Daily Archives: May 26, 2017

3 automated transcription tools for journalists – Journalism.co.uk

Posted: May 26, 2017 at 4:05 am

You have just returned to the office after a brilliant interview, ready to write your masterpiece, when suddenly the sense of dread hits you it's time to transcribe.

Although often seen as a laborious task, transcribing can be useful to reinforce key points from your interview, especially when you're writing complex stories that need greater attention to detail.

However, if you are short on time and need to publish quickly, it might be worth checking out these transcription tools for journalists.

They require audio files to be as clear as possible, with minimal background noise and distorted speech, but these options are cheaper than using commercial transcription services which are more expensive.

This new tool has recently been developed by two students from Dublin University, and uses the Google Speech API to transcribe audio files in a matter of minutes.

Simply go to the website, enter your email address, upload your audio file and select the language its in. The site will charge you 0.09 cents per minute, which works out as 2.70 (approximately 2.30) for a 30-minute transcription.

Click 'submit' and wait for Scribe to transcribe the file. When the process has been completed, you'll receive a link to your transcription on the Scribe website.

If you want to make sure the transcription is accurate, you can listen back at this point and edit the text, also attaching hyperlinks where you need to.

You'll find that interviews recorded in person transcribe more accurately than those over the phone, and punctuation isn't always 100 per cent correct, but if you're happy to scan through afterwards, it's great for getting the audio on the page.

Trint works in a similar fashion to Scribe, allowing users to upload a file directly to the website, choose the language, and receive the file via an email link.

Before uploading, the tool reminds you to upload clear conversations with little background noise, however it struggles slightly with transcribing English spoken with a stronger accent.

The final product gives you in almost every instance a clear transcription, along with timecodes for individual paragraphs.

Users are offered a free trial to try out the tool, after which you can choose from a range of plans. The options include paying monthly according to how much audio you want transcribed, which costs 13.20 per hour or 100 a month for 10 hours of transcription and there's also a monthly roll-over on unused hours.

Pop Up Archive, created by former journalists Anne Wootton and Bailey Smith, is aimed at podcasters as an online transcription tool that indexes transcripts to make them searchable.

Users can pay from $15 (12) for one hour monthly, all the way up to $300 (231) for 25 hours every month however you should bear in mind that unused hours don't carry over to the next month.

The tool transcribes audio recorded in English in real-time, noticeably slower that Scribe and Trint, but we found the quality very good, with a few punctuation errors in transcriptions of phone interviews, and timestamps matched to the millisecond. Pop Up Archive can also differentiate between voices useful if you have more than one interviewee in the clip.

Once you've uploaded your file, you have the option to add metadata, includin title, format, collection, images, and any relevant tags, if you'd like your audio to be publicly available in the site's archive.

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).

See the article here:

3 automated transcription tools for journalists - Journalism.co.uk

Posted in Mind Uploading | Comments Off on 3 automated transcription tools for journalists – Journalism.co.uk

What Gary Vaynerchuk Learned by Experimenting on Himself – Entrepreneur

Posted: at 4:05 am

This story appears in the June 2017 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe

Reader Resource

Apply now to be an Entrepreneur 360 company. Let us tell the world your success story. Get Started

Gary Vaynerchuk arrives at his Manhattan office at 8 a.m. Theres no slow ascent -- no sipping coffee while scrolling through emails, no idle chitchat to forestall the onslaught of responsibility. Instead, as he does every morning, he quickly huddles with the two people who will accompany him throughout the day: his personal assistant, which is typical of most executives, and his personal videographer, which is, lets just say, a profoundly Gary Vaynerchuk kind of role.

The assistant, Tyler Schmitt, runs Vaynerchuk through the days schedule. There are 24 meetings, including check-ins with the staff and clients of his digital media agency, VaynerMedia, as well as a wild assortment of guests -- social media stars, athletes, actors, musicians, many with entourages in tow. As usual, the action will be captured by the videographer, David Rock, nicknamed D-Rock. When the time comes, D-Rock will raise his camera, train it on his bossand barely take it off him all day, except during sensitive client meetings.

Related:10 Steps to Becoming a SuccessfulEntrepreneur

All right, you guys ready? the 41-year-old CEO says to Rock and Schmitt, who are now standing with a few other members of what, internally, is known as either Team Gary or Garys Team -- a 16-member group that also includes a brand director, designers, merchandisers, influencer marketers and business developers. Lets start the show.

At 8:10, the guests start arriving. Theres an interview with a potential executive hire, a podcast recording with Digg founder Kevin Rose, a talk with a young Dallas entrepreneur who won face-to-face time with Vaynerchuk in a Twitter competition. Then another meeting, and another, in blocks of five minutes up to an hour, with Vaynerchuk gesturing, laughing, swearing freely, peppering each visitor with questionsand offering assessments. You need a teammate, so let the things you arent gravitating to yourself lead you to the partner youre looking for, he tells Daina Falk, creator of the Hungry Fan sports tailgating site and cookbook, who is working to manage her brands growth. I really do think Facebook is Netflixs biggest competitor, so listen -- write a TV show, but do it on Facebook, he tells Greg Davis, Jr., a.k.a. Klarity, a 32-year-old actor who wants to expand his social following.

Theres a string of internal confabs. If Im the bottleneck, lets try a meeting where everyone hurls questions at me and I can only say yes or no, just to clear up the things that get clogged, he suggests to his management team. (They try it two days later. It doesnt work; Vaynerchuk talks too much.) Theres the surprisingly businesslike crew from hit Instagram meme-machine FuckJerry, reps from the NHL, a Los Angeles style blogger and rapper Sean Combs social media team. Diddys trying to reach a new audience, says Deon Graham, the boss. Vaynerchuk is all over it. Puff has energy, so lets give your new team the reins on new ideas, he says. The ideas themselves will come after a dinner meeting between Combs and Vaynerchuk, which Graham vows to set up. After a round of the requisite selfies, which almost every visitor takes with Vaynerchuk, they bounce. More meetings convene. Scheduled ones, impromptu ones, conference room drop-ins, Sorkin-esque walk-and-talks. I ask Schmitt, the personal assistant, what happens if someone cancels a meeting. He looks at me blankly. He finds a meeting.

