Oct 15, 2015
MIT’s Crazy Shapeshifting Display Can Now Build With Blocks
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: robotics/AI, virtual reality
MIT made a table-like robot that can build with blocks. No humans needed.
MIT made a table-like robot that can build with blocks. No humans needed.
“Next Wednesday, the design agency Positron will release a virtual reality “experience” in which viewers can get a first-person look from the cockpit at a race between the DeLorean and a Tesla Model S P90-D. The date is no coincidence: fans know October 21, 2015, is the day Marty McFly arrives in the future in Back to the Future II. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the first film, released in 1985.”
Are we living in a virtual reality? Is the universe emerging from an information processing system? And if so, could we ever tell? Is it possible to ‘hack’ the system and change reality? Take a look at the evidence and decide for yourself! Contributions to THE SIMULATION HYPOTHESIS are made by leading researchers from physics, cosmology, mathematics and information sciences. Appearances by MaxTegmark, Neil degrasse Tyson, Paul Davies, James Gates and many more. Science has never been so much fun!
“What an incredible film! Fascinating, mind-bending stuff.” — Timothy Rhys, Publisher: MovieMaker Magazine.
Ray Kurzweil’s singularity of human superintelligence is a polar opposite of the singularity described by Vinge, Hawking, and Bostrom:
“The singularity will be a merger of our bodies and minds with our technology. The world will still be human, but transcend our biological roots. There will be no distinction between human and machine, nor between physical and virtual reality.”
Dear readers,
Continue reading “Celebrating the 10 Year Anniversary of book The Singularity Is Near” »
My new and first article for The Daily Dot. It’s about transhumanism and the Immortality Bus tour:
Continue reading “Why I’m running for president—and got a chip implanted in my hand” »
Virtual reality headsets can trick our eyes and ears into believing we’re someplace else. Fooling the rest of the body is a little trickier though. Companies have tried spinning chairs and omnidirectional treadmills, but nothing comes close to the “Cable Robot Simulator” developed at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. The player wears a wireless VR headset inside a carbon fibre cage, which is then suspended in mid-air and thrown around the room using eight steel cables. The exposed pod is able to tilt, bank and move with an acceleration of up to 1.5g in response to the VR experience. Researchers have shown off some basic flight and racing simulations, but we’re already imagining how it could be used in our favorite video games. A dogfight in Star Wars: Battlefront Tearing around corners in F-Zero GX The possibilities are endless. It’s still very much a prototype, and hardly suitable for home use, but we’re desperate to have a go ourselves.
A sequel to Steven Spielberg’s epic movie, MINORITY REPORT is set in Washington, D.C., 10 years after the demise of Precrime, a law enforcement agency tasked with identifying and eliminating criminals … before their crimes were committed. Now, in 2065, crime-solving is different, and justice leans more on sophisticated and trusted technology than on the instincts of the precogs. Sept. 21 series premiere Mondays 9/8:00c
LIMITLESS, based on the feature film, is a fast-paced drama about Brian Finch, who discovers the brain-boosting power of the mysterious drug NZT and is coerced by the FBI into using his extraordinary cognitive abilities to solve complex cases for them. Sept. 22 series premiere Tuesdays 10/9c
Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Entertainment/New Media | Human Enhancement | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics.
With more than $100 million in total investment, Jaunt is among the cluster of startups trying to take VR mainstream.
The creators of Monument Valley have released their first VR game, and it’s amazing.
One of the most remarkable things about Monument Valley, the mobile puzzler from Ustwo, was how it managed to lure in people who don’t play games. Its intuitive controls and beautiful, MC Escher-inspired worlds made it the rare blockbuster that almost anyone could play. And now the studio is looking to do the same thing in virtual reality. On October 30th, Ustwo will release Land’s End on Samsung’s Gear VR, an exploration game that maintains many of the same principles of Monument Valley — stunning art, accessible controls — and transports them to a 3D space.
“The thing we wanted to do, is to bring our way of thinking to VR,” explains Peter Pashley, technical director at Ustwo Games. “We find that a lot of people who are making VR experiences are kind of making quite traditional games. I wanted to make sure that our branding was represented in the early days of VR.”
Continue reading “The studio behind Monument Valley is set to launch its first VR game” »