philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Christie’s auctions jumps into burgeoning digital art market

"Everydays - The First 5000 Days," by the American digital artist known as Beeple, comprises all the works of art that he has made over the course of 13 years. Christie's in New York said that because the venture was so new for the auction house, bidding in the Feb 27-March 11 online sale would start at just $100.

The art work carries what is known as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT), a unique digital token encrypted with the artist's signature and which verifies its ownership and authenticity and is permanently attached to the piece.

The auction comes at a time of rapid expansion of the digital art market, where creators use computer generated imagery, scanned photos, manipulated videos and other medium to create original work. The recent introduction of NFTs opens the way for digital art to be sold in the same way as traditional paintings and sculptures.

"Not unlike the advent of Street Art as a blue chip collecting category, NFT-based art is on the threshold of becoming the next ingeniously disruptive force in the art market," Noah Davis, Christie's specialist in post-war and contemporary art said in a statement. 

See the full story here: https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/entertainment/1451169-christies-auctions-jumps-into-burgeoning-digital-art-market

Data meets science: Open access, code, datasets, and knowledge graphs for machine learning research and beyond

A new interconnected ecosystem for research is shaping up, and machine learning is just the tip of the iceberg.

SCIENCE, DATA, AND DATA SCIENCE

"To succeed at becoming a data-driven organization, your employees should always use data to start, continue, or conclude every single business decision, no matter how major or minor".

That quote belongs to Ashish Thusoo, author of the DataOps book, founder of Qubole, and one of the people who built the data-driven culture in Facebook as early as 2007.

To make research readily available to as many people as possible as soon as possible, many researchers choose to publish their work on pre-print repositories like Arxiv or Zenodo. Pre-prints solve the open access issues, as they are immediately accessible for free.

Most pre-prints will be revised, in minor or major ways, while others may not be published at all. But even for the ones that do go through the review and publication process successfully, an equally important issue remains: Reproducibility.

According to a 2016 Nature survey, more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments.

REPRODUCIBLE RESEARCH, CODE, DATA, AND GRAPHS

Enter Papers with Code. Papers with Code is another repository for research, with its mission statement citing the creation of a free and open resource with machine learning papers, code, and evaluation tables as its goal. It highlights trending machine learning research and the code to implement it.

Papers with Code was founded by Robert Stojnic and Ross Taylor in 2018. Stojnic and Taylor have joined Facebook AI in 2019. Since then, the team has grown, they have partnered with Arxiv, and expanded to more disciplines.

The latest addition to Papers with Code's arsenal is data. The repository now indexes 3,000+ research datasets from machine learning. Users can now find datasets by task and modality, compare usage over time, and browse benchmarks.

Connected Papers is a free visual tool that helps researchers and applied scientists find and explore papers relevant to their field of work, in any domain. It creates a graph for each paper in its repository, by analyzing about 50,000 papers and selecting the few dozen with the strongest connections to the origin paper.

On Feb. 3, Connected Papers also announced a partnership with Arxiv. 

See the full story here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/data-meets-science-open-access-code-datasets-and-knowledge-graphs-for-machine-learning-research-and-beyond/

How Can Blockchain Accelerate the Virtual Reality Revolution?

First, it allows the decentralization of virtual reality content without sacrificing its protection.

Second, despite decentralization, copyright protection will still be in place due to blockchain; if one will be able to steal the credit from someone else’s creative work, it is recorded in a blockchain. Copyright protection may be freed from the bureaucracy that plagues it now, and an efficient protection system allows virtual reality platforms to become pieces of a united ecosystem.

Third, merging with the profitable cryptocurrency market makes virtual reality popularization much easier. 

An innovative platform that combines virtual reality and blockchain

A nice example of a project that leans heavily into all the advantages provided by blockchain and virtual reality symbiosis is Victoria VR. It is a blockchain-based ecosystem that unites multiple virtual reality platforms and creates a whole world filled with user created photorealistic content, recorded in the blockchain. Therefore, Victoria VR users can work, visit tourist destinations, participate in meetings, enjoy concerts and play games without any risks or need to travel.

Victoria VR also allows its users to make money in the real world by trading and running businesses in the virtual one.

See the full story here: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/365482

Inside Meow Wolf’s New Omega Mart Interactive Experience in Las Vegas

Spectators are led through a transformative narrative guided by interactive visual, sound, film and digital content all layered into multi-dimensional art. Video content — the length of three feature films — is embedded throughout.

What Exactly is Going on at Omega Mart?

The storyline of the new art experience centers on a mythical energy, called The Source. The Omega Mart grocery store has found a way to harness The Source and put it into their products, and they sell them to America, Brinkerhoff explains.

Guests can follow the storylines of DramCorp, the corporate giant behind Omega Mart, which has moved into this parallel dimension, taking over parts of the desert, as well as those of three sisters that lead a resistance to this infiltration. Look for clues as to what is going on within the exhibits, installation-filled rooms and terrains, or choose your own adventure — anything goes.

The authenticity and approachability of a Meow Wolf experience is a response to the cynicism and gatekeeping of the contemporary art world, something that Brinkerhoff says the collective strives to tear down. 

George R.R. Martin’s Role

The Game of Thrones creator consults on story building and vision for the world of Meow Wolf.

“Think of it like the Marvel Universe,” Brinkerhoff says. “There are different characters and sagas but they all kind of exist in this common universe that is the connective tissue between all of our different shows that we're developing.”