Through it all, Rock is a persistent fly on the wall, training his DSLR on the action. Sometimes hes in the room, sometimes he grabs scenes from outside the glass partition, moving the camera around for dramatic effect. Originally, Rock produced this reality show himself -- filming and editing the videos of Vaynerchuk and uploading them to social. Now he has a team of videographers, which speeds the turnaround. The meetings I witness today will be cut up, subtitled, set to a beat and released tomorrow as a show called DailyVee on YouTube (to Vaynerchuks 645,000 subscribers) or in quick hits on Twitter (nearly 1.4 million followers) and Instagram (1.7 million).

The clips tend to capture Vaynerchuk frenetically hammering home his favored themes -- focus on your strengths, work your ass off, spot the next big shift and get there first, stop obsessing over stuff that doesnt matter, be the bigger person, give more than you getand above all, execute. All this output, plus his relentless social media engagement and videos where he answers viewers questions, has fostered an ever-growing group of fans who treat him as an all-knowing sensei, enamored with his ability to cut right to the heart of their problems. And that, in turn, has turned him into an entrepreneurial celebrity. In addition to the videos, he pumps out books, podcastsand many conference keynotes, and is now costarring in Apples first-ever original TV series -- a tech-based reality competition called Planet of the Apps -- alongside Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrowand will.i.am. Last spring when he tweeted that he was in London and offered to meet with followers, 200 people converged on a city park, all hoping to pick his brain, #AskGaryVee-style. (That would be his YouTube Q&A show, of course.)

This high profile has also drawn a different, less flattering kind of attention. The world of entrepreneurship is, to be frank about it, full of hucksters -- people who had one business success, or maybe skipped that part entirely and went directly into wisdom-spouting mode. To the polished bosses of old business in their sepulchral C-suites, Vaynerchuk can look a lot like King Huckster himself. After all, who the hell is so sure of their golden word that theyd pay a videographer to tail them?

Related:22 Qualities That Make a GreatLeader

Vaynerchuk insists this doesnt bother him. Underestimating me is what I fucking live for, he says. And anyway, to dismiss Vaynerchuk is to overlook something important about how to build a brand today. He is the living, breathing version of what digital marketing can do -- because once he started mainlining himself into the internet, it helped him be a successful entrepreneur, which made him a celebrity, which helped him become an even more successful entrepreneur, which made him an even bigger celebrity, with each part feeding the other. His net worth has grown to $160 million, and his fast-growing agency now employs more than 700 people and pulled in $100 million last year.

Gary Vaynerchuk is, in other words, what every brand wants out of social media. He connects and excites and inspires loyalty. So, the thinking goes, if brands want all this -- to connect and excite and inspire loyalty -- they should be more like Gary Vaynerchuk.

If youve ever heard Vaynerchuk interviewed, youve likely heard him tell his origin story -- in which a small-time wine guy discovers the power of digital marketing. But the tale is really more than that; its about how a small-time wine guy realizes the power of personality. His father, Sasha, took over an anonymous New Jersey liquor store in the early 1980s, shortly after emigrating from the then Soviet Union, where his son was born in 1975. Vaynerchuk assumed operations after college in 1998 and began experimenting. He rebranded the store as the Wine Library, then initiated online sales and fired off weekly emails to customers with special deals -- both pioneering moves at the time. Sales grew from $4 million annually to $45 million in just five years.

Entrepreneurs will often say that constraints are valuable -- that they force people to be creative. Wine was Vaynerchuks constraint. Alcohol is hard to market; there are regulations about advertising, servingand transporting it. But, he realized, there were no restrictions on marketing himself talking about wine. In early 2006, barely a year after YouTube launched, Vaynerchuk created a daily show on the platform called Wine Library TV. He turned out to be a natural communicator, something he attributes to growing up trying to understand his father. My dad doesnt talk. He literally doesnt talk. The human does not speak, Vaynerchuk jokes. So Ive had to spend my life trying to extract from him what he was thinking and feeling. This turned out to be a valuable skill, because marketing, by its very nature, requires the same sort of intuition.

You must infer and analyze based on small, stray amounts of feedback. You listen, in effect, by speaking and listening for echoes.

Wine Library TV earned him coverage in Time, an appearance on Late Night with Conan OBrienand a book deal. It also made him itch for a bigger platform. The YouTube show gradually evolved into conversations about business and entrepreneurship. His followers became more interested in marketing than merlot. At that point, wine became a constraint that was no longer valuable. I had so many ideas but couldnt execute them all at the Wine Library, he says.

Related:12 Secrets to Supercharging YourPersonal Brand

This, it seems, is where Vaynerchuks philosophy crystallized. Like every marketer, he originally thought he needed somebodys product to sell. A marketer without a brand to manage seemed like a bricklayer with no bricks to lay. But the digital revolution changed that. It may be an old observation now, but what Wine Library TV taught Vaynerchuk back then was still a revelation: People could be brands. He could be a brand. And by treating himself like one, he could fashion himself into a walking, talking R&D lab, testing his more forward-thinking marketing theories on himself, without having to gain some clients permission first. Then, if his personal brand took off, he could package those theories and strategies and sell them to clients, in effect helping them be more like Gary Vaynerchuk. I never actually set out wanting to be a personal brand, leveraging that to sell my own stuff, he says. Instead its how I learned my craft, by being the plumber and the electrician and the general contractor. I got to test my beliefs.

One of those beliefs became this: Provide value over and over again -- educate, entertain, enlighten -- and then present your ask to the audience. Subscribe to my channel. Buy some wine. Read my book. (Hed go on to spell this out in his 2013 book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. The jabs are the value; the right hooks are the asks.) So he handed control of the wine shop back to his father and began preparing for his biggest ask yet: If you like my social media insights so much, hire me to execute them on your behalf. In 2009, Vaynerchuk and his brother AJ launched VaynerMedia.

In its first few years, as Vaynerchuk transitioned away from the wine operation, VaynerMedia lingered in double-digit personnel and a few million per year in revenue. With time, however, came traction. The company opened offices in Los Angeles, Chattanoogaand London. It signed bigger and bigger brands. Last year revenues were up 50 percent over the previous year, to $100 million. In 2016 it moved into shiny new digs in a massive Manhattan high-rise to house the agency, a newly launched investment fund (Vayner/RSE)and a two-year-old sports agency (VaynerSports).

