THE FUTURE OF MOVIE THEATERS IS MORE THAN JUST MOVIES
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The comedian Howie Mandel has joined with MetaMedia, an entertainment company that specializes in streaming to cinemas, and Super 78 Studios, an animation-design studio, to create something called the “Magic Screen.”
The system enables performers like Mr. Mandel to see and interact with fans in theaters throughout the country simultaneously. His live performance is streamed onto magic screens in multiple locations, and from his position in a performance studio, Mr. Mandel can see, and speak with, audience members—and vice versa.
“‘Any theater that is dependent on the studios and does not try to find other sources, or create other products, is not going to be prepared for the future.’”— Alamo Drafthouse CEO Shelli Taylor
The magic screen also has an animation engine that enables an animated character like SpongeBob to appear live and interact with the audience. “It’s like Zoom on steroids,” says Jason Brenek, MetaMedia’s CEO. The product is still in pilot mode, and only a few magic screens have been installed so far, some of them at theaters managed by Cinemark HoldingsInc. ...
See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-future-of-movie-theaters-is-more-than-just-movies-11633708800
Holograms get real: Startup creates objects out of light and thin air
After countless disappointing versions of the technology, a startup called Light Field Lab has started production on a technology it calls SolidLight, which is designed to produce real-life holograms. ...
Essentially, they're causing waves of light to interact at a specific point, and that interaction is visible to your eye. By doing this a lot, they can create the illusion of an entire object "made" of light.
And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. Their 28-inch diagonal panel has 2.5 billionpixels. For comparison, a 4K TV has 8.2 million. They're envisioning holographic video walls made up of these smaller panels, with upward of 245 billion pixels. ...
SolidLight's pixels need to create specific colors in a specific place in front of the display so the image appears to pop out of the screen. ...
Some of you might be familiar with Yamaha's Intellibeam audio technology, which uses an array of tweeters to make it seem like sound is coming from anywhere in the room but the soundbar. This is essentially the same thing, just on a microscopic scale since waves of light are orders of magnitude smaller than the air molecules that make up soundwaves. ...
And because the tech is scalable, you could have a much larger display and much larger holograms. Imagine wall-sized holographic displays and how they could be game-changers for entertainment. ...
See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/holograms-get-real-startup-creates-objects-out-of-light-and-thin-air/
British firm claims quantum-computing breakthrough
Most of the major players in this field, including Google and IBM, use an approach involving freezing qubits, the building blocks of a quantum computer, down to near absolute zero.
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Opening what looks like a standard server cabinet in Orca's compact offices on a west London science park, Richard Murray points to the computer and says: "We're completely changing the way people view quantum computers.
"Firstly, it's not cryogenically cooled, it's all at room temperature.
"And you'll also see it looks a lot like a normal computer would - it's a rack-mounted system, it looks very unspecialist.
"Our approach uses single photons, so single units of light.
"And the great thing about single photons is that they don't interfere with the outside environment."
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"There's certainly a few important companies working on it," he says.
"Photonics is definitely not a fringe approach."
But Orca's four-qubit machine has about the same power as a thermostat or an Apple Watch.
"It's in an earlier stage in terms of qubit number than what Google and Rigetti and IBM are doing with superconducting qubits," Prof Morton says.
And scaling up is likely to be a major challenge.
See the full story here: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58738571?fbclid=IwAR0p4wFaqFYVFF-JUmaHF2_0NqjoRP-RNAh6vHIsX9x907I5kOF1fDC6uBw
A Tech-Savvy Holocaust Memorial in Ukraine Draws Critics and Crowds
The exhibits that made it into the memorial are ones the organizers felt would engage a generation that, for the most part, has not heard firsthand accounts from older people. An art installation, Mirror Field, for instance, displays mirrored columns shot with bullets of the same caliber as those used in the World War II massacre. Visitors see their reflections pierced with bullet holes.
Another exhibit features a small synagogue inspired by the design of a child’s pop-up book. The structure opens and closes like a book, revealing the interior.
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/world/europe/ukraine-holocaust-babyn-yar.html
California Scientists Share Nobel for Work on Sense of Touch
Two California scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine for work on how the human body senses temperature through touch, which may have applications from pain management to virtual reality.
The scientists identified critical missing links that help understand the interplay between our senses and the environment, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The knowledge is being used to develop treatments for a range of health conditions including chronic pain. It could also help make virtual reality into a tactile experience.
See the full story here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/california-scientists-share-nobel-sense-104110101.html
