Google’s new Street View Ready cameras will open up a new world of VR
Google Earth might make for one of the most exciting PC VR apps, but the company’s Street View app for Daydream is no slouch either, allowing you to step into 360 degree images of the world around you.
The Ready certification is split into different standards. Mobile Ready lets you publish content direct from the app, while Auto Ready devices capture frames from cameras mounted to vehicles. Workflow Ready, meanwhile, features a set of publishing tools to allow you to upload to Street View accounts.
Matterport, InsideMaps, and NCTech will all be releasing cameras under the VR Ready certification.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/14/googles-new-street-view-ready-cameras-will-open-up-a-new-world-of-vr/
Facebook’s New AI Could Lead to Translations That Actually Make Sense
This morning, the company’s central artificial-intelligence lab released a paper describing a new technology that could accelerate the evolution of machine translation not only inside Facebook but across the internet. According to Facebook’s tests, its technique—borrowed from image recognition—produces better translations than the current state of the art, and it does so far more efficiently than other methods, which could eventually lead to even sharper translations.
Christopher Manning, a Stanford University professor who specialized in machine translation and has reviewed the paper, calls it an “impressive achievement,” particularly because it can train translation models more quickly than existing systems. And Facebook indicates that its engineers are now rolling this technique onto the company’s social network, which serves more than 1.8 billion people across the globe.
Facebook’s approach relies on neural networks, complex mathematical systems that can learn tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data.
But Facebook is taking a slightly different tack from most of the other big players. It’s using what are called convolutional neural networks, a technique invented by the venerable deep-learning researcher Yann LeCun, who now oversees Facebook’s AI lab. Rather than analyze a sentence sequentially, one piece at a time, a convolutional neural network can analyze many different pieces at once, before organizing those pieces into a logical hierarchy.
Like Google before it, Facebook is not only publishing a paper describing its new system but open-sourcing the software engine that drives the system, freely sharing the code with the world at large. It’s even sharing models it has already trained on its own data. This is part of a larger effort across the internet’s biggest companies to freely share their AI research. It means that translation will evolve far more quickly across the internet—not just on Facebook.
See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/2017/05/facebook-open-sources-neural-networks-speed-translations/
Samsung’s LED Cinema Screen Passes DCI Compliance Test
Samsung Electronic’s LED direct view digital cinema display has passed DCI compliance tests and can thus now be used to screen new Hollywood releases in cinemas. Having first been shown at invitation-only demonstrations at CinemaCon in late March this year, the speed with which Samsung’s potentially disruptive technology has been brought to market has taken many inside the cinema technology industry by surprise. Previously only projectors from Barco, Christie and NEC based on Texas Instrument’s DLP Cinema technology and Sony’s LCoS SXRD have been passed as DCI compliant cinema display devices.
It is widely believed that Samsung will have a commercial product before the end of this year and will promote it aggressively. Samsung’s DCI certification is also likely to spur LED cinema effort by Sony Electronics – who demonstrated their prototype at CinemaCon – and HSI Immersive, as well as other potential players.
See the full story here: https://celluloidjunkie.com/2017/05/12/samsungs-led-cinema-screen-passes-dci-compliance-test/
Visitors to Shakespeare’s New Place will have the chance to meet the man himself
A new, free, augmented reality (AR) app brings the story of the house, in which he lived for nearly two decades and died in 1616, to virtual life.
The Bard himself guides the user on his journey from savvy investor and keen entrepreneur, to expert social networker and the most recognised, and wealthiest, playwright of his age.
The AR experience, designed by England’s Heritage Cities, is free to download and covers historic sites across 12 towns and cities in the UK.
See the full story here: https://stratfordobserver.co.uk/news/visitors-to-shakespeares-new-place-will-have-the-chance-to-meet-the-man-himself/
How virtual reality pushed AR Rahman towards ‘multi-sensory’ filmmaking
Now it’s Rahman’s turn to make his directorial debut with Le Musk, which is being touted as the world’s first virtual reality “multi-sensory” feature film. Unsurprisingly, it is technology that drew Rahman to films. “The (VR) technology is evolving and everybody is doing experimental stuff with it. I found the technology exciting and I had a story. I felt that my story would come out beautifully in this technology,” explains Rahman.
