, I like it here just fine
"Surveillance" (Score:5, Funny)
Slideshow Images (mirror) (Score:5, Informative)
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/1937/2yv7.png [imageshack.us]
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/3663/3fj4.png [imageshack.us]
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/3041/4ty1.png [imageshack.us]
Customizable? (Score:4, Funny)
"Intruder in the driveway. The catapult is standing by. It's time to choose..."
Re:Customizable? (Score:1)
"A man enters a room. He flicks on his personal computer. A seemingly innocuous visit to Slashdot soon becomes a journey into... The Twilight Zone."
Re:Customizable? (Score:3, Funny)
More like "In-truder in the driveway. The cata-pult is ssstanding by. It'ssss time to choossse."
Re:Customizable? (Score:2)
"Intruder Alert"
"Intruder Alert"
"The humanoid must not escape...."
Instead of the butler face..would be a bouncing smiley face...
From the Article (Score:4, Funny)
Re:From the Article (Score:2)
Replace the mike with a cable to a computer's sound card, prerecord some messages, and away you go.
(And speaking of Billy Bass, didn't Linux Journal or maybe one of the hardware hobbyist magazines a couple of years back run an article on how to w
Re:From the Article (Score:2)
Until there's a fair dose of AI in there, it's still nothing more than a Billy Bass with more bling.
You know you're a geek when... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You know you're a geek when... (Score:4, Funny)
LOL!
That was my impression to the title of the story at first.
Then, I actually RTFA, and I like our version more (for the entertainment factor)....nevermind.
Re:You know you're a geek when... (Score:1)
How handy! (Score:4, Insightful)
slashdotting (Score:4, Funny)
Master, you site has been linked on slashdooooAAAAAAAAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH KIIILLL MEEE AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHH OH THE PAIIINN
Aye me matie (Score:4, Funny)
Step by step... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes yes yes, shiny gadgetry to do little of import.
On the other hand, it is "kewl", and could evolve into some genuinely useful stuff.
For example, a friend came home last weekend to find his live-in elderly mother, already incapacitated by a stroke, had been lying on the floor for 3 hours after a bad fall. If a house system had been able to identify someone was unmoving in a non-stationary part of the house it could have informed him, supplied images to his cellphone, tied into his intercom system to communicate with her.
(Yes, there are all sorts of other things to be done for his mother, and he has, including an emergency-call amulet - she didn't use it. The point is these technologies could move into these areas improving them)
For another example, an former boyfriend of mine has a condo in a resort area several hours from his primary residence. Setting up a webcam to monitor it visually was an obvious step towards maintaining the home, but a "smart" system that could make limited 'decisions' such as thresholds for activity before alerting him, monitoring temperature or water levels, etc. would be quite valuable. Yes one can really geek out now and do it with X-10 etc. gadgets but he's not, he's just an average fella willing to spend a few bucks on some easy to install/use package for his vacation home.
Then there's the partner-factor. If the significant other isn't comfortable having it in the home, using it, then it's a no-go. If putting a friendly interface on it makes it that much more usable then that is, as Martha would decree, "a good thing".
Personally I'd love a front door "window" that would direct package deliveries to my always-home neighbor, display to religious proselytizers an animated rendition of them (complete with inserted photos of their faces) dropping into the pits of hell, and inviting everyone else to record a video message that will be relayed to me. Allowing me to respond with unlocking the door or lawn sprinklers as appropriate would be a cherished upgrade!
Re:Step by step... (Score:1)
Or, say, recorded it to video, set it to "Yakety Sax" and uploaded it to YouTube before submitting it to Fark.
Re:Step by step... (Score:2)
That truly Rocks. Kudos to some very good uses of now tech!
Re:Step by step... (Score:2)
While I like your points on tech like this to do things of importance. I think that quite often, people rush to put down things that really ARE just for fun like this system. Sometimes people are too serious about life....
I think some things that are shiny, and fun for the sake of being fun are great....life is way too short not to enjoy things just for fun, and
Mass production... (Score:5, Funny)
How cool would it be when AI technology progresses to a point to interface with something like this? All of the sudden, the kid-sitting industry will taper off. Of course, we'll need to avoid any HAL like behavior.
Husband: "Open the car-bay door, HAL."
HAL: "I'm sorry Dave, I cannot do that..."
Wife: "I told you not to hire that cheap garage door repairman... And stop calling it a car-bay."
Husband: "I'll go get the Yellow Pages."
Pirate? (Score:1)
Re:Pirate? (Score:1)
This thing ought to look like what it really is - the real life MAX HEADROOM !!!
(Anyone here not too stoned to remember the '80s?)
Better (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Better (Score:3, Funny)
fire strobes while yelling Get the F*** Out
or for a more subtle psychological attack play a generic "master, an intruder was detected--preparing countermeasures now. ready in 67 seconds
Re:Better (Score:2)
play a generic "master, an intruder was detected--preparing countermeasures now. ready in 67 seconds
Still too wimpy. How about "Drop your weapon. You have ten seconds to comply." [atlante.org]
Re:Better (Score:2)
Re:Better (Score:2)
Re:Better (Score:1)
Re:Better (Score:2)
Re:Better (Score:2)
Re:Better (Score:3, Informative)
AlarmForce is a security company doing business in Canada with just such a setup: if the system detects a break-in, then the burglar is put on intercom with the monitoring station. If he can't convince the folks at monitoring that he should be there, then they just wait for the cops to come.
