Top 10 things Hollywood thinks computers can do

Posted on 29 Apr 2010 at 12:17

2. Screens must light up people's faces

For some reason, Hollywood believes that when someone uses a monitor, it must without fail project its image over their face. The power required for a monitor to do this would be immense - well, let's face it, you'd actually have to have a projector inside. Can you imagine what this would do to your eyes if your monitor worked like this? You'd definitely be blind.

Then there's the question of privacy. Sitting there with what you're viewing plastered all over your face would give the game away to the point where even Internet Explorer's InPrivate browsing would be entirely pointless.

1. Left long enough, a computer becomes intelligent

From V'ger in Star Trek the motion picture to Skynet in the Terminator films, Hollywood has this fascination that left turned on for long enough a computer will become sentient. Usually this coincides with it becoming evil and devising a dastardly plan for wiping out humanity. Quite why is beyond us - what would a computer do by itself anyway, aside from sitting in room by itself whirring away?

This is complete nonsense. Any computer left on permanently would suffer at least a few, if not all, of the following problems: mechanical failure (hard disk, fans, power supply and so on), software crash (operating system falling big time or some other bit of software just failing to work) and overheating due to dust being sucked into the case. The only thing that leaving a computer on will do is get you a massive electricity bill.

Author: Expert Reviews Staff

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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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