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Monthly Archives: June 2020
Baidus deep-learning platform fuels the rise of industrial AI – MIT Technology Review
Posted: June 22, 2020 at 2:45 pm
Behind these smart drones are well-trained deep-learning models based on Baidus PaddlePaddle, the first open-source deep-learning platform in China. Like mainstream AI frameworks such as Googles TensorFlow and Facebooks PyTorch, PaddlePaddle, which was open sourced in 2016, provides software developers of all skill levels with the tools, services, and resources they need to rapidly adopt and implement deep learning at scale.
PaddlePaddle is being used by more than 1.9 million developers and 84,000 enterprises globally. Industries throughout China are using the platform to create specialized applications for their sectors, from the automotive industrys acceleration ofautonomous vehiclesto the health-care industrysapplications for fighting covid-19.
Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic, which has spread over 150 countries and caused a worldwide economic shock, is increasing demands for AI transformation. Now is an unprecedented opportunity for the development of PaddlePaddle given the rise of industrial intelligence and the acceleration of AI-powered infrastructure, says Haifeng Wang, chief technology officer at Baidu. We will continue to embrace the open-source spirit, driving technological innovation, partnering with developers to advance deep-learning and AI technologies, and speeding up the process of industrial intelligence.
Deep-learning technologies create opportunities for revamping operations, workload management, and productivity, even in traditional industries such as manufacturing, forestry, energy, and waste management. For example, in waste management, AI is transforming refuse picking, sorting, and recycling, supporting efforts to conserve natural resources, reduce carbon emissions, and lessen waste going into landfill sites. According to a World Bank report, more than2 billion tons of municipal solid wasteare produced in the world each year. Collecting it and separating it exposes waste pickers to any number of risk factors and hazards, making this a critical area for the development of innovative AI technologies.
In Europe and the US, computer-vision technology has been extensively used for detecting different types of waste, such as glass, plastic, and cardboard, to make waste sorting more efficient. But the task is not as efficient in all countries.
Using traditional computer-vision models in China would be useless, says Zhiwen Zhang, CEO of Jinlu Technology. The garbage in China is not compatible with what can be detected by this technology. Complications tend to arise with the detection quality and with identifying diverse garbage, says Zhang.
A computer-vision veteran, Zhang was eyeing PaddlePaddle to develop applications for improving waste sorting in China. Although the industry lacks the expertise of deep learning, with PaddlePaddle, developers dont necessarily have to be deep-learning experts or build things like data-processing models from scratch.
Jinlu Technology uses a garbage-sorting robot programmed with an object-detection model to identify different types of garbage. It also uses an image-segmentation model to find garbage and do things like detect the edge of a bottle and determine its center point. The model takes just half a second to recognize an image.
For plastic bottles, Jinlu Technology trains an instance-segmentation model using Paddle Detection, a PaddlePaddle toolkit for image processing. The model predicts on Edgeboard (PaddlePaddles edge computing development platform) through Paddle Lite, PaddlePaddles deep-learning framework tailored for lightweight models, and sends signals to robotic arms that classify the garbage. While traditional algorithm-accuracy screening stays between 60% and 90%, depending on the quality of the garbage, deep-learning algorithms deliver an accuracy of 93% to 99%.
Using AI in waste management promises further potential. AI can not only spare human labor by 96%, but it can also refine sorting and further identify waste that can be difficult to categorize, such as large pieces of organic matter, small pieces of metal, and other particles. Not to mention, AI can self-learn to optimize the pipeline, says Zhang.
Currently, PaddlePaddle offers 146 algorithms and has advanced more than 200 pretraining models, some of them with open-source codes to facilitate the rapid development of industrial applications. The platform also hosts toolkits for cutting-edge research purposes, like Paddle Quantum for quantum-computing models and Paddle Graph Learning for graph-learning models.
PaddlePaddle facilitates AI development while lowering the technical burden for users, using a programmable scheme to architect the neural networks. It supports declarative and imperative programming with development flexibilityso can develop software with different types of requirementsall while preserving a high runtime performance. Algorithms can automatically design neural architectures that offer better performance than those developed by human experts.
PaddlePaddle has also made breakthroughs in ultra-large-scale deep neural networks training. Its platform, the first in the world of its kind, supports the training of deep neural networks with more than 100 billion features and trillions of parameters using data sources distributed over hundreds of nodes.One of the beneficiaries is Oppo, a smartphone producer in China, which uses PaddlePaddle to boost the training efficiency of its recommendation system by 80%.
Not only is PaddlePaddle compatible with other open-source frameworks for model training, it also accelerates the inference of deep neural networks for a variety of processors and hardware platforms. At the recent Baidu Deep Learning Developer Conference Wave Summit 2020, PaddlePaddle announced its collaboration in a hardware ecosystem that includes leading global tech companies such as Intel, NVIDIA, Arm China, Huawei, MediaTek, Cambricon, Inspur, and Sugon.
