Daily Archives: July 8, 2017

Can robots create jobs for humans? – Fox News

Posted: July 8, 2017 at 4:16 am

As President Donald Trump seeks to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing, many industry leaders are looking to robots as the most efficient way for American factories to compete with cheap labor overseas.

We think robotics has had a positive impact on U.S. manufacturing by creating better, safer and higher paying jobs for American workers, said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), a trade group. Most importantly (robotics is) making American companies more competitive so that they can expand their business and ultimately, in many cases, add more workers than they did before they started automating.

AUTOMATION CAN REVITALIZE THE U.S. WORKFORCE

According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by A3, U.S. companies added a record 136,748 robots to factory floors over the past seven years, while creating 894,000 new manufacturing jobs.

Robots assemble a Toyota Motor Corp. Yaris at the company's plant in Onnaing, near Valenciennes, France, May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier - RTX369IX

Instead of doing away with a job, we still have to have someone to be able to operate that robot. We have to have someone to be able to program that robot and someone to be able to work on it, said Rick Maroney, director of the Alabama Robotics Technology Park.

The $80 million research and development facility provides free technical training for workers in the state.

Our job is to make sure that all Alabama companies have the best skilled workforce possible, Maroney said.

ROBOTS BRING APPLE PICKING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

According to A3, 80 percent of manufacturers say theyre having a hard time finding qualified applicants for skilled production positions. The Alabama program and similar investments in worker training are intended to help American manufacturers adapt to an industry that is becoming increasingly high-skilled and high-tech.

In addition to cross-training existing workers, some industry experts say robotics and coding (computer programming) should become staples in grade school shop classes.

Like a blue collar job, its something that you learn over time, said Scott Blanck, who founded Start Code, an Atlanta-based computer programming lab for children. You start with it. But then you get better at your craft as you go along. Because really this field is constantly changing. Youve always got something new to learn.

Industry leaders are looking to robots as the most efficient way for American factories to compete with cheap labor overseas. (AP)

Blanck, who grew up in a blue collar family, tries to dispel popular stereotypes of coding as an activity reserved for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or lone office nerds. In fact, Blanck sees parallels between the computer networks hes managed and the pumps and compressors his father maintained in the mine in northern Michigan where he worked.

At one point I realized, wow, Im doing my dads job, Blanck said. Were a generation later and the technology is different. But the ideas are still there. The ideas still matter.

Fox News Chip Bell contributed to this report.

Jonathan Serrie joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in April 1999 and currently serves as a correspondent based in the Atlanta bureau.

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Blacksburg’s TORC Robotics debuts self-driving cars | Blacksburg … – Roanoke Times

Posted: at 4:16 am

BLACKSBURG Youre probably going to be nervous the first time you pull out of a parking lot in a self-driving car, TORC Robotics CEO Michael Fleming said from his 10 years of experience testing vehicles around the town and beyond.

Next comes the realization that all the humans on the road arent such great drivers after all.

Because this self-driving car is incredibly smooth, its not veering to the right or veering to the left, Fleming said. Its in the center of the lane.

The third sensation hes seen from passengers over and over again may be the most important: boredom.

Thats what happens when technology that appears so impossible and futuristic suddenly comes together in a seamless, safe and reliable way.

Eventually, it just fades into the background.

TORC has been working toward that feeling of comfortable boredom for a decade. Up until now, the 80-person company has worked almost exclusively in the military and mining industries, which Fleming called early adopters of autonomous technology.

But this week the company came out for the first time, thumping its chest as the newest contender in the self-driving consumer vehicle market.

TORC recently drove one of its cars from Blacksburg to the birthplace of the Ford Model T in Detroit, just to show off what the company can do.

We think the automotive industry is at an inflection point, Fleming said. You see a lot of folks making comments about how this technology will be commercially available in the next three to five years. Were working with a lot of big players to make that happen.

TORCs technology is designed to be integrated into automobiles already being produced by major manufacturers. The company would partner with brand name vehicle makers and then find a way to make everything fit together so TORCs technology could be baked in off the assembly lines.

Fleming didnt announce any of these partnerships as he showed off the technology during a recent visit, but he did hint at many more announcements to come later this year.

