Electric Sheep
2.6.7
Freeware
Author's description: Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Anyone watching one of these computers may vote for their favorite animations using the keyboard. The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global audience. You can also design your own sheep and submit them to the gene pool.
Anyone watching one of these computers may vote for their favorite animations using the keyboard. The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global audience. You can also design your own sheep and submit them to the gene pool.
Our verdict: A fantastic idea which has been implemented well. Some of the animations are eye-poppingly fantastic. Unfortunately others are more mediocre. For some of us who simply like a good-looking screensaver the less attractive animations might rule this module out. However we're sure that there will be others who will love the whole collaboration idea and ability to rate animations. Also available for Windows-based PCs.
ourrating
