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Japan

A Digital Cat Is Melting Hearts (and Napping a Lot) in Japan (nytimes.com) 34

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The calico prances and dozes on a 26-by-62-foot LED billboard in Tokyo. It has drawn crowds in real life and sparked joy on social media. From a report: Ryoko Kikuchi was strolling home from a Tokyo movie theater when she saw a cat the size of a yacht strutting high above the sidewalk, coyly licking its paws. "The way it was meowing was too cute to bear," she said. A lot of people in Tokyo feel the same way, no matter that the cat is just a bunch of pixels on a billboard. The 4K display does not officially "open" until Monday, but it has already drawn socially distanced crowds -- and inspired many social media posts -- since its installation last month. The digital calico behaves a bit like an actual cat, in the sense that it does whatever it pleases. Visitors are only treated to a few brief appearances per hour, in between a stream of advertisements and music videos.

The cat yawns here and there, and at 1 a.m. it drops off to sleep for about six hours, resting its head on white paws that hug the side of what appears to be an open-air perch near the Shinjuku subway station. (The three-dimensional look is an illusion created by a curved, 26-by-62-foot LED screen.) It also talks, greeting pedestrians with "nyannichiwa." That is a blend of "konnichiwa," or hello, and "nyan," Japanese for "meow."
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A Digital Cat Is Melting Hearts (and Napping a Lot) in Japan More

A Digital Cat Is Melting Hearts (and Napping a Lot) in Japan

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  • Link without paywall (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 08, 2021 @03:36PM (#61563299)
    No paywall [thenationalnews.com].

    • Re:Link without paywall (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TeddyRick ( 6515134 ) on Thursday July 08, 2021 @05:00PM (#61563515)
      slashdot should just ban submissions from NYT and any site that requires any kind of a login.

      • THIS. Not a single Slashdot story has come up to date which hasn't found an alternate non-paywall source for the same material. It should fundamentally be the job of editors to edit content in a way to make it readable for viewers and that includes not posting "dead links".

      • "slashdot should just ban submissions from NYT and any site that requires any kind of a login."
        Just delete your cookies and poof, no paywall.
        Or just use reader mode and refresh.

  • Because people love cats! (Score:3)

    by Misagon ( 1135 ) on Thursday July 08, 2021 @03:50PM (#61563337)

    It's a clever way to bring attention to a billboard that shows ads in-between images of the cat.

    The tech is just projection mapping onto a LED screen that is curved around a corner a few stories up on a building. Other than that, it is regular 3D animation.
    The illusion works only if you view it from a square across the street below, or otherwise your view would be skewed.

    • Because people love cats

      Actually, cats are okay - it's cat people we hate.

      • Actually, it's both. Cats are an invasive species everywhere, killing billions of other animals every year. Much of that is enabled by their cat loving owners.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Yeah that stuff anywhere near major intersection should be banned. The purpose is to distract, you do not want to distract drivers near a busy intersection. They should be penalised for every accident at the intersection from where that sign can be seen by default they should be blamed for the accident and pay all costs associated with it.

      They cry, but it doesn't distract drivers, counter by the common sense THEN WHY THE FUCK PUT UP THE SIGN, if they was not the intended purpose. BAN ALL BILLBOARDS, they

      • I'm not a prude, but I feel the same about ads with people in underwear. My horny lizard brain wants to take a look, even in traffic. It's just a really bad idea.

      • "They should be penalised for every accident at the intersection from where that sign can be seen by default they should be blamed for the accident and pay all costs associated with it. "

        That beast might shed digitail hair all over allergic people.

      • There are a lot more people walking through Shinjuku than driving.

    • It can't possibly be a real cat up there... or it would have knocked nearby offices off into the street below.

  • A Digital Cat Is ... Napping a Lot ...

    Basically, a cat.

    From a quick Google search:

    It's not unusual for adult cats to have between 15 and 20 hours of sleep time per day.

  • Along with the rest of Claire's cats.

  • The rule 34 hack is going to be something to behold!

  • Shinjuku is the most crowded entertainment district in the world. When you go there you better be vaccinated - against everything.

  • Can we re-add the destination domains next to links in summaries please (like we used to have)?

    Iâ(TM)d like to see pictures of this, but I didnâ(TM)t want to waste my NYTimes free article limit for it.

    • Better idea: Ban paywall and limited access sites from Slashdot. There are many other sites covering this story, there's no reason to link to the NYT.

      • Disagree.

        There are often times where a paywalled site is the original news source and has the best depth of explanation and coverage. NYTimes is especially good at this, since they pay for investigative reporting, not just aggregation of other sources. For many unique topics of interest, I am quite willing to deal with a paywall.

        Putting the domain name after the link (like we used to have) gives the /. readers the ability to choose.

        • There are often times where a paywalled site is the original news source

          Then put it as a footnote for those people who have access. Especially in this day of major copying and pasting between news sites originality counts for diddleysquat. You can guarantee that when NYT does a bit of investigative reporting we have access to that information on another site. If you want to deal with a paywall then more power to you, look in the footnotes.

  • The digital feline can be seen between the hours of 7am to 1am and behaves like an actual cat. In the morning, it gets started awake, by afternoon it stands and meows at people who pass by and then, in the evening, it lies down to fall asleep and rests its head on its paws.

    I have two cats. I assure you, this is nothing like an actual cat. They sleep most heavily in the afternoon.

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