“These are no longer cars,” said Marc Rogers, the principal security researcher at the cybersecurity firm CloudFlare. “These are data centers on wheels. Any part of the car that talks to the outside world is a potential inroad for attackers.”
It is no wonder that Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, called cybersecurity her company’s top priority last year. Now the skills of researchers and so-called white hat hackers are in high demand among automakers and tech companies pushing ahead with driverless car projects.
One year later, a team of Chinese researchers at Tencent took their research a step further, hacking a moving Tesla Model S and controlling its brakes from 12 miles away. Unlike Chrysler, Tesla was able to dispatch a remote patch to fix the security holes that made the hacks possible.
In all the cases, the car hacks were the work of well meaning, white hat security researchers. But the lesson for all automakers was clear.
But as more driverless and semiautonomous cars hit the open roads, they will become a more worthy target. Security experts warn that driverless cars present a far more complex, intriguing and vulnerable “attack surface” for hackers. Each new “connected” car feature introduces greater complexity, and with complexity inevitably comes vulnerability.
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/technology/why-car-companies-are-hiring-computer-security-experts.html?_r=0
ODG brings a lot to the party though. First, the R8 is incredibly light at under 5 ounces, and more comfortable than any VR headset on the market. Second, you aren’t isolated from the world around you
Finally, the R8 is completely un-tethered, so you can use it for a few hours between charges wherever you are.
One nice touch is that Meta has integrated the use of a physical mouse with the virtual environment, so you don’t have to mimic an orchestra conductor to get work done. The end result is that, for 15 minutes at least, I could imagine myself working in that environment instead of at my traditional multi-monitor desktop setup. More importantly, I can envision setting up an external GPU on my laptop on the road and having my entire office appear in front of me at will.
Milwaukee County counters that “Texas Rope ’Em” isn’t entitled to First Amendment protection because it doesn’t convey any messages or ideas, the dismissal motion (PDF) says. The game “has no plot, no storylines, no characters and no dialogue,” the county argues.
Nor is there any federal court decision extending First Amendment protection to augmented reality games, the dismissal motion says.
Candy Lab’s complaint is full of ad hominem attacks on Milwaukee County and colorful allegations about all the ways in which the new ordinance violates its First Amendment rights,” the dismissal motion says. “But Candy Lab forgets one thing. There can be no First Amendment violation where there is no First Amendment right.”
See the full story here: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/does_first_amendment_protect_augmented_reality_games_like_pokemon_go_suit_r
The flash mobs arising from Pokémon Go have turned out to be a singular phenomenon. According to a ComScore report, the number of daily average users of Pokémon Go in the US went from 28.5 million in mid-July, 2016 to about 5 million by the end of the year.
See this related story here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/07/permits_for_augmented_reality_games/
In a maximum security mental health facility in Montreal is a “cave-like” virtual reality vault that’s used to show images of child sexual abuse to sex offenders. Patients sit inside the vault with devices placed around their penises to measure signs of arousal as they are shown computer-generated animations of naked children.
“We do develop pornography, but these images and animations are not used for the pleasure of the patient but to assess them,” said Patrice Renaud, who heads up the project at the Institut Philippe-Pinel. “It’s a bit like using a polygraph but with other measurement techniques.”
The system, combined with other psychological assessments, is used to build up a profile of the individual’s sexual preferences that can be used by the court to determine the risk they pose to society and by mental health professionals to determine treatment.
The patients sit on a stool inside the chamber wearing stereoscopic glasses which create the three-dimensional effect on the surrounding walls. The glasses are fitted with eye-tracking technology to ensure they aren’t trying to trick the system by avoiding looking at the critical content.
“These guys do not like going through this assessment,” said Renaud, pointing out that the results can be shocking for the patient.
See the full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/07/virtual-reality-child-sexual-abuse-pedophile-canada-research
But after just 15 minutes under the spell of a virtual-reality headset and spiffy VR program created by Northern Liberties “experiential video” shop Klip Collective, new hires at the Philadelphia-based Honeygrow fast-casual dining chain are already feeling the company spirit.
They’re connecting with its “HG Engine” best-practices philosophy. Learning food-prep techniques. Practically tasting the dishes. So they’re instantly energized, eager to dive into the work themselves, said company executives.
“Our goal was to provide a consistent yet unique onboarding and initial training experience for all employees, regardless of geographic location or who the individual performing the training would be,” Justin Rosenberg, Honeygrow’s founder and CEO, said Wednesday.