PaddlePaddle still has room for improvement, says Baidus corporate vice president Tian Wu. In the future, PaddlePaddle will keep advancing large-scale distributed computing and heterogeneous computing, providing the most powerful production platform and infrastructure for developers to accelerate the development of intelligent industries.
One of the industrial applications developed from PaddlePaddle is currently in use for medical purposes to combat covid-19. The primary diagnostic tool for pneumonia, one of the severe effects of covid-19, is a chest computed-tomography (CT) scan. With limited front-line doctors and resources to read an exponentially growing number of scans quickly and accurately, CT imaging technology is crucial to helping clinicians detect and monitor infections more effectively.
LinkingMed, a Beijing-based oncology data platform and medical data analysis company, released Chinas first open-source AI model for pneumonia CT image analysis, powered by PaddlePaddle. The AI model can quickly detect and identify pneumonic lesions while providing a quantitative assessment for diagnosis information, including the number, volume, and proportion of pneumonic lesions.
By using PaddlePaddle and its semantic segmentation toolkit PaddleSeg, LinkingMed has developed an AI-powered pneumonia screening and lesion-detection system being used in the hospital affiliated with Xiangnan University in Hunan Province. The system can pinpoint the disease in less than one minute with a detection accuracy of 92% and a recall rate of 97% on test data sets.
Robust AI will be needed to manage the increasingly complex tasks required for technological growth. Baidu is committed to developing the PaddlePaddle deep-learning platform along with AI researchers to create a better future. Were thrilled to see what weve accomplished in 2020 and look forward to new breakthroughs in the future.
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Baidus deep-learning platform fuels the rise of industrial AI - MIT Technology Review
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Global Quantum Information Processing Market Expanding Rapidly with Forecast 2025 and Top Players : 1QB Information Technologies, Airbus, Anyon…
Posted: at 2:45 pm
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Headliners, part I: 32 upcoming events & program deadlines in the Triangle – WRAL Tech Wire
Posted: at 2:45 pm
WRAL TechWire keeps tabs on the latest and greatest meetups, panels, workshops, conferences, application deadlines and all things happening in the North Carolina startup/tech world. The Headliners is a multi-part weekly roundup of upcoming events to add to your calendar.
Following is a list of June events in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and the greater Triangle area.
However, links to events are not available due to technical problems with our interactive calendar.
If youd like your event to be included, feel free to send me an email.
Also, check outour comprehensive resource guide for startups in the Triangle.
Note: The following list is our lineup of Triangle events through the end of Junemost have been switched to a virtual format due to COVID-19 social distancing requirements.
This monthly webinar series hosts a global health professional who will share insights and advice for advancing your career.
Led by The Storytelling Companion podcast host Chris Thiede, this workshop will teach participants how storytelling can help them connect with their audience.
Raleigh Chambers next virtual Networking 101 event features a talk from Barfield Revenue Consulting CEO and President Will Barfield, who will discuss how to maximize online networking tools. (Tickets are free for employees of Raleigh Chamber member firms.)
The North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association is hosting a monthly webinar serieswith local and national experts covering clean energy trends.
Join Cary Chamber of Commerce for an evening social event with Wake County elected officials.
Code for Durham brings together technologists, designers, developers, data scientists, map makers and activists to collaborate on civic technology projects. Meetings are held every two weeks on Tuesdays. Pizza will be provided.
The Small Business and Technology Development Center is hosting a four-week business development program for entrepreneurs that are ready to take their ideas to the next level by getting their business up and running. Classes are held every Tuesday from June 2-23.
NC TECHs Diversity + Inclusion Summit will bring together executives, professionals and organizational leaders to discuss the benefits of a diverse workplace. The virtual event will take place over two days.
In this virtual session, IT leaders at NC TECH member companies will discuss relevant topics and best practices in their field.
This online meeting will convene CISOs, VPs and director-level security leaders from NC TECH member companies.
1 Million Cups, presented by Kauffman, is a weekly informal pitch event for the startup community. Join for free coffee and entrepreneurial support as local startups deliver their presentations.
NC4ME (North Carolina for Military Employment) is hosting a virtual hiring event where job seekers can meet face-to-face with hiring managers and recruiters.
In this four-week virtual summit series, Raleigh Chamber will cover a range of topics relevant to the local business community, from COVID-19s impact on the economy to economic mobility, talent and other topics.
The Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina is hosting a summer-long webinar series covering topics of interest to businesses seeking the latest information on exports and the global trade landscape. This webinar will cover trade opportunities for North Carolina companies in Canada.
In this lunch and learn, Agustin Pelez and Cristina Botero of Ubidots will discuss how solopreneurs around the world are using IoT technologies for their business.
Wake Technical Community College is hosting a free virtual career fair where students and alumni can chat individually with local organizations.
