philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

MIT team places first in U.S. Air Force virtual reality Space competition

When the United States Air Force put out a call for submissions for its first-ever Visionary Q-Prize competition in October 2018, a six-person team of MIT students and alumni took up the challenge. Last month, they emerged as a first-place winner for their prototype of a virtual reality tool they called CoSMIC (Command, Sensing, and Mapping Information Center).

...to develop solutions for safe and secure operations in space.

CoSMIC, a virtual reality visualization tool for satellite operators, placed first in the Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality category. “More than 23,000 objects — from satellites to debris to spent rocket bodies — are in orbit and being tracked,” says Eric Hinterman, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and member of the winning team. “The challenge was to develop a user interface to help visualize these objects and predict if they’re going to collide, and what we can do to avoid that.”

The CoSMIC team includes MIT undergrads Eswar Anandapadmanaban, an electrical engineering and computer science major, and Alexander Laiman, a materials science major; grad student Eric Hinterman of aeronautics and astronautics; and alumni Barret Schlegelmilch SM ’18, MBA ’18, Steven Link SM ’18, MBA ’18, and Philip Ebben SM ’18, MBA ’18.

See the full story here: http://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-team-places-first-air-force-virtual-reality-visionary-q-prize-competition-0409

New Study Reveals 22 Percent of U.S. Adults Use Augmented Reality

Highlights include the fact that 22 percent of consumers have used mobile augmented reality (AR). More importantly, they're using it often: more than half of respondents use mobile AR at least weekly. This is telling indication of mobile AR's potential, given that active use is a key mobile app success factor and tied closely to revenue metrics

The top mobile AR app category today is gaming, followed by social. These are driven by popular AR apps and features, such as Pokemon Go and Snapchat's AR lenses.

See the full story here: https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/19/04/p13506079/new-study-reveals-22-percent-of-u-s-adults-use-augmented-reality

Virtual Reality Will Hit Critical Mass at $199, Survey from PictureVirtualReality.com Reveals

An overwhelming majority of consumers say virtual reality will hit critical mass when VR headsets sell for $199, according to a new poll conducted by Picture Virtual Reality (PXVR.com).

The survey was conducted over a four month period by the online virtual reality news website, which reports on the latest VR news, videos, VR games, esports, Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality. PXVR offers a wide range of breaking VR news on the fast growing technology sector. The survey found that 82% of those surveyed feel the majority of consumers would purchase a VR headset for $199.

See the full story here: https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/19/04/r13505829/virtual-reality-will-hit-critical-mass-at-199-survey-from-picturevirtualreality-com-reveals

Virtual reality is helping babies breathe thanks to a project from Seattle Children’s and Oxford

As a neonatologist at Seattle Children’s, Dr. Rachel Umoren knows that every second counts when a baby is born and doesn’t breathe or cry. If a caregiver doesn’t act fast, the result can be death or brain damage.

“It’s a staggering problem,” said Umoren, noting that each year 280,000 babies die of birth asphyxia in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, the condition is responsible for 23 percent of all newborn deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

The medical world’s answer to the problem is Helping Babies Breathe (HBB), a set of techniques that can reduce neonatal mortality by 47 percent, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Electronic versions of HBB already exist, but they require a computer with an internet connection. The VR solution was designed to run locally on a smartphone, making it portable, more interactive and potentially cheaper than a web-based program.

See the full story here: https://www.geekwire.com/2019/virtual-reality-helping-babies-breathe-thanks-project-seattle-childrens-oxford/

The EU releases guidelines to encourage ethical AI development

A summary of the EU's guidelines are below, and you can read the full PDF here.

• Human agency and oversight: AI systems should enable equitable societies by supporting human agency and fundamental rights, and not decrease, limit or misguide human autonomy.
• Robustness and safety: Trustworthy AI requires algorithms to be secure, reliable and robust enough to deal with errors or inconsistencies during all life cycle phases of AI systems.
• Privacy and data governance: Citizens should have full control over their own data, while data concerning them will not be used to harm or discriminate against them.
• Transparency: The traceability of AI systems should be ensured.
• Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness: AI systems should consider the whole range of human abilities, skills and requirements, and ensure accessibility.
• Societal and environmental well-being: AI systems should be used to enhance positive social change and enhance sustainability and ecological responsibility.
• Accountability: Mechanisms should be put in place to ensure responsibility and accountability for AI systems and their outcomes.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/08/eu-ai-ethics-guidelines/

Simplified Cryptocurrency Exchange Offers Mass Market Take-Up

08 April 2019, London: The crypto market is often seen as complex and difficult to access, however one way to remove this complexity is to lower the entry level for new players to the industry. That is why we focussed on both the new and experienced crypto enthusiasts alike when developing new products.

