“Here’s a closer look at Nintendo Switch’s game cards” plus 16 more VentureBeat |
- Here’s a closer look at Nintendo Switch’s game cards
- China cites national security as it bans Pokémon Go and other AR games
- Before you start a company, answer these questions
- 7 highly connected cars you will drive in the future
- 5 Trump policies that could change the game for entrepreneurs and VCs
- Intel believes 5G wireless could reach far beyond smartphones to smart things
- Hearthstone’s Jade Golem mechanic used to be a lot different
- Zuckerberg to testify in $2 billion lawsuit that claims Oculus used stolen technology
- The first self-driving bus on U.S. public streets is carrying passengers in Las Vegas
- RIP, Guerrilla Cambridge: Remembering the shuttering studio that made Rigs for PSVR
- Technology fails to save Ringling Bros. circus
- The impact of machine learning on the customer experience
- Hearthstone’s Hunter class was was once in a different Mean Streets gang
- Why IoT needs AI
- Otoy adds lightfield baking and other tools to its Unity integration
- 505 Games unveils original Steam game Quarantine
- Why 2017 will be the year of enterprise bots
| Here’s a closer look at Nintendo Switch’s game cards Posted: 15 Jan 2017 01:58 PM PST  Video game tapes have shrunk a bit over the past 30 years. To save the battery life in its upcoming Switch console, Nintendo is not using spinning discs like Blu-rays. Instead, the hybrid handheld/home system will use a card-style medium similar to what the publisher used on the 3DS. During a livestream from a media event in New York City today, Nintendo of America employees provided fans with a close-up view of what the company is calling Switch game cards. Here’s a look at the back and front of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Switch.  Above: It’s so cute! Image Credit: Nintendo And these are game cards — not cartridges, which is what Nintendo used for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64. That’s an important distinction that I wrote about previously. For one, these game cards are not that much more expensive to make than a Blu-ray disc, and they don’t take much longer to print. At the same time, these cards can also store around as much data as a standard (non-dual layer) Blu-ray, but smaller games can use less metal. And that will save publishers money when they only need about 8GB instead of 25GB. For Nintendo, whose typical game was no more than 10GB on Wii U, that is likely one of the reasons it likes this media type. |
| China cites national security as it bans Pokémon Go and other AR games Posted: 15 Jan 2017 12:10 PM PST  China as a nation has a checkered past with the video game industry. For example, for almost a decade and a half, home video game consoles themselves were banned in the country, but due to cultural differences, internet cafes and VR arcades have all been booming as of late. As a result of this trepidation it comes as no surprise then that China's media regulator would have concerns over augmented reality (AR) games such as Pokémon Go. According to an original report by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, then translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie at RFA.org, China's General Administration of Press and Publications, Radio, Film and Television issued a statement on their website:
From the way this statement is worded, the majority of the issue appears to stem from the fact that games such as Pokemon GO track user's data and geographic location. For similar reasons apps like Google Maps are already banned in the country — which would have theoretically prevented players from using Pokemon GO in the first place. Ever since the game released last year it's dominated news headlines across the globe with businesses adapting to its presence and people being led to the most bizarre places you could imagine. While it's silly to think about, it really could be a safety hazard in some areas of the world. And its propensity for leading to the congregation of hundreds — if not thousands — of people in a single area is certainly part of the concern. Beijing-based rights activist Li Wei echoed those concerns when interviewed by RFA about the matter, stating that "A lot of kids do their gaming at home, but they come out when the weather's good to play mobile games. From the government's point of view, there is a risk to national security. But I think their main fear isn't actually to do with geographical information. I think for them the key issue is large numbers of people gathering in public places, ostensibly to play such games," Li said. "I think they may be afraid of 'mass incidents' occurring." Also of note is that, prior to a post-launch patch, Niantic Lab's monster-hunting mobile game actually did request some rather intrusive details from user's accounts, along with privacy concerns rising up in the overall immersive tech industry this past year. This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com. Copyright 2017 |
| Before you start a company, answer these questions Posted: 15 Jan 2017 11:08 AM PST  GUEST: A few months ago, a friend called me excitedly to share a startup idea. He was an investor's dream entrepreneur: engineering undergrad with an MBA from MIT, worked at Google, and literally wrote a book on the core tech behind his startup. He launched a product, was getting a little attention, and was at an inflection point. He probably could have raised funding based on this traction and asked me, "Should I take the plunge and do this full time? I think I'm ready." I'll let you know what I told him in a moment, but first, these are the questions I suggested he ask himself before leaving a cushy gig for a high-risk venture: What is your motivation? Are you motivated by the prospect of getting rich? Are you irritated seeing less-skilled former colleagues getting famous by founding companies? These are perfectly normal human emotions but horrible reasons on their own to start a business. Survivorship bias is real, and for every Mark Zuckerberg there are thousands of founders who do not make it. Is this idea worth your time? The risk-adjusted return of his current career path was much greater than spending half a decade pursuing a startup. If he wasn't passionate about solving this problem, he should pass on the idea. Passion doesn't mean excitement for the product per se, but if you're not enthusiastically jumping out of bed to remake, say, ERP tools, it doesn't make sense to do a startup. What have you done to validate this idea? Do you have a functional product? Any users? Have you run a successful Kickstarter campaign? Have you built up recognition as a thought leader in your industry through social channels? The reality is that, in today's ecosystem, you can prove quite a bit with nothing beyond a personal investment in time. My friend had a skeleton product but was far from product/market fit. Are there real customers for this? It's one thing to have a working product, it's quite another to have paying customers. If you don't have customers, what are you using as proxies for demand? If you catch yourself saying, "It would would be cool if someone solved this problem,” that's often a sign you're not being specific enough about your market. Do you have the endurance for the marathon version of your company, or does this only work as a sprint? Can you survive if your product doesn’t take off for 12-24 months? How about 36 months? The reality is that startups often struggle for a long time, and the beginning can be the slowest part. The more of that struggling you get out of the way *before* you quit your job, the better off you'll be. Founder Collective’s advice for founders is to plan for a year with no income from the time you quit your job until the time you get funded. 