Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society

Ghost in the Shell (GITS) Stand Alone Complex (SAC): Solid State Society was released in 2006 and is the anime film based on the Stand Alone Complex series. It was directed by Kenji Kamiyama and produced by Production I.G.; the film had a huge production budget of 360 million yen or 3.2 million dollars. And for all of you GITS fans it was announced at the 2006 Anime Expo that this film will not be the last in the SAC series.


Solid State Society takes place 2 years after 2nd GIG in the year 2034 in the 2 years prior to 2034. The Major has resigned from Section 9, Togusa has stepped into the Major's role as field leader, and Section 9 has now expanded its team to 20 members. The film starts out with Section 9 investigating the mysterious suicides of 13 operatives of the former Siak Republic. Section 9 manages to get a lead from Ka Gael (one of the operatives) when he says the Puppeteer is coming before he kills himself. When Batou is sent to Ma Shaba’s labs to intercept a suspect he runs into the Major who tells him that she is investigating on her own. Before the Major leaves she warns Batou to stay away from the Solid State Society. When Togusa discovers 16 kidnapped kids at Ma Shaba’s Labs and investigates into these kidnappings further he is also warned to stay away from the Solid State Society. And towards the end we see the Major join forces with Section 9, again to kick some ass.

Ok, as I am a big fan of GITS I was over the moon when I saw this latest instalment and yes I did, and still do like it. But I thought as SAC it such a big thing in itself this movie could have been better and longer. It never really goes into any depth and the story line is a bit jumpy. Yes, this due to the fact that this is a movie and not a series but still I think it could have been better and I was left feeling a bit disappointed. You will probably like this film if you like GITS and I am sorry to say that if you have not seen any of the series then you may not get the movie because it is not a stand alone movie so it would probably be best if you watch the series first. Also it is my duty to inform you that yes, Hollywood is making a live action version of GITS (No I am not lying). I don’t know if I will watch it in the cinema when it comes out but I will be watching it. Fingers crossed it doesn’t totally suck because it could bring in new fans to the anime and fuel lots more investment into making more of the series.

Part Bug, Part Robot

The creation of a cyborg insect army has just taken a step closer to reality. A research team at the University of California Berkeley recently announced that it has successfully implanted electrodes into a beetle allowing scientists to control the insect's movements in flight.

Tokyo Gore Police

This one's for all you gore fans out there. It's not particularly new, but I was watching Yojimbo yesterday and for some very bizzare reason thought of this film and how much I wanted to watch it. Look out for the half girl, half crocodile....... the exccesive use of blood, gore, freaks, swords and arms for and legs. Assome.

Plot:

In the near future...The Tokyo Police force has been privatized and incorporated. The new force has their hands full with a new type of genetically engineered mutant stalking the streets and brutally taking human lives. Luca, the top level officer at Tokyo Police has special law enforcement skills but her dark past makes her vulnerable. She is determined to hunt the mutant known as "Engineer" until the day she can find and destroy the mysterious "Key-Man".

Ghost in the Shell 2nd GIG

Ghost in the Shell 2nd GIG was first aired on Japanese TV in January 2004 it was later released in the States in November 2007. There are 26 episodes in this series and unlike the first series there are types of episodes these are: individual, dividual, and dual. The individual episodes fallow the Individual Eleven story line, the dividual episodes are stand alone, and the dual episodes fallow the Gouda storyline. In 2nd GIG we get a lot more of the back story about some of the members of Section 9's lives before they were in Section 9. We also get some history about the wars that happened in the past as well. The two major wars were the WWIII which was a nuclear war and non-nuclear WWIV both of these wars changed the world and its politics.

The 2nd GIG story lines starts in 2032 six months after the SAC story line ended. At the start we see a new Prime Minster in office, a woman named Kayabuki, she is willing to reform Section 9 and give them everything they want in order to rebuild Section 9. But at a price this being that Section 9 go into the Chinese embassy secretly and take care of the hostage situation; without any of the hostages getting killed. Section 9 is able to take care of the situation and they are back in full swing from this point on.
Section 9 faces two antagonists in 2nd GIG the first are the Individual Eleven who appear to be a terrorist group. They want the refugees, that were invited into Japan after the third and forth world wars as cheap labour to help rebuild, to leave Japan. The other is Gouda, the head of the Cabinet Intelligence Service, and he appears to be a puppet master for the events that are going on through out this story line.

