Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality (AR), Breaking, Event, , News, , Virtual Reality (VR), VR World

Facebook F8 Day 1: AI being used to create VR Memories and 3D Photos

Have you ever wanted to revisit your childhood home, or have 3D photos? Using the power of artificial intelligence, AR and other technologies, Facebook is making both of those things possible soon. 3D Photos is a new feature announced at Facebook F8 Keynote. These aren’t 360-degree videos or photos: rather, they are photographs that shift objects in the foreground and background as you scroll to provide the illusion of depth. It’s not an extremely-advanced feature, but it does make good use of the technology. Huh, Facebook is also working on “3D Photos” for News Feed, kind of hard to tell from the keynote screen but

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Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Business, Companies, Entertainment, News, press releases, Virtual Reality (VR)

How Decentraland’s Blockchain Powered Model Illuminates Our Digital Future

Ownership in the digital realm has always been something of a tough nut to crack. That genius tweet you just fired off? It’s a simple copy & paste away from being stolen. Your beautifully edited photography work? Right click, save as. Even for major content providers like movie studios, production companies and publishers, controlling the flow of content proves immensely difficult. The advantage for the content creators selling on the internet, however, is that they’re able to sell their product to whomever they please, free from content restrictions, curation or fees and levies. It’s a level of commercial freedom that has established the internet as

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Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Business, Companies, Cryptocurrency, News, press releases

Kepler Provides Blockchain for AI and Robotics Ecosystem

Nowadays, we’re being witnesses of robots integrating to our society in the most, we could dare to say, beautiful manner. There are robot cooks, robot vacuum cleaners, autonomous drones or even robot pets that help disabled people doing their everyday chores. Kepler Technologies is developing the world’s first decentralized ecosystem for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics development. Like the internet, robotics will not only reveal human potentials and new innovations, but also open up the whole new world for investment opportunities – the same area that Project Kepler is trying to dominate. Kepler is working on utilizing analytics, data science, and predictive algorithms to provide investors

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Artificial Intelligence, startups, Virtual Reality (VR), VR World

Sensory reality pods let workers de-stress in VR

Dutch startup Sensiks claims it has the answer to job stress and fatigue in the workplace, in the form of a sensory reality pod (SRP) that stimulates multiple senses to immerse its users in relaxing virtual environments. The company also mentions the ability to “recall memories from the past” using its multisensory simulations. Each pod is 240 cm tall and 140 cm wide. Workers sit inside, donning a VR headset that presents them with 360-degree video while corresponding scent cartridges release smells like burning wood and freshly-cut lawn. Other sensory manipulations involve changes in temperature, air flow, and light frequencies. Visuals may take a person to

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Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality (AR), News, Virtual Reality (VR), Wearables

Taser manufacturer Axon bolsters VR efforts

Public safety technology company Axon announced last week that it has hired an imaging engineering team that will work from a new R&D office in Tampere, Finland. The engineers will focus on improving Axon’s wearable and in-car products, in addition to building solutions that utilize AR, VR and AI. While Axon is perhaps best known for their widely-used “Taser” electroshock weapons, the company also markets a range of other products and services, including body-worn and in-car cameras, digital evidence management solutions, and systems to assist prosecutors. “We are thrilled to bring this talented group of imaging engineers on board,” said Axon CEO and founder Rick

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Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality (AR), Business, Internet, VR World

eBay announces plans for new AR tools, AI development

eBay has joined the ranks of retailers dipping their toes in the augmented and virtual reality waters, according to a Fortune report. The online marketplace announced that it is currently developing an AR kit in order to add AR features to its website later this year. One proposed feature will allow shoppers to see how an item would look or fit in its intended space–such as by overlaying the image of tires on a car–before making a bid or a purchase. Another feature will let sellers choose the proper box size when packaging merchandise by showing images of the different size options over the item

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Artificial Intelligence, Military, News, Technology Security, Wearables

China starts with AI facial recognition in fighting terrorism

Just a few weeks before Chinese Lunar New Year festivities starts, Chinese authorities decided to take even more precaution measures. The Chinese will be making around 3 billion trips during these days and there is a new high-tech law enforcement tool that will help them feel secure. Facial recognition eyeglasses have already been tested and proven useful in Zhengzhou’s East Railway Station when they helped local police capture seven people connected to major criminal cases, and a further 26 traveling on false documents. The station, one of the busiest in China, has its own police force but it can be hard for an individual policeman to

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Artificial Intelligence, Companies, News, Technology Security

