philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Xreal One Smart Glasses Have Entered the Vision Pro Zone, and I Wore Them

Perching a pair of tethered glasses over my own lenses in an office in midtown New York, I see a familiar sight: Floating in front of me is a widescreen Mac monitor. It's just there, hovering in space. I move my head around to take in its size. Ironically, I'm not using a Vision Pro headset to do this. Instead, I'm wearing Xreal's newest glasses, which can cast larger displays and pin them in space, and it works with any device -- laptop, phone, game console -- that can output video via USB-C. ...

How do they do this? The Xreal One and Xreal One Pro glasses -- coming Dec. 9 and early next year, respectively -- have a chip called the X1, custom-made by Xreal, that can keep images fixed in space as you turn your head. These new glasses also have enhanced audio by Bose, a 50- or 57-degree field of view and optional AI-ready snap-in cameras. The Xreal One sounds smarter than Xreal's previous smart glasses. That's exactly the idea. ...

"We made these glasses with 80% of the experience, but at only 20% of their cost in terms of price, weight, everything," Chi says in an exclusive interview. ...

But the best and subtlest part is how displays can gradually move with you or stay fixed in one place. Xreal previously required a separate piece of hardware to get that anchored display to work, the Beam or Beam Pro; now, it's built into the glasses and works with anything -- from PCs and Macs to Steam Decks, tablets and phones. ...

See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/i-wore-xreal-one-smart-glasses-are-entering-the-vision-pro-zone/

Vitalik Buterin urges Web3 wallets to improve security, privacy

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin urged Web3 wallet developers to implement features improving privacy and security in a Dec. 3 blog post.

“[A] user only benefits from any decentralization, censorship resistance, security, privacy, or other properties that Ethereum and its applications offer to the extent that the wallet itself also has these properties,” Buterin said in the blog post.

He also proposed ways to ease transfers among Ethereum’s layer-2 (L2) scaling networks, such as Optimism and Arbitrum.

Ethereum hosts dozens of L2 scaling networks, which collectively handle more than $50 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to data from L2Beat. ...

On Nov. 26, a United States court ruled in favor of Tornado Cash, saying the US Treasury Department overstepped in sanctioning the privacy protocol. This potentially paves the way for more onchain privacy features.

Buterin also recommended integrating multisignature authorization — where several signers must authorize transactions — into all Web3 wallets for added security. ...

See the full story here: https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-buterin-web3-wallets-improve-security-privacy

USC student embracing AI for filmmaking and art

... Holly Willis is the chair of USC’s Media Arts and Practice Program, as well as the co-director of the AI for media and storytelling studio. She says on top of saving precious time in putting a film together, AI is also helps keep down cost when it comes shooting, and producing portions of films and art. ...

See the full story here: https://spectrumnews1.com/wi/madison/entertainment/2024/11/28/usc-ai-storytelling

Licking this “lollipop” will let you taste virtual flavors

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A team of Hong Kong scientists has now developed a handheld user interface shaped like a lollipop capable of re-creating several different flavors in a virtual environment, according to a new paperpublished in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

It's well established that human taste consists of sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami—five basic flavors induced by chemical stimulation of the tongue and, to a lesser extent, in parts of the pharynx, larynx, and epiglottis. Recreating those sensations in VR has resulted in a handful of attempts at a flavor user interface, relying on such mechanisms as chemical, thermal, and electrical stimulation, as well as iontophoresis. ...

So Yiming Liu of City University of Hong Kong and co-authors opted to work with iontophoresis, in which stable taste feedback is achieved by using ions flowing through biologically safe hydrogels to transport flavor chemicals. This method is safe, requires low power consumption, allows for precise taste feedback, and offers a more natural human-machine interface. Liu et al. improved on recent advances in this area by developing their portable lollipop-shaped user interface device, which also improves flavor quality and consistency. ...

 There were nine taste-generating channels filled with flavored hydrogels. The gels were made out of agarose mixed with a bit of mineral water and specific flavor essences: sugar, salt, citric acid, cherry, milk, green tea, passion fruit, durian, and grapefruit. ...

Flavors are generated via a current flowing through a target gel, delivering flavor chemicals to the outside of the lollipop. ...