Grow With Google is hosting regularly scheduled webinars for North Carolina-based small businesses. Sessions are led by Latesha Byrd, founder and CEO of Byrd Career Consulting. Every webinar covers a different topic relevant to local businesses.
The Council for Entrepreneurial Development is hosting a virtual event presenting the organizations 2019 Innovators Report. Learn about last years successes within the local startup community.
Join this webinar to learn about how quantum computing is used in economic models, including quantum money and quantum speed-ups.
ProductCampRTP is hosting an online conference spread across four weeks in June and July. The series is aimed towards product professionals worldwide. Join to hear talks from global experts. (More TechWire coverage here.)
Hosted by Forward Cities, this webinar will feature an economic development case study on how Kensington, PA is partnering with small businesses to promote growth.
RIoT is hosting a virtual town hall to discuss topics around racism and strategies to create change. The discussion will feature Denitresse Ferrell of DF Consulting and Brandon Johnson of NetApp.
Capitol Broadcasting Company and WRAL are hosting a webinar series featuring local industry experts and business owners. Each week brings a new topic relevant to businesses in the Triangle. More coverage here.
Wake Technical Community College is hosting a virtual event series featuring experts sharing their insights on the role of technology in solving problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DHIT is hosting a panel with healthcare technology leaders discussing how biomedical sensors can be applied in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster, the Triangle Clean Cities Coalition and greater Charlottes Centralina Clean Fuels Coalition are co-hosting a webinar with public and private sector leaders discussing the current transportation landscape and the opportunities to futurize it.
This weekly meetup brings together developers, IT professionals and tech enthusiasts who are interested in the Google Cloud Platform.
The 12-week RIoT Accelerator Program connects early-stage IoT startups with an industry consortium of more than 80 companies to learn, partner and bring your product to market. The fall 2020 cohort will run from August 24 to November 13 in Raleigh.
Raleigh Chambers first virtual Courageous Conversation will feature Opal Tometi, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter, along with other panelists discussing how companies can have honest conversations about race that lead to positive change.
Join the Code for Chapel Hill meetup to network with like-minded individuals and work on civic hacking projects. Meetings are held every two weeks on Tuesdays.
Bring your ideas and opinions to the next Midtown Techies meetup. Events are held on the last Tuesday of every month.
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Headliners, part I: 32 upcoming events & program deadlines in the Triangle - WRAL Tech Wire
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These are the technologies that will revolutionise businesses in the Post-COVID era – Moneycontrol
Posted: at 2:45 pm
Tulika Saxena
COVID19 has highlighted the importance of technology-led transformation across industries. The coming decade is expected to witness a transformation catalysed by the emergence and confluence of variety of technologies.
How has COVID19 changed the status quo?
Biologists Stephen Goulds and Niles Eldredges punctuated equilibrium theory states that evolutionary change happens in short, stressful bursts of time. We can consider these brief moments akin to a revolution that drives a much-needed transformation. The entities that can undertake such a transformation succeed in the new normal.
The ongoing COVID19 pandemic is one such brief moment. Although technologies such as AI, IoT and big data analytics (BDA) made their presence felt in the last decade, their adoption had not reached their full potential. COVID19 transformed the scenario; some enterprises underwent a transformation in a matter of weeks; something that might have taken a few years.
In the post-COVID19 business landscape, technologies will play a critical role in enabling enterprises to create scalable business impact and design highly personalised offerings; thereby creating a strong foundation for success. This in turn will enable them to navigate through challenges, from geo-political tensions to trade wars and natural disasters.
Which technologies and use cases will shape the next decade?
Relatively well-established technologies will be sought after, given their proven capabilities in paving the way for transformation. However, the real difference will lie in the ability of organisations to leverage the advancements in these technologies. For instance, in AI and machine learning, the open sourcing movement will accelerate their innovation, facilitating the development of highly customised solutions. Enhancements in analytical, predictive, and prescriptive capabilities will enable them to assist humans in complex use cases such as improving product design and reducing customer churn. Decentralisation of AI will transform IoT into IoT 2.0, enabling remote assets to leverage edge computing for generating and acting on actionable insights, almost independent of cloud connectivity. This will be immensely useful in scenarios such as remote health monitoring and autonomous vehicles where compromised network connectivity could have life-threatening implications.
Advancements in AI techniques such as NLP and machine vision will drive advancements in BDA, enabling enterprises to leverage troves of structured and unstructured data to generate actionable insights. Sectors such as healthcare, BFSI and retail will be able to leverage historic and real-time customer insights to tailor experiences and offerings based on their preferences. Digital twins, leveraging AI, IoT and BDA, will benefit from enhanced functionality, thus driving their adoption. Advancements in mechatronics will lead to more capable and safer Cobots. Blockchain will continue to be adopted in diverse areas. Blockchain-based smart contracts will gain traction as enterprises increasingly adopt code-based and automated legal solutions to optimise their operations. Blockchains decentralised architecture and its use of encryption algorithms will also find applications in protecting remote assets using IoT solutions.
