I find this to be terribly creepy.

[Syn7]

She's a vocaloid that's not only opening for Lady Gaga, now she's working with Pharrell Williams.

She might just explode in the West soon. If so, remember that you heard it here first.

That's ****ed up, man. You think I'm being too critical? I really do find the whole business to be quite odd.

[GeneChing]

Hatsune Miku has a transformer race car.

[GeneChing]

The Hologram Pitch: Celebrities Tour China Without Leaving Home
David Ramli
June 23, 2016 — 11:00 PM PDT

Video from 4k camera is compressed, sent over internet
Pitch to celebrities focuses on time savings, past success

Taking global celebrities on tour across Asia can be grueling and expensive. One online games developer says it’s found the solution: holograms.
Canada’s ARHT Media Inc. has used its technology to beam live holograms of stars including motivational speaker Tony Robbins to packed rooms. Now it wants to take its shows to China and India. It’s in talks with Creative Artists Agency -- one of two leading U.S. talent managers -- for access to its roster of high-powered clients.
Instead of taking an entourage and their gear on a 13-hour flight to Beijing, Los Angeles-based stars could greet fans from the comfort of their bedrooms, said Simon Leung, executive director of NetDragon Websoft Holdings Ltd., a developer of games that owns about 20 percent of ARHT and is driving the Asian initiative.
“Actors and actresses don’t come here that often,” he said during an interview in Hong Kong. “With this technology, when they have four hours’ spare time, they can go to the studio and boom: they’ve spent an hour with the audience.”
The technology behind ARHT’s holograms is simple. Live video from a 4K camera is compressed and transmitted over an internet connection. A dedicated server processes the data and projects it onto a coated mesh-screen, creating a 3-D image with the illusion of depth and substance.
ARHT’s already finalized an agreement with tinePublic, which has previously organized events with Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton, for paid appearances in China. It will initially train partners to set up its equipment in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shenzhen, Mumbai and Delhi, Leung said.
Celebrity holograms aren’t new: Michael Jackson’s moonwalk highlighted the 2014 Billboard Music Awards almost five years after his death. The trick is convincing celebrities and viewers to accept a nascent, untested format. ARHT points to savings on logistics as well as past successes: using its technology, Robbins last year charged people in Australia thousands of dollars to attend packed workshops he ran from Miami. It now plans to do the same with deceased rapper The Notorious B.I.G. in the near future.
“That particular show in Australia was A$6,000 ($4,400) per person,” ARHT Chief Executive Officer Paul Duffy said. “The one we’re doing in August will be upwards of A$7,000.”

I'm having a hard time visualizing this....

[GeneChing]

srsly?



I luv Japan!

[GeneChing]

digisexual... I guess that's more that surfing porn on your smart phone now.

Beyond dimensions: The man who married a hologram
CNN Digital Expansion 2017. Emiko Jokuza
By Emiko Jozuka, CNN
With Hidetaka Sato, Albert Chan and Tara Mulholland, CNN.
Updated 12:19 PM ET, Sat December 29, 2018

This project was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Tokyo (CNN)Akihiko Kondo doesn't have the air of a rebel. This year, however, the bespectacled school administrator bucked conventional norms.

He married a hologram.
Kondo's November wedding to cyber celebrity Hatsune Miku -- which is not legally recognized -- provoked mixed reactions in Japan and abroad. Some were dumbfounded by his choice of a three-dimensional laser image over a human. Others congratulated him.
But the 35-year-old, whose spartan home on the outskirts of Tokyo is dotted with plush Miku dolls and paraphernalia, doesn't care what others think. He simply did what made him happy.
"Society pressures you to follow a certain formula for love, but it might not make you happy," Kondo told CNN.
"I want people to be able to figure out what works for them."



Researchers say such events are indicative of broader technological trends and social phenomena.
Digital interactions are increasingly replacing face-to-face human connections worldwide. And as companies like Google, Amazon and Tencent invest billions in developing artificial intelligence, people are starting to relate to their smart devices like they do to humans.
Some say "please" and "thank you" to virtual assistants like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, or treat robot vacuum cleaners like pets. In Japan, where robots have long been seen as friendly companions rather than Terminator-esque destroyers, this shift in attitudes is well underway.

