Robotic Pig Cloning in China Considered Successful – China Christian Daily

Posted on by

China Christian Daily
Robotic Pig Cloning in China Considered Successful
China Christian Daily
When you think robotic cloning is only realistic on movies, think again because a report claimed that a robotic pig cloning in China appeared to be successful during an attempt by a university in Tianjin, China. A report by China News stated that 13 ...
World's First Pigs Cloned by Robotic Instrument Born in TianjinThePigSite.com
Chinese scientists first to successfully use robots to clone pigsecns

all 3 news articles »

Here is the original post:

Robotic Pig Cloning in China Considered Successful - China Christian Daily

Copy-Craps: The 15 Worst Comic Book Clones – CBR (blog)

Posted on by

We wont pretend to know the complicatedscientific processes that go intocreatinga genetic clone of someone, this isnta science journal after all. However, it doesnt take a scientist torecognize when cloning has gone horribly wrong. Clones both good and bad are a staple of both pulp fiction and comicbooks. Clones and evil twins alike haveappeared in every major superhero book on the shelves for decades. Its a concept that makes sense, to clone a powerful hero or villainso you canhave a superhuman under your control or toreplace a lost one.

RELATED:Terrible Heralds: 8 Awful Heralds Of Galactus (And 7 Who Would Be Worse)

However, sometimes it doesnt work out the way you planned. Sometimes the clone is evil, or maybe you wanted them to be evil but they turned out good. Heck, maybe theirvery presence in comics is enough to make them horrible duplicates, muddling up narratives and story arcs. Its a good thing that cloning isnt a readily available technology in comics, or else thered be a bunch of unnecessary duplicates running around. Of the few clones that have gotten loose (or still are), there are definitely some dysfunctional duplicates, which is why CBR decided to countdown the 15 worst clones in comics.

Though his name is arguably a lot cooler than the original, this Bart Allen/Impulse clone is kind of the worst. An evil duplicate, Inertia was named Thaddeus Thawne II by his creator President Thaddeus Thawne. President Thawne created Thaddeus II after failing to recruit Bart Allen (part Thawne himself) into the long-standing war between the Thawne and Allen Families. After this failure, he cloned Bart and created Inertia to replace Bart in the past.

The opposite of Bart Allen in many ways, Thaddeus is not only, as Wally West put it, an irredeemable sociopath with Barts face, he also ages slower. While Impulse aged up to 15 in only 2 years, Thaddeus grew up slower and learned to be more calculating and methodical, not impulsive. After his first attack on Max Mercury (Impulses mentor) Inertia would go on to have a long rivalry with Impulse.

Created from the cells of Emma Frost, the Stepford Cuckoos were grown for the purpose of being able to kill every mutant on Earth. The Cuckoos are powerful telepaths that become more powerful by combining their powers into one hive mind. Fitting since they all look, dress and act alike.

The sisters Celeste, Esme, Irma, Phoebe and Sophie definitely live up the name Stepford. For those of you who dont know, this is in reference to The Stepford Wives, a book about an idyllic neighborhood full of submissive housewives that seem to act like perfect robots (because, SPOILER, they are). While the Cuckoos are far from submissive, they definitely keep a prim and proper appearance and demeanor about them, to the extent of being rather stuck up and snobby. But well forgive them since they have been a powerful asset to the X-Men for quite some time now.

Guy Gardner is already kind of a jerk. Hes loud, he brash and hes not all that keen on authority. So what would an evil clone of him be like? Enter Joe Gardner, a clone of Guy created by the Draal. The Draalarean alien race bent on controlling the Green Lantern Corpsthrough clones of the guardians. They attempted to do just that with Joe Gardner, but it didnt work out quite like they planned.

During the cloning, Guy tampered with the process, causing mental problems with the duplicate including loss of memories and psychopathic tendencies. Afterfailing to destroy and replace Guy, Joe wasnt heard from for a while. He returned laters as the Enforcer, capturing Green Lanterns and selling them as slaves. Without Guys morality, Joe is justa psychopath with a power ring. Not a good combination.

ARussian mutant and graduate of the Weapon Xprogram, Arkady Rossovich was once a serial killer with life-draining powers. He was equipped with retractable carbonadiumtentacles in each hand by Weapon X to increase his literal and figurative reach, becoming a powerful mercenary for various evil organizations until his death by Wolverine.

This wasnt the last of Omega Red, however, as an organization known as The White Sky was commissioned to create clones of the villain. These three were Omega Black, a female clone with carbonadium tentacles in her chest; Omega White, a clone with the power to create energy constructs; and Omega Red, a clone that was almost exactly the same as the original. Dubbed The Omega Clan the clones were created for the purpose of hunting and killing mutants.

Despite being raised to be an assassin to kill his father, Damian Wayneeventually grewinto his own as both a sidekick to Batman, and as his own person. Talia Al Ghul did not wish for any of this, she wanted Damian to help her enact her plan to have a perfect family with Batman, a family that could rule the world together. After Damian sided with Batman, she decided to take more drastic measures.

Enter Heretic, a clone of Damian created to be the perfect child, one who could help Tahlia enact her plans. The clone was trained much like Damian, but was genetically modified, surgically enhanced and gestated in a whales body to have peak human strength. If thats not weird enough, his rapid aging and growth gave Heretic the body of a muscular adult with the head of a child. Creepy.

Originally known as Nathanial Essex, Mr. Sinister was once a brilliant biologist in 19th Century England. Essex was shunned by his peers both for his immoral methods of human experimentation and his theories on a great mutation that existed in humanity. Eventually, Essex would fall into the hands of this great mutation when Apocalypse himself awoke and granted Essex great power and immortality. Essex renamed himself Mr. Sinister, becoming the villain we all know and love.

As a biologist and villain, it makes sense that Mr. Sinister is a fan of cloning. Sinister has cloned both himself and others countless times. He oft uses clones of himself to stand in during attempts on his life or to merelystroke his own ego. Sinister has also created various clones of other mutants include Jean Grey and Hank McCoy, each being used in some crazy and convoluted plot against the X-Men.

Speaking of Mr. Sinister Clones, Madelyne Pryor is the worst of them all. Cloned from Jean Grey, Sinister created her with the purpose of being a stand-in for the original. This is where things get creepy, as Sinister believed that anoffspring between Jean Grey and Cyclops would create a powerful mutant, one strong enough to defeat apocalypse. However, Jean grey was known to be a bit reckless, so Sinister created the clone to replace her and create his desired mutant offspring. Gross.

If that wasnt bad enough, Madelyne and Scott actually would have a child who would eventuallybecomeCable. Itwas also Madelyne herself who infected the infant Nathan Summers with his techno organic virus. She did so as the Goblin Queen, a persona she chose after turning on Scott Summers and the X-Men, brandishing powerful telekinesis, telepathy and a wide variety of magical, reality-warping spells.

From the pages of Robert KirkmansInvincible, The Mauler Twins are simultaneously some of Invincibles best and worst enemies. Massive, strong, durable and brilliant, The Twins are actually clones. Or rather, one clone and the original, though they might both be clones man this is confusing. Whichever combination it is, the original Mauler mastered cloning technology and used it to create a clone to do his bidding.

His plan didnt work out too well, however, since his clone gained all of his memories and thoughts, believing himself to be the original. While they are evil geniuses, the Maulers plans are often halted due in part to their own bickering over who is the original and who his the clone. Further, what makes these two blues the worst is that they are in part responsible for creating one of Invincibles deadliest and most ruthless villains, Angstrom Levy.

Some people might be confused with this entry. We know that the original Charles Xavier as he appeared for most of his X-Men comics career was in fact the original Charles Xavier.However, after having his body implanted with a Brood egg, Charles was under the control of the hive mind aliens. He even created the New Mutants under Brood control as a means of creating more hosts for reproduction of the aliens. The creature inside Charles would eventually destroy his body, but leave his soul intact.

After defeating the creature that burst forth from the professor, the X-Men were able to recover Charles soul from the monster, but it was without a body. However, thanks to the Starjammers, the X-Men were able to clone Charles a new body, one that was a bit younger and had functioning legs. Aint that convenient?

In a somewhat controversial story arc, Dr. Otto Octavius, A.K.A. Dr. Octopus, cheated death by switching bodies with Peter Parker, or so we thought. At the end ofSuperior Spider-Man, Peters consciousness has reclaimed his body and Otto Octavius is out of the picture. Fortunately for Ock though, he put in safety protocols so that his consciousness would survive and, after a long, arduous process of finding his original body, he was able to clone himself a young, superior body tooccupy.