3-6 months usually does not cut it. What does your CMO (Chief Marital Officer) think? How long are your business partners/ investors/family members really willing to hang in there if things don’t work out right away? You'll be burning savings, but you should also be prepared to jump on a plane at a moment's notice to meet with a customer. Will your spouse/significant other be OK if you spend three nights a week at hacker meetups? Is quitting the right next step? Can you keep your day job until you’ve validated your market and you’re ready for lift off? This won't work for a medical device startup, but a self-serve SaaS tool doesn't require 24/7 attention. What can you prove to yourself before you leave your job? Capital won't make you clever. Spending more time on an idea won't either. Going full time on a startup is a necessity at some point, but is it this point? Advice to my friend (and to you)I encourage everyone I know to try entrepreneurship if they are drawn to it, but at this point in time, I knew my friend was taking this step mostly because it seemed like the right thing to do rather than a rational response to an opportunity. I told my friend not to quit his day job. Yet. When we first spoke, he had spent a lot of time thinking about the tech/product, but when I started asking him some tough questions, especially around the market, he seemed not to have answers. He was also planning based on the best case scenario, which I thought was risky for him, given that this doesn't occur for most people. Two months later, when we had a follow-up conversation, he told me he had pivoted twice and that he appreciated my uncharacteristically cautionary advice. He told me he would have been incredibly stressed out if he didn’t still have a salary to count on. Startup stories rarely follow a seamless narrative arc, and the successful ones are often subject to revisionist history. Before you decide to found a startup, go through this checklist of questions, over and over, until you have real confidence in your plan. If you have an implacable passion for your idea and it stands up to these questions, I'd love to hear your story. Parul Singh is Principal at Founder Collective. She was previously a product manager at the NYT and founder and CEO of edtech startup Gradeable. |
| 7 highly connected cars you will drive in the future Posted: 15 Jan 2017 10:25 AM PST  Cars that drive you home on their own. Cars that connect to other cars and also to the stoplight in front of you. Cars that are much safer and reduce accidents. This is what we can expect in the next few years as AI and machine learning hit the road (literally), helping us drive smarter and even offering to take over the driving for us entirely. A radical next step from what modern cars can already do in terms of automated driving, these vehicles will let you take a nap on the highway. They will also sense when there is a crash ahead and re-route you in real time. One can even tell which coffee shops you like best and take you there. 1. Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous
Ford is getting much more serious about self-driving cars. The Ford Fusion prototype has two LIDAR sensors for scanning the road (they are located near the windshield) and can drive autonomously. The computer for processing all of the environmental variables is in the trunk. Ford expects its self-driving tech to debut by 2021. 2. Toyota Concept-i
Toyota once announced it would not make fully autonomous cars, but the Concept-i is a departure from that plan. The big change? There’s an AI in the car called Yui that can sense your emotions. If the car determines that you are sad, it can offer to drive for you and, say, suggest you meet up with friends at a pizza place. 3. Hyundai Ioniq
What separates this Hyundai from many other self-driving cars is that it is going to go into production soon — we even tested one at CES 2017. The Ioniq is a new model that will come in three versions (electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid) this year, but the autonomous tech is also far enough along that we expect it to be an option in the Ioniq within the next few years. 4. Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid
Another car that is actually in production, the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid is the same vehicle Waymo (the offshoot of Google) uses for its self-driving technology. The prototype has extra LIDAR sensors, radars, and cameras to assist with automated driving. There are no set plans to make these prototypes available for production yet. 5. Smart Ready to Drop
The Smart Ready to Drop program is a sign of things to come. Using an app, you can order any product that DHL ships (and that fits in the car), then have the driver place the packages in the rear hatch when you are not around. For now, it is in a limited trial in Germany. 6. Nissan 2040
Nissan went far-future with a concept at CES 2017. This vehicle does not need traffic lights or stop signs, can operate fully autonomously with or without a driver, and can see obstructions, pedestrians, and other cars in real time and respond as needed. 7. Honda Neuv
This self-driving car is intended for ride-sharing. Someday, you could send a car like this to pick up a friend or the babysitter. It also has an AI on board that can monitor where you drive and what you like to do, even remembering which coffee-shops you like best. |
| 5 Trump policies that could change the game for entrepreneurs and VCs Posted: 15 Jan 2017 09:05 AM PST  GUEST: While the details of the Trump administration's economic policies are still to be determined, the President-elect's comments on the campaign trail indicate he is ready to shake up the status quo. Recent interviews and early cabinet selections have given us a preview of his plans. In particular, the new administration seems eager to simplify complex regulations and to advance initiatives to bring jobs and capital back from overseas. As the specifics of those policies take shape, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists should pay close attention, as they can benefit from understanding the dynamics at work. Here are some of the promised changes to watch for: 1. Lower corporate taxes Trump has made clear he intends to lower the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. With general consensus among both parties that the U.S. tax code is desperately in need of an update, this cut might be among the more realistic of Trump's goals. For most early-stage growth companies, tax rates are less of a concern given typically high cash burn rates and carry-forward positions on their balance sheets. Still, startups stand to be the benefactors of a wave of investment from larger companies if lower corporate tax rates pass. Look at the corporate ecosystem as a whole, with low tax rates facilitating a strong economic investment cycle that lifts up newer, smaller companies as well. 2. Low-cost opportunities for cash repatriation Currently, companies holding cash overseas pay a 35 percent repatriation tax rate when they move earnings back into the US. To avoid that high cost, many companies simply reinvest the money abroad instead of bringing it back. As a candidate, Trump suggested a "tax holiday" to allow that cash to flow back into the country at a much lower rate, possibly around 10 percent. Business leaders have reacted with enthusiasm. Apple CEO Tim Cook said his company is ready to move some of its $200 billion in overseas holdings back to the US, provided the US offers a "reasonable" tax rate. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that $2.6 trillion is currently being held overseas. If the Trump administration moves forward with plans to ease the cash repatriation tax, well-established, cash-rich tech companies' balance sheets will be flush with capital and ready to invest inside the United States. That stands to significantly accelerate the M&A trend in which larger companies seek new opportunities and partnerships with up-and-coming tech startups. For early stage growth companies, that would be very positive news. With a potential influx of cash to larger companies taking advantage of a tax holiday, entrepreneurs should keep a keen eye out for strategic partnering opportunities. 