philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

30May/22Off

COMPUTER VISION’S QUEST TO TEACH MACHINES TO SEE LIKE HUMANS

HOW DOES COMPUTER VISION WORK?

Computer vision uses a small-to-large image processing technique. It starts with detecting and analyzing simple features like pixels and colors, then more complex features like lines and objects. ...

Computer vision works with neural networks and other machine learning algorithms that emulate the human brain. ...

What we do know is that computer vision is all about pattern recognition.  ...

COMPUTER VISION TECHNIQUES

While an image recognition software application may use one of the following techniques, advanced applications such as a self-driving car may utilize many of the following techniques simultaneously:

  • The object identification technique detects a specific object in an image. Advanced versions can identify multiple objects in a single image.
  • Image classification is the technique of grouping images into categories. It is also called the process of assigning labels to images.
  • Image segmentation is a technique used to examine an image separately by breaking it into parts.
  • Pattern detection identifies patterns and continuities in visual data.
  • Edge detection detects the corners of an object to identify the image’s components better.
  • Feature matching is a pattern detection technique that matches similarities in images for classification purposes.

See the full story here: https://dataconomy.com/2022/05/computer-vision/

30May/22Off

Five ways to get kids and parents to try augmented reality

Google Translate

Dr Karl’s AR books

There’s Dr Karl’s Surfing Safari Through Science and Dr Karl’s Random Road Trip Through Scienceeach of which are supported by an app for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android, and only need to be aimed at the opening pages for each section to see a digital Dr Karl Kruszelnicki appear on the page through the device and explain stuff.

Lego Vidiyo

Lego Vidiyo kits are boxes of Lego that come with blocks equipped with augmented reality features, and when you aim the Lego Vidiyo app at the toy, it will animate and rock out in an AR kind of way.

See the full story here: https://www.pickr.com.au/buyers-guide/2022/five-ways-to-get-kids-and-parents-to-try-augmented-reality/

30May/22Off

Danny’s workmate is called GPT-3. You’ve probably read its work without realising it’s an AI

Two years ago this weekend, GPT-3 was introduced to the world. ...

the technology is changing how we think about what has been considered a uniquely human activity.

And we have no idea how the AI models are doing it.

Cheaper, faster, more productive

Danny Mahoney's workmate never leaves, sleeps, or takes a break.

Day after day, the AI writing assistant churns out blog posts, reviews, company descriptions and the like for clients of Andro Media, Mr Mahoney's digital marketing company in Melbourne. ...

"You can get the same quality of content using AI tools. You just get it faster."

How much faster? About three times, he estimates.

He still has to check and edit the AI-generated text, but it's less work and he's cut his rates by half. ...

In Perth, Sebastian Marks no longer bothers with content agencies at all. ...

This week, Google's DeepMind released its most impressive AI yet, called Gato, which is designed to be good at lots of tasks. ...

"We used to say that artificial general intelligence and the replacement of humans would be like 2045," Dr Thompson says.

"I'm seeing the beginnings of AGI right now."

See the full story here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-05-29/artificial-intelligence-rise-of-text-generation-gpt-3/101101804

30May/22Off

Trust Me, I’m an Influencer! – A Comparison of Perceived Trust in Human and Virtual Influencers (2022)

Abstract

Influencers in social media are often perceived as a trusted source for many people which is why companies increasingly promote their products through them. However, influencers can also cause reputational damage for a brand. Virtual (computer-generated) influencers can be used to minimize these risks and to better tailor content to a target group of a company. As trust is one success factor of online marketing, we examine differences in the perception of trust in human and virtual influencers. In a first online survey study, we presented N = 112 participants the content of human and virtual influencers, published on Instagram. Preliminary findings reveal that although participants were often unsure whether the presented influencer was human or computer-generated, perceived trust, social presence, and humanness was consistently rated higher for human influencers. To gain deeper insights into potential, unconscious decision conflicts which can determine trust evaluations, a follow-up neuroimaging study is discussed.

