Lifeboat Foundation

Helmets provide 360-degree visibility without exposing soldiers to risk.

The FDA has recently given 510(k) clearance to the OpenSight Augmented Reality System, the first augmented reality (AR) medical solution for Microsoft HoloLens cleared for use in pre-operative surgical planning.

The technology projects 2D, 3D and 4D images of patients interactively by overlaying them onto the patient’s body, according to a Novarad press release published Oct. 24.

OpenSight specifically utilizes the Microsoft HoloLens headset that allows simultaneous visualization of the 3D patient images in AR and the actual patient and their real-world surroundings. The technique may decrease operative times and improve surgical planning and the understanding of anatomic relationships.

Continue reading “FDA approves first Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality system for surgical use” »

The tech world’s latest virtual assistant looks so realistic, you might mistake her for an actual human.

Apple has Siri, and Amazon has Alexa. But the lifelikeness of both are dwarfed by Mica: a prototype that Magic Leap, a highly regarded augmented-reality startup, unveiled at its conference Wednesday.

Mica isn’t just a voice assistant. She’s something you can actually see if you wear the company’s augmented-reality glasses, called Magic Leap One. Mica looks and acts like a human — she makes eye contact and offers a warm smile, along with other human-like expressions.

Continue reading “Magic Leap’s new AI assistant looks alarmingly human” »

As the artificial brain races towards the singularity, what we often forget is the boost to human brainpower that will accompany it. As we increase our senses and perceptions, humans have a choice what to do with these new superpowers, that can be used to reinforce one’s tunnel vision of life or to ignore it.

This story is part of What Happens Next, our complete guide to understanding the future. Read more predictions about the Future of Fact.

Not everyone experiences the world in the same way. Whether it’s how you react to the results of an election or what tones you hear in a sound clip, observable reality is often not as objective as you think it is.

Continue reading “Virtual and augmented reality will change our sense of a shared reality” »

September 27 is World Tourism Day, which has been celebrated each year by the United Nations World Tourism Organization since 1980. The theme this year is “Tourism and the Digital Transformation,” as digital technology has permeated the tourism industry.

Virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, Internet-plus — these terms have gradually become familiar to people travelling in China, as the country is heading to its tourism industry 3.0. A wide range of cutting-edge technologies have been innovatively applied in almost every part of China’s tourism industry.

I don’t know about you, but I had to look them both up to get a solid understanding of these terms. Of course, these ideas aren’t new. And the brave new world of biohacking, I mean grinder biohacking, is fodder for edgy and future forward media outlets as well as the nightly news. What interests me is the shift to a more commonplace reference like Gartner report. Their analysis of over 2,000 innovations from quantum computing to augmented reality, lead them to choose that fine line between man and machine. It’s important and a bold wake-up call to humanity.

Is humanity about to enter its greatest point of transformation?

Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore may have multi-million-user installed bases, but so does Niantic’s Pokémon Go, the first hit augmented reality game. Now Niantic plans to offer its custom AR software to other developers as the Real World Platform, and is teasing advanced features that go beyond the capabilities of Apple’s and Google’s development kits.

Already used in Pokémon GO, Ingress, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, the Real World Platform is an evolving software engine that adds digital characters and shared social experiences to real-world map data. Niantic has recently bolstered the AR platform’s development team by acquiring computer vision specialist companies Escher Reality and Matrix Mill (which also has machine learning expertise).

Continue reading “Niantic will offer AR platform to third parties, including AI object recognition” »

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Clothing, skin patches and augmented reality glasses – welcome to the new age of data collection for mental health care.