With hisnew young body and his tentacles back in his hands, Doctor Octopus was back. Hisbody also had a bit of Peters DNA since, after his time in Spider-Mans body, Otto became obsessed with it (that sounds creepy) and determined it to be absolutely perfect (even creepier), thus he wanted some of his genetic material for himself (were sorry).

*Warning: The following contains spoilers forInvincible*

Also from the pages ofInvincible, Robot is a rather interesting character. Originally thought to just be a sentient robot of sorts, fans of the Image series would later learn that the character had a lot more going for him. Born a disabled and deformed human, Rudy used his vast intelligence to build a robot drone to control and live through. But living life as a robot was not enough for him.

This is where things get kind of creepy. After noticing a fellow superhero and love interest Monster Girl was attracted to Guardians of the Globe teammate Rex Splode, Robot used Rexs DNA to clone himself a new body. The new body, made to be the same age as Monster Girl, served as a host for his memories and thoughts and he would kill his original deformed self. It gets worse too, since Robot would eventually seek world domination.

Theres quite a few clone stories in Spider-Man comics, each more confusing than the last. Perhaps the most well-known, and most controversial, is the Ben Reilly clone saga. Back in the 70s, Spider-Man villain and serial cloner Jackal created a duplicate of Spider-Man, pittingthe two Spider-Men against each other, each believing themselves to be true Peter Parker. After the battle, Peter thought the clone had died and dumped his body.

However, the clone survived and started a new life for himself as Ben Reilly. The most controversial part of Bens clone saga was whenBen was revealed to be the original, and Peter the clone. Fans were shocked by this revealand the following stories in which Ben Reilly took over as Spider-Man. Eventually though, readers were relieved to find out the tests results were switched by a manipulative Norman Osborne.

After the death of Superman Project Cadmus decided to clone him and create their own man of steel, one that would follow theirorders. However, cloning Kryptonians isnt as easy at it seems. Instead of a Superman clone, Cadmus genetically engineered a human to look exactly like Superman and decided to replicate Kryptonian powers by other means. This came in the form of a telekinetic aura surrounding their clone, one that would give him flight, strength, invulnerability and limited super speed. There was, however, another problem with their clone.

Despite being designed to replace Superman, the clone was released too early, having only aged to a teenager. Nicknamed Superboy, and eventually dubbed Conner Kent/Kon-El, this Superman Clone had quite the career with the Teen Titans, rocking a spiffy, but kind of dorky costume before going casual withhis signature shirt and pants look.

Created by The Agenda, this clone has, well,an agenda. Match was created to be Superboys match (man these people are literal), cloned from his DNA and given his memories. Meant to destroy Superboy and further The Agendas agenda, Match had much more control over his superpowers, due in part to the data downloaded into his brain, an advantage he had over his originator. However, as strong as this clone was, he was eventually defeated by Superboy, and thats not Matchs only imperfection.

Matchs genetic coding was susceptible to deterioration; as a result, his body eventually started to rot away. This gave Match an appearance and demeanor similar to Bizarro. With a calcified face, rotting body and slurred, opposite-oriented speech, Match had essentially become Bizarro Superboy. In this state, he was much more forceful and violent, forcing his feelings upon Wonder Girl and attacking the Titans without mercy.

Alright, before we get angry comments on here, were not saying X-23 is THE WORST. We love her, shes badass and awesome, its just the circumstances surrounding her creation are pretty terrible. Originally appearing inX-Men Evolution, Laura Kinney was created to be the cloned daughterof Wolverine.

Laura was part of a Weapon X revival meant to create another soldier with adamantium-bonded bones. In an attempt to clone Wolverine as a subject for the process, they found their DNA samples were lacking a Y chromosome, so a female clone was proposed. A female embryo was grown inside the head scientist on the project, Dr. Sarah Kinney. Laura was born and subjected to horrible radiation poisoning to activate her mutant gene before having her claws ripped out and coated with adamantium. Jeeze, no wonder shes so grumpy, though that might be Logans genes at work.

Which clone do you think got the crappiest treatment? Let us know in the comments!

ShareOn Facebook

Pint It

Email

Link:

Copy-Craps: The 15 Worst Comic Book Clones - CBR (blog)

Turkey Bans the Teaching of Evolution in Public Schools – Voice of America

Posted on by

Turkey has historically prided itself on being a secular state.

Amendments to the constitution during the 1920s and 1930s separated religion and government policy.

Since that time, debates about the role of religion in public life have continued in the Muslim-majority country.

Evolution in Turkish schools

In a recent decision, the government banned the teaching of evolution in high school.

This action means that Turkish students entering high school will no longer learn about the theory of evolution. The theory comes from the work of Charles Darwin, the famed British naturalist.

His ideas are considered to be the basis for the scientific study of life on Earth.

The government said its decision was not about teaching Islam. Instead, officials said high school students "don't have the necessary scientific background and information-based context to understand the theory of evolution.

Alpaslan Durmus is the head of the education ministry's curriculum board. Durmus said members of the board thought the theory should be taught to higher-level students.

"We tried to leave out some of the controversial issues from our students' agenda," Durmus added.

Critics of the decision

Critics of the decision say that Turkish children will not get the education they need.

Scholar Alaattin Dincer told VOA "The Turkish education system is very weak concerning the fundamental sciences. Both in domestic and international exams; be it math, physics, chemistry and biology, our students have very low passing grade percentages. It is actually terribly low."

Dincer added that the next generation of Turkish students should learn about evolution and Darwin. "If you raise them [students] without learning those subjects, how can you argue that we are a scientifically enlightened country that can produce the scientists of the future?" Dincer asked.

This week, Turkey's main teachers' union, Egitim Sen, said it was taking the issue to court.

Mehmet Balik is the chairperson of Egitim Sen. He criticized the decision to ban the teaching of evolution and a new policy that requires schools to have a prayer room. These actions "destroy the principle of secularism and the scientific principles of education," he said.

Other critics say the government's ban on teaching evolution is part of a plan by President Erdogan to push an Islamic identity onto Turkish society.

International perspectives on the teaching of evolution

Similar debates about the teaching of evolution have taken place in other countries, including the United States.

In the late 1990s, the state of Kansas famously banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. The School Board reversed its decision in early 2001 amid public criticism.

In the mid-2000s, at least 16 U.S. states were considering changes to the teaching of evolution in schools.

Religion and science

Although critics say religion and science are at odds, some Islamic theologians say evolution and Islam can exist together quite easily.

Ihsan Eliacik is a Muslim theologian. He told VOA, "If evolution is scientific truth that exists in nature, nobody can stand against itBesides, by my religious faith, scientific truth means religious truth. The two are not contradictory."

I'm Jonathan Evans.

Kevin Enochs reported on this story for VOA News. John Russell adapted the story with additional materials for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. _____________________________________________________________

secular adj. not overtly or specifically religious

evolution n. the process by which changes in plants and animals happen over time

naturalist n. a person who studies plants and animals as they live in nature

curriculum -- n. the courses that are taught by a school, college, etc.

fundamental adj. forming or relating to the most important part of something

controversial adj. relating to or causing much discussion, disagreement, or argument: likely to produce controversy

theologian -- n. a person who is an expert on theology

Read the rest here:

Turkey Bans the Teaching of Evolution in Public Schools - Voice of America

WhatsApp, Fifa and takeaways: the perpetual evolution of unveilings – The Guardian

Posted on by

Aston Villa announce the signing of John Terry, left, and Bryan Robson joins Manchester United in 1981. Composite: Getty Images, AVFC

These are familiar times at Aston Villa. They have, after all, started July by signing on a free transfer a medal-strewn Premier League legend in his late 30s, once considered perhaps the finest player in his position in the land but more recently used to openly pondering the possibility of retirement, and announced the arrival to the world in rather humiliating style.

So far, so 2001. It was 16 years ago next week that John Gregory invited reporters to Villa Park to meet his new goalkeeper, Peter Schmeichel. The Dane, at 37 a year older than John Terry is now, was scheduled to pose for photographers while holding the clubs new goalkeeping shirt in then-traditional style but when it was brought out, bearing his name and the No1, he took one look and turned away.

I think well have to chat about that, he told his new manager, choosing instead to brandish the standard outfield kit. Peter just wont wear grey, Gregory later explained. Hes like a boxer. Everything in his corner has got to be just right.