The VaynerMedia office is a spectacle. It contains endless rows of open-space desks populated by more than 700 strategists, marketing expertsand business-development personnel -- most of them young and few with typical agency backgrounds -- who manage clients digital marketing campaigns, influencer programs, e-commerce strategies and technology integration, as well as personal brand development for celebrities, CEOs, artists and athletes. The staff also includes 200 writers, designers, photographersand animators, all focused on helping large companies and huge stars act more like their boss.

Here, on a grand scale, is where Vaynerchuks philosophy that what works for a one-man brand can translate to the worlds largest companies -- including General Electric, Unilever, Diageo, Toyotaand Chase -- is put to the test. Louis Colon III, director of the Heritage line at Fila North America, says Vaynerchuks strategic personal touch on social resonated immediately. Gary understands firsthand what it is to be an underdog and an entrepreneur, Colon says. Were in a highly competitive industry in footwear and apparel, and for us to stand out, he helped develop a cadence of interesting storytelling that keeps the consumers attention. Thats meant a steady stream of product launches amplified through social media placements and collaborations with athletes, artistsand retailers, on their channels and Filas. We never ask for the sale, we just ask to be a part of the conversation and to have the consumers attention.

And what does a brand do with all that attention? It engages. Through Vaynerchuks personal brand-building, hes found that heavy engagement -- replying basically to everyone who reaches out -- boosts not just your following but also your reputation. Today, 85 percent of his 135,000 tweets are replies. He wrote a book about this, 2011s The Thank You Economy, and the point is reproven on social all the time.

Sometimes his clients need more than content help; they need to be awakened to the breadth of digital possibility. When Toyota hired Vaynerchuk to help with social strategy, it wasnt leveraging new social tools or platforms fast enough. Garys point was that anyone marketing for today is a full day behind. That opened everyones mind up, says Jack Hollis, a group vice president and general manager at Toyota Motor North America. Vaynerchuk pushed them to be in new places first. Facebook video could become as significant as TV ads, he said. Demographically appealing influencers should be hired to help market specific car models, rather than brand-wide. Toyota did so, and entered Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat in ways it hadnt before -- even as Vaynerchuk warned that the clock was ticking fast on every new strategy.

But as VaynerMedia helps teach brands what it knows, Vaynerchuk is also creating a pipeline for ideas to come in -- so that hes learning from the next generation of social stars. This is a big part of why he so happily meets non-clients in his office. During that endless-meeting day, for example, he sat down with Farokh Sarmad, the 22-year-old founder of a luxury lifestyle Instagram feed and website called Mr. Goodlife. The guy had racked up millions of followers, but he wanted Vaynerchuks advice on growing his business further. Vaynerchuk sensed a mutual opportunity, so he began a trade. First he provided value. Rely less on Instagram, he told Sarmad, because at any moment the platform could change its terms and screw him. Ill help you build infrastructure to be independent, Vaynerchuk said. Then he made his ask. I want to siphon off as much exposure as possible from your audience. When we meet again, be prepared to have that meeting.

Related:2 Key Lessons inBrand Building

Once Mr. Goodlife departs, Vaynerchuk admits he may not get much out of that deal. Their two brands barely overlap. But thats fine. I dont think equal trades are always necessary, he says. What I gain from these exchanges is the big-picture wisdom -- the psychology of how creators and followers view these new platforms, the nuances of how theyre used. I get peoples insights and make my own decisions for both my own brand and, yes, the brands that hire VaynerMedia.

The man feeds the brand, and the brand feeds the man. The synchronicity has worked well for him so far. And hes discovering that as both parts of his life grow bigger, the balancing act gets even more complicated.

Vaynerchuk hands me his cellphone and points to a text message he received earlier in the day. Its from a client asking him to personally tweet about their promotion. He shakes his head. Theres a bright line around that, he says. Ive done maybe four posts in seven years that have promoted clients, and only because they were noble causes.

These requests happen every few months. Its wise to turn them down. If he sold access to his Twitter feed, it would devolve into spam and trigger a tailspin: Hed become less interesting to fans and brands alike. Yet its easy to understand why a client would expect otherwise. Vaynerchuk and VaynerMedia are ascendant, intertwined entities. Toyota, for example, also hired him to speak at a critical meeting with the companys regional directors. And as he builds his sports agency, hell occasionally pitch himself as part of a deal. Sign his athlete, he might say, and youll also gain access to him, behind the scenes, advising on marketing. It can get confusing -- when hes for sale, and when hes not.

To strike the balance, hes building it into the very fabric of VaynerMedia. Hes clear up front with clients about what his role will -- and will not -- be. To make clients comfortable with a team of people who are not named Gary Vaynerchuk, he makes a big deal out of hiring top talent. He calls his company the honey empire -- as in, a powerful entity built to attract people -- and dubs his executive in charge of HR, Claude Silver, the chief heart officer, to emphasize the importance of treating workers well. If we get the people part right, Silver says, youll see phenomenal results in the empire part.

Hes also built what he calls the Office of the CEO, a team of four VaynerMedia veterans who serve as his proxies throughout the company. Theyre stationed in the mission control center, right outside his glass-walled office -- alongside, rather symbolically, all the Team Gary personnel. The four Office of the CEO members consult continuously with division leaders, update Vaynerchuk, and then funnel his feedback back outward. That way everyone at this increasingly sprawling company can feel like they have a line in to the boss. The goal is to build a bigger, scalable version of the chief of staff idea, Vaynerchuk says, to give me more operational eyes and ears in different pieces of the business. If Im going a thousand miles per second and cant keep up with everything, this gives me a way to see things through.

Heres one thing he wont do, though: Pull back on the Gary Vaynerchuk show. I get so much out of it. It allows you as a talker to listen and get feedback, on a vast scale, he says. But in conversations with him, I can see him working through the distinction -- wanting to support both his personal brand and his business, but without one overlapping the other. I dont want anybody to hire us because of me, he says. Its OK to be aware of us because of me, but thats where it ends. Look, marketing and personal branding are important. Its real. But it doesnt trump what goes on behind it.