See the full story here: https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/11/licking-this-lollipop-will-let-you-taste-virtual-flavors/

AI In Entertainment: 19 Practical And Ethical Challenges

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8. ‘Filter Bubbles’

A key challenge is AI-driven content personalization, which can create “filter bubbles” and limit the diversity of content recommendations for viewers. While AI optimizes engagement, it may also result in repetitiveness and reduced exposure to new genres. To counter this, the industry should leverage AI to enhance diversity by expanding recommendation algorithms to prioritize novelty alongside user preferences. - Santhosh Vijayabaskar

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16. The Erosion Of Cultural Diversity

One challenge is the erosion of cultural diversity as AI-generated content becomes prevalent. AI might prioritize patterns lacking cultural nuance, leading to a homogenized entertainment landscape. Addressing this requires integrating diverse datasets and collaborating with creators from varied backgrounds to ensure AI tools amplify, not suppress, cultural richness. - Nicola Sfondrini, PWC

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See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2024/11/26/ai-in-entertainment-19-practical-and-ethical-challenges/

Jerry Garcia’s AI Voice Debuts in ElevenLabs’ Audiobook App

ElevenLabs is pushing the boundaries of AI narration by introducing Jerry Garcia’s iconic voice to its Eleven Reader audiobook app. Fans of the legendary Grateful Dead frontman can now hear his distinctive tones narrating a wide range of content, from audiobooks and articles to poetry and PDFs. Dubbed the “Iconic Listening Experience,” this feature extends Garcia’s AI narrator voice to 32 languages, making his legacy accessible to a global audience.

Garcia joins an illustrious lineup of celebrity voice AI narrators on the ElevenLabs platform, including Maya Angelou, John Wayne, and James Dean. This innovation isn’t limited to nostalgic entertainment—it’s also reshaping how we interact with information and creativity. ...

...the Jerry Garcia Foundation, co-founded by Garcia’s daughter, Keelin Garcia, is contemplating using her father’s AI model to narrate documentaries and audio art exhibits. ...

See the full story here: https://www.eweek.com/news/jerry-garcia-ai-voice-eleven-labs/

Can The Legal System Protect the Vibe of a Creator

An Amazon influencer earns her income by sharing content from her beige-themed home. However, when she discovered another account promoting the same minimalist aesthetic, it led to an unprecedented lawsuit. The question arises: can the legal system safeguard a creator's vibe? Moreover, what happens if that vibe is considered basic? ...

Her response to Gifford’s suit opens with a quote attributed to Kim Kardashian, though its origin seems dubious: “People only rain on your parade because they’re jealous of your sun and tired of their shade.” It was Gifford that did the copying, Sheil alleges — not her. ...

See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/26/24303161/amazon-influencers-lawsuit-copyright-clean-aesthetic-girl-sydney-nicole-gifford-alyssa-sheil?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

SpaceX: Cellular Starlink Service Is Ready to Go

 SpaceX now has enough satellites in Earth's orbit to offer commercial services for its cellular Starlink system. The company now has over 320 'direct to cell' Starlink satellites in space. The service will work with normal mobile phones without any extra equipment or special apps. SpaceX is partnering with T-Mobile to offer cellular satellite technology to consumers. The company still needs approval from the FCC before it can operate a commercial cellular service.

See the full story here: https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-cellular-starlink-service-is-ready-to-go?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

AI can now create a replica of your personality

... Led by Joon Sung Park, a Stanford PhD student in computer science, the team recruited 1,000 people who varied by age, gender, race, region, education, and political ideology. They were paid up to $100 for their participation. From interviews with them, the team created agent replicas of those individuals. As a test of how well the agents mimicked their human counterparts, participants did a series of personality tests, social surveys, and logic games, twice each, two weeks apart; then the agents completed the same exercises. The results were 85% similar.  ...

In the paper the replicas are called simulation agents, and the impetus for creating them is to make it easier for researchers in social sciences and other fields to conduct studies that would be expensive, impractical, or unethical to do with real human subjects. If you can create AI models that behave like real people, the thinking goes, you can use them to test everything from how well interventions on social media combat misinformation to what behaviors cause traffic jams. ...

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/20/1107100/ai-can-now-create-a-replica-of-your-personality/

Anthropic CEO Says Mandatory Safety Tests Needed for AI Models

Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei said artificial intelligence companies, including his own, should be subject to mandatory testing requirements to ensure their technologies are safe for the public before release. 

“I think we absolutely have to make the testing mandatory, but we also need to be really careful about how we do it,” Amodei said in response to a question on the topic Wednesday at an AI safety summit in San Francisco hosted by the US Departments of Commerce and State. ...

“There’s nothing to really verify or ensure the companies are really following those plans in letter of spirit. They just said they will,” Amodei said. “I think just public attention and the fact that employees care has created some pressure, but I do ultimately think it won’t be enough.” ...

See the full article here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-20/anthropic-ceo-says-mandatory-safety-tests-needed-for-ai-models?srnd=phx-technology&leadSource=uverify%20wall&embedded-checkout=true