Insta360 and Leica partner on a 6K 360 camera with 1-inch sensors
... As the name implies, this new kit comes with a chunkier 360 lens module powered by two 1-inch CMOS sensors, and these are capable of capturing at higher resolutions — up to 6K for 360 videos, or up to 21 megapixels for 360 photos. This should guarantee a boost in image quality, especially in low light. This also happens to be the world's first 360 camera to be "co-engineered with Leica," following the two companies' earlier collaboration on the One R's 1-inch Wide Angle Mod. ...
The Insta360 One RS "1-inch 360 Edition" is now available for $800, which is quite a jump from the $550 "Twin Edition" (which comes with a "4K Boost Lens" and a "360 Lens" instead). A company rep explained that this new kit is targeting the prosumer market, such as users who want to create virtual tours for museums or real estate properties. ...
See the full story here: https://www.engadget.com/insta360-one-rs-1-inch-360-edition-price-availability-130036495.html
Yann LeCun has a bold new vision for the future of AI
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The centerpiece of the new approach is a neural network that can learn to view the world at different levels of detail. Ditching the need for pixel-perfect predictions, this network would focus only on those features in a scene that are relevant for the task at hand. LeCun pairs this core network with another, called the configurator, which determines what level of detail is required and tweaks the overall system accordingly. ...
He says that in 10 or 15 years people won’t be carrying smartphones in their pockets, but augmented-reality glasses fitted with virtual assistants that will guide humans through their day. “For those to be most useful to us, they basically have to have more or less human-level intelligence,” he says. ...
Bengio thinks that LeCun asks the right questions. He also thinks it’s great that LeCun is willing to put out a document that has so few answers. It’s a research proposal rather than a set of clean results, he says. ...
LeCun thinks that animal brains run a kind of simulation of the world, which he calls a world model. Learned in infancy, it’s the way animals (including humans) make good guesses about what’s going on around them. ...
In short, common sense tells us what events are possible and impossible, and which events are more likely than others. It lets us foresee the consequences of our actions and make plans—and ignore irrelevant details. ...
In LeCun’s vision, the world model and configurator are two key pieces in a larger system, known as a cognitive architecture, that includes other neural networks—such as a perception model that senses the world and a model that uses rewards to motivate the AI to explore or curb its behavior. ...
If they were to work, LeCun’s ideas would create a powerful technology that could be as transformative as the internet. ...
And yet his proposal doesn’t discuss how his model’s behavior and motivations would be controlled, or who would control them. This is a weird omission, says Abhishek Gupta, the founder of the Montreal AI Ethics Institute and a responsible-AI expert at Boston Consulting Group. ...
Augmented Reality Experience Will Bring L.A.’s Original Chinatown Back to Life
... When the dealer opened the box, "I was really blown away," Watts recalls. A block by block, building by building sequence of photographs depicting early 20th century Los Angeles were, she knew, as "rare as hen's teeth." What's more, she quickly surmised, nothing that the pictures depicted remains. It is all gone, obliterated. This version of L.A.'s Chinatown got demolished right after these pictures were made in order to make way for the Union Station railroad depot. Every bit as amazing was the fact that the images were meticulously addressed. The photographer took care to note, on the images themselves, where he was on this or that street, writing the house or building number on the printed photograph. ...
Then, a chance meeting with Professor Scott Fisher of the USC Cinema school happened. ...
Fisher knew that he could place the 1930s photographs in space by way of augmented reality. He knew that commuters in route to and from their trains in Union Station could, by way of their phones or tablets, "see" the old neighborhood that had once been right there at their feet. Travelers laid over and awaiting departure could do so as well. ...
See the full story here: https://www.kcet.org/food-discovery/augmented-reality-experience-la-old-chinatown
Meet the Snoop Dogg impersonator who walked around NFT.NYC
... While Doop Snogg was there to raise the excitement for the event, not everyone was happy about it. Redditor u/Synthpop criticized the move, pointing out that NFTs have fake art, fake hype and a fake Snoop. “Everything is on brand so far,” they wrote.
Redditor u/Az_is also wasn’t impressed by the fake Snoop Dogg. Expressing their dissatisfaction, the Redditor pointed out that NFTs, a technology created to protect authenticity, are currently “being marketed with...a fake version of a person.” ...
Crypto start-up MoonPay launches NFT platform with Universal, Fox
... Founded in 2018, Miami-based MoonPay’s software lets users buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers, or mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. It also sells its technology to other businesses including crypto website Bitcoin.com and non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea, a model Soto-Wright calls “crypto-as-a-service.”
Soto-Wright has previously said the firm aims to make crypto accessible to the masses in the same way that video-conferencing tools like Zoom made it easier to make calls over the internet. ...
MoonPay says it has been profitable since launching its platform in 2019. Its service is now used by more than 10 million customers in 160 countries. Last month, MoonPay added more than 60 celebrity investors to its balance sheet, including Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Snoop Dogg and Ashton Kutcher, among others. Combined, its new investors poured $87 million into a previously announced $555 million funding round led by Tiger Global and Coatue, valuing the company at $3.4 billion. ...
See the full story here: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/21/crypto-start-up-moonpay-in-nft-deal-with-universal-fox.html
Meta’s latest VR headset prototypes will help it pass the ‘Visual Turing test’
Meta wants to make it clear it’s not giving up on high-end VR experiences yet. So, in a rare move, the company is spilling the beans on several VR headset prototypes at once. The goal, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is to eventually craft something that could pass the “visual Turing Test,” or the point where virtual reality is practically indistinguishable from the real world. ...
As explained by Zuckerberg and Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist of Meta’s Reality Labs, creating the perfect VR headset involves perfecting four basic concepts. First, they need to reach a high resolution so you can have 20/20 VR vision (with no need for prescription glasses). Additionally, headsets need variable focal depth and eye tracking, so you can easily focus on nearby and far away objects; as well as, fix optical distortions inherent in current lenses. Finally, Meta needs to bring HDR, or high dynamic range, into headsets to deliver more realistic brightness, shadows and color depth. (More so than resolution, HDR is a major reason why modern TVs and computer monitors look better than LCDs from a decade ago.) ...
And of course, the company needs to wrap all of these concepts into a headset that’s light and easy to wear. ...
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/20/metas-latest-vr-headset-prototypes-will-help-it-pass-the-visual-turing-test/
