Sensics Releases High Resolution VR Headset Built Specially for Arcades and Theme Parks
Specs
- A choice of two screen options: 2880×1600@90 Hz LCD, or 2160×1200@90 Hz OLED including diffusion film for reduced SDE
- Removable face-plate
- Built-in dual silent fans to comfort and ventilation
- Front IR window for optional embedded Leap Motion controller
- High-quality 100-degree optics with adjustable focus
- Integrated 9-axis orientation tracker
- On-unit buttons for user interface (disabled in pre-production units)
- Ergonomic and adjustable head strap
- Supports direct mode and asynchronous time warp
- Supported by all major game engines including Unity, Unreal and more
See the full story here: https://www.roadtovr.com/sensics-releases-high-resolution-vr-headset-built-specially-arcades-theme-parks/
Disney Research taught AI how to judge short stories
Father reading to daughter (2-4) on sofa, smiling
...researchers at Disney and the University of Massachusetts Boston have been working on neural networks that can evaluate short stories. While these AIs don't (yet) analyze story like a professional literary critic, the software tries to predict which stories will be most popular. "Our neural networks had some success in predicting the popularity of stories," said Disney Research scientist Boyang "Albert" Li in a statement. "You can't yet use them to pick out winners for your local writing competition, but they can be used to guide future research."
The researchers used social question and answer site Quora for a large database to feed into its AI algorithms. Many of the answers on Quora come in the form of stories, so reader upvotes can be used as a measure of popularity, and as "a proxy for narrative quality." The team gathered almost 55,000 answers and classified more than 28,000 of them as stories, each with an average of 369 words. Then they developed a couple of different neural networks — one to look at different sections of each story and one to take a more holistic view of a story's meaning. Each AI made predictions about the relative popularity of a given story. Both neural nets were better at choosing a story's popularity over a baseline text evaluation, but the holistic network showed an 18 percent improvement over the one that focused on sections.
Let's just hope that researchers find a way to filter stories for quality, and not just popularity. No one needs another Transformers movie.
See the full story here: https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/21/disney-research-taught-ai-to-judge-short-stories/
The Virtual Reality Game Gathering Data for Dementia Researchers
London-based game design firm Glitchers worked with researchers from British and Swiss universities, as well as dementia and Alzheimer’s charities, to create Sea Hero Quest VR. Development of the free-to-download game, which is being released Tuesday for Samsung’s Gear VR headset and Facebook Inc.’s Oculus Rift, was funded by German mobile carrier Deutsche Telekom AG.
As people play the game, anonymized data – including what actions they take and exactly where they look and for how long – is collected and stored on Deutsche Telekom’s servers in Germany. Players can also choose to provide the carrier with more detailed demographic data, such as information about their age, gender and location.
Neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists will analyze the data to hopefully learn more about how humans develop spatial awareness and navigate new environments. Researchers believe subtle degradation in these skills may be an early warning sign of dementia and that information from the game could eventually lead to new tests to detect cognitive impairment earlier.
Data from the previous Sea Hero Quest game also confirmed laboratory studies that men and women differ in their navigational strategies, with men more likely to rely on landmarks and external cues in the environment, and women more likely to use an internal, cognitive map and an intuitive sense of direction to help them get around, Holscher said.
See the full story here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-29/the-virtual-reality-game-gathering-data-for-dementia-researchers
Amazon and Microsoft agree their voice assistants will talk (to each other)
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - APRIL 02: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella walks in front of the new Cortana logo as he delivers a keynote address during the 2014 Microsoft Build developer conference on April 2, 2014 in San Francisco, California. Satya Nadella delivered the opening keynote to kick off the 2014 Microsoft Build developer conference which runs through April 4. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
And so Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos are today announcing a tie-up, which will — at an unspecified point later this year — enable users of the latter’s Alexa voice assistant to ask her to summon Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant to ask it to do stuff, and vice versa.
And here’s how they sum up the win-win benefits they see for their respective users by letting their voice assistants interoperate:
Alexa customers will be able to access Cortana’s unique features like booking a meeting or accessing work calendars, reminding you to pick up flowers on your way home, or reading your work email – all using just your voice. Similarly, Cortana customers can ask Alexa to control their smart home devices, shop on Amazon.com, interact with many of the more than 20,000 skills built by third-party developers, and much more.
The main thing to note here — aside from how clumsy it’s going to be having one voice assistant summon another — is that Cortana and Alexa play in very different spheres; one being productivity and business user focused, and the other being ecommerce/entertainment and consumer focused.
Which means there’s little strategic reason for Alexa or Cortana to be overly territorial vis-a-vis each other at this point vs — on the flip side — the extra utility they reckon they can reap by agreeing to integrate their products and expanding the relative capabilities of each.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/30/amazon-and-microsoft-agree-their-voice-assistants-will-talk-to-each-other/?utm_medium=TCnewsletter
Apple teases the future of augmented reality apps
But it was also easy to see how AR could find a natural place in gaming. "Arise" by Climax Studios places its world in front of you, allowing you to walk around or move your phone to adjust the perspective -- rather than relying on buttons or a joystick to move characters.
See the full story here: http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/29/technology/apple-augmented-reality/index.html
Zeiss VR One Connect puts virtual reality PC games onto a smartphone headset
[Philip Lelyveld comment - this is a tethered mobile-based product. Zeiss's strength is the high quality of their lenses.]
The headset, with the smartphone slotted in, is connected to your PC via a USB cable, and the Zeiss VR One Connect uses the smartphone’s built-in motion sensors to provide head tracking. To control the games, a pair of wireless Bluetooth controllers are also included.
These controllers can sense three degrees of freedom (3DoF) motion thanks to sensors built by PXL Vision.
Releasing at the end of 2017, the Zeiss VR One Connect, which comes with two wireless controllers and a USB cable, along with the required software, will cost $129 (around £100, AU$160).
A bundle which includes the Zeiss VR One Plus headset will also be sold for $199 (around £150, AU$250).
See the full story here: http://www.techradar.com/news/zeiss-vr-one-connect-puts-virtual-reality-pc-games-onto-a-smartphone-headset
GOOGLE JOINS THE AUGMENTED REALITY PARTY WITH ARCORE
Google's launching its first augmented-reality software development kit, called ARCore, to help developers start making cool stuff in AR.
The software works on most recent Android phones and doesn't require any special hardware. No dual-camera setup necessary, no wacky Project Tango depth sensor. Google's AR and VR efforts have always focused on working for everyone. This one's not for everyone, strictly speaking, but it will work on 100 million existing Android phones and most others going forward.
The ARCore SDK puts three new things in developers' toolkits. It offers super-fine motion tracking, using the sensors in your phone and the camera to keep virtual objects anchored in place. It also detects tables, floors, rugs, and walls, so you can actually place things where they make sense. ARCore maps and matches the lighting wherever you are, which makes the AR objects look a little more like real things in the room. Developers who work with the Unity and Unreal engines can work in ARCore, or they can use more common Java and OpenGL tools. Along with Google's other content-creator tools like Tilt Brush, Blocks, and the Virtual Positioning Service (which enables world-scale AR, not just room-sized), and Google has a surprisingly complete AR setup.
Looking at the AR landscape, Google seems to be a bit late to the party. But Clay Bavor, Google's VP of augmented and virtuality, thinks it can catch up quickly. ARCore won't even require a software update when it launches officially this winter—you'll just wake up one day and have an AR machine where your smartphone used to be. And as the software develops, it could even become part of Google's wildly popular Chrome browser. Google has scale unlike anyone else.
See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/story/google-joins-the-augmented-reality-party-with-arcore/