3. Fewer government regulations Throughout his campaign, President-elect Trump argued that the economy would fare better with fewer restrictive government regulations. If onerous bureaucratic procedures are lifted, companies that have been suffering from related implementation costs will have more room to breathe. Small companies have traditionally struggled more with interpreting legalities, so entrepreneurs and startups stand to gain from fewer and simpler requirements. 4. Reconsidering Obamacare Entrepreneurs were vocal critics of the Affordable Care Act from the time it was implemented, with the National Federation of Independent Businesses bringing a legal challenge against the law that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Among other requirements, the law mandates that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health coverage. That put a financial burden on employers who had to find other ways to cut back, and frustrations grew as they saw premiums rise since the establishment of the law. Trump's platform includes health care reform and repealing at least some aspects of Obamacare, possibly eliminating a source of frustration for some entrepreneurs. 5. The potential for surprises While the general population was stunned by the recent Trump victory, markets quickly self-corrected: Bonds entered into a sharp sell-off in anticipation of higher interest rates, and the healthcare, energy, and banking sectors responded favorably to anticipated changes. The takeaway is that things can and will change quickly. Entrepreneurs should remember that political risk needs to be monitored and managed. Risk mitigation is especially important for younger companies in segmented vertical markets, where there can be a significant magnitude of change in business models. Entrepreneurs and VCs should remain vigilantPrimed to build his legacy on improving America's ability to do business, many of Trump's policies are expected to be quite business-friendly. In spite of early suggestions that sales cycles would slow as companies waited to assess the new administration's policy direction, the market's rally demonstrates that these concerns may be overblown. The overwhelming majority of the market will maintain business-as-usual status and quickly adjust to the new realities of a Trump administration. The businesses that will gain the most are the ones whose leaders strategize in advance. For entrepreneurs and investors in particular, being prepared to respond to new policies and pivot accordingly will be crucial to their future success. Ron Heinz is Managing Director at Signal Peak Ventures. |
| Intel believes 5G wireless could reach far beyond smartphones to smart things Posted: 15 Jan 2017 08:35 AM PST  The Internet of Things is expected to grow quickly to tens of billions of connected devices, from smart refrigerators to smart showers to smart cruise ships. But at some point, the wireless data networks won’t be able to handle all that traffic from the connected devices. That’s why tech companies want to upgrade to 5G wireless, which is a fifth-generation mobile network that can transmit data at gigabits per second, compared to the single-digit megabits per second that we get today on our smartphones. And Intel wants to be a big player in this 5G business. Rob Topol is general manager of Intel’s 5G business and technology. I talked to him at CES 2017, where Intel introduced its first 5G modem chip. This kind of chip will enable tons of connected devices — connected cars, drones, robots, collaborative augmented reality glasses — to transfer data at fast speeds in the future. Topol and I talked about whether 5G is really going to speed things up, or if the added traffic will just bog our networks down. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.  Above: Rob Topol, general manager of the 5G business at Intel. Image Credit: Dean Takahashi VB: How long have you been in this particular position? Rob Topol: I've been in this position just the past couple of years. I've spent 17 years at Intel. I started in manufacturing, moved through SOC design, up into wireless the past several years. As we've started to form our 5G business activities—this is a fairly new position, managing 5G business and technology. My role is to work on the device side to ensure any of the prototypes, test beds, use case work we do is enabling all the verticals we have planned for 5G. This isn't just about a handset. In fact, we frequently say that 5G is the post-smartphone era. It'll be more about the other businesses than it's about handsets. Handsets will just be a part of it. There will be drones, connected homes, collaborative AR, other use cases that not only need but will benefit from 5G. My job is to make sure the prototypes are there, that we have the right test beds and partnerships in place to build this. VB: You had an announcement a couple of days ago. Topol: We had essentially two related to 5G. For the past year, we've built mobile trial platforms. We built 5G prototypes that we demonstrated a year ago at Mobile World Congress. You can start to utilize three, four, five gigabits per second in data rate and test different use cases with that. What we announced here at CES, one thing is the Intel Go platform, an end-to-end solution for working with automotive OEMs on autonomous driving. We put a 5G FPGA-based modem in that platform that can now test any sort of—wherever there's 5G spectrum available, you can test those use cases using upwards of seven gigabits per second. Whether it's HD map downloads or over-the-air updates to the car or media content, whatever use cases, it's ready next month for use in cars to develop that. The second announcement was our first-generation global 5G modem. Taking what we've building in FPGA prototypes, putting it into an ASIC with a transceiver and a base band modem. What I was showing just a minute ago, this is the transceiver we announced. This supports both sub-six-Ghz and millimeter-wave frequencies. The transceiver is ready now, as well as our millimeter-wave antenna arrays.  Above: Intel 5G modem chip can power multi-gigabit wireless data networks. Image Credit: Intel The base band itself we'll start to sample in the first half of this year. The reason it's a few months behind is because cellular is based on standards. We want to make sure we incorporate as much of the next-generation new radio technologies into that solution. Think of it as being in the oven, just waiting for the last set of features to get in there for release. You'll see a full chip kit solution by Intel in the second half of this year. With the car, you can put something in the trunk now, but then you can put something into a more mobile form factor. If you want to test it in a smaller mobile device, in an airborne drone, in a tetherless headset for AR and VR, it opens up all of those opportunities. VB: 5G sounds very promising. I remember so many other transitions, though. 4G was supposed to bring great things, but Verizon charged us very high rates for data, and then we had to switch to T-Mobile, which had poor voice connections. It seems like there are all these tradeoffs when a new wireless data tech is introduced. Everybody soaks up the capacity and it's not enough again. Topol: First of all, you hear a lot about 5G from a cellular standpoint, as cellular technology. But 5G will also see advancements in Wi-Fi and Wi-gig. If you think about those solutions, all of them will be brought to new standards. They'll evolve. As much as you'll see cellular business models, subscription models, you'll see multi-gigabit unlicensed spectrum data availability as well. Those business models will evolve. We're building prototypes for both licensed and unlicensed technologies. You're just seeing a lot of early advances in cellular because much of the network deployment and infrastructure—that work happens years before commercialization. The early movers are the network operators and infrastructure providers, building the foundation. Typically you see the unlicensed technologies come in and complement that along the way. We see 5G as a balanced situation. You'll see certain verticals that move directly to a subscription cellular-based model, but you'll see others that rely on unlicensed technology, especially when you're talking about multi-gigabit data rates. When you talk about an autonomous vehicle that'll have thousands of gigabits of data generated by the machine learning onboard and transmitting over a network, it'll force changes in those models. Not only in the way the network is monetized, but think of—in 5G there will also be machine-to-machine communication. 