Re:Better (Score:3, Funny)
Adapting an old joke:
Mirror: "I can see you, and so can Jesus!"
Burglar: "Who cares, you're just a mirror."
Mirror: "Maybe, but Jesus is a rottweiler!"
Re:Better (Score:2)
you can find the site (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, there is a link within the article (Score:4, Informative)
How much demand is there for pirate themed homes? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How much demand is there for pirate themed home (Score:2)
While this might be very expensive for you and I....you gotta remember, there are a LOT of people out there that make a LOT of money, and that $19K is basically pocket change to them.
And I gotta say..if I was in that category, I'd have one of these on order right now...
High tech..? (Score:1)
Re:High tech..? (Score:3, Insightful)
But every *serious* switch, router, bridge or other piece of networking gear does.
High tech...mandatory? (Score:2)
What's your house made out of? Wood? Brick? Pfft - I see you're still using "neanderthal" construction materials. Me, I live in a house made with carbon nanotubes. Sure, it gets cold in here in the winter, but nanotubes are new, dammit.
True, but scads and scads of equipment in factories and laboratories use it - and personally, I'm
Re:High tech..? (Score:3, Informative)
RS232 (does anybody actually call it TIA232-F in conversation?) is robust, easily interfaced, well supported, commonly available, and cheap. RS232 is also quite fast enough for human-world device interfacing.
Many things have changed since RS-232-C was revised in 1969; there has been a name change and it is up to revision -F.
The Voice! (Score:2, Interesting)
(or at least that's how it sounds)
Sry for the fanboy thing, just... so freakign cool, now if only they had Megs as the avatar too, he was always trying to take over mainframe, taking over a house isn't a bad start. Make the Mirror look like a vid-window too, heh.
Re:The Voice! (Score:1)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0419645/ [imdb.com]
Surveillance camera? (Score:2, Funny)
Superstitious Nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
I would love to have one, I would just not show it to unstable nut cases. It kind of reminds me of the technomages from Babylon 5.
Re:Superstitious Nuts (Score:2)
Or maybe start taking your meds again...I dunno.
Re:Superstitious Nuts (Score:2)
Re:Superstitious Nuts (Score:2)
Fake? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fake? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fake? (Score:2)
Heh (Score:1)
Luxury? (Score:2, Insightful)
Take a thing like the microwave oven and the ready-made meals: A great thing because now you can try out a huge range of dishes that you would never ever be
Re:Luxury? (Score:2)
Not everyone agrees that gardening, cooking and browsing
Re:Luxury? (Score:2)
I can cook great dinner. I'm pretty good at cooking and treat it as kind of art, rarely following a recipe exactly, inventing my own dishes, which are often quite good. But if I come back home from a trip at 10PM and hungry as a wolf, I want to eat something fast. I open the microwave, throw in a crappy pizza I picked at the 24/7 on my way home, and have a ready meal in 2 minutes. If I had to artfully create each meal I eat, it would get boring really fast. I cook when I want someth
Re:Luxury? (Score:2)
Miles away, a magic mirror comes to life and addresses Bill Gates as he lies on his hover-bed...
Mirror: Master, a thousand apologies for disturbing you,
Still Waiting (Score:1)
you have to have one of those in your house
or at least a holographic Robert Picardo
that way when your life sized t-rex maimed somebody the EMH could sedate them
that way the trespassers/victim couldn't sue
Droid Eye! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Droid Eye! (Score:2)
Re:Droid Eye! (Score:2)
No, it was R2-D2 and C-3PO at the door to Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi. Luke, being the most powerful Jedi ever, was able to simply open the door and walk in.
[/comic book guy voice]
TV in a mirror, old technology (Score:2, Informative)
Company website (UK). [philips.com]
Developed years ago. Nothing new.
Evil overlord types are all the same (Score:1)
implications for Star Wars (Score:1)
our haunted house, self built (Score:2, Interesting)
if you want to check it out, its here
http://www.bapudi.com/yabbse/index.php?board=7 [bapudi.com]
the only thing I can't figure out is how they'd integrate PAL into the screen, anyone?
DIY mirror? (Score:1, Interesting)
When the lcd backlight is turned on,the image is visable, otherwise you would see your own reflection. Could it be that simple?
Holly (Score:2)
Holly: Alright, dude.
Me: What is it? I'm busy.
Holly: I can't remember now, I've gone blank.
(A few seconds pass...)
*KABLAMMO*
Holly: Oh yeah, that was it. Brace yourself, a meteor's about to hit the house.
Accidents Will Happen (Score:1, Funny)
The other thought that comes to mind is when I installed my own alarm system at home. Everything was wired and worked OK, then the voice
Surveillance cameras.... (Score:2)
If I were to have security cameras in my house, I'd go for the cameras used in the
Bond movie Live_and_Let_Die [wikipedia.org].
Having a rotating skull with top hat seems much more fun.
Floating head? (Score:1)
Re:Floating head? (Score:2)
What? No talking trophy fish? (Score:2)
Talking toucans, huh? (Score:2)
The real money is in (Score:2)
Step 3. Profit.
Just What We Need (Score:2)
The Best Thing About This (Score:2)
Imagined (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Toucan (Score:2)