Boston Dynamics presented upgraded SpotMini – a robot dog

We all remember Atlas, the “crazy” robot that was jumping and doing flip-overs all around. Well, now he got himself, well, a “pet” in a matter of speech. On Monday,Boston Dynamics presented a kind of a “robot dog” that is learning new tricks every day. The company, currently owned by SoftBank, showed its SpotMini bot opening a door and holding them open, using its extendable arm/neck. The all-electric droid stands 84 cm tall, features canine-like mechanics and a five-degree of freedom manipulator arm that takes its cues from a sensor suite. Among these sensors are stereo cameras, depth cameras, an inertial measurement unit and position and

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Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality (AR), Cryptocurrency, Gaming, Hardware, News, Software Programs, Virtual Reality (VR)

MIT-hosted tech accelerator opens for second batch of applications

Play Labs, LLC and the MIT Game Lab announced this week that they are open to applications from a new round of startups who wish to participate in their “playful technology” accelerator program. Successful applicants will receive mentoring, facilities, and funding (in cash or Bitcoin) in return for common stock. The incubator hopes to receive applicants from startups developing technologies for use across a broad spectrum of industries, including finance, healthcare and manufacturing. Examples of technologies the incubator hopes to see amongst startups span the realm of digital currency/blockchain, eSports/video games, VR/AR and machine learning/AI. The program will be ran by Rizwan Virk, an MIT

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Artificial Intelligence, Companies, Education, News

Alibaba’s AI wins human in Reading Comprehension

The battle between man and the machine went pretty devastating for the “homo sapiens”. Chinese multinational e-commerce, retail, internet and technology conglomerate Alibaba, has developed an artificial intelligence model that actually beat humans in a Stanford University reading and comprehension test. Based on more than 500 Wikipedia articles, Stanford’s set of questions are designed in the way they are teasing out whether machine-learning models can process large amounts of information before supplying precise answers to queries. Alibaba’s Institute of Data Science and Technologies pronounced that its deep neural network model scored 82.44 in the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD) on Jan. 11, beating the human

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Artificial Intelligence, Auto, Business, Companies, News, transportation, US

Ford will invest $11bn in electric vehicles by 2022

Ford Motor Co decided that they will significantly increase their planned investments in electric vehicles to $11bn by 2022 and have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles in its model line-up. At the Detroit Auto show that happened last week, the company’s chairman, Bill Ford, said that the whole investment is much more higher than what was previously announced ($4.5bn by 2020). He also added that this investment includes costs of developing dedicated electric vehicle architectures. General Motors, Toyota and Volkswagen have already outlined ambitious plans to offer more electric vehicles and also did General Motors who made his announcement last week about new driverless vehicle.

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Artificial Intelligence, Asia Pacific (APAC), Business, China, Companies, Fintech, News, Technology Security

AI Chatbots are rapidly changing the ways of banking in the world

The biggest Hong Kong bank, HSBC Holdings, is starting the New Year with a new chatbot. Chatbots are computer programs that typically use text-based live chat as an interface to carry out tasks for customers on behalf of the business. Now they are emerging as an inexpensive way to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) in banking. Even though they are practically machines, banks are trying to give their chatbots a human touch which is why HSBC named its newborn Amy. This is not the only bank form Hong Kong. Hang Seng Bank already has their virtual assistants named HARO and DORI. This move came as the city’s

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Artificial Intelligence, Auto, Companies, News, Technology Security

General Motors announced their driverless car for the next year

General Motors will no longer need an engineer in the front seat who was managing the robot that controlled its self-driving Chevrolet Bolt. There will be no more steering wheel and also, the pedals will be gone. This  announcement came last week and it is more than obvious that this auto-giant got the confidence from it’s engineers. The car will be the fourth generation of its driverless, all-electric Chevy Bolts, which are currently being tested on public roads in San Francisco and Phoenix. And when they roll off the assembly line of GM’s manufacturing plant in Orion, Michigan, they’ll be deployed as ride-hailing vehicles in a

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2018, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality (AR), Cloud Computing, Companies, Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Google, Hardware, HTC, Mobile, News, Qualcomm, Smartphones, Virtual Reality (VR)

