Think about how paranoid you felt after watching movies like Minority Report, The Matrix, and The Terminator. The fictional technologies in those films were awesome, but there were definitely aspects that left us looking over our shoulders as we exited the theater. Among the suspicious technology we've seen are dozens of impressive robots. It's amazing how lifelike researchers and engineers have been able to make humanoids appear.
Take the Geminoid robots, for example. Designed by Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, the line of androids look so realistic that it's hard to tell the difference between the real human and the robot double. Thanks to actuators in its face and torso, the humanoid can actually blink and shrug its shoulders.
While it's astonishing that we can make such convincing robots, there are still some pretty terrifying mechanical beasts worth cringing over. Robotic snakes that slither their way into our dreams, and giant robotic dogs that can crush a small child, some are just plain creepy.
Then there's all the technology that we use on a daily basis. For example, with Facebook, its 800 million members casually fork over personal information that, unbeknownst to many of them, will be stored in Facebook's servers forever. There's also location tracking, another thing we so nonchalantly allow our iPhones and Android phones to do, whether we're aware of it or not.
In honor of this ghastly holiday, we rounded up ten different tech products that flat out give us goose bumps. (Cue eerie music.)
AlphaDog, BigDog, and PETMAN
Funded by DARPA, the four-legged robot named AlphaDog is trained to go anywhere soldiers and marines go on foot. It can carry up to 400 pounds of weight for 20 miles for over 24 hours without needing to be recharged. We felt a little uneasy after watching this YouTube video of the AlphaDog furiously pounding the ground with each stomping step it takes.
Those feelings were further agitated by watching a video of the pup's predecessor, BigDog, which sounds like a swarm of bees as it tackles the rough terrain. Created by Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that specializes in building dynamic robots, the AlphaDog doesn't even need someone to command it since it automatically follows a leader using computer vision. It can even travel to designated areas using GPS. But what if an adversary tries to push the massive robot down? Will it fall and not be able to right itself? Never! As the video shows, the AlphaDog is able to compensate and stand strong while being forcefully shoved by two men. If it ever does fall, it can easily roll itself over and stand up again.
If that wasn't freaky enough, there's also a human counterpart created in 2009 called PETMAN. The two-legged robot was developed for the U.S. Army to help test chemical protection clothing. It can walk realistically in a heel-toe fashion, can be pushed over without falling, crawl, and mimic the movements that soldiers would typically perform.
Snake-Arm Robot
The photo doesn't do this terrifying piece of technology justice. The great minds over at OC Robotics, an engineering company based in Bristol, England, have been working on a one-of-a-kind robotic snake over the past ten years. Controlled by an engineer, the snake-arm is able to slither through mazes of pipes and get to places where people physically cannot. Besides haunting our dreams, the snake-arm has many practical applications, like wriggling through hazardous locations, such as radiation hot spots, inaccessible to people.
The snake-arm would be able to grab and dispose of plutonium, for example, and its driver would not be in harm's way. The snake is also able to take samples of powdery and flakey materials, and even liquids. Though extremely functional, the way the snake-arm undulates through the air is pretty spine-chilling. Make sure to watch this video from The BBC to see the snake-arm in action.
Kiss Transmission Device
The "Kiss Transmission Device" isn't necessarily creepy in the "this is going to give me nightmares" kind of way. Instead, it's creepy in the "we shouldn't be making out with machines" kind of way. Created by a student at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, the Kiss Transmission Device involves connecting two rotating machines with straw-like appendages to a computer. The users puts one straw in his mouth and swirls it around with his tongue, à la French kiss. The movements of the tongue are then transmitted to the computer and then sent to the other straw, which in turn, starts moving in the opposite direction.
The hope here is that eventually the signals will be sent over a network and , if the straw is in someone else's mouth you could virtually make out with an overseas lover. Nobuhiro Takahashi, the student behind the Kiss Transmission Device, plans to add other elements, like taste, breathing, and moistness of the tongue. (So remember a breath mint before your virtual date.) He also hopes he could get celebrities to record his or her kiss. Check out the video from DigiInfo to see the makeout machine in action.
Singing Robots
The singing animatronic figures at Chuck E. Cheese's are scary enough, but things are getting more and more realistic thanks to technology. A team from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Taipei are working on a humanoid head that can read simplified music scores and then sing them in an eerie voice.
The robot takes a photo of the music using cameras implanted in its eyes. An algorithm is able to detect the pitch, rhythm, and lyrics, and sends that data to a voice synthesizer. Most musicians would spend a decent amount of time to memorize a new score, but this robot can read a sheet of music in 40 seconds and then sing the entire song. In fact, one of the developers' goals is to one day see a collection of the humoids singing and forming a robotic theater group. The thought of one of these singing humanoids is bad enough, let alone an entire troupe of them. The team is also teaching the robot how to interact with people so that the heads can be attached to robots and become restaurant receptionists or hostesses.
Though it's not very good at singing, and it looks scarily similar to the Fleshlight (NSFW), the second robot is just a mouth right now. Created by Professor Hideyuki Sawada at Kagawa University in Japan, the robot mouth has "lungs" made out of an air compressor, a tongue made of silicone, and eight prongs that push the throat to create different tones. The result is definitely not music to our ears, but it would make a good soundtrack to a horror movie. Check out the video to see the robot mouth attempt to sing a Japanese children's song.
