WayRay Holograktor ride hailing concept showcases advanced Augmented Reality tech
Swiss tech firm WayRay has unveiled its Holograktor concept, an all-electric ride hailing machine that features advanced augmented reality (AR) technology.
The 4.4-metre-long, three-seat EV can either be driven conventionally or be piloted remotely thanks to an on-board 5G internet connection and has been designed around its AR system providing users content they can consume, according to the firm.
...the car’s glazing incorporates AR tech, with the window glass showing the augmented reality overlay.
The hardware for the system is housed in a cowling on the car’s roof, called ‘The Shrimp’, containing the holographic system for the rear passenger. Projectors for the front occupants are housed in the dashboard.
See the full story here: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/356691/wayray-holograktor-ride-hailing-concept-showcases-advanced-augmented-reality-tech
Op-Ed: What virtual reality and artificial intelligence will mean for sex, love and intimacy
Loud voices from the religious right and the anti-porn left are already being raised against sex robots. They haven’t yet awakened to the more extensive possibilities when virtual reality and AI go to town on users’ erotic desires. But when they do, I have little doubt they’ll be outraged.
What’s more, there may be a measure of disapproval on the part of the public more generally — the predictable “uncanny valley” queasiness heightened by our typical censoriousness about sex. And concerns about whether treating objects like humans might lead to treating some humans like objects.
On balance, though, I side with the machines and against the puritans. I think artificial intimacy could deliver a more relaxed, inclusive, and humane sexuality, but only if societies have enough maturity to give it a chance.
Rob Brooks is the Scientia professor of evolution at University of New South Wales,Sydney and the author of “Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers, and Algorithmic Matchmakers.”
See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-29/artificial-intimacy-sex-technology
VIRTUAL LAND WITHIN METAVERSE SELLS FOR RECORD $2.43 MILLION
A 500-square-metre plot of virtual real estate has sold for $2.43 million, breaking the record for the largest ever metaverse land acquisition.
The purchase by the firm Metaverse Group is more than double the previous record for a sale of land or property within a virtual reality world.
See the full story here: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/metaverse-property-decentraland-nft-decentraland-b1965973.html
Gary Shapiro interview: CES 2022 will be half the usual size, but at least it’s in person
As for hot technologies, Shapiro said lots of automakers returning with electronics-ladened cars. The metaverse will be a draw, as will nonfungible tokens, digital health, food tech, automotive tech, NFTs, gaming, and smart homes.
Niantic and a crypto debit card company made an AR game where you earn Bitcoin
[PhilNote: this sounds like 'Job Simulator' for bitcoin mining.]
Fold AR is a new augmented reality game from Pokémon Go developer Niantic and the financial company Fold. The game — which a press release dubs part of the metaverse — is very loosely modeled on Pokémon Go but themed around cryptocurrency. As explained by Fold CEO Will Reeves, it runs with the metaphor of “mining” Bitcoin. So instead of capturing cute monsters, the central mechanic involves finding cubes of binary code and tapping them like Minecraft blocks until they reveal a prize.
The prizes include Bitcoin in the denomination of Satoshis, a very small unit currently worth around 1/20th of a penny. They also include power-ups for Fold, which already gamifies card purchases through an app that lets you spin a wheel and win Bitcoin rewards.
Unlike Pokémon Go and other Niantic games, though, Fold AR (which is launched from inside the Fold app) is not currently set in a world full of virtual places that correspond to real-world locations. Instead, the game spawns a block between 1 and 50 feet away from the player every 10 minutes, mirroring the rate of real Bitcoin mining.
See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/23/22798523/niantic-fold-ar-metaverse-mobile-game-bitcoin-earning
The absurd beauty of hacking Nvidia’s GauGAN 2 AI image machine
Typing nonsense phrases into Nvidia's algorithm produces some fascinating "errors," at times beautiful, at times wretched, in most cases fascinating.
See the full story here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-absurd-beauty-of-hacking-nvidias-gaugan-2-ai-image-machine/
Defining what’s ethical in artificial intelligence needs input from Africans
Research and development of AI and machine learning technologies is growing in African countries. Programmes such as Data Science Africa, Data Science Nigeria, and the Deep Learning Indaba with its satellite IndabaX events, which have so far been held in 27 different African countries, illustrate the interest and human investment in the fields.
The potential of AI and related technologies to promote opportunities for growth, development and democratisation in Africa is a key driver of this research.
Yet very few African voices have so far been involved in the international ethical frameworks that aim to guide the research. This might not be a problem if the principles and values in those frameworks have universal application. But it’s not clear that they do.
For instance, the European AI4People framework offers a synthesis of six other ethical frameworks. It identifies respect for autonomy as one of its key principles. This principle has been criticised within the applied ethical field of bioethics. It is seen as failing to do justice to the communitarian values common across Africa. These focus less on the individual and more on community, even requiring that exceptions are made to upholding such a principle to allow for effective interventions.
See the original post here (ToyMatrix is a global news aggregator): https://toysmatrix.com/defining-whats-ethical-in-artificial-intelligence-needs-input-from-africans/
INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL: THE FOUR TOP TECHNOLOGIES FOR GETTING THERE
University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank looks at the possibilities of interstellar travel, given the “insane scale” of the distances between stars and galaxies, in relation to space exploration, whether by ourselves or by intelligent extraterrestrials. ...
Frank offers four: Cryosleep, solar sails (or light sails), wormholes, and warp drives. ...
See the full story here: https://mindmatters.ai/2021/11/interstellar-travel-the-four-top-technologies-for-getting-there/
Holographic Camera Scatters Light to See Around Corners
A team of researchers at Northwestern University has invented a new high-resolution camera that can see around corners and through scattering media, which can be anything from skin to fog.
The research was published on November 18 in the journal Nature Communications.
The new method is called synthetic wavelength holography, and it indirectly scatters coherent light onto hidden objects. The coherent light then scatters again before traveling back to a camera.
The next step is for an algorithm to reconstruct the scattered light signal to reveal the hidden objects. This new method could also image fast-moving objects, such as the beating heart though the chest, thanks to its high temporal resolution.
Non-line-of-sight Imaging
There is a name for this relatively new research field that involves imaging objects behind scattered media: non-line-of-sight (NLoS) imaging. The new method developed by the research team can rapidly capture full-field images of large areas, and it does so with extreme precision and accuracy.
See the full story here: https://www.unite.ai/holographic-camera-scatters-light-to-see-around-corners/