Some of last decades technologies that were ahead of their time will witness a resurgence as their use cases become more established. For instance, 3D printing will gain traction as enterprises from automobile OEMs to medical device manufacturers develop contingency plans for supply chain disruptions. Amid advancements in raw materials and product design, 3D printed parts will be used in medical prosthetics and modular construction. Adoption of AR and VR solutions will increase as they become portable, affordable, and powerful. Besides use cases such as training and equipment maintenance, they will also be sought for creating virtual experiences in sectors such as entertainment, sports, and retail. Quantum computers will also progress beyond the R&D stage. Given their high speed, they are ideal for complex use cases, ranging from asset degradation modelling to drug development.
The coming decade will also witness transformation in technologies that enable and accelerate the adoption of technologies covered above. For instance, in cloud computing, a mature technology, hybrid cloud model will gain traction. It enables enterprises to strike the perfect balance between private and third-party clouds, and is flexible, cost-effective, and secure. In telecom, 5G will pave the way for dynamic and self-regulating networks capable of supporting use cases from autonomous vehicles to remote surgery. 6G, featuring 100Gbps speeds and sub 1ms end-to-end latency, could also appear on the horizon, rendering applications such as high-fidelity holograms and pervasive AI possible. In cybersecurity, the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture model will gain traction. It will allow enterprises to replace multiple security solutions with a unified SaaS-based network and security platform, thereby offering more flexibility and cost benefits.
What must be done to derive the maximum benefit from technologies?
The decade 202030 will see enterprises leverage past learnings, including the COVID19 pandemic. Optimising technology usage for maximising benefits will depend on multiple factors having a flexible organisational culture, pursuing customer-centric approach, drawing and applying insights from the most relevant and feasible technology use cases, effectively implementing the roadmap, and monitoring the right key performance indicators. This knowledge and experience will enable enterprises to be cognisant of the evolving business landscape, take appropriate tactical and strategic decisions, improve resilience, and succeed in the coming decade.
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These are the technologies that will revolutionise businesses in the Post-COVID era - Moneycontrol
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Bits and Bytes at the Bottom – Discovery Institute
Posted: at 2:45 pm
Editors note: Ken Pedersen holds a PhD in electrical engineering and is a retired Vice President of Raytheon. Jonathan Witt is a senior fellow with Discovery Institutes Center for Science & Culture and the author or co-author of numerous articles and books. A version of this article appears inSalvo 52. It is published here with permission of the authors.
Scientific materialism is an atheistic worldview that sees all reality as the result of accidental collisions and combinations of elementary particles governed by a mysteriously fortuitous set of laws that control how matter interacts. Its a worldview devoid of higher meaning and purpose.
Today, scientific materialism has captured much of the academic world. Science itself has virtually come to be defined as the study of this mechanical, robotic, meaningless, accidental combination of particles of matter and energy. Any belief in design, purpose, ultimate meaning, inherent values, morality, or beauty is ridiculed as equivalent to belief in the Easter Bunny.
Although scientific materialists in the last century didnt usually pretend to have all the answers, most did express confidence that it was only a matter of time before any shortcomings in their paradigm would be shored up by fresh discoveries.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century.
The computer revolution and information age, combined with advances in microscopy and theoretical physics, have transformed our understanding of the power of information processing and opened our eyes to the deep structures of physical reality. The central insight: the essence of the physical world is energy and information. There is no such thing as mere solid matter. Instead, the substructure of physical reality is an unbelievably complex network of interlocking information-processing systems all working in harmony to afford progressively more capable information-processing systems.
As the renowned theoretical physicist John Wheeler put it, It from Bit. That is, the subatomic realm, along with the laws and constants of physics, which guide and shape physical interactions large and small, are shot through with information. And the information isnt just along for the ride. The material it is literally in-formed by immaterial in-formation. Or as Wheeler elaborated in a fall 1989 paper,1 It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom at a very deep bottom, in most instances an immaterial source and explanation.
We now know that three quantum fields undergird physical reality the electron, the up quark and the down quark. These particles are in fact tiny clouds of pure energy. And somehow, they encode digital information for establishing what is known as a particles quantum state.
We do not understand and cannot visualize what this ghostly energy is. But we do know that it cannot be created or destroyed by any natural power. We also know that we can use mathematics to model how these tiny clouds of digital information behave as they flow through time and combine to undergird larger and larger patterns of energy and information.
Think about it. There is a form of digital computing constantly whirring along at the quantum-field level of reality. And that digital computing proceeds upward through the information-processing capacities that emerge to generate, guide, and allow for atoms, radiant energy, hydrogen clouds, galaxies, stars, stardust, planets, molecular chemistry, the DNA-RNA information-coding system, a living cell, multi-cellular life, ecosystems, and ultimately conscious human minds with a capacity for perception, memory, emotions, learning, curiosity, imagination, free will, creativity, and language.
