This week, Dr Seuss’ world joins AR, Nreal brings in hand tracking, a neat 3D printed ping pong bat Quest controller attachment and robots learnt all sorts of things including setting the dinner table!
Dr Seuss in AR, Nreal brings in hand tracking and a 3D printed ping pong bat Quest attachment!
See these stories first on the Dev Diner Twitch stream!
We’re live every Tuesday at 7:30pm Sydney Time (8:30am UTC, 12:30am PST)! We chat about the upcoming newsletter’s stories just before this goes out and tinker with tech live on air! Come join us, chat about tech and ask lots of questions!
Virtual Reality
Facebook ‘thinking about’ opening Quest to apps outside the Oculus store
Facebook’s Chris Pruett teased a potential official way for distributing Oculus Quest apps outside of the Oculus Store in a recent Twitter thread.
HTC drops price of Vive Pro Eye, announces new Vive Pro Eye bundles
New HTC Pro Eye bundles are available for businesses looking to get their hands on some VR gear.
How modding communities are paving the way for user-generated VR & AR content
VRScout say “the acceptance of modding communities hints to the growth of a collective economy across global creative and innovation-based industries”.
Jumpy balls, a little demo showcasing ECSY-Three
Jumpy Balls is a WebVR game where you have to guide balls shot from a cannon towards a target — it uses ECSY, a new entity component JavaScript framework.
Valve’s Index VR headset goes back on sale March 9
Valve Index VR kits are available once again to purchase.
Engineers design 3D-printed table tennis paddles for Oculus touch controllers
Mechanical engineers Florian Auté and Alexis Roseillier built a 3D-printed paddle, grip and holder for an Oculus Touch controller to play the VR table tennis game “Eleven”.
Augmented Reality
Apple files patent application for automatic AR lens adjustment via proximity sensors
Apple’s patent application covers a way to automatically adjust lenses for individual users rather than needing to have an initial set up like other headsets.
HoloLens 2: how bad having tried it?
Karl Guttag has some more info on the quality concerns of the HoloLens 2.
Here’s your first look at the US Army’s combat-ready HoloLens 2 in action
Newly revealed images from the US Army show exactly how the HoloLens 2 is being used during training exercises.
Young readers can now enter the world of Dr. Seuss via new AR app created with Unity’s Project MARS
Children can enjoy Dr Seuss characters in AR all built in Unity using the Mixed and Augmented Reality Studio (Project MARS) extension.
Nreal Light AR glasses add clay air hand tracking, hint at 5G gaming
The glasses aren’t released yet but are already evolving with new features!
Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles and Robotics
This robot taught itself to walk entirely on its own
“Google is creating AI-powered robots that navigate without human intervention — a prerequisite to being useful in the real world”.
Here’s the file Clearview AI has been keeping on me, and probably on you too
Vice used the California Consumer Privacy Act to see what information the controversial facial recognition company has collected on one of their writers.
Microsoft’s AI generates 3D objects from 2D images
It is pretty darn impressive!
3 important trends in AI/ML you might be missing
VentureBeat look at trends going unnoticed at the moment that’ll have long-term impacts on AI.
Researchers’ state-of-the-art AI upscales and enhances videos
Just like the movies! Sort of.
Robot learns to set the dinner table by watching humans
First, the dinner table, then the world.
An implant uses machine learning to give amputees control over prosthetic hands
“Researchers managed to amplify nerve signals to the point where they can be translated into movements”.
This bathroom cleaning robot is trained in VR to clean up after you
Commercial bathrooms have to be ADA compliant which means they follow standards giving them a regular pattern which robots could learn. It is trained with a VR simulation of the bathroom.
A list of beginner-friendly NLP projects—using pre-trained models
Create some machine learning projects without needing complicated math or anything along those lines.
Why the AI we rely on can’t get privacy right (yet)
VentureBeat’s opinion piece says “the companies deploying consumer-facing AI frequently aren’t the same companies that built the technology, leaving the responsibility for privacy unclear”.
Robot fights fire with IR
This DIY robot can detect fire and then blow it out with a propeller.
DeepMind technique encourages AI players to cooperate in zero-sum games
DeepMind are proposing “a system of contracts that encourage cooperation among agents in multiplayer zero-sum games”.
Internet of Things and Makers
What to do if the number of your intents skyrockets
Working with chatbots and voice applications, the number of intents you need to handle can grow pretty wild.
Connect your Rasa AI assistant to Amazon Alexa
This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to get a Rasa assistant up and running on Alexa.
Alexa can now send traffic updates to your phone
Alexa sneakily gained some new features including severe weather alerts and the ability to send traffic details to your phone.
Spotify may be developing a voice assistant
Spotify is looking to introduce “Hey Spotify” voice activation.
ESP8266 adds web control to old home theater
Attaching an ESP8266 brings this old school A/V receiver Internet connectivity and the ability to have an internet enabled controller.
Sport your hacker status on your wrist with Watchy — an ESP32-powered smartwatch!
Why not have a smartwatch that is truly geeky in every way?
Wear OS could get a big fitness overhaul
It looks like Google are considering a number of fitness-related features for future Wear OS watches (many of which already exist in other smartwatches).
Tide and meteorological station
“A self-calibrating, solar-powered cellular tide level and meteorological station based on the Sentient Things IoT Node”.
Tiny Duck Hunt looks like big fun
It’s a tiny version using a NodeMCU board!
What’s holding you back in emerging tech that Dev Diner could help with? Feel free to DM me on Twitter or just send me an email and let me know!
Would you like to republish this article in your own publication?
Contact Dev Diner to request official republication of this article.
Contact Dev Diner to request official republication of this article.
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!