The kit manufacturers, Diadora, were bemused. I am amazed that one guy can dictate to the club what he wears, said their managing director, Andrew Ronnie. We worked with David James on the fabric, colour and design and everything was fine. We put a lot of effort into it. David was happy but then he left for West Ham. Peter joined and now we have a problem.

Perhaps this was the day that the foundations of the traditional transfer-unveiling ceremony started to crumble. A photo opportunity with the nearest item of club-branded merchandise will no longer do: modern footballers are complex characters with high wages and higher expectations, most of whom would not deign to look at a 9.99 acrylic weave scarf, let alone brandish it with pride for all posterity.

They also bring with them an expanding coterie of agents and advisers. Bryan Robson signed his first contract at Manchester United on the pitch shortly before the start of a match against Wolverhampton Wanderers in October 1981, perched upon a wobbly wooden folding chair with his new manager to his right, the chairman to his left and the club secretary stood behind, helpfully pointing to the bit that needed his signature. It is a scene that viewed today appears as outdated as Robsons tight perm; any modern restaging would require, at the very least, more chairs, better haircuts, a great deal more paperwork and several bad-tempered arguments about image rights.

Clubs have always used the very latest communication technology to announce new signings, it is just that between the 1890s and the 1990s it changed little, with teams frustratingly restricted to the use of newspapers, photographers and the occasional town crier. Suddenly, however, their horizons have expanded. Villa announced Terrys arrival by posting on Twitter a conversation on Snapchat, thereby simultaneously ticking two social-media boxes and keeping at arms length journalists who might overhear embarrassing conversations about the ugliness of their kit.

Last week Roma unveiled Lorenzo Pellegrini by posting a video of the player using his Roma-kitted virtual self to score a virtual goal on Fifa. Last month Liverpool published a video of a thumb scrolling through a Twitter stream of posts beseeching them to sign Mohamed Salah, which turned out to be Salahs very own digit. A few days later the world learned that Crystal Palace had finally found a new manager when they posted footage of white smoke emerging, Vatican-style, from the chimney of a local Caribbean takeaway.

The popular reaction has been to mock these clubs for their novelty efforts, but after generations of cut-and-paste shirt-brandishings any innovation is surely to be celebrated, even if we still look forward to someone coming up with a good one. For years it took no thought whatsoever to organise a player unveiling, and now clubs dedicate at least a few minutes consideration and a bit of video editing to it, which is a shuffle in the right direction.

The great advance will be to professionalise and, inevitably, commercialise the experience, treating sold-out stadiums and audiences of millions via global cinema simulcasts to choreography, showtunes, fireworks both literal and figurative, and inevitable guest appearances from David Guetta. What is for certain is that unlike the monochrome efforts of yesteryear, the unveilings of the future will be anything but grey, which is something Schmeichel, at least, will be grateful for.

Read more here:

WhatsApp, Fifa and takeaways: the perpetual evolution of unveilings - The Guardian

Evolution 8c+ by Will Bosi – UKC News (press release)

Posted on by

18 year old Will Bosi has achieved an incredibly fast redpoint of Jerry Moffatt's rarely repeated Evolution 8c+ at Raven Tor (Miller's Dale), on his third attempt - a feat matched by Alex Megos in 2016 (UKC interview).

Will is currently training in Sheffield ahead of the British Bouldering Championships with strong Slovenian company. He told UKC:

'The training has been good fun, but we took a day to show the Slovenians Hubble and the rest of the Peak. Evolution has always been on my tick list as it's such a classic. My main objective has been Mutation (so the extension), but I had to do the beginning to start with.'

Commenting on the speed of his ascent, Will surprised himself:

'I was expecting to get all the moves down fairly quickly since I feel at home on the crimpy territory, but I wasn't expecting such a quick send! Just because Evolution is renowned for razor blade crimps and I had huge respect for it before attempting. The climb is absolutely amazing and it suited my style really well.'

On his first attempt, Will worked the route quickly to scope out the moves and clips. He told UKC:

'I came down thinking I had a chance on the next go and I was psyched at how good the climbing is! My second attempt was very brief - I just pulled up the start to put the rope into the second draw and came down. Third go, I was in full redpoint mode and went for every move 100%. I just managed to stick the third last move with two fingers but found the strength to get the third finger on and finish the route.'

Will Bosi on his rapid repeat of Evolution 8c+

He added:

'It ended up being a very successful quick visit to The Tor - I love the place!'

Next up for Will is a shift in focus towards the competition season, with an occasional escape to the rock.

Will is sponsored by: Red Chili and Wild Country

Cripes the chaps just done 8c+ in 3 goes at a crag that takes most people 3 goes to find the hand holes, 3 goes to find the foot holes and 3 to try and connect them. ohh and rainshadow. He may have also be studying at... Ian Broome - 21:52 Wed

No. Hopefully Will and some of the other young talents though are changing that. This is a phenomenally fast repeat. Nic Sellars also made fairly light work of the route I think, though not this quick. Steve has also... stp - 15:45 Wed

Apart from Steve M, has British sport climbing really moved on from the Ben & Jerry show? Am I right in thinking that nearly all of Steve M's top routes (i.e. the 9's) have either not been repeated or not by a Brit?... Michael Hood - 14:52 Wed

This news story has been read 3,113 times

See the original post here:

Evolution 8c+ by Will Bosi - UKC News (press release)

Woodrow Wilson & Donald Trump’s Darwinian vs. Newtonian … – National Review

Posted on by

Yesterday on NPRs Morning Edition, the historian Jon Meacham was on to talk about the political moment. Meacham had some interesting things to say. But in the course of the conversation he said this:

You know, Woodrow Wilson once said one of the tensions in the United States would be, is the Constitution going to end up being Darwin or Newton? And its really well put. Right now, its feeling more Darwinian. Trump embodies an idea or a reality that strength is what matters. Its a struggle for the survival of the fittest in a bizarre, media-driven environment.

Readers may surmise that I dont have much of a problem with this criticism of the current president. But as a dues-paying member of Woodrow Wilson Haters International, I really cant let this stand.

Woodrow Wilson did not describe this Darwin versus Newton thing as a tension. Rather, he was emphatic that the Constitution was Darwinian and that anyone who thought it was Newtonian was a boob.

Wilson said:

The Constitution was founded on the law of gravitation. The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of checks and balances. The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other, as checks, and live.

And:

Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must develop.

Meachams pejorative use of Darwinian here is very different from what Wilson had in mind. Meacham is conjuring the survival-of-the-fittest view of Darwin. What Wilson had in mind was almost the complete opposite. Wilson associated Darwinism with all social progress. He believed that all of government, and society, should harmonize and work together as one unit or body politic, to evolve into one organic entity, with no internal division. Thats what he meant by no living thing can have its organs offset against each other.

The Newtonian view, (which is really the Founders view, somewhat by way of Locke and Montesquieu) holds that conflict between different branches of government, and between the people and their leaders, are good and healthy and protective of liberty.

So, in a sense one could say Trump is Darwinian insofar as he wants everybody else to get with his program. The press should shut up and fall in line, the Democrats should stop their obstruction, the Senate should get rid of the legislative filibuster, and the whole country should unite around him. But thats not how Meacham meant it. And, to be fair to Trump, thats largely how Barack Obama saw things too. Indeed, politicians almost always think the country should be unified around them.

View post:

Woodrow Wilson & Donald Trump's Darwinian vs. Newtonian ... - National Review

The coolest robots from UK Robotics Week 2017 – CNET

Posted on by

UK Robotics Week 2017, which took place at the end of June, culminated in a showcase of some of the coolest robots from around the world.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

The parts for this prosthetic hand are manufactured by a company called Steeper in Leeds, England.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Pistons activate the fingers so that the user can grip items.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

This robotic arm is being used to help rehabilitate stroke victims and to assist children with cerebral palsy.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Users manipulate the arm to play games and complete challenges, which help retrain links between brains and muscles.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

This shape-shifting metamorphic worker robot was designed by King's College London.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

It can change its form to navigate difficult or dangerous environments.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

One potential use: reconnaissance missions in disaster situations.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Prosthetic hands are increasingly sophisticated. This one, created by Queen Mary University London, is made from soft materials.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Each finger is controlled individually by air pressure and can mimic the movements of a human hand in real time.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

This is a robotic endoscope created by researchers at the University of Leeds.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

It's cheap, compact and portable and can be used by non-specialist medical staff to look for cancer in the stomach and esophagus.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

This is Lucie, one of several of her kind currently undergoing trials in offices around the UK.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

She's learning about human environments and activities as part of a project being run by the University of Leeds

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

MiRo is an adorable companion robot designed by Consequential Robotics.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

It's affectionate and sweet, but can also provide vital help to elderly people in the home.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

As well as being able to detect falls, MiRo can remind people to take medicines.

