The transition from Beijing to the Newark copyshop is more involved. After he travels around a bit, he realizes he needs to be looking back in Newark. He “rewinds” using a pull gesture and sees the copyshop’s pyramid. First there is a predominantly blue window that unfolds as if it were paper.
And then the copyshop initial window expands. Like the Beijing hotel, this is a floor plan view, but unlike the hotel it stays two dimensional. It appears that cyberspace works like the current world wide web, with individual servers for each location that can choose what appearance to present to visitors.
Johnny again selects data records, but not with a voice command. The first transition is a window that not only expands but spins as it does so, and makes a strange jump at the end from the centre to the upper left.
Once again Johnny uses the two-handed expansion gesture to see the table view of the records.
Johnny searches again, but either because there are so few records or because they’re in English, he doesn’t use voice commands. Instead he just runs his fingers over the cells, which highlight as he does so. Again this would be familiar to a current day spreadsheet user.
The contents of the cell are, once more, not useful. Johnny dismisses the copyshop with a sweeping arm gesture which slides the “window” off the right of the screen.
Aside: At normal viewing speed, it looks like the window disappears and, as would be the case in a 1995 or current day desktop system, reveals the previously-displayed windows underneath. Stepping through frame by frame shows that actually it reveals an identical copy of the sliding content! Graphics programmers have always tried hard to avoid such visual glitches, but sometimes they slip into production code anyway.
Next
At this point in the plot, Johnny hasn’t found the images he so desperately needs. He thinks for a moment, and decides to contact the owner of a local bulletin board. Unknown to him, he has also been located by the Pharmakom tracker. Shinji and the Yakuza are on the way, and Shinji orders “initiate the virus.”
The second half of the film is all about retrieving the data from Johnny’s implant without the full set of access codes. Johnny needs to get the data downloaded soon or he will die from the “synaptic seepage” caused by squeezing 320G of data into a system with 160G capacity. The bad guys would prefer to remove his head and cryogenically freeze it, allowing them to take their time over retrieval.
1 of 3: Spider’s Scanners
The implant cable interface won’t allow access to the data without the codes. To bypass this protection requires three increasingly complicated brain scanners, two of them medical systems and the final a LoTek hacking device. Although the implant stores data, not human memories, all of these brain scanners work in the same way as the Non-invasive, “Reading from the brain” interfaces described in Chapter 7 of Make It So.
The first system is owned by Spider, a Newark body modification specialist. Johnny sits in a chair, with an open metal framework surrounding his head. There’s a bright strobing light, switching on and off several times a second.
Nearby a monitor shows a large rotating image of his head and skull, and three smaller images on the left labelled as Scans 1 to 3.
The largest image resembles a current-day MRI or CT display. It is being drawn on a regular flat 2D display rather than as a 3D holographic type projection, so does not qualify as a volumetric projection even though a current day computer graphics programmer might call it such. The topmost Scan 1 is the head viewed from above in the same rendering style. Scan 2 in the middle shows a bright spot around the implant, and Scan 3 shows a circuit board, presumably the implant itself. The background is is blue, which so far has been common but not as predominant as it is in other science fiction interfaces. Chris suggests this is because blue LEDs were not common in 1995, so the physical lights we see are red and green and likewise the onscreen graphics use many bright colors.
Occasionally a purple bar slides across the main image. It perhaps represents some kind of processing update, but since the image is already rotating, that seems superfluous. At one point the color of the main image changes to red, with a matching red sliding bar, but we don’t know why. All the smaller images rotate or flash regularly, with faint ticking sounds as they do.
From this system, Spider is able to tell Johnny that there is a problem with his implant and it must be painful. (Understandably, Johnny is not impressed with this less than helpful diagnosis.) Unlike either the scanner at Newark Airport or the LoTek binoculars, there are no obvious messages or indicators providing this information. But this is a specialised piece of medical technology rather than a public access system, so presumably Spider has sufficient expertise to interpret the displays without needing large popup text.
2 of 3: Hospital Scanner
Spider takes Johnny to a hospital for a more thorough scan. Here the first step is attaching a black flexible strip with various cables around his head. His implant cable is also connected.
There isn’t a clear shot of the entire system, but behind Johnny is a CRT monitor and to his left, our right, is a bank of displays that look like electronic oscilloscopes. Since embedded body electronics are common in the world of Johnny Mnemonic, that is probably exactly what they are intended to be. Spider adjusts some controls on these.
The oscilloscopes show no text, just green lines and shapes. The CRT behind Johnny is now showing the same head image that we saw at the end of the previous scan.
In front of the oscilloscopes is a PC keyboard from the 1990s. In 2021 this will look even older, but this entire hospital is portrayed as a shoestring operation relying on donations and salvage. Spider types on the keyboard, and the CRT changes to show a lot of scrolling text.
This is enough for Spider to announce that the “data” is the cure for NAS, the world wide epidemic disease that Jane is showing symptoms of. Again it’s not clear how he can determine this, as the data is still protected by the access codes. Perhaps the scrolling text is unencrypted metadata in the implant that is more easily retrieved. Given the apparent hazardous life of a mnemonic courier, it would make sense to attach the equivalent of a sticky label to the implant, briefly describing the contents and who they should be delivered to.
(This is also the point where one has to ask why this valuable data is encrypted and protected to begin with. Using a mnemonic courier for distribution makes sense, to avoid content filters on the Internet. But now the data is here in Newark, with the intended recipients, so why is it so hard to get at? The best answer I can think of is that the scientists wanted to ensure that the mnemonic courier couldn’t keep the data for themselves and sell it to the highest bidder.)
