Naughty America Uses Augmented Reality to Put Porn Stars in Your Living Room
Naughty America AR, as the app is aptly being called, makes use of Google’s ARCore technology to scan a room, and then place digital objects atop of a camera-view of that room.
In the case of the Naughty America AR app, these characters are decidedly not safe for work. A free version of the app features female and male porn performers in their underwear. Paying users get to download completely nude characters. Each performer does a few moves, and some address the viewer directly with some choice dirty words.
Each of these AR clips is just about three to four seconds long, which helped to keep the app and any additional downloads reasonably small. Hronopoulos said the company also planned to experiment with longer content if users requested it. “We didn’t really know what people want,” he said.
Naughty America has long been a studio that has embraced cutting-edge technologies. The company was among the first to distribute VR porn, and more recently began to use artificial intelligence to offer custom-made Deepfake porn, which allows consumers to superimpose their own faces onto the bodies of porn stars.
Google and Apple both have policies against distributing adult content on their app stores, which is why Naughty America is distributing its AR app directly via is website(link not safe for work).
See the full story here: https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/ar-porn-android-naughty-america-1202994200/
A controversial payday for an AI artwork
A portrait created using an AI program has fetched $435,000 in auction at Christie’s, blowing the expected $7,000 to $10,000 price out of the water.
Record-breaking: It’s the first ever auction for an AI-generated portrait, sold to an anonymous bidder. It signals “the arrival of AI art on the world auction stage,” Christie’s said. The artwork, named the “Portrait of Edmond Belamy,” was created using a type of AI software called generative adversarial networks (GANs).
Credit where it’s due: The three members of the French art collective behind it, Obvious, have been accused of failing to credit the creator of the algorithms used to create it—Robbie Barrat, an artist and programmer who shared his algorithms on GitHub via an open-source license.
Questions: Who should be recognized for the artwork? And when an algorithm is used to a piece of art, who owns it—the person who created the algorithm, or the person who put it to that specific purpose?
See the full story here: https://mailchi.mp/technologyreview/ai-art-fetches-435000?e=cf24d7da5b
Terrence Malick’s New VR Project Has Music by Jonny Greenwood, Explores Human Life From Birth to Death
Cinephiles will probably want to sit down for this news: Terrence Malick and Jonny Greenwood are teaming up. The director is executive producing the virtual reality project “Evolver,” which is set to feature original music from Greenwood. The project was originally announced to be included at the upcoming VR Days Europe, in collaboration with the Rotterdam International Film Festival (via ScreenDaily), but it has since been confirmed not to be heading there next year.
“Evolver” allows users to experience the lifespan of the human condition, from birth to death. The project is produced by House of Secrets, an animation and VR studio located in the Netherlands, and features new music not only from Greenwood but also from Wu-Tang Clan and more. Greenwood earned an Oscar nomination earlier this year for his work on Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread,”...
Malick is no stranger to virtual reality. The filmmaker’s first virtual reality project, “Together,” played at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. The six-minute, 360 degree experience, made in partnership with Facebook and Movement Art Is co-founders Jon Boogz and Lil Buck, featured two dancers performing in front of flowing white sheets that projected images of nature and the cosmos. Malick is producing “Evolver” along with Ed Pressman, Sam Pressman, and Daniëlle de Jonge.
See the full story here: https://www.indiewire.com/2018/10/terrence-malick-virtual-reality-vr-jonny-greenwood-evolver-1202014728/
Perot Museum leaders, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger unveil Dinaledi virtual reality app
Free virtual reality experience explores a South African cave where some of history's most famous ancient human fossils were discovered; app provides global access to researchers, students and amateur explorers to a place few have visited.
Berger - who recently dominated world science headlines with his discovery of Homo naledi, a new species of human relative - was joined by Perot Museum CEO Dr. Linda Silver and Perot Museum research scientist and Director of the Center for the Exploration of the Human Journey Dr. Becca Peixotto for a Facebook Live news conference watched by journalists and academics from across the world.
The free app, which is optimized for Google cardboard but compatible with any headset, allows people all over the globe to virtually tour the cave that very few people - including "underground astronaut" Dr. Peixotto - have visited in person (due to the extremely narrow, 8-inch "chute" through which it is accessed).
See the full story here: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/pmon-pm102318.php
Sony Patents New System For Local Multiplayer VR
Sony might be looking to make VR less isolating by allowing multiple people to join in on the fun.
As reported by Android Headlines, the company recently had a patent published that details a means of allowing multiple VR headsets within the same proximity to communicate with one device. The system uses a data processing device and a means of wirelessly interconnecting headsets to allow VR users in the same room to see each other in the same virtual environment and explore it together.
The sickening truth about virtual reality
A new study has proven that cybersickness, which is caused by exposure to virtual reality (VR), may be the same clinical condition as ‘classic’ motion sickness caused by travelling.
Up until now, motion sickness and cybersickness have been considered different problems, however, research from University of Newcastle has revealed the two conditions share many of the same symptoms, including nausea, sweating, dizziness and fatigue.
Associate Professor Eugene Nalivaiko* said motion sickness was a common consequence of sensory mismatch that occurs when what a person sees, feels and senses doesn’t match up.
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“Until now, cybersickness has been thought to be a sub-type of motion sickness because it does not involve the vestibular system and is triggered only by visual stimuli, but our conclusion contradicts these previously published results.”
See the full story here: https://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/featured-news/the-sickening-truth-about-virtual-reality
Red Bull Launches Augmented Reality Experience for Rampage Mountain Bike Competition
Red Bull is planning to bring an extreme mountain biking course in Utah to viewers’ living rooms on Friday, using a new augmented reality experience on their smartphones.
When riders first launch themselves down the Red Bull Rampage course this week, fans will be able to explore a 3D model of the mountain that is both accurate to scale and photo realistic. They’ll be able to zoom in and move the course around with a touch of their fingertips.
See the full story here: https://www.sporttechie.com/red-bull-launches-augmented-reality-experience-for-rampage-mountain-bike-race/