Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge
The shafts are vast, each more than 5 metres deep and 10 metres in diameter. Approximately 20 have been found and there may have been more than 30.
He added: “I can’t emphasise enough the effort that would have gone in to digging such large shafts with tools of stone, wood and bone.”
But then these are the same people who also built Stonehenge, dragging bluestones to the site from south-west Wales about 150 miles away.
Henry Chapman, professor of archaeology at Birmingham University, described it as “an incredible new monument”, and Richard Bates, a geoscientist at St Andrews University, said it offered “an insight to the past that shows an even more complex society than we could ever imagine”.
Culture minister praises BTS for providing a way forward to K-pop
BTS proved its brand power as one of the world's top-grossing touring groups with a successful paid online concert on June 14. A maximum number of simultaneous users estimated at 756,600 watched the live online concert from a special studio. Big Hit said it was the largest paid online concert in the world. The content and technology of BTS' paid online concert set a new precedent in the global music industry.
"I think using advanced technology to create differentiated and high-quality digital works that cannot be compared to other countries will be a shortcut to the success or failure of Hallyu (Korean cultural wave) in the future," Park said. "We need to go beyond simple delivery and make it a better cultural product by utilizing advanced digital technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality."
See the full story here: http://www.ajudaily.com/view/20200619173545418
Bloomberg details Apple’s dual device strategy for augmented reality, starting with a gaming-focused headset in 2022
Today, Mark Gurman at Bloomberg released a comprehensive rundown on the dual device strategy, which will start with a headset scheduled for 2022 release. The headset will roughly resemble an Oculus Quest, but be much more technically advanced.
According to the report, the headset aims to combine the best of AR and VR to offer industry leading gaming and content VR experiences, whereas the slim and light glasses will be AR only and focus on overlaying data like maps navigations over what the user is seeing in the real world.
Bloomberg reports the codename for the headset is N421 and could be announced in 2021, whereas the ambitious ‘Apple Glasses’ initiative will take longer to be finished, citing a launch timeframe of 2023 at the earliest.
The headset will reportedly feature high-resolution displays and a ‘cinematic speaker system’, which should make it difficult for the user to notice the differences between real life and the virtual reality experiences the headset will provide.
See the Bloomberg report here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-19/apple-team-working-on-vr-and-ar-headset-and-ar-glasses
Revry Teams With Littlstar For First LGBTQ+ Virtual Reality Channel
“Littlstar is excited to partner with Revry to redefine how LGBTQ+ audiences view content,” said Tony Mugavero, CEO & Co-Founder of Littlstar. He adds that viewers can interact with each other remotely in virtual reality. If there is no VR headset available they can live stream it directly to their TV via PlayStation 4.
Littlstar is the largest global platform dedicated to immersive virtual and augmented reality content and is one of the most used non-gaming applications on the PlayStation 4 with plans to roll out the content to other major devices later this year.
See the full story here: https://deadline.com/2020/06/revry-littlestar-lgbtq-virtual-reality-channel-vr-1202959839/
UC Berkeley, Intel Researchers Developing AI System to Stitch Wounds
An autonomous robot would have to consider the amount of tissue it grabs, the tension on the tissue and how tight it would pull the suture, Dr. Amling said.
See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/uc-berkeley-intelresearchers-developing-ai-system-to-stitch-wounds-11592472601
The World’s Biggest A.I. Conference Is Going Virtual, and Finally Becoming More Inclusive
Organizers announced this week that NeurIPS, now the world’s best-known A.I. conference, would be completely virtual this year, and with considerably cheaper tickets.
NeurIPS became a pillar of the world’s conversation on cutting edge A.I. research following the A.I. boom that started in 2012, after a team of Canadian researchers proved a fringe technique called deep learning outperformed many other forms of A.I. Tech giants began flocking to the formerly academic event, spending millions to sponsor the conference and recruit the next wave of star PhDs.
The exorbitant cost of conference travel and lodging, as well as visa denials, meant many researchers from around the world simply couldn’t attend, furthering the industry’s homogeneity.
In response, organizations like Black In AI, LatinX in AI, and Women in MLhave created spaces for groups that are underrepresented at NeurIPS, holding their own workshops centering women and people of color, as well as awarding travel grants.
Africa’s largest A.I. conference, Deep Learning Indaba, was also created in part to build a community for those who couldn’t attend NeurIPS, which has almost always been held in North America.
Going virtual, in addition to a “significantly reduced” registration fee, will make the conference more accessible for those who haven’t been able to attend before. In addition to removing travel and lodging costs, the conference lifted its attendance cap.
See the full story here: https://onezero.medium.com/the-worlds-biggest-a-i-conference-is-going-virtual-and-finally-becoming-more-inclusive-81dc5ff554ec