Top 10 things Hollywood thinks computers can do

Posted on 29 Apr 2010 at 12:17

8. Online chats always display each character as its typed

If anyone in a film or TV show uses instant messaging, each character of a message is displayed as its typed. Not only that, but the typing is always faster than fluent touch-typists can manage and no mistakes are ever made - not once is the backspace key pressed in the entire conversation.

No IM system in popular use does this because it makes it harder to edit a response, people can see your response as you edit it, and if you accidentally type something into the chat window, such as a password for your email account, you've got time to delete it before the other person sees it.

7. Deleted files are removed from the screen

You know the point in the film. The good guys have just got access to a computer and are looking at the secret files, when suddenly the bad guy hacks into the computer and starts deleting files. Not only are they gone from the hard disk, but they disappear from the application that they're open in.

Our heroes look confused, and start wildly typing away in an effort to stop the process. However, not once do they think to turn the computer off and remove the hard disk, or unplug it from the internet to stop the hacker from having any access to it.

In Hollywood land there's no such thing as an undelete utility so the files are apparently gone for ever. It's enough to make you cry.

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User comments

A minor correction: V'ger became sentient because aliens took its hardware and original programming and improved on it. Also, it's supposed to have been the sixth Voyager probe, which means that it could very well have been semi-sentient, or at least adaptive, from the start.

Interestingly, the "hardware failure" part actually happened with V'ger - it was hit by debris and damaged, and was repaired by the aliens.

By Julius on 4 May 2010

Point 8 confirms itself

I'm very fuzz, but I have to point this out in this extremely funny article: I believe that Point 8, "Online chats always display each character as its typed" should be... "as IT'S typed"? If so, I find amusing that an article about typing has a typo. Or maybe I'm easily amused.

By tabonga on 6 May 2010

Re: #3

Zooming in to incredible depths on an image didn't become a Hollywood cliche with computers - check out Jimmy Stewart film "Call NOrthside 777" for a scene in which they do the same with a photograph.

By Fairportfan on 6 May 2010

RE: #3

#3 is actually provably possible thanks to compressed sensing and sparsity.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_algorithm
/all/1

By Eosian on 6 May 2010

read before you post...

that technology works on fuzzy pictures... it works to make a sharp image from a fuzzy one, but a picture from say outer space can only be enhance, not zoomed say 2000 times then enhanced.... it won't work.
hence, what the author said.

By toddomy on 8 May 2010

Also for #3 - zooming makes a standard sound

I'm convinced there is a software package sold as a movie and TV "prop", which does almost exactly the same thing on virtually every such scene (boss leans over techie and says "zoom in on this area and enhance!"
Traits of the prop software: zooming uses a rectangular reticle to select the zoom area (corners and crosshairs); and when zooming, the computer always makes this noise: "zug-zug-zug-zug" (as if lenses were being moved by small motors)
If I've seen and heard this once, I've seen and heard it a thousand times.
I just wish I could find out the name of that prop software...

By birdbrainscan on 14 May 2010

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