Chat on This: Would You Believe a Virtual News Anchor?
January 19, 2000
By Tom Merritt

"Her name is Ananova and her existence was being kept a closely guarded secret by her creators, PA New Media, until details leaked out in British newspapers."

So reads the official site at Ananova.com. She's touched off quite a stir because she claims to be the world's first virtual newscaster.

What she does is a glorification of PC speech generation. Instead of just speaking text, you see a virtual character mouthing the words. Big deal.

Anonova's creators claim she is fantastic because she'll learn expressions and develop her personality as she goes. But I don't care.

I still prefer to read my news. I want to examine a sentence, find out if the facts are distorted, and be able to refer back to earlier paragraphs if I have a question.

That's why I stay away from TV and radio news for the most part. It's good as an update but it's not as comprehensive. In addition, when I do listen to or watch news, I prefer to see a real person with real expressions. At least I get an idea of what that person thinks through non-verbal cues.

A virtual newscaster arguably has as much personality and intelligence as some modern-day talking heads, but I find it a loss.

The real revolutionary broadband technology will come when we can stream real newscasters like Victoria Recaño on the Web. Oh wait, somebody's already doing that.