5G won't just be about broadband. Removing some of that congestion from the network and allowing car-to-car communication, car-to-infrastructure, drone-to-infrastructure—that should help with a lot of the efficiency and congestion in the network.  Above: The Intel Go platform will span from the car to the cloud. Image Credit: Intel VB: What about the notion of how usage leads to capacity problems? I think of the CES press conferences of years past. Everyone's on wi-fi, and when one guy starts live streaming it brings down the network for everybody. Topol: You'll see some real innovation with 5G. From a network standpoint, as you probably know, we provide solutions in network infrastructure as well — the core access network, the cloud. What you'll you see in 5G is technology called network slicing. It'll allocate and protect bands of spectrum or data rates for specific uses. It could be specifically for vehicles to communicate. It could be for a hot spot in a venue or activity. You'll start to see this slicing technology come into play in 5G to avoid that congestion you're talking about, where something can completely crater a network. We're already developing that as a technology, and I think that will help quite a bit. You're going to see millimeter-wave technology as a great offload for a lot of network congestion. Anything in a highly dense environment. Today you're talking about data rates in the hundreds of megabits per second for download speed. With 5G you'll see multi-gigabit capability with millimeter-wave. The pipe it opens up to offload a lot of that data—I think you'll see a real improvement in congestion. VB: How soon do you think some of these things are happening along the road map? Topol: You'll see OEMs start to commercialize 5G solutions as early as next year. The networks themselves will be fully deployed in 2020, probably. Just like LTE, you'll see devices come forward that say they're LTE-ready, but maybe the coverage isn't fantastic yet. It might be more of a hotspot capability in certain places or parts of a city. You'll see that progression between 2018 and 2020. But you can look at 2020 as the time when you'll see major network operators and infrastructure partners fully deploying 5G capability. VB: At that stage, is the United States up to parity with a place like South Korea? Topol: The U.S. is equally aggressive in deploying 5G. When you look at the announcements made by U.S. operators, they have very aggressive plans. As I say, you'll see the early adoption. That's why Intel is ready with solutions, because you know there will be early adopters and movers. But when you're talking about pervasive coverage with 5G networks, that's more likely in 2020. You'll see announcements by operators long before that. Continue Reading ... |
| Hearthstone’s Jade Golem mechanic used to be a lot different Posted: 15 Jan 2017 06:04 AM PST  Designing new cards for digital card brawler like Hearthstone isn’t easy, and changes are bound to happen before the final release. It turns out that the whole Jade Golem idea used to look a lot different. In its final form for December’s Mean Street of Gadgetzan expansion, certain cards for the Rogue, Shaman, and Druid summon a Jade Golem. The first Jade Golem is a 1/1 minion, but the second one would be 2/2, then 3/3, and so on. But it didn’t always work that. GamesBeat interviewed senior game designer Peter Whalen, and he talked to us about a very different version of this Jade mechanic.
Sounds neat but complicated. I’m glad we got the Jade mechanic that we did. |
| Zuckerberg to testify in $2 billion lawsuit that claims Oculus used stolen technology Posted: 15 Jan 2017 03:34 AM PST  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify in court on Tuesday, January 17 for a potentially explosive lawsuit that claims the Oculus VR startup he acquired for $2 billion was based on stolen technology. The more than two-year-old suit against Facebook by game maker Zenimax has culminated with a public trial by jury in a Dallas court that began on January 9. Zenimax is seeking $2 billion in damages against Facebook, which is the amount the social networking giant initially paid to buy Oculus in 2014. Representatives for Zenmiax confirmed to Business Insider that Zuckerberg will take the stand on Tuesday, followed by Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey later in the week. The trial began on January 9; Oculus CTO and former Zenimax employee John Carmack was the first to testify on January 10. Facebook tried to argue that Zuckerberg shouldn’t have to answer questions about his acquisition of Oculus, but the case’s judge overruled the request. Luckey’s testimony will be his first public appearance since he admitted to secretly funding a political group that created anti-Hillary Clinton memes in September. “One of the biggest technology heists ever”At the center of the lawsuit is Oculus CTO John Carmack, who previously ran a video game company within Zenimax called id Software and is best known as the mastermind behind video games like “Doom” and “Quake.” Zenimax has accused Oculus executives of knowingly stealing its software and trade secrets through the hiring of Carmack and five of his employees from id Software. It claims that Carmack violated his employee agreement with Zenimax by sharing confidential information that Oculus then used as the basis for its VR software. A lawyer representing Zenimax, Tony Sammi, went so far as to call Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus “one of the biggest technology heists ever” during opening remarks to the jury on January 10. Facebook contends that Zenimax’s claims are without merit, and that Zenimax only filed the lawsuit because it passed on investing in Oculus before Facebook bought the company for $2 billion and an additional $800 million in employee retention payouts. “Oculus and its founders have invested a wealth of time and money in VR because we believe it can fundamentally transform the way people interact and communicate,” an Oculus spokesperson told Business Insider. “We’re disappointed that another company is using wasteful litigation to attempt to take credit for technology that it did not have the vision, expertise, or patience to build." Zuckerberg, Luckey, Iribe, and other key Oculus employees are scheduled to testify during the remainder of the three-week trial. They will be asked about how Facebook came to acquire Oculus, the details of how the Oculus Rift headset was invented, and whether Carmack violated his contract with Zenimax. Prior to these testimonies, most of the case’s proceedings have been kept secret and under seal by the court. This story originally appeared on Www.businessinsider.com. Copyright 2017 |