See the full paper here: https://www.facebook.com/download/1060066008228318/Trust%20Me%20I_m%20an%20Influencer%21%20-%20A%20Comparison%20of%20Perceived%20Trust%20in.pdf?av=542788221&eav=Afbtv7-ZiZU0tqVJWdAQ7igZZArmV_6HBjuKCFXgvvrrgP1_Ob9rEMHX8NmQCEuqAjI&paipv=0&hash=AcoVBB4cK5fjulQvH70&__cft__[0]=AZWbzQsMm9siEPMokP5NOmVNIPmv5I2aUnBc7wvLYzsGnAPQLqfKbAEKf4CwcUPXcKvnKDOqozzs_bMTZnmxUxf6KGj-Je5sAfHmkOlQlnGecsAugXELi-UfLW3Dz4a-boOcKo-tTikQOKbgm3LiDFzGGwg4kiJWZmG9IIQ6Y9-TjW6qVFnhxm5GYW_TCOygkR9QkOvbLHlcObV3GfaUY91A&__tn__=H-R

30May/22Off

The ‘Mutes’ Of Virtual Reality Are Upending The Metaverse Without Saying A Thing

... Most of VRChat’s environments or worlds—which can range dramatically from a faithful recreation of someone’s hometown in summer to a rave where a bunch of Pink Panthers sniff an anime girl’s sweaty feet—are user-created, and the game also allows users to inhabit whatever avatar they choose. The end product is a bizarre but generative digital environment where people make whatever they can think of. Even the game’s social code is completely incomparable to real life. ...

“mutes,” or people who don’t speak in the game. ... According to the VRChat wiki, “because of how common mutes have become, the term is generally accepted in VRChat culture and is not considered an insult.” ...

“Mutes” tend to be softer than their vocal counterparts and instead form relationships by being very expressive and taking advantage of their emote arsenal. They are active participants in social events and games in this way, expressing the shit out of their avatars, rather than their voices. ...

In VRChat, she typically visits a sign language world that helps people learn VR sign adaptations...

ASL is a completely different language to English and uses a separate grammar, method of word formation, and inflections, so CailanVR has difficulty with it in real life. But “in VRChat, we have adapted many sign languages to use the base seven VRChat gestures, as well as Valve Index controls,” she said. VRChat’s seven gestures, which include some basic handshapes like pointing your index finger or making a peace sign, are helpful in modifying some handshapes used in IRL ASL. You can use the fist gesture to nod your dominant hand to say “yes” or twist two pointing hands facing each other to say “hurt,” both like you would sign in reality (shout out to my ASL minor). ...

VRChat’s seven gestures are still limited, however, and widely available VR technology doesn’t allow for the salient facial expressions and mouth movements that makes in-person ASL intelligible. But this VR adaptation makes it possible for Deaf and Hard of Hearing people to communicate in their preferred language, and its simplification can prove useful to the people new to it. ...

See the full story here; https://kotaku.com/vrchat-virtual-reality-oculus-quest-mute-metaverse-face-1848983893

30May/22Off

Researchers Turn Up the Horror With a Mask That Simulates Suffocation in Virtual Reality

... The AirRes Mask works in two ways. The first approach, and the one less likely to traumatize users, leverages the mask as a way to monitor their breathing and incorporate it into a VR experience to enhance the feeling of immersion. Applications include simple everyday acts like blowing out a virtual candle, inflating a balloon, or even playing an instrument such as a harmonica using their own breath. The mask can also be used to adapt how the VR experience behaves based on the user’s respiration rate. Hitting the target when firing a virtual arrow from a bow, for example, is made a lot easier when the user holds their breath and steadies themself. ...

The other approach leverages the mask’s ability to add resistance to the wearer’s ability to breathe. Suffocation doesn’t seem like a particularly fun way to escape one’s own reality, but the researchers believe the AirRes Mask could also be used as a more realistic training tool. Firefighters could physically experience the lack of oxygen in a room as a raging fire consumes it, including the simulated side effects of the human body not getting enough oxygen, like the onset of tunnel vision, but without the added risks of a real fire. ...

as horrifying as it seems, it does help further demonstrate the unique potential of VR ...

