Daqri new CEO
Daqri's founder and CEO, Brian Mullins, will step down, according to an announcement from the company on Tuesday.
Roy Ashok, Daqri's new CEO.Daqri
He'll be replaced by Roy Ashok, who was previously Daqri's chief product officer and a director at Qualcomm.
Daqri says its Smart Glasses will ship later this month. Its helmet retails for $15,000, including customer service.
Brian Mullins, Daqri's founder and former CEO. Daqri
See the full story here: http://www.businessinsider.com/daqri-ceo-brian-mullins-is-stepping-down-2017-10
Beyond the Future: SpaceCRAFT VR – Changing the Fate of Space Exploration
SpaceCRAFT VR, helmed by Dr. Greg Chamitoff, current Texas A&M professor and former NASA astronaut, is a VR “sandbox” environment designed to enable government, university and commercial entities to collaborate in the design, use and evaluation of technology for future operations in space. While it isn’t yet ready for the public, SpaceCRAFT VR is well on it’s way to achieving its mission of, according to Dr. Chamitoff, “enabling anyone and everyone, to contribute to, and participate in, the design of the future for our species beyond planet Earth.”
Dr. Chamitoff is advancing the future of the final frontier with many brilliant minds including, Nazareth Bedrossian, Ph.D., Joe Woskow, Andrew Shulkind and several graduate student...
Keeping with SpaceCRAFT VR’s tradition of out-of-the-box thinking, the team is also joined by Andrew Shulkind, a leading immersive content expert and award-winning cinematographer of film and commercials. When asked about his role in SpaceCRAFT VR and his thoughts on it’s mission, Shulkind said, “Greg and I are partnering on few projects, but SpaceCRAFT is one that I’m most excited about. Space exploration is a focus for everyone with an eye to the future, in almost every discipline. It speaks to the very nature of human curiosity. The questions of “how" and “who" have always been a challenge, and SpaceCRAFT answers these concretely. ...
See the full story here: http://www.ign.com/blogs/maxshaferlandau/2017/10/10/beyond-the-future-spacecraft-vr-changing-the-fate-of-space-exploration
Mattel releases biologically inspired foldable robot bugs
Photographer Rafael Ortega Stylist Alison Zukovsky
Photographer/Stylist
Photographer - Jeremy Lloyd, Job # 1751629
Stylist
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/11/mattel-releases-biologically-inspired-foldable-robot-toys/?utm_medium=TCnewsletter
Each $50 robot features an accelerometer, gyroscope and an IR transmitter and receiver that allow them to interact with their surroundings and one another for games like freeze tag and “sumo,” in which they relentlessly bash into one another. They can also be controlled remotely through the mobile app, or preprogrammed with a basic coding application designed to teach some programming basics.
Facebook Security Chief Warns of Dangers in Fake-News Solutions
Alex Stamos, who’s handling the company’s investigation into Russia’s use of the social media platform ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, cautioned about hoping for technical solutions that he says could have unintended consequences of ideological bias.
It’s very difficult to spot fake news and propaganda using just computer programs, Stamos said in a series of Twitter posts on Saturday.
“Nobody of substance at the big companies thinks of algorithms as neutral,” Stamos wrote, adding that the media is simplifying the matter. “Nobody is not aware of the risks.”
The easy technical solutions would boil down to silencing topics that Facebook is aware are being spread by bots -- which should only be done “if you don’t worry about becoming the Ministry of Truth” with machine learning systems “trained on your personal biases,” he said.
Stamos’s comments shed light on why Facebook added 1,000 more people review its advertising, rather than attempting an automated solution.
See the full post here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-07/facebook-security-chief-warns-of-dangers-to-fake-news-solutions
Duckpocalypse review: Duck Hunt reimagined for virtual reality
We don't generally take the time to review cheap and cheerful games, but Duckpocalypse is something special that hit us right in the nostalgia zone. It's like a smart reboot of gaming classic, Duck Hunt, but with a twist - it's in VR.
Available for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Gear VR, Duckpocalypse only costs a couple of quid.
