Lifeboat Foundation

Emerging technologies including AI, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 5G, and blockchain (and related digital currencies) have all progressed on their own merits and timeline. Each has found a degree of application, though clearly AI has progressed the furthest. Each technology is maturing while overcoming challenges ranging from blockchain’s energy consumption to VR’s propensity for inducing nausea. They will likely converge in readiness over the next several years, underpinned by the now ubiquitous cloud computing for elasticity and scale. And in that convergence, the sum will be far greater than the parts. The catalyst for this convergence will be the metaverse — a connected network of always-on 3D virtual worlds.

The metaverse concept has wide-sweeping potential. On one level, it could be a 3D social media channel with messaging targeted perfectly to every user by AI. That’s the Meta (previously Facebook) vision. It also has the potential to be an all-encompassing platform for information, entertainment, and work.

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Meta surely won’t have a free run.

Chinese search engine giant Baidu has launched its own version of the metaverse, called Xi Rang, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. A video released by the media outlet shows users experiencing the metaverse through virtual reality (VR) headsets and handheld controllers.

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Chemists can manipulate molecules, watch proteins interact and share their work with colleagues in the virtual reality platform.

Chemists may be one of the first researchers to see the benefits of working in virtual reality instead of actual reality. The VR software company Nanome has a 21st century replacement for the ball and stick models that date from 1,865 as well as software models that create 2D images of molecules on computer screens.

The VR platform has won over highly educated researchers who are skeptical of everything who at the same time have been waiting for decades for this technology to mature, according to Steve McCloskey, founder and CEO of Nanome.

Nio’s soon-to-arrive ET7 is practically tailor-made to challenge Tesla’s Model S, and now the company appears to have a (partial) answer to the Model 3. Electrek says Nio has introduced the ET5, a more affordable “mid-size” electric sedan. It starts at RMB 328,000 (about $51,450), or well under the roughly $70,000 of the ET7, but offers similarly grandiose range figures. Nio claims the base 75kWh battery offers over 341 miles of range using China’s test cycle, while the highest-end 150kWh “Ultralong Range” pack is supposedly good for more than 620 miles. You’ll likely pay significantly more for the privilege and may not see that range in real life, but the numbers could still tempt you away from higher-end Model 3s if long-distance driving is crucial.

You can expect the usual heapings of technology. The ET5 will have built-in support for autonomous driving features as they’re approved, and drivers get a “digital cockpit” thanks to Nreal-developed augmented reality glasses that can project a virtual screen equivalent to 201 inches at a 20-foot viewing distance. Nio has teamed with Nolo to make VR glasses, too, although it’s safe to say you won’t wear those while you’re driving.

Deliveries are expected to start September 2022. That’s a long way off, but Nio appears to be on track with its EV plans as it expects to deliver the ET7 on time (if only just) starting March 28th.

In recent years, engineers have been trying to develop more effective sensors and tools to monitor indoor environments. Serving as the foundation of these tools, indoor positioning systems automatically determine the position of objects with high accuracy and low latency, enabling emerging Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications, such as robots, autonomous driving, VR/AR, etc.

A team of researchers recently created CurveLight, an accurate and efficient light positioning system. Their technology, described in a paper presented at ACM’s SenSys 2021 Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, could be used to enhance the performance of autonomous vehicles, robots and other advanced technologies.

“In CurveLight, the signal transmitter includes an infrared LED, covered by a hemispherical and rotatable shade,” Zhimeng Yin, one of the researchers who developed the system at City University of Hong Kong, told TechXplore. “The receiver detects the light signals with a photosensitive diode. When the shade is rotating, the transmitter generates a unique sequence of light signals for each point in the covered space.”

Almost all animals must make decisions on the move. Here, employing an approach that integrates theory and high-throughput experiments (using state-of-the-art virtual reality), we reveal that there exist fundamental geometrical principles that result from the inherent interplay between movement and organisms’ internal representation of space. Specifically, we find that animals spontaneously reduce the world into a series of sequential binary decisions, a response that facilitates effective decision-making and is robust both to the number of options available and to context, such as whether options are static (e.g., refuges) or mobile (e.g., other animals). We present evidence that these same principles, hitherto overlooked, apply across scales of biological organization, from individual to collective decision-making.

Animal movement data have been deposited in GitHub (https://github.

Spatial has raised $25 million as it pivots away from augmented reality and virtual reality collaboration to nonfungible token (NFT) art exhibitions and metaverse events.

Spatial started out by providing AR/VR meeting places that people could access with AR glasses, VR headsets, and smartphones. But it found with the NFT art boom that it could provide a way for people to easily view digital art in virtual galleries, said Jake Steinerman, head of community at Spatial, in an interview with GamesBeat.

“We changing our direction,” said Steinerman.

As the metaverse trend increasingly gains momentum, the virtual reality (VR) market is expected to show signs of increased growth in 2021 and beyond.

Global research and advisory firm Omdia finds that 12.5 million headsets will be sold in 2021, while spend on VR content will reach $2 billion.

Overall, the research firm estimates the consumer VR market will be worth $16 billion by 2026, up from $6.4 billion in 2021. This signals a 148% increasecompared to 2021, it notes.

But there should be a system in metaverse where users can operate machines using internet.

Following an initial announcement eight months ago, Meta has released its latest avatar system for all Unity VR developers, including support for App Lab titles and limited support for non-Oculus platforms like SteamVR.

Update (December 13th, 2021): Meta today announced that its latest avatar system is finally available to all Unity developers. Formerly called Oculus Avatars 2.0—and now called Meta Avatars—the system brings a huge upgrade to avatar style and expressiveness compared to the company’s prior avatar systems.

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