Is this the future of news?


From Northwestern University's Infolab:
News At Seven is a system that automatically generates a virtual news show. Totally autonomous, it collects, parses, edits and organizes news stories and then passes the formatted content to an artificial anchor for presentation. Using the resources present on the web, the system goes beyond the straight text of the news stories to also retrieve relevant images and blogs with commentary on the topics to be presented.

Did they say "totally autonomous?" Automating any one of the elements of presenting a newscast seems possible, but automating all of them? The effect as demonstrated by the video above is mesmerizing. I guess we should take solace in the fact that the original inputs to News at Seven are the stories written by people who gather news, sift through the facts and create stories from them. The implication of this system is that much of what we see on a newscast could be automated.

qv: News At Seven

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About Phil Yanov

Phil Yanov is a Technologist, Columnist and Public Radio Commentator.

He is the founder of Tech After Five as well as the founder and President of the GSA Technology Council and the IT Leadership Council.

His personal technology column appears in Greenville Business Magazine and the Columbia Business Journal.

He co-hosts the Your Day technology shows heard on NPR radio stations across South Carolina and is a frequent contributor to technology stories appearing on radio and television.