There are lots of smart gadgets that track running, but few track swimming — that is, if you’d like something that’s built for swimming first, as opposed to a device with swim-tracking features tacked on. Form, a new fitness company founded by former Recon Instruments employees, is looking to solve this problem with its first product, the $199 Swim Goggles.
What if neither distance nor language mattered? What if technology could help you be anywhere you need to be and speak any language? Using AI technology and holographic experiences this is possible, and it is revolutionary.
Microsoft has created a hologram that will transform someone into a digital speaker of another language. The software giant unveiled the technology during a keynote at the Microsoft Inspire partner conference this morning in Las Vegas. Microsoft recently scanned Julia White, a company executive for Azure, at a Mixed Reality capture studio to transform her into an exact hologram replica.
Continue reading “Microsoft has a wild hologram that translates HoloLens keynotes into Japanese” »
Microchips are becoming ubiquitous as augmented and virtual reality become mainstream, USA Today reports.
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In what the German automaker is calling a “world premiere,” Volkswagen’s futuristic Golf GTI Aurora concept has a high-end sound system in its trunk that can be operated with a hologram.
You can leave your 3D glasses and augmented reality gloves at home: the hologram floats freely in the air and can be operated without any external aids. Though to be fair, VW is being very vague about the details of the technology behind the interface.
Continue reading “This Volkswagen Prototype Has a Holographic Interface” »
Imagine the possibility of integrating mixed reality (XR) tech with that of this AImagine having a long, open conversation about philosophy with either Immanuel Kant or David Hume. Imagine being given a private lesson in economics by either Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, or Karl Marx. The possibilities are seemingly abundant. But then so are the risks.
A lot of coverage has been done on the emergence of what are known as “deepfakes” here on Serious Wonder the last few years. They’ve captivated us at times and then frightened us. The implications of this growing technology are practically limitless, especially as our ability to tell the difference between what is real and what is fake diminishes even further.
Continue reading “Still Images Come to Life Thanks to Samsung’s Deepfake AI” »
“Minecraft Earth,” announced today, will allow users to collect items, blocks, and creatures while roaming around in the real world with other real-world friends — think of it as a “Minecraft”-themed “Pokémon Go” experience, but with more fishing, building and resource management.
While the extremely popular smartphone game “Pokémon Go” relied on augmented reality only minimally, the new “Minecraft” title will double down on the technology. A new feature called Azure Spatial Anchors will allow users to plop down objects in augmented reality — and persist indefinitely. Other users will also be able to interact with those same objects.
The goal is to eventually have players build their own “Minecraft” worlds for others to experience in augmented reality through their phones.
Continue reading “New ‘Minecraft’ Game Will Let You Build Stuff in the Real World” »
In the end, it wasn’t meant to be. Microsoft had pulled out all the stops for its Build 2019 developer conference keynote on Monday morning. The company had partnered with Epic Games and Industrial Light & Magic chief creative officer John Knoll for a hugely ambitious demo of its Hololens 2 headset that aimed to recreate the Apollo 11 moon landing, 50 years after the fact, in mixed reality.
All had worked out well during multiple rehearsals over the last few days. But when Knoll and science journalist and “Man on the Moon” author Andrew Chaikin were set to go on stage on Monday, the demo just didn’t run. Microsoft stalled by extending its pre-show ImagineCup competition until the show’s moderator couldn’t think of any more questions to ask. Then Knoll and Chaikin went on stage, giving it one more go — and the mixed-reality overlays simply refused to appear.