| The first self-driving bus on U.S. public streets is carrying passengers in Las Vegas Posted: 14 Jan 2017 11:56 PM PST  A small autonomous bus called an Arma is running a short route along Las Vegas' Fremont Street, marking, according to transit operator Keolis, the first time a self-driving bus has moved passengers on an American public road. The route is short—just three blocks. And this is only a pilot test, which started on January 11th and will end January 20th. While the test lasts, the fully-electric bus can carry around a dozen passengers, moving at a top speed limited to 16 miles per hour, though the bus is capable of hitting 30. The bus has sensors that detect obstacles and an emergency button that any passenger can use to stop the vehicle. During the test, there's also a staffer on board to monitor passenger safety. Navya, the French company that makes the Arma, has already deployed vehicles in Singapore, France, and Australia. The test helps strengthen Nevada's claim as a leader in 21st century transportation innovation. The state has attracted the testing facilities for Hyperloop One, as well as Tesla's new Gigafactory. The Navya test is part of a push by Las Vegas to develop a downtown innovation district, where it also aims to test green energy and other technologies. Nevada has a strategic interest in developing transportation technology. The state could benefit from easier long-distance transportation to gambling centers from California, while autonomous vehicles like the Navya bus could provide flexible transportation for visitors once they make it to Vegas. This story originally appeared on Fortune.com. Copyright 2017 |
| RIP, Guerrilla Cambridge: Remembering the shuttering studio that made Rigs for PSVR Posted: 14 Jan 2017 10:14 PM PST  The VR community was hit with quite a shock yesterday. Guerrilla Cambridge, the Sony-owned developer behind PlayStation VR multiplayer first-person shooter Rigs: Mechanized Combat League, was confirmed to be closing just a few months on from the game's launch last October. Needless to say, shutting the doors to the studio behind one of the biggest titles on the new hardware comes as a big surprise. RIGS might not have exactly been the new Call of Duty, but it was one of the better reviewed games among Sony's launch line-up and one of the two full gamepad-based first-person shooter games to hit the headset, the other being World War Toons. In our 2016 VR Game of the Year Awards, we named Rigs our PS VR Game of the Year. Initially it had been assumed that Cambridge was about to embark upon a lengthy DLC roll out plan for the game, which would have kicked off with December's Winter Update, but it looks like that may not be the case any longer. DLC might not be dead entirely (Sony didn't respond to our questions about if it could continue), but it won't be Cambridge making it. Studio closures are an unfortunate part of the games industry, but this is the first time we've seen a developer behind a high-profile VR game shut down. That makes this news all the sadder; Cambridge was one of the pioneers of a new industry and it's closing its doors far too early as far as we're concerned, even considering its 19-year history. But the U.K. studio did take some important steps for the early days of VR with its lone HMD release, and it's only right that we don't forget them. I was one of the first people to play Rigs following its reveal at E3 2015. In fact, it was the first thing I tried out at that year's show, heading straight for it as soon as the expo hall doors opened. It occupied the entire second floor of a massive structure at Sony's booth. What struck me about the game was just how refined it was, even almost a year and a half away from launch. Developing gamepad-based FPSs for VR is a risky business considering the potential for motion sickness, but here was a developer that was bullish on its ability to create a comfortable experience, and trusting enough in players that they could handle it. And they pulled it off. That's the most important thing Rigs did for VR; it proved you could have frantic, fast-paced multiplayer shooter action in the here and now, defying expectations. Rooting players in a walking mech gave a sense of authenticity to their movements, as their character wasn't actually moving their legs, just comfortably sitting inside those metal frames, much like the player was just sitting on a chair in real life. Granted, Rigs wasn't free from comfort issues, but Cambridge's novel foundation is something that more developers should pay attention to when looking at design and circumventing sickness. You can't overstate the wonders this did for PS VR's launch lineup. Without Rigs, we'd have very little solid proof that the headset could handle non-flight shooters with this kind of ambition. Now as we look out to 2017, it's one of the reasons we're expecting such big things for PS4 VR. A big part of its appeal was also accessibility. Every time I've jumped into the game I've found myself slipping back into the controls with ease, where I had previously been worried they'd overwhelm me. Cambridge made the most of combining a traditional shooter control scheme with the new features of VR. You could move and steer with your head, for example, but you could also stick to the classic joystick layout. But RIGS didn't just settle from successfully translating an FPS into VR, it also taught us that innovation in mechanics will be still key to pushing the genre forward in VR just as much as it is for standard displays. Rather than forcing you to lock an eye to your iron sights and have you creep around corners, Rigs embraced the arena shooter. It featured a wide aiming reticle that made it hard to miss and gave the action a snappy pace, dual-wielding weapons had you pressing the attack, and special abilities forced you to use strategy in firefights. It would have been all too easy to imitate contemporary shooters and chase some of the Call of Duty and Battlefield pie, but Rigs instead set itself apart. How many other shooters have a game mode where you need to throw yourself through a goal zone? Cambridge made a mark on production values, too. At a time when we weren't quite sure if Sony's console could really provide VR experiences that measured up to what we've been seeing on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, here was a rock solid game with sharp visuals, a stunningly vivid color palette, and an unflinching 60 FPS framerate reprojected into 120FPS. I also have a lot of admiration for RIGS' determination to steer clear of VR violence. It's a rare shooter with a family-friendly, televised-sport tone. The Mechanized Combat League is a futuristic (sadly fictional) sport after all, and Cambridge used this to put a positive spin on the action. Instead of feeling like an action hero, the cheers of the crowd and cries from the commentator made you feel like a team player. Shooting guns might not be the most enlightened use of VR, but here's a game that at least does it in a tasteful way. Guerrilla Cambridge's demise marked a sad day for the VR industry. This was a team that had made a very good first impression with its first game, and I'll forever be wondering what might have happened if it had the chance to make a second. While the studio might be gone, the impact it made with RIGS means I, for one, certainly won't forget it any time soon. How Sony fills that gap it's just created in its experienced VR teams will be interesting to see. This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com. Copyright 2017 |
