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Monday, 29 May 2017

Customize your own pet beast

Taking augmented reality to the next level. How far can a sci-fi project that allows you to play with your very own virtual pet go? Strange Beasts is a new game that allows you to customize your own pet. And don’t think “golden retriever,” but creatures that would be more at home in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Strange Beasts differentiates itself from typical augmented reality by using contact lens nanotechnology rather than goggles or headsets. These work by superimposing computer-generated imagery over real world objects by projecting a digital light field directly over your eye.

Like the video, we’ll give you the plot twist at the end: Strange Beasts is actually a short project by writer-director Magali Barbé. The lenses don’t yet exist, and the whole thing exists to prompt questions: What happens when artificial intelligence can mimic the emotions of real living creatures. How attached can we become to what are, essentially, lines of code? Watch Strange Beasts (runtime: 1:42)

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