Photo by: Andrew Hoyle/CNET

The most beautiful phone ever has one wildly annoying issue

The Samsung Galaxy S8's fast speeds and fantastic curved screen make it a top phone for 2017, but the annoying fingerprint reader could sour your experience.

Read the original post:

The coolest robots from UK Robotics Week 2017 - CNET

Gambian High School Robotics Team Denied US Visa For Global … – The Root

Posted on by

I guess the global robotics contest isnt so global after all. The United States has reportedly denied five Gambian high school students visas, consequently prohibiting them from accompanying their invention to a prestigious international competition taking place in the U.S.

According to Al Jazeera, the Gambian students are the second team that was refused entry into the U.S. to attend the FIRST Global robotics event that is taking place in the nations capital from July 16 to 18. An all-girls team from Afghanistan was also denied.

Moktar Darboe, the director for Gambias ministry of higher education, research, science and technology, told Al Jazeera that the team made up of high school students ages 17 to 18, were very disappointed.

They put in so much effort into building this, and now, after all the sacrifice and energy they put in, they have been left disheartened, Darboe said.

The robot the teens created is a ball sorting machine, and will be sent off to the U.S. without them, with the Gambian American Association representing them at the event. The teens will have to watch the event over Skype.

As Al Jazeera notes, the FIRST Global Challenge is open to students ages 15 to 18 across the world, with 158 countries, including 40 African countries, being represented. Currently, only the teams from Afghanistan and Gambia have had their visas denied.

Darboe said that they were given no explanation for the refusal, and were denied shortly after their interview at the U.S. embassy in the capital of Banjul in April. The students had to pay $170 each for their visa application.

We were only told we did not qualify and that we could try again, Darboe said. Their parents had to sacrifice a lot to pay this fee.

Fatoumata Ceesay, the teams programmer told the news site that the team overcame working in less than ideal conditions, working hard day and night, with little guidance over the holy fasting month of Ramadan. Gassam said that she was disappointed that she would not be able to represent her home country and show the world [that] yes, we can do it

But were not giving up, despite the challenges we face, we still continue to work hard, she said. Next year it will be somewhere else, so I think next year we have hope to get there.

Read more at Al Jazeera.

Originally posted here:

Gambian High School Robotics Team Denied US Visa For Global ... - The Root

Torc Robotics unveils self-driving system for consumer cars – TechCrunch

Posted on by

Another new entrant has joined the field of those offering self-driving tech to consumer carmakers but this one likely has a bit more experience than most. Virginia-based Torc Robotics has been working on autonomous vehicle tech since 2007, when it finished third in the DARPA Urban Challenge, and it has applied autonomy in a range of commercial, industrial and military applications.

Now Torc is setting its sights on the consumer car market, with a self-driving car project based on its decade of experience, with more than 1,000 miles logged of autonomous driving in recent tests using two modified Lexus RX vehicles. These have been active on roads since February 2017, driving in all weather conditions according to Torc, and equipped with Torcs in-house localization, mapping, navigation and object detection/tracking systems.

One of Torcs test vehicles performed a demonstration long-distance drive, making the 1,000 mile round trip from their Virginia HQ to Fords Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit a symbolic debut voyage to the heart of U.S. car country and the birthplace of the original Model T.

Why now for the automotive push? Torc CEO Michael Fleming told me that the time is finally right, both in terms of the state of available technology, but also in terms of the appetite for autonomous products from consumer automakers which werent always as eager to develop and invest in self-driving.

What weve found is that were some other markets that were early adopters to this technology, and there wasnt a great deal of interest in the automotive industry coming out of the DARPA Challenge, explained Fleming. Google is really the early adopter of this technology, with some key folks from the Carnegie Mellon and Stanford teams from 10 years ago, and theyve done some great marketing, and theyve been on the forefront of this technology in the automotive space.

Fleming clearly gives Google a lot of credit in terms of its role popularizing autonomous driving and making it a more familiar, comfortable subject for public discussion. But I wondered if Googles own efforts to build a comprehensive self-driving system (now under Alphabets Waymo) might not inhibit Torcs ability to operate in the same market.

Our role is more of an enabler, Fleming said. We work with OEMs, tier 1s and tier 2s in the automotive space, taking our 10 years of experience and working with these organizations, outlining their road map moving forward. This is fairly new technology to a lot of the players in the automotive space, but this is something weve been doing every day for the last 10 years, and weve tried just about every combination of technology, so we knows what works and what doesnt work.

Torc can act as a sort of guide helping players new to the space navigate the hype that is omnipresent in autonomous driving tech, Fleming says. But in addition to roadmapping, Torc also aims to integrate its own platforms with those of clients and partners bringing commercially viable self-driving tech to market. In other words, it sees itself as one of a number of partners working together, which fits with the current model being embraced by most automotive OEs.

Fleming says we can expect to hear more from Torc on the autonomous car front in the coming months, including updates regarding its technology and partners. Its early days yet for its consumer automotive business, but it does possess a rare thing in the burgeoning market: experience.

Read the rest here:

Torc Robotics unveils self-driving system for consumer cars - TechCrunch

Virginia Robotics and Cyber Academy helps teens with disabilities gain technology skills – Richmond.com

Posted on by

Some of the robots climb hills and others tell jokes.

Students at the Virginia Robotics and Cyber Academy used their new coding skills to program robots to do a variety of activities.

The five-day robotics academy, through the Career Pathways for Individuals with Disabilities, served 24 high school-age students from across Virginia. It took place at the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired in Henrico County last Monday through Friday, serving students with disabilities ranging from blindness and low-vision to autism spectrum disorders and learning disabilities.

Christopher Freeman, a recent graduate of Meadowbrook High School in Chesterfield County, programmed his robot to perform stand-up comedy.

Freeman, who is interested in information technology as well as animation, said he knew nothing past basic Java coding prior to entering the academy.

They teach you step by step how to (make the robot), said Freeman, adding that he enjoyed the hands-on approach at the academy.

Students were selected to participate in the program based on their knowledge of math and science. However, students were not required to be competent in computer coding.

Students worked from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., with lunchtime dedicated to listening to speakers from Capital One who discussed career opportunities in information technology.

At a Friday celebration, instructors talked to parents about ways students can prepare for good jobs, while students showed off their robots.

Career Pathways for Individuals with Disabilities hosts academies throughout the year to help individuals from across Virginia gain experience in fields such as technology and manufacturing.

Virginia received a $4.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 2015 to help residents with disabilities gain skills and qualify for high-demand, high-quality jobs. It was one of four states to receive federal funding for this project. The others were Kentucky, Georgia and Nebraska.

We want to try to close the skills gap and create a pipeline of young adults with disabilities who are interested in working in the advanced manufacturing and information technology fields, said Emily West, project manager for Career Pathways.

The academies give the students a chance to see if they have the interest and aptitude in advanced manufacturing or information technologies, she said.

The five-year grant allowed the Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services to partner with the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired to create the Career Pathways for Individuals with Disabilities.

The robotics academy curriculum was developed by the National Integrated Cyber Education Resource Center in Bossier City, La., which is funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create and distribute free cyber and engineering curricula to public schools across the country.

We are using content that was pulled from our high school material, said Charles Gardner, curriculum development specialist at the National Integrated Cyber Education Resource Center. These kids are learning exactly what their traditional high school peers are learning.

However, the format in which they learn differs from the standard. The material is presented in a less visual manner, relying more on motion and sound than sight.

We are hoping that the adaptations that we have made here for people with disabilities to participate can be generalized to other camps across the commonwealth so young people with disabilities can participate, said Raymond Hopkins, commissioner of the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired.

Students use speech software, allowing them to listen to the computer to understand what is happening on the screen.

As a result of grant funding, students took their specifically designed computers, as well as the robots they created, home with them at the culmination of the academy.

Students created and programed each Gobot individually. The robots functions were mostly sound-based, so students could learn together during programming stages.

It has not just exceeded our expectations; it has exceeded their expectations, said Hopkins of the robot academy.

All the teachers and students are great, Freeman said. I would recommend (the academy) to anyone if I could.

The Virginia Robotics and Cyber Academy is the first information technology and cyber technology academy hosted by Career Pathways. Programs are three to five days. Many involve manufacturing work.

