BACK PAGE Rants and ramblings


There was a bit of a kerfuffle last month when the media got hold of the story about Shanice, the new virtual assistant at Brent Council’s new civic centre. Installed by Tensator, she’s a projection onto a person-shaped screen of the kind you may have seen in airports or hospitals. She gives wayfinding directions to visitors who want to register births or deaths or apply for marriage licences. Some of the coverage was quite


effusive in a ‘We’re living in the future – whatever next?’ kind of a way. On the other side of the coin, the council received a lot of flak from people – not just political opponents – who felt that Shanice’s job could have been done by an employee. The cost of the installation, however, is £12,000 for a three-year contract, whereas the council says that to employ someone to do the same job would cost £30,000 a year – so this represents quite a saving. There were also a lot of fuming online comments that read as if the council was proposing to sack all of its employees and replace them with Brian, the confused.com robot. This may be because not many of the reports made it clear that Shanice is positioned behind a desk alongside living, breathing receptionists. As the council’s Mark Rimmer told the BBC: “The hologram doesn't replace anyone. It's instead of having a proper receptionist saying the same thing time after time.” The Evening Standard even


You many have thought the world had run out of words to put an ‘i’ in front of – but you’d be wrong. Say hello to the iTap. It’s a USB charger that looks like a tap. Turn the handle and the light changes from blue to red. Amazing! According to the blurb, “it does everything a regular charger does, it just looks better”. Does electricity drip down the cord if you leave it plugged in for too long?


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66 September 2013


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went so far as to track down and interview the real Shanice – actress Shanice Stewart-Jones, who “admitted she has only visited Brent once to visit her boyfriend who was there for work.” And the relevance of that is…? What do we think of all this? Well,


having seen Shanice on YouTube, we’re amazed that to call the lift in the civic centre, you have to press andhold the button. In a new £90 million building? Perhaps it’s a ploy to keep people away from reception. Also, we were rather irritated by the number of reports that called Shanice a hologram. She’s not – just as the Musion projections of Les Dawson, Tupac and various other entertainers weren’t either. It’s getting a bit tedious having to keep explaining, over and over again, the difference between regular projection and a hologram. In fact, we may have to install some kind of virtual assistant to do this job for us.


Bits and pieces from the editorial cutting-room floor


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INDEX Indoors and outdoors with the Twitterati


Active Audio .....................32 Adder Technology..............7 Allen & Heath...................59 AMC ....................................32 Amina....................................3 AMX....................................25 ASL......................................10 Audio-Technica...................8 Barco ..................................23 Blackmagic..........................9 Bosch..................................21 Community Professional..15 Control4.............................13 Datatpath..........................27 Dexon....................................7 Emcore...............................64 Erard Pro............................57 ETC......................................37 eyevis .................................19 Faital...................................54 Genelec..............................29 Hetec..................................54 IBC.......................................63 In Out..................................53 Installation Showcase....43 ISE .......................................50 Kling & Freitag..................30 Kramer ...............................49 Lab.gruppen.....Front cover Lectrosonics.....................58 Lightware..Inside front cover Martin Audio .....................31 Martin Professional.........45 Meyer Sound.....Back cover Mipro...................................38 Mitsubishi..........................17 Mode-Al ............................4-5 Next TV..............................61 NuVo...................................47 Opticis................................36 Peavey................................41 Peerless.............................55 PLASA.................................65 Powersoft..........................39 Pro Sound Awards...........11 PVS .....................................34 QSC.....................................48 RGB .....................................19 Smart-e..............................26 Sommer Cable..................33 Tannoy ...............................34 Taiden.....Inside back cover TV One ...............................51 Vivitek...................................6


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