IBM Watson to Serve AI-Driven Content for Wimbledon Fans
Artificial intelligence is coming to the Wimbledon tennis tournament, via IBM’s Watson, which will generate video highlight reels, give tours through the All England Lawn Tennis Club and help fans in numerous other ways. A digital voice assistant, dubbed Fred (after the British tennis star Fred Perry), will provide directions to Wimbledon locations, information on players and where to buy merchandise. IBM also unveiled a technology that analyzes player stats, and a joint IBM-AELTC metric called “competitive margin.”
To spark debate on social media, Watson will also analyze “53.7 million Wimbledon tennis data points since 1990 … [and] more than 11 million words of press coverage of the tournament going back to 1995,” to then judge players by “passion, performance under pressure, serve effectiveness, stamina, how well the player either adapted their normal playing style to an opponent or was able to force an opponent to conform to their tactics, and the ability to return serves.”
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/ibm-watson-to-serve-ai-driven-content-for-wimbledon-fans/
New York City Doubles Down on Tech-Focused Jobs, Plans Launch of Virtual and Augmented Reality Hub
On June 27, officials from the city and various educational institutions announced their plans for a virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) lab within the New York University Tandon School of Engineering’s MakerSpace. The idea is to provide a space and “repository” for the collective AR and VR knowledge and allow it to blossom into startups, new opportunities and ultimately new jobs.
From entertainment to the medical industry, the deputy mayor said the potential for VR and AR technology to grow out of New York-based businesses and startups is very real. “The applications of this are just really endless,” she said.
The center will also have the core mission of making typically cost-prohibitive hardware and workspace available to the greater community, while providing access to the latest in public and private university research and development resources. By offering below-market rent, city officials are hopeful they will be able to attract innovative companies that might otherwise balk at the idea of New York City-based space.
See the full story here: http://www.govtech.com/dc/articles/NYC-Doubles-Down-on-Tech-Focused-Jobs-Plans-Launch-of-New-Virtual-Augmented-Reality-Hub.html
Universal patent details use of augmented-reality goggles in rides
[Philip Lelyveld comment - this seems pretty generic to me.]
A patent, dubbed systems and methods for generating augmented and virtual reality images, is seeking to add the use of augmented reality or virtual reality goggles to ride systems to help project virtual images that guests may see on rides.
The patent goes on to discuss how the goggles could be used on a ride or even in a exterior theme park setting where guests could wear goggles and see additional superimposed images in an existing real-world themed area.
See the full story here: http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2017/06/28/universal-patent-details-use-of-augmentedreality.html
The VOID Opens In Canada And Plans For The Future Of Hyper Reality
Hyper-reality has officially landed in Toronto as today marks the opening of the newest VOID Experience Centre in the fourth largest city in North America and a popular tourist destination.
And through a joint venture with Cineplex, The VOID will live in one of their new social venues called The Rec Room, alongside a range of dining, amusement gaming, and live entertainment experiences.
We have a business model that works.” He estimates that about 100,000 individuals have already tried The VOID to date.
Right now, all four of The VOID locations, including their newest in Toronto, are featuring the Ghostbusters: Dimension experience. Expect two new experiences at The VOID in 2017. With the completion of their SDK in late 2016, they’re working with third parties ranging from major studios to local content creators.
Localized Content
As The VOID expands worldwide the Team is eager to integrate storylines curated for their technology from the unique regions where they operate. This goes far beyond localization for language, to “culturally driven content” such as ancestral storylines, that will also engage new audiences in other regions.
The VOID Will Extend Into Homes
The VOID’s own Rapture peripherals may help to extend that experience, and provide an additional mechanism for monetization
And, The VOID plans to take advantage of operating at physical locations. It’s the perfect ground to test new technologies and concepts that could range anywhere from scanning in personalized avatars, to localized sponsorship opportunities.
See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/void-canada-future-hyper-reality/
China’s Tech Moguls Warn of AI’s Troubling Trajectory
What stuck with me—beyond the growing ambition of China’s researchers and the overall vibrancy of its tech scene—is how much people are starting to talk about the potential for AI to eliminate jobs across the country. Just a few years ago this seemed like much less of a concern. Now the issue of jobs comes up regularly during Q&A sessions and panel discussions at industry conferences.