See the full story here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/index.php/news/inside-meow-wolfs-new-omega-mart-interactive-experience-in-las-vegas?fbclid=IwAR2tqBL93yC9Gy3qTBRFNktznmCwfXwKfcvr9CB2sI5cA9CCUoQkoAuGlWA

IN 2021, THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL FOUND ART IN ZOOM, INSTAGRAM, AND VR THEATER

Pared down to 14 projects, this year’s New Frontier focused on web art and social media alongside virtual and augmented reality experiences. The result was a show that felt intimate and intriguing — and set a model for showcasing interactive art online.

BEYOND THE BREAKDOWN

CREATED BY TONY PATRICK, LAUREN LEE MCCARTHY, AND GRACE LEE

It’s tough to make a Zoom call feel profound, but Beyond the Breakdown comes close. Like Tinker, the experience involves only a few people, all of whom dial into a web-based video chat. The chat is moderated by a Siri-like voice bot (controlled largely by a human operator), and it’s devoted to answering a simple question: what should Earth look like in 2050?

RICH KIDS: A HISTORY OF SHOPPING MALLS IN TEHRAN

TINKER

TO MISS THE ENDING

See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/15/22260581/sundance-film-festival-new-frontier-best-of-2021

Artificial intelligence reveals the recipe for a perfect stack this Shrove Tuesday – and claims just ONE flip is ideal

According to the London-based firm, seven ingredients – flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, butter and eggs – will give the fluffiest pancakes.

And while you might be tempted to go for multiple flips, the AI claims that just one toss is necessary to ensure perfect pancakes.  

THE ULTIMATE AI-APPROVED PANCAKES

From the optimum butter-to-milk ratio, to the cooking time & heat, Monolith identified the ultimate combination of ingredients: 

- Flour - 210g 

- Sugar - 48g 

- Baking powder - 14g 

- Salt - 6g 

- Eggs - 2 

- Milk - 256g 

- Butter - 25g 

- Number of flips - 1

- Pan temp - medium heat (electric) / Low heat (gas) 

See the full story here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9262829/Artificial-intelligence-reveals-perfect-pancake-recipe.html

chinese researchers develop a riderless autonomous bicycle

a team of researchers from tsinghua university in china has developed an autonomous bike that can balance itself, swerve to avoid obstacles, detect and follow targets, and respond to voice commands. the riderless bicycle works using an electronic chip called the tianjic chip, which integrates two approaches to artificial general intelligence (AGI): computer-science-oriented and neuroscience-oriented.

‘using just one chip, we demonstrate the simultaneous processing of versatile algorithms and models in an unmanned bicycle system, realizing real-time object detection, tracking, voice control, obstacle avoidance and balance control. our study is expected to stimulate AGI development by paving the way to more generalized hardware platforms,’  say the scientists in their research paper published on nature in july 2019. 

See the full story here: https://www.designboom.com/technology/chinese-researchers-riderless-autonomous-bicycle-02-15-2021/

How The UK Is Using VR To Improve Safety For Its Largest Environmental Project Yet

For those who may be out of the loop, the UK is currently in the process of developing an eco-friendly high-speed rail line as part of the countries transition to low carbon transportation. The HS2 Rail Line will feature 25 stations across London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds, connecting 30 million people while at the same time generating 500,000 new jobs. When complete, the HS2 will represent the countries largest environmental project to date, offering an alternative form of transportation that emits 17x less carbon than a conventional flight.

“From initial conversations with the team at Align JV, it was clear they were looking at using innovation and the latest technology to enhance the safety of all aspects of the working environment” said Darren Verschuren, International Account Director at Serious Labs. “Not only is simulator training engaging, cost-effective and safe, it provides trainees with better capabilities, while decreasing the potential for accidents and fatalities — something which is better for everyone.”

See the full story here: https://www.virtualrealitypulse.com/edition/daily-apple-google-2021-02-14?open-article-id=15472238&article-title=how-the-uk-is-using-vr-to-improve-safety-for-its-largest-environmental-project-yet&blog-domain=vrscout.com&blog-title=vrscout

Finally, a Site That Just Lets Me Know How to Cook the Dang Thing

Aptly named “Just the Recipe,” it takes any recipe URL and spits out a list of ingredients, estimated prep time, how many servings it makes, and step-by-step directions.

The site, which we spotted thanks to the good folks on Twitter, automatically sorts out the salient details, pun intended, from the needless word fluff. Since the system appears to be algorithmically generated, it’s not always perfect. A few times we tried it out, the site got its signals crossed and listed ridiculous amounts for some ingredients (it seems to have particular trouble sorting out ingredients that recipes typically leave open “to taste” like salt and pepper) but it was pretty consistent about picking up on all the important directions and putting them in the right order.

See the full story here: https://gizmodo.com/finally-a-site-that-just-lets-me-know-how-to-cook-the-1846271356

Star Wars Episode X Written By Artificial Intelligence Is Weirdly Entertaining

With A.I. systems evolving rapidly and continuously improving their ability to generate the written word, scripts written by A.I. is a trend that will not be going away anytime soon. While these programs are still far from perfect and mainly used for entertainment, it is certainly becoming less difficult to envision a future in which writers could be replaced partially, or maybe even entirely, by artificial intelligence.

See the full video and story here: https://screenrant.com/star-wars-episode-10-artificial-intellegence-parody-video/