Atari doesn't have the cultural cachet it used to. After an industry-crashing downfall in the '80s, the video game pioneer has been unable to find its niche, and recently, its oft-delayed retro console has had a troubled development. Atari hopes to find some success by lending what gaming cred it has left to the hospitality industry. The company signed a contract that see Atari license its name and branding to a real estate developer, which will build eight hotels across the US. The first location will break ground this year in Phoenix. Others in Austin, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle will follow.
29Jan/20Off
L.A.’s Famed Fairfax District to Become Amazon Animated Comedy
The tech giant's Prime Video streaming platform has ordered two eight-episode seasons of Fairfax, a series about four middle school best friends on a never-ending quest for clout along Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles' pulsing heart of hypebeast culture. Animation studio Titmouse (Big Mouth, Amazon's upcoming The Legend of Vox Machina) is producing along with Amazon Studios and Serious Business (@midnight); Matt Hausfater (Undateable), Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley created the show.
"Fairfax is smart, weird and hilarious, and we’re excited to work with Matt, Aaron, Teddy and the teams at Serious Business and Titmouse so our Prime Video customers around the world can see this unique new series,” Albert Cheng, COO and co-head of television at Amazon Studios, said Wednesday in a statement.
Said creators Hausfater, Buchsbaum and Riley: "This show is a love letter to kids today — the generation that will most definitely save the world from global warming, if they don’t die from eating Tide Pods first. It’s a modern look at the timeless struggle to be cooler than you are, to fit in while standing out, and what it feels like to wait in line for a pair of sneakers you’re never going to cop. We’re incredibly excited to be working with Serious Business, Somehoodlum, Pizzaslime, Titmouse and Amazon Studios. We couldn't have asked for a better team."
See the full story here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/las-famed-fairfax-district-become-amazon-animated-comedy-1274574
28Jan/20Off
Disney fans will love Frozen VR. When can they see it? Maybe…never
[PhilNote: It is a delightful short, with original characters but the same 'spirits' as the movie.]
Disney Plus eventually may stream the closely guarded Frozen 2 short, but it wouldn't be VR.
Myth: A Frozen Tale is a beautifully stylized origin story of the nature-spirit characters of Frozen's blockbuster movie sequel. Featuring characters like the cute, fiery salamander Bruni, glittering water horse Nokk and flighty air spirit Gale (which Disney actually created with the help of VR as a production tool), Myth is a fairy tale retold inside the Frozen universe. It's only the second VR short made in-house by Walt Disney Animation Studios, and it's the first one to bring a Disney Animation blockbuster franchise into virtual reality. Disney has shown off Myth on the sidelines of the Sundance Film Festival here in Park City, Utah.
Jeff Gipson, the director of both Cycles and Myth, said that the beauty of creating a VR film like Myth in what is essentially a video-game engine is that his team can adapt it into a flat version that could potentially be on Disney Plus someday, like Cycles.
See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/news/disney-fans-will-love-frozen-2-vr-when-can-they-see-it-maybe-never/
24Jan/20Off
Octi Launches The World’s First Augmented Reality Social Network
Built on cutting-edge, patented technology and tested with thousands of high school students across Southern California, Octi provides the most exciting vision of our augmented reality future to date.
Imagine pointing your phone's camera at a friend and instantly seeing their social profile floating around them on-screen, including their favorite YouTube videos, Spotify songs, and personal photos, along with an overlay of fun effects and stickers. Octi does exactly that, making in-person interaction the foundation for connecting on the network.
To accomplish this vision, the company raised a total of $12 million from the world's leading investors, brands, and consumer technology executives, including Live Nation, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Peter Diamandis' Bold Capital Partners, Human Ventures, I2BF, Tom Conrad, Rich Greenfield, Scott Belsky, and Josh Kushner.
"Octi is a unique mobile app that actually encourages its users to interact with each other in real life, in an era where technology has made it far too easy to avoid in-person relationships," said Rich Greenfield, partner at LightShed Partners and noted social media analyst.
