Project Aria, Facebook’s futuristic augmented reality glasses
“Ultimately, Project Aria is going to help us develop the safeguards, policies, and even social norms necessary to govern the use of AR glasses and other future wearable devices,” the company said in a statement.
According to the announcement of Facebook, in the first stage, the glasses will not be marketed, but will be used as a research tool that will help the company to gather information to “figure out how AR can work in practice.” However, Facebook is clearly enthusiastic about its potential.
See the full story here: https://www.inceptivemind.com/project-aria-facebooks-futuristic-augmented-reality-glasses/15465/
Giant dome cinema system makes European debut
A 300-seat giant dome cinema in the Netherlands has become the site of the first European installation of the ESX projection system from digital planetarium and full-dome theatre specialist Evans & Sutherland.
The system uses a blended array of five Christie D4K40 RGB laser projectors, plus E&S’s own auto-alignment and auto-blending technology, on the 23-metre diameter dome at the Omniversum cinema in The Hague.
Omniversum, which opened to the public in 1984, previously used a 15/70 film projector, complemented by a 36-speaker array for immersive audio.
Augmented Reality Disappeared From Gartner’s Hype Cycle – What’s Next?
According to Gartner, augmented reality has matured so rapidly that it is no longer considered an “emerging technology” anymore.
That evolution state is reinforced by Gartner’s latest report, predicting that multi-experience platforms, including augmented reality, will be deployed at least in one-third of all enterprises by 2021.
Furthermore, Gartner explains that mature technologies tend to live right in the heart of many other, still emerging, technology trends. Observing both 2019 and 2020 Hype Cycles, it’s clear that AR will be an essential piece of the puzzle for companies heavily investing in augmented intelligence, immersive workspaces, AI-augmented development, social distancing technologies, and other trends.
See the full story here: https://arpost.co/2020/09/25/augmented-reality-gartners-hype-cycle/
Tech Veterans Try to Build a Kinder, More Thoughtful Facebook – Telepath
The former venture capitalist and technology executive -- whose sister-in-law is Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg -- on Thursday formally unveiled Telepath, an interest-based service intended to foster online conversations. The network, which will be invitation-only to start, is trying to instill strict content standards from the get-go, including a rule against disinformation and hate speech. People have to use their real identity, and provide a valid phone number to sign up. “Be Kind” is the site’s first rule.
“We’re really focused on long engaging conversations with people who share the same interest with people who probably didn’t know each other before.” Bodnick said Telepath wants to limit accounts to real people, meaning no businesses or publishers.
Bodnick drew inspiration from the internet’s early days, when platforms like Facebook helped users meet people and share ideas without as much concern over animosity, hate speech or misinformation.
See the full story here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-24/tech-veterans-try-to-build-a-kinder-more-thoughtful-facebook
Amazon’s Alexa gets a new brain on Echo, becomes smarter via AI and aims for ambience
Amazon is making Alexa smarter with natural turn-taking, having conversations with multiple people, natural language understanding, and the ability to be taught by customers. The first target is the smart home, but Alexa for Business is also likely to follow.
Features such as Reading Sidekick, designed to help kids read, and conversational improvements are aimed at making Alexa more of a family member without as many "Alexa" words.
Rohit Prasad, vice president and head scientist for Alexa Artificial Intelligence at Amazon, outlined the following capabilities:
- Alexa can take interaction cues and note errors and then connect them.
- Learn from humans by asking to follow up questions when Alexa has a gap in knowledge about returns and learned modes.
- Deep learning space parsers to understand gaps and extract new concepts.
- More natural conversation and adaptation.
- Follow-up mode when interacting with humans.
CHASING THE AMBIENT DREAM STARTING WITH THE HOME
Limp's talk outlined the new Echo devices and Echo Show 10, but the overall theme was that these devices can follow you around the room as a person would.
See the full story here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazons-alexa-gets-a-new-brain-on-echo-becomes-smarter-via-ai-and-aims-for-ambience/
Artificial Intelligence Produces Music Album for Kids
AISM produces songs based on music theory and data provided by a human composer, Genie Music explained.
AISM offers two methods of writing a song. First, the ‘conceptual composition’ method allows users to type in a certain genre, mood, or emotion to create music.
Second, the ‘preference composition’ method allows users to type in a song they like, to create a song with a similar vibe.
Songs produced by AISM have gone through additional rearrangements by human professionals before they were released as an album.
See the full story here: http://koreabizwire.com/artificial-intelligence-produces-music-album-for-kids/170456
Kal Penn quit Hollywood for politics. Now, politics are following him back to Hollywood
Instead, he said, “Approves This Message” wants to show everyone’s perspective, comparing it to a combination of “The Daily Show” and “CBS Sunday Morning.” An episode about the environment, for example, will feature young progressives and young, evangelical Christians.
“One approaches this from science, one approaches this from faith. Both are working together for the same goal,” Penn told The News. “In this world of polarization and chaos, there are people who are tuning out all of the noise and instead focusing on ‘what do we want to get done together and how do we want to get it done?’ They disagree on every other issue but that’s OK because they’re working together on this one particular issue. To me, success is highlighting stories like that and celebrating who we are.”
See the full story here: https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/ny-kal-penn-approves-message-freeform-election-20200922-d7oti5fhcbagtjpb7rrkpgstxq-story.html