Most people can drive in rain with the same skill they do when it's dry. Tires are pretty advanced already these days to ignore 99% of the danger wet roads pose to driving.

Snow on the other hand, have you seen people drive in the snow? Everyone turns into an idiot once the first flakes fall.



The software has gotten faster since I first used it. It still fails (if there's not enough surrounding similar patches to copy from) as you can see in the second example (there's one frame where it hiccups and you see some black blobs). But it's really, really powerful, generally pretty good, and now decently fast. Another 60 years and it'll be faster, better, and will be able to pull swatches from previous frames¹ to match texture, pattern, and orientation as the camera moves.

¹Nuke already does this, but its also not trying to do the editing in real time. It also pulls swatches from future frames, as it will do a first pass over the video to locate the object, then a second pass to remove it.

Neat. I'd imagine it wouldn't work quite as well on less uniform backgrounds, but still very cool. And by SR times....

I'd imagine negator would have options to do this, or more simple 'censor bar' type stuff. You might for instance set it up to totally negate bums unless they happen to be right in the center of your view and within say 5m, in which case they would get some sort of AR type overlay to make them look less offensive, but still let you know they're just money grubbing wastes. (Not my opinion, just an idea of how someone might use it)

So yeah, I could totally see a hacker adding this to someone's glasses or cybereyes to make her team invisible (At least granting a -6 perception to notice them from the slight distortions they might cause)

The problem is that we clearly can't use current technology to extrapolate for SR technology. That world would be all sorts of different if so many of the things they thought were new in 2020 actually happened today. In some ways there's even been steps backwards. SR != The Real World, it never has. If a piece of software says it hides things with AR objects, that's what it does. And unless those AR objects are from an ultraviolet node they aren't going to look real.

That said, if you like it in your game, I'm not going to call the game police or demand a tribunal. I'll just abuse the hell out of it as best I can should I end up at your table. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Since when can AR objects not look real? And since when does 'remove an object' mean 'cover it up with something'? Well, you know, besides when you're told to clean your room (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Just looked it up and the section I was thinking of was talking about VR. I return to my original statement: if you like it, do it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Actually, the difference between normal VR and ultraviolet VR is not the look, it's the smell. VR is already advanced enough to mimic the real world, but it doesn't come with smells and tastes, and only a limited amount of touch.

Not according to the rulebook.

Do remember that the smaller the object you're dealing with (in this case, an AR overlay "covering" a person in a larger scene) where the texture that's being painted is taken from the scene you get much better results than if everything was created from scratch.

I live in Canada, I can confirm this. A LOT!

I'm sorry but you can use an edit program to edit things out of a video stream at real time.
If you have 5 people coming down the hall and you want to remove one of them from the video you can use what was in previous frames to create the missing video.
This is in fact done today's technology. The problem is that most home computer do not have the computing power to do this at real time.
60 years from that though, that could be a completely different story.

This.


Since it's inception. AR overlays images, data and Matrix feeds. Unless it's UV it can't be mistaken for something real. Even overlayed holo-projectors have a pretty easy threshold of 2 to see they aren't real.
Negator never says it "removes an object." That is nowhere in the description. It says it "hides, masks or blots out with AR."

While the ability of the Edit program is up to Gamemaster's discretion, hacking someone's sight in real time is something that has been stated cannot be done in Shadowrun. There are too many variables.
With a camera, you have a constant background with which to overlay or repeat. Easy as pie. With sight, people move too often and see to much to be able to edit everything out that quickly. Think of it like Editing requires a Simple Action and turning your head requires a Free action.

An easier way to put it is like putting a painting in front of a camera. The camera and anyone seeing through it won't be able to distinguish it from a feed. Putting a painting up in front of a person will not fool them, as their eyes are constantly darting and doing all that monkey brain stuff.
If you want to say a skilled hacker with a cool edit program can hack someone's eyes, that's your prerogative as a GM, but Negator can't do that.
Negator does what it says it does: blots out with AR sensory input.

yup, which is why I called negator the peril sensitive sunglasses.

It would be cool if it edited out things, but all it does is put stuff over top of it so you can't see it.
A hacker sitting there editing the feed before it hits the brain on the other hand...

It's all dicking around with the wording. To many people, 'hides' could mean 'edits out'. While the intent probably was black boxes (judging from the other wording), there's no reason to stay with that. The usual arguments of 2010 technology apply, notwithstanding the usual counterarguments. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's the future with unlimited processing power. Just go with what your group prefers.

Adobe Photoshop already has context sensitive delete.

You lasso an object you don't want, and Photoshop extrapolates a texture to cover up the hole from the surrounding pixels. Most of the time it's good enough that people can't tell anything was done.



-k

The same tactic and similar views were expressed here.

Correct. The algorithm has been around for years, too (the GIMP has a plugin that's older than Photoshop's implementation, for instance). It's very powerful, it's just not fast enough to work on video in real time. Yet.

However, the argument that people would not be permitted to operate a vehicle while wearing devices that aggressively censor their sensory input holds no matter how you cut it, as does the fact that gridguide would prevent a vehicle from crashing due to an unobserved obstruction. So the stated use of causing crashes still won't apply (unless you put a giant pair of negators over your entire car).

Yes, but no. People will do anything, and their AR devices are always worn. It's probably not allowed… if that mattered. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Negators could easily have beneficial driving uses, as well.

Speaking as someone who's done an awful lot of driving in Seattle, I can say that because the rain is different there, it's not the hazard people imagine it to be. And even so, I can easily see how someone with Skill 0 in driving could default and be okay under standard rainy conditions. You can always assume your car has a Handling bonus that makes up the difference.

Snow, now? Yeah, things become crazy once snow starts to fall.

Seattle is also a tricky place to drive normally. Steep hills and manual transmissions don't go well together.
But in 2070, I expect everyone has an automatic.

Negator is a program not a device. They wouldn't be allowed to turn it on, but that's what your teams hacker is for. Even if we assume the best the program can do is replace bums on the street with an over lay of Ms. Luscious Brown Elf Nipples herself it's still useful for a team of runners to know their target runs a copy. Either dress like bums or have your hacker include your team in the definition of bums and be ignored by your target on the street! Or if you just want to be cruel to him replace Ms. Brown Elf Nipples with Bubba the Love Troll in all his naked rampant glory.


Now that I think about it that last option might be enough to cause a car crash all on it's own.

Exactly. 'They' really can't stop you from doing anything. How would they even detect if you had Negator running on your totally separate device(s)?

Everything is wireless, right? And security is a joke, right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

All depends on how you do it. The perception of weakness is a strength all on it's own.

You could always add Watcher spirits to the list of "undesirable" and have your manifested Watcher stand in front of the guard, obscuring his vision.