You showed this... to an 8 year old?

We're probably looking at a halo effect ?

Similar to concept car demoed at trade shows, we get an idea of Disney's technical engagement, and some of it will perhaps in some way or form get applied into future products/attractions.

Eh, maybe. I have a less myopic view... I think their Imagineers just like pushing the envelope, and there's a difference between awesome tech vs things that can withstand the wear-and-tear of millions of guests.

Nothing about all that tech makes me think Olaf could withstand a hug from an excited kid.

Disney does a ton of R&D that doesn't directly make it into the parks, such as smokeless fireworks (they donated the patent for this) and their holotile floor (basically an endless VR room you can walk around). I imagine they don't know the practicality at the start, like any good R&D.

"There is no point in research, because I do not see anything useful being mass-produced immediately after". It's like saying Gaussian elimination is wasteful because it is just doing some cool magic with numbers that don't mean anything. That could not possible be used for anything real, right?

Seriously, this is just one (but impressive) step along in a million towards not only better animatronics for entertainment. They make a very real and valuable contribution towards improving any robotic motion.

Amazon drone delivery comes to mind…

The term for that is false advertising.

Defunctland is genuinely amazing and always a fun watch, and I never regret the time spent on their videos, they're kind of like a special occasion... though they're getting incredibly long... :)

There are a few older shorter videos in the half hour range, I highly recommend checking them out if you find some quiet time! (It's awfully hard for me too in recent times, I haven't gotten around to watch the Living Characters one myself, so I can't give the gist... I'm just glad I got the holidays off to finally catch up!)

One of the key reasons is that it would be really, really easy to accidentally injure parkgoers with any design big enough to interact with and engineered well enough to be reliable in a full day of appearances.

For example, the working WALL-E robot that's made a handful of PR appearances weighs seven hundred pounds. They absolutely can't risk that ever running across some kid's foot.

This is one of those situations where that's legitimately difficult. Kevin Perjurer is quite a good documentarian, and there's very little trimmable fat on the four-hour product if you want to keep in all the points he made.

gkoberger's peer comment is a pretty good summary. Another interesting point is that these technologies can benefit the brand bottom-line even when they don't make it into the park, because part of Disney's brand is "tomorrow today." Even when things are one-offs, they become one-offs that people stitch into the legend of the parks (in both the retelling and in their own memories), which gives them a larger-than-life feel; your visit might not include one of the "living characters," and statistically it probably won't.

... but it might. And if it does, you'll never forget it.

Personal anecdote / example: I stopped in at the "droid factory" in the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge area of Disney World a few years back. They had several bits of merch for sale including one life-size R2-D2, inert. I took a close look at the R2 because it was an impressive bit of work. Turned around to look at a rack of t-shirts. And was, therefore, startled as hell to hear a bwoop behind me, turn around, and see that it had followed me out of its charging receptacle and was staring at me. It was not at all inert; it was a very impressive operational remote-control replica.

The cast member behind the counter was doing his best to hold down his grin and not give me a "GOTCHA" look. He has to, because you never know what kids might be watching and he doesn't want to break the magic. And... Yeah, he got me good. "That time I was at Disney World and R2-D2 followed me around the t-shirt shop" is gonna stick with me.

The basic gist is that while the tech is cool, it just ends up being impractical for regular use in the parks. (But like the other poster mentioned, with Defunctland it's less about the tldr and more about the journey and fascinating segues he takes)

Totally get it's difficult to make time with kids, but depending on your kids ages... the video shows a LOT of Disney characters talking and doing things and the videos are colorful, so it could work as something you can listen to and they won't mind having play in the background!

> https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disney_Characters%27_Articula...

A somewhat more readable frontend I like, since Fandom.com's interface cramps the actual content it's meant to present, imo:

https://breezewiki.com/disney/wiki/Disney_Characters'_Articu...

I know there’s BB-8 toys, but I’m talking about the version meant for the parks: https://youtu.be/RDgZjdZsc6g

Much like Olaf (and many before him… dinosaurs, WALL-E, talking characters, etc), it was implied he’d wander around the parks. But it tends to happen for a short amount of time, mostly for events, and fade away quickly. (The blog post even says that: Olaf will be part of a 15 minute temporary show, and then will visit Hong Kong).

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve seen this exact thing happen a dozen times over the past 20+ years. (And watch the video I posted if you want to see more!)

R2D2 is an example of one that you can buy in the gift shop (for $20k!) that was promised to make it into the park but just comes out highly supervised, occasionally.

They have walking droids in Galaxys Edge right now. No ones kicking them over. Olaf is coming to the parks and they will have handlers next to them. It wont be just free-roaming.

I worked with someone who had previously worked on park robotics, and apparently they had to guarantee that the character could not injure a child to be able to put them in parks - a particularly high barrier to actually doing so.

Basically that the multiple departments involved have different objectives.

Imagineering is trying to build the coolest things possible, and many times the things seen in parks are play-tests.

Operations has to find the money and resources to keep things going, and these things take a lot of people to run.

Marketing sometimes will often provide the budget to make things happen (to promote a movie, etc) but it's not sustainable. They'll often sometimes use impractical inventions for marketing reasons, since they exist and might as well be used for something.

That's the main gist, although there's some interesting points about the risk to the brand (especially with camera phones) if Mickey ever slightly malfunctions in a public setting.

Maybe? It’s broken into chapters, and covers a ton of history. It’s engaging, and more of a journey than a singular answer.

A lot of people in this thread have vouched for Defunctland. Might not be for everyone, but I find the pacing great.

It's a reasonably cheap and unlocked handheld with fecent battery life. Personally I'd want more pixels, but if it works it works. It seems to be the default choice for remote control these days.

It's a great format for POV remote control in a more relaxed setting (eg, not flying a drone at 200kmph).

They're already using similar tech for the Mickey meet and greets and the Galaxy's Edge stormtroopers. The details aren't public, but it seems to be a mix of complex dialogue trees with interrupts or context switches, controlled in real time by the actor or operator.

AFAIK even the stormtroopers use prerecorded stuff when they speak, they make a specific hand gesture which triggers the voice.

Yep, in this case everything is controlled through a steam deck.

Most people aren't paying 100s or 1000s of dollars to interact with NPCs in video games. If they were, they'd probably expect a lot more and get bored of it quicker.

> The real challenges are around maintaining and safely operating automous robots around children in a way that isn't too expensive.

This is one of the challenges, but only one. The one GP outlined is still very much real - see the Defunctland video on Living Characters for some older examples, but for a recent example, there's the DS-09 droid from Galactic Starcruiser.

I mean, they kind of have to. The last thing you want is some disgruntled Disney-goer trying to get a quick refund or discount for false advertising by saying they, "expected olaf to interact with them, because it looks like he does in the promotional videos"

That is an interesting comparison. More than 600,000 people not in cars are killed on roads every year. If a few hundred thousand were killed by humanoid robots every year it might make a cultural difference.

What do you think the robot makers need to do to have people accept the kind of death count cars deliver?

Yes and hilariously, every single picture of it has a disclaimer stating that the prototype design will vary.

Disney legal is an entity worth studying one day.

I mean't Stream Deck

Apologies.

For some reason ended up commenting here but should have gone here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46345897

Still curious, how Mein Kampf is in the top ten and the included link to a Channel 5 segment ist still relevant also.

But again: apologies for ending up in the wrong spot with this.

Watch the movie. Olaf is not fuzzy.