This week, we’ve got New Bosch smartglasses that are like North’s Focals, Golf Pool VR (on the moon!), a new mixed reality headset, Oculus Quest is getting auto hand tracking and Kevin Bacon was wearing Nreal Light for an ad!
New Bosch smartglasses, Golf Pool VR and Kevin Bacon wearing Nreal Light!
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Virtual Reality
Latest Oculus Quest update introduces auto hand tracking functionality
You can now switch to hand-tracking just by putting down your Touch controllers!
5 free Oculus Quest games you can play with your bare hands
Wondering what you can try out that uses hand tracking? Here are your options!
Valve further refines SteamVR beta, looks ahead to SteamVR 2.0
A new version of SteamVR is pretty exciting, that’s what headsets like the HTC Vive and Valve Index use when connecting to your PC.
Hacking the Oculus Quest: how to show Android settings, alarm and more!
Here’s a bunch of stuff which Skarredghost has managed to do with the Oculus Quest.
VR technology reunites grieving mother with her deceased child
This is a really curious use of the tech and brings up many questions — should we bring back the dead virtually?
London’s Namco Funscape becomes the latest VR zone portal offering Mario Kart VR
If only Timezone in Australia would bring this in…
The 10 best fitness apps for a VR workout
When you’ve indulged a little too much reach for the VR headset.
Half-life: opposing force now available on Oculus Quest
A new update to Lambda1VR adds support for Half-Life’s second and final expansion. With Half-Life: Alyx nearly a month away from release, there’s never been a better time to dive back into the original series. And while you could opt for a standard playthrough on PC or console, why not soak in all that …
Sony’s shuts down PSVR studio before it even reveals a game
“Sony’s mysterious first-party development team, focused exclusively on making triple-A PSVR games, is closing down before it even revealed its first game”.
Analysis: Monthly-connected VR headsets on Steam reach record high of 1.3 million
VR is on the rise it seems, even on Steam!
Golf Pool is an ideal fit on VR headsets
Play 8-ball pool with a golf club in VR — on the moon if you’d like.
Become a vocal radio DJ in quirky drama area man lives later this year
It’ll be out on Oculus Quest and others — sounds kinda fun!
Xbox’s Phil Spencer hopes VR gets bigger, currently not part of Xbox series X plan
They’re not planning on VR any time soon for the Xbox.
Augmented Reality
The Lynx Mixed Reality Headset will be the first Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 device — arriving this summer
It’s a $1500 passthrough AR/VR wearable with dual 1600 x 1600 pixel displays and 90 degree field of view!
Google just made it easier to get your hands on Glass Enterprise Edition 2
It’s available from a range of partners now for developers to purchase, if you’re keen to get one!
Daqri’s patent portfolio & trademarks put up for sale
Sad to see the big player, Daqri, go a similar path to ODG and end up for sale…
USA Today examines the problems with the Boeing 737 Max aircraft with latest AR story
This AR experience tells the story of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft that was grounded in March 2019 after two crashes.
Chooch.ai hands-on: an interesting object detection SDK (for AR?)
The Skarredghost also posted a hands-on review of Chooch.ai, a framework to detect objects in your surroundings on your phone camera.
Bosch gets smartglasses right with tiny eyeball lasers
This is very similar to North Focals and is pretty exciting to see more companies getting into this — it involves a tiny laser array painting images directly onto your retina.
Giving voice to AR: How voice recognition and augmented reality converge
I’m incredibly happy to see the link between voice and AR being discussed on the Voice Tech Podcast’s website, it’s something I’ve been speaking about for years and I think we’re getting closer.
Transit navigation app Moovit adds augmented reality way finder feature to challenge Google Maps live view
Moovit has a beta version of an AR way finder that’s like Google Map’s version — the first competitor for the Google feature as far as I know!
Nintendo is currently ‘interested in’ and ‘researching’ AR possibilities
Nintendo have done some AR in the past, so I’m curious to see what their next step might be in this newer age of AR!
Nreal light lands Kevin Bacon Hollywood boost for 5G smartglasses, CEO cozies up with HoloLens chief
Kevin was filming an ad in the UK wearing Nreal Light smartglasses and the CEO of Nreal finally got to meet up with the head at HoloLens!
Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles and Robotics
Alexa skill invites KFC Canada customers to chat with Colonel Sanders
You can chat with Colonel Sanders himself thanks to the power of Amazon Polly!
Improving AI’s ability to identify students who need help
Researchers have designed an AI model that is “better able to predict how much students are learning in educational games”.
New robot does superior job sampling blood: first clinical trial of an automated blood drawing and testing device
How would you feel if a robot took your blood sample instead of a human?
Feeling brave? Try these disturbing Jell-O mold recipes created by a bot
What about eating Jell-O made by a bot?
Monitor hack steals PC data through brightness
It’s a curious hack but one that requires so much initial set up that it’ll only be done in super targeted situations, if at all.
DeepMind trains robots to insert USB keys and stack colored blocks
Researchers at Alphabet’s DeepMind show a system that can train a robot to perform tasks like inserting a USB key into a PC. To help put that malware for the screen brightness tracking on your PC…
Google releases TyDi QA, a data set that aims to capture the uniqueness of languages
It contains question-answer pairs in 11 different languages to spur AI natural language development.
MIT CSAIL’s TextFooler generates adversarial text to strengthen natural language models
It generates adversarial examples capable of fooling leading natural language models — similar but different phrases that catch our systems off guard.
Square acquires deepfake research firm Dessa
Dessa were apparently involved in tech around deepfake detection — could be a valuable acquisition depending on how Square use it.
White House reportedly aims to double AI research budget to $2b
The White House is pushing to dedicate an additional billion dollars to fund AI research.
Facebook buys startup using AI vision to find your location
Scape’s computer vision technology works to suppliment using GPS when you need a bit more info on where someone is.
Google, YouTube, Venmo and LinkedIn send cease-and-desist letters to facial recognition app that helps law enforcement
“The tech companies join Twitter in trying to block Clearview AI from taking pictures from their platforms”.
Ultraleap — welcome to the journey of the future
Ultraleap showed off how “hand tracking and mid-air haptics are powering the next generation of XR cabin experiences in autonomous cars”.
What’s the deal with robot comedy?
There are indeed people who are trying to train up robots in the fine art of comedy.
Youtuber uses neural networks to upscale 1896 short film to 4k 60 fps
AI was able to help bring this old film to a new level of modern quality!
ARM unveils 2 new AI edge computing chips
ARM revealed chips focused on “machine learning at the edge” — the Cortex-M55 and Ethos-U55.
New music label says it can use AI to find the next big artist
“By using propriety software, Snafu Records claims it can find ‘undervalued’ artists weeks before traditional labels” — though I’ve gotta say, some labels are using similar concepts too.
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Want more?
A neat way to add I/O with the physical world — the Wio Terminal
The world of micro-controllers and maker creations is a vast and ever-growing one that can be super intimidating to newcomers. Should you start with an Arduino? A Raspberry Pi? What's an ESP something something? How do you add a screen? Sensors? The team at Seeed Studio are trying to make things easier and their Wio Terminal looks like a nice option for those who want to start with a screen and some sensors.
Building a 3D printed AR headset with The Triton Project
It's always exciting to stumble upon another AR headset being developed! Graham Atlee has been putting together The Triton Project, an exciting new headset similar to Project North Star that can be put together with off-the-shelf parts! Here's a Q&A with Graham on how it came about and how you might be able to get your hands on one!