The third of the three brain interfaces warrants its own post, coming up next.
After fleeing the Yakuza in the hotel, Johnny arrives in the Free City of Newark, and has to go through immigration control. This process appears to be entirely automated, starting with an electronic passport reader.
After that there is a security scanner, which is reminiscent of HAL from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The green light runs over Johnny from top to bottom.
Looking at the picture, we can see that this green light is somehow making Johnny’s skeleton visible. It would be possible, by having an X-ray imaging system running at the same time and then re-projecting the X-ray image back onto the body, but why? Since there don’t appear to be any actual human beings on duty, I can only suggest that it is meant to look intimidating and impressive to encourage obedience. In the film Johnny appears to be alone and cannot see this himself, but it would be much more common for there to be multiple passengers, so each could watch the others being scanned.
There is also a screen showing another scan, a blurry body image, and text appearing on the right side. A voice repeats the text content. For the first time we see a blue background, the most common color for futuristic film interfaces.
The scanner detects Johnny’s implant, but whatever secrecy measures are present cause the system to decide that it is a registered dyslexia aid. The popup alert below includes the registration issuer and a domain name, so perhaps this is online verification over the Internet. Presumably Johnny can see this screen himself, if he cares.
The voiceover helpfully informs Johnny that there is “synaptic seepage”, and he should seek medical attention within 24 hours. This shows quite high level decision making by the system and an offer of assistance. Johnny says “thanks” in reply, an anthropomorphic response to this seemingly intelligent machine.
However, there seems to be a more detailed explanation in smaller text on the right of the display, and this isn’t announced. It’s not clear in this scene whether Johnny can see this display or not, but even if he could it would be difficult to read. Perhaps this is a legacy system from the days when airport security had actual staff.
Next
At this point Johnny leaves the airport, riding in a taxi from the airport. It is a good time for the first review of a group of related interfaces, which will be the next series of posts.
Yesterday I offered extra credit if a reader could name the first floor sweeping robot in a film in the Make It So survery. Pixel I/O smartly noted that The Jetsons (debut 1962) had one—its autovac. (Thanks to Matt Houghton of TechVert.com for posting the image.)
This is a great catch, but Pixel I/O rightly acknowledged that The Jetsons was not a film, so off by a technicality. Shouts out anyway, as this example was a full three or four years before the film I did have in mind, which was the only-nominally sci-fi comedy The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). Still, I happened to come across it in research and captured it.
In the film, the inventor Rod (Bruce Templeton) tries to impress Jennifer (Doris Day) with this floor-cleaning robot. It only manages to pop out of its door to arc towards a dropped banana peel and through reversed footage, arc right back into its home under the kitchen island.
What’s interesting about these two examples are their similarity. They’re each the size of a small dog. Each has an antenna and two eyes. The antennae speak of the radio-controlled paradigm of the era. Audiences needed to know how they are being controlled, and this shortcut answered the question at a glance. The eyes hint at a need for anthropomorphism, or possibly zoomorphism, for users to understand the thing’s capabilities. We know it can see us and the things around it because of this simple visual affordance.
To illustrate his capitalist ideology, (a high-tech version of the parable of the broken window) Zorg activates his automatic cleaning robots. To do this, he deliberately crashes a glass to the floor, where a set of robots come scuttling out from beneath his desk and begin cleaning up.
Three of them serve to demarcate the space as a ”robots working” zone, with tall masts from which red beacon lights warn anyone nearby. In the middle of these three, a sweeper robot gathers the large pieces of glass with broom and dustbin actuators.
Then, a vacuum robot spins above the location to remove the fine pieces of glass.
Finally, a hemispheric robot also comes to sterilize the area, or possibly to just spray a pleasing scent in the air. After they are done, they retreat automatically to the desk, and a new drinking glass rises from a hidden compartment to Zorgs desktop, filling with water to the accompaniment of a small voice that announces “water” and, as a bowl of the stuff also raises, “fruit.”
As Zorg pulls a cherry from the bowl, the same voice announces somewhat pointlessly, “a cherry.” (Perhaps useful if the eater is unfamiliar with basic types of fruit.)
Analysis
The robots are meant to do their job safely and efficiently, and then put themselves away as quickly as possible. The main “interface” task they have is to keep nearby humans informed and safe. (Did Asimov write a law for vacuum cleaners?) A minor secondary goal might be to distinguish the function of each by their shape. The robots inform observers explicitly with the stanchion robots’ beacon lights and bright red patterns. In addition, the whirring sounds of each robot’s motors and actuators help to reinforce the fact that they are working. If they were completely silent they would be more problematic for people not looking or unable to see. The beacon might be a bit of overkill and distracting to someone at a distance, but since the robots are small enough to be a trip hazard, and Cornelius is in fact less than a meter away at the time of sweeping, I can see why it might be needed in this particular case. That they are each readily distinguishable means it might be easier to intervene or select a particular one for maintenance. So, aside from the faulty logic they’re meant to embody, mostly really well designed.
The main improvement I can imagine is that the system might reduce the trip hazard by unifying these disparate functions in a single device, and then either keeping them stanchion-high or flattening its top out like a step. But then we’d just have invented Roomba five years early.
Extra credit
This isn’t the first floor cleaning robot seen on the silver screen. There was another movie over three decades before that included one, even though it wasn’t what most people would consider sci-fi. Can any of the Make It So readers identify that film in the comments? (I’ll post pics of the answer once someone guesses it.)