| Technology fails to save Ringling Bros. circus Posted: 14 Jan 2017 09:01 PM PST  After 146 years, the Greatest Show on Earth is closing. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus told the Associated Press that the show will shut down for good in May. The American icon tried to revive its fortunes with modern technology, but it couldn’t stop declining attendance. Public tastes changed, and the group had damaging battles with animal rights groups over its treatment of elephants (retired earlier) and big cats, such as lions and tigers. "There isn't any one thing," Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment, told the AP. "This has been a very difficult decision for me and for the entire family." Ringling Bros. will finish its tours and perform 30 shows between now and May. The circus was a staple of entertainment in the U.S., and the traveling circus became a part of the American landscape. But the latest version that debuted in the San Francisco area in the summer was hardly recognizable.  Above: Projections on ice are part of the Ringling Bros. circus. Image Credit: Ringling Bros. The Feld family bought the Ringling circus in 1967. In May of 2016, after a long legal battle, the company pulled the elephants from the circus. Attendance has been dropping for a decade. But now the drop was even steeper, said Juliette Feld. To try to recover, the circus tried a high-tech show with a space-age theme and Cirque-style performers. It embraced everything from smartphone apps to high-tech lighting systems and pyrotechnics. A new spotlight tracking system could track the movements of 72 performers at a time. Even after the elimination of the elephants, the show I saw was picketed by animal rights protesters. The Felds say the remaining animals will go to suitable homes. About 500 people work on the shows. |
| The impact of machine learning on the customer experience Posted: 14 Jan 2017 07:03 PM PST  GUEST: A true genius, Alan Turing was played brilliantly by Benedict Cumberbatch inThe Imitation Game — the movie about his life and role in ending WWII — which introduced him to a whole new generation of admirers. It was Turing who predicted machine learning would play a big role in modern computing in his article the “Turing Test,” way back in 1950. Indeed, Turing was way ahead of his time, which was a major theme in the movie, but now the world has caught up. The major advancements in readily accessible computing power, the quantity of data available, and algorithms that truly make machine learning possible are driving our ability to process data, analyze it, and act on it in ways that would make Mr. Turing proud. These advances have completely changed the machine learning game: The fundamental concept remains the same, but now it's far more sophisticated, efficient, and easily deployable. Beyond the big headline-grabbing examples of how machine learning will impact our lives — such as through driverless cars — it has exciting potential to put an end to the bland and sometimes ineffective customer experiences that many retailers are delivering to their customers. By harnessing machine-learning, businesses can revolutionize the way we engage with their store or use their service. And forget product recommendations as we know them today, this takes us into the realms of hyper-personal, sophisticated shopping experiences. The rise of programmatic customer experiencesTo get a sense of the potential impact of machine learning on the customer experience, you only need to look as far back as the arrival of programmatic advertising a few years ago. This completely revolutionized how ads are bought and targeted online, harnessing data to not only automate a lot of the "grunt" work but also to make much smarter, more strategic decisions about where the opportunities for brands lie. The use of programmatic techniques enables campaign performance improvements of between 30 percent and 50 percent, according to some studies. In the same way, harnessing machine learning for programmatic customer experience has enabled marketers to identify clear customer segments and target them in ways that brands know will resonate. They now start from a position of knowing who their customers are and what will excite them, which empowers them to focus their efforts on meeting customers’ needs and exceeding their expectations with every interaction. This will change the face of digital commerce in the next decade. See, think, actIt's not just about the ability of machine learning to automatically process vast quantities of data in order to understand customer behavior and identify where the opportunities lie. Today, we can act on those opportunities, as well. To give an example, machine learning might identify that a U.S. retailer has high traffic from Spain, but lower conversion than expected. It can segment these visitors into two groups — native Spanish speakers and English speakers in Spain. The retailer can also survey visitors to find out whether the English speakers are expats or vacationers. It can then ensure that the most appropriate programmatic abandonment recovery and messaging is sent to each of these groups to encourage them to make a purchase. Or imagine a customer buying shoes on your site, where the only information you have is on previous purchases and how much they've spent. In this case, personalization would be focused on the customer's spending activity, and perhaps their brand preferences. However, leveraging the right data, you would also learn much more about the customer's lifestyle — such as whether they run marathons, 5Ks, or triathlons — because they've answered survey questions that helped build a more comprehensive customer profile. This more complete customer profile now allows the retailer to suggest a higher-priced shoe, informing the customer that these shoes have won more marathons than any other. Machine learning and better customer data allow you to build a far better and more personal experience for each customer. Holding us backSo if we have truly arrived at the era of machine learning, what's stopping us from seeing the optimal customer experience everywhere we turn? The answer is simple: Machine learning is not a magic bullet. Applied to meaningless data and put to work on meaningless tasks, data will be meaningless. The key to making an impact that can take us to the next level with artificial intelligence lies in quantitative and qualitative data. Think of training a coworker — if you feed them misinformation and provide the wrong tools, they won't succeed. We live in a world where delivering customers the content they are looking for in the very first couple of seconds is critical. If you don't, the chances are they are going to get bored, distracted, and leave. Tinder's "swipe-right, swipe-left" mentality is driving change across all sectors. To sum it up, customers have a pull-push relationship with brands. Currently, they provide a huge amount of information and yet often receive inaccurate results, which means they have to spend even more time giving information and searching until they reach a desirable result. As customers become more demanding, expect more, and become less willing to forgive experiences that miss the mark, they're trusting brands that provide a good experience and cutting out the ones that don't. Gaining trust takes time and is currently an imperfect science, as marketers apply insights to provide as relevant and tailored an experience as possible in order to win new customers and keep old ones. It's easy to blame indecisiveness on millennials. It is true that this generation is driving the demand for hyper-personal sophisticated experiences. This younger generation values experiences over commodities and is driving a change in the way brands generally interact with consumers — something known as the “experience economy.” Before jumping into machine learning, you must first make sure you have data that shows the full picture, or it will be an expensive and ineffective experiment. With the right approach to data, however, machine learning can completely change the customer experience game. |
| Hearthstone’s Hunter class was was once in a different Mean Streets gang Posted: 14 Jan 2017 06:04 PM PST  The Hunters weren’t always Grimy Goons. The newest expansion for Blizzard’s digital card game behemoth Hearthstone, December’s Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, introduced the idea of tri-class gangs. Three of the game’s nine classes belong in one of three gangs: the Kabal, the Grimy Goons, and the Jade Lotus. Hunters ended up in the Grimy Goons, which players can use cards to buff others in their hands. But according to senior game designer Peter Whalen, Rexxar (and alternative skin Alleria Windrunner) weren’t always buddy-buddy with Paladins and Warriors. GamesBeat asked him how they put the game’s classes into their respective gangs.
