MQDC to launch its first metaverse in Q2
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... The first property project in MQDC’s Idyllias metaverse is The Forestias, a mixed-use residential project built on 398 rai on Bang Na-Trat KM7, valued at 125 billion baht.
After it is launched in the second quarter, he said all customers can experience smart living solutions, direct-to-avatar commerce, and gamification options, while merchants can expand their sales channels through virtual stores on Idyllias.
“The next project will be Cloud 11 on 27 rai near Udom Suk skytrain station, with other new mixed-use projects in our pipeline,” said Mr Parut. “We will expand the customer base and drive global market share by acquiring digital users worldwide.”
See the full story here: https://www.bangkokpost.com/property/2504184/mqdc-to-launch-its-first-metaverse-in-q2
[Browser] Opera is adding ChatGPT integration for webpage and article summaries
Opera is going all-in on artificial intelligence. This week, the company shared plans to integrate generative AI capabilities into its web browser, starting with “Shorten,” a feature that will use ChatGPT to create summaries of articles and webpages. When the tool becomes available to the public, you’ll see a new icon to the right of the address bar. Tapping it will open a sidebar where ChatGPT will provide a bulleted summary of the webpage you’re looking at. ...
The announcement of Shorten comes in the same week that Microsoft said it was redesigning Edge to add an “AI-powered copilot” to the browser. Among the things the company’s new Prometheus model can do is summarize web pages. This past week also saw Google share that it’s working on Bard, an AI chatbot powered by its LaMDA platform. The timing of the announcements suggests Opera and Microsoft see generative AI as a way to break Google’s hold on the browser market. However, whether people actually switch away from Chrome as a result of those additions remains to be seen.
See the full story here: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/opera-is-adding-chatgpt-integration-for-webpage-summaries-175613285.html
Artificial intelligence’s dirty secret
... Laura Preston recently wrote about her experience working as one of these "human fallbacks" for a real-estate chatbot called Brenda. When a customer wanted to speak to someone about an apartment listing, they would be connected with Brenda, who could answer basic questions about the listing or give details on the apartment itself from the price of rent to the square footage. But many of Brenda's answers came across stilted or the system was simply unable to answer more complex questions, so a "human fallback" would step in. Preston and other human workers would take over the conversation and try to help the client, cleaning up stock answers to better address their needs or doing deeper research into housing vouchers and pet policies. According to Preston, employees were trained to use Brenda's "voice" in the interactions in an attempt to make the conversation appear seamless. And the push to robotically answer a deluge of questions came with a serious mental toll: "Months of impersonating Brenda had depleted my emotional resources," wrote Preston. "It occurred to me that I wasn't really training Brenda to think like a human, Brenda was training me to think like a bot, and perhaps that had been the point all along." ...
Instead of improving productivity, automation is often focused on increasing the power that employers have over workers. In his book, "Automation and the Future of Work," the economic historian Aaron Benanav explains that companies aren't putting money toward tools to make employees' lives easier, but are pouring money into "technologies allowing for detailed surveillance of those same workers" like computer-monitoring software that tracks the keystrokes of employees or Amazon's sophisticated algorithmic management tools that evaluate workers' every movement. ...
Just nine out of 116 AI professionals in films are women, study finds
... “Given that male engineers have repeatedly been shown to engineer products that are most suitable for and adapted to male users, employing more women is essential for addressing the encoding of bias and pejorative stereotypes into AI technologies,” the report’s authors write. ...
Researchers at the University of Cambridge reviewed more than 1,400 films released between 1920 and 2020 and whittled them down to the 142 most influential movies featuring artificial intelligence. Their analysis identified 116 AI professionals. Only nine of these were women, of which five worked for a man or were the child or partner of a more senior male AI engineer. ...
Dr Kanta Dihal, a co-author on the study and a senior research fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, said part of the male bias was an “art-mimicking life” spiral whereby film-makers portray AI professionals as men to reflect the male dominance of the industry. But about one in five AI engineers are women, compared with less than one in 10 of those portrayed in cinema. “They are exacerbating the stereotype they see,” she said. ...
Prof Dame Wendy Hall, a regius professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, said there was an urgent need for a campaign to increase diversity in AI. Hall wrote her first paper on the lack of women in computing in 1987, and said the situation was worse with AI because the potential impact on society was so great.
See the full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/13/just-nine-out-of-116-ai-professionals-in-films-are-women-study-finds
Mice Explore Virtual Reality Through a Pi-Powered Headset
A research team at the University of Leicester has developed a Raspberry Pi-powered VR headset for mice, allowing the little critters to explore virtual worlds.
The headset was created as part of a study exploring the effects of virtual reality on the brain and behavior of mice, and the results showed that the mice became more familiar with their virtual surroundings over time and showed reduced anxiety levels.
The teams says this research has potential implications for studies involving brain mapping, animal behavior, and virtual reality therapy. ...