"Octi is the first company I've seen that has created a compelling, AR-native framework for social interaction, one based on cutting-edge technology and far-sighted insights into how we'll communicate with each other in the coming years," said Tom Conrad, the Chief Product Officer of Quibi and former VP of Product for Snap.
See the full story here: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/octi-launches-the-worlds-first-augmented-reality-social-network-300992388.html
24Jan/20Off
Clearview AI shows government needs to be agile in making tech regulation: experts
Privacy and tech experts say that governments must be agile in creating laws to protect their citizens from ethically dubious applications of artificial intelligence (AI).
On January 18, The New York Times reported that a company called Clearview AI is working with hundreds of law enforcement agencies in the U.S., including the F.B.I.
The company allows users to take a picture of a person, and if the photo matches a face in its three billion image database, it can potentially provide information like names, addresses and other details.
The three billion photos are harvested from Facebook, Venmo, YouTube, and other sites.
Ann Cavoukian, former information and privacy commissioner of Ontario, said in an interview that none of the images that were harvested were obtained with the consent of users and “law enforcement should know better.”
...“We should have started years ago, we haven’t; so fine, let’s start now,” she said, adding that other jurisdictions in the U.S., like San Francisco and Oakland, Calif. have banned the use of facial recognition by law enforcement.
“AI right now is just snake oil, and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon,” she said. “There’s been billions of dollars poured into AI, so many startups that say ‘this is powered by AI’ but we haven’t necessarily seen the great… breakthrough. The power isn’t necessarily artificial intelligence, but that it is still built upon the infrastructure of a decade or more of data collection by other companies.”
See the full story here: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/clearview-ai-shows-government-needs-to-be-agile-in-making-tech-regulation-experts-203136296.html
24Jan/20Off
Cooper becomes world’s first hospital to use new virtual reality system for stroke patients
California-based medical device producer Penumbra worked closely with a team of physicians and therapists at the Cooper Neurological Institute to develop a program for use of the REAL Immersive System.
The new VR system displays and tracks upper-extremity rehabilitation in interactive exercises for adult stroke patients. In a variety of virtual environments, patients are able to adjust their view simply by looking around. Hand controllers enable patients to move their avatar and interact with the virtual world.
See the full story here: https://www.phillyvoice.com/cooper-hospital-camden-virtual-reality-stroke-victim-real-immersive-system-worlds-first/
24Jan/20Off
Explore the TikTok features that make it the most habit-forming social app out there
It’s time you understood TikTok, if only to grasp how much power these addictive algorithms have over our lives. It’s also worth asking how easily a happy-go-lucky TikTok could become a scary-as-hell TikTok, without so much as a tweak to its design.
See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/help-im-trapped-inside-tiktok-and-i-cant-get-out-11579801844
23Jan/20Off
Disney Movies to Be Adapted as Immersive Experiences by Secret Cinema
The first show is due to premiere in London later this year. However, the deal also calls for Secret Cinema to expand across the pond, with experiences being planned for Los Angeles and New York. More global expansion could occur beyond that.
Secret Cinema is a unique and immersive movie-screening series that, as the company touts, revolutionizes the way people experience a film. Fusing film with live music, art, theater and dance, Secret Cinema creates elaborate authentic worlds where the movie’s story lives and breathes, placing the audience at the heart of the action and bringing the story to life.
The company converts huge spaces into movie worlds where actors play out storylines and hero moments each night of the production. Audiences participate by becoming part of the show and story, from the moment they buy a ticket to when they are assigned a character and are transported into the preshow narrative. Filmgoers step into the world of the movie, becoming their character, and uncover secret storylines and participate as if they were inside the film itself.
"Working with The Walt Disney Studios is much more than access to a treasure trove of titles, it’s about bringing together a unique combination of skills and expertise to build ever more authentic and amazing experiences, raising the bar again for what we mean by ‘immersive cinema,’” said Secret Cinema CEO Max Alexander.