An Opera Nonprofit Bets on VR, With a New Show About Joan of Arc
In the new show, the audience will follow a modern-day version of the patron saint in the form of five homeless women. The audience will be able to follow different women when the Joans cross paths throughout the interactive, site-specific opera, according to Hiatt.
Opera on Tap has partnered with homeless shelters to allow women to tell their stories, and is compensating them for their contributions to the show’s narrative.
Hiatt plans to incorporate augmented reality smartglasses, similar to Google Glass, which are reportedly rolling out in the next year or so. “The idea is that an audience member can put them on and experience the opera though augmented reality,” she said. “We’re working on technology development and figuring out the approach we’ll use.”
“It’s about taking opera out of the concert hall and into places where people could experience it intimately,” Hiatt added.
They’re also sending “OperaCades,” ornate theaters on wheels built in partnership with New Orleans Opera, around to different cities so that music lovers can safely enjoy a live performance.
See the full story here: https://thestoryexchange.org/opera-on-tap-leveraging-virtual-reality-survive-pandemic/
‘Omni One’ Virtual Reality Treadmill Raises Over $11M From More Than 4,000 Investors
Virtuix, developer of Omni One, an omni-directional treadmill for the home that lets players walk and run inside popular games and virtual worlds, has announced that its campaign on SeedInvest, an equity crowdfunding platform, has surpassed $11M in funding from more than 4,000 investors, breaking records for the fastest uptake in the platform's history. Virtuix's campaign to back Omni One aims to raise $15M and ends Friday, April 2, 2021.
See the full story here; https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/omni-one-virtual-reality-treadmill-raises-over-11m-from-more-than-4-000-investors-301239194.html
National Security Commission on AI Pinpoints Chinese Threat
The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence identified China as the first to challenge U.S. technological dominance since the end of World War II. To counter this potential threat to the United States, the 15-member commission issued a 756-page report urging a $40 billion investment in artificial intelligence research and development to be “AI ready” by 2025. The report also called for the U.S. to stay two generations ahead of China in semiconductor manufacturing. To that end, it suggested a significant tax credit for chip makers.
VentureBeat reports that, “President Biden pledged support for $32 billion to address a global chip shortage and last week signed an executive order to investigate supply chain issues.”
To counter China’s “techno-authoritarian governance,” the report encouraged both the establishment of an Emerging Technology Coalition with allies and “high-level, ongoing diplomatic dialogue with China to discuss challenges emerging technology like AI presents in order to find areas for cooperation toward global challenges like climate change.”
See the full story here: https://www.etcentric.org/national-security-commission-on-ai-pinpoints-chinese-threat/#more-157764
Massachusetts Finds Compromise in Use of Facial Recognition
With the new law, police must get a judge’s permission to run a facial recognition search.
The New York Times reports that, even with a judge’s permission, “someone from the state police, the FBI or the Registry of Motor Vehicles [is required to] perform the search.” In other words, “a local officer can’t just download a facial recognition app and do a search.” The law goes further in creating “a commission to study facial recognition policies and make recommendations, such as whether a criminal defendant should be told that they were identified using the technology.”
The terms of the draft law banned “almost all” government agencies from using facial recognition except the Registry of Motor Vehicles, “which uses it to prevent identity theft.” Otherwise, any agency required a warrant to ask for a search. Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker threatened to veto it. A letter from NBA player Jaylen Brown and his Celtics teammates decried the technology’s built-in racial bias.
The new law is the result of compromise. Crockford noted that it was “politically impossible” to ban the use of facial recognition in the state … [but] that additional guidelines will help prevent abuse and false arrests.”
See the full story here: https://www.etcentric.org/massachusetts-finds-compromise-in-use-of-facial-recognition/
New AI speakers make news and entertainment accessible for those with sight loss
The speakers can provide news updates, over 27,000 books, the latest official coronavirus information podcasts, and helpful information from a range of UK sight loss charities all on the one platform.
The RealSAM Smart Speaker was trialled extensively ahead of launch by members of the blind community.
One member who is registered blind, Roger Wilson-Hinds, commented: “The RealSAM Speaker is the companion in the home that blind people need. And to be able to access specialist information from sight loss organisations really is the icing on the cake.”
As the first accessible hub tailored for those with sight loss, the RealSAM Smart Speaker is a fully voice-controlled media player tool that, once subscribed to, is available to use on Google Home device from today and on Alexa devices from May 2021.
Calibre Audio – a national charity providing an audiobook service for anyone with a disability that makes reading print difficult – will also be accessible via RealSAM, making it the UK’s first audiobook library for blind people on smart speakers.