Excerpt from:

Virginia Robotics and Cyber Academy helps teens with disabilities gain technology skills - Richmond.com

Gordon Hayward the best Jazz wing player of all time? Not what the numbers say. – SLC Dunk

Posted on by

So we start day one without Gordon Hayward, how will we ever recover from his loss? I think the Utah Jazz are going to be fine in the long run. They may not look fine from the jump, but its going to work out with the gaggle of younger guards and wings who will be the primary beneficiaries of all of these extra meaningful minutes.

Im not disappointed that Gordon excised his choice to pick where in the world he lives. I am disappointed that if he had a 2k word blog post in the chamber, why didnt he make this news come out sooner instead of waiting for all these small forward free agents to be sent to other teams while Utah was left holding onto a massive cap hold and couldnt make any moves. Im also not a huge fan of the timeline of how things went down yesterday either - with the leak actually being what precipitated any news from coming out. The denials werent great either as in the pit of our collective stomachs we felt that Gordon was gone, in mind and spirit, if not yet body.

However, its not the end of the world. If anything Im more disappointed that the Utah Jazz had to accommodate him so much after all the special treatment he received. He didnt get to start right off the bat and play big minutes as a rookie, but he was a bigger part of the rotation than Derrick Favors (the #3 pick of that same 2010 Draft class). He was the only one out of the Favors, Enes Kanter (#3, 2011), Alec Burks (#12, 2011) group that had a regular role in the roster for much of their rookie contract.

The marketing department featured him, the sales department sold him, and the in-house PR / broadcasting / propaganda division adored him. They fawned over him like he was an over the hill veteran who signed on to play ahead of a guy on a rookie deal. All of this reached a crescendo in the days leading up to July 1st. The #Hayday thing, their radio guys suggesting that he could be the best wing player ever in franchise history. Or that he would one day have a statue in front of the Delta Center EnergySolutions Arena Vivint Smart Home Arena Aunt Viv that was the last straw for me.

How dare the Jazz own propaganda wing forget their own history? Gordon Hayward? Up there with John and Karl? Really? Moreover, this became a personal project for me over the next few days and I researched every wing player in New Orleans / Utah Jazz history. And the statement is entirely baseless and ludicrous.

Gordon Hayward, who has four total playoff wins to his credit, all in the first round, is the best wing in franchise history? Gordon Hayward, who was the first option for four straight years and got over 20 ppg just once, is the best wing in franchise history? He didnt have to defend Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals. He didnt have to carry a team of some of the worst talented Jazzmen ever. He didnt have to face triple teams on the regular, as a wing player.

Even thinking about it again makes me upset at all the sucking up that went his way for the last two seasons - two seasons of development hijacked by trying to convince a guy that he should give us a chance when hes a free agent? This isnt the way Jerry Sloan and Frank Layden would have handled it. This is not Larry H. Millers team anymore if that trade-off is made.

Utah earned every single one of those draft picks. They are assets to be used, but back in the day some of the best players to play for the team were draft picks that turned into Jazzmen. Now were throwing away lottery picks in order to keep Hayward happy? Can you list all of the lotto picks John and Karl played with? You go to the NBA Finals with Adam Keefe being the only other lotto pick, Gordon. Show us that youre really the best wing in franchise history?

Pathetic.

Lets actually look at the numbers and judge for ourselves what his legacy in a Jazz jersey is. This data comes from the database over at basketball-reference.com - and I trust them implicitly.

In regards to the time put in, and the simple metrics of what shows up in the box score - a few wings right off the bat have been much more productive on the court. A few of them have put in more time as well, and been a much more visible part of Jazz history, especially in the NBA Playoffs. Just in minutes alone we see Hayward is between Jeff Hornacek and Matt Harpring. Thats probably where his actual legacy lies as well.

Career Utah Jazz per game averages (regular season and playoffs combined):

Yeah, I dont see how a 15 / 4 / 3 / 1 guy is the best this great franchise has to offer. He was the best player on some of the worst teams weve seen though. So theres that. His peak is more similar to Kendall Gill (with the New Jersey Nets) than it was with the actual Hall of Famers. Adrian Dantley (rounding up) averaged 30 ppg in four straight seasons. And he still added 3 apg to his 30 ppg and 6 rpg over his entire Jazz career. Pete Maravich was the do it all star for this early franchise. His 25 / 4 / 6 / 1 is also better.

Ah! But both of these guys didnt start their career with the team, nor did theirs end with the Jazz either. So to be the best you have to spend all of your career with the team? What about Darrell Griffith, his 16 / 3 / 2 / 1 is pretty similar to Hayward - but Griff was Rookie of the Year, was in the Slam Dunk contest, and actually won games in the NBA Playoffs. One rpg and one apg dont make Hayward better than Dr. Dunkenstein.

If were expanding it to guys who were Jazzmen for parts of their careers you have to give it up to Bryon Russell, Jeff Hornacek, and Andrei Kirilenko as well. B-Russ had the hardest job of any Jazz wing. Horny turned a 2nd round team into an NBA Finals team. AK-47 was just better than Hayward, period. But got none of the love from the team that Gordon did. (2nd quarter time out ceremony? Not even a half-time ceremony?)

Note: I have the data for per 36 minutes and analytics as well, but I have been getting errors on uploading the table for the past 10 minutes. I think this post has too much data in it, and its not allowing it to happen. So Im not going to go into the deep stuff. But I will say that Hayward doesnt look like the best wing ever in either dataset. He wasnt the most efficient player per 36, with guys like John Drew, Nate Williams, Donyell Marshall, and even Allan Bristow coming ahead of him.

Part of that is pace related, and just flat out ability. Hayward worked hard on his game to be a very good player. But hes not the best that ever was. Hes just the one from the vine / instagram generation.

He has a three point shot, and many of these guys from the 70s and 80s did not. But skill development is cumulative. Today we have power forwards learning more difficult dribbling drills than guards from back in the day. Everyone is shooting from three, and back then there wasnt even a three point line for some of the players in this data set. Skills are cumulative. Gordon Hayward has a lot of them. Thats a product of his era. Its not all on him.

And the mantle of best Wing player ever isnt either. He didnt lead a team of nobodies to near immortality like Andrei did. He didnt destroy the league like Pistol Pete or AD did. He didnt bring the team to the cusp of a championship like Horny did. Even as a second or third banana, what he apparently wants, he didnt do it quite like Jeff Malone or Darrell Griffith.

Is Hayward right now one of the best players in the NBA? Absolutely. Was he one of the best players on last years 51 win team? Yes. Did he score big in three playoff games? Yes he did.

Is his departure going to wreck the team? No more than his inclusion in it changed the history books of the franchise.

Goodbye Hayward. Thank you for being so precious for so long. Hopefully now everyone and stop acting like you were better than you actually were. The numbers, especially the analytics, suggest that you were a generalist - not a specialist. You were vanilla in a whole store full of more colorful and memorable flavors.

Excerpt from:

Gordon Hayward the best Jazz wing player of all time? Not what the numbers say. - SLC Dunk

5 tips to a delicious food photo – Orlando Sentinel

Posted on by

About four months ago, the Orlando Sentinel created a new food-centric Instagram account: orlando.foodie. Guess who has been uploading some (in my humble opinion) pretty delectable shots?

Its rare that one of my cooking creations makes it onto the account, thanks mostly to timing (you will understand why soon). Local restaurants make some really fantastic looking eats, anyway.

Im not a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but I have picked up a few lessons through trial and error. The next time you grab your cellphone or camera to snap a photo of your meal, I hope you keep them in mind.

If you have any suggestions of your own, please email me at ldelgado@orlandosentinel.com. Im always trying to improve.

Lighting is so key you cant completely disguise bad lighting with edits or filters.

For those of us without access to great lighting equipment, natural light becomes our best friend. Between work and daytime activities, most of my cooking is done at night in my older, poorly lit home hence the lack of home-cooked food photos on my social media.

When Im in a restaurant, Ive been known to pick up my plate and move it into better light for a quick shot (as long as Im not disturbing my fellow diners).

Does the food have texture? Is it colorful? Is it interesting? Ive vetoed shots because the delicious food wasnt photogenic.

For Instagram, hone in on your subject especially if it includes several dishes. If youre aiming for Instagrams classic square shot, you may not fit in all of those items if they are spread too far apart.

Bringing in a human element makes the photo more engaging. Include a hand holding everything from an ice cream cone to a spoonful of pot pie. You get the picture.