See the full story here: https://blog.adafruit.com/2023/02/11/mice-explore-virtual-reality-through-a-pi-powered-headset/
Bill Gates Reveals the Next Big Thing [AI]
... ChatGPT will improve office efficiency, drafting invoices and letters, Gates said. He sees many possibilities for the next generation of chatbots, including in the health care and education spaces.
"The easiest way to understand it is that AI has got very good at speech recognition and visual recognition, but they essentially couldn’t read,” he praised.
Gates, who cofounded Microsoft in 1975, believes that new robots like ChatGPT are capable of training, improving, and reading and writing through new knowledge. He said that AI will improve messaging software like Microsoft's Team. AI would, for example, be able to keep track of the conversation to produce relevant information based on a meeting. ...
What is innovative is the fact that this artificial-intelligence interface is perfectly at ease in a conversational mode: You can ask a lot of questions one after the other and expect clear answers. It is a generalist robot: You can ask ChatGPT to write a film script, the plan for a thesis, or a computer code.
One of ChatGPT's skills is its ability to break down a complex task into several small elementary tasks, as a computer program would do, to facilitate solutions for human users.
See the full story here: https://www.thestreet.com/technology/bill-gates-reveals-the-next-big-thing
Inside the Academy’s Quest to Help Filmmakers Preserve Digital Titles
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science has set up the Academy Digital Preservation Forum, a website inviting filmmakers and others to address the challenges facing digital preservation. ...
Heading the project is Andrea Kalas, SVP Asset Management at Paramount Pictures. Her career has been long devoted to the world of preservation, having worked at the British Film Insititute, Dreamworks SKG and Discovery Communications. ...
During that time, they shared concerns for digital preservation — such as which assets should be preserved, the costs of preservation, how to preserve digitally, and consumerism. ...
See the full story here: https://variety.com/2023/artisans/news/digital-film-preservation-academy-forum-1235516076/
Global Amusement and Theme Parks Strategic Market Report 2023: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Present New Opportunities
....
3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS
- Key Trends in the Global Amusement and Theme Parks Market
- Changing Business Models
- Adoption of Dynamic Pricing
- Use of Artificial Intelligence & Touchless Technology
- Changing Way Customers & Staff Interact
- Rising Use of VR & AR for Enhancing Guest Experience
- Changing Food Experiences
- Growing Development of IoT Infrastructure
- Rise in Use of Virtual Assistants
- Blockchain Comes to the Fore
- Players Focus on Environmental Impact
- Technology Adoption Witnesses Rapid Growth in Theme Parks
- Urbanization & Tourism Trends Impact Dynamics of Theme Park Market
- Sustainability: An Important Aspect for Amusement Parks of the Future
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Present New Opportunities for Theme Parks Market
- Virtual Reality-based Theme Parks Grow in Popularity
- Technology Trends in Amusement & Theme Park
- 5G: Potential to Transform Theme Park Experiences
- Consumer Incomes and Desire for Recreational & Adventurous Activities Spur Market Prospects
- Innovative, Adventurous Rides Present Growth Opportunities
- Ensuring Profitability of Thrill Rides: A Major Machine Design Challenge
- Threat of Accidents at Amusement & Theme Parks: A Major Challenge
See the full pr here: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-amusement-and-theme-parks-strategic-market-report-2023-artificial-intelligence--machine-learning-present-new-opportunities-301742353.html
Google Maps Brings A New Level Of Interactivity To Your Journey
... Immersive view, which allows you to explore a place virtually, is rolling out now in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Tokyo. ...
Search With Live View
Live View is a search feature in Google Maps that uses AI and augmented reality to help you find nearby locations, such as restaurants, parks, transit stations, and ATMs, simply by holding up your phone while walking.
It provides information like operating hours, the current level of activity, and ratings, allowing you to make informed decisions and save time. ...
New Maps Features For Electric Vehicle Drivers
New Google Maps updates for EV drivers include adding charging stops to shorter trips, which Maps will suggest based on factors like current traffic, charge level, and energy consumption, as well as high-speed charging stations, which can fill up your car in less than 40 minutes. ...
See the full story here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-maps-brings-a-new-level-of-interactivity-to-your-journey/478858/#close
Squid Game Virtual Reality Experience Announced by Netflix and Sandbox VR
Netflix is working with a VR company on a Squid Game experience. The company announced that their Squid Game project is in the works with Sandbox VR. Basically, fans can look forward to participating in the challenges from the Netflix program. It's said to be "fully immersive" by Bothe the streamer and tech company. Later this year, viewers can try out the challenges for themselves if they haven't gotten enough of the franchise from the live-action show and multitude of parodies by then. As an added bonus, users can also make highlight reels of their own in-game reactions and share their experiences with social media followers. (Which to be honest is the aim of something like this in all reality.)...
"It took 12 years to bring the first season of Squid Game to life last year. But it took 12 days for Squid Game to become the most popular Netflix series ever," Hwang explained. ...
See the full story here: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/squid-game-virtual-reality-netflix-experience-announced-sandbox-vr/
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