See the full story here; http://www.philly.com/philly/business/technology/vr-helps-honeygrow-worker-bees-acclimate-20170607.html
A new collaboration between the California State Library and Oculus VR, a division of Facebook Inc., will bring virtual reality technology to patrons in nearly half of the library jurisdictions throughout California.
Each of the participating library systems will be awarded one or two Rifts and Oculus Ready PCs from Facebook and Oculus free of charge. Alongside the virtual reality equipment, libraries will be provided online training and the opportunity to also receive free or reduced cost virtual reality programs and equipment. Libraries will receive their equipment and training this month and will be able to begin offering virtual reality programs in late June or early July.
This project is managed by Califa, a nonprofit, and is supported in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act.
See the full story here: http://www.library.ca.gov/pressreleases/pdf/Virtual_Reality_Release.pdf
Consulting firm PwC predicts a 6.3 percent compound annual growth rate for console video games over the next five years in the U.S., with revenue increasing from $21 billion in 2016 to $28.5 billion in 2021. “That doesn’t include PC games microtransaction revenue, which is expected to grow from $3 billion in 2016 to $4.2 billion in 2021,” reports VentureBeat. PwC also predicts social and casual games will surpass console games this year. Meanwhile, the PwC forecast points to significantly faster growth rates for virtual reality and eSports in the U.S.
“It estimates 68 million VR headsets will be in use in the U.S. by 2021, with the unit numbers growing at a 69.2 percent CAGR,” notes VentureBeat. “VR is expected to add nearly the same revenue as TV advertising during the period.”
PwC predicts a 22.6 percent CAGR for eSports, climbing from $108 million in 2016 to $299 million in 2021.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/06/pwc-predicts-moderate-growth-for-u-s-video-games-but-fast-growth-for-vr-and-esports/
and here: http://www.etcentric.org/pwc-forecast-points-to-growth-in-gaming-vr-and-esports/
[Phil Lelyveld comment: I disagree with much of this. His ideas are limited and short-sighted.]
Jesse Schell, CEO of Schell Games and professor at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the game industry’s finest speakers.
In his 2025 predictions for VR and AR, he voiced concerns about the obstacles to growth for VR and the challenges that AR faces in just getting out the door. He believes VR will be a $7.5 billion to $22.5 billion market by 2025. That might seem optimistic, but he said that other predictions are wildly wrong. By 2025, he thinks VR will be no more than 5 percent to 15 percent of the overall game industry.
After hunting down torrent sites for more than a decade, Hollywood now has a more complex piracy threat to deal with. According to the Motion Picture Association, illegal streaming devices can be seen as "Piracy 3.0," offering a Netflix-like experience to consumers, but without rightsholders getting paid.
Piracy remains a major threat for the movie industry, MPA Stan McCoy said yesterday during a panel session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
After McCoy praised the collaboration between the MPA(A) and Russian authorities in their fight against online piracy, the President and Managing Director of the MPA’s EMEA region noted that pirates are not standing still.
McCoy stressed that the devices themselves, and software such as Kodi, are ‘probably’ not illegal. However, the addition of copyright-infringing pirate add-ons turns them into an unprecedented piracy threat.
See the full story here: https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-sees-illegal-streaming-devices-as-piracy-3-0-170502/
Zac Fields, senior vice president of graphic tech and integration at FOX Sports, explained that there will be two versions of augmented reality used for the broadcast next week.
The first is during live action. Every tee shot will be highlighted by some sort of ball-tracing technology — nine tee boxes are equipped with Toptracer for live real-time video overlay, while the other nine have Trackman radar devices that provide enhanced data and are used for FOX FlightTrack, a live trace over a graphic representation of the hole.
Augmented reality will also be used for graphics in the studio, like virtual leaderboards and virtual holes, which “allow our analysts to break down every hole on the golf course in unique fashion,” Fields noted. FOX is using a 75-foot crane that captures overhead views to make this graphics feature possible.
Drones will also be flying around before the tournament starts as FOX captures aerial video to show during its coverage. FOX is also using 4K cameras on three holes.
All in all, FOX will use 110 total cameras, 216 microphones, 36 miles of fiber optic cabling, and more than 62,000 man hours to put the broadcast together.
Some of the tech that FOX tested in 2015, like virtual reality, won’t be used this time around.
See the full story here: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/fox-sports-brings-drones-augmented-reality-shot-tracers-u-s-open-broadcast/
