“[A]rtist Simon Beck (previously) trudges across sand or through knee-high snow to create massive geometric drawings left behind in his footprints. From sandy expanses on the shore of New Zealand to frigid outlooks in the Swiss Alps, any pristine surface that stretches for hundreds of meters can work as a suitable canvas for Beck’s designs.”
Have you ever wondered what is going to replace the likes of Siri, Cortana, and Alexa? You may be looking at their next logical stage – this holographic digital home assistant.
Japanese startup vinclu Inc. is showing off a concept video for a holographic assistant called Gatebox. For its first incarnation, it projects a hologram named Azuma Hikari. Azuma will wake you in the morning, greet you when you get home from work, and communicate with your other smart devices in your home. Use her to turn on your TV, adjust your thermostat, play your music, etc. The possibilities are endless. If Amazon Echo had this kind of personality, it would have sold even better.
“Though humble in appearance, this object is the product of great ambitions. Dubbed a “Lunar Rake,” it was designed and manufactured in the late 1960s in partnership with NASA. A facsimile of the implement that astronauts would theoretically use to scrape up dust on the moon, this model was used only during training.”
“Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who lived aboard the International Space Station from 2012 to 2013, recently explained to CBC Music how difficult it was to play guitar in space, along with some pointers for future space musicians.”
““Your quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all.” So says Galadrial to the fellowship sent to destroy the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings. But that advice might as well be directed to the burgeoning virtual reality industry. Early optimism that the second coming of VR, after a false start in the 1990s, will blossom into a new mainstream medium could collapse into despair, with the technology joining 3D television as another misfire.”
“Greetings. We are from the future. Everything is going to be alright. The future is a beautiful place. But you will need some training in order to get there…”
More: http://WeAreFromTheFuture.com
Words, Voice & Editing by Garret John LoPorto.
Connect on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/GarretJohn
& on Twitter: http://twitter.com/garretloporto
Music: “Time” by Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer feat. Satellite Empire — Time (The Machinist Remix)
Science:
“Quantum mechanics explains efficiency of photosynthesis”
“Energy transfer in light-harvesting macromolecules is assisted by specific vibrational motions of the chromophores,” said Alexandra Olaya-Castro (UCL Physics & Astronomy), supervisor and co-author of the research. “We found that the properties of some of the chromophore vibrations that assist energy transfer during photosynthesis can never be described with classical laws, and moreover, this non-classical behaviour enhances the efficiency of the energy transfer.”
“The negative values in these probability distributions are a manifestation of a truly quantum feature, that is, the coherent exchange of a single quantum of energy,” explained Edward O’Reilly (UCL Physics & Astronomy), first author of the study. “When this happens electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom are jointly and transiently in a superposition of quantum states, a feature that can never be predicted with classical physics.”
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0114/090114-Quantum-…osynthesis
YouTube is the world’s biggest video platform, and its most popular content is still relatively short video clips. But over the last year Robert Kyncl, the service’s chief business officer, has begun to lay the groundwork for a new era of YouTube. He led the launch of YouTube Red, a subscription service that eliminates ads and brings a bunch of premium features to customers. He’s also created separate apps for YouTube’s three most popular verticals: gaming, kids, and music.
We sat down for a chat with Kyncl at CES. He gave a keynote speech earlier in the week, and one major focus was music. Despite being a video service, YouTube’s massive scale means it’s also the world’s most popular platform for streaming music. The new Music app is optimized for that experience, adding features like offline playlists and background play. We chatted about MTV and why YouTube has the ability to be many different things to different people all at once.
The second major focus in Knycl’s speech was virtual reality, a technology that seems poised on the cusp of a major breakthrough to the mainstream in 2016. YouTube has been pushing into 360 degree and 3D video, moves which Kyncl believes will lay the groundwork for virtual reality on the platform. With the arrival of a much more immersive experience, he also believes YouTube can become a far more immersive experience, a shift that may allow higher quality content to thrive.
“Clive Cookson introduces a special issue looking at the places where science and photography meet, from the intimate observation of illness to the quiet machinery of surveillance”
“Patrick Hayes’s “Human 2.0? Life-Writing in the Digital Age” provides a defense of autobiography as it comes through Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, blogging and the rest.”