So, yes, at one point, there was a Jade Hunter deck. And considering how bad the class is right now in Standard, it was probably better than Hunter deck you could play right now. |
| Posted: 14 Jan 2017 05:00 PM PST  GUEST: At one of my recent talks in New York about AI in the supply chain, one of the key questions that came up was “Are you talking about robots?” You see, AI has been romanticized into this abstract term that conjures images of walking robots doing your household chores while you just sit back and relax. But what does it really mean, and where did the term actually come from? Artificial intelligence encompasses the new paradigm of machine learning and big data processes that enable you to get predictive insights from a combination of historical amounts of preexisting data processes and real-time observations. To get to true AI, you need to train large amounts of data sets (both historical and real-time), achieve some baseline, enable deep learning with incremental information, and begin to uncover predictive value. AI typically works in tandem with the Internet of Things (IOT), which includes devices like wearables and connected home gadgets. Simple put, IoT collects the information, but AI is the engine that will power analytics and decision-making from that information. IoT connects disparate devices, such as wearables, and can scale to connect a nearly unlimited number of devices, continuously streaming data. AI processes data, makes inferences about this data, and ultimately enables recommendations in real time. Let’s look at some examples from the insurance industry When I was at Humana, around 2012, one of the projects we worked on was with seniors (65+) living in their own homes. We wanted to understand how to reduce the incidence of falls and predict the likelihood of a need for emergency services. We needed to do this in real time so we could act beforehand, improving the seniors’ health status and saving costs. Armed with pre-existing claims data, we needed to understand the baseline — e.g., the typical activities that occur in the home. Here IoT devices came into play through the use of mobile sensors. With the permission of the seniors, we installed multiple mobile sensors in the home, particularly in areas such as the kitchen, bathrooms, and living room. These sensors started by collecting a baseline of biometric data in the rooms over a period of time, then stored the data in the cloud in real time. To facilitate deep learning (which is a form of AI), pre-existing data from previous insurance claims was analyzed side by side with the real-time data. This made it easy to spot exceptions and to act on them and provided the insights to predict the probability of an emergency event before it occurred. A second example, also from the insurance industry, took place around 2006. We were creating the early warning system for a technology assessment. Medical devices are expensive and are not always effective. So typically, a cost-benefit analysis is necessary to justify their use relative to other options. For example, weight-loss surgery may cost $10,000, but it’s still experimental, especially when you consider the patient and their health status. It has not achieved an efficacy relative to its cost. Ultimately, we needed to predict that a patient will seek to explore the procedure relative to alternative options, understand how effective such a procedure will be based on health status, and know the provider pricing benchmarks for efficient contracting. Armed with millions of claims data (historical) on such procedures, some of which included the data from wearables (pedometers, fitness trackers data), combined with real-time electronic adjudication (real-time payments), and provider office visits observations, we were able to begin to automate the recommendation process for alternatives to weight loss surgery Many of these advancements in AI come from an Artificial Neural Network (or ANN). Inspired by the human brain, it loosely models the way a biological brain solves problems, with systems that can self-learn and train themselves, rather than responding to programming. With a neural network, algorithms are trained by humans first. Over time, the algorithms begin to making their own assumptions, relying less on human trainers, and solving complex problems. In the end, IoT is not enough. There has to be an added intelligence, an AI, that seeks to solve problems and not just process data or provide a dashboard. There has to be data and action. |
| Otoy adds lightfield baking and other tools to its Unity integration Posted: 14 Jan 2017 04:41 PM PST  The road to photorealistic VR is long, but Otoy is helping to shorten it with the integration of its technology into the free version of Unity. The company announced last month that its Octane Renderer would be coming to the world's most popular game development engine, allowing users to import its ORBX file format to view them within the engine. It's a huge step forward for creating visually believable VR environments; Otoy is employing lightfield technology to create scenes that are practically indistinguishable from real life, and the Octane Renderer gives everything a cinematic look. You could import a simple item from the Unity asset store, apply the renderer, and have it look strikingly realistic. ORBX files are also optimized for streaming to take much of the processing load off of the machine running them. What that means is we could soon start seeing photorealistic VR worlds on hardware that's not even remotely powerful enough to support this sort of graphical fidelity on its own processors. Today, we have an exclusive look at more features Otoy's Unity integration will enable. CEO Jules Urbach runs us through them in the video. He talks about the importance of scene baking, including the advances they've made in using the process but still offering 6 degrees of freedom within a scene, as well as adding real-time dynamic elements. These are quite complex components, so we'll let him do the talking, but you can look forward to these features and others when Unity support is introduced at an undisclosed time later this year. Speaking to UploadVR, Urbach revealed that the company will go into more detail on many of these features at GDC next month. He said the company will be "showing the full spectrum of our VR and AR/MR content pipeline for artists and developers for the first time. This covers Octane scene-baking at the simplest level, to more advanced light field rendering and streaming powered by Octane integrated tools and streamed to a full 6DOF MR stack on ODG's R8 and R9 glasses. "We will also be doing a deep-dive presentation with PowerVR on our initial results leveraging next generation of ray tracing hardware in Octane 4." Otoy will also be giving hands-on demos and walkthroughs of both Octane and ORBX "for generating light fields and streaming VR/MR applets, as shown in the video. These can be published to public URLs and played back on the Gear VR through Oculus Social framework, as well as additional mobile HMDs devices through the Samsung Internet WebVR browser." This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com. Copyright 2017 |