Take a photo of your plate from above, on the side or at an angle. Some foods such as pizza look best when photographed from above. Burgers, however, look fantastic at a side view.

Still, its always a good idea to shoot a variety of photos from different directions. Dont take just one picture of your meal. Who knows? That shot of a pizza slice at an angle may be winner.

Read the rest here:

5 tips to a delicious food photo - Orlando Sentinel

Volkswagen Uses Virtual Reality to Streamline Vehicle Development – The Drive

Posted on by

Volkswagen plans to use virtual reality to develop real-world cars. The automaker is using VR to allow staff at offices in different countries to communicate in what it hopes will be a more efficient manner.

While phones, email, instant messaging, and videoconferencing make setting up a meeting between staff in different countries easy, VW believes virtual reality will take things to a new level. Following a test phase, the automaker announced implementation of VR for vehicle development at the Digility conference in Cologne, Germany.

Virtual reality will make it easier for employees to share ideas, Volkswagen believes. The tech could, for example, allow employees at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, and its logistics offices in the Czech Republic to hold a virtual meeting and feel like they're in the same room, a company press release said.

In theory, the advantage of VR over more conventional methods of communication is its ability to simulate physical objects. Ford and BMW have experimented with using virtual reality to let staff examine 3D digital renderings of a car before committing to the time-consuming process of building a real-world clay mockup.

VW is so committed to virtual reality that, in concert with the startup Innoactive, it has created its own "Digital Reality Hub." It allows all software and hardware the company plans to use to communicate across one platform, giving all employees equal access to any projects uploaded to the VR realm. Volkswagen uses HTC Vive headsets, which are a popular choice with other companies.

Volkswagen will roll out virtual reality across its various car brands, and it will be interesting to see whether the technology makes a positive impact. VR is a hot topic both within the automotive industry and beyond, but it may be too early to say whether it really is the next big thing in tech, or just a fad.

Follow this link:

Volkswagen Uses Virtual Reality to Streamline Vehicle Development - The Drive

Player 2 Celebrates Video Games, Virtual Reality…and Beer – Westword

Posted on by

Wednesday, July 5, 2017 at 6:25 a.m.

Denver Comic Con is over for 2017,but the opportunity to geek out with other nerds over virtual reality, gaming and cosplay is just beginning. Player 2, a Denver startup, has been putting on events at bars around the city since January, giving people places where they can gather over beers to play board and video games.

"We want to bring interpersonal experience back to this stuff," says Player 2 owner Shadoe Konicek, recalling the community gaming fostered when he was young. These days, he notes, much of the gaming culture has "lost connections."

To help reinvigorate the social aspect of gaming, Konicek started Player 2, which brings a library of board games, a VR station with a full HTC Vive setup, and plenty of video games to participating bars. There, in the classic arcade spirit, you can buy tokens to use toward games or VR.

By September, Konicek hopes that Player 2 will be able to open its own private space, which will be run as a sort of clubhouse; customers will bring their own refreshments to enjoy while they game and experience a full VR station. He's confident the concept will fill a niche, and thinks it could expand to other locations, too; to help get the first one off the ground, Player 2 will run a small crowdsourcing campaign in August, offering early memberships.

In the meantime,Player 2 will be holding a "Nerd's Night Out" on Monday, July 10, at Platt Park Brewing Company, where it has held previous events. Anyone who shows up in cosplay gets their first beer for free, and players can compete in various challenges to win more beer or gift cards: Defeat the fabled samurai in the VR game Death Dojo, for example, and you couldget a$25 gift certificate to Platt Park.

"We do this so people can feel comfortable," concludes Konicek. "The point is it's okay to be adult and still like these things."

Go here to see the original:

Player 2 Celebrates Video Games, Virtual Reality...and Beer - Westword

Virtual reality exhibit goes inside Mexican border crossing, with Oscar-winning director’s help – The Mercury News

Posted on by

LOS ANGELES A new virtual reality exhibit that opened here last weekend gives viewers a first-hand look at what its like to try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and a peek into what could be the future of political ads.

In Carne y Arena (Meat and Sand) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, visitors strap on VR goggles for an immersive six-and-a-half minute movie where they find themselves among a group of migrants attempting to cross the U.S. border.

They are confronted with U.S. Border Patrol agents pointing guns in their faces, and they feel the cold of an immigrant detention cell. They hear personal stories from immigrants whove made the trek.

The experienceis directed by the filmmaker Alejandro Irritu, the Mexican director of the Oscar-winning films The Revenant and Birdman. Itallows the visitor to go through a direct experience walking in the immigrants feet, under their skin, and into their hearts, Irritu saidin a statement.

Carne y Arena, which first screened at the Cannes Film Festival, is hardly a mainstream work of advocacy. It has surreal touches: Viewers can literally peek into the chests of the virtual immigrants and see their beating hearts.

But as debates about immigration roil American politics, its impossible not to see the exhibit through a political lens.

I would pay for a bunch of Trump supporters to go and have this experience, said Anne Demo, who traveled from Pennsylvania to see the exhibit on Monday. Theres a level of humanity that really reaches you.

Such VR experiences have already become a staple of the high-end charity circuit. Black-tie clad donors at galas for the organization Charity: Water can strap on VR goggles and follow in the footsteps of a girl in an Ethiopian village getting clean water for the first time.

Cathe Neukum, an executive producer at the International Rescue Committee, which advocates for refugees, said half of the donors who watched her organizations VR production of a refugee camp in Jordan took off their headsets in tears. If youre watching a regular video on your TV or your laptop, you can walk away, but when youre engaged in a headset, youre in it in a completely different way, she said.

When a VR exhibit about a day in the life of a young Syrian refugee was included at mall kiosks soliciting donations for UNICEF, the number of people giving money doubled, said Christopher Fabian, an executive for the charity.

The possibilities for similar commentary abound. A campaign working to end solitary confinement could use VR to show people what its like inside a 6-by-9-foot prison cell, while groups advocating against President Trumps travel ban might put voters in the shoes of refugees escaping persecution in the banned countries.

For the last year, a Stanford experiment has been testing whether people who view a VR simulation of a homeless persons life from losing their job to struggling to pay rent to surviving on the streets are more likely to sign a petition calling for housing support. (The experience is on view at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.) The results are still forthcoming, said Jeremy Bailenson, the studys lead researcher. But overall, he said, theres a growing body of evidence that VR can be a powerful way to get people to empathize with others.

Not everyone thinks VR experiences about refugees, migrants or homeless people will be so influential. In a few years, everybodys going to do it its going to be boring, Fabian said. Theres a certain point where you say, I get it, the world is sad. The most exciting applications of VR, he said, will come in education and coordination connecting classrooms around the world and helping them study together, for example.

And not everyone who saw Irritus exhibit thought it would change minds. People are hardwired, especially these days, in their political belief systems, said Christine Davila, 32, of Los Angeles. Moreover, most Los Angeles museumgoers are probably already pretty immigrant-friendly in their political beliefs, she pointed out. (The exhibit is currently sold out through September.)

So far, the overtly political uses of VR have been much more rudimentary. Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign released several VR videos of his campaign events, giving viewers a front-row seat at one of his rallies. Turn one way and you see the shining faces of the Berniecrats; look down and you can see the notes for Sanders speech.

Another project called AltSpaceVR brought people from around the country together in a virtual space to watch presidential debates and have political discussions. Arguments between people who see each other in virtual reality tend to be more civil than on social media, said Eric Romo, the companys CEO: Its more difficult to be negative if you actually see another person in front of you, than when youre hiding behind a keyboard.

The advent of television transformed American politics and campaigning, ushering in live debates and the 30-second campaign ad. While its too early to say if VR could get anywhere near that level of influence, its likely to at least play a role, especially as the technology gets cheaper and more widely available.

In 2020, Romo predicted, all the major presidential candidates will have some kind of VR element in their campaigns.

Go here to read the rest:

Virtual reality exhibit goes inside Mexican border crossing, with Oscar-winning director's help - The Mercury News

Elia Petridis Launches Virtual Reality Company: Fever Content (Exclusive) – TheWrap

Posted on by

Elia Petridis, who directed legendary old-time actor Ernest Borgnine in his final role in The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez, has decided to focus on what could be Hollywoods future by starting virtual reality company Fever Content.

As part ofthe companys launch, Petridis has brought on Craig Bernard, who previously served as chief creative cfficer for SAMO VR, as Fever Contents executive producer. At SAMO, Bernard oversaw several VR projects, including the music video for the EDEN song, Drugs. That film was showcased by VR company Jaunt at this years Sundance and SXSW festivals.

