Virtual & Augmented Reality and 3D - Page 153

Reuters is reporting that Intel are launching research in Israel into technology that will mimic the human brain, with devices that will hopefully "learn" about their user. Intel's Chief Technology Officer, Justin Rattner told reporters in Tel Aviv:

Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Computational Intelligence, as well as specialists from the Technion in Haifa and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem will carry out the research, and is aimed at enabling new applications, as well as small, wearable computers that can enhance, or help with daily life. One example cited is if you were to leave your keys in the house, the wearable system would remember where you left them, and learn this. By the second week it will remind the user to pick up the keys before you leave the house.

News on Google's augmented reality Glasses hasn't been strong since they were teased a few weeks ago, but CEO Larry Page was spotted rocking the Glasses in London. The pictures you see below are thanks to a Google employee, where they posted them on Google+.

The employee wrote alongside his pictures "My life is now complete - met Larry Page today! Thank you for visiting EMEA". Google's Glasses project is quite big, as its the company's first jump into cutting-edge hardware.

On top of this, thanks to the acquisition of Motorola yesterday, we should see Google's hardware division strengthened considerably. The best picture is the one above, where I think Page is laughing at the Facebook share prices tanking, as a layer in front of his eyes thanks to the Glasses, but that's just my guess.

Where do I begin to even categorize this? Within 'Augmented Reality', I guess? Well, Microsoft have begun testing their home automation software, dubbed HomeOS, over the past few months. HomeOS can view quite a lot of gadgets, more than you probably think.

HomeOS sees smartphones, printers and air conditioners as network peripherals, all controlled by a dedicated gateway computer. HomeOS even sports some apps, which perform functions such as energy monitoring, remote surveillance and face-recognition. This is all thanks to Microsoft testing the suite out in 12 homes over the past few months.

This list will only grow, and the apps are made available through a portal called "HomeStore". These apps will surely turn into something magical over the years if HomeOS takes off.

We've talked about this a few times, but the latest news to float onto the surface that is the sea of the Internet is that Valve were hiring hardware engineers, that myself, and other tech sites presumed was for their unannounced Steam Box home console. I was wrong. It seems as though Valve are hiring for something quite different: wearable computing.

Google are doing it, Apple will wait a few years and do it and call it revolutionary, but it seems Valve are also getting into the mix. Games Industry reports from a recent blog post by Valve developer Michael Abrash where he revealed the fact that Valve are hiring for wearable computing. The project is inspired by Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, where Abrash has taken it upon himself to try and shrink computers down to the point where you can have one on you at all times.

Abrash says:

The on-going multiple wars that the United States are knee-deep in probably won't stop anytime soon, and will most likely only get worse from here on out if everyone we're being fed on the news is right: Iran, North Korea and those pesky "terrorists" that the U.S. government fund left, right and centre. But, the latest step that the United State Department of Defense is working on is something very interesting indeed.

The U.S. DoD have signed a contract with Innovega, a Washington-based firm for development and testing of its dual-focus contact lenses. The technology would make it possible to project a HUD (heads-up display) onto the center of each lens, while keeping it in-focus regardless where the wearer is looking.

This would really just give the soldier a game-like HUD, where he could view his health stats, armor, and XP - on a serious note, the soldier could see details like notes from superiors, real-time maps, satellite view, and more. We're already seeing the consumer level of this technology from Google in the form of their Project Glass.

An enterprising gamer has done what gamers do best: thought outside the box. What he's done is grabbed a bunch of components, built a virtual reality, motion-controlled, Skyrim experience. The equipment used was: Skyrim, a Sony HMZ-T1, a Kinect, a TrackIR 5, a TrackClip Pro, Shoot [software], and FAAST 0.9 [also software]. The results? This:

The artist goes by the name of 'Awesome Man', and from the video's comments we have:

I talked about this a few weeks ago, where I was quite excited by the potential of Android-powered Google HUD glasses. It's become more of a reality, where the New York Times reporting that Google are not only working on them, but Google are planning to launch the glasses by the end of this year.

The New York Times cite "several Google employees familiar with the project", where NYT's Nick Bilton reports that the glasses will be powered by Google's Android OS, sport 3G or 4G connectivity, as well as GPS and a few sensors, cost-wise, we'd be looking at "around the price of current smartphones", so between say $250 and $600.

The HUD glasses are also said to sport a low-resolution camera which can monitor your surroundings in real time and then overlay the relevant information, but Google are said to be paying attention to potential privacy concerts, and "wants to ensure that people know if they are being recorded by someone wearing a pair of glasses with a built-in camera".

The first two words of hearing this news to me in my mind were, 'do want!' NERF have just announced the revolutionary new Lazer Tag system, which "combining the power, precision and excitement of live-action blaster battles with the high-action, strategic, augmented reality gameplay of traditional video games."

Players can download the free Lazer Tag app from the App Store onto their iPhone or iPod touch device, connect it to their Lazer Tag blaster, and immerse themselves in a world where "video games and real life connect". You can play in both single and multi-player, where players can engage in a Lazer Tag match featuring friends (or foes?) or virtual opponents.

Each Lazer Tag blaster has a virtual firing range of over 250 feet, and contains a Heads Up Display (HUD), which lets players keep track of their gear and remaining power, as well as providing a view of the augmented reality targets and enemies in the area. On top of this, a virtual leaderboard also keeps tabs on each player's profile, with every successful mission, players gain access to in-game upgradeable attacks, missions and gear.

Every time a new tech product comes out that I want, I make an excuse to how I can justify its purchase. Two Christmas' ago, I got myself some GTX 570s in SLI, just after my birthday last year, a Galaxy S II, and my birthday coming in March (March 12th to be precise, so all of your presents get to me on time) and now there's something I want.

9to5Google reported on this back in December, with some early information:

Wow. I remember the PowerVR days so fondly. Yes, they didn't make the same impact as 3dfx did in the day, but I remember as a young PC gamer, wanting their hardware so bloody bad it hurt. I remember getting my Dad to import me a 3dfx card (Orchid Righteous 4MB Voodoo card for those who would remember) and it being THE BEST THING EVER.

PowerVR cards were always something I never had, and now there's news they're returning to release a discrete GPU card, in the complete opposite of what they used to do. Imagination Technologies are the team behind it, and last year, they acquired Caustic Graphics.

Caustic Graphics are a San Francisco-based start-up who were (before the acquisition) working on an accelerator that would make real-time ray-tracing, a reality. They managed to make two generations of products which were more technology demonstrators than real-world products, but their FPGA chips worked.