Speaking at an event organized in Detroit by his company last week, the CEO of Alibaba, Jack Ma, said that artificial intelligence could displace many workers in both China and the U.S., thereby heightening tensions that some fear could lead the two countries toward armed conflict. This prospect is the subject of several new books, although they do not consider a coming technological shift that could further complicate the picture.
The economic and social implications of automation and artificial intelligence are, of course, notoriously hard to predict. But this in and of itself may be a cause for concern, as public perception regarding jobs and economic prospects in both the U.S. and China will be incredibly important in coming years.
See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608183/chinas-tech-moguls-warn-of-ais-troubling-trajectory
TSA, American Airlines test 3-D bag screening in Phoenix
The Transportation Security Administration and American Airlines are testing a 3-D carry-on bag screener in Phoenix, technology they hope will eventually allow travelers to keep liquids and laptops in their bags and speed up the screening process.
Sky Harbor International Airport is one of two U.S. airports to add a computer tomography (CT) scanner at a security checkpoint. Boston's Logan Airport is the other.
American, which has a hub at Sky Harbor, said the new CT screening equipment shoots hundreds of images with an X-ray camera that spins around the conveyor belt, providing three-dimensional views. The airline said the system uses algorithms to better detect explosives, firearms and other banned items.
See the full story here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2017/06/23/3-d-luggage-screening/423790001/
The Magik Gallery Debut was a Landmark Event for Immersive Art
The Magik Gallery debut exhibition promised “painted worlds, invisible sculptures, and immersive illustrations,” but it delivered something much bigger: a message that immersive art is something, well, magical—and it should be treated with the same kind of awe that audiences give more classical forms.
“The goal of the first exhibition was to spark a change in the conversation around immersive technology—getting people to talk about the artists and their work first and the hardware second,” said Magik Founder and CEO Ochoa.
A perfectionist by nature, Ochoa meticulously chose the location (Terra Gallery), planned out the spread of hardware, and limited the number of attendees (the event ran all day in three “batches”)—all in service of building an environment where the art would be given the reverence he believes it deserves.
en artists’ work were featured in the show: Abraham Aguero, Wesley Allsbrook, Danny Bittman, Stuart Campbell (“Sutu”), Sougwen Chung, Isaac Cohen (“Cabbibo”), Liz Edwards, Edward Eyth, Mike Jelinek, and Steve Teeps. Each was selected for their unique style and contribution to the burgeoning form (for more information about each, refer to the thread at the bottom).
See the full story with many videos here: https://vrscout.com/news/magik-gallery-landmark-immersive-fine-art/
Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube and Twitter form Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism
Today Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube and Twitter collectively announced a new partnership aimed at reducing the accessibility of internet services to terrorists. The new Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism adds structure to existing efforts by the companies to target and remove from major web platforms recruiting materials for terror groups.
Together, the four tech leaders say they will collaborate on engineering solutions to the problem, sharing content classification techniques and effective reporting methods for users. Each company also will contribute to both technical and policy research and share best practices for counterspeech initiatives.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/26/facebook-microsoft-youtube-and-twitter-form-global-internet-forum-to-counter-terrorism/
Disney experiments look to make kid-robot interactions more natural
Sooner or later, our children will be raised by robots, so it’s natural that Disney, purveyor of both robots and child-related goods, would want to get ahead of that trend. A trio of studies from its Research division aim at understanding and improving how kids converse with and otherwise interact with robots and other reasonably smart machines.
The three studies were executed at once as a whole, with each part documented separately in papers posted today. The kids in the study (about 80 of them) proceeded through a series of short activities generally associated with storytelling and spoken interaction, their progress carefully recorded by the experimenters.
As human-robot dialog faces the challenges of long-term interaction, understanding how to use prior conversation to foster a sense of relationship is key because whether robots remember what we’ve said, as well as how and when they expose that memory, will contribute to how we feel about them.
Despite recent progress, AI remains imperfect in recognizing children’s speech and understanding the semantics of natural language. Imperfect speech recognition and natural language understanding imply that the robot may not respond to children in a semantically coherent manner. With these impeding factors, it remains an open question whether fluid collaborative child-robot storytelling is feasible or is perceived as valuable by children.
The papers also suggest that this kind of work is highly applicable in situations like speech therapy, where kids often engage in games like this to improve their understanding or diction. And it’s not hard to imagine the broader applications.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/26/disney-experiments-look-to-make-kid-robot-interactions-more-natural/