TORCs two newest self-driving cars, which it uses for its own experiments, are converted Lexus RXs. They hit public roads for the first time in February.

The most noticeable modification is the large, spinning lidar (light detection and ranging) system mounted to the roof. This is one of the main ways the car is able to see the world. Below the lidar is an array of radar, video cameras and two GPS antennas. Additional radar systems are hidden inside the bumpers.

All these sensors feed data to a computer tucked away in a compartment below the trunk.

Inside the vehicle, the only noticeable modification TORC made to the Lexus was the addition of a tablet mounted on the center console.

The car is able to navigate roads on its own by collecting imaging data with the sensors. The computer in the trunk then analyzes the environment, detecting things like road markings, other cars and traffic hazards.

That information is displayed on the tablet so the driver knows if something is going wrong, such as if the car is having a hard time finding markings on the road.

The dashboard has three indicator lights: green to let the driver know all is going well, yellow for when the car detects a minor obstacle that the driver should be aware of, and red for when its time to hand controls back over to a human.

TORC was founded in 2005 and began developing the technology in partnership with Virginia Tech in 2007. The two collaborated to compete in the Urban Challenge hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

TORC was a startup, competing against teams sponsored by General Motors and Google. But the Blacksburg team took third place, a moment Fleming called TORCs first breakthrough.

Fleming said the challenge was a little ahead of its time, as regular car owners back then werent ready to hand the steering wheel over to a robot.

Some of the scientists who competed in the Urban Challenge went to work for Google, which has long been a leader in self-driving technologies. Others went into other fields since there wasnt a market yet for what they were building.

But TORC decided to keep its team together to begin going after different industries that were more ready for change.

Thats why the company began targeting mining companies, where TORC worked with Caterpillar to develop increasingly autonomous equipment. TORC also began working on military applications.

TORC was able to keep growing and learning for 10 years, and it was during that time the consumer market started to change.

I think this was really viewed as science fiction and a research project. But we didnt see it that way 10 years ago, Fleming said.

We were really completely committed to the commercialization of this technology and fulfilling our purpose of impacting the world. Weve held to that for the last decade. To be honest with you, weve been waiting for the automotive industry to catch up.

Fleming said he believes self-driving cars are now just a few years away from regular consumers.

If he had to predict the future, he said he thinks the transition will be similar to those of the past.

A long time ago, he said, people relied on horses for transportation. But then technology advanced and more people began using automobiles.

Today, many people still choose to ride horses. But its mostly for recreation, not to get from point A to point B.

The same, Fleming said, could one day be true of driving.

Not only do we believe this technology will make the world a safer place, but we also believe it will free up a tremendous amount of time in our lives, Fleming said. There are other folks that are maybe viewing this as a sprint. Were convinced its a marathon.

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Stay-at-home dad takes top prize in robotics contest – North Platte Telegraph

Posted: at 4:16 am

Kevin Knoedlers robot had a mission: After a Martian habitat was damaged by a dust storm, the robot had to align an antenna, deploy a solar panel, walk up stairs to the habitat, and find and repair a leak.

Not only did the 1990 North Platte High School graduates robot took home the top prize in a virtual-reality competition it completed its mission on the first run. In addition to a $50,000 bonus for the clean run, Knoedler won $125,000 for first place in the late June competition.

But tinkering with robots isnt Knoedlers profession. Knoedler is a stay-at-home father. He moved to Newbury Park, California, after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with his bachelors degree in engineering. He worked in programming before taking on his role as a stay-at-home dad 10 years ago, while his wife, a chemical engineer, works in the semiconductor industry. His children are 8 and 11.

Knoedler said his interest in the robotics competition was somewhere between a hobby and based on my previous work.

The Global Space Robotics Challenge aimed to engage citizen solvers, according to a NASA press release. NASA officials hope that someday, robots can arrive on missions ahead of astronauts and set up habitats and life support systems. Eventually, robots may even begin preliminary scientific research, according to the release.

When the competition was announced last August, 400 teams from 55 countries pre-registered. Ninety-two competed in the qualification round, and the top 20 advanced, each earning $15,000.

Knoedler said that as a high school student in North Platte, he didnt jump into programming.

