This week, we’ve got red Amazon Echos in support for charity which Canadians may be especially excited by because… the Echo is now available in Canada! We’ve also got a somersaulting Boston Dynamics robot, a remote controlled robot from Toyota and even minibots that can glide along water.

Remote controlling Toyota's T-HR3 robot, the red charity Amazon Echo and Atlas, the somersaulting robot

Remote controlling Toyota’s T-HR3 robot, the red charity Amazon Echo and Atlas, the somersaulting robot!

 

Learn how to build a conversational voice assistant!

My fun, relaxed, light-hearted online course is coming soon! No matter your skill level, it should help you build a virtual assistant/chatbot 🙂 Pre-register and I’ll give you a discount code when it’s out as my way of saying thanks!

 

Virtual Reality

“Haptic shape illusion” allows VR controllers to simulate feel of physically larger objects

Aiming to simulate the feeling of larger objects using VR controllers!

Enabling the Social 3D Web

Mozilla explains the concept of the Social 3D Web and how they’re working to bring it to fruition.

New WebVR experiences entertain, educate, and let you explore

There are a bunch of WebVR experiences featured by the Oculus team, along with a hint of plans for WebVR to come to the Facebook news feed!

Smellable VR is coming whether you want it or not

The future is now.

Print your own HTC Vive headstrap

SynergyWiz are making it possible to 3D print your own headstrap!

Sonaria is Google’s latest charming VR movie

Google’s latest Spotlight Story is available on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

Resident Evil VII Biohazard surpasses 300k VR players

Console VR is glad to have Resident Evil around!

Pixar’s first VR project makes Coco’s land of the dead a cheerful playground

Pixar’s new film has a VR companion piece that Oculus and Pixar are promoting as a social space where up to four players can hang out together.

 

Augmented Reality

The Meta + Zoom partnership will enable users to share and manipulate 3D models in real-time

The Zoom video conference platform has partnered with Meta for real-time interaction of 3D models.

Star Wars: Jedi Challenges hands-on — wielding a lightsaber in augmented reality

A look at Lenovo’s partnership with Disney to make an AR Star Wars app.

Augmented reality will transform city life

A simple overview of how AR might change things in day to day life.

 

Wearables

The Apple watch can accurately detect hypertension and sleep apnea, a new study suggests

“Being able to detect sleep apnea and hypertension in the comfort of our homes with just a simple device could be a game-changer in medicine.”

Germany bans sales of children’s smartwatches due to privacy fears

Kids in Germany will have to stick with regular watches for now.

Wearables still haven’t solved the problems of skin science, but new ideas are coming

So much more to do around wearables but the industry is working on it!

Fitbit Charge 2 v Fitbit Ionic: the Fitbit heavyweights go head-to-head

Wondering which to get? What the difference is? Here’s a guide!

 

Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles and Robotics

What’s new, Atlas?

Boston Dynamics have reached new heights with their latest robotics work! You’ve gotta watch this video of Atlas if you haven’t yet.

Toyota’s T-HR3 robot mimics your hand, arm and foot movements

This bot can be remote controlled and transmits video with force-feedback and motion controls!

Google adds a slew of new assistant features for app developers

Your virtual assistant apps will have new subcategories in their store, there’s a new discovery mechanism, speaker to phone transfer and a whole bunch more!

AISense wants to deliver total recall by transcribing all your conversations

AISense works through long conversations using machine learning and provides users with a full text record of what was said.

This $800 Alexa-powered robot isn’t human-sized, and that’s wrong

It does everything Alexa can but is a bit too small for The Verge’s taste.

Chemistry of ‘wine legs’ inspires surface-skimming minibots

Bots are getting way smaller than the bot above! A team of engineers from the East China Normal University have developed a chemical motor for lightweight robots that can glide along the surface of a body of water.

Algorithmia now helps businesses manage and deploy their machine learning models

“Tensorflow is open-source, but scaling it is not” — if you’re looking for some way to host your own machine learning, this might be a good option!

Capsule Networks are shaking up AI — here’s how to use them

This AI approach could be better than Convolutional Neural Networks.

 

Internet of Things and Makers

Amazon Echo and Google Home patched against BlueBorne threat

A Bluetooth flaw unexpectedly ended up also being found on our favourite assistants — they’ve been patched for it now.

The Amazon Echo now comes in red to benefit (RED) and fight against AIDS

They’ll give $10 to charity for each red Echo sold!

Amazon launches Alexa, Echo, and Prime Music in Canada today

If you’re a Canadian who loves the colour red… now’s the time to get into the Echo ecosystem! Alexa even has a new Canadian English accent.

Amazon brings the Echo Show to the UK giving Alexa a video screen

The Echo Show is now available in the UK (no YouTube on it still though!).

Amazon key flaw could let rogue couriers enter your home

Attackers could disable the camera and get into mischief. Amazon will be putting out an update to try to fix it asap!

Apple HomePod delayed until early 2018

Apple says it needs “more time before it’s ready for customers”.

GE hub connects its smart lights to Alexa and Google

Now that GE has released a hub, their lights can connect to assistants!

Call to ban sale of IoT toys with proven security flaws

These calls are similar to the German privacy concerns for smartwatches.

A motion sensing light for your entrance hallway

Hackaday revisited a blog post looking into making motion sensing lights.

Roomba gets IFTTT functionality

Applets can trigger your Roomba to start when you leave the house, fire off a tweet when your cleaning is complete and plenty more.

Adam Savage’s Maker Box

Quarterly has new experts putting together a Maker Box every 3 months, this month’s Maker Box is by Adam Savage and Tested.com.

 

Conferences Discount Codes and Competitions!

Deep Learning Dance Smackdown (23 Nov)

For the final Melbourne Creative AI meetup of the year they are running a small competition! The basic idea is, build a program that generates some dance moves from data! Sounds like a lot of fun!

AI Expo North America 2017 (29-30 Nov)

3 co-located events. 15 conference tracks. 9,000 attendees. 300+ speakers. 300+ exhibitors. It’s all happening at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley! It even has a free track on AI for developers! Want to attend the whole event? Use the discount code DEVDINER20!

BuzzConf Technology Festival (1-3 Dec)

BuzzConf is a family-friendly tech festival in country Victoria, Australia. Learn and play with tech by day, enjoy live music by night! The code special_devdiner will give you 20% off!

AI Expo Global 2018 (18-19 Apr)

Can’t make it to the AI Expo in Santa Clara? The event is also headed over to London in 2018! Use the discount code DEVDINER20 to get a good deal on your tickets! They have a a free track on AI for developers too!

 


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