Petridis VR experience includesnarrative live-action thriller, Eye for an Eye: A Sance in Virtual Reality, a collaboration with Gnomes & Goblins virtual reality studio Wevr.

Also Read: Fox Sports Rolls Out Social Virtual Reality for Gold Cup Soccer Tournament

I am very excited to be working with Craig, Petridis said in a statement. Our team understands the potential VR grants to entertainment. We fuse creation and technology to unlock the heart of each experience.

Our approach streamlines the creative process, which is crucial to our many partners and clients needs and expectations, Bernard said in the statement.We have cultivated a large network of technical and creative partners, which allows us to support even the most ambitious goals.

Fever Content makes experiences that deserve to be fully immersive, Petridis added. And we know exactly how our experiences are meant to make you feel. Our content will reach inside of you and grab at your heart strings. We are thrilled to bring audiences the latest and greatest wonders of VR.

CES Asia, the three-year-old overseas version of the annual Las Vegas tech extravaganza, took over five halls at the Shanghai New International Expo Center to showcase the latest and greatest in consumer technology -- which included plenty of robots, smart appliances and self-driving cars.A full 450 exhibiting companies and more than 30,000 attendees testdrove some products at the bleeding edge of innovation.

Cowarobot autonomous suitcase This is not your typical overnight bag. The rolling suitcase from Chinas Cowarobot can identify and follow its owner through airport concourse traffic, avoiding obstacles along the way. Italso automatically locks depending on distance from the owner, alertswhen its more than a safe distance away.

PicoNeo DKS ThePicoNeo DKS is a wireless virtual reality rig that plays like a full-fledged PC setup, with a 2.5K 5.5 inch HD screen that smooths out the often-blurry and clunky gameplay of most mobile VR devices. The setup uses Qualcomms Snapdragon 820 processor to deliver substantial computing power.

HiScene HiAR Like the Neo DKS, one of CES Asias buzziest augmented reality headsets also features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. The HiAR goggles, which feel heftier than many other AR sets, use artificial intelligence as part of an always-on voice control capability -- as augmented reality continues to move toward a Minority Report future.

Shadow Creator Halomini In case you hadnt noticed, virtual and augmented reality was kind of a big deal at CES Asia as it was at the flagship Vegas show earlier this year. Shadow Creators Halomini headset, which feels like a lighter version of Microsofts HoloLens, allows users to set appointments, chat with friends and watch videos, while keeping their eyes on whatever it was they're watching.

Ovo Technology Danovo CES Asia is full of robots, but the Danovo stood out for its fun personality as much as that applies to an inanimate object. The egg-shaped machine from Chinas Ovo Technology can navigate around items, dance, engage with people, and even project video by sliding over the top of its shell. Ovo also makes trash collecting and security robots, but they're a lot more serious than the Danovo.

Gowild Holoera Virtual reality can be lonely, which is why Gowild decided to add a friend. Amber, a 3D hologram who lives inside its pyramid-shaped Holoera device, can respond to commands, read moods and cheer users up with a well-timed song.

Qihan Sanbot Another entry in CES Asias parade of robots was Qihans Sanbot, which is based on IBMs "Jeopardy!"-winning Watson operating system. Sanbot can recognize and communicate with customers in 30 languages and process credit card payments. It also does a delightful dance, complete with glowing, gyrating limbs.

Baidu Little Fish The smart speaker from Chinese tech giant Baidu is the countrys answer to the Amazon Echo, only with a high-resolution 8-inch screen and camera that turns to face the user. It can handle the basics like controlling smart-home devices and playing music, and its face-recognition software allows authorized users to order food and medicine.

PowerVision Power Ray The fishing robot includes ocean mapping, an integrated fish luring light and even an optional remote bait drop feature that allows users to place the hook wherever they want. Its camera shoots in 4K UHD and is capable of 1080p real-time streaming. It even connects with the Zeiss VR One Plus VR headset to turn real-life fishing into a virtual reality game.

JD JDrone The unmanned aircraft is part of a plan from Chinas second-biggest online retailer, JD.com, to use drones to deliver products that weigh as much as one metric ton. The company is also developing fully-automated warehouses.

Itonology CarMew C1 This lighter socket-mounted device gives cars high-speed wi-fi, allowing people in them (preferably not driving) to get work done and stream music. It connects near field FM, auxiliary dual channels and car audio, and enables sharing of 4G networks.

The Chinese version of the annual tech extravaganza featured plenty of robots and serious advances in mobile virtual reality

CES Asia, the three-year-old overseas version of the annual Las Vegas tech extravaganza, took over five halls at the Shanghai New International Expo Center to showcase the latest and greatest in consumer technology -- which included plenty of robots, smart appliances and self-driving cars.A full 450 exhibiting companies and more than 30,000 attendees testdrove some products at the bleeding edge of innovation.

See original here:

Elia Petridis Launches Virtual Reality Company: Fever Content (Exclusive) - TheWrap

The Only Thing Less Fun Than Watching Virtual Reality Porn Is Making Virtual Reality Porn – GQ Magazine

Posted on by

Illustration by Ccile Dormeau

Its hard.

Youve probably been fantasizing about virtual reality porn ever since you discovered regular porn. Well, welcome to the VR revolution: PornHub reports that VR porn videos receive over 500,000 views daily. Finally, porn that puts you in the middle of the action.

Like the first iteration of the personal computer or the Internet before it was the meme factory it is now, VR porn is still very much in its beginning stages. Viewers at home only have a handful of websites to choose from, with little variety between scenes. For actors and producers, VR porn can be awkward, expensive, and inhibiting to shoot.

While wed like to think there are miniature women begging us to fuck them taking residence within our VR goggles, theres a lot more to shooting virtual reality erotica than meets the eye. To get the scoop on what a day on a VR set looks like, we spoke to some of the actors and producers who put naked people in front of us.

It feels like I'm in The Jetsons. Really, says adult performer and porntrepeneur Joanna Angel. But Angels version of Orbit City has its own challenges. I think the most stressful part, from a producers standpoint, is that you can't play the scene back on the camera at any point. You shoot and cross your fingers that after it's all stitched together; no ones arm or leg is cut off. It's very unsettling for a Jewish producerknowing full well there's a 50/50 chance that you might be throwing your money away.

Shooting VR, it turns out, is actually really frustrating. The cameras offer new possibilities for viewers, but they limit the positions actors and actresses can engage in.

The possible positions all depend on where the rig is stationed, continues Angel, not to mention how big or tall the performers are. Generally, there's a lot of cowgirl and reverse cowgirl more than anything else. In a regular porn scene, you always want to get as many positions, movement, and excitement as possible. In a VR scene your movements and positions are limited. It feels very much like you're performing inside of a little box.

What really separates a VR porn shoot from your run-of-the-mill shoot is the number of people who need to be involved to make it work. Daniel Dilallo, a director for 3X Entertainment, a porn production company in Los Angeles that works exclusively with Vivid, recently shot The Kim Kardashian Superstar VR Experience (a killer video that uses a Kim Kardashian lookalike to pick up where the real sex tape left off). Dilallo let me in on some of the hardships of shooting VR.

The women cant actually be too close to the camera, says Dilallo. They have to have their scenes blocked out and the actress needs to know where she can and cannot go. Men have it worse. Generally, guys are stuck in one position with a camera going over their shoulder. Its difficult for the guys to even see whats going on, which makes timing especially hard. He has to sit back, he cant use his hands. Its hard for the guys to last. The camera bares resemblance to some of the clunky robots of the 1950s sci-fi era and usually hovers over the dudes shoulder as he struggles to recall every unsexy scenario hes ever encountered in a strained attempt to not finish. Its a world away from your typical porno shoot.

But the really hard stuff happens in the editing room. The post-production time and process is crazy-long, tedious and expensive, says 3X's VR director, Adam Block, who also had a hand in creating The Kim Kardashian Superstar VR Experience. Theres also a huge learning curve as this tech continues to evolveeven for the talentas most have never shot in VR, which requires a certain amount of instruction and parameters.

Dilallo thinks the near future of off-the-screen porn will be based in augmented reality, where images are superimposed onto your surroundings (i.e. Pokmon Go). This is where those horned-up pipe dream fantasies of yesteryear will finally come to fruition. Soon youll be able to bring porn stars into your living room. Itll be as easy as slipping on a pair of goggles, choosing who youd like to have over and seeing a famous adult actress flop around on your Ikea couch. What a time to be alive and alone!

