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Category: augmented reality – Page 57

Microsoft’s amazing HoloLens is the world’s first stand-alone headset that lets users see virtual objects and environments as if they existed in the real world. This device’s entertainment potential is practically unlimited, but as a Hackathon team recently demonstrated, it can also be used to rewire a malfunctioning brain.

A Microsoft employee suffering from myoclonus-dystonia —a condition where the misfiring of the brain causes uncontrollable muscle spasms—discovered that she could regain control during a spasm by looking at her partner’s feet rather than her own. And that’s how she got her great idea: Why not use the HoloLens to retrain the brain and get it to act differently? To that end, she recruited the Microsoft Hackathon team to put the idea to the test.

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Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) announced today that it will build an “innovation train” for Germany’s Deutsche Bahn, the largest railway operator in Europe. The train will not be a super-fast hyperloop, in which pods are propelled through aluminum tubes at speeds of up to 760 mph, but a conventional train that includes some of the futuristic technologies the startup has been showcasing at tech conferences around the world.

As a startup that relies on crowdsourcing and volunteer engineers, the collaboration with Deutsche Bahn may allow HTT to start generating revenue while it works toward the larger goal of building passenger-ready hyperloop systems. Indeed, HTT’s CEO Dirk Ahlborn said in a statement that the partnership will help create “new monetization strategies and business models” for his company.

Some of the features that HTT hopes to build into Deutsche Bahn’s innovation train include “augmented reality windows and a digital ecosystem.” HTT is working with a Munich-based company called Re’Flekt, which specializes in virtual and augmented reality. According to designs released by HTT, interactive panels that display the time, weather, and route could be projected onto the train’s windows. Motion-capture technology could adjust the image depending on where the passenger is looking.

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While the virtual reality headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are quite impressive already, there is no doubt that the technology will be developing rapidly, becoming more immersive, lighter, and less intrusive. Leap Motion, a company known for their motion tracking software and cameras has close ties with many of the larger VR manufacturers, and this last week the company’s CTO David Holz spoke a bit about his vision for future VR/AR headsets, based on some of the discussions he’s had with various big-name manufacturers. While Leap Motion likely won’t be producing hardware for these future headsets, it is very possible that their software could play an integral part in future generations VR and AR products.

Holz discussed some of the technology that may be found in third generation headsets of the future, and while he didn’t say when such technology would be available, my guess is perhaps 5–7 years. These third generation headsets will likely be transparent, look a lot like a pair of sunglasses, be extremely light weight and rely on Holographic OLED displays which will be able to switch between both AR(transparent) and VR(opaque) capabilities.

“They’re slightly funny-colored,” he said as he described these future headsets. “But they’re pretty reasonable, something that I might wear all day, all the time. And that’s something that, to me personally, is the most exciting. That’s getting into the age of AR… I’m seeing lots of things ahead of everybody. Behind the scenes, these things are starting to appear more and more.”

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Satya Nadella bounded into the conference room, eager to talk about intelligence. I was at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA, and the company’s CEO was touting the company’s progress in building more intelligent apps and services. Each morning, he told me, he puts on a HoloLens, which enables him to look at a virtual, interactive calendar projected on a wall of his house. Nadella appeared giddy as he described it. The system was intelligent, productive, and futuristic: everything he hopes Microsoft will be under his leadership.

No matter where we work in the future, Nadella says, Microsoft will have a place in it. The company’s “conversation as a platform” offering, which it unveiled in March, represents a bet that chat-based interfaces will overtake apps as our primary way of using the internet: for finding information, for shopping, and for accessing a range of services. And apps will become smarter thanks to “cognitive APIs,” made available by Microsoft, that let them understand faces, emotions, and other information contained in photos and videos.

Microsoft argues that it has the best “brain,” built on nearly two decades of advancements in machine learning and natural language processing, for delivering a future powered by artificial intelligence. It has a head start in building bots that resonate with users emotionally, thanks to an early experiment in China. And among the giants, Microsoft was first to release a true platform for text-based chat interfaces — a point of pride at a company that was mostly sidelined during the rise of smartphones.

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Could augmented reality headsets help helicopter rescue pilots to fly more safely in extreme weather conditions — including heavy fog — in which they have poor visibility? That’s the question set out by a group of researchers at Germany’s Technical University of Munich (TUM). Their answer? An overwhelming yes.

Carried out in collaboration with the Institute of Helicopter Technology, the project uses a helicopter-mounted LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system to create virtual images of upcoming hazards and other obstacles. This signal data is then processed onboard the helicopter and transmitted to the transparent head-mounted display worn by pilots.

“Databases containing obstacles and terrain data are used together with real-time data from sensors in order to substitute the lost visual cues in degraded visual environment” Franz Viertler, a professor of aeronautical engineering who worked on the project, told Digital Trends. “The other part of the research then deals with how to best visualize the data for the pilot in order to enable a safe flight. The head-mounted display is a perfect means to do this, because the pilots can keep their eyes out of the window, while they get additional information about hazardous obstacles.”

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