| 505 Games unveils original Steam game Quarantine Posted: 14 Jan 2017 03:18 PM PST  During all the fuss about the Nintendo Switch yesterday, 505 Games announced a new game called Quarantine. It wasn’t the best timing, but I thought the new original title was worth a second look. Quarantine is about waging a global war against the outbreak of a disease. It debuts on Steam Early Access for $15 on February 9. The single-player, turn-based strategy game was created by developer Sproing and will be published by 505 Games. As the director of Pandemic Defense, an international biosecurity agency, your job is to respond quickly to stop the onslaught of a widespread deadly contagion. A new pathogen is spreading and survival of the human race is in your hands. You have to recruit a team of specialized operatives and deploy them on high-stakes missions across the globe. You have to research the disease, upgrade your tech, and quarantine the outbreak before it infects and kills everybody. The game was inspired by real-world science and epidemic response. You have to make tough choices and battle against three lethal pathogens — a virus, bacteria, and prion — each with unique behaviors and devastating effects. You have to get operatives with roles that include medic, scientist, diplomat, and security. You deploy them on missions as critical situations unfold around the globe. You have to level them up and keep them alive in the face of escalating danger. If you let cities fall into chaos, the work gets harder. You have to set up field bases and raise crucial funding. The disease has devious artificial intelligence, and you have to contain it before it infects new sites and mutates to get past your defenses. You can advance your tech to adapt your strategy and refine your play style. You can hit the lab, collect biological samples from hotspots, and research the disease’s randomly generated traits. Then you can use the results to turn the tide. The game is replayable and has three difficulty modes, four leaders, a variety of starting locations, and gameplay that doesn’t repeat itself. |
| Why 2017 will be the year of enterprise bots Posted: 14 Jan 2017 02:33 PM PST  GUEST: Millennials love to chat. Their personal lives rotate around messaging and instant gratification. From getting their pals' views on a new t-shirt they are thinking of buying to sharing their New Year’s resolutions publicly so as to make themselves more accountable, Gen Z, which comprises the majority of the workforce today, lives an instant and synchronous life, one that is built on the foundations of consumerism. It is only natural that people's preferences at work mirror those of their personal lives. And we are witnessing a paradigm shift in the way people work. The asynchronous nature of email makes it one of the most hated forms of office communication today. Anyone who has ever tried to ask a question, make a suggestion, or request an approval through email will understand the anxiety and subsequent loss in productivity caused by an excessive dependence on email. Unfortunately, email is still the most-relied upon medium of communication, and it’s not like we can get anything done without communicating. This brings us to the bigger underlying problem plaguing enterprises today, that of suboptimal collaboration. Collaboration is no longer the nice-to-have, it is the key behavior that gets the work done. The tools and software being used today need to mimic this behavioral trend and supplement faster, better, and more efficient collaboration. The time has come for the enterprise software industry to embrace the change and create consumer-oriented experiences to replace mundane tasks and workflows. Popular communication platforms like Slack, Hipchat, and the new Microsoft Teams that facilitate instant messaging in the workplace have a pivotal role to play in the future of our workplaces. By reducing the threshold to starting a conversation or voicing a concern, these platforms are democratizing information in workplaces. They help inculcate ideas and values that are near and dear to millennials. These platforms are taking the good ol' corporate open-door policy to the next level. By keeping conversations and discussions synchronous, the workforce is working in a way it loves to. Just as the early innovation in enterprise software liberated people from the inconvenience of paperwork, the new enterprise tools are aimed at enabling a more potent collaboration experience. Apart from the general goodness that comes with an open communication system, these platforms provide the breeding grounds for integrations and automation. Think of these platforms as powerful IFTTTs for enterprises where you can subscribe to alerts, create workflows, push information to other systems, and basically create powerful and effective systems that aid in improving the collective productivity of a team. A new wave of enterprise tools and utilities is being built, designed for a messaging interface and incorporating the very same principles that power the personal lives of millennials. This includes relieving everything from management of cumbersome expense tracking to keeping tabs on business intelligence and accounting to keeping employees engaged and involved. Almost every aspect of the workday is being adapted to run on a messaging framework that allows people to achieve more by doing less. These tools have two distinct advantages. First is their capability to leverage conversational interfaces, which positions them uniquely to appeal to a younger target group. Second is machine learning, which has made tremendous strides in the recent past. With open platforms like TensorFlow and datasets like MS Marco, it has become possible for small to mid-sized software vendors to leverage this tech with relative ease to create systems that talk to people and that understand work contexts based on past interactions. With some nifty product enhancements, it is relatively easy to deploy a degree of AI in the enterprise by focusing on a specific problem rather than trying to create a functional AI for consumers that aims to do everything for them. For enterprise vendors, the advantages of these platforms from an economic standpoint is also noteworthy. In the enterprise world, where the costs of acquiring a customer are so high, being able to leverage a distribution network of hundreds of thousands of enterprise customers is an opportunity worth going after. Finally, as platforms evolve, efficient revenue sharing models will arrive that will enable vendors to add to their bottom line and, in the process, make platforms more lucrative for end users. Long story short, if you are an enterprise vendor without a messaging platform strategy for 2017, you're going to miss out. |
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