Related:6 Rules For EffectiveFeedback

Instead, hes come to think of his two brands as on divergent paths -- that one day, VaynerMedia can be a thriving media company thats eventually fully separated from his own brand, in both appearance and practice. Because when he looks back at the worlds greatest companies, he sees that they succeeded not because of their leaders public profile but because of their leaders true skills as an entrepreneur. If youre good enough at what you do, the market plays itself out, he says. Steve Jobs was ridiculously great at self-promotion. Bill Gates wasnt. They both won.

In a digital world, yes, a person can become a brand. Vaynerchuk has done that. Building a brand that stands on its own? Thats harder. But do it right, and it lasts longer than any one man.

Eric Adams is a freelance technology, travel, and business writer, and a photographer.

See the original post:

What Gary Vaynerchuk Learned by Experimenting on Himself - Entrepreneur

Posted in Mind Uploading | Comments Off on What Gary Vaynerchuk Learned by Experimenting on Himself – Entrepreneur

Mind-bending virtual reality exhibit opens Friday at Tech Museum – The Mercury News

Posted: at 4:04 am

SAN JOSE Its just before dawn in a post-apocalyptic world and a dim bluish hue fills a flat landscape your canvas in a virtual world. With the flourish of a brush, you paint life-size art in 3-D and then walk right through it.

Thats one of the many virtual experiences visitors at The Tech Museum of Innovation can savor at their new exhibit, Reboot Reality, that opens Friday.

The place is dedicated for immersive technologies, with the latest and the greatest tech out there, said Nadav Hochman, experience developer at The Tech. This exhibit is focused on the future of creativity.

The Tech is one of the first museums in the country to have a permanent exhibit like this one.

Were really excited about the way VR is going to change everything,said Prinda Wanakule, director of experience development at The Tech.

The museum partnered with innovators, artists and major Silicon Valley companies like Google, Facebook, Stanford, Adobe and HP to bring the best of virtual and augmented reality to the public.

We really harnessed all the creative juices from Silicon Valley, said Hochman.

The exhibit is a treat for kids and for kids of adult ages boasting a wide range of technologies designed to foster creative confidence. Visitors can sculpt digital clay on Medium by Oculus, paint virtual worlds in Google Tilt Brush and compose shockingly-real oil paintings on a computer screen with Adobes Wetbrush.

This is really good for people who are trying to pursue art, said Morgan Lee, 17, a freshman at Mission College, as she stepped out of her Tilt Brush experience duringa sneak peek for school and college students.

For artists aching for a digital brush stroke to feel real, Wetbrush is an experimental prototype that Adobe is sharing exclusively at The Tech.

Were really sharing something where the paint is wet, said Nathan Carr, principal scientist at Adobe Research,adding that the new toy uses complex physics to simulate the exact way paintbrush bristles bend and move when an artist pushes down on the stylus and the way bristles move around the paint. We wanted to get the exact same feeling of oil paint.

The technology isnot something people can buy yet, Carr added.

It requires a lot of computational power to drive an oil painting engine like this, said Carr. Were using hardware that most people dont have in their homes our hope is that technology will get faster.

3-D design is something that has been difficult for a lot of people to access.

It requires a lot of time using software in order to create things, said Wanakule. Using a platform like this you can feel a little bit more natural, you can jump in there and create something right away.

Creating 3-D art in a virtual world may seem like a lost cause, because there isnt an easy way to share it in the physical world. The Medium, however, allows artists to bring home a file they can use to 3-D print their creations. And paintings on Wetbrush can be printed onto a 3-D canvas that captures every single ridge of the virtual brush stroke.

Tucked in another corner of the exhibit is an experience like no other a full-body virtual reality device that simulates the experience of gliding like a bird. Visitors can strap themselves onto a bird seat facing down, flap their wings and soar across Manhattan or the Swiss Alps. A fan that streams cool air makes the experience more real than it really is.

It is by far the most immersive virtual adventure out there, and The Tech is the only place in California where people can try it out.

Its thrilling, said Wanakule. The first time I was on it, I was screaming so loud.

VR and other immersive technologies can be really powerful, added Wanakule. We dont want people to only come in here and just see something passively, we want people to engage with it, she said.

A lot of these technologies are already changing the way people learn and work. One of the experiences at the exhibit is a 360-degree peek into the upcoming Diridon Station. Usually clients see these drawings on paper before they approve a new construction with their architect.

But with VR, clients can walk through the virtual space and say I dont like that wall, said Wanakule.It opens up the process for a more participatory design.

Go here to read the rest:

Mind-bending virtual reality exhibit opens Friday at Tech Museum - The Mercury News

Posted in Virtual Reality | Comments Off on Mind-bending virtual reality exhibit opens Friday at Tech Museum – The Mercury News

UCSD opens country’s first virtual reality lab – 10News

Posted: at 4:04 am

LA JOLLA, Calif. (KGTV) It may seem like a typical computer science classroom at UC San Diego, but its the first virtual reality lab to open in the country.

I can interact with these tools and grab things, touch things, said Connor Smith.

Smith, a third-year student at the University, said hes passionate about creating interactive virtual reality worlds.

Would you rather read a history textbook or would you rather go back in time and experience history as if you were there, said Smith.

He said he puts on the goggle-like devices and it transports him to a different place - one he created.

Virtual reality is the future, augmented reality comes right after, said Professor Jurgen Schulze.

Schulze teaches the undergraduate students how to program, design and develop a new world. The class officially launched in May. It started with 30 students, and it has expanded to about 300 students.

Being inside a world they design is a unique experience for them, said Schulze.

Connor Smith, a #UCSD student is designing a cool #virtualreality world. It's part of the new #VR lab that opened! STORY @10News 5pm! pic.twitter.com/4E0O22qLvb

Smith said his passion project is creating a world where people can feel what its like to have certain eye disorders. He said once people put on the device, it helps them feel what other people are experiencing.

It facilitates empathy so that people can understand what it's like to live with a perspective of someone who does have disorders, said Smith.

