A graduation on Thursday in New Bedford certified 12 workers through virtual reality training to work on the Bay State’s Offshore Wind Project.
The course led by VINCI Virtual Reality and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SRGE) teaches students how to install and work on wind turbines. ...
This is the first group of students – in the world — certified to work on the wind turbines using virtual reality training. ...
The group of newly certified workers are one step closer to working on the Offshore Winds project, which include Mayflower and Vineyard Wind, set to be completed by 2025.
David Min Facebook post: What we've been up to:The Burbank, California-based entertainment giant chose six companies to participate this year in the Disney Accelerator program, and they all involve immersive experiences and technologies, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Participants in this year’s program include FlickPlay, a social-media app that lets users unlock non-fungible tokens tied to real world locations; Obsess, which helps brands create 3D virtual stores on their websites; and Red 6, which makes a headset that can be used to tap artificial reality experiences in active, outdoor settings.Previous participants in Disney’s program, launched in 2014, have included Epic Games, maker of the Fortnite game and the Unreal Engine computer graphics tool.
All companies named seem to have some links to Web3 with Flickplay offering a social app that enables users to discover NFTs tied to real-world locations that they can experience and share via AR.
On the other hand, Inworld helps developers create interactive, AI-driven characters for immersive experiences, while Lockerverse is a Web3 platform empowering creators to tell culture-defining stories delivering unique experiences.
Obsess offers brands an experiential e-commerce platform to launch 3D virtual stores on the metaverse and their websites, while Red 6 has developed and patented a headset that enables users to interface with high-performance environments outdoors.
Polygon is one of the leading L2 Ethereum scaling solutions in the market allowing developers to launch massive dApps like blockchain games and NFT marketplaces without compromising on the speed and low gas fees offered by proof-of-stake L1 blockchains. Polygon was the only blockchain platform named for the 2022 Disney Accelerator Program.
Disney launched its web3 and metaverse campaign earlier this year with a patented technology that allows users to interact with 3D objects without wearing a VR headset.
The CEO of data analytics firm Palantir, Alexander Karp, addressed European politicians precisely two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. He stated in an open letter that since the war was imminent, Europeans needed Silicon Valley’s assistance to update their arsenals. According to Karp, countries in Europe must embrace “the relationship between technology and the state, between disruptive companies that aim to loosen the hold of established contractors and the federal government ministries with funding” if they want to “remain strong enough to defeat the threat of foreign occupation.”
The call is being answered by the military. The creation of a $1 billion innovation fund by NATO was announced on June 30. The fund would invest in early-stage businesses and venture capital firms that are working on “priority” technologies such as automation, big data processing, and artificial intelligence. The Germans have set aside little under half a billion within a $100 billion budget infusion to the military for research and artificial intelligence since the conflict began, while the UK has created a new AI policy exclusively for defense. ...
AI war chest
The push for greater AI in defense has grown louder and louder over the past few years as the Maven issue fades into history. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who served as the NSCAI’s head, has been one of the most vocal in his calls for the US to embrace military AI more quickly. The NSCAI urged the US military to invest $8 billion annually in these technologies or risk falling behind China in a study published last year detailing actions the US could take to catch up to China in AI by 2025.
A Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technologies research estimates that the Chinese military invests at least $1.6 billion yearly in AI. According to Lauren Kahn, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, there is already a significant push to catch up in the US. The US Department of Defense requested $874 million for AI in 2022, according to research published in March 2022, even if that amount does not cover all of the department’s AI initiatives.
... Because natural laws in the metaverse are editable in a way they are not in the real world, they can also reflect our moral judgements.
For example, no natural law prohibits Alice from stealing Bob's car. Because she is physically able to steal the car, our legal system needs to identify her, prove that she committed the crime, establish some punishment and attempt to make Bob whole again by returning the car or ordering restitution. The physics of the metaverse could absolutely restrict Alice from taking Bob's car. In effect, there is a new natural law in that metaverse: you cannot exercise control over another's possessions. Alice can no more easily violate that law than we can escape gravity's pull.
As another example, Carlton formally promises to buy Derek's virtual home for 0.001 bitcoin (BTC) if the price of 1 BTC exceeds $30,000 within the next 90 days. The entire transaction lives in the metaverse's digital realm: crypto currency is being exchanged for digital real estate upon a triggering event. Such transactions are the basis of smart contracts, and there is no opportunity to breach because the agreement automatically executes, as would computer code. Carlton and Derek's transaction becomes part of the fabric of their metaverse's legal system, and executes automatically if the triggering event occurs. ...
We can do in the virtual world what we can never hope to accomplish in the real world – we can bend the virtual world's parameters to match our moral judgments and build a space that by its nature executes our understanding of what is just and fair. ...
... “Nope World” is available for free in Meta’s Horizon Worlds app on the Quest 2 virtual-reality headset. According to Variety, “the experience begins with ‘Monkeypaw Productions: All Aboard,’ in which you find yourself as a passenger on the Monkeypaw train—featuring Easter eggs from Peele’s Nope,Get Out, and Us.”
