Technology is advancing so quickly that I could soon be out of a job. Northwestern University’s Intelligent Information Laboratory is working on technology that could replace news anchors with talking avatars. For those of you not familiar with the term, the Urban Dictionary defines avatar as: a digital representation of a person who lives only through the Internet.

The site called “News at Seven” proclaims to give you the news you want, the way you want it, by generating a virtual newscast pulled from stories, images, videos and blogs on a common news topic. What you end up with is a three-minute news update with national, international, and human-interest stories, with commentary from blogs on the national story. Click here to see a sample newscast.

Before I get on my high horse about how the avatars delivery sucks and they are not the most appealing to watch, there are people out there who don't like “human” news anchors either. A study done by the Radio-Television News Directors Association and the Ford Foundation found just under 60% of people 18 and older say news is better with anchors. Just under 30% say news would be better without anchors, and just under 10% say it doesn’t matter.

I say, which would you rather see, this face

Or this face..