10News was live on Facebook with a 360-degree look inside the story. Check it out here:

Go here to read the rest:

UCSD opens country's first virtual reality lab - 10News

Posted in Virtual Reality | Comments Off on UCSD opens country’s first virtual reality lab – 10News

Virtual Reality May Reveal New Clues About Autism Social Difficulties – Scientific American

Posted: at 4:04 am

Youre walking down a narrow corridor. Someone is walking toward you, so you step to one side. But in that moment, they step to the same side. You make eye contact, grin awkwardly and then, without a word, negotiate a way around each other.

Our lives are full of these delicate social dances. Whether were having a conversation, playing a game or trying to avoid collisions with passersby, our social interactions are reciprocal. My behavior affects your behavior, which in turn affects my behavior.

But until the past few years, research into social cognitionthe psychology of human interactionhas been decidedly non-interactive. Participants looked at images of faces, read short stories about social scenarios, or watched videos of other people interacting. They didnt actually interact with another person.

Take the Sally-Anne task, which is widely used in studies of autism to test theory of mind, the ability to understand other peoples beliefs, intentions and emotions. The participant watches an interaction between two dolls and is asked to predict the behavior of one of the dolls based on an understanding of what the doll believes.

When children with autism answer incorrectly, the assumption is that they have failed to read the dolls mental state and that similar failures explain their difficulties interacting with other people. However, many adults with autism pass this test, and even others that are more challenging, yet still experience severe social difficulties.

These observations clearly demonstrate that traditional tests of social cognition fail to capture key aspects of social interactions, particularly in adults, that are essential to understanding autism.

We need tests that allow us to precisely measure behavior in complex, reciprocal social interactions. To achieve this goal, we and others are investigating the use of virtual-reality technology as a tool for research and, potentially, therapy.

Using these technologies, we have confirmed that problems with joint attentionthe ability to coordinate with someone else so that you are both paying attention to the same thingpersist into adulthood. Weve also gained important insights about the roots of these problems. We also hope that adults with autism can one day practice their social skills within specially designed virtual environments.

In 2013, a team led byLeonhard Schilbach, now at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, published anew manifestofor social cognition research. These researchers argued that social cognition should be investigated using a second-person neuroscience approach, in which behavior and brain responses are measured while people engage in reciprocal interactions.

This emerging field offers exciting possibilities for understanding autism. But it also presents serious challenges: Experimental investigations require precise control of the conditions so they can be repeated and manipulated consistently. Achieving this control in the context of a realistic social interaction is far from straightforward.

In a review article published earlier this year, we addressed these issues. We focused on studies of joint attention, which involves both responding to your partner to attract his attention, and initiating joint attention, by guiding that person to an object or location of interest. Joint attention is important in the development of language and social skills, and a delay in its development is one of the mostreliable early signs of autism.

One approach used in a number of studies has been to measure brain responses while participants are engaged in a joint-attention game with another person, either face to face or through a live video feed. However, this relies on the partner behaving consistently for all participants.

Differences in the brain responses of people with and without autism may reflect differences in the neural mechanisms of joint attention. But they could just as well reflect variation in the behavior of the partner, or in the participants sensitivity to other social cues, such as smiles or eyebrow raises, from the partner.

To address these issues, we and other researchers have replaced the human partner with a virtual partner, or avatar, whose behavior is controlled by a computer.

In our own studies, participants interact with an animated virtual character called Alan whose face appears in the center of a computer screen. We use an eye tracker to see where on the screen the participant is looking, and program Alan to respond to her eye movements. This gives us complete control over the interaction.

The participant works with Alan to catch a burglar who is hiding in one of six houses on the screen. Each trial begins with both Alan and the participant searching the houses. If the participant finds the burglar, she initiates joint attention, guiding Alan to the burglar by making eye contact and then looking at the correct house. If, on the other hand, Alan finds the burglar, he initiates joint attention and the participant responds.

The game requires participants to coordinate their behavior with Alan, make use of eye contact and flexibly assume different roles in the joint-attention process.

The search phase of our task also adds a complexity that is absent from other studies. Because Alan makes many eye movements during the trial, the participant has to decide whether a particular eye movement is intended to guide her to the burglar or is simply part of Alans ongoing search.

We have found that participants respond much faster if we remove the search phase so Alans eye movements always indicate the burglars location. This suggests that what we call intention monitoringworking out whether a cue such as an eye movement is intended to be communicativeis an important part of joint attention.

In research published in April, we used this task with a group of adults with autism. Overall, they made slightly more errors than controls did. They were also slower to respond to the avatars eye-gaze cue, but were just as fast as controls when we replaced Alans eye-gaze cues with an arrow pointing to the burglars location.

This finding suggests that the difficulties of adults with autism are specific to the social interaction involved in the task, and cannot be explained by other factors that might affect performancesuch as the ability to orient attention or control eye movements.

Our findings suggest that subtle joint-attention difficulties continue into adulthood, at least for some people with autism. This contrasts with evidence from other studies suggesting that children and adults with autism have no difficulty responding to eye-gaze cues on a computer screen.

We think this may reflect the intention-monitoring component of our task, which makes it more akin to a real-life interaction.

In our research so far, participants have interacted with a virtual character on a computer screen. The next step is to use fully immersive virtual-reality headsets to recreate more realistic social interactions, in which individuals must evaluate multiple social cues at once, including eye gaze, head orientation, hand gestures, speech and facial expressions.

We, among others, are also considering clinical applications of new immersive virtual-reality technologies. Virtual simulations could perhaps be used for social-skills training in which elements of a social interaction are introduced gradually. Virtual meeting spaces could also allow people with and without autism to interact in a safe and controlled environment that reduces anxiety and sensory overload.

Many of the insights in our research have come from adults with autism. Theyve told us how to make our task easier to understand, and theyve described the strategies theyve used to complete the task. Many have told us that although the virtual interaction is cognitively challenging, it is less intimidating and anxiety-provoking than real-life interactions.

Involving people with autism in research is key to its success. As virtual-reality technology improves and becomes increasingly affordable, the possibilities may be limited only by our collective imagination.

This story wasoriginaly publishedonSpectrum.