In “Nope World,” visitors can interact with other fans (up to 11 at a time in a single instance), play minigames, and discover interactive elements, “including playing records, riding a motorcycle, and a getting sucked up into the sky by an ominous-looking storm cloud.”
Despite the partnership with Monkeypaw, the Horizon Worlds creators weren’t given any insider info on the film, so don’t worry about (or expect) any spoilers. “We’ve watched the [Nope] trailers so many times and got to bring in elements that we loved,” creator Matt Torres said. “It’s a great place to hang out and experience what it’s like being at Haywood Ranch.” ...
... With practical approaches to everything from writing a strong statement of AI ethics principles to creating teams that effectively evaluate ethical risks, Ethical Machines is the one guide you need to ensure your AI advances your company's objectives instead of undermining them.
As it builds more evidence to support its virtual reality therapeutic for managing pain, startup AppliedVR picked up $36 million in fresh funding to fuel its growth.
The Los Angeles-based company also is awaiting a decision from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on its first de novo submission. The company is preparing for full market launch of its flagship product, EaseVRx, after FDA approval. ...
“For too long, we’ve relied on the notion that people need to take pills or rely on surgery to feel better and lead a better quality of life. At AppliedVR, we’re building an unparalleled body of evidence for providers and payers to demonstrate that immersive therapeutics can fill the massive unmet need for patients who are frustrated by current treatment paradigms. And, we are starting with chronic pain, one of the most complex, costly conditions,” said Matthew Stoudt, co-founder and CEO of AppliedVR, in a statement. ...
AppliedVR's goal is to make immersive therapeutics accessible to everyone, he said, "and this funding will help further expand our body of evidence, infrastructure and distribution platform, enabling patients and providers to take advantage of this next-generation therapeutic—while also bringing down costs for payers.”
AppliedVR's platform has been used by more than 30,000 patients in more than 240 of the top health systems globally. ...
... AR is a spectrum, and the Air Glass falls way on the “simple notification machine” side of it, not the realistic holograms you’ll find in products like Microsoft HoloLens. The device is a single lens equipped with a monochrome Micro LED projector and a waveguide that projects its light, plus a plastic stalk with a small speaker and a trackpad that accepts swipes, taps, and presses. ...
To use it, you put on a pair of custom-designed metal glasses frames that have a matching magnetic nub on the temple. The frames are ordinary glasses but fit the lens system along the right side, and you’ve got a monocular AR display similar to Google Glass. When you’re done using the AR component, you use that magnetic divot to snap it against a curved charging case that looks a bit like a shoe horn, which in turn charges over USB-C. ...
I love the theory behind Oppo’s design because it’s a strong tactic for offering lots of style options while also mitigating the perennial AR creepiness factor. ...
The Air Glass, by contrast, is more like an earbud for your eyes. ...
Netflix has announced that, beginning today, it’s rolling out spatial audio for select original programming. The feature should deliver more immersive sound, particularly for customers who are listening to a TV show or movie with headphones. Netflix has collaborated with Sennheiser to convert surround sound mixes into an expansive spatial audio presentation that can be played through stereo speakers or headphones; you don’t have to buy anything new or own a proper surround system for this to work. According to Netflix, spatial audio “is compatible with all devices, all streaming plans, and does not require surround sound speakers or home theater equipment.” ...
... He also saw the solution: AI that builds a new kind of operating system. One that learns faster than anything most humans could imagine. It learns so fast that you only need to show it a few times how to do something and it’ll do that thing from then on. One that enables new lower-cost components to be used. Ones that are less precise
When I watch the Universal Worker move, I can see how the tendons that make it work create a very different, animal, sort of motion. It is kind of springy. This would be a non-starter for a traditional robot, but the AI control, just like with a person, manages this and makes it all work out. Dr. Kaehler tells me that the use of this sort of tendon system is central to how the robot can be so light and dexterous, as well as why it can be so much less expensive than traditional robots. ...
In the video Kaehler goes into some depth about what it’s doing and how it works. ...
Each robot had a humanoid form. Even a smile on the face. And the head moved in a very unique way that I had never seen before. Strangely human like. Which, Adrian says in the video embedded here, is part of its ability to learn quickly and also get the trust of the human working aside it. ...
... there are many other similarities between what runs under robots, virtual beings, autonomous vehicles, augmented reality headsets and glasses. Kaehler is the only human that I know that has built three of those and he says that they all are strongly connected underneath in how they perceive the world, let others see the perceived and synthesized world.v ...
The Universal Robots feel the same a bit to me. At least at first. Until I started watching that this was real AI learning how to grasp and drop things. It felt humanlike as it dropped a rod onto a machine yet another time in a row without dropping it. ...
It “sees” the world in a new way, using something the AI engineers call “Neural Radiance Fields.” A new form of 3D scenes that you can walk through. In Giant AI’s case it moves the hands through these radiance fields, which are unlike any 3D data structure we’ve ever seen before. ...
