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Facebook launched a feature that allows users to upload photos with 360-degree views on Thursday.

Apart from photos taken from 360-degree cameras, panoramic photos taken on a mobile phone can be converted to a 360-degree view on the newsfeed, the company said on Thursday.

The photos can also be seen in virtual reality compatible devices, Facebook said.

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Fun video and article with some transhumanism now on the main China Public TV (English).


We’ve heard a lot about Augmented and Virtual Reality. But outside of gaming, is it practical in the workplace? That’s a key focus at this year’s Augmented World Expo in Silicon Valley.

At the Augmented World Expo, it’s goggles, goggles and more goggles.

Companies like Vuforia are out to prove augmented reality is not just fun and games. Their software allows a service technician to more quickly repair almost anything.

“If you’ve ever struggled with something that looks like a diagram, something 3-dimensinal maybe an instruction manual, an automotive manual where you are trying to go through different steps. All of those diagrams come off the paper and can be over your eyes and in your hands using AR,” Jay Wright, president of Vuforia, said.

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What will we do when money has no meaning? And if everyone gets life extension what will today’s mega rich think and/or do about it?


May you live in interesting times – A curse, origin unknown

One of the ‘curses’ usually attributed to ancient China, but frequently thrown around in today’s society is ‘May you live in interesting times’, suggesting that living in turbulent times, no matter the cause, is somehow a bad thing.

True or not, there is no denying one thing – every individual fragment of time was interesting in its own right, and I’ll be free to say that life has never been as interesting as it is today. Just look at what humans did in the last 40 years – first we got computers, then the internet, mobile phones, smartphones, high-speed internet, high-speed internet on smartphones, social media, virtual reality, augmented reality, drones, exoskeletons, prosthetic mind-controlled limbs… all of these things happened in less than a single lifetime.

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“HoloLens … is not just a headset. It’s also an API – called Windows Holographic — built by Microsoft to let developers code programs from the HoloLens itself. The company’s announcement that it’s opening Windows Holographic to partners means that they, too, will be able to build devices for its API platform. Anything that’s developed using that API should work as well on partner devices as on the HoloLens itself.”

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Don’t believe me? Here’s Musk’s argument in full:

The strongest argument for us being in a simulation probably is the following. Forty years ago we had pong. Like, two rectangles and a dot. That was what games were.

Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it’s getting better every year. Soon we’ll have virtual reality, augmented reality.

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The recent Google I/O developer conference at which the company reveals its new products and directions brought with it several surprising announcements that mark significant changes for the way the company approaches its online business.

The first was the admission by Google chief executive, Sundar Pichai, that Amazon had taken the lead in voice-activated devices when it launched Echo last year when he announced the company’s own Google Home, a similar table-top, voice-controlled AI assistant. These devices have been made possible by the rapid improvement of voice-recognition technology and AI fast enough to respond in real time to questions and answers. But under the surface, the devices are deeply integrated with the cloud, and in the case of Echo, Amazon’s online marketplace.

This is significant because Echo now boasts more than 400 different “skills” and connected suppliers through which users can order food, look up calendar appointments, pay credit card bills, search for information and many other things – just by asking with their voice. The ecosystem of companion products around these intelligent assistants is growing too: just by asking, you can switch on the lights in any room, control the thermosat, security system and fire detectors, automate perimeter doors or fences.

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