Read this article:

Virtual Reality May Reveal New Clues About Autism Social Difficulties - Scientific American

Posted in Virtual Reality | Comments Off on Virtual Reality May Reveal New Clues About Autism Social Difficulties – Scientific American

UH students create high-resolution, virtual reality Star Wars simulation – KHON2

Posted: at 4:04 am

Two University of Hawaii at Manoa studentscreated a stunning simulation that willtake you to a galaxy far, far away.

In honor of Star Wars40th anniversary,engineering graduate student Noel Kawanoand computer science student Ryan Theriot created Star Wars Squadron and Tatooine.

Their project utilizes a hybrid visualization system that combines immersive virtual reality with ultra-high-resolution display walls.Stand inside, and you can wield a light saber or fly a starfighter through space.

Because of this new system we decided to take advantage of its capabilities and make something really cool, Kawano said.

The system itself, calledDestiny-class CyberCANOE(cyber-enabled Collaboration Analysis Navigation and Observation Environment), was created by UH computer and information sciences professor Jason Leigh.

Leighs students were also heavily involved in the design and construction of the$250,000 state-of-the-art system,with investment and partnership from the National Science Foundation and the UH Academy for Creative Media System.

Its the seventh and bestCyberCANOE Leigh has built in Hawaii over the past couple of years.

The cylindrical CyberCANOE, which is 16 feet in diameter and stands eight feet high, allowsscientists and researchers to visualize data at resolutions that are 100-times better than commercial 3-D displays, for example, exploring outer space or probing microscopic elements within the human body.

On Oct. 28, 2016 the National Science Foundation tweeted: At 256 million pixels, the CyberCANOE at @UHManoa is the highest resolution #VR display in the world.

An open house in Augustwill allowthe public to view the system first-hand.Details have yet to be announced.

Read more here:

UH students create high-resolution, virtual reality Star Wars simulation - KHON2

Posted in Virtual Reality | Comments Off on UH students create high-resolution, virtual reality Star Wars simulation – KHON2

First Wales showing of Treehugger: Wawona virtual reality – BBC News

Posted: at 4:04 am

First Wales showing of Treehugger: Wawona virtual reality
BBC News
A virtual reality experience which allows people to encounter one of the world's most impressive trees is coming to Wales. Treehugger: Wawona, which showcases the the giant sequoia of California, won an immersive storytelling award at the 2017 Tribeca ...

and more »

View post:

First Wales showing of Treehugger: Wawona virtual reality - BBC News

Posted in Virtual Reality | Comments Off on First Wales showing of Treehugger: Wawona virtual reality – BBC News

Quirky Icelandic singer Bjrk brings ‘Bjrk Digital,’ her creative virtual reality show, to LA – OCRegister

Posted: at 4:04 am

Bjrk appears as a virtual reality avatar to talk about her new VR exhibit, Bjrk Digital, and her upcoming performances in Los Angeles. At the podium is Andrew Thomas Huang, the Los Angeles filmmaker who created many of the videos featured in the show. (Photo by Jeanette Oliver)

Bjrks new video for the song Notget premiered on the opening day of Bjrk Digital, a new virtual reality exhibit in downtown Los Angeles that will run through June 4. Seen here are stills from the video directed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones. (Photo courtesy of Bjrk)

Bjrks new video for the song Notget premiered on the opening day of Bjrk Digital, a new virtual reality exhibit in downtown Los Angeles that will run through June 4. Seen here are stills from the video directed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones. (Photo courtesy of Bjrk)

Bjrks new video for the song Notget premiered on the opening day of Bjrk Digital, a new virtual reality exhibit in downtown Los Angeles that will run through June 4. Seen here are stills from the video directed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones. (Photo courtesy of Bjrk)

Bjrks new video for the song Notget premiered on the opening day of Bjrk Digital, a new virtual reality exhibit in downtown Los Angeles that will run through June 4. Seen here are stills from the video directed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones. (Photo courtesy of Bjrk)

For the opening day ofBjrk Digital, a touring exhibit by the quirky Icelandic singer-songwriter, Bjrk showed up in person. Virtually, at least, which is entirely the point of the show in downtown Los Angeles through June 4.

Much of whats on display here fromBjrk who also has a sold-out show with a 32-piece string orchestra on May 30 is built around the use of virtual reality, and so when the media assembled for a preview of Bjrk Digital filed into a dark room with a large screen it wasnt that hard to guess who the special guest was about to be.

Bjrk, in the form of a VR facsimile, beamed into the room to chat live from Manhattan about the genesis of the exhibit, which got its start, she explained, after her most recent album Vulnicura was leaked online two years ago. Instead of promoting the record in a more traditional manner, she decided to try something new, teaming up with Los Angeles filmmaker Andrew Thomas Huang, to create 360-degree virtual reality videos to accompany some of the songs on the record.

You can still improvise, Bjrk said of her interest in exploring VR as an artistic medium. It does remind me of the future. Its blank and you dont know. You sort of have to dig a cave with a teaspoon and you dont know what youre going to get.

On the screen,Bjrk appeared as a red-and-purple avatar, a lavender horizontal wound on her chest Vulnicura is said to mean cure for wounds with tiny strands of lights encircling her. When she moved in Manhattan she moved on the screen.

Well come back to her conversation in a moment, but lets walk through the highlights of Bjrk Digital, which is presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, first. It opens with the Biophilia room, where iPads programmed with apps created for the 2011 album of the same name gives users a chance to interact directly with the songs, changing the imagery and the playback as you choose.

The next room features a video for the song Black Lake, with two slightly different edits screening simultaneously on either end of a large room filled with 50 speakers. It creates a cool effect as you move through the room, but the good stuff was just ahead with three rooms in a row that featured 360-degree virtual reality videos of another five numbers.

Stonemilker was shot on an Icelandic seashore and presents Bjrk singing directly to you, and occasionally twoBjrks side by side. You watch this one and the two that follow while sitting on a bar stool that allows you to turn around and while wearing a VR headset and headphones to view other parts of the setting where the video was shot.

The relative realism of Stonemilker gives way to the surrealism of Quicksand and Mouth Mantra. In the first,Bjrk seems made of light and stars, and the viewer feels to be floating inside a constellation created from the matter that flies from her mouth and eyes and skin. For Mouth Mantra the warnings of the exhibit workers if you feel disoriented inside the video, take the headset off finally make sense, as the video places viewer inside Bjrks mouth as she sings the song, the overall feeling something akin to a bad acid trip.