This time, though, he’s gone beyond music. “I had the right partners for the film, including Grace Boyle of Feelies, who is helping with the set design by providing the element of smell, and Intel helping with the technology and also the Voyager (VR) chair; for the cameras I have tied up with Radiant Images of LA.
Marry a great story with high technology, and you have Baahubali 2, the film that is making box-office history.
See the full story here: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/how-virtual-reality-pushed-ar-rahman-towards-multi-sensory-filmmaking/articleshow/58662010.cms
Why The Aim Controller Is PSVR’s Secret Weapon
Sony is doubling down on the first-person shooter (FPS) genre with its first PSVR peripheral, the Aim Controller. This new device, shipping next week, is shaped like an assault rifle, and has you holding it with both hands. A PlayStation Move-like light at the front end tracks its position and a trigger lets you fire.
See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/field-view-aim-controller-psvrs-secret-weapon/
Report: VR And AR Developers Aren’t Making Enough Money To Justify Investments
According to the 34-page survey, 50 percent of VR and AR developers indicated that they will require more financing in the future, stating they will need additional rounds of more than $1 million. In order to raise this level of investment, companies typically need to have the ambition to achieve at least $10 million in revenue within five years. However, the average developer in the survey expects their firm to generate “only” $1.3 million.
“When the financials are not compelling enough, developers will have to show other reasons why investors should invest in them,” Coen Sanderink, business developer at BOM, told VentureBeat. “Investors will be looking for potential market leaders with focus and strong client relationships because it allows them to create additional revenue models and value.”
That wide gap between the needs of each business and their revenue-generating opportunity is a warning sign.
In addition to the funding gap, the study details the current sales of VR and AR displays, forecasts future sales, profiles the industry and its employees, and provides insight into how developers will spend their budgets. And while the survey focuses on the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, the data is relevant to most markets. The Netherlands, for example, is a popular mobile app “soft launch” location, due to its consumers having a similar profile to those in the U.S.
See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/vr-ar-developers-investment/
Do We Have a Right to Mental Privacy and Cognitive Liberty?
The rapid expansion of neuroimaging and related technologies suggests that we'd better answer that question—quickly
This question has particular social relevance since many neurotechnologies have moved away from a solely clinical setting and into the commercial domain, where they are no longer subject to the strict ethical guidelines of clinical research. Today, companies like Google and Verizon use neuroimaging technology and other neuromarketing research services to detect consumer preferences and hidden impressions on their advertisements or products.
According to a new article, as neurotechnology disseminates outside the clinical setting, we are facing a societal challenge: determining what rights individuals are entitled to exercise in relation to their mental dimension. According to the authors—myself from the University of Basel and Roberto Andorno from the University of Zürich—this challenge might require the reconceptualization of existing human rights and even the creation of new neurospecific human rights.
A right to cognitive liberty, widely discussed among neurolawyers, would entitle individuals to make free and competent decisions regarding their use of neurotechnology. A right to mental privacy would protect individuals against the unconsented intrusion by third parties into their brain data as well as against the unauthorized collection of those data. Breaches of privacy at the neural level could be more dangerous than conventional ones because they can bypass the level of conscious reasoning, leaving individuals without protections from having their mind involuntarily read.
Last week Facebook unveiled a plan to create brain-computer speech-to-text interface to translate thoughts directly from brain signals to a computer screen, bypassing speech and fingertips.
With interconnected neurotools becoming potentially ubiquitous, novel possibility for misuse will arise—cybersecurity breaches included.
In addition, research shows that connected medical devices are vulnerable to sabotage. Neuroscientists at Oxford University suggest that the same vulnerability affects brain implants, a phenomenon labeled “brainjacking.” Such possibilities of misuse might urge a reconceptualization of the right to mental integrity. This right, recognized by international law (Article 3 of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights) as a right to mental health,
Finally, a right to psychological continuity might preserve people’s personal identity and the continuity of their mental life from unconsented external alteration by third parties.
See the full story here: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/do-we-have-a-right-to-mental-privacy-and-cognitive-liberty/