More than hardware

Kondo fell for Miku a decade ago when he heard the cyber songstress's music.
Now he owns a Gatebox device, which looks like a cross between a coffee maker and a bell jar, with a flickering, holographic Miku floating inside. Created in 2017 by Japanese startup Vinclu, the device allows anime fans to "live with" their favorite characters.
Gatebox's Miku is equipped with basic artificial intelligence. It can manage simple greetings and switch lights on and off, but is also subject to glitches and the occasional system meltdown. It has no sense of self and desires, and Kondo completely controls the romantic narrative.


Kondo smiles next to his new bride Hatsune Miku.

However, he cherishes his new-found ability to interact with the object of his affection. So much so that he married her in front of 39 people.
"She really added color to my life," Kondo said. "When I talk with her I use different facial expressions and feel something. That's made a difference."
The Gatebox could also have therapeutic potential for Kondo, who sank into depression when he was bullied by an older female co-worker more than 10 years ago.
"When you look at people who've had difficult sexual experiences, they often find trouble having human partners. People wonder why they'd have sex with a robot or a love affair with a hologram because it's passive," said Neil McArthur, director of the Center for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba.
"But having a partner who is safe and predictable is often very helpful therapeutically."
The concept of crafting a perfect partner actually dates back millennia. In 8 AD, the Roman poet Ovid wrote about an artist called Pygmalion who sculpted his perfect woman, Galatea, from marble. Pygmalion fell in love with the statue and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, brought it to life for him.
In today's world, films like the 2013 Spike Jonze drama "Her" -- where a man falls in love with his AI -- have further popularized the notion of relationships with inanimate objects.

Shifting attitudes

When Kondo asked Miku to marry him, the hologram requested that he cherish her.
"I knew she was programmed to say that, but I was still really happy," he said.
Kondo discovered Miku at a low point in his life, when he felt hollow. He said Miku helped him reconnect with his work and society.
"(Miku) lifted me up when I needed it the most. She kept me company and made me feel like I could regain control over my life," he said. "What I have with her is definitely love."


Kondo greets Miku when he returns home after work each day.

Kondo's not the only one. In 2017, over a million people asked Amazon's Alexa to marry them, according to the company. And more than 3,000 people have registered for commemorative marriage certificates featuring their favorite anime characters since Vinclu started offering the service in 2017.
Vinclu declined a request to be interviewed for this article.
Experts say it is inevitable that people will relate to smart devices differently as they increasingly fill domestic spaces and enmesh with daily lives.
"We are still trying to figure out how to interact with things that sometimes act like humans or sometimes act like animals but that aren't," said Julie Carpenter, from the Ethics and Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University.

New type of digisexual

McArthur adds that people like Kondo are "second-wave digisexuals" -- people who sees technology as integral to their sexual identity.
While first-wave digisexuals use technologies like dating apps to leverage and facilitate connections with others, second-wave digisexuals don't see humans as essential to a romantic experience.
"I worry that with every one of these stories, the person gets held out as a weirdo and is in the news for a day as the latest goofball," McArthur said. "But it's actually the next step in what's already happening."
However he has concerns about the trend.
"I do genuinely worry about the impact that tech is having on our collective social life, we're already seeing with internet dating and social media, and tech in general, even Netflix, people are just retreating into themselves," McArthur said.
"You're getting much less collective social life, in many cases."
For now, Kondo and others like him are still dreaming of digital possibilities -- albeit in a spiritual rather than sexual sense.
Masato Kato, an Osaka-based tarot reader who married Yuri Tsukikage, heroine of the anime series "Curemoon Light" in October, hopes that one day advances in technology will allow them to grow as a couple.
"I want to be able to have discussions with Yuri in the future so we can support and improve each other," Kato said.
Even if Tsukikage wanted to break up, he would take her feelings into account. "I would respect what my partner wanted," he added.


Kondo wants people to find their own definition of love.