Since these patterns overlap and interfuse one another, the boundary line between one information layer and another is not always neat and discrete, but we can still profitably delineate them. Below the quantum layer or we might say, interpenetrating and informing the quantum layer are the rule sets governing the fundamental forces of electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Without those precisely tuned rule sets, there are no atoms more complicated than hydrogen and really, good luck even getting hydrogen. Also, no stars and galaxies, no planets, no life.
Above the level of quantum particles is the atomic layer of information processing, where the various atoms combine into the myriad of chemical compounds that make stars and a planet such as Earth possible. Other layers include the information-processing found in DNA and RNA, the accompanying layer found in the amino acids that code for proteins, the higher-level information-processing systems at the cellular level, and on up the hierarchy to the extraordinary information-processing that occurs in conscious creatures such as ourselves, able to unravel and marvel over these layered networks.
Anyone who understands our current scientific knowledge base has to live in awe of existence, of this multi-layered structure of physical reality, of the purposeful flow of energy and information underpinning both matter and man, of the absolute necessity of all of this for the functioning of our brains and the magnificent physical and mental gifts humans have been given.
One of us (Ken) brings to this a background in computer information processing, mathematics, and physics, along with a career as a system engineer working on advanced information-processing systems and sensors, and overseeing the development of sophisticated missile systems. That advanced technology is all about layer upon layer of information-processing. But the sophistication of those systems is dwarfed by the that of the information systems that undergird nature.
Science can observe what each of these information-processing layers does and, in many cases, accurately model its behavior. Each layer of the design is unique, stunningly complex, and precisely tuned to interface with its adjoining layers. However, a science wedded to materialism cannot explain how the layers came to be or why they exist.
Kens recent book, Modern Science Proves Intelligent Design (Archway, 2019), walks the reader through the systematic emergence of all of these progressively more complex information-processing layers. The origin of the total design is a baffling mystery to scientific materialists. However, for any scientist willing simply to follow the evidence, one purpose of it all strongly suggests itself. Physical reality is designed as a multilayered information-processing system to guide the flow of energy and information from the elemental level of quantum computing up to the miraculous information processing found amidst the neural networks of the human mind.
Some may object that this is anthropic narcissism. Surely the vast reaches of the cosmos, with its billions and billions of galaxies stretching across billions of light years, isnt solely about human beings. We dont claim otherwise. If the universe is the work of purposive design, it quite likely has many purposes. We are only arguing that the layer upon layer of information-processing systems fine-tuned to allow for that most impressive of natural information-processing systems, the human mind/brain, has for one of its purposes creatures like ourselves. As the great mathematician and theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson put it, The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.2
Dyson isnt alone. Many theoretical physicists now recognize the sobering challenge of random accidents creating the multi-layered information-processing system one accidental rule at a time and then accidentally self-assembling these accidental rules into the magnificently complex and bizarre system of tiny clouds of energy that constantly process digital information at the speed of light. This layered network that forms the structure of physical reality could not have sprung from a fortuitous string of a few billion random accidents (make that a few quadzillion accidents if you include the DNA program). It is mathematically impossible.
Instead, the fact that each layer is the precise foundational layer for all of the subsequent higher layers of more complex information processing strongly suggests that each layer was foreseen, and intelligently designed for a purpose.
All of this means that the victory lap for the scientific materialists has been put on hold, indefinitely. Instead, they are scrambling to save their accidental universe.
Also, there is an irony in the way many of them are going about it. After generations of labeling their opponents as irrational and anti-science, many of these materialists now appeal to a kind of supernatural genie to save their accidental universe the claim that beyond the space and time of our universe is a myriad perhaps an infinity of other universes, with ours simply being one of the lucky ones fine-tuned to allow for advanced life. In essence, thanks to the genie known as the multiverse, everything happens somewhere, so why not humans here?
Yes, that is their solution. They dream of genie.
Photo credit:Michael DziedzicviaUnsplash.
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Xbox Head to Discuss Consoles Launch and Impact in the Gaming Industry – Essentially Sports
Posted: June 21, 2020 at 2:11 pm
Gaming conventions and conferences all over the world were canceled because of the pandemic. Fans have been thirsty for gaming news and updates since. However, Gamelab Live, a conference geared towards developers, has managed to put up a star-studded lineup of speakers for their conference. Most notably, Phil Spencer, the man behind the Xbox, will be delivering a keynote address. The lineup has plenty more notable personalities too.
The Gamelab conference is one that is geared towards the industry, rather than the consumers. The purpose of the conference is to reach the professional and developmental side of the industry, rather than speak to the fans directly.
Therefore, the expectations are not as high as it could be. We shouldnt really expect any groundbreaking announcements from the conference, regardless of the eminent people speaking.