2nd GIG has a lot more action in it and we also get more history about the major and cretin aspects of her past. I liked 2nd GIG and I think that it not only holds up to the the high standard that SAC set but it also raises the bar for any future series and I would give 2nd GIG a 4 out of 5. you can watch 2nd GIG without watching SAC and you wont get lost but I would say that if your going to watch the GITS TV series that you start with SAC. Also please note that like the SAC there are two types of DVD packs you can buy the full 26 eps or the Individual Eleven pack where you only get the Individual Eleven story line.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Hi everyone sorry it has been so long since the last review but I got hooked on Bleach and have spent the last 2 weeks watching all 207 episodes so you can’t really blame an anime-a-holic like me for flaking out I just can’t help it. This review is going to be on the long side as there is a lot to cover the next 2 GITS reviews will not be so long: . Hope you enjoy-Peebody
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex (or Mobile Armoured Riot Police: Stand Alone Complex as it’s known in Japan) is the TV series based on the manga Ghost in the shell. Kenji Kamiyama wrote and directed this series, 2nd Gig and the movie Solid state society. Production I.G. is the company that produces GITS, when Production I.G. was creation SAC they had 7 studios. Because everyone was so into/committed to GITS they renamed the studio that GITS was being made in to studio 9 aka section 9. Production I.G. now has 10 studios and studio 9 is still dictated for the making of GITS. SAC runs for 26 episodes it consists of episodes that are stand alone which means they are episodes that have nothing to do with the main plot and complex episodes which means they have to do with the Laughing man plot. SAC aired on Japanese TV on the 1st Oct 2002. The music for all the GITS TV series was composed by the musical goddess Yoko Kano and I love the sound tracks for the entire series and the movie.
Please note that the TV series and the original movie and the 2nd movie are not on the same time line/reality. What this means is that in one reality the two movies happened and are on their own time line and in another reality we start with SAC and work our way through to 2nd Gig and onto Solid State Society. We do see tones in the TV series that touch on what the original movie touched on but that is where similarity in the two realities ends.

SAC takes place in the year 2030 in the fictional town of New Port Japan, 6 years after the Laughing man incident: This is where the CEO of Serano Genomics was kidnapped by the laughing man and held hostage for a few days on February 3 2024 the laughing man tries to make the CEO confess something at gun point on TV in public where the TV is shooting live. He manages to hack into the TV station and replace his face with the laughing man logo and he also hacks into everyone’s eyes and replaces his face with this logo. This stunt earned the laughing man the title of master class hacker.

The series starts off with Section 9 being called into resolve a hostage situation. In the 1st and 2nd episodes we are introduced to the members of Section 9, a lot of them were not in the original movies we also get introduced to the Tachicomas, Section 9’s armored robot help. We get tones of the many conspires that are going on throughout the series, and this sets the mood for the rest of the series. It is not until episode 4 that the Laughing man storyline gets introduced/going.

Now there is a lot of symbolism and ideology going on through out the GITS series like the Laughing man was taken from a short story by J.D. Salinger also the words on the Laughing man logo "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.", is a quote from Catcher in the Rye. Most of this is explained through out the series very well which is a good thing. The series also touches on the Stand Alone Complex and the fact that everything and almost everyone is becoming more cyberized. (I could go on but I won’t if you would like me to just ask in the comments section and I will be happy to go into more detail on the philosophy). Now I have always been a big fan of GITS, and the TV series had a lot to stand up to. I felt that SAC was a really good series I loved the storylines in this series and all the conspiracies going.

I would recommend SAC to anyone that wanted to sit down and enjoy good anime; I would say that you do have to wait till episode 4 for the main plot to kick in and then SAC does not hit you all in one go either so be prepared to watch the series to get everything. Also please note that now days there are 2 types of GITS DVD packs you can buy. There is the entire series 26 episode box set and then there is the Laughing man box set which cuts out all the Stand Alone episodes and you just get the Laughing man storyline they also do this with 2nd Gig as well. If you want only the action I would go for the Laughing man box set but you will miss a lot of good storylines. Over all I would give SAC 4 out of 5.

