This week, we’ve got rumours of Magic Leap looking to sell their business, a data set released for AI researchers to join the fight against Coronavirus, impressive full body tracking tested with Zumba, VR meetups galore, an onsight cube thermal scanner for Coronavirus on an AR headset and more!
Impressive full body Zumba tracking, VR meetups galore and an onsight cube thermal scanner for Coronavirus on AR headset
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Virtual Reality
Oculus Quest will test multiple windows and redesigned universal menu
It will enable several browser windows at once, a new home UI and in-app hovering menu panes.
Over 20 titles on Oculus Quest have achieved $1m in revenue
Christmas was good for Oculus, as we’ve heard before.
VR takes the stage as conferences cancel
Some are seeing this point in history as an opportunity for VR to shine with VR conferences.
VR collaboration platform Glue’s next-generation adds Oculus Quest support
Glue is an enterprise-focused shared virtual workspace — like an enterprise-focused AltspaceVR.
Couch live WebVR hangout lets you watch tv with others no matter what their device
Stave off those quarantine blues with this easily accessible VR hangout experience.
CEO shows life in China under Coronavirus quarantine with 360 VR video
The CEO of FXG provides a virtual 360 video tour of his community under government-issued quarantine.
Unity is making its High Definition Render Pipeline VR compatible allowing photorealistic visuals
“Unity’s HDRP targets high-end PCs and consoles, allowing creators to build high-definition and photorealistic visuals.”
HTC discontinuing Vive Pro and Vive Focus in favor of newer iterations
They are being replaced by the Vive Pro Eye (with eye tracking) and Vive Focus Plus (has 6DOF controllers).
AWE AR & VR conference still on (for now), with special safety measures in place, here’s what you need to know
The event is two and a half months away, they hope for Coronavirus to be contained/treated by then but say they’ll have a virtual conference option ready in case.
Antilatency showcases wireless full-body tracking with 10-person VR Zumba class
It uses a combination of optical inertial tracking modules and fully-scalable infrared floormats equipped with infrared sensors.
Shadow promises high-end VR gaming without an expensive computer
Shadow is a cloud gaming service giving people remote access to powerful gaming PCs — on 1st April, their “VR Exploration Program” will give some beta users remote access to VR PCs.
An AI breakthrough could significantly improve Oculus Quest rendering power
The Oculus Quest could soon see up to a 67% performance increase with a regular software update powered by AI that takes a lower resolution image and turns it into a high res one.
Tilt Brush adds direct Sketchfab export
You can now export your Tilt Brush sketches directly to Sketchfab from inside the headset.
Facebook will show VR games in Online Developers Showcase March 16 to March 19
Facebook will be hosting an online showcase for upcoming VR titles next week.
Looxid adapts its VR brain monitor for Oculus Rift S
Its EEG monitor can then work with VR applications in both gaming and therapy.
Orders of Magnitude VR reveals humanity’s tiny scale in the universe
“View the universe at cosmic scale, then drill down to the sub-atomic level to look at the building blocks of human life”. Available on Oculus Rift or Rift S, with StreamVR coming later this month.
Augmented Reality
Augmented-reality startup Magic Leap to explore a sale
This was the massive Bloomberg story of the week, Magic Leap denies it. Reports are that Facebook weren’t interested in buying Magic Leap assets.
10 remote collaboration apps for HoloLens, Magic Leap, & mobile that can substitute for in-person meetings
Most of these options are focused on Magic Leap and HoloLens, but if you’ve got some of those devices – why not put them to good use!
Envision accepting pre-orders for Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 with AI software to assist the visually impaired
Envision’s iOS and Android apps use optical character recognition and object detection to provide an audio description of someone’s surroundings. It is bringing the same tech to Google Glass!
Modern virtual and augmented reality device can help simulate sight loss
Very cool! “A new study demonstrates how commercially available head mounted displays (HMD) can be used to simulate the day-to-day challenges faced by people with sight loss from glaucoma”.
Exclusive: Nreal changes company name, amid Magic Leap legal battle unknown Chinese parent company revealed
It’s not the “Nreal” name that’s changed but their overall company name, and a parent company emerged that apparently hadn’t been mentioned before.
BBC Earth releases ‘Micro Kingdoms: Senses’ insect experience on Magic Leap 1
Become immersed in the world of insects and arachnids using the Magic Leap!
Vuzix M400 AR glasses add onsight cube thermal scanner for coronavirus
“A new wearable hardware-camera-software bundle will enable frontline screeners to check body temperatures without using their hands or thermometers”.
Apple plans to add a rear-facing 3D sensor to a new iPhone
Like TrueDepth, it would enable new kinds of applications and more precise AR on the rear-facing camera like we can have on the front-facing camera.
Viral artist KAWS unleashes army of AR sculptures across NYC, Tokyo, Tanzania
It’s a series of floating AR artwork!
Google Maps is making ‘Live View’ AR navigation more prominent
In the new beta, the Live View button appears as soon as you search for a location.
Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles and Robotics
Microsoft, White House, and Allen Institute release Coronavirus data set for medical and NLP researchers
A data set of more than 24,000 articles named CORD-19 is being released today for AI researchers to join fight against coronavirus!
YouTube will rely more on AI moderation while human reviewers can’t come to the office
YouTube warns that it might mess up during this time. It’s definitely a side effect of COVID-19 that I didn’t see coming.
Robots on the march to walking like humans
“A psychological theory could kickstart improvements in the way robots are able to walk, thanks to a new study”.
Drones can now scan terrain and excavations without human intervention
New research has allowed AI to take over the human-controlled drones currently being used and it predicts and counteracts the wind forces acting on the drone.
Neural hardware for image recognition in nanoseconds
Within nanoseconds, this hardware chip can analyse images and provide the correct output.
Robots that admit mistakes foster better conversation in humans
“A new study showed that the humans on teams that included a robot expressing vulnerability communicated more with each other and later reported having a more positive group experience than people teamed with silent robots or with robots that made neutral statements, like reciting the game’s score”.
Matternet’s new drone landing station looks like a sci-fi movie prop
It is quite a landing pad design indeed!
Artificial intelligence won’t rule the world so long as humans rule AI
“Voluntary codes of ethics are not enough to protect us from the developers of AI. We need laws that put people in charge”.
AI weekly: coronavirus spurs adoption of AI-powered candidate recruitment and screening tools
“The threat of COVID-19 has spurred the adoption of AI-powered job candidate recruitment and screening tools, despite the risks involved”.
Google’s neural tangents library gives ‘unprecedented’ insights into AI models’ behavior
Google’s new Neural Tangents library “lets data scientists construct and train ensembles of infinite-width networks at once using only five lines of code”.
AI is coming for your most mind-numbing office tasks
We’ll soon be getting AI to do all that cutting and pasting for us.
AI is an ideology, not a technology
This Wired article says that at its core, “artificial intelligence” is a perilous belief that fails to recognize the agency of humans.
Quantum computing, AI, China, and synthetics highlighted in 2020 tech trends report
It says AI is “sparking a third wave of computing” and “comes with positives, like the role AlphaFold can play in discovering cures for diseases, as well as negatives, like AI’s current impact on the criminal justice system”.
Internet of Things and Makers
Spectra 2020 to now be a fully live-streamed event
Particle’s Spectra 2020 conference is now going to be all online on April 28th and 29th. You can get free tickets and watch from wherever you are!
Quick look: the Adafruit Clue
This microcontroller has come up many weeks in a row now — makers are pretty excited about it! Here’s Make’s look at it.
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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!