The Man Who Makes Facebook’s Machines Think
Boureau wants to create a world where we see as many opinions as we can handle — up until the point at which we start tuning them out. AI can help with this by mapping out patterns in text, understanding where something goes off the rails and potentially figure out a way to alter the conversation flow to stem the bad turn. “If we knew more about that learning process and how these beliefs get in people’s heads from the data then it might be easier to understand how to get more constructive conversations in general,” Boureau said.
In the aftermath of the 2016 election, LeCun publicly suggested Facebook had the technical capabilities to use AI to filter out fake news. Some saw his statement as a solution to a problem many blamed for the widespread polarization in the US, but LeCun said that the task was best left to third parties, instead of machines capable of introducing bias. “There’s a role AI can play there, but it’s a very difficult product design issue rather than a technological issue,” he said. “You don’t want to lead people into particular opinions. You kind of want to be neutral in that respect.”
Indeed, as LeCun cautions, AI is still far from reaching human level intelligence, or General AI as it's known.
See the full story here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/meet-the-man-who-makes-facebooks-machines-think?utm_term=.tl1dynz3k#.rk4mwNGBQ
A Major Warner Bros. Patent Reveals a Coming AR/VR Movie Delivery System for Theaters, Home systems & Headsets
Years ago the big film studios began introducing 3D experiences for movies goers and handed out 3D glasses as you entered the theater. This week Patently Apple discovered a patent filing from Warner Bros. Entertainment describing new systems that are in development that will bring movie goers Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and mixed reality films. And yes, users will be handed 3D/AR/VR headsets to watch these next-generation movies. The difference with these films will be that they're being designed to work in the theater and at home with iTunes or Netflix. So next-gen headsets are going to be needed to be able to watch this kind of content. Warner Bros. patent notes that these movies will work on headset powered either by Intel or ARM processors.
However, the technology for experiencing anything similar to cinematic content delivered using VR or AR equipment or methods is in a very early stage of development. Actual implementations of technology are quite limited, and users have thus far been largely or completely untouched by VR or AR in their experience of narrative content.
It would be desirable, therefore, to develop new methods and other new technologies for mastering cinematic content for VR and AR use, that overcome these and other limitations of the prior art and enhance the appeal and enjoyment of narrative content for new immersive technologies such as VR and AR.
See the full story here: http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2017/04/a-major-warner-bros-patent-reveals-a-coming-arvr-movie-delivery-system-for-theaters-home-systems-headsets.html
VRLA – Microsoft HoloLens delivers first ever augmented reality Easter Egg hunt
Philippe Lewicki, CEO of AfterNow.IO, developed this application for Microsoft. Brian Selzer is helping them with bus dev.
See the full story with multiple .gifs here: http://mashable.com/2017/04/15/hololens-easter-egg-hunt/#ddlSTo_ojPqt
Augmented Reality – Go ‘Pokemon – Go’ (India)
Not only is the tort of trespass being caused because of the same but privacy of third parties is also getting affected, raising severe defence and other security concerns in many countries. Privacy concerns have also been raised by Users who have claimed that the App requires access to a lot of information which is personally identifiable and sensitive information. Further the App continuously tracks the location of the User for the purposes of the game. Though an appropriate privacy policy has been put into place by Niantic, whether all this information is actually required for engagement of a User in the game is a contention that has been raised by many.
In India, several other issues also arose in this regard that resulted in the filing of a PIL in the Gujarat High Court. The Court here issued notices to state and central governments and also to Niantic in a Public Interest Litigation alleging that the game hurts religious sentiments of certain communities by showing eggs in places of worship and asked for a complete ban on the game in the country.
...such restrictions imposed on intellectual property innovation has given rise to the ongoing debate on the development and future of AR in India and globally.
See the full story here: https://barandbench.com/augmented-reality-go-pokemon-go/
New VR Telescope on the Seine Will Show You Paris in 1628 VOTE TO WIN
Earlier this week, Timescope unveiled the newest in a growing line of “self-service virtual reality services” that transport viewers to a different time or place. In this case, you can peer into the machine, located near the Pont d’Arcole bridge which connects Paris's Ile de la Cité with the historic Marais district, and get a 360-view of the banks of the River Seine in 1628.
The Timescope unit on the newly pedestrianized walkway shows a very different city. By looking into the machine, which is free to use, you’ll see the cargo barges and fishing trawlers that once crowded the busy river. Point the telescope in a different direction, and see 17th-century architecture and streets built for carriages instead of Citroëns. In developing the animated 360-degree video, which is accompanied by the ambient street sounds of merchants and river birds, the Timescope team consulted with historians to make it as accurate as possible. An augmented reality (AR) element is added to the overall experience, as overlaid text points out important landmarks, like the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall), which was completed during the reign of Louis XIII in—you guessed it—1628.
See the full story http://www.cntraveler.com/story/new-vr-telescope-on-the-seine-will-show-you-paris-in-1628
Mat Collishaw’s room-sized zoetrope offers a dazzling new spin on art’s history
One of those works is Centrifugal Soul, a room-sized zoetrope covered in 3D-printed birds and flowers, currently on display at Blain|Southern in London until August 20. The one-second loop, cut into 18 frames, spins at 60rpm with strobe lights flashing at just the right time to create the illusion of movement. "The only way of getting that animation millimetre-accurate is to 3D print it," he says.
See the full story and a video of it in motion here: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/mat-collishaw-art-zoetrope
Metaverse: Mozilla’s WebVR Helps Create Immersive Internet
Now, Mozilla is using WebVR to create an immersive version of the Internet dubbed Metaverse, a term first used in the 1992 sci-fi novel “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson that described a virtual domain without physical or social status limitations.
VentureBeat quotes Mozilla senior vice president of emerging technology Sean White as describing his company’s Metaverse as, “part of the natural evolution, an extension, of how we connect with computation, with each other, and with the world around us.”
Although “it’s easy to think of the socialized digital worlds of ‘Second Life’ and its VR successors, Linden Lab and High Fidelity, as models for a Metaverse,” not everyone agrees gaming engines are the solution. For many of those skeptics, “WebVR is the most obvious candidate for the job because it’s an open protocol and not a closed platform and therefore can serve as a binding force that bridges and connects disparate mediums together.”
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/metaverse-mozillas-webvr-helps-create-immersive-internet/