To start, customers can say “Hey Google, talk to RealSAM”, followed by prompts such as “read me a book” or “find podcasts on Covid-19’’ or ‘’play football results’’ to get the latest information. Users can also say ‘’tell me about Henshaw’s’’ for up-to-date information from Henshaws Society for Blind People.
The new RealSAM Smart Speaker starts from £19.90 for a 10-month subscription and also hosts content from leading UK sight loss charities such as the RNIB, Henshaws, Galloways, Torch Trust, Blind Veterans UK, and the Peterborough Association of the Blind.
See the full story here: http://attoday.co.uk/new-ai-speakers-make-news-and-entertainment-accessible-for-those-with-sight-loss/
Beyond Gen Z: What the Parents of Generation Alpha Say About Their Kids’ Interest in Sports
McCrindle suggested Alphas are more likely to take after their direct predecessors — Generation Z — than their sporty millennial parents, calling Generation Alpha a “more pure version of Generation Z” born entirely in a world with iPads and Instagram (both of which hit the market in 2010).
Some of the forces that might have contributed to decreased interest in sports among Gen Z — migration to more densely populated urban areas, a reduction in “free-rein play” based on parents’ safety concerns and a virtually infinite supply of non-sports content for consumption — are likely to become more entrenched for the Alphas.
“It’s a generation that vicariously experiences sports and, in a sense, marvels at physical skills through YouTube,” McCrindle said. “It doesn’t actually develop that deep connection with a sport. In fact, it can almost be an inoculation against watching a full game because they’re so used to watching the 90-second highlights.”
See the full story here; https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/01/generation-alpha-z-sports-industry/?mkt_tok=ODUwLVRBQS01MTEAAAF7kh4pes8ILog5nfM1573Et5cSJdJJMd4Pn4zWUMXz8gflohccmYSJFskqMQB2eqBZRTi0Dj5I5VSHI7WtLLaCJNJARnp3Tcj-62PhFohRH8g
How a 10-second video clip sold for $6.6 million
In October 2020, Miami-based art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile spent almost $67,000 on a 10-second video artwork that he could have watched for free online. Last week, he sold it for $6.6 million.
The video by digital artist Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was authenticated by blockchain, which serves as a digital signature to certify who owns it and that it is the original work.
It’s a new type of digital asset - known as a non-fungible token (NFT) - that has exploded in popularity during the pandemic as enthusiasts and investors scramble to spend enormous sums of money on items that only exist online.
“You can go in the Louvre and take a picture of the Mona Lisa and you can have it there, but it doesn’t have any value because it doesn’t have the provenance or the history of the work,” said Rodriguez-Fraile, who said he first bought Beeple’s piece because of his knowledge of the U.S.-based artist’s work.
See the full story here: https://www.reuters.com/article/retail-trading-nfts/insight-how-a-10-second-video-clip-sold-for-6-6-million-idUKL8N2KV6X9
WHY OXFORD’S JOHN LENNOX WROTE A BOOK ON AI PROMISES AND THREATS
In his view, the likely outcome of all transhumanist attempts to re-engineer humanity will be the extinction of humanity.
➤ Oxford mathematician: Atheism detracts from science. Atheism, he says, undermines the rationality needed to develop and understand an argument, especially a scientific one, by positing a meaningless universe. The problem, as he sees it, is that atheism does not provide grounds for believing in rationality: “Thought is replaced by electrochemical neural events. Two such events cannot confront each other in rational discourse. They are neither right nor wrong. They simply happen . . . The world of rational discourse dissolves into the absurd chatter of firing synapses. Quite frankly that cannot be right and none of us believes it to be so.”
Show Notes
- 00:46 | Introducing Dr. John Lennox, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University
- 01:40 | Reasons for writing 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity
- 03:24 | A quick overview of the book
- 06:18 | Consciousness and the theory of panpsychism
- 07:28 | Human rights and artificial general intelligence
- 10:40 | How will technology change what it means to be human?
- 13:03 | Advantages and threats of artificial intelligence
- 16:50 | Dan Brown’s Origin
- 21:59 | Dan Brown’s presuppositions
- 22:15 | Hyperbole in the realm of artificial intelligence
- 26:39 | The story of Prometheus
- 28:23 | The wisdom of crowds
- 29:29 | Transhumanism
- 32:28 | Augmenting human abilities with technology
- 35:40 | The theological implications of artificial intelligence
- 38:08 | Can science replace God?
- 39:41 | An AI church?
- 42:27 | Obtaining immortality
- 47:23 | Superintelligence
- 48:24 | Revelation and artificial intelligence
Listen to the interview here: https://mindmatters.ai/2021/02/why-oxfords-john-lennox-wrote-a-book-on-ai-promises-and-threats/
