philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Sony Licenses ‘Advanced Haptics Patent Portfolio’ For ‘VR Controllers’

Immersion Corp stated that such technology could be used to simulate “sensations of pushing, pulling, grasping, and pulsing”, while Sony more vaguely simply stated that it “enhances the sense of presence and immersion.”

Immersion Corp doesn’t actually manufacture the hardware for haptic feedback. The company certifies suitable hardware and licenses its software and more than 3500 issued or pending patents to companies wanting to add haptics to their products.

See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/sony-haptic-patents-acquisition/

Yes, Quora still exists, and it’s now worth $2 billion

The company has been very slow to monetize its user base, which Quora says is 300 million unique people a month, and several investors tell Recode that they passed on the deal because of that poor track record of actually making money.

The company told some prospective investors that it did about $20 million in 2018 revenue, which makes a $2 billion valuation a pretty enormous 100x multiple of its prior year’s revenue.

Over time, it evolved into a more organized Yahoo Answers, a classier Reddit, an opinionated Wikipedia. It became especially popular in elite tech circles — as a precursor to their “thought leadership” on self-publishing platforms like Medium — which definitely didn’t hurt its valuation, judged by Silicon Valley investors to be $900 million five years later.

But the reason why investors are betting on what, at first blush, could appear to be a meaningless pile of content, is that Quora, if successful, is a powerful avenue to reach 300 million information-seeking people a month. It is especially popular in India, where over 20 percent of its visitors come from, according to Alexa data.

But despite some challenges with some investors, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo shouldn’t be wanting for money. He himself is quite rich from his years as Facebook’s first chief technology officer, so wealthy that he in fact put $20 million of his own money into the company’s Series B round of financing.

See the full story here: https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/16/18627157/quora-value-billion-question-answer

‘Knitting Is Coding’ and Yarn Is Programmable in This Physics Lab

For Dr. Matsumoto, knitting is more than a handicraft hobby with health benefits. She is embarking on a five-year project, “What a Tangled Web We Weave,” funded by the National Science Foundation, to investigate the mathematics and mechanics of “the ancient technology known as knitting.”

Some of the oldest examples date to the 11th century B.C.E. in Egypt. But despite generations of practical and experiential knowledge, the physical and mathematical properties of knitted fabric rarely are studied in a way that produces predictive models about how such fabrics behave.

Dr. Matsumoto argues that “knitting is coding” and that yarn is a programmable material. The potential dividends of her research range from wearable electronics to tissue scaffolding.

During the happy-hour meetup, she knitted a swatch illustrating a plastic surgery technique called Z-plasty. The swatch was for a talk she would deliver at 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning called “Twisted Topological Tangles.” Scores of physicists turned up, despite a competing parallel session on “The Extreme Mechanics of Balloons.”

Knitted fabric is also a metamaterial. A length of yarn is all but inelastic, but when configured in slipknots — in patterns of knits and purls — varying degrees of elasticity emerge.

“Just based on these two stitches, these two fundamental units, we can make a whole series of fabrics, and each of these fabrics has remarkably different elastic properties,” Dr. Matsumoto told the audience.

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/science/math-physics-knitting-matsumoto.html

HOW ONE LAB BUILDS VERY FILM-LIKE SMARTPHONE PHOTO FILTERS

It all starts with a freezer in the company's Oakland lab. That fridge-sized box—which sits amongst the office's industrial wood desks, couches, and whiteboards—contains hundreds of rolls of film, much of it hard to find and all of it capable of capturing images in a way no other film, or smartphone, can. The Fujifilm Superia 1600 is great for shooting vibrant colors in a mix of lighting conditions, but it's been discontinued. The Agfa Ultra 50 is also rare—so rare that Hodges had to fork over $500 to get his stash on eBay. "They claimed it was the most colorful, saturated negative film ever made, and I think that might be true," he says.

See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/story/vsco-film-photo-filters/

U.S. intellectual property complaints a ‘political tool’: China state media

Chinese state media on Monday criticized the United States for its complaints about intellectual property theft, calling them a “political tool” intended to suppress China’s economic development.

China has become a world leader in protecting intellectual property rights, it added.

