Think you can lift that? Better ask Santos first. Who’s this Santo’s fellow, you might ask, and where do I find him? Well, on your computer of course.
Santos is the first biofidelic avatar–for you speech-heads who cut Latin class that loosely translates to something like ‘true to life’ avatar. Basically, it means that Santos is modeled after humans (or more specifically an average man) to test how strenous a task might be for a real person.
Recently, the company that created Santos, SantosHuman Inc., also created a female avatar–Sophia– who will as strong as 65% of the female population.
Santos was originally modeled by the U.S. Department of Defense as part of the University of Iowa’s Virtual Soldier reserach program as a way to “ease physical strain on soldiers.”
Last month, Ford aquired Santos to ensure that their workers don’t subject themselves to dangerous physical duties. Not only can Santos predict physical stress, he can also talk to you about it using a windows based XP voice recognition.
At first I imagine him saying ‘Why’d you make me bald, I mean, come on,’ but I think its more likely he’d say something about his level of fatigue.
