Virtual reality pornography could be available in thousands of European hotels room within six months
“The EU has always been light years ahead of the US in terms of a more mature and progressive attitude towards sex,” Alvarez said.
“Because of the proliferation of iPads and smartphones, the hotels have taken a major hit on in-room adult movies purchases, which were a massive income stream at one point.
“I believe every male guest will want to try out an adult movie in VR.”
The Sun Online has seen correspondence which shows Alvarez and his associates at other adult companies have begun talks with a firm that provides content to 6,000 hotels across Europe, with the scheme expected to begin in the autumn.
This company, which we have decided not to name, already offers lonely travellers to chance to watch very naughty “adult content”.
See the full story here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3591857/virtual-reality-pornography-could-be-available-in-thousands-of-european-hotels-room-within-six-months/
Google Is Building a New Virtual Reality Headset
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 04: A journalist uses Google's Daydream VR headset during an event to introduce Google hardware products on October 4, 2016 in San Francisco, California. Google unveils new products including the Google Pixel Phone making a jump into the mobile device market. (Photo by Ramin Talaie/Getty Images)
The search giant said Wednesday that it’s creating a new VR headset that, unlike most of its rivals, does not require a personal computer or a mobile phone to use. Google announced the new VR headset during its annual Google I/O conference for developers in Mountain View, Calif.
Google’s vice president of virtual reality products, Clay Bavor, said that the new yet-unnamed new VR headset would be “easy to use,” in contrast to many VR headsets that take time to set up and must be connected by a wire to a computer.
By building an all-in-one device, Google has configured the headset's underlying technology to solely focus on helping it display compelling virtual reality environments without any trade-offs, he explained.
Google’s current virtual reality headset, the Daydream View, must be connected to an Android-powered smartphone to function and is not capable of fully tracking a person's movements.
Bavor said Google’s new VR headset would be available to the public later in the year.
See the full story here: http://fortune.com/2017/05/17/google-daydream-virtual-reality-headset-lenovo-htc/
Why Google’s CEO Is Excited About Automating Artificial Intelligence
AI software that can help make AI software could accelerate progress on making computers smarter.
Deep learning teaches software to be smart by passing data through layers of math loosely inspired by biology and known as artificial neural networks. Choosing the right architecture for a neural network’s web of math is a crucial part of making something that works. But it’s not easy to figure out. “We do it by intuition,” says Quoc Le, a machine-learning researcher at Google working on the AutoML project.
Last month, Le and fellow researcher Barret Zoph presented results from experiments in which they tasked a machine-learning system with figuring out the best architecture to use to have software learn to solve language and image-recognition tasks.
On the image task, their system rivaled the best architectures designed by human experts. On the language task, it beat them.
Half of SteamVR Tracking Course Attendees Using Tech for Non-gaming
In August of last year, Valve created the SteamVR licensing program to allow any developer to create their very own SteamVR tracked object. At that time, Valve partnered with Synapse, a Seattle-area product development firm, to provide a mandatory training program for all SteamVR licensees. Road to VR met with Synapse’s electrical engineering program lead and SteamVR Tracking instructor, Doug Bruey, to talk about the tracking system and how it will be used by companies in the future.
From his experience teaching the SteamVR Tracking course, Bruey has an inside view on what companies are doing with the technology and when we might begin to see the fruits of their labor.
We had 15 courses with 149 attendees from 113 different companies.
It was really varied. I would say it’s 50% from gaming, but from the earliest classes we saw people from a variety of different markets. We’ve seen people from the automotive industry, advertising, athletics, gaming, computers, education, hospitals, industrial training and farming. We’ve had a couple different NASA contractors come through who were working on training simulations and setups for astronauts. There’s usually a pretty big part of the class that will be working on gaming and gaming accessories but the other half will come from other markets that you may not have expected.
VR Society: ‘Art of VR’ to Open at Sotheby’s New York
The Advanced Imaging Society’s Virtual Reality Society aims to raise public awareness of virtual reality through "The Art of VR," a two-day festival taking place June 22-23 at Sotheby’s New York. The event will feature speakers, including filmmakers Doug Liman and Maria Bello, as well as virtual reality experiences for applications such as museums, dance, theater, film and travel.
See the full story here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/art-vr-open-at-sothebys-new-york-1004494
The Washington Post is diving into augmented reality
Readers can access the story on the Post’s app on iOS devices, then point their smartphone’s camera at the ceiling of any room they’re in and tap play. The real ceiling is transformed into the concert hall ceiling while an audio narration by Post art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott plays. Users can also tap a prompt to read an accompanying article by Kennicott.
The Post deliberately started small, with the first video in the series only running about 10 seconds, said Joey Marburger, the Post’s head of product. “With that quick experience, you get more out of the story,” he said. “But we didn’t want it to be the only way you can experience the story. We didn’t want to overdo it.”
See the full story here: https://digiday.com/media/washington-post-diving-augmented-reality/