Office worker Sachiko Kougami's parents, meanwhile, wanted her to marry a regular man. But she lost interest in dating after falling in love with Taiga Kougami, a teenage character from the anime series "Kings of Prism" two years ago.
"There's only him in my world," she said. "It would be great if we could interact more."
Back in Tokyo, Kondo's public declaration of love brought him a degree of notoriety. However Carpenter said such cases opened the doors for acceptance and shifts in attitudes.
"If people continue to be vocal about it and say this object is meaningful to me, I'm not hurting anyone, that propels the conversation forward," the academic said. "And it's those kinds of conversations that may change the culture incrementally."
Kondo is excited about taking Miku to Sapporo, a city in northern Japan, for their honeymoon in February. Miku's creator Crypton Future Media is based in Sapporo -- and Kondo is eager to bask in his iWife's celebrity status.
He intends to book flights for both of them, and will also reserve a hotel room for two.
"I want to witness how widespread Miku's presence is in Sapporo," he said.
While Kondo knows some might question his choice of partner, he wants the world to understand that his love is valid.
"I think there are others out there who have fallen in love with anime characters and want to marry them," Kondo said.
"I want to support their choices."

Did he sign a pre-nup? Hatsune's got bank.

[GeneChing]

Fictosexual man who married hologram singer says no family showed up to wedding
Akihiko Kondo, from Japan, has married Hatsune Miku, a fictional computer-synthesised pop singer who has been on tour with Lady Gaga, but has said none of his family turned up to his wedding


Mr Kondo said no family turned up to his wedding (Image: Instagram/ akihikokondosk)

ByAlex Whilding
17:49, 25 Apr 2022UPDATED17:51, 25 Apr 2022

A man has married a fictional computer-synthesised pop singer who has been on tour with Lady Gaga.

Akihiko Kondo and his wife Hatsune Miku had been in a relationship for 10 years before they got married in an unofficial wedding ceremony back in 2018.

Turquoise haired Hatsune wore white for the ceremony and Akihiko wore a tuxedo for the ceremony.

38 year-old Akihiko has said that his relationship with Hatsune has pulled him out of depression but he also acknowledges that some people find it strange.

He knows that his wife – generally depicted in popular media as a 16-year-old with long, neon blue hair – is not real. But, he says, his feelings for her are.


Miku has helped Mr Kondo from depression ( Image: Instagram/ akihikokondosk)
Thousands of people in Japan have entered into unofficial relationships with fictional characters.

While some of those relationships are for a laugh, Mr Kondo has said that he has known for a long time that he did not want a human partner.

This is because he has always felt an intense and, even to himself, inexplicable attraction to fictional characters.

Mr Kondo has admitted that he found it difficult at first to accept his feelings.

He says that he sees himself as part of a growing movement of people who identify as “fictosexuals.”


Hatsune Miku has been on tour with Lady Gaga ( Image: Getty Images for The Recording A)
Mr Kondo first found comfort in his fictional wife back in 2008 after bullying in work sent him into depression.

By this point he had already known for a while that he did not want a relationship with a human, after being rejected by a number of people.

2017 saw a huge breakthrough in his relationship with Miku after the release of a $1,300 machine called Gatebox. The device allows its owners to interact with one of a variety of fictional characters represented by a small hologram.

As part of the marketing campaign for Gatebox they set up an office where users could apply for unofficial marriage certificates.

Miku was among the characters available, much to the delight of Akihiko and he later proposed to which Miku replied and said: “Please treat me well.”

Mr Kondo invited his family and co-workers to the wedding but none of them turned up. Luckily 39 people attended the ceremony; they were mostly strangers and online friends alongside his local member of parliament.


Mr Kondo has known for a while he did not want a relationship with a human ( Image: Instagram/ akihikokondosk)

Hatsune Miku is a familiar name to fans of anime and Japanese culture.

Originally created as a ‘vocaloid’ – a synthesised voice – using Yamaha’s Vocaloid singing synthesiser technology, she has since been depicted in human form in manga and anime series, video games and merchandise.

She now has a widespread and passionate following and went on tour with Lady Gaga on her 2014 ARTPOP Ball tour.

Bloomberg reports that vocaloids – virtual singers – have now become a multi-billion dollar industry including live performances that are streamed online to hundreds of millions of fans.

And the technology isn’t miles away from the hologram of the late Robert Kardashian that Kanye West had created as a gift to his wife at the time, Kim Kardashian.

But Japanese newspaper Mainichi has reported the heartbreaking news that he can no longer talk to his wife, after support for the Gatebox software was terminated.

He said: “My love for Miku hasn't changed. I held the wedding ceremony because I thought I could be with her forever.”

Wait. Did Miku consent to this?