Long-time followers of Looking Glass will remember that Watts was one of the startups' initial friends, as the company used the innovative musician to show off some of the features of the earlier Looking Glass devices.
"Since our founding, we've worked hard to support creativity in all of its forms, whether that's 3D digital sculptures, new forms of photography and film, or something never before imagined," said Shawn Frayne, CEO of Looking Glass Factory. "I can't tell you how excited I am to have our displays as the medium for this amazing project.
Orange is investing, via its holding company Orange Digital Investment, in the “Venture Reality Fund II”, a major venture-capital player in the XR (Extended Reality) sector: Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Future personal and professional uses (including entertainment, industry 4.0, medical research, and training, for example) will benefit greatly from these new technologies, which rely in part on the availability of ultra-high speed networks (including 5G) and Edge Computing.
When it comes to augmented reality, he agreed with Swisher’s framing that the tech is “critically important” to Apple’s future and said it could be used to enhance conversations.
“You and I are having a great conversation right now. Arguably, it could even be better if we were able to augment our discussion with charts or other things to appear,” Cook said. He imagines AR being used in health, education, retail, and gaming. “I’m already seeing AR take off in some of these areas with use of the phone. And I think the promise is even greater in the future.”
Internal organizational data seen by The Information shows that about one-fifth of Facebook’s total global workforce or close to some 10,000 employees are currently working in the development of its AR and VR devices.
According to Facebook‘s own information, the company employed 58,000 full-time specialists at the end of 2020 and about 17% of these employees are working on its XR technologies. This represents close to a fifth of its workforce working on the computing platforms of the future.
... Facebook Reality Labs is working on a number of XR projects that include both hardware and software development. Some of Facebook’s projects such as the development of ultra-slim and powerful Augmented Reality glasses are a long-term goal and will be ready in 5 to 10 years.
Some of Facebook’s known XR products and research projects include the following: –
Oculus Quest VR Headsets: A next-generation product is already under development.
VR game development by the first-party studios Beat Games, Ready at Dawn, and Sanzaru Games all of which have been acquired by Facebook in the past year or so.
The Facebook metaverse Horizon
Research on next-generation VR technology such as the Half-Dome
The smartphone AR platform SparkAR
The AR-compatible video chat device Portal
The AR research project Project Aria
New smart Facebook data glasses in collaboration with Ray-Ban set to appear in 2021
Advanced augmented reality glasses which have been codenamed, Orion
A smartwatch set to be released in 2022 combined with a neural interface and haptic simulation
Haptic gloves for AR and VR
A Facebook Assistant that is similar to the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa
An operating system specifically for VR and AR devices
A chip specially developed for AR glasses
Live Maps, a 3D mapping service for the Augmented Reality cloud infrastructure.
“No nation can survive nor stand the test of time without enmeshing itself in science and technology. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiative is a way forward but we need to do more. The difference between one country and another is the Level of science and technology at which each other operates.
He affirmed that Nigeria has remained backward technology-wise because the needed investment, support and attention meant for young talents in science and technology have been jettisoned. He said, “Nigeria cannot compete with developed economies not because of color nor any other thing, but because we have relegated Science & Technology to the background by not giving enough attention to STEM and not celebrating champions emerging from the sector.
“Citizens have placed Music, Sports & fashion far above Science & Technology which eventually resulted into moral decadence and value disorientation for us, however, entertainment and fashion are not bad in its entirety, but as we celebrate and support young people in the entertainment industry, we should more than proportionately pay more attention to young Stars in the Science and Technology space.
Spatial will soon work on PC-connected virtual reality headsets. Previously, the app had only been available on standalone VR headsets like the Oculus Quest 2, as well as augmented reality headsets like Microsoft's HoloLens and Magic Leap. The beta version for PC-tethered headsets is now available — with a final version slated to launch ahead of summer. Users will be able to access the app through the Steam storefront on the following headsets:
HTC Vive
Valve Index
Windows Mixed Reality headsets
Varjo
Oculus Rift
Oculus Rift S
Of course, users can also access Spatial on their phones through a mobile app for iOS and Android that launched back in December.
Is being human still a prerequisite for being an ‘artist’?
We don’t mean the ability to display humanity. We quite literally mean: does an artist really need to be a human to be considered an actual artist, who can perform and record music, generate streams, market singles and albums, and build a fanbase?
The answer to that question, according to Anthony Martini, co-founder of ‘virtual’ record label Factory New, is no.
Factory New describes itself as a “first of its kind, next-generation music company, specializing in virtual beings”. Its roster is comprised exclusively of virtual artists.
The firm’s first ‘signing’ was AI-powered robot rapper, FN Meka, who has 9 million followers (and over a billion views) on TikTok.
Technically speaking FN Meka is voiced by a human. But as you’ll learn here, everything else about him – from his lyrics to the chords and tempo underpinning his music – is based on AI.
... If a song is good, people will listen to it. Maybe the fact that it’s made by a robot makes it even more interesting. Not to get all philosophical but, what is an “artist” today? Think about the biggest stars in the world. How many of them are just vessels for commercial endeavors?
Most hits are written by teams of people who get paid to make music that will “sell”. We think machines can eventually run this process more efficiently than humans. How many fans ever actually meet the stars they idolize anyway?
The partnership aims to innovate 5G and Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) virtual-reality applications for enterprise, public sector, education and entertainment
Verizon and Dreamscape Learn will form a 5G innovation lab to develop immersive VR learning experiences for various education levels and environments
As part of the partnership, Verizon Ventures has taken an equity stake in Dreamscape
Verizon and Dreamscape Immersive today announced a partnership aimed at innovating virtual reality (VR) applications using 5G and mobile edge computing (MEC). The partnership’s first priorities will focus on 5G immersive-learning and training innovations for use in enterprise, public sector, and education environments.
“Verizon’s partnership with Dreamscape shows how innovative tech built on our 5G network can revolutionize industries,” said Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business.
...
Outside of the classroom, Verizon and Dreamscape will collaborate to develop and market avatar-driven synthetic training and simulation experiences for government and specialized professional learning uses. The experiences will combine Verizon's 5G capabilities and Dreamscape’s ADEPT (Avatar Driven Educational and Practical Training) Platform, which leverages Dreamscape’s proprietary tracking and rendering technologies, to deliver vivid and life-like VR scenarios. ...
A virtual reality company based in Fort William First Nation in Ontario that is using their technical know-how to promote Indigenous cultures.
Partnering with Uber and the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB), ORIGIN is hosting a competition called Share Your Roots, looking for more people to share their culture.
The company started out as an interactive way for kids to learn more about jobs, primarily in the trades industry.
There are four prizes of $35,000 dollars each and each winner will get a personalized virtual reality experience that will be a part of the ORIGIN library. Along with the money, winners will also receive a one year membership to CCAB.
The library includes both career and cultural experiences including learning how to be a boilermaker, electrician, and millwright among other careers. On the cultural side, experiences include fancy shawl dance, scraping a moose hide and smudging with medicines just to name a few.
Hardy-Giles said the cultural side of ORIGIN is not business generated, rather they use the profits from their career experiences to fund the cultural experiences, and that one day she hopes ORIGIN can become international and have VR experiences from around the world from various Indigenous cultures.