Also Read YouTube Tech Community reacts to the PS5
The conference has confirmed the presence of Mike Pondsmith (who is currently working with CD Projekt Red on Cyberpunk 2077). Amy Hennig, who was the lead director on the Uncharted series at Naughty Dog, will also be present.
More notable personalities include Shawn Layden, former President of worldwide operations for Sony (also the guy who comes out first at the PlayStation E3 presentations). Sticking with Sony, Mark Cerny, the lead architect on the PS5, would also make an appearance.
Rather than give his own presentation or keynote address, Mark will be speaking to Ken Levine, the creator of Bioshock. Ken Levine is one of the most respected game developers and creative directors in the industry, after his work on Bioshock 1, 2, and Infinite.
He has since parted ways with 2K Gamesand is now at the helm of a smaller studio. He carries a very interesting perspective with him, as one who has been at the top of the AAA gaming space, and who is now working in the indie scene.
Altogether, the lineup for Gamelab Barcelona is stacked. We as fans may not have much to look forward to in the event. However, the industry may be better off overall because of it.
You can stream the panels for free from June 23rd to 25th. General passes can be obtained from the official website.
Stay tuned to this space for more updates.
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Great moments in PC gaming: Swimming with whales in Abz – PC Gamer
Posted: at 2:11 pm
Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
(Image credit: 505 Games)
Year: 2016Developer: Giant Squid Studios
In Abz you swim with lots of sea creaturesfish, squid, orcasbut the whales leave an indelible mark. As you emerge from an underwater tunnel, the opening frames a whale parent and child, playing together. You and these two whales, the child three times your size and the parent unthinkably massive, have the same destination. And so do the rest of the pod, who rush into scene just as the music soars.
(Abz's music is an important part of why moments like this land with such impact, backed by orchestral swell that's overpowering. It's not every game that has its own harp ensemble in the credits.)
It's hard not to be intimidated by how small your diver suddenly seems when the camera pulls back to capture the difference in scale. Blue whales can grow to almost 100 feet. That is too long. When a school of yellow-tailed fish rise to pass you the camera zooms in to frame them, at which point the yawning jaw of one of the whales suddenly gapes wide. For a moment you think you're about to be eaten with the fish but it's just a trick of perspective, and the whale's mouth closes beside you. For a moment its eye is shut, as if relishing the meal, then it opens to regard you. You're not food, you're a traveling companion.
The whales accompany you to the ocean floor before playfully twirling a goodbye. They've been Virgil to your Danteno, that's not a Devil May Cry referenceguiding you to the underworld, where the water's dark and the creatures strange. Here you'll confront the shark who has been dogging your progress throughout Abz. The whales provide a moment of levity and grandeur before things get dark.
I have thalassophobia, a fear of open water, and I play games like Abz as a way to confront and challenge it. (Subnautica, though it's a great game, gives me the actual shakes.) Swimming with whales is something I could never do in real life, but I came close in Abz and it took my breath away.
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A blind video gamer got emotional after seeing The Last of Us Part II’s extensive accessibility options for players with disabilities – CNN
Posted: at 2:11 pm
"I was expecting to record a really exciting, hype moment showing the first time I see all the accessibility settings, but basically the second I started up the game, I was hearing a text to speech read off every single accessibility option. To be honest, the floodgates just kind of opened," Saylor told CNN.
"I couldn't stop crying for a solid 10 minutes. It was like everything I had been working for in the past five years, my efforts with disability consulting and advocating for more accessibility in games, finally paid off. This is literally the first time we have ever seen a game have this many features."
The game, which launches June 19, is a sequel to The Last of Us, a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and released exclusively for Playstation. At the time of its release, it was labeled "the game of the decade, a cultural phenomenon within the video game industry," according to Saylor.
For years, fans have been anxiously waiting for the sequel, which continues the story of Ellie, the 14-year-old heroine of a post-pandemic world impacted by a fungal plague that turns people into zombies.
In the game, players must evade or kill both cannibalistic zombies and hostile humans to protect Ellie, who is immune to the infection and possibly holds its cure. The Last of Us Part II takes place five years after the events of the previous game and is played from Ellie's perspective.
Along with stunning visuals and breathtaking landscapes, the game comes with a diverse array of accessibility features that will provide disabled players with an especially unique gaming experience.
"This is a first time we have seen a game where every piece of text on screen had text to speech in it," Saylor said. "Anyone without visual impairment could actually close their eyes and be able to play this game with all the settings turned on. That's how powerful it is."
Working with disabled gamers on accessibility options
Emilia Schatz, one of the lead gameplay designers of The Last of Us Part II, said she was inspired to expand accessibility options after receiving a letter from a gamer. The player was unable to finish another Naughty Dogs game when they got stuck at a point where they had to repeatedly press on a button to escape during a fight.
"It's heartbreaking for me as a game creator because that person is so passionate about playing our game but there was just this moment that all of a sudden blocked them. We found that it's often a relatively small thing that can unlock an entire game for some players," Schatz told CNN.