It was more just learning the basics, he said. Math. Science. How to study, how to learn.

Regardless, Knoedler gives credit to his teachers in North Platte for igniting the spark.

Knoedler said a big chunk of his prize money will go to taxes. Hell use the rest of it for future robotics projects and for his childrens college savings fund.

Knoedler has seen his kids show a little interest in robotics already.

Its hard to say at this point, he said.

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How to Work on Your Laptop at a Coffee Shop Without Being a Jerk – Lifehacker

Posted: at 4:15 am

From across the coffee shop, I noticed a gentleman walking in with a computer. Not a laptop, mind you. With both hands, he carried a full-on desktop, monitor and console included. Surely hes not ... I thought to myselfbut I was wrong. He plopped the machinery down on a table, plugged in, and ordered his coffee while the rest of us looked on in horror.

I understand there are no etched-in-stone rules for using coffee shops as your remote office, but there are some unwritten guidelines we should all follow if we dont want to be jerks.

More workers than ever are getting their stuff done remotely, and many coffee shops accommodate this work-from-wherever lifestyle, with fast and free Wi-Fi and large, communal tables complete with outlets. Other coffee shops buck the trend entirely by not offering Wi-Fi at all. Instead of clacking away at a keyboard, youre encouraged to relax with a book or (groan) socialize with other people.

Weve all heard the bad news that sitting will kill you. That might be a slight exaggeration, and

Therefore, the first order of business is finding a coffee shop where its appropriate to work in the first place. Sure, you can get your stuff done wherever you want; its not like theres a law forbidding you to use your laptop at a quiet cafe that doesnt have Wi-Fi. However, if you care about politeness, youll want to find a coffee shop that doesnt mind being your part-time office (we offer up some tips here). Once you do, follow a few simple rules of etiquette.

Its not like businesses dont want you there, but if the place is packed and youre taking up space, theoretically, theyre losing money from customers who could be sitting in your spot. If you need to stay, at least order something extra to make up for this. As a general rule, most insiders say you should order a drink every 2-3 hours.

I actually like to think about it in terms of total dollars spent rather than buying frequency, said Claire Murdough, a writer and former barista. For example, say you plan to be at a coffee shop for four hours. That doesnt mean you have to order $2 coffees every hour. Just plan to spend $10 (or whatever fee seems reasonable). This can be over a couple hours or all at once.

I like this option more because sometimes you just dont want to drink coffee every two hours. This way, the coffee shop still makes a profit and you still get to sit and work.

Consider it as the price to admission. And if you think there shouldnt be a price to admission, keep in mind that coffee shops especially independently run cafs need to meet a bottom line in order to stay in business, said Murdough, whose mother owned a coffee shop for 20+ years. Help them do that.

If you work at the same caf day after day, it probably starts to feel like your office away from home. But its not; its a caf. For most of us, it goes without saying that you probably shouldnt bring your desktop computer (Ive also heard of someone bringing a printer to a caf!), but there are a few other habits many baristas, patrons, and coffee shop owners would prefer you avoid:

While I wouldnt necessarily care [about meetings] as a baristait usually means more business, after allit sometimes frustrates me when Im a patron, Murdough said. Large meetings can easily add a lot of noise and distraction.

Its hard to find a place to meet clients, give presentations, host meetups, or conduct job interviews if you work from home. Ive seen a few coffee shops with separate meeting areas reserved for activities like this, and you can book them in advance. This will take some searching, but you can look for meeting spaces in your city on Yelp, for instance.

A coworking space is another option. Some of them will allow you to rent meeting rooms for the day, even if you dont regularly rent an office from them. Similarly, most libraries have meeting rooms that patrons can book for free.

If all else fails, set a limit on how long the meeting will last and how many people will join.

Remember, the Wi-Fi is for everyone, so dont hog the bandwidth. That means you should probably skip watching movies in the background or uploading or downloading a bunch of stuff. This is a good time to remind you to keep your data safe on public Wi-Fi networks, too. Make sure your sharing settings are turned off, your firewall is enabled, and youre only using Wi-Fi when you need it (you might even consider switching to a Virtual Private Network while you work).