The final two interactive videos are the most ambitious. Family features a Bjrk similar to the avatar shed appeared at for the media a bit earlier, and the viewer here holds hand-controllers in addition to the VR goggles and headphones, with the triggers on each hand letting you create ribbons of light and bursts of color.

Notget was much the same, though without the hand-held devices, and presents the singer as per the exhibit description a digital moth giantess (who) transforms victoriously in masks, because, after all, itsBjrk were talking about here, yes?

After all that, we return to the Cinema room where a two-hour loop of music videos from throughoutBjrks career are screened on a loop, with pillows scattered on the floor so you can chill out a bit to everything from Bachelorette and All Is Full Of Love from her 1997 album Homogenic to Hidden Place from 2001s Vespertine, and on throughout her catalog.

Earlier in the same room Bjrk had talked about her upcoming shows in Los Angeles shes with the orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Tuesday, May 30, and plays the first night of the FYF Fest in Exposition Park on July 21.

I decided to put all the focus on the music for (Disney Hall),Bjrk said, describing the concert as her vocals with just the orchestra and no flashy visuals. Im kind of fond of extremes, as you probably noticed. Its going to be all for the ears.

At FYF, though, where shell perform with her recent collaborator, DJ and electronic musician Arca, the show will have all the lights and videos youd expect at a rock show, with a different set planned to emphasis the change from one setting to the next.

I really enjoy these poles, she said. To sing for two hours with just strings is double hard because I cant hide behind anything. Its more naked. With Arca, its more happy, more joyful.

Shes also got new music coming soon, too, a happier counterpart to Vulnicura, which was written in the wake her split with longtime partner Matthew Barney, and reflects that turmoil in its subject and sound.

I am right now starting to make my next project,Bjrk said. And it probably happens not on earth.

She paused to giggle and continued.

I dont want to give too much away, but yeah, probably.

Bjrk Digital

When: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. through June 4. Ticketed entry every 15 minutes, with approximately 90 minutes needed to view the exhibit.

Where: Magic Box at The Reef,1933 S. Broadway, Los Angeles

Tickets: $35

Also:Bjrk performs at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on Tuesday, May 30 as part of the L.A. Phils Reykjavik Festival, and also at the FYF Fest at Exposition Park in Los Angeles on Friday, July 21.

Information: LAphil.com/tickets/bjork-digital-overview or Bjork.com

Visit link:

Quirky Icelandic singer Bjrk brings 'Bjrk Digital,' her creative virtual reality show, to LA - OCRegister

Posted in Virtual Reality | Comments Off on Quirky Icelandic singer Bjrk brings ‘Bjrk Digital,’ her creative virtual reality show, to LA – OCRegister

How AI is changing the way entrepreneurs do business – TNW

Posted: at 4:04 am

Smartphones changed a lot, but now Artificial Intelligence is taking care of business

Since we live in the age of technology, it seems like every other day there is a new gadget or system that is changing how we live our lives. And while it may be some time before we drive hovercrafts and have robotic maids (like Rosie from The Jetsons), Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a huge player in technological innovation right now.

On a smaller scale, there are smart apps that allow you to turn off lights in your home or start your car. On a larger and more popular level, are those AI systems that have become mainstream, like Apples Siri or Amazons Alexa. These products are changing how people interact with technology, and in the entrepreneurial sphere, how people work and conduct business each day. Here are a few ways that these AIs are affecting, and often improving, the day to day lives of entrepreneurs.

Organization

If you went back just two decades, it would seem impossible that people would no longer need weekly planners and rolodexes. Keeping track of your schedule, planned events, and friends phone numbers was a pen and paper ordeal. Once smartphones came into the picture, it seemed natural to oust the old methodsthere was a calendar and address book, even a wallet, right in your phone.

Then came helpers like Siri. Without lifting a finger, you can ask the sassy assistant to not only jot down appointments, but to rearrange them and make note of future events; she even gives you directions to locations. Americans are known for their workaholic tendencies, but now more than ever, multi-tasking is the method of operation. Busy entrepreneurs can use platforms like Siri as date books and secretaries. Everything is in one place, managed by a smart computer.

Communication

Its easy to shrug off the notion that people dont talk as much due to the evolution of technology, but with AI, it is clear that the way we talk to one another is quickly changing. While at one point, a businessperson would have to set aside time to sit down to make a call or send an email, it can now be done anytime, anywhere.

Similar to the perks of streamlined organization, Artificial Intelligence allows entrepreneurs to text or email on the go. You just say the word, Google, send an email to Bob, and the AI will allow you to vocalize what you want to say. AI is even learning how to communicate with humans, and how to interact with them on a deeper level. This may seem trivial, but this technology is huge. It wasnt that long ago that the internet seemed like the most complex discovery, but now AI can connect entrepreneurs and other businesspeople not only to the web, but to each other.

Health

You trust your doctor with your life, right? Now imagine your doctor was a robot. Would that change how you got regular check-ups or diagnoses? Well, AI is now becoming ever more popular in healthcare and wellness. For entrepreneurs, healthcare related AI not only provides a spectacular platform for new innovations, but also be more aware of how their busy lives affect their health.

Not only are AI machines replacing doctors in tradition positions, but more people use technology to monitor and adjust their health trends than ever before. There are AI trainers and apps that allow people to keep in shape. AI can even improve diagnostic accuracy and patient care, replacing harmful or inaccurate procedures. These innovations can allow people to be healthier, heal faster, and improve the future of medical technologies.

Sales and Marketing

The most important way AI is a game-changer for entrepreneurs and businesses? The powerful impact it has on sales and marketing. Often, people are unaware of how integrated AI is in their business operations, but the affect AI technology has is impressive.

Besides assisting with menial, daily tasks, AI can also take on data analysis and improvement. Artificial Intelligence can track minute changes and patterns in the ways people buy and sell. It can also write headlines geared toward marketing to humans, recommend products, and customize the experience a consumer has. For entrepreneurs, introducing AI into their sales and marketing processes can boost their reach and impact in a way traditional methods cannot.