CES: Lenovo introduces quartet of new AR and VR technologies

Lenovo used this week’s CES in Las Vegas to highlight several aspects of their 2018 product and service lineup in the augmented reality and virtual reality spaces. These announcements spanned both consumer and commercial/industrial applications, and include the Lenovo Mirage Solo headset, Mirage Camera, C220 Smart Glasses and NBD AH Cloud 2.0. Lenovo Mirage Solo and Mirage Camera with Daydream Billed as a “new take on VR consumption and creation,” this complementary product duo is targeted primarily at consumer markets. The Mirage Solo stands as the first stand-alone headset offering that is part of Google’s Daydream platform; an ill-fated offering from HTC was announced and

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2018, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality (AR), Auto, Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Hardware, Internet of Things (IoT), News, Smart Home

CES: Coffee machine and AR mirror turn conversational

SoundHound Inc., a developer of AI and conversational intelligence technologies, this week introduced a range of integrations empowered by their Houndify Voice AI platform. Demonstrations of some of those integrations will occur at this week’s CES in Las Vegas. The integrations run a very wide range of IoT categories, including automotive, connected speakers, robotics, appliances, augmented reality experiences, smart home, and wearables, from companies including Hyundai, HUMAX, Mayfield Robotics, AvatarMind Robots, PhotoSpring and Onkyo. “Conversational voice interfaces represent the next shift in how we interact with the devices around us and the user behavior of speaking to things will quickly become an integral part of

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2018, Artificial Intelligence, Auto, Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Entertainment, Hardware, Intel, Internet, Mobile, News, Sport, Virtual Reality (VR)

CES: Intel CEO Krzanich keynote highlights AI and VR

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich used Monday’s CES 2018 keynote to highlight how data is changing our work and personal lives, while simultaneously pushing forward technological innovation both at his company and within the larger technology sector. His keynote also specifically addressed Intel’s new initiatives in the VR space. “Data is going to introduce social and economic changes that we see perhaps once or twice in a century,” Krzanich said. “We not only find data everywhere today, but it will be the creative force behind the innovations of the future. Data is going to redefine how we experience life – in our work, in our homes,

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Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Companies, Cryptocurrency, Fintech, News, Technology Security

BeeChat, First Blockchain Based Messenger with Crypto Wallet

The Crypto boom seems to be at an all-time high with the Bitcoin market recovering from the recent dip. However, there is a new thing coming. BeeChat is a blockchain based messenger and also, a cryptocurrency community. Built using proprietary distributed technology with servers implemented around the world, BeeChat offers reliable communication in an ever-changing cryptocurrency landscape. After going live in October, this network has captured millions of users around the world and currently supports hundreds of millions of messages per day on its network. It also supports over 10 digital currencies, provides messaging and communications services, cryptocurrency discussions and groups, cryptocurrency wallet, and industry

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Artificial Intelligence, Companies, Entertainment, News

Robot DJ Kuka Makes You Wanna Dance All Night Long

Nowadays robots can do a lot for you. They are your brokers, chefs, doctors, or even lovers. This one, however, will make you jump and dance your night away. In the Prague’s Karlovy Lazne Music Club there is a new employer. A DJ. A robot DJ. DJ Kuka, which is also the name of the company that manufactured the robotic arm, began life as an automotive industry robot, and ended up with the record-spinner gig after the club issued a challenge to a robotics firm. The versatile Kuka robotic arms can be programmed for a variety of tasks, which you can see in the Nigel Stanford-robot musical

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Artificial Intelligence, Business, China, Companies, Entertainment, News, Technology Security

WeChat Now Issuing ID Cards for Chinese Customers

WeChat, the popular mobile application from Tencent Holdings, is now becoming more indispensable in the daily lives of Chinese consumers under a project that turns it into an official electronic personal identification system. The government of Guangzhou, capital of the southern coastal province of Guangdong started a pilot programme that creates a virtual ID card, which serves the same purpose as the traditional state-issued ID cards, through the WeChat accounts of registered users in the city’s Nansha district.This project will try to prevent online identity thefts. The new WeChat ID card project is supported by the Ministry of Public Security’s Research Institute and other government

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Artificial Intelligence, Business, China, Companies, News

Huawei and Baidu Building an Open AI Ecosystem Together

Huawei Technologies, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier, has forged an artificial intelligence (AI) alliance with Chinese internet search provider Baidu. “It should come as no surprise that Baidu and Huawei are working together, because we have many similarities – technology is embedded in our DNA and we have developed our own technologies in order to grow,” said Robin Li, Baidu Chairman and CEO. “The Internet era is evolving into the era of AI. Baidu has been dedicated to the field of AI for a long time. Huawei has a large user base. Together, Baidu and Huawei can do many things which we were not

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