The premise of Duckpocalypse is simple: you spawn in a wooden hunting hide with two pistols and a scoreboard. Shoot down as many of the angry robots ducks as you can in a short time limit.
See the full story here: http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/141919-duckpocalypse-review-duck-hunt-reimagined-for-virtual-reality
Roland Emmerich Dives Into Virtual Reality With VRenetic
Independence Day filmmaker Roland Emmerich and entrepreneur and producer Marco Weber are diving deep into virtual reality by launching the virtual reality company VRenetic, which will specialize in “accessible, social-media enabled 360-degree streaming.” The company is privately held and headquartered in West Hollywood and Emmerich is its chairman and co-founder.
\The company’s first product – VResh – combines a free broadcasting and viewing application with mobile integrated cameras and proprietary headsets that empower users to share real time 360-degree experiences with the world without the big expense that has hampered high-quality VR adoption.
“Sure, the hardware for professional 360-degree content streaming already exists, but it’s totally inaccessible to young, cost-conscious users,” said Emmerich in a statement. “The VResh platform unlocks all of that, and more. Users will have 4K 360-degree VR streaming capabilities paired with real-time two-way audio, which does wonders to socialize and personalize what has thus far been a solitary, tethered-to-a-computer kind of experience.”
See the full story here: http://deadline.com/2017/10/roland-emmerich-virtual-reality-vrenetic-marco-weber-1202181015/
PTC announces a major new release to Vuforia augmented reality platform
Vuforia is the world’s most widely used platform for AR development. With support for leading phones, tablets and eyewear, Vuforia has powered more than 475 million installs of AR apps from the App Store and Google Play. Vuforia Engine, the core of the platform, uses a device’s camera(s) and sensors to function as a digital “eye” inside an app. It “sees” objects and surfaces where content can be placed, and enables developers to create AR experiences using existing development tools.
Vuforia 7 will introduce Model Targets, a new feature for attaching content to objects that have not been recognisable using existing computer vision technology. Model Targets recognise objects by shape, in contrast to existing methods that rely on detailed visual designs typically found on print media, product packaging and many consumer goods.
In response to tremendous developer demand, Vuforia 7 will also introduce a new capability for placing content on horizontal surfaces. Vuforia Ground Plane enables content to be placed on the ground, floor or tabletop, whether indoors or outdoors.
Vuforia Ground Plane extends the functionality of the Vuforia Smart Terrain feature, first announced in 2013 to take advantage of depth sensing cameras.
Vuforia 7 will also introduce Vuforia Fusion, a new capability designed to provide the best possible AR experience on a wide range of devices. Vuforia Fusion solves the problem of fragmentation in AR-enabling technologies, including cameras, sensors, chipsets, and software frameworks such as ARKit and ARCore.
It senses the capabilities of the underlying device and fuses them with Vuforia features, allowing developers to rely on a single Vuforia API for an optimal AR experience. Vuforia Fusion will bring advanced Vuforia features to ARCore and ARKit-enabled devices, in addition to over 100 Android and iOS device models.
See the full story here: https://www.iot-now.com/2017/10/06/68533-ptc-announces-major-new-release-vuforia-augmented-reality-platform/
New Technology Uses Mouth Gestures to Interact in Virtual Reality
The proliferation of affordable virtual reality head-mounted displays provides users with realistic immersive visual experiences. However, head-mounted displays occlude the upper half of a user's face and prevent facial action recognition from the entire face. To combat this issue, Binghamton University Professor of Computer Science Lijun Yin and his team created a new framework that interprets mouth gestures as a medium for interaction within virtual reality in real-time.
Yin's team tested the application on a group of graduate students. Once a user put on a head-mounted display, they were presented with a simplistic game; the objective of the game was to guide the player's avatar around a forest and eat as many cakes as possible. Players had to select their movement direction using head rotation, move using mouth gestures and could only eat the cake by smiling. The system was able to describe and classify the user's mouth movements, and it achieved high correct recognition rates.
The paper, "Partially occluded facial action recognition and interaction in virtual reality applications," was presented at the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo.
See the full story https://www.rdmag.com/news/2017/10/new-technology-uses-mouth-gestures-interact-virtual-reality