Metaverse gets touch of reality at CES

LAS VEGAS, United States— A jacket equipped with sensors that let wearers feel hugs or even punches in virtual reality was among the innovations giving the metaverse a more realistic edge at the Consumer Electronics Show.

"What is the metaverse if you can't feel it?" asked Jose Fuertes, founder of the Spain-based startup Owo, which made the jacket. "It's just avatars."

The "metaverse"— a parallel universe where human, augmented and virtual realities are supposed to merge— was a hot theme at the annual gadget extravaganza in Las Vegas, with startups showing off computers, headsets and other gear promising to enhance time spent in virtual worlds.

Owo touts its jacket as able to immerse wearers, whether in video games or in the metaverse, letting them feel "a gunshot, the wind, someone grabbing your arm and even a hug from a loved one."

The tight-fitting jacket features bands that stick to the skin, with sensors that sync to a mobile application. Before donning a virtual reality (VR) headset, the wearer can choose the intensity of each sensation.

"Our mission is to turn the virtual into reality with a second skin; to add the sense of touch in the metaverse or video games," Fuertes said as AFP tried out the jacket.

The Owo garb— to be priced less than $450 when it hits the market late this year— brings to mind the sci-fi novel-turned-film "Ready Player One," in which people in a dystopian world live alternate lives in a virtual universe.

The science fiction future seems distant given a lack of full body suits and comfortable headsets for simulated experiences, or ubiquitous high-speed internet service to handle such rich data streams.

Nonetheless, the metaverse has become a popular topic since being endorsed by Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg so enthusiastically that the technology company was renamed "Meta."

Sound of inevitability? 

Virtual reality has mostly been used for video games, despite its potential for experiences such as letting people visit museums, landmarks or far-off cities while sitting at home, and even for providing seats literally in the middle of feature films.

While companies such as Meta and HTC have invested heavily in virtual reality headsets, the equipment is still not light and comfortable enough to wear for long periods of time.

"I'm the biggest sort of augmented and virtual reality nerd, but I don't think we are anywhere close to anything exciting happening in the metaverse," said Paddy Cosgrave, head of Web Summit in Europe.

He expects it to take more than a decade for the metaverse to become real.

"Nothing can stop it," Touchcast chief and founder Edo Segal said of the metaverse.

Touchcast showed off a platform for collaboration between companies in virtual reality, complete with ".metaverse" addresses akin to .com web addresses. But the domains will be registered on a blockchain database, instead of on servers.

"In 1999, it was hard to believe people would buy things online," Segal said.

"Look where we are today. Humanity is moving in this direction."

Industry trackers report that sales of virtual reality gear were boosted by the pandemic as people relied on the internet for games, work, learning and socializing.

'Like a cyborg' 

Since the pandemic began restricting people's movements, Takuma Iwasa has taken to spending weekends on a VR platform where people chat and party in a virtual world with avatars as their proxies.

As the year 2020 neared its end, the young Japanese entrepreneur focused on ways someone's leg or torso movements can be mirrored by avatars and other ways of making visits to virtual worlds more realistic.

His startup Shiftall, a subsidiary of Panasonic, unveiled lightweight, high-resolution VR glasses at CES.

"In the future, some of the special suits like in 'Ready Player One' will contain every system," Takuma said.

"Currently, metaverse users need to use different products, like a cyborg."

Israeli start-up Wearable Devices is working on a bracelet that detects the electrical signals sent by the brain to the hand. The wearer can control synced objects with a mere snap of their fingers— a function that could prove useful if people use augmented reality glasses and need to select items displayed on the lenses.

But as the metaverse evolves, society will also need to be wary of dangers from online ills such as misinformation, harassment and losing touch with the real world, some experts warned.

"Counterfeit goods are going to exist in the metaverse, as well. Counterfeit identities are going to exist in the metaverse, as well," said Dan Guenther, an extended reality specialist at Accenture.

"And we've seen in many other evolutions of the internet that many times... (there) are the portions of the internet that we're uncomfortable with."

Agence France-Presse

Microsoft buys Canadian AI startup Maluuba

SAN FRANCISCO, California — Microsoft announced Friday a deal to buy Maluuba, a Montreal startup focused on making machines able to think the way people do.

Bringing on board Maluuba co-founders Kaheer Suleman and Sam Pasupalak, along with their team from the startup, was intended to accelerate Microsoft’s “ability to develop software so computers can read, write and converse naturally,” the company said.

Microsoft did not disclose financial terms of the acquisition.

“Maluuba’s vision is to advance toward a more general artificial intelligence by creating literate machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans — a vision exactly in line with ours,” Microsoft artificial intelligence and research group executive vice president Harry Shum said in a blog post.

“I’m incredibly excited about the scenarios that this acquisition could make possible in conversational AI.”

Tech giants Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft are all vying to develop the most sophisticated connected assistant — working to give software the ability to understand what people say and even anticipate desires or needs.

Amazon virtual assistant Alexa was a star at the Consumer Electronics Show gadget gala last week in Las Vegas.

Amazon and Alexa face fierce competition.