"I think there hasn't been a huge awareness of how games are inaccessible to a wide group of people. A lot of developers have -- no pun intended -- a blind spot for things that don't personally affect them. Hopefully our game brings attention to the fact that there (are) things that can be done to affect players in such a positive way. It's absolutely worth everyone's time to try to fit it into their development schedule."
The gaming studio worked alongside numerous accessibility consultants, including Saylor, who offered ideas on the types of features needed. While many of the changes were simple and fairly easy to implement, Schatz said their goal was to "raise the bar and figure out what are the extents to how much we can make a game accessible."
For players with motor or physical disabilities, there's the option to customize all of their controls. They can also turn on cues that will point them toward the way forward and toggle the option to hold buttons instead of having to repeatedly press them.
For the hearing impaired, there are subtitles that cover not only dialogue, but combat action, too. They can also adjust what events cause the controller to vibrate, toggle prompts to keep them aware of nearby enemies and receive prompts telling them when to dodge in combat.
For the visually impaired, there is a text-to-speech option. It narrates many aspects of the game, from which options they're selecting in the menu to what weapon they have just equipped and how much ammo remains. They can also swipe the touchpad to receive status info on Ellie and toggle high-contrast mode, which will highlight the geometry of the world and brightly color enemies, allies, interactable regions and more.
There are special audio cues they can toggle to create unique sounds depending on a variety of in-game factors. The first type is called Traversal Audio Cues. These will trigger when there is an obstacle a player can vault, or when there are ammunition, bricks or bottles to pick up. Then there are Combat Audio Cues that indicate when an enemy is within takedown range, when they've taken one out or when their reticle is pointed at an enemy.
"We are excited to see these changes get out into the world and have other games adopt them to show that even in a game as seemingly inaccessible as our game, where you need to run, shoot at people, hide behind cover, evade people and jump across gaps, all those things that seem impossible for blind players are actually not impossible," Schatz said.
"There are ways we can make it work."
Continuing the fight for accessibility options
When a player launches the game, the first thing to appear is a screen offering various accessibility options. For disabled players, this is both new and unexpected -- and for many gamers, this is the first time they actually feel seen.
Saylor was not the only gamer to have had such an emotional reaction when playing The Last of Us Part II. Courtney Craven, another gamer and member of the accessibility community, was also left in tears after playing the game.
"Accessibility is still pretty new, unfortunately," Craven told CNN. "A lot of times we'll turn on a game and just be disappointed. Either the subtitles are microscopic so you can't read them or there's no visual cues to go with sounds. For hard of hearing players like me, there's a lot of features I need in a game to make it an equitable experience for me. But this game left me feeling pure joy."
Craven said she was blown away by how much attention and effort was put into just the accessibility portion of the game. Playing the game made it "very obvious" that developers were committed to play testing with disabled players, she added.
With an unprecedented display of options and aids, the game is well suited to a diverse community of gamers, whether they are blind, hard of hearing. struggle with mobility issues, or a combination of them all.
For many gamers like Craven who aren't used to playing video games and actually "being good at it," The Last of Us Part II is life-changing.
"This definitely sets the bar extremely high for other developers to not only reach this standard but also overcome," Saylor said.
"It's had a huge impact on disabled players who will be able to pick this game and actually play it. No doubt this has made history. We will be looking back at this moment as accessibility before The Last of Us Part II and after The Last of Us Part II. And this is just the beginning."
CNN's Benjamin Levin contributed to this report.
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The biggest PC gaming stories this week – PC Gamer
Posted: at 2:11 pm
Rather than one heavily focused week of E3 press conferences we're basically sliding through a summer-long schmear of them this year, as various publishers, studios, and media outlets make announcements over the course of June and July. It's different, to be sure, but there's still a heck of a lot to keep up with!
This past Saturday we hosted our annual PC Gaming Show, EA Play happened on Thursday, and there's been plenty of other news along the way as IGN, Guerrilla Collective, and the Future Games Show all hosted events and broadcasts.
So many games. And so much news! Here are the biggest PC gaming stories from this week:
Icarus is a sci-fi co-op survival game from DayZ creator Dean Hall
Dean Hall announced Icarus, and while the teaser trailer didn't show us all that much, it sounds like an interesting, session-based take on survivaland it'll be free to play when it launches in 2021. Here's everything we know about Icarus so far.
Escape from Tarkov's new map will be its largest yet
We got a nice look at the upcoming and expansive city map, and learned that the Customs map is getting bigger, too.
Total War Saga: Troy brings mythical heroes to bronze age infantry warfare
It's the earliest setting the Total War series has tackled.
Persona 4 Golden is out on PC
The port of the PS Vita version of the PS2 game finally made its way to PC. We've got a glowing review here, too.
And there was lots, lots more on our show! You can see everything else that was announced on The PC Gaming Show right here.