The XCOEX mission is to deliver the simplest, fully equipped, functional and technically advanced platform to our users.

See the full story here: https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2019/04/simplified-cryptocurrency-exchange-offers-mass-market-take-up/

China’s virtual reality arcades aim for real-world success

• China had an estimated 3,000 such places in 2016 and the market was forecast to grow 13-fold between then and 2021 to US$782 million
• Expansion in next five years could see country dominate AR/VR long term, report says

See the full story here: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3005014/chinas-virtual-reality-arcades-aim-real-world-success

New app using augmented reality to highlight Paphos attractions

On Wednesday, Paphos Mayor Phedonas Phedonos signed a contract with Pyramind Services Ltd for the creation of a digital tourism, culture and entrepreneurship platform, as well as augmented reality and e-democracy application, totaling €122,570.

The mayor said that using such apps the municipality offers a great way of using technology directly into the hands of 1.7 million tourists that visit Paphos every year, and not only for foreign tourists, but also for local residents to get to know the area.

Buildings and places of interest will include the archaeological park in Kato Paphos, the Tomb of the Kings, all sorts pf places in Paphos centre such as the town hall’ library and schools, the Markideio Theatre and Ibrahim’s Khan.

See the full story here: https://cyprus-mail.com/2019/04/07/new-app-using-augmented-reality-to-highlight-paphos-attractions/

A VR Model of Auschwitz Helps Catch Nazis

Contributing to the morass was Hanning’s claim that he never personally witnessed victims being gassed to death. Prosecutors needed evidence to link Hanning to the charges in his indictment: monitoring arriving prisoners as they were sorted into groups headed directly into labor or the gas chambers, a process that came to be known as “selection.” Essentially, the court needed to travel back in time and see what Hanning saw, from the perpetrator’s vantage point.

That’s how virtual reality wound up in the courtroom, for the first time, in what might be the last World War II Nazi trial. David Freid’s short documentary Nazi VR details how a team of German forensic VR engineers recreated a 3-D model of Auschwitz-Birkenau through millions of laser scans, historical blueprints of the site, aerial photographs, and witness testimonies. Wearing the VR goggles, investigators and judges can climb the watchtowers and observe how prisoners would have been moved around the 15-mile camp, where more than 1.1 million people were murdered during the war.

“Virtual reality is a great tool to objectively establish what was visible to the defendant,” says David Scheffer, who served as Germany’s war-crimes ambassador from 1997 to 2001, in the film. “So, as Mr. Hanning claimed, ‘I was in such a position that I could not have seen what was occurring elsewhere in the camp,’ the VR will contradict that claim.”

See the full story here: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/586567/nazi-vr/

Aerosmith’s Las Vegas Residency Opens With Inventive Use of Immersive Sound

The show is presented with live THX certified L-Acoustics’ L-ISA immersive sound, thanks to a partnership with THX and L-Acoustics. The object-based sound is mixed live during the performance and can support up to 96 individual objects (sound or musical elements) that can be played in 64 different directions. The 5,400-seat theater uses 230 speakers (for comparison, Dixon added that a typical stadium tour might use 40 to 50) positioned 360-degrees around the venue and across the ceiling, as with immersive sound in a cinema. It uses up to 300,000 watts of power.

The show also features a 100-seat THX-certified onstage VIP section, where each guest will have access to "studio-quality" (the monitor mix) audio direct from the Aerosmith mixing board using audio technology from MIXhalo (a young company co-founded by Incubus guitarist Michael Einziger) and a pair of THX-certified 1More triple driver in-ear headphones.

See the full story here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/aerosmith-deuces-are-wild-opens-inventive-use-immersive-sound-1199982