At CES, computer chipmaker Nvidia said it would use Google Assistant for its interactive streaming devices. Microsoft’s Cortana will power a voice-assistant speaker for kids and families being introduced by Mattel, and will also be in Renault-Nissan’s connected car hub.

Samsung’s smart refrigerator, which acts as a connected hub — with a voice activation system unveiled at CES — uses the South Korean giant’s Tizen operating system.

Many smart devices for the home also integrate with Apple Home Kit, which uses the iPhone maker’s artificial intelligence and voice assistant Siri.

At CES, Chinese giant Baidu showcased its own virtual assistant “Little Fish” which will debut in China this year.

source: interaksyon.com

Wearable gadgets not ready for prime time, tech watchers say

LAS VEGAS — Despite the hoopla, wearable gadgets like wristwatches for checking your text messages or eyeglasses that capture video are unlikely to make a splash with consumers anytime soon, given the clumsy designs, high prices and technological constraints of many of the current offerings.

That is the conclusion drawn by many industry executives and analysts who trolled the vast exhibition halls of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

Most of the wearable products on display at the industry’s premier showcase looked like awkward attempts to shoehorn technology into new forms without an original or compelling benefit for the wearer, skeptics say.

Stacy Rasgon, a semiconductor analyst at Bernstein, spent a day at CES busily snapping photos of every fitness band, watch and other wearable device he came across.

“I have 20 different photos, but if I look at the pictures I couldn’t tell you which product is from which vendor. They all look the same,” Rasgon said. “Wearables sound like a great idea and there’s going to be a lot of experimentation. People are throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.”

Sony Corp, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Qualcomm Inc showed off new or recently launched smartwatches, most of which act as extensions to cellphones, letting users check messages and appointments. Wristbands – like the popular Fitbit that tracks physical activity – also accounted for a big chunk of the devices on display at CES.

“For wearables to finally match up with the hype, (they have) to be a true solution, where it isn’t about the technology – it’s about what the technology enables you to do, something you couldn’t do before,” said Mike Bell, the senior executive leading Intel Corp’s wearables push.

“The function, form and experience have to be as important as the parts you slap inside,” he said.

Intel this week unveiled its take on wearables that Bell believes serve a clear purpose and could catch on, including prototype earbuds with a built-in heart rate monitor that changes the music on a smartphone to keep pace with a workout. It also announced a collaboration with luxury department store Barneys New York to develop smart bracelets intended to look like they were dreamed up by a fashion designer – not an engineer.

The wearables mania gripping the industry is in part a response to slowing smartphone and tablet markets. After growing 39 percent in 2013, global smartphone shipments are forecast to expand by just 18 percent annually through 2017, with prices steadily falling, according to market research firm IDC. Tablet shipments are seen up 22 percent this year, compared with 54 percent in 2013.

Tech executives say many consumers are intrigued by the potential for wearable gadgets, but they are also cautious. A survey by research company Yankee Group in December found less than 10 percent of respondents planned to pay $200 or more for a fitness wellness device.

A survey by Wakefield Research, commissioned by U.S. cloud-services company Citrix Systems, last November found 91 percent of respondents were excited about wearables, but 61 percent said they had no plans to purchase one.

Simon Randall, whose British-based OMG Life Plc makes a wearable camera called Autographer, is not surprised. He recalls the lukewarm reception when Nokia, his employer at the time, introduced camera-phones more than a decade ago.

“New things take time to be broadly adopted but if there’s an intrinsic benefit at the heart of them they’ll prosper,” Randall said.

Haute couture

Samsung’s $300 Galaxy Gear may have had the biggest launch of any wearable so far – but it was panned by reviewers. It shipped an estimated 800,000 of the watches in the two months since it was introduced in September, a figure that pales in comparison to the millions its smartphones manage.

Some experts said Apple may have the best chance of developing a gadget that will propel the wearable category into prime time, given its track record in consumer devices.

“2014 will be more a year of attempts than of successful products. And for a lot of manufacturers it will be a matter of waiting to see what Apple does,” said Carolina Milanesi, a consumer tech analyst at Kantar Worldpanel.

While the electronics show lacked sure-fire winners, some offers were definitely intriguing and drew crowds.

Epson unveiled a $700 pair of eyeglasses that allow the user to simultaneously view data about objects they are looking at. Sony’s prototype glasses can display captions and information about programs a viewer is watching on TV.

Another offer was a bracelet made by Netatmo embedded with a sensor that looks like a jewel and which measures exposure to sunlight, helping the wearer decide when to put on sunscreen.

Even Qualcomm, one of the largest companies now touting the impending wearable device revolution and purveyor of the “Toq” smartwatch, acknowledges the hurdles ahead.

Raj Talluri, who oversees the design of its Snapdragon smartphone processors, wants to add the same chips to watches and apparel to let them handle much more sophisticated functions. But more work needs to be done on power consumption.

“The power consumption of processors really needs to get an order of magnitude less,” Talluri said. “People’s expectation in wearables is not that they have to charge them every day. They want to wear things for weeks.”

source: interaksyon.com