“China has established a relatively thorough and high-standard legal system for intellectual property, and continuously strengthens the judicial protection of intellectual property,” the article said.

Many foreign companies willingly engaged in technical cooperation and received generous returns, it added.

See the full story here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-ip/u-s-intellectual-property-complaints-a-political-tool-china-state-media-idUSKCN1SQ03G

Leonardo da Vinci’s Visionary Notebooks Now Online: Browse 570 Digitized Pages

The digitized notebooks debuted in 2007 as a joint project of the British Library and Microsoft called “Turning the Pages 2.0,” an interactive feature that allows viewers to “turn” the pages of the notebooks with animations. Onscreen glosses explain the content of the cryptic notes surrounding the many technical drawings, diagrams, and schematics (see a selection of the notebooks in this animated format here). For an overwhelming amount of Leonardo, you can look through 570 digitized pages of Codex Arundel here. For a slightly more digestible, and readable, amount of Leonardo, see the British Library’s brief series on his life and work, including explanations of his diving apparatus, parachute, and glider.

See the full story here: http://www.openculture.com/2017/07/leonardo-da-vincis-visionary-notebooks-now-online-browse-570-digitized-pages.html?fbclid=IwAR2bfOSkbzGnThx8o5ezd0qfsb9XAo9L0o0tHyIoA8p9l8wt6g2V3Wy-qoI

Facebook is on a hiring tear for its Augmented Reality (AR) team

An ongoing search for 140 professionals with expertise in AR isn't a blip; it's a concerted effort by Facebook to figure out and execute the technology as part of a larger effort, most likely related to the company's Spark AR augmented reality platform that is a potential revenue source when it comes to advertising and product placement.

The vast majority of Facebook's AR hires are being done at its Menlo Park, CA headquarters followed by Redmond, Washington.

See the full story here: https://media.thinknum.com/articles/facebook-is-on-a-hiring-tear-for-augmented-reality/

St. Thomas Student Creates Virtual Reality Program for Seniors

Before Enzo Vinholi was the CEO of a growing virtual reality startup, he was just a high school student who wanted to do something nice for his grandmother.

“When we talked she would always ask about places in St. Paul we used to visit together, like the cathedral and Grand Avenue,” Vinholi said. “You can send photos of those places, but it’s not the same as being there.”

Vinholi started his company, Like It Was Yesterday, as a senior in high school. Now a rising junior in the Schulze College of Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas, Vinholi spends most nights continuing to build his company, which designs virtual reality programs for senior citizens living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Like It Was Yesterdays’s programs are designed to improve the quality of life for seniors suffering from conditions ranging from limited mobility and Arthritis to Alzheimer’s disease. The company offers more than 1,000 hours of virtual reality programming for users seeking to recreate a variety of memories and life experiences. Users can revisit favorite vacation spots, cities where they used to live, even the place where they had their first kiss decades earlier.

See the full story here: https://www.americaninno.com/minne/twin-cities-startup/st-thomas-student-creates-virtual-reality-program-for-seniors/

Nomadic rolls out new mixed reality arcade in Las Vegas with Area15

The attraction will operate two play-spaces that occupy a total of 6,000 square feet of the 200,000 square foot complex, located close to Area15’s anchor tenant, the art collaborative Meow Wolf.

The place will host immersive “mixed reality” experiences that combine virtual reality with movie-like set designs. The place will host VR games such as Arizona Sunshine: Contagion Z and Arizona Sunshine: Rampage (both in coordination with partner Vertigo Games).

See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/15/nomadic-rolls-out-new-mixed-reality-arcade-in-las-vegas-with-area15/

DigiLens secures $50M in funding on the path to cheap augmented reality

DigiLens Inc., maker of holographic waveguide technology for augmented reality devices, today announced it has raised $50 million in a new funding round.

New partners in this investment include UDC Ventures, the venture arm of Universal Display Corporation, and Samsung Venture Investment Corp. Others joining include Niantic Inc. — best known for Pokemon Go — Continental AG, Sony Innovation Fund and Diamond Edge Ventures.

See the full story here: https://siliconangle.com/2019/05/14/digilens-secures-50m-funding-path-cheap-augmented-reality/