As for the ways entrepreneurs can use AI, it is endless. The technology is ever changing, but it is all about knowing that innovation is an asset. Finding ways to innovate helps entrepreneurs reach new clients and stay up to date. Were always trying to use new systems to make the most of the available technologies, notes Randall B. Isenberg, attorney and founder at the Law Offices of Randall B. Isenberg. Innovation is the key to being a successful entrepreneur, and artificial intelligence products are now undeniably an important aspect of innovative technology.

There are so many ways AI is changing the world and the way we live, but entrepreneurs especially have so much to gain from its advantages. Its just a matter of finding the right kind of AI and keeping up with the ever-changing innovations!

Read next: Android co-creator's new 'Essential' smartphone will probably be revealed next week

Excerpt from:

How AI is changing the way entrepreneurs do business - TNW

Posted in Ai | Comments Off on How AI is changing the way entrepreneurs do business – TNW

AI: The promise and the peril – CSO Online

Posted: at 4:04 am

Mommas, dont let your babies grow up to be truck drivers. Or pretty much anything that a machine or a robot could do, if you want them to have a job. The list of those things will continue to get longer in some cases rapidly extending well beyond the assembly line on a factory floor.

The forecast is not all gloomy artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and automation are also expected to create jobs that will likely be much more interesting and creative than the repetitive tasks of the industrial age.

Indeed, it has been a growing component of cybersecurity technology, and therefore cybersecurity jobs, for several years. Former Symantec CTO Amit Mital (now manager at KRNL Labs), at a panel discussion sponsored by Fortune magazine in 2015, called AI one of the few beacons of hope in this mess the mess being cybersecurity, which he contended is basically broken.

[Related: -->Machine learning: Cybersecurity dream-come-true or pipe dream?]

That, according to a number of experts on panel discussions of AI at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium on Wednesday, illustrates both the peril and the promise of the technology.The enormous challenge, they said, will be to minimize the peril while maximizing the benefits.

According to Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at MIT and co-director of the universitys Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE), AI amounts to, the largest disruption in labor and the way we work, in generations. He called it the, second phase of the second machine age, and noted that while he and his co-panelist, Erik Brynjolfsson, have written two books on the topic, we dont know whats coming at us.The panel title was that of their forthcoming book: Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future.

McAfee cited an example of the increasing power of AI from this week, when a computer program, Googles AlphaGo, defeated Ke Jie, Chinas top player of the ancient strategy game Go, after which Ke said this was no fluke that the programs understanding of Go and the judgment of the game is beyond our ability.

Brynjolfsson, MIT professor and director of the IDE, agreed. He said the second wave, is machines moving beyond what they are taught by humans to learning on their own.It is the most important thing affecting the economy and society, he said.

Those warnings were somewhat offset by assurances that while AI is already better than humans at jobs that involve patterns, and will be getting much better, it is not even close to matching humans in areas like creativity, collaboration and even conversations smart machines are still dependent on the datasets used to train them.

[Related: -->AI isn't just for the good guys anymore]

That capacity to absorb and analyze massive datasets is one of the things that makes AI effective in cybersecurity, It can spot anomalies much more quickly than humans.

But as Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab and moderator of a panel titled, Putting AI to Work, put it, the fear that machines will become smarter than humans and take over the world is tempered by the reality that theyre stupid and theyve already taken over the world.

There was general agreement that AI is now generating and will continue to generate massive disruption. It will require massive adaptation if AI is to benefit society at large, and not just a few big winners.Some panelists were optimistic that, as has been the case with other technological revolutions, there will be new jobs created that cant even be imagined now.

However,Ryan Gariepy, cofounder and CTO of Clearpath and OTTO Motors, was dubious that the same will happen with the revolution now under way.My opinion is that we will not see net new job creation, he said. If I and other people do our jobs, you wont need as many people to keep the world moving. There needs to be some social consideration of that.

He said he expects millions of jobs to become obsolete, and for that trend to accelerate, adding that retraining is not always a practical option.Truck drivers cant go back to school, he said, and 90 percent of those jobs will disappear in a generation, when autonomous vehicles become standard.

Brynjolfsson warned that it wont just be low- to medium-skilled jobs affected. There is the potential for it to take over many other jobs, he said. Machines can read MRIs and other medical images. People with 20 years training may find their skills are irrelevant.

Ali Azarbayejani, CTO of Cognito Corporation, noted that while the current technology revolution will likely create many new jobs, they will be different jobs that require different skills.

Some of those jobs are already apparent in cybersecurity. As has been well documented, robots and machines can be hacked. There have been high-profile demonstrations of hacks of self-driving vehicles.So those machines, devices and vehicles, and the individual users and companies that depend on them, will require an expanding security workforce for protection.

Seth Earley, CEO of Earley Information Science, while agreeing there will be, an enormous amount of disruption," from AI, was more optimistic about retraining for the jobs of the future.The thing that is causing the problem is part of the solution, because of improvements in training with robot simulation, he said. Imagine the best teacher you ever had. Imagine that being developed into a program.

The least disruptive scenario, Ito said, would be for AI to augment rather than automate the workplace. Augmentation doesnt mean youve given up your agency, he said. I dont think letting the machine decide is optimal.

[Related: -->AI will transform information security, but it wont happen overnight]

Azarbayejani said augmentation is one of the services his firm provides listening to workers in large call centers, not only for measuring (customer service) but how to improve in real time. Its very much augmenting it doesnt replace humans, but helps them do their jobs better, he said.

For those left unemployed, there was some discussion of the societal implications of providing a UBI (universal basic income) to all people whether they are working or not. But McAfee contended, we are nowhere near peak labor, and Brynjolfsson said most people want to work and be engaged in their community.Were not in a world where were short of work that humans can do, he said. Thats decades out.

If there is a way to prepare for what is already under way, several panelists said it will have to involve re-thinking education.Kids should talk to each other and play with one another, Brynjolfsson said. Right now they are well trained for the first machine age, but not for collaboration and creativity.

McAfee agreed. An amazing number of entrepreneurs were dropouts, he observed.

Read the original post:

AI: The promise and the peril - CSO Online

Posted in Ai | Comments Off on AI: The promise and the peril – CSO Online