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Category: mobile phones – Page 280

Facebook to Open New Division to Build the Future of Social VR

Ever since Facebook purchased Oculus in 2014, Mark Zuckerberg has been speaking to promise of virtual reality as the next communications platform. Yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona he punctuated those thoughts with a big announcement – the creation of an internal team dedicated to Social VR.

Led by Daniel James and Mike Booth, the team will work closely with Oculus as well as other divisions within Facebook to explore and build the future of social interaction in VR, the company says.

Facebook describes their work in VR as “still early” but Oculus has been working to lay the groundwork themselves with experiences like Toybox and an upcoming social SDK that will allow developers to easily implement key multiplayer and networking features into their experiences. In fact, Oculus’ dedication to Social VR is “the reason why [they’re] part of Facebook,” Oculus founder Palmer Luckey told us earlier this year.

Still the idea of a metaverse – a giant interconnected world like the ones in Snow Crash or Ready Player One – is something far off.

“It’s not happening in the immediate future,” Luckey said, “we’d much rather work and get this right over a longer period of time than rush into it at the start and be constrained by the design decisions that we make.” He says that it will take VR reaching a “critical mass” for there to be enough data to know how best to design how the future of social interaction will look.

While it may take a while for VR to reach that critical mass Samsung’s announcement that they plan to bundle a GearVR with every Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge preorder could potentially accelerate the process. Last year Samsung reportedly received over 20 million preorders for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge and while Samsung says the GearVR giveaway is “while supplies last” if they give away even a tenth of that it would significantly accelerate the growth of VR’s user base, which in turn could accelerate the growth and need for social VR.

Mark Zuckerberg talks at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016: VR is the next social platform

Full event: https://youtu.be/dz057r6hGj4
Watch Mark Zuckerberg talks at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016: VR is the next social platform.

At Samsung’s Unpacked event — where the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge were revealed — Zuckerberg explained about his fascination with VR and how he has been dreaming of using the technology since the age of 11.

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This Is What WIFI, Cell Phones, iPads & More Are Doing Your Child’s Brain – 100 + Scientists Are Now Petitioning The UN

Meet the opponents of BMIs & their report.

*This article only represents a very small fraction of the research regarding the dangers associated with these devices. We encourage you to further your own research, and just wanted to provide a base to let you know that it’s something more of us need to pay attention to.

Did you know that a child’s brain absorbs much more radiation than that of an adult?

Dr. Martin Blank, Ph.D., from the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Colombia University, has joined a group of scientists from around the world who are making an international appeal to the United Nations regarding the dangers associated with the use of various electromagnetic emitting devices, like cells phones and WiFi.

We All Need A Robot Like This To Iron Our Clothes

I could see dry cleaners in the future being one that you drive up, drop your clothing in a bin (like a drop off box), key in your name and phone number on a kiosk, you get a ticket, a self driving van/ truck collects from the drop off box, the robotics cleaner cleans and processes your clothes. You come to the dry cleaning center, you pay, and collect your clothes.

Also, if you opt to have your clothes delivered; at time of drop off you will be required to prepay and enter in your address at the drop off point. And, a drone delivers to your address.

Ironing sucks, but it’s the kind of precise activity that usually stumps robots. But no longer, because a wonderful team of engineers has developed a robot that can smooth the creases right out of your most wrinkled pair of pants.

The team has published a paper on the arXiv server that describes a new robotic system to smooth cloth using a regular iron. Using two Xbox Kinects, the system scans the surface of whatever it needs to smooth then works out the best way to iron it. The team explains in its abstract:

We present a novel solution to analyse the cloth surface by fusing two surface scan techniques: a curvature scan and a discontinuity scan. The curvature scan can estimate the height deviation of the cloth surface, while the discontinuity scan can effectively detect sharp surface features, such as wrinkles. We use this information to detect the regions that need to be pulled and extended before ironing, and the other regions where we want to detect wrinkles and apply ironing to remove the wrinkles.

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What does it mean that a phone is encrypted?

FBI not able to hack a phone is really starting to make them look really bad. Granted Apple has created a more advance encryption format on their phones; however, FBI is supposed to be a lot more advance than this.

Why would you want your smart phone encrypted? To protect the information on it should it get lost or stolen, and to ensure no one has tampered with your data.

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Is Your COUCH Smart Enough? Enter the Immersit

Smartphone meet the Smartcouch.

http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwgeeks/article/Is-Your-COUCH-…-20160220#

I’m reporting this news now from my couch and I must admit that after months of immersion in the Smart Home world, I’ve never once considered if my sofa was on the list of home products needing to be upgraded. Until, I suppose…today. Welcome to the Immersit, the new device which might have you never looking at your La-Z-Boy the same way again. Or, if you’re like me … wondering if the product will work, destroy your sofa, or frighten the heck out of your pet.

Let’s go to the Kickstarter which is fully funded with more than $100,000 dollars pledged and still weeks to go. Here’s how they describe themselves: “Immersit, a plug & play device installed under your couch, can generate a very high amount of movement patterns and vibrations ranging from explosive to subtle: pitches, rolls & heaves, moving users back & forth, from side to side and up & down. All these, combined with intelligent vibrations and an adjustable intensity, result in the ultimate movie and gaming experience in which each explosion, wave & sharp turn is felt directly by the user from his own furniture.”

The genesis.

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Gaming Chip Is Helping Raise Your Computer’s IQ

Using gaming chips to read people’s images, etc. definitely makes sense especially as we move more and more in the AI connected experience.

Facebook, Google and Microsoft are tapping the power of a vintage computer gaming chip to raise your smartphone’s IQ with artificially intelligent programs that recognize faces and voices, translate conversations on the fly and make searches faster and more accurate.

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Caterpillar’s New S60 Is the First Smartphone With FLIR Thermal Imaging Built Right In

Once strictly an extremely expensive tool used only by law enforcement and the military, thermal cameras are now accessible to anyone with a smartphone and a $250 accessory. But starting with Caterpillar’s new rugged S60, thermal imaging sensors are starting to be built right into smartphones.

The FLIR ONE thermal camera started life as a bulky case for the iPhone 5, but was eventually streamlined into a compact dongle that connected to the microUSB or Apple Lightning port on the bottom of iOS or Android smartphones. With the new CAT S60 smartphone, however, the Lepton sensor that allows FLIR cameras to see in total darkness has finally been integrated into the device itself, alongside its standard rear camera.

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