Star Wars: Squadrons channels X-Wing vs TIE Fighter with dual campaigns, multi-stage fleet battles
There are some promising details in the few minutes of footage from Squadrons, which is due out October 2. James broke down more about the combat, too.
Apex Legends is coming to Steam, getting crossplay
EA has been busy moving lots of games to Steam lately, including The Sims 4 and Titanfall 2.
EA is making a new Skate game
That's great news, but at this early stage we don't really know anything about it, except that it's happening.
These may be the first real images from Dragon Age 4
Fans held their breath but there was no official announcement, just a few tantalizing glimpses of what Bioware is working on. Which is probably Dragon Age 4.
To stay up-to-date on PC Gamer's news and features, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook, subscribe to our newsletter, listen to our weekly podcast, or just refresh the homepage waiting for whatever happens next.
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PlayStation 5: exclusive games ‘more important than ever’, says Sony – The Guardian
Posted: at 2:11 pm
Happily for anyone who struggles to summon much interest in raw tech specs, last weeks PlayStation 5 broadcast was heavy on games. Having seeded details about the consoles hardware and performance throughout the year, Sony opted to show what developers have been doing with that speed and power.
Of the 28 games shown, nine were from Sonys own studios, meaning they will be playable only on PS5. A further 14 were whats known as timed exclusives, meaning that theyll be available on PS5 first and may also launch on PC.
Exclusive games have always been the shining beacons that attract players to an expensive new console, but arguably their role has been diminishing for at least a decade. Microsoft, particularly, has completely changed its approach to its own studios games in recent years, offering up all of them on PC and Xbox and packaging them up as part of a 7.99-a-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass instead of charging 50 for each. Xbox bosses have even repeatedly stated that, in their ideal world, Xbox games would be playable on any screen or device. Meanwhile, the biggest game publishers, including 2K, Ubisoft and EA, almost never make a game for a single platform any more, instead selling them across PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.
However, Simon Rutter, PlayStations EVP for Europe, says that for Sony exclusive games are hugely important. More important, I think, than theyve ever been. Through their proximity to the systems designers, PlayStations studios are able to really extract the most out of the system performance and thats a really valuable attribute for a platform holder to have. [PlayStation] can rely on a studio network that can really show off the innovations that were trying to put across when the exclusives are as powerful as Marvels Spider-Man or Horizon, they are important games that people want to play.
Take Gran Turismo, the hyper-realistic racing game that has been synonymous with PlayStation since the 90s. Gran Turismo 7 is going to benefit from almost every single technological enhancement that we have in PlayStation 5, says Rutter. The loading times will be next to nothing compared to what they have been in the past. Sitting in the cockpit, the 3D audio allows you to hear the thunderous roar of a Ferrari behind you or in front of you, and you can recognise the difference between that and the engine noise of a Maserati. Driving the car using the DualSense controller, youll have a different feeling in your hands from the smooth undulating tarmac of a racetrack, compared to the gritty sensation on a gravel track. Pressing a soft accelerator will feel very different than pressing on a stiff brake pedal or gear paddle.
Sonys approach is a reminder that games consoles are about more than tech specs; their features, and the selection of games that their manufacturers curate, create a culture around them. Nintendo specialises in consoles that are portable, flexible, family friendly and fun. Xbox, historically, has always put connectivity at the forefront, centring games such as Halo and Forza that you play online with friends. Sony, meanwhile, likes to invest in a diverse portfolio of games to attract players who like to feel as if theyre on the cultural cutting edge.
That comes at a cost, however 50-60 per game and, in the conspicuous absence of pricing details for the PlayStation 5, there is speculation that the console could push 500. Add in a monthly online-play subscription and youve got a very expensive hobby. For players, the games have to be pretty great to justify it.
Horizon: Forbidden West (Sony/Guerilla Games)Gran Turismo 7 (Sony/Polyphony)Demons Souls (Sony/FromSoftware/Bluepoint)Returnal (Sony/Housemarque)Destruction All Stars (Sony/Lucid Games)Astros Playroom (Sony/Japan Studio)Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (Sony/Insomniac)Sackboy: A Big Adventure (Sony/Sumo)Marvels Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony/Insomniac)Bugsnax (Young Horses)Deathloop (Bethesda)Ghostwire: Tokyo (Bethesda)Godfall (Gearbox Publishing/Counterplay Games)Goodbye Volcano High (KO-OP)JETT : The Far Shore (Superbrothers)Kena: Bridge of the Spirits (Ember Lab)Little Devil Inside (Neostream Interactive)Oddworld Soulstorm (Oddworld Inhabitants)Project Athia (Square Enix/Luminous Productions)Solar Ash (Annapurna Interactive/Heart Machine)Stray (Annapurna/Blue Twelve Studio)Tribes of Midgard (Gearbox Publishing/Norsfell)The Pathless (Annapurna Interactive/Giant Squid)
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