Its not just Wi-Fi, though. You also dont want to hog the electricity. Plan to charge your laptop, phone, and any other device you bring with you before you leave the house. Once you get there, the only thing that should require fuel is you, and thats what the caffeine is for.

For the most part I think its generally fine to stay plugged in as long as you need to when the caf is empty, or if youre the only one working, Murdough said. It changes when others might need to charge or the caf is crowded.

If you do find yourself in need of a battery boost, charge enough to get you through your time there and then unplugsomeone has to pay for that electricity, so dont be a jerk about it.

My advice would be to gauge the environment and react accordingly, Murdough added. Self-awareness goes a long way. That said, a pretty universal rule is dont bring your own power strip or stretch cords across aisles. Its dangerous!

If you have the ability to work from anywhere, you probably work from home. That means you probably

It depends on the coffee shopsome are really loud and bustlingbut as a general rule, you should respect your fellow customers and keep it quiet. That means using headphones to listen to music or watch videos. It also means taking your phone and Skype conversations outside, though some are okay with short conversations. Heres the general consensus of some baristas and owners that American Express interviewed:

If youre going to take calls indoors, though, the rest of our interviewees stress: dont shout. Dunning elaborates:

Youre looking for that sweet spot, of being in a caf thats busy enough where most people wont notice, but not too busy that everyone around you can hear your conversation. My general rule as a manager was phone calls of any type were good to go until they were disturbing the other customers. But use headphones. Those conversations are twice as disturbing to other people with another voice coming through your tiny computer/phone speakers.

Speaking of using libraries as meeting spaces, dont forget: you can use them to work, too! Most of them come with free Wi-Fi, have plenty of places to sit, and are quiet so you can concentrate (sound helps you focus on certain tasks, but silence might be better for tasks that require a lot of cognitive demand). Whats more, libraries are awesome and patronizing them is an easy way to offer your support.

Finally, as reasonable as these rules are to most of us, theres always someone who equates being polite with infringement. As one remote worker put it:

If I spend $10 or more on a sandwich and a coffee, I should be able to stay as long as I want to.

In most cases, you totally can. But youre kind of being a jerk.

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Reservation in McDonald’s: McAloo Tikki will be served only to those who are unemployed – Firstpost (satire)

Posted: at 4:15 am

Conforming to the recent Feed the Poor scheme launched by Modi government, McDonalds has announced that all its branches across India will now offer McAloo Tikki only to those who are unemployed.

The decision has been taken keeping in mind their inability to buy anything thats priced higher than an Aloo Tikki every time they visit McDonalds.

In addition to this, customers ordering a Happy Meal at the McDonalds will be charged heavily because they are the only ones who like showing off by uploading pictures of their restaurant bills post the GST rollout.

As a punitive action, people who sit for long durations after eating their meals will be asked to calculate the amount of GST in their bills. If they miscalculate the amount of GST, we will brand them anti-national and send them to Pakistan, said Amit Jatia, who runs McDonalds in India.

McDonalds has discontinued its Happy Meal toys ever since the Feed the Poor scheme has been announced. Explaining this development, Mr Jatia said, Since this scheme is launched by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, Congress Vice President has boycotted McDonalds entirely. If he is not going to visit McDonalds ever, what the point of keeping the toys here?

In a positive move, engineering and art students will be given a free McAloo Tikki if they produce their college identity card. It is a known fact that engineering and art students never get employed. Hence, we have decided to serve them a free McAloo Tikki as soon as they display their identity cards at the counter, said a waiter at the McDonalds.

On further investigation, our team found that the entire staff that serves customers at the McDonalds were engineering and art graduates.

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By Land, By Sea, By Air: Go Inside the World of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk in This Virtual-Reality Exclusive – PEOPLE.com

Posted: at 4:15 am

The turbulent world of Dunkirk is a click away.

Christopher Nolans latest epic tells the tale of the battle of Dunkirk that took place between Nazi Germany and the Allied forces during the Second World War. The nine-day battle saw the evacuation of British and Allied forces from the beaches of the namesake French town as the Nazis continued their advance on the opposing forces. In the end,338,226 men escaped.

