Q&A: UCLA’s Eugene Volokh on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality
Eugene Volokh in Atlanta, Ga., on October 7, 2014.
What about these future public spaces being owned by private companies? What sorts of trouble does that pose?
I think it’ll cause a lot of complexity. A lot will depend on whether we’ll see something like the Google or Facebook effect, where one private institution is going to get by far the dominant share of the market the way Google has with search. The more we see that, the more I think we’ll see people worry about antitrust dimensions, that the magnitude of the private power that will be somewhat not checked by the judiciary.
I’m not terribly worried, but many people are, and I think it’s something we ought to consider. I think it’s important to preserve private enterprises’ ability to provide various features and to make choices with what is its own property. But at the same time, it is true when the private entity gets powerful enough, we might be concerned enough about the private power as we are about the government power.
Then there’s going to be concerns about company misuse of that [data], but also anything that a private entity captures, the government is going to have access to as well. So they say you know this person is accused of being a drug dealer. We notice he spends a lot of his time in VR, maybe he’s making and arranging some deals in VR. He’s not delivering the drugs there, but could certainly work out the arrangements. Let’s subpoena all of the records of the VR company, of everybody he’s talked to and even the recordings of that.
See the full story here: https://www.law.com/therecorder/2018/07/19/vrs-open-call-to-litigation-qa-with-uclas-eugene-volokh-on-future-law-403-18570/?slreturn=20180623175123
IBM thinks blockchains can help reduce carbon emissions
It’s turning carbon credits into crypto-tokens—part of a scheme to create a massive marketplace of novel digital assets.
Unfortunately, purchasing “high quality” carbon credits is a complex, cumbersome process that has to be done in over-the-counter transactions, which slows down the market for them, says Jim Procanik, executive director of the Veridium Foundation. Blockchain technology, he says, is a “perfect background for creating a more liquid and transparent marketplace.”
That’s why Veridium has teamed with IBM to “tokenize” carbon offset credits using the Stellar blockchain. Its token, which is slated to launch later this year, will be backed by a basket of different carbon assets verified by third parties according to international standards. Some of those credits will come from Veridium’s sister company, InfiniteEARTH, which already has an established business selling carbon credits to companies that want to offset their carbon footprints.
Check Out These Awesome New 3D, Full-Color X-Rays
But now, the first test of a new full color, 3D x-ray machine has been conducted on a human, and the results are revolutionary and freaky at the same time, reports Kristin Houser at Futurism.
The updated x-ray machine, called the MARS Spectral X-ray Scanner, however, is able to reveal detail of bones, soft tissue and other components of the body with incredible clarity. That’s because the scanner uses a highly sensitive chip called the Medipix3, which acts like the sensor in a digital camera, except much more advanced. In fact, according to a press release, the Medipix was developed from technology created by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), used to detect particles in its Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator. The chip can count the photons hitting each pixel and determine their energy level. From that information a series of algorithms is then able to determine the position of things like bone, fat, cartilage and other tissues, which are then colorized.
The scans are both mesmerizing and a little gruesome, but most importantly they are detailed in a way that x-rays simply are not, which could lead to more accurate and personalized diagnoses.
See the full story here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/check-out-these-awesome-new-3d-full-color-x-rays-180969626/
Justice Department unveils strategy to fight election meddling, cybercrime
In addition to foreign influence campaigns, the report also covers the more prosaic cybercrime schemes that prosecutors and agents deal with on a daily basis. Chapter 2 discusses the types of cybercrime that the department investigates, from distributed denial-of-service attacks to ransomware infections. Chapter 3 explains how the government fights back, including prosecution tools like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, techniques like surveillance of suspects and other response options like dismantling botnets. Chapter 4 describes the government’s private-sector partnerships, information-sharing channels and interagency response plans. And Chapter 5 explains how different DOJ components are training and retaining cybersecurity experts.
Chapter 6 lays out the challenges for cybercrime investigations and prosecutions. Among them are the reticence of victims to report breaches, the government’s sometimes tense relationship with security researchers and gaps in DOJ’s legal authority to access data controlled by foreign companies.
Another problem relevant to election security is that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act only empowers DOJ to prosecute people who hack internet-connected devices.
“In many conceivable situations, electronic voting machines will not meet those criteria, as they are typically kept off the Internet,” the report notes. “Consequently, should hacking of a voting machine occur, the government would not, in many conceivable circumstances, be able to use the CFAA to prosecute the hackers.”
See the full story here: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/19/justice-department-election-meddling-cybercrime-strategy-700236
Experience The Extraordinary Life Of Nelson Mandela In VR
Walking in Mandela’s Footsteps, an immersive VR experience which tells the incredible true story of Mandela’s life, from the humble village of Qunu, South Africa, where he was raised, to the terrifying jail cell where he was imprisoned for over two decades. It is there that users will be exposed to a haunting, 27 seconds of deafening silence.