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS ONE

See more here:

The Only Thing Less Fun Than Watching Virtual Reality Porn Is Making Virtual Reality Porn - GQ Magazine

Investors Bet More Than $800 Million on Augmented, Virtual Reality in Q2 – TheWrap

Posted on by

New data is backing up Erlich Bachmans recent claim on Silicon Valley that virtual reality is the frothiest space in the valley right now. Nobody understands it but everyone wants in. Any idiot could walk into a fing room, utter the letters v and r, and [venture capitalists] would hurl bricks of cash at them.

Add augmented reality to that statement and itd be spot on. More than $800 million was invested in AR and VR in the second quarter of 2017, according to Digi-Capital, an AR-VR consulting firm.

This was a major jump from Q1, when only $300 million was poured into the budding industries. Altogether, there has been north of $2 billion invested in AR and VR in the past year.

Also Read: Fox Sports Rolls Out Social Virtual Reality for Gold Cup Soccer Tournament

Most AR and VR investments come during theearly stages of a startup, but there were several major deals between April and June that made it a strong quarter. UK-based VR gaming company Improbable netted more than $500 million at a $1 billion valuation from SoftBank back in May.

But its more than video games that are drawing investment dollars. In an email to TheWrap, Digi-Capital founder and managing director Tim Merel outlined the five sectors with the most AR-VR investment: tech, video, games, peripherals and smartglasses.

The report also pointed to an expected uptick in investment, with Apples latest iOS enabling developers to create AR apps with its ARKit. For many in the industry, the move by Apple is going to help bring AR to the mainstream.

Also Read: Check out the Virtual Strip Club 2 Chainz Created to Promote His New Album (Video)

Its a huge thing, saidChris Milk, CEO of Within VR, in an interview with TheWrap. Granted, its the beginning of AR through a phone or a tablet. But its introducing people to a completely new concept, and a new form of medium that does not have a storytelling structure.

With Facebook and Google and not to mention, Snap looking to join Apple in pushing the medium forward, Digi-Capital predicts more than $60 billion in revenue and one billion users of mobile AR in five years.

And while Q2 was a major leap from Q1 this year, it still lagged behind its peak months from 2016, when $1.2 billion was raised within the first quarter of the year.

Steven Spielberg's tech-heavy "Minority Report," starring Tom Cruise, is now 15 years old. Considered one of the most prescient sci-fi movies to grace the big screen, it predicted multiple future innovations, including facial recognition, personalize advertising and predictive crime fighting. In honor of the movie's anniversary, click through here to revisit 18 more movies that accuratelypeered into the future of technology:

We're so used to touch screens at this point -- we use them every day on our smart phones, and even at McDonald's-- that it's easy to forget that Tom Cruise used the technology in "Minority Report."

Long before Siri, there was HAL. The ominous yet soft-spoken computer system was the antagonist in 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey." Stanley Kubrick's sinister talking computer ended up turning on itscrew in a Siri user's worst nightmare.

Tech giant Elon Musk is at the helm of SpaceX, which will send two tourists to space in 2018. But "2001: A Space Odyssey" imaginedcommercial space travel decades ago.

Elon Musk, Google and Uber have been duking it out to bring self-driving cars to the masses, but Arnold Schwarzenegger might have jumpstarted the competition when he took a robot-controlled ride in 1990's "Total Recall."

"The Terminator" predicted military drones in 1984 -- long before they were introduced to police forces and militaries.

Virtual reality is taking over the tech scene.You can play games in VR, watch movies and experience Coachellaall from the comfort of your living room. But Hollywood predicted we'd have VR more than 20 years ago in 1992's "Lawnmower Man."

The 1982 cult classic "Blade Runner," starring Harrison Ford, predicted digital billboards, which you can see now all over the country, from Times Square in New York to the Vegas strip.

Remember when the TSA rolled out invasive body scanners and a lot of people freaked out? "Airplane II: The Sequel" imagined airport scanners that revealed a person's naked body to agents.

Woody Allen's "Sleeper" had robots assisting surgeons by offering advice during surgery. Today, doctors use robotics to add precision to procedures.

The beloved 1960s cartoon "The Jetsons" -- which was made into a movie in 1990 -- predicted the use of robots to clean homes. They had a robotic vacuum and a robotic maid.Can you say Roomba?

In vitro fertilization and at-home genetic testing are common place these days. "Gattaca," with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, predicted this tech in 1997.

FaceTime, and Skype before it, are commonplace today. But it was cool new technology in 1989's "Back to the Future Part II."

There are a ton of different options out there for smart watches. This was predicted in 1990's "Dick Tracy."

It's so easy to order Domino's online -- you can even watch how far along in the process your pizza is. In 1995's "The Net" with Sandra Bullock, they showed ordering pizza online for the first time.

Tinder, Bumble and OKCupid are only a few of the many, many online dating options out there. But Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks were on the forefront of the online dating trend in "You've Got Mail."

VR porn is growing in popularity. Or as it's called in 1993's "Demolition Man" -- "digitized transference of sexual energies."

From robotic vacuums to smart watches, Hollywood got these tech trends right

Steven Spielberg's tech-heavy "Minority Report," starring Tom Cruise, is now 15 years old. Considered one of the most prescient sci-fi movies to grace the big screen, it predicted multiple future innovations, including facial recognition, personalize advertising and predictive crime fighting. In honor of the movie's anniversary, click through here to revisit 18 more movies that accuratelypeered into the future of technology:

More here:

Investors Bet More Than $800 Million on Augmented, Virtual Reality in Q2 - TheWrap

Volkswagen Group is backing virtual reality solutions for interactive collaboration in production & logistics – Automotive World (press release)

Posted on by

Diving into the deceptively real world of virtual reality (VR), for example exchanging ideas with Group colleagues at a logistics hall in the Czech Republic from Wolfsburg the latest VR technology makes that possible for the first time. Experts from the Volkswagen Group have developed virtual reality applications for production & logistics that enable several participants to meet in a VR room. Following a test phase, the Volkswagen Group is now the first car manufacturer to roll out VR technology with the HTC VIVE-VR system. The Volkswagen Digital Reality Hub developed for this purpose together with the Innoactive startup bundles all existing VR applications, users and tools in the Group on a single platform. This platform is making its public debut at the Digility conference and exhibition in Cologne.

Virtual reality creates the ideal conditions for cross-brand and cross-site collaboration, Jasmin Mller from Audi Brand Logistics explains. Together with colleagues from the Group, she develops VR solutions for production & logistics as part of the cross-brand Digital Realities Team. They have already designed virtual reality logistics trainings, created virtual environments for workshops, or exchanged best practice examples in VR.

Dennis Abmeier from Group IT is also a member of the Digital Realities Team. As he explains, exchanging knowledge is just as important as bundling knowledge. Thats why we came up with the Volkswagen Digital Reality Hub central platform in collaboration with Innoactive. All employees have access to all existing VR elements as well as existing knowledge via the platform. That way, we enable individual units to implement new use cases quickly and jointly move in VR applications so they can plan new workflows interactively.

Mathias Synowski, a VR user from Group Logistics, describes the added value of virtual reality solutions: Going forward, we can be virtual participants in workshops taking place at other sites or we can access virtual support from experts at another brand if we are working on an optimization. That will make our daily teamwork much easier and save a great deal of time. Rolling out VR technologies is therefore an important step towards the digital, networked and efficient production of the future.

The testing and rollout of virtual reality applications is an example of cross-brand cooperation in the Group: under the umbrella of Group Logistics and the Digital Factory, the Digital Realities Team is currently developing further virtual reality applications for production & logistics at the Audi, SEAT, KODA and Volkswagen brands. The applications will be accessible throughout the Group via the Volkswagen Digital Reality Hub common platform. As far as the technology is concerned, the VR end user device is the HTC VIVE Business Edition, a special VR headset developed specifically for businesses. The Volkswagen Group is therefore the first car manufacturer to roll out virtual reality (VR) technology throughout the Group with the HTC VIVE headset.

The Volkswagen Group, Innoactive and HTC VIVE are presenting the new VR applications for production & logistics as well as the Volkswagen Digital Reality Hub to the public for the first time at the Digility conference and exhibition in Cologne on July 5 and 6, 2017. There will be a live demonstration of the latest VR applications at the trade fair for AR and VR technologies.

Read more from the original source:

Volkswagen Group is backing virtual reality solutions for interactive collaboration in production & logistics - Automotive World (press release)