As the film gears up to hit theaters this summer, PEOPLE brings you a virtual-reality experience connected to the movie which takes place in three settings: land, sea and air.

Watch the 360Save Every Breath: The Dunkirk VR Experience in the video above, explorable by clicking and dragging your mouse across the screen. The more you move, the more youll discover the dramatic scenes.For a fully immersive virtual-reality experience using VR goggles, download the LIFE VR app for iOS and Android or visit time.com/lifevr.

Save Every Breath: The Dunkirk VR Experience will be on display next week at the all-new VR in the Sky event taking place at the Time Inc. headquarters in New York. The first-of-its-kind 2-day event will feature presentations, experiences and more spotlighting the cutting edge of the VR industry with Dunkirk VR even making an appearance as a special installation at the top of One World Trade Center.

You can also watch the full trailer for the experience below.

The movie stars a list of heavy hitters and newcomers alike, including Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Fionn Whitehead and Harry Styles in his acting debut.

To watch the full experience and explore more exclusive virtual reality content, download the LIFE VR app foriOSandAndroidor visittime.com/lifevr.

Dunkirk hits theaters July 21.

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Virtual reality opens doors to Edinburgh’s historic past – Phys.org – Phys.Org

Posted: at 4:15 am

July 7, 2017

For the first time, visitors to Edinburgh will be able to explore the streets, marketplaces and churches as they may have been in the 16th century thanks to academics at the University of St Andrews. The virtual reality app, released this Friday, will add a new dimension for visitors, especially for those visiting the Fringe Festival over the summer.

As well as sweeping panoramas of the city, Edinburgh castle and its surrounding landscape, the mobile app enables exploration of the Netherbow Port, the West Bow, the Grassmarket, Cowgate, Trinity College, Holyrood Palace and St Giles' Kirk.

"It is striking how the cityscape is both familiar and different from the city today. Instead of the new town there stands a great loch yet the castle stands guard over the city much as it does now," says Sarah Kennedy, Smart History's Digital Designer.

Created by the University of St Andrews's spinout company Smart History, Virtual Time Binoculars: Edinburgh 1544 provides a unique window into the capital around the time of the birth of Mary Queen of Scots. Visitors will experience the digital reconstruction through a virtual reality app that hosts a range of virtual reality headset usage, as well as a web resource.

The Edinburgh reconstructions are just the beginning for Smart History. "We intend for it to be the first of many Virtual Time Binocular apps with depictions of St Andrews and Perth already in the pipeline. We have had interest from across Europe and Latin America, so we expect our Virtual Time travel platform to go global," says Dr Alan Miller, Director of Smart History.

On Friday 7 July, Smart History and Museums and Galleries Edinburgh will host a discovery evening at the Museum of Edinburgh where visitors can explore the brand new digital reconstruction of sixteenth-century Edinburgh. Visitors and residents of Edinburgh will for the first time be able to compare the modern city with the capital of James V and Mary Queen of Scots. The new reconstruction is the first to be created of the period, and is based on a drawing from 1544, the oldest relatively realistic depiction of the capital.

At the evening launch attendees will be able to walk through the streets of Edinburgh featuring the entire city held within the video game engine it was built in.

"Ever since we showed the preview video of our digital reconstruction of 1544 Edinburgh, people have been asking when the complete app will be available. We are very pleased to finally release it to the public," says Dr Elizabeth Rhodes, Smart History's Historian.

Using their mobile phones and VR headsets, users will become virtual time-travellers as they are immersed in historic scenes, stereoscopic video and 360 degree images. Visitors to the city will explore today's St Giles' Kirk and the Grassmarket as they learn more about their 16th century equivalents in parallel.

With the global release of the app on 7 July, Smart History will be in the Scottish capital at the Museum of Edinburgh for city tours and demonstrations from 10am to 4pm both Saturday and Sunday. Expertly guided virtual tours of the Royal Mile will allow virtual time travellers to compare Edinburgh's past to its present.

"In some ways time binoculars offer better Virtual Time travel than even the Holodeck on the Starship Enterprise. While the holodeck is incredibly realistic, it only exists in one place in time and space. Virtual Time Binoculars is a holodeck you can take anywhere with you," says Catherine Anne Cassidy, Head of Smart History's Digital Curation.