Remote Controlled Rat

This is true cyborg technology. Remember 'Universal Soldier'? Apart from it being a terrible film, it showed a technological advancement that has now taken place. Some may say its cruel now, but just wait until it happens to humans for real.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

This film is the sequel to the ghost in the Shell movie. It was released 2004 in Japan , because the original GTS movie in Japan was not as well-received as it was in the West, the title was changed to innocence in that attempt to get more people in Japan to view the movie. Innocence had a huge budget for an anime of £10 million approximately ¥2 billion. Production I.G’s president asked studio Ghibli’s president to work on the project as co-producer in order to secure this amount of money. The anime was written and directed by Mamoru Oshii and is loosely connected to the manga which was taken from the story line Robot Rondo.

Innocence is set in 2032 after the 1st GTS movie when humans are dwindling. Most people are cyborgs like Batou but are vulnerable to ghost hacking (this was also the theme in the first GTS movie). As Major Kusanagi went into hiding Togasa is now the relucent partner to Batou. Section 9 is now investigation a cyborg corporation called Locus Solus. This is because the gynoid-androids they make (young female sex dolls) have killed 8 people. In the process of investigating these murders Batou and the Major are reunited albeit briefly to kick some ass. And before the Major leaves Batou again she tells him that “I’ll always be with you online”.

Now I have long been a fan of GTS but I did not much go for this anime at first. I am also not much of a fan of ‘pure’ CG animation (there are a few exceptions which I can count on one hand), but I can’t deny that the CG in this anime is superb and this one of the exceptions. But the story line was short and I felt that it could have been expanded on to make it better. So this GTS movie in my book is so-so and not the best out of the GTS collection.

Picture via photobucket

Color Blind artist Learns to Paint by Hearing

According to an article on the Times Online, Neil Harbisson is a color-blind (Black & white sight only) artist who has recently been given the ability to paint with a full range of colors using a small gadget that allows him to "hear" the hue of the color pallette. He has been fitted with a device called an Eyeborg, which converts 360 colours into different sounds.


"As an art student at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, he painted only in black and white because that is all he saw. But three years ago he met Adam Montandon, a cybernetics expert who came to give a lecture at the college.


After the talk, Montandon was told of Harbisson’s condition and he took up the challenge of solving the problem, enabling Harbisson to paint in colour. The artist suffers from achromatopsia – or complete congenital colour blindness.


Montandon created the Eyeborg system, which is a head-mounted digital camera that reads the colours directly in front of it. The camera is connected to a laptop computer, carried in a backpack, which slows down the frequency of light waves to the frequency of sound waves. The computer then sends the “sound” of each colour to an earpiece worn by Harbisson. Montandon expects the system eventually to be as small as an MP3 player."


How it works

1. Lens examines colour artist is looking at

2. Computer analyses colour and calculates an equivalent sound frequency

3. Earpiece emits a noise to tell artist which colour he is looking at

4. Artist has to learn which sounds identify particular colours

Simply amazing!!!!!

In Your Face!!! WD-2 robot-face Morphs to look like yours!

This robot has serious identity issues! Phenomenal engineering and robotics makes the WD-2 a very advanced machine, capable of morphing it's facial features within a matter of seconds to recreate the face of someone else!



And as if that wasn't freaky enough...you can even project your face onto the mask...check the dudes out in the video...that's an image projected onto the robots face....which has morphed into the same shape as yours!



This is normally when I go off on some spiel about the Matrix and the future...but this is very much in the present day! Though it's hard to see a practical use of this feature in the commercial sense, I can see it's use for more sinister applications with ease(Hitman Codename 47 anyone?)....but I don't want to reveal them in case I end up like John Connor in the Terminator triggering some outrageous set of events leading to the destruction of the human race by the very machines created to make life a little easier..not to throw it away and complicate things like I just have in this ridiculously long paragraph!

