Former Apple Store employee creates Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S. using a Mac mini
Okay, there's no HUD display like Tony Stark had and it isn't voiced by Paul Bettany, but former Apple Store employee Chad Barraford has created Project Jarvis, a digital assistant that greets him, Tweets for him, and can even tell his family when he has a headache and dim the lights of his apartment before he reaches home.
Project Jarvis is based on the comic book character Edwin Jarvis, Tony Stark's human butler who became an AI construct after he was reinvisioned for a twenty-first century audience in the first Iron Man film. Chad's real life Jarvis may not help him fly an invisible suit of armor, but via RFID tags, webcams, and microphones, Barraford can communicate with Jarvis in a number of ways including tweeting, instant messaging, and speech recognition which allows him to control lights and appliances, notify him of breaking news, Facebook updates, Netflix queues, check stock quotes and weather, and even help assist him with cooking.
Barraford calls Jarvis a digital life assistant (DLA) and runs it entirely from a four year-old Mac mini running custom AppleScript, he told us. Right now he has no plans to sell the AppleScript code, but is always happy to share ideas with other developers of DLAs. Click on over to The Boston Globe to see video of Jarvis in action.