Zombies, Run! iPhone App
Zombie-themed games like Dead Island and Left 4 Dead are frightening, but at the end of the day, we can always turn off the TV, wiping out any monsters. The creators of the Zombies, Run! iPhone app, however, are bringing our fear of zombies into the real world. Combining the creepiness of zombie video games with the fitness aspects of running apps, Zombies, Run! keeps you moving, literally.
The app is made for runners who want to mix things up a bit on their daily jogs. During a run, users will discover pieces of a larger puzzle to help uncover the truth of what happened to the world before the zombie apocalypse. The goal of the game is to rebuild civilization, and to do this, the user has to run around in the real world collecting imaginary ammo, medicine, batteries, and spare parts to help expand their base. The frightening zombie moans and gurgles will play in your earbuds as you run for your life. If you slow down for too long, zombies will attack you and eat your endorphin-heightened brains. You can preorder the game now. Check out the promo video to see the app in action.
Creepy iPhone Cases
With all the thousands of iPhone cases out there, it's hard for us to imagine why anyone would actually want a hand- or ear-shaped case. The Dokkiri Hand Case for the iPhone 4 wins our vote for the creepiest iPhone 4 case. Available for $64.50, the disembodied hand— available in "Lady's Hand," or "Kid's Hand"— will cradle your iPhone 4 and hold your hand while it's at it.
If you want to feel closer to your iPhone, a device with which most of us already spend an unhealthily large amount of time, the Dokkiri Hand Case is the way to go. For only $20, you can get a slightly less creepy iPhone 4 case from CollabCubed. The Earonic iPhone 4 cases look like ears, so when you're holding your phone up to your real ear, it actually looks like you're just scratching your face. Yeah, it's weird.
With 800 million users, Facebook has become a part of daily life for many. We check it when we wake up, when we get to work, on our phones when we're away from our computer, and before we go to bed at night. True, the site is an opt-in social network, but with all the changes Facebook is constantly making, it's sometimes easy for Facebook users to unintentionally overshare personal information.
Take social plugins, for example. Kindle users that had signed up to Amazon's Public Notes service had their accounts automatically linked to Facebook and Twitter. So, each time the user finished a book, a notice was sent out on Facebook and Twitter for everyone to see. Then there's the facial recognition feature that Facebook users were automatically opted into back in June. When a Facebook user uploads a photo, Facebook can automatically make tag suggestions if it recognizes any of the people in the photo. Also, if you ever thought it was possible to join Facebook and then delete information, think again.
Facebook is, more or less, keeping a permanent record you’re your life. TechDirt reports that, thanks to European privacy and data rules, some people have asked for and received copies of all the data Facebook has on file for them. The results showed that Facebook doesn't delete much of anything. In the 880-page report, users found that Facebook records every computer you've ever logged in on. It also keeps all of your deleted messages. Those are just a few examples, but we recently reported on a number of other ways that Facebook's creeping us out.
Siri
It's crazy to think that we can have a personal assistant right in our pockets, but it's even crazier to think that it can tell us where we can hide a dead body. Siri, a personal assistant app integrated into iOS 5 and available only on the iPhone 4S, creeps us out in two ways. First, the software is extremely advanced, allowing you to manage everything on your phone with only your voice. Siri is almost too easy to use, which makes us a little nervous. Also making us a bit edgy are some of the responses Siri will give you when you ask it a question.
Besides giving us a list of places we can hide a dead body when asked, Siri also builds a personal connection with its owner and has a human-like sense of humor. For example, when you ask Siri "Who's On First," it responds in a classic Abott and Costello way. When you ask it what's the best tablet computer, it responds with "There's the iPad, and then there's…well, nothing I guess." And when you ask Siri if its sending all this information to Apple, it responds' with "I'm Sorry, I'm afraid I can't answer that."
Apple Location Tracking
Using your iPhone's map app to help you find where you're going is great, but not when your iPhone is stalking your every move and sending that data to Apple. Back in April, two researchers unearthed the iPhone tracking controversy, which found an unencrypted hidden file on the iPhone that stores location data taken from cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots. The data was also time-stamped and backed up on iTunes. The scary thing is that, although it was associated with Apple's Location Services, there was no way to turn it off when users opted out of the service. Then, we learned that police had been using that data in criminal investigations for months.
Apple's Senior Vice President of iPhone Software Scott Forestall said it was a bug that would be fixed with free iOS software updates. Forestall said the bugs occurred because the system is "incredibly complex." When Apple released iOS 4.3.3 in May, PCMag tested the updated iPhone and confirmed that location tracking was no longer an issue. Though it's apparently not a problem anymore, it's still pretty creepy to think that our cell phones are capable of tracking our every move without our knowledge.
Facial Recognition
Facial recognition, the method of taking a picture and having a database recognize a person's face, is only getting more and more advanced. Besides Facebook, there are plenty of other places where facial recognition is being used. Even Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt thinks it errs on the disturbing side. At Google's "Big Tent" conference on Internet privacy back in May, Schmidt said the accuracy of the technology was "very concerning" and that it crossed the "creepy line" of privacy.
Although Google isn't on the face detection bandwagon just yet, big companies like Apple are. Apple offers face detection APIs to iOS 5 developers. At this year's annual Black Hat security conference, the issue of facial recognition was a hot one. At the conference, Alessandro Acquisti, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, presented a rough version of a face-detection technology that can link your social security number to your face.
In August's riots in London, a Google Group called "London Riots Facial Recognition" had been created that used facial recognition technologies to identify rioters who appeared in any online photos. While sending looters and arsonists behind bars noble, it's still strange to think that anyone on the Web can scroll through photos and match a face to a name.
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