Original Post on http://investorspot.com

Cyborg Advances

Remember those awesome armored robot "suits" in Matrix Revolutions? Well...this could well be the early stages in the development of these types of cyborg suits! This one, in the video clip above, is designed to "give" the wearer increased strength, allowing them to lift greater weights than possible with the normal human body. (Can't wait for the cyborg version of Worlds Strongest Man...they'll be lifting buildings and dragging oil tankers I imagine!)

The potential commercial use of these cyborg suits is infinite and I'm sure that once they are proved useful and economically viable, we'll see many more companies developing products along the same line. So...by the time I'm 60 (about 30 years from now), I should have no problem changing that spare wheel on my car!... if we're not all flying spacecraft by then that is!

If you've seen an interesting article or video on cyborg technology, and would like to share it with our ESPV readers, please post the link in with your comment and we'll do our best to give it a feature!

Right...my cyborg suit is re-charged! Time to take care of that skip outside my house once and for all!

Original Video found on Youtube by CYBERPUNKREVIEW

The Moth-Manned Prophecies

I can't help but recall the scene from the film "The Fifth Element" where Tricky is controlling a bug inside the presidents meeting room...WHACK!!!!..SCreeeeeeech.....
...AHHHHhHHhHHHH!!!!!

Seriously though...add to this a few sensors, a lethal poison, a bugging device(no pun intended) etc... and , well..you get the picture...Bug Wars!!! If this technology ever becomes commercially available I'd like a Dragon Fly please!

Original Words Below by Jonathan Richards for The Times Newspaper

Original Post on FoxNews.com

At some point in the not-too-distant future, a moth may take flight in the hills of northern Pakistan, and flap towards a suspected terrorist training camp.

But this will be no ordinary moth.

Inside it will be a computer chip that was implanted when the creature was still a pupa, in the cocoon, meaning that the moth's entire nervous system can be controlled remotely.

The moth will thus be capable of landing in the camp without arousing suspicion, all the while beaming video and other information back to its masters via what its developers refer to as a "reliable tissue-machine interface."

The creation of insects whose flesh grows around computer parts — known from science fiction as cyborgs — has been described as one of the most ambitious robotics projects ever conceived by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Rod Brooks, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is involved with the research, said in a speech last week at the University of Southampton in England that robotics was increasingly at the forefront of U.S. military research.

Brooks said that the remote-controlled moths, described by DARPA as just part of its overall research into microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, were one of a number of technologies soon to be deployed in combat zones.

"This is going to happen," said Brooks. "It's not science like developing the nuclear bomb, which costs billions of dollars. It can be done relatively cheaply."

"Moths are creatures that need little food and can fly all kinds of places," he continued. "A bunch of experiments have been done over the past couple of years where simple animals, such as rats and cockroaches, have been operated on and driven by joysticks, but this is the first time where the chip has been injected in the pupa stage and 'grown' inside it."

"Once the moth hatches," Brooks said, "machine learning is used to control it."

Brooks has worked on robotic technology for more than 30 years and is a founder of iRobot, the MIT-derived manufacturer of both Roomba robot floor cleaners and PackBots, military robots used by the Pentagon to defuse explosive devices laid by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brooks said that the military would be increasingly reliant on "semi-autonomous" devices, including ones which could fire.

"The DoD has said it wants one-third of all missions to be unmanned by 2015, and there's no doubt their things will become weaponized, so the question comes: Should they be given targeting authority?"

"The prevailing view in the army at the moment seems to be that they shouldn't," he said, "but perhaps it's time to consider updating treaties like the Geneva Convention to include clauses which regulate their use."

Debates such as those over stem-cell research would "pale in comparison" to the increasingly blurred distinction between creatures — including humans — and machines, Brooks told the Southampton audience.

"Biological engineering is coming," Brooks said. "There are already more than 100,000 people with cochlear implants, which have a direct neural connection, and chips are being inserted in people's retinas to combat macular degeneration. By the 2012 Olympics, we're going to be dealing with systems which can aid the oxygen uptake of athletes."

"There's going to be more and more technology in our bodies, and to stomp on all this technology and try to prevent it happening is just ... well, there's going to be a lot of moral debates," he said.