Throughout the 30-minute adventure, users will have the opportunity to learn more about the resolutionary by interacting with several digital versions of Mandela’s real-life possessions, rendered via a handheld scanner and imported into Unity. Various other objects, such as Mandela’s infamous pass book, were implemented using real-life photographs or scanned archives.
“With the launch of untethered and cost effective devices like the Oculus Go, it allows us to take the experience to everybody. It was an amazing to create the experience, and I hope that the users will be equally amazed and find themselves fully immersed in the virtual life of Madiba wherever you are” said Adi Stephan, head of learning for IQbusiness.
Walking in Mandela’s Footsteps is available in the Oculus Go for $1.99. The experience will be released on the Vive Focus and Pico headsets shortly after the 100th celebration.
Amazon’s Jack Ryan VR Park Takes Over Comic-Con
What better way to tease the world-wide release of the new Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series on Amazon Prime then to drop thousands of Comic-Con fans into the boots of Jack Ryan himself.
Taking over an entire 60,000 square foot city block, Amazon created a massive event park that places you in the heart of the Middle East. Featuring one of the most extravagant attempts at an end-to-end warehouse-scale VR experience I’ve ever seen—it had everything. Repelling, zip-lining, plank walking, and even a car chase.
I’ve been to location-based entertainment VR centers before, but this was another level. It’s especially mind boggling when you realize that you’re being tracked in VR the entire time with a Optitrack motion capture system and wireless VR headset system. Did I mention that this was all outside under direct sunlight?
Created in collaboration with MediaMonks, a team of over 300 worked non-stop over a few months to get this ready for Comic-Con. Quite an accomplishment considering the public will get to experience it this week only. This really should be its own theme park.
The Jack Ryan Training Field was also streamed live on Twitch, where viewers could interact and throw challenges in the way of me or others running through the course.
Some thoughts about XR at Disneyland Shanghai
Hello everyone. As you know, I’m currently in China, doing a trip to discover VR here. I’ve said goodbye to the beautiful Qingdao and now I’m in the modern Shanghai. Shanghai is like the Chinese New York, so I thought to find more VR and better VR.
Well, after having visited it, I can confirm you that there are no headsets, there: no AR, no VR devices. There is AR and there is VR, but of different kinds.
AR is projective AR, where some virtual elements are projected on a wall, an object, or whatever. For instance, I’ve clearly spotted that some real characters of the various attractions had the eyes that were not real, but were projected with a projector, and that gave a more realistic touch to their faces (because for instance, these projected eyes could move). The final show of the park is also all made by projecting stuff on the castle, with a lot of light effects and fireworks.
VR is “big screen VR”. You and all other people are in front of some enormous big screen that covers all your field of view and that shows some content. For instance, we traveled the world this way: we were on a big platform floating in the air and a big curved screen close to us showed a lot of cool places of the various parts of the world and we really felt as being there. The movements of the platform, together with the movie showing a flying experience and some wind effects, really made us feel as flying all over amazing places… even without a headset.
I think that they’ll wait until they’ll find a way to offer a high-quality VR experience in a way that is feasible for the park and then they’ll introduce it. This is how things should always be done. So I appreciate their choice.
And it also reminded me once more that for every occasion, we should choose the most suitable technology, not the one we like the most. That’s why I wanted to report you these thoughts of mine, to remember this to you and to also discuss about it with you (contact me!).
See the full story here: https://skarredghost.com/2018/07/20/some-thoughts-about-xr-at-disneyland-shanghai/
Disney to debut its first VR short next month at Siggraph
Walt Disney Animation Studio is set to debut its first VR short film, Cycles, this August in Vancouver, the Association for Computing Machinery announced today. The plan is for it to be a headliner at the ACM’s computer graphics conference (SIGGRAPH), joining other forms of VR, AR and MR entertainment in the conference’s designated Immersive Pavilion.
This film is a first for both Disney and its director, Jeff Gipson, who joined the animation team in 2013 to work as a lighting artist on films like Frozen, Zootopia and Moana. The objective of this film, Gipson said in the statement released by ACM, is to inspire a deep emotional connection with the story.
Cycles centers around the meaning of creating a home and focuses on the ups and downs of a family as they create a life in theirs.
When working on Cycles, the team used both Quill VR animations and motion capture to bring their idea into a 3D space.
Films like Cycles are far from mainstream, but as influential companies like Disney and Pixar continue to experiment in this space, the distant future of widespread VR cinema may be finally approaching.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/19/disney-to-debut-its-first-vr-short-next-month/