The app, which is Google Daydream enabled, allows users to view the reconstructions either in full screen mode or through more immersive virtual reality mode. Hotspots highlight the scenes with more facts and historical images for users to learn about the location.

The digital reconstruction is inspired by a drawing created by the English military engineer Richard Lee, who accompanied the Earl of Hertford's May 1544 expedition. Lee's drawing (now held by the British Library) is one of the oldest surviving depictions of Edinburgh, and became the defining English impression of Scotland's capital.

The interdisciplinary team of St Andrews researchers supplemented the information from Lee's plan with archaeological evidence, sixteenth-century written sources, and information about the geography of the modern city, to create an updated reconstruction of Edinburgh.

"The Virtual Time Binoculars project is ground breaking for digital reconstruction because it uses technology already in people's pockets. We have developed a software framework which will enable us to continue to send people back in time," says Dr Iain Oliver, Head of Systems for Smart History.

Explore further: New technology reveals 16th century Edinburgh

More information: Link to app: play.google.com/store/apps/det ory.edinburgh1544vtb

Google parent Alphabet is spinning off a little-known unit working on geothermal power called Dandelion, which will begin offering residential energy services.

Elon Musk's Tesla will build what the maverick entrepreneur claims is the world's largest lithium ion battery within 100 days, making good on a Twitter promise to ease South Australia's energy woes.

Qualcomm on Thursday escalated its legal battle with Apple, filing a patent infringement lawsuit and requesting a ban on the importation of some iPhones, claiming unlawful and unfair use of the chipmaker's technology.

France will end sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040 as part of an ambitious plan to meet its targets under the Paris climate accord, new Ecology Minister Nicolas Hulot announced Thursday.

Japanese designer Yuima Nakazato claimed Wednesday that he has cracked a digital technique which could revolutionise fashion with mass made-to-measure clothes.

Volvo plans to build only electric and hybrid vehicles starting in 2019, making it the first major automaker to abandon cars and SUVs powered solely by the internal combustion engine.

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Brooklyn’s role as tech powerhouse surges with coming of virtual reality lab – Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Posted: at 4:15 am

Another step in Brooklyns evolution as a tech powerhouse comes with the announcement that the borough will soon be home to the countrys first ever publicly funded virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) facility.

The city recently announced the selection of New York University Tandon School of Engineering (formerly Polytechnic University) to develop and operate a hub for VR/AR at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with a workforce development center at CUNY Lehman College in the Bronx. It is expected to open late in 2017.

VR and AR are hot and getting hotter. The city says the new lab will directly create more than 500 jobs over the next 10 years, and further position New York City as a global leader in the VR/AR industry.

Virtual reality is a computer-generated, three-dimensional environment that can be entered into by a person using technology such as special goggles or headsets and gloves. For example, a person might learn to skydive with a few stomach-lurching virtual jumps before attempting the real thing, or play a superhero battling aliens while immersed in a VR universe.

Augmented reality superimposes computer-generated images viewed with special headsets, smart glasses or a cellphone on top of the real world. For example, Facebook recently previewed an augmented reality social world where you can interact with your friends as if they are in the same room as you, no matter where they actually are. Or, a shopper might use AR to preview how a piece of furniture will look in their living room before they buy it. Soldiers can wear AR headsets showing data such as enemy location.

During a demonstration of the technology on June 27, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen tried out NYU Tandons virtual reality app to take a virtual trip to Mars.

Augmented and virtual reality represents a huge new industry, and we want New York City to be second to none, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a release. De Blasio said the plan was part of his strategy, called New York Works, to spur 100,000 good-paying city jobs in 10 years.

The lab received an initial $6 million investment by the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and the Mayors Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME). It will boost research, talent development and workforce development initiatives, the city says.

The lab will also help to fuel the citys emerging VR/AR sector with early-stage capital, and allow investors, researchers and organizations to collaborate.

The world of VR/AR is growing at breakneck speed and the implications for businesses across New York City are incredibly exciting, Media and Entertainment Commissioner Julie Menin said in a statement. This new facility will ensure that were doing our part to spur innovation, create talent pipelines, and make New York City the home of these emerging industries.

