Author: Lidia Zuin

Lidia Zuin is a Brazilian journalist and a cyberpunk enthusiast. She holds a Masters in Semiotics and has worked as a localization game tester. Interested in philosophy, she writes about art, culture, technology and futurism.
Sequel
News

Sequel lets you easily build your own chatbot, so go wild with it

Dating back to when Alan Turing wrote his famous article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (1950), in which he first presented the concept of the Turing test, chatbots are a technology that has become popular once again, now being developed for entertainment, mediatic and customer services ends. From the historical chatbots (also known as chatterbots) ELIZA (1966) and PARRY (1972) to more recent initiatives like Cleverbot and SimSimi, or even the Facebook Messenger game Jessie’s Story, now there is a new chance for independent writers, game makers, and brands to work with this technology by using a new chatbot platform, Sequel.…
Lidia Zuin
Feature

A brief history of men who build female robots

This is a preview of an article you can read on our new website dedicated to virtual reality, Versions. /// You probably saw the news about the Chinese guy who created his own robotic Scarlett Johansson in his flat, right? Ricky Ma has caught the attention of many during the past weeks not just because he managed to build a robot that looks just like the American actress, but also because he did this all alone, and because he doesn’t admit the resemblance. Besides the discussion of how this could become a legal issue, the robot named Mark 1 also…
Humani: Jessie's Story
News

Humani: Jessie’s Story turns the sitcom into a chatbot game

Jessie came into my life a couple of weeks ago. She was announced by her creators at PullString at the beginning of April as part of a conversation-based narrative game called Humani: Jessie’s Story, which you play on Facebook Messenger. You only need to say “hi” to meet Jessie, who is a 20-something girl who is not only experiencing a quarter-life crisis, but also looking for a job, a boyfriend, and a new apartment — all in the same day. You go along for the ride. As Jessie gives you the lowdown on how to get to a job interview, how to find the best shared house, or how…
Sara and Death
News

Philosophical mobile game reimagines Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal

Rocco Salvetti might be not your typical videogame maker. After studying philosophy, he decided he wanted a new adventure in IT. “I had a good job, but curiosity took over. I left and started all over,” he said. He moved from Italy to England, finding in London the right place to settle down and to run away from the stillness of small towns: “I need a massive city not to get depressed and it has been four years now, maybe I should consider Tokyo.” It is this hunger for more that describes Sara, Salvetti’s alter ego, and the protagonist of his game Sara and Death. Available…