Felix & Paul Studios and TIME Studios are behind one the largest productions of any type ever filmed in space. And, while the VR version of episode one of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience was recently released, they currently have multiple VR cameras in space capturing content both in and outside of the International Space Station, including the arrival of the first commercial SpaceX crew.
Emotional Engagement with Real Experiences
This series is designed to take millions of people to a place that “so few human beings have been able to experience” explains Raphaël.
Lajeunesse notes that “we are trained to experience reality through our senses…but you know if it’s not true. In cinematic virtual reality, with real human beings inside a real environment… maybe you’re not able to start walking around and reaching things. But your mind knows that this is a reality. It creates a different type of emotional engagement.”
Sensorium has teamed up with Mubert to develop AI-driven DJs that can create music at virtual concerts in virtual reality. It’s the latest in an effort to create artificial people, or virtual beings.
Sensorium has raised more than $100 million in pursuit of this mission, and it will produce a diverse series of photorealistic virtual artists featuring unique identities and musical preferences. Genetic algorithms behind each of these all-digital characters will drive their behavior and allow them to absorb data from the environment to constantly nurture their knowledge and evolve their music styles.
Sensorium was founded in 2018 by multi-billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov and a former owner of the Brooklyn Nets. Mubert has more than 200 musicians and 2,000 pro users for its real-time generative music.
Sensorium makes money through avatar customization. Users can invest their own money in clothes or other features for their avatars, and people can buy digital tickets to go see events. You can pay more for VR or watch a video livestream for free.
Ultimately, he wants to create worlds where you can have free-flowing conversations with the AI characters, dubbed NPCs, or non-player characters.
Andreas Mundt, President of the Federal Cartel Office, says that since all new users of Oculus devices must also have a Facebook account, forcibly linking its VR products and its social network “could constitute a prohibited abuse of dominance by Facebook.”
Back in September, Facebook halted sales of all Oculus products in Germany. At the time, it wasn’t clear whether it was the Federal Cartel Office or Facebook itself that initiated an anticipatory halt in sales ahead of litigation proceedings.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has found itself in hot water in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. In early 2019, the Federal Cartel Office imposed extensive restrictions on Facebook regarding the processing of user data, and its role in creating so-called ‘super profiles’, which aim to collect and merge user data from its various products. Litigation is still pending in that country, however the next hearing is set for March 26th, 2021 at Düsseldorf’s Higher Regional Court.
Japan plans to boost its tumbling birth rate by funding artificial intelligence matchmaking schemes to help residents find love.From next year it will subsidise local governments already running or starting projects that use AI to pair people up.
Paris-based NextMind is part of a growing number of startups building neural interfaces that rely on machine learning algorithms. There are invasive devices like the one from Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which in August revealed a prototype showing readings from a pig’s brain using a coin-shaped device implanted under the skull. There are also noninvasive devices like the electromyography wristband that translates neuromuscular signals into machine-interpretable commands from Ctrl-labs, which Facebook acquired in September 2019. NextMind is developing a noninvasive device — an electroencephalogram (EEG) worn on the back of your head, where your brain’s visual cortex is located.
Every time you use a NextMind device, the company recommends you calibrate the wearable first. It takes about 45 seconds to create a neural profile. In a few months, the team hopes to entirely eliminate this step.
Nine out of 10 companies fail when implementing artificial intelligence software, says Tom Siebel, the billionaire founder and chief executive of C3.ai. And in that failure Siebel has found opportunity.
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“Virtually every one of our customers failed one, two, or three times” trying to build their own A.I. systems, Siebel told Fortune hours after the IPO. He says this is the same pattern he had seen earlier in his career, first selling database software in the 1980s at Oracle, and later building Siebel Systems, the sales-force automation and customer relationship software company he sold to Oracle for $5.85 billion in 2005. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure rhymes,” he says. “These companies try a few times. They fire the CIO, and then they get serious and get the job done.”
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He urges the incoming Biden administration to commit more resources to using A.I. in military and intelligence applications, particularly in light of China’s multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment in these technologies. “Make no mistake, we’re at war with China in artificial intelligence,” he says.
C3.ai has major contracts with the U.S. Air Force, for which it has built a system that predicts when aircraft parts will need to be replaced, helping the force keep more of its planes ready to fly, as well as with Raytheon, a major defense contractor.
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In general, Siebel says, A.I. ethics is too important to delegate to an A.I. ethics officer or an A.I. ethics department. “That’s just a cop-out,” he says. “The CEO needs to own this, the whole management team needs to own this, and the board.”
Despite no color change in the physical world, tasters said they perceived 20% more “creaminess” in the coffee that was shown through VR to be lighter brown. However, there was no significant effect of the coffee color and the perception of overal likeability or sweetness.
“Since people have learned to associate a light brown color with milky coffee, we hypothesized that a black coffee which appears to be light brown would be rated as tasting sweeter and creamier than one that appears dark brown,” the researchers wrote. “If the hypothesis holds, then we could develop future applications where people can add “virtual creamer” to their coffee to cut down on calories while still maintaining the perception of creaminess. Moreover, this study is uniquely suited for VR because, in the real-world, it would be difficult to make black coffee appear light brown without altering its taste.”
The 'Scream & Shout' hitmaker predicted that artificial intelligence will eventually become the key technology in music.
He explained: "Your digital avatar or doppelganger, equipped with machine-learning and natural language, will be able to do interviews, have conversations, do performances, sell things, know exactly who your fans are, talk to a million people at once.
"But the artist has to own its data, not a company. It can’t be Facebook, Amazon or Google."
Facebook and other big online platforms insist they're removing more and more misinformation. But they can't say whether they're actually stemming the tide of lies, and neither can we, because the deluge turns out to be impossible to define or measure.
ViacomCBS has inked a broad, multiyear agreement with Amazon Web Services under which the media conglomerate will put its entire global broadcast TV operations into the AWS cloud.
The companies touted the partnership as among biggest cloud-based initiatives in the media and entertainment industry to date. As part of the agreement, ViacomCBS plans to migrate operations for its entire broadcast footprint, spanning 425 linear TV channels and 40 global data and media centers, to AWS.
The new cloud-based hub will help ViacomCBS spin up new channels faster, optimize delivery over any distribution channel, add image and video analysis to applications, and automate workflows, said Phil Wiser, the company’s EVP and chief technology officer. And, he said, the move to AWS will reduce costs by double-digits compared with its previous infrastructure.
“This is letting us rethink how to run a large-scale media company,” Wiser said.