The lab will further strengthen the Brooklyn Navy Yard's thriving media sector, anchored by Steiner Studios, and create high-quality, middle-class job opportunities for New Yorkers," said David Ehrenberg, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation.

According to a 2016 report by Citigroup, the global VR/AR market could grow to $2.16 trillion by 2035 as different industries and applications make use of the technology.

Hundreds of startups and tech companies have set up shop in Brooklyn. The Tech Triangle made up of Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard is now home to more than 1,350 innovation companies 22 percent more than three years ago, according to the Tech Triangle consortium.

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Animal Welfare Groups Have a New Tool: Virtual Reality – The New … – New York Times

Posted: at 4:15 am

Wayne Hsiung, a founder of Direct Action Everywhere, which also fights for animal welfare, called the technology a game changer for animal advocates.

The meat industry always complains that were using selective footage, narrow vantage points and editing to make things seem worse, he said. But with VR, youre seeing exactly what we saw and hearing exactly what we heard.

In one sign of how quickly the technology is being adopted among animal advocacy groups, Direct Action also released a virtual-reality video on Thursday. It takes viewers into barns at Circle Four Farms in Milford, Utah, one of the largest pig production operations in the United States. The film shows sows with bloody and mangled teats; pregnant sows gnawing on the bars of the narrow stalls they live in until they give birth; and piglets clambering over and nibbling dead siblings.

In a portion of the film Mr. Hsiung narrates, dead piglets are piled up behind a sow who is wedged into a crate so tightly that she cannot move away from the mess. But a viewer can turn away from her to see, and hear, sows in similar straits all around her.

Circle Four is owned by Smithfield Foods, which was bought in 2013 by Shuanghui International, one of Chinas largest meat processors. Keira Lombardo, a Smithfield spokeswoman, said the video had blatant inaccuracies, such as its assertions that the animals shown in it are being starved.

This video, which appears to be highly edited and even staged, is an attempt to leverage a new technology to manufacture an animal care issue where one does not exist, she wrote in an email on Wednesday.

She said that after Smithfield was contacted last week by The New York Times, the company had outside auditors Barry N. Pittman, Utahs state veterinarian, and Jennifer Woods, a veterinarian and livestock handling expert conduct an investigation at Circle Four, which found no animal mistreatment. Rather, she said, the videos creators, who claim to be animal care advocates, risked the life of the animal they stole and the lives of the animals living on our farms. (In fact, Direct Action took two piglets from the farm, to rescue them, and Smithfield says it will alert the authorities in Utah on Thursday about trespassing on its property and other alleged infractions by Direct Action.)

Other animal rights organizations are moving to adopt virtual-reality technology. At its Animal Care Expo in May, the Humane Society of the United States introduced its first 3D video showing conditions at a dog-meat plant in South Korea. Its powerful, more powerful than conventional video, said Paul Shapiro, the societys vice president for policy.

It is not easy, however, to sneak the bulky equipment needed to make a high-quality VR video into an industrial barn or meat plant. Animal Equality had to stitch its first iAnimal video together using film shot on several cameras.

But the bigger challenge is distribution. The technology needed to watch the videos is not widespread, so when Animal Equality started an outreach program on American college campuses last year, it had to supply headsets.

So far, the videos have made it to 117 campuses, including Oxford, Yale and the University of California at Berkeley. Animal Equality is working to develop a mobile app that will deliver as close to a virtual-reality experience as possible.

Mr. Valle noted that The Times had distributed more than one million cardboard virtual-reality headsets and said that he expected the technology to continue to spread. Sure, this is a new technology, he said, but its being used more and more.

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Animal Welfare Groups Have a New Tool: Virtual Reality - The New ... - New York Times

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Virtual reality app highlights Penn State campus landmarks – Centre Daily Times

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Centre Daily Times
Virtual reality app highlights Penn State campus landmarks
Centre Daily Times
The Penn State University Park campus is ornamented by senior class gifts that date back to the late 1800s and a team of Penn State researchers has developed a mobile virtual reality app that highlights some of the more popular landmarks. Through the ...

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Virtual reality app highlights Penn State campus landmarks - Centre Daily Times

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