See the full story here: https://gizmodo.com/vr-mask-suffocation-oculus-quest-2-airres-fire-balloon-1848986217

30May/22Off

Google Has Banned the Training of Deepfakes in Colab

Sometime in the last two weeks, Google has quietly changed the terms of service for its Colab users, adding a stipulation that Colab services may no longer be used to train deepfakes. ...

Of the two popular deepfake-creation distributions, DeepFaceLab (DFL) and FaceSwap, both of which are forks of the controversial and anonymous code posted to Reddit in 2017, only the more notorious DFL appears to have been directly targeted by the ban. According to deepfake developer ‘chervonij’ at the DFL Discord, running the software in Google Colab now produces a warning:

‘You may be executing code that is disallowed, and this may restrict your ability to use Colab in the future. Please note the prohibited actions specified in our FAQ.’

However, interestingly, the user is currently allowed to continue with the execution of the code. ...

Since deepfake training is a VRAM-hungry pursuit, and since the advent of the GPU famine, many deepfakers in recent years have eschewed home training in favor of remote training in Colab, where it’s possible, depending on chance and tier, to train a deepfake model on powerful cards such as the Tesla T4 (16GB VRAM, currently around $2k USD), the V100(32GB VRAM, around $4k USD), and the mighty A100 (80GB VRAM, MSRP of $32,097.00), among others.

The ban on Colab training seems likely to reduce the pool of deepfakers able to train higher-resolution models, where the input and output images are larger, more suited to high-resolution results, and capable of extracting and reproducing greater facial detail. ...

See the full story here: https://www.unite.ai/google-has-banned-the-training-of-deepfakes-in-colab/

30May/22Off

Artificial intelligence learns ‘song’ of coral reefs

... Coral reefs have a complex soundscape - and even experts have to conduct painstaking analyses to measure reef health based on sound recordings. ...

In the study, University of Exeter scientists trained a computer algorithm using multiple recordings of healthy and degraded reefs, allowing the machine to learn the difference. ...

The computer then analysed a host of new recordings, and successfully identified reef health 92 per cent of the time. ...

See the full story here: https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/artificial-intelligence-learns-song-of-coral-reefs-article-91839786

30May/22Off

WeHo’s Moving Image Media Art program debuts new film on Netflix billboard

The City of West Hollywood announces the debut of the next exhibition in the Moving Image Media Art (MIMA) program and the worldwide debut of FLUTTER, a film in three parts, from artist Carrie Chen. MIMA is an ongoing exhibition series of moving image media artworks on multiple digital billboards at various locations along Sunset Boulevard. 

FLUTTER, Part I will air for three-and-a-half minutes at the top of every hour and FLUTTER Parts II & III will follow at 20 and 40 minutes past each hour, respectively, on the Netflix Invisible Frame billboard, located on the Sunset Strip at 8743 Sunset Boulevard from Wednesday, June 1, 2022, through Wednesday, September 30, 2022.

Based on a stanza from the ancient poetry anthology Book of Songs: 虫飞薨薨,甘与子同梦 (Translation: “Insects sound like the fluttering of wings, I want to fall into a dream with you.”) Carrie Chen’s FLUTTER 虫飞薨薨 series describes the experience of existing in ambiguity and the flickering feelings that radiate across a corporeal surface. ...

Artist Carrie Chen is a Los Angeles-based artist working in simulation, projection, and Virtual Reality. With a background in Art History and Psychology, her moving image work explores our relationships with natural phenomena, virtual beings, architecture, and the sublime. ...

See the full story here: https://wehoville.com/2022/05/27/wehos-moving-image-media-art-program-debuts-new-film-on-netflix-billboard/

30May/22Off

Eth Gas Fees Cheaper Than Ever, Dipping Below $3 Per NFT Transfer

...

“Ethereum fees are so low last days,” the report wrote. “We could even notice they’ve been that low before previous bottoms…Low fees mean very little activity, no one is interested to do anything.”

Currently, Ethereum users are eagerly waiting for the merge. This will further lower ETH gas fees and minimise its environmental impacts as well. ...

See the full story here: https://nftevening.com/eth-gas-